A Guide to Christian Theology - Lesson 45

A Guide to Christian Theology
Dr. Gerry Breshears
th104-45
Roles in Church Leadership
Lesson Transcript

You see, the next heading here is called Gary's Principle of Local Church Leadership. And I just laugh. Of course, I got an opinion on everything. And I'll quickly admit, some really good people don't come at the same place I'm at. But I'm going to deal with some of these things are really controversial. Some are just, I think it's a better way to do it and other people have different judgment. We could do much more than we're going to here, but let's do what we can do.

First of all, I think that authority resides in the congregation as a whole. There's a place for leadership, but in my understanding, biblically, leadership is to equip, inspire, empower, unify, exemplify, care, oversee, watching over, those kinds of verbs, rather than commanding or decision-making.

Now, there is a place of decision-making, but in the commanding type of thing, Jesus, in Matthew chapter 20 made it very clear, I can't do it. I was going to do it without turning the Bible. You can't do it, it's impossible. Matthew chapter 20, starting in verse 20, Matthew 20:20. It's actually kind of a funny story, and it's in the others as well. Zebedee's sons came to Jesus.

Mommy came to ask on behalf of her boys, "We want my two sons to sit in your right and your left." What is she asking for? Power and privilege in the coming kingdom, we all say. He said, "You know what you're asking, can you drink the cup I'm going to drink?" "Oh, sure," they say. What is the cup he's talking about? It's a cup of suffering and death. I don't think, by the way, is a cup of God's wrath. It's a cup of suffering. And He says, "You are going to drink my cup." That's why I don't think it's a cup of God's wrath, because they're not going to drink the cup of God's wrath. They're going to drink the cup of suffering and death.

"But to my right and left is not for me to grant. Those are being prepared by my Father." And then you ask, "Who is going to be on his right and left?" Well, it's going to be two terrorists, to use a phrase, that are going to be crucified beside him. And the guys didn't want that anyway. They turned around, they're upset. Jesus said, and here's the phrase, "You know the rulers, the Gentiles lorded over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. And seek to that," that's Jesus saying, "in so many words, do not be known for commanding other people." That is not the heart of biblical authority. What is the heart? Once you become great, it must be your servant. If you are going to be first, become your slave.

So, here Jesus himself is saying, "Don't be the person trying to come up to command power over others." Ministry is about serving. So, 1 Peter, chapter 5, "To those among you," he says, "I appeal as a fellow elder and witness of Christ's suffering, who also share in the glory that will be revealed. " And here's where He said, "Be shepherds of God's flock under your care." So, you're shepherding people under your care, watching over them because you're willing. Not pursuing dishonesty but eager to serve, not lording over those entrusted to you, but being examples of the flock. And that will get you a crown of glory.

So, you see Peter and Jesus echoing. In Ephesians 4, he talks about leaders or the equippers. So, this is where I think that we find the nature of authority in the Bible is about equipping, inspiring, empowering, unifying, exemplifying, carrying, overseeing. Those kinds of things.

And I think that's really, really super important. If I go to Acts 15, so you have this big, big, big dispute. Unless you're circumcised, you cannot be saved. Sharp dispute, debate. Paul and Barnabas come back to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about the question.

They've come to Jerusalem, welcomed by the church apostles, elders. And in verse 5, some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, "The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses." What are they doing? I believe in front of everybody, and they're arguing for the Bible.

They opened Genesis 17 and passages like that and make their argument. The apostles are meant to consider the question after much discussion. Peter got up, and what Peter does, verses 7 through 11, is he argues on the basis of experience, "We have seen the Holy Spirit poured out on Gentiles, Cornelius and his crowd."

Verse 12, "The whole assembly became silent." So, it says these guys are speaking to the whole assembly, they listened to Barnabas and Paul, and they talked from experience, citing that God got it done among the Gentiles. When they finished, James spoke up, "Brothers, listen to me," and he now is speaking here from a brilliant interpretation of Amos and the new covenant. There's some other passage as well. And therefore, he makes a proposal.

So, the apostles, elders with the whole church. See, this is, I think the authorities, finally, in the whole church, decided to choose some of their own. They write a letter and when they're done with the letter, in the heart of letter verse 28, "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us." So, what I see happening, is people are standing up in front of the entire congregation and there's a leadership role for apostles and elders to be sure.

But the deciding is done by the entire group in interaction. So in my principles of polity, where I'm going to come out, as authority resides in the congregation as a whole. There's an absolute role for leaders, but it's more in exemplifying, unifying, those kinds of things.

