Also thinking about elders

Alan Knox has posted a few thoughts on elders and thinking through the whole concept of elders in the church of Christ. These posts have generated some good conversation regarding the function and role of elders in the local church. It has also sparked some thoughts for me as well. Many of my thoughts will echo or repeat what Alan wrote but I am going to write them anyway. These will also be variations on lots of other stuff I have written but this continues to be an area of interest for me.

Elders, specifically pastors in a single elder church model, have a pretty narrow scope of duties. That doesn’t mean they don’t do a lot but what is expected of them is narrowly focused. They are to deliver a sermon, often twice a week. They are to visit people who are sick or perhaps who haven’t been to church in a while. They are to counsel people in need of counseling. They officiate at weddings and funerals and baptisms. They mete out church discipline when needed. They attend lots of meetings. That is not an exhaustive list but it captures the functions that elders are expected to perform.

The common view of elders is that they are called to perform special functions in the local church. The functions they perform are by and large restricted from other members of the church and there are certain functions they are not expected to do. It would be hard to imagine the pastor of a local church being asked to watch the kids in the nursery while a layman delivered the sermon. They have what we call in the corporate world “role specific” functions. They do this and they don’t do that. I referenced a series of articles a while back from 9 Marks Ministry that examined the role of deacons, including one article which expressly was designed to help differentiate between the functions of deacons versus the functions of elders. The series of articles was widely acclaimed around the web but virtually unchallenged for making assertions that had at best a passing reference in Scripture.

Is the role of elder a functional role or a character role? In other words, do we recognize/call men as elders because they are capable of performing “elder functions” or because their character is one others should emulate? I would argue that men are chosen by and large because they are seen as able to perform certain functions, especially in single elder church models, and those functions may or likely may not be reflective of what we see in Scripture. A man who meets all of the character traits in the “Pastoral Epistles” to be sought in an elder but cannot preach worth a darn is unlikely to be called or last very long as the sole elder in a church.

That raises a few questions for me, chiefly this one. Why is any given Christian man recognized as an elder in the local church? Certainly not to be rulers over others in the church. It seems the purpose is:

- To provide oversight in the local church because of their proven maturity and discernment.
- To provide an example to other Christians of behavior to emulate.
- To equip other, presumably less mature, Christians for the work of ministry so that all of us are going to attain a maturity in the faith.

More to the point, is ministry used in its broadest sense an exercise in identifying the “best” people for a given task and then plugging them in? In some sense we seem to be assigning people roles based on their “spiritual gifts” and assuming that they are limited to certain areas of ministry. For example, I often am asked to teach in places where we have met with the church. I am a confident speaker and a pretty decent teacher as far as putting information together coherently and engaging the audience. I have never had a fear of speaking in front of a group. Anywhere we have been in a local gathering for very long I have had the opportunity to teach others, even when the reality is that my maturity as a believer was lagging far behind my ability as a teacher and speaker. In other words, I was recognized as a teacher because I have a talent for teaching even when my life was not one I would suggest anyone emulate.

Elders are also often seen as defenders of the faith, men who are mature and equipped to face down doctrinal threats both within and outside of the local church. I find that troubling as well. Is there a problem with elders being seen as the watchdogs of the faith, the mature Christians we turn to with questions and who we hide behind when confronted with error? There certainly can be. I don’t think the remedy for false teaching in the church is for everyone to flock to a church with a “good” pastor because even the most orthodox of men can run afoul of error. The best way, in fact the only way, to combat false teaching is for all Christians to become continually more mature in the faith so that none of us is tossed to and fro by the winds of changing doctrines. That is the key to Ephesians 4, that we all come to maturity, not that God has given the church elders and pastors. Elders are not the end result, they are a means God uses to achieve a result. Having said that, there are precious few local churches where the majority of believers are mature in the faith. The myriad error and flat out kookiness that infects the church is not because we don’t have enough good pastors. It is because we have lots of good pastors who have failed to embrace the Biblical role of elder and have subsequently failed to equip others for the work of ministry.

Instead of all of the handwringing over The Shack, the emergent church, Joel Osteen, etc. we should be concerned about the lack of Biblical equipping going on. If more elders embraced a Scriptural model of eldership we would have a lot less trouble in the church with silliness and rank heresy because they entire Body of Christ would be equipped to do the work of ministry and recognize error without having to be told from the pulpit that Benny Hinn is a nut.

Just some random thoughts I had.