In every age and era of the church there is much debate and lengthy discussion on the polity and organizational structure of church government. The question of the necessity of having a plurality of elders in the local church has been handled by a number of the most eminent teachers of the church including Calvin, Owen, and Hodge, just to name a few, and none is decisive in establishing a clear scriptural case. In an article entitled Hierarchy in the Church, Benjamin L. Merkle said, “To make problems more complicated there is inconsistency among denominations, and even within each denomination, as to what duties church officers should perform.” However, in most recent years the question of eldership has once again undergone much consideration among many churches in Southern Baptist life as well as other various denominational churches.
Various Positions Regarding a Plurality of Elders
In regard to the subject at hand, there are three different understandings of New Testament eldership. These three are presented because they are the only ones that seem to have any real claim to be biblical.
The first view believes the New Testament office of elder (Gk: presbuteros) is one office, but that it contains within it two distinct groups or classes of men: those men in one group preach and fully participate in the governmental rule and oversight of church matters and people; those in the other only rule and govern. In authority and rank the two groups seem to be equal, they differ only in their function: some are considered teaching elders, while the others only share in the government of the church.
The second view argues that there is not one office, sub-divided as in the first view, but rather two distinct offices. The first office considers all elders as pastors and preachers. Therefore a New Testament elder, in the strict New Testament usage, should only be one that has been called to preach. According to Iain Murray, the call to the eldership is identical with the call to the ministry. This second understanding, however, allows for a second office of men who just happened to be called “elders” although the actual term does not belong to them in the usage of the New Testament churches. If this is the position to adhere too, how is the work of such men in the government of the church to be justified if the New Testament title does not strictly belong to them? The Westminster Assembly divines answer that question in these words:
As there were in the Jewish church elders of the people joined with the priests and Levites in the government of the church; so Christ, who hath instituted government, and governors ecclesiastical in the church, hath furnished some in his church, beside the minister of the word, with gifts for government, and with commission to execute the same when called thereunto, who are to join with the minister in the government of the church. Which officers’ reformed churches commonly call Elders.
So this view accepts two groups of men that are called to the spiritual oversight of the church but do not hold the same office. According to Murray the refusal of the Westminster divines to allow any of the proof-texts relating to elders/presbyters to be used to support the work of whose whom they preferred to call, ‘other church governors’. Unlike the first view, the difference here is more than in function. The presbyters/elders are the principal leaders of the church in spiritual things, others may assist them in the oversight and the title “elder” is allowed to them chiefly on the grounds of the sixteenth-century usage. According to this particular view, Presbyterians have accepted the use of the term “elder” for those who are non-ministers, while believing that if we are to be strictly governed by the New Testament “there is no evidence that can stand up to objective criticism for the title “elder” used in our way.”
The third view, according to Murray, agrees with the first in arguing that there is only one office, but it disagrees that functions are to be distinguished and separated. The supporters of this view say we should not speak in terms of “teaching elders” and “ruling elders” because all elders have the same basic duties: all may teach and preach. If they do not teach or preach regularly in their congregation it is by their choice; they choose to give way to others who are better trained or who have more popular gifts. Thomas Witherow held this view and drew the conclusion: “So a member of the eldership ought not to have his tongue tied by legislation. It should be left to his own good sense when to speak and when to be silent. Even if he were sometimes to speak weakly and out of season, greater calamities might happen.”
So there is no consensus in these three views. Yet there is one thing that can be said with certainty according to Murray, we will never resolve which is right simply by reading the theological authorities and taking our side with the majority or the most orthodox. The truth is that some of the best-known names in the church will be found on opposing sides. Even William Cunningham, commonly regarded as one of the clearest champions of Presbyterianism, could write to Charles Hodge:
I have never been able to make up my mind fully as to the precise grounds on which the office and functions of the ruling elder ought to be maintained and defended. For some time before I came to America I had come to lean pretty strongly to the view that all ecclesiastical office-bearers were presbyters, and that there were sufficiently clear indications in Scripture that there were two distinct classes of those presbyters, viz, ministers and ruling elders; though not insensible to the difficulty attaching to this theory from the consideration that it fairly implies that wherever presbyters or bishops are spoken of in Scripture ruling elders are included. I have been a good deal shaken in my attachment to this theory by the views I have heard from you, but I have not yet been able to abandon it entirely.
Filed under: Charles Hodge, Church Government, Elder, Iain Murray, Southern Baptist, The Church