I think there are certain officers in the local church. So, I think an office is a responsibility and authority, and empowerment given to the body of certain ones for the common good. When I think of police officers for example, there's an office of policemen and you have to have a badge and a gun in order to do it. Somebody who says, I want to be a cop, can't be lawyer, psychologist, doctor.

There are number of things where there's an official spot you can come in and out of. And I think there are officers in the local church, and that's a responsibility bigger than the individual. It's got authority and empowerment given by the body to certain people, for the common good. And I think the permanent leadership offices in scripture are elders and deacons. But I also think there's an office of congregation.

So, I think there's a membership is an office that you can come into or go out of. Again, my view of things, so I think the permanent offices are elders and deacons, but there can be many others as well.

Worship leader, second grade, Sunday school teacher, home group leader. There can be a lot of different things, responsibilities, offices, responsibilities that people can come in and out of. So, in my case, I've been an elder at Grace Community Church for about 25 years and there will come a time when I will step out of that office for one reason or another.

In fact, my resignation's been on the table for over a year just because I'm so busy. I left it up to the group to decide, should I continue as an elder, knowing that I will miss some meetings because of my travel schedule and such. And what the group as a whole has said, "We really appreciate your involvement. We want you to stay on the board." So, I serve at the bequest of the team, but if I were to step off, my character wouldn't change.

My role in the congregation would not change, specifically, but I would no longer have that responsibility of being an elder. And that's a significant change. So, tomorrow night I'll be at an elder meeting and we're carrying some pretty heavy load right now for some things that are going on in the church. So, that's where it is.

Now, elders, let me fill in some blanks for you and then they'll come back and pick up some details. Elders, and this is a biblical term. A local church may use a different term. I'm going to use the biblical term no matter whether you call them the counselor, whether you call them overseers or whatever you call them.

And I think this, elders is a team of men, my view, so that's the [inaudible] men, and I'll explain that in a bit. Responsible of oversight of ministry of the church as a whole.

And in my understanding, it's the team that carries authority, not an individual. So I'm an individual elder at Grace Community Church. There's nothing I can do to walk up and say, "I'm elder Gary, therefore do this." I don't have the authority. The authority rests in the team as a whole, not me as an individual. So when we meet tomorrow night and make decisions, you'll be the team speaking, not the individual speaking.

So, the responsibility is pastoral care and then guide and guard the body of the life and teaching of the church. Pastoral care is equip members for ministry, oversee the ministry of the church and just help people grow. The base thing is to speak. We guide and guard the life and teaching of the church.

The authority for elders comes from respective character and wisdom. And so when we select elders at Grace, it's not because you're a good businessman, it's not because you're a big giver, it's not because you've got a loud voice.

It's that the congregation as a whole respects the wisdom and the character that you have. So we just recently onboarded three new elders. We had two people step off and when we did the installation service, those three men were selected and they all come with huge respect because the people at the church as a whole know them and trust them already. So we installed them and they've been now on the board for about three months as I speak here. They already came with that.

We have a time when we have elder candidates sit with our team for at least three months or six months and just see how it goes. And then, at that time they say, "I believe I can work with this group. I see how you're doing things. I can fit into this." And then the older team as a whole says, "We believe this is working." And it doesn't always come out that way. Sometimes people know this isn't place for me to be. And sometimes we say, "We really don't think it's your spot after all." And then the congregation votes on them as a whole.

So, they lead the body in decision making versus directing their body by making decisions in my view as I talked about earlier. Now, big question. Can we speak of controversy? Should we have women on the elder board? I was at a Evangelical theological society meeting, I think it was like 1986. The Evangelical Theological Society is a seminary OF profs and teachers and such.

We're now about 4,500 members at that point. Were probably a couple thousand. We were meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, and we had the battle of [inaudible], Kathy Crager and Wayne Gruden going after each other. Egalitarian and complimentarian though we didn't call it complimentarian in those days, and they literally had piles of [inaudible] in because we didn't have electronic stuff in that day and they're battling or the mean of Kephalē, the Greek term for head. Were you there, bill? Yeah.

And I was sitting at the table with Wayne and Kathy's right was behind me. I'm buddies with both of them, and they're going after each other. And when we got done, it was done respectfully. I mean it was an ETS discussion, but sharp difference and we're done.

I said, okay, now we can relax. We've settled that in as much as they were going to be settled, we can go into more important stuff. Boy, my profit hat got shredded because the women in leadership is a sharper controversy today than it was in 1985, 1986.

