Biblical Eldership Church Leadership

Notes

29.

Commenting on the verb tithe’mi and its use in the middle voice, J.I. Packer writes: “In the middle voice (which insofar as it differs from the active accentuates the thought of action for the agent’s own benefit).... The thought of God settling what shall be by sovereign decision runs through all these passages” (J.I. Packer, “tithe'mi,” in The New International Dic tionary of New Testament Theology, ed. Colin Brown, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1 (1975): 477). H. W. Beyer, “episkopos,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testa ment, 2 (1964): 612. Ibid., p. 614. The best rendering seems to be, “the church of God, which He obtained by means of the blood of His own One.” For an alternate translation, The Revised English Bible reads, “the church of the Lord, which he won for himself by his own blood.” Gooding, True to the Faith: A Fresh Approach to the Acts ofthe Apostles, p. 360. Baxter, The Reformed Pastor, p. 55. Gooding, True to the Faith: A Fresh Approach to the Acts ofthe Apostles, pp. 356,357. J. Behm, “noutheteo’,” in Theological Dictionary ofthe New Testament, 4 (1967): 1019. Gooding, True to the Faith: A Fresh Approach to the Acts ofthe Apostles, p. 362. Kelly, An Exposition of the Acts of the Apostles, pp. 314,315. C. H. Mackintosh, Genesis to Deuteronomy: Notes on the Pentateuch (1881, repr., ed. Neptune: Loizeaux , 1972), pp. 760-762. Ernst Kasemann, “Ministry and Community in the New Testament,” in Essays on New Testament Themes (Naperville: Alec R. Allenson, 1964), p. 86. Hans Kfing, The Church (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967), p. 405; also Hans Conzelmann, History ofPrimitive Christianity, trans. John E. Steely (New York: Abingdon, 1973), p. 106. As to the presence of elders in the church at Corinth at this time (AD. 50), we are not informed. We do know from the letter of 1 Clement (ca. AD. 96), which is a noninspired letter from the church in Rome to the church in Corinth, that there was a well-established eldership in Corinth forty years later. The letter of 1 Clement indicates that the apostles themselves had appointed elders in Corinth, but we don’t know exactly when (see pages 266, 267). John Calvin, The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Romans and to the

30.

31. 32.

33.

34. 35.

36.

37.

38. 39.

Chapter 8

l.

4.

308