I wish it weren't so, but it is. So, where I come out on this is, I see three different positions, not two, three different positions. So on one side, as you see on the student guide, egalitarian is every office in the church is open to any person, gender, ethnicity, social status notwithstanding.

That's basic egalitarian. And that's sometimes called mutualist, which I actually think is a better term. Men and women are made to serve together in partnership in all ministries, including leadership of the church.

The position I hold is male elder. That is, elders are to be husband of one wife. And that's the limitation on elder. That is the only office that has a gender limitation on it is the office of elder. Deacon does not, prophet does not, evangelist does not, but elder does, in this specific restriction, there is husband of one wife. That's in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus chapter 1. The other view, is what I call a male teacher view or male leader.

And the idea is there is 1 Timothy 2-12 said, "I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man." And that becomes the definitive passage, that women should not teach or have authority over men in the life and teaching of the church. So, I would say that anybody who serves in any role the function of the office, the function of authority, is limited to men if it's over other men. Now, women can have authority of children, one can obviously have authority of other women.

Titus chapter two makes that really clear, but women should not have authority over men. So, this is male teacher or male leader view. And sometimes my view is called soft complimentarian in this other view, oh, Patrick Shriner would be a good example or Andreas Kostenberger, there are many who would've that view that is called hard complimentarian.

But hard and soft complimentarian don't define anything. So I prefer a male elder and male teacher. What's the difference? So, in my view, male elder view, let's look at a couple of scripture things here. Take it. My view first because it's correct.

1 Timothy chapter 3. So I'm looking here at the NIV, overseers to be above reproach. NIV says, "Faithful to his wife," you know, they say husband of one wife, but same meaning. And in my view, this makes it very clear that Paul, speaking to people in Ephesus said, that an elder should be a married man.

Now, I think a widower could do this because you could be safe with your wife, if your wife is dead, but I think 'faithful to his wife is, and then it goes on with other things. Nothing else in that list is disputable except the male thing.

And I think it's married male and well, you don't believe elders have to be married, do you? Yeah, I actually do. That's what it says right here. Why's something wonky in Ephesus, and Paul's doing it in Ephesus, but it wouldn't be true maybe in Ephesus 90 AD or some other place? Well look at Titus chapter one again, I'm giving my view and lots of good and godly people disagree.

Titus 1:6, same thing. Elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife. There it is again. Children believe not [inaudible] , wild and disobedient. If he can't manage his own household, can he manage God's household? Again, the key thing is they're married men. And the [inaudible] Ephesus as a cosmopolitan educational religious center, one of the four great center cities of the Roman Empire and Crete, which is anything but cosmopolitan and educated.

In fact, a little bit later, they're talking about cretins or liars, evil brutes and lazy gluttons. If Ephesus is the cosmopolitan big city political center of the world, Crete is the redneck. I don't even know what else to say without getting too gross.

But the requirements are exactly the same for both places. So to me, this rolls out the idea that's something unique about 60 AD and something unique about Ephesus. So, in my view, what the Bible prescribes, and this is requirements to the job description for elders, is married men.

And I can't change the job description. My job is to get as close to it as we can. At my church we have more than enough men who fully qualify for this role. What happens if you don't have enough? Well, then you need the best you can. And male is not the only requirement here.

Egalitarian. Our mutualist basic argument is women can be prophets. Nobody debates. In Romans 16:7, Junia is an apostle. In Mark chapter 16, the angel commissions the women who come to the tomb to go teach the other apostles that Jesus has risen. And if they're appointed to teach apostles, why can't they be elders?

Galatians 3:28, either Jew or Greek ethnic, slave nor free, economic, male nor female in the life of the church. Those distinctions are irrelevant to the life of the church. Now, they're not irrelevant because male female [inaudible] slavery are absolutely realities, but as far as the church is concerned, they're not disqualifying in any direction. That'd be the mutualist type of argument.

And if women can be prophets and apostles, why can't they be elders? So something wonky is going on. Typically, they never look at Titus, I respond. So, that's the argument from there. The best arguments I know for the egalitarian position would be Craig Keener and Linda Bellville, and the two views of women ministry. So, both a man and a woman making very similar arguments make it and make it well. I think Cynthia West Falls, Paul [inaudible] gender, is well-made arguments.

Cindy and I have been friends for a long time and when she was finished her book, she said, "Gary, read my book. It'll tip you over the edge." Well, I read her book and it didn't tip me over the edge. We had some friendly disagreements on some of her interpretations, but it's well done from the male teacher perspective.

The key argument of course is 1 Timothy 2, which is really clear. Woman should not teach her authority over man. So, how do you look at Galatians 3 28 for example? There it's saying that Galatians 3:28 is talking about access to the Abrahamic covenant, that is, to the fellowship of the church. It says nothing about the leadership of the church.

So, the argument would be there in Galatians 3:28 is not the key. It doesn't say anything about leadership. It says fellowship in the church. And we all agree that the church should not make distinctions in terms of fellowship with ethnicity or economic or gender issues.

Coming from my perspective, I would see 1 Timothy 2:12 as a problem passage, but frankly, as a problem for everybody, because you take that literally, a woman should not teach a man. So if you have a children's ministry with a woman overseeing the children's ministry, that mean no man could work in the entire children's ministry. Can I be candid and say that's the stupidest thing ever to rule men out from dealing with children? Children need male leadership, especially the boys.

But if you have a woman supervising it, does that say? This is a kind of conflict you get in. Or worse yet, can a woman who is an expert in bookkeeping teach a man how to use Excel spreadsheet in the church office? And I can get pretty sarcastic about things. So, I don't think it's as helpful.

I don't think it's absolutely determinative. And then I look at a passage like Acts 18, which is definitive for me. Acts 18:24 and following, Apollos, good man, instructing the way the Lord gratefully, taught Jesus accurately, but only knew the baptism of John.

And in verse 26, when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained him the way of God more adequately. So he got Priscilla and Aquila teaching Apollos to correct his doctrine, his ignorance. And that's the place where it's not Aquila teaching and Priscilla making some nice scones. It's they explain the way of God.

So, I think, this is my view is what view accounts for the most status, the fewest difficulties. So, I come out with male elder, I don't like it. Without any question egalitarian at heart.

Dina [inaudible] , would be on the elder board so fast in my church except that I can't change the job description. So, for me, the question for leadership is responsibility. So, as an elder, I'm a part of a team of nine, currently nine married men with exemplary character who have the responsibility for the affairs of Grace Community church. And we do it legally because we're officially the directors for the corporate board of Oregon.

But voice, that's a much larger group, and we have a number of people who have voice in decision-making. And Dina, who I talked about, who's one of my heroes, she's full-time church staff. Her title is women's ministry, but she does a lot more than that.

She's an amazing woman and she's not the only one. She just happened to be the only thing of at the moment. She has voice. She's often in our meetings because we ask her to be there. Her wisdom is well known, but she's not carried the responsibility of being an elder. And frankly, she doesn't want it.

So, these are messy things. Messy, messy, messy, messy. And see, my thing is whatever you take, you do it, where you don't make women feel like the best grade they can get on the exam is a B plus. And if you come out on the more egalitarian mutualist society, don't just dismiss 1 Timothy 3 or Titus 1. Give a cogent response to it and admit, yeah, there's some difficulties to our position. And what you must not do is demean the people who disagree with you, which I find way too common.

People look at the other one and say, 'well, if you do this,' then kind of stuff. Let's be respectful to each other. There are good and godly people who take all of these things. If you're going to do it, do it well. Where people feel led well and voices are heard, it says authority is much more than just making decisions. And where voice comes in is important.

What about deacons? Well, 1 Timothy 3, where its talking about elders down through verse eight Sorry, through verse seven. Then verse eight, deacons, everybody agrees that elders have a higher level in the church. Deacons are worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging, that kind of stuff. Down through verse 10, talking about deacons. And then verse 11, in the same way, the women are very respectful and non-malicious talkers and so on.

If you read other translation, it'll be in the same way, wives, in the word there is, "Gune," can be wife or woman depending on the context. That's the same words as you get in 1 Timothy 2:12. I don't let a "gune," a woman, teach authority over a man. Here it's the same word. Let the women, and I think that's women deacons. So eight through 10 is deacons in general. 11 are women deacons and 12 are male deacons.

A male deacon must be faithful to his wife and treat your children and household well. And then 13, probably talking about deacons in general. Those have served well and gained excellent standing.

So I think he's making a distinction here between women deacons and men deacons between 11 and 12. If you say these are wives of deacons, why in the world do you have a limitation on wives of deacons and not have a limitations on wives of elders?

I mean, it makes no sense. Why would you have a limitation on wives of deacons and not have limitation on wives of elders? So, that's where I come ou.t much more to be said, but not today. Comments from the hoi polloi?

I like how you have a way of expressing how leaders lead.

That's the critical point.

Yeah. Can you say those again?

The critical thing for leaders is, biblical leadership is by equipping, inspiring, empowering, unifying, exemplifying, caring, overseeing, watching over, not commanding, making decisions and handed down to be obeyed. And that's the role of leaders in the New Testament. And to me, much of the problem disappears when you say your job is to equip, empower and such.

It's not to have the position of prominence or to give commands that other people must obey or disobey. And then, voice is much bigger than who has the responsibility. And so, voice vote, I mean, in our team, we virtually never vote. Sometimes we do, but voice is powerful. So, the role of leadership is to equip, inspire, empower, those things. That's the heart of it.

I like that because the vast majority of the requirements for leaders of 1 Timothy is through your Character.

Oh, they're all characters.

And so that lines up with how you say that. You briefly addressed this whole issue of the use of the word pastor.

Yeah.

Can you say just-

How about pastor?

Okay, how about pastor.

How about pastor? Well, funny, Gary has an opinion. The word, well, let me use an example. 1 Timothy chapter 3. We see here in 1 Timothy chapter 3 that an elder must be able to teach.

So, an elder must be a teacher. Are all teachers elders? And clearly not, because Titus chapter 2 has women teachers who are not elders. So, women, you can have teachers that are not elders, but all elders must be teachers. So now look over to 1 Peter chapter 5. And what I find here is in verse two, "Be shepherds." Now that's the verb that's you must pastor God's flock. So, my take on it is all elders must pastor be soul care type people, but not all soul care people have to be elders. So my example would be, first would be Ephesians 4:11.

Christ gave himself apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to equip his people. Now at this spot you've got apostles. Apostle, not always elders for sure. Prophets are not always elders. Evangelists are not always elders.

Pastors I think are not always elders either. So here its talking about pastors, which is the leaders who are to equip the people for service. And I would think there can be teachers who are not elders. There can be pastors who are elders.

The problem is, in American, pastor means a guy who runs the church, and that would be an elder. But as churches have gotten larger, we have soul care people and often full-time staff soul care people who are not elders. Can you call them pastors? I think you can. Now, in my church, I'm an elder, I'm a pastor, since our recent discussion, but I'm not paid by the church.

In fact, I pay the church for the privilege of being a part of, I don't actually pray, but I do contribute regularly. So, I'm not a staff member, but I am an elder and the pastor, we have other pastors who are not pastors, sorry, we have other pastors who are not elders or staff members.

So, we see soul care, and they have an official role. They're identified as a pastor, and they have responsibilities associated with that. But there may or may not be paid for it. And I think those can be women, but we have to be careful to define it so people understand that we are people who are put in a role in leadership in the church to do soul care and our church was equipping and developing people to do soul care. So I think pastor is something that all elders must do, but I don't think all pastors have to be elders.

Other churches say no, pastor, elders, same thing. I don't think you can prove that biblically. But if you do that, then you have to limit pastors to the elders of the church. The funny thing is, at Grace Community Church, we had, Jerry Smith, was the staff guy in charge of pastoral care, but was not a pastor. So, he's not Pastor Jerry, but he's responsible for pastoral care in the church. That was a, are you kidding me? But according to our definition, he's not an elder, so therefore he's not a pastor. And we've changed that. But funny.

How do you communicate a complimentarian position that requires elders to be a husband of one wife, to a woman, that when you say that it communicates to them that there's something that they can't do in the church and that inherently makes them feel less valued?

Well, boy, that's a crucial question, a really important one. First of all, I'd respond by saying that in my ecclesiology, elder is not the highest office in the church. It's one of several offices at the top of the church. So a woman can be a prophet, women can be evangelist, women can be a teacher, but not an elder.

So, I would say yes, that one is restricted to women. I don't like it, but God said that's the way it needs to be. And then what I'd say is yes, but I would say frankly, Jesus could not be an elder in my church either. Does that mean I'm devaluing him? No, he can be Messiah, but he can't be an elder because he's not a married man.

So I'd put it in that kind of context, and I'd make a big point out of, we have voice involved in decision making that's much broader than elders. And it's not a matter of who is in command, who is responsible, and for this large scale responsibility that is limited to married men. And I just say very frankly, I don't like it, but I want you very much involved.

Your voice is critically important and we want you to step up and be a prophet, to be an evangelist, to be a teacher, and do these other roles and no elders limited to married men. And there it is. So you're with Jesus.