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FULL BACKGROUND
CHURCH — Derived probably from the Greek kuriakon (i.e., “the Lord’s houseâ€), which was used by ancient authors for the place of worship.
In the New Testament it is the translation of the Greek word ecclesia, which is synonymous with the Hebrew NDKDO of the Old Testament, both words meaning simply an assembly, the character of which can only be known from the connection in which the word is found. There is no clear instance of its being used for a place of meeting or of worship, although in post-apostolic times it early received this meaning. Nor is this word ever used to denote the inhabitants of a country united in the same profession, as when we say the “Church of England,†the “Church of Scotland,†etc.
We find the word ecclesia used in the following senses in the New Testament:
(1.) It is translated “assembly†in the ordinary classical sense (Acts 19:32, 39, 41).
(2.) It denotes the whole body of the redeemed, all those whom the Father has given to Christ, the invisible catholic church (Eph. 5:23, 25, 27,
29; Heb. 12:23).
(3.) A few Christians associated together in observing the ordinances of the gospel are an ecclesia (Rom. 16:5; Col. 4:15).
(4.) All the Christians in a particular city, whether they assembled together in one place or in several places for religious worship, were an ecclesia. Thus all the disciples in Antioch, forming several congregations, were one church (Acts 13:1); so also we read of the “church of God at Corinth†(1 Cor. 1:2), “the church at Jerusalem†(Acts 8:1), “the church of Ephesus†(Rev. 2:1), etc.
(5.) The whole body of professing Christians throughout the world (1 Cor. 15:9; Gal. 1:13; Matt. 16:18) are the church of Christ.
The church visible “consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, together with their children.†It is called “visible†because its members are known and its assemblies are public. Here there is a mixture of “wheat and chaff,†of saints and sinners. “God has commanded his people to organize themselves into distinct visible ecclesiastical communities, with constitutions, laws, and officers, badges,
ordinances, and discipline, for the great purpose of giving visibility to his kingdom, of making known the gospel of that kingdom, and of gathering in all its elect subjects. Each one of these distinct organized communities which is faithful to the great King is an integral part of the visible church, and all together constitute the catholic or universal visible church.†A credible profession of the true religion constitutes a person a member of this church. This is “the kingdom of heaven,†whose character and progress
are set forth in the parables recorded in Matt.13.
The children of all who thus profess the true religion are members of the visible church along with their parents. Children are included in every covenant God ever made with man. They go along with their parents (Gen. 9:9–17; 12:1–3; 17:7; Ex. 20:5; Deut. 29:10–13). Peter, on the day of
Pentecost, at the beginning of the New Testament dispensation, announces the same great principle. “The promise [just as to Abraham and his seed
the promises were made] is unto you, and to your children†(Acts 2:38, 39). The children of believing parents are “holyâ€, i.e., are “saintsâ€, a title which designates the members of the Christian church (1 Cor. 7:14). (See BAPTISM.)
The church invisible “consists of the whole number of the elect that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one under Christ, the head thereof.†This is a pure society, the church in which Christ dwells. It is the body of Christ. it is called invisible†because the greater part of those who
constitute it are already in heaven or are yet unborn, and also because its members still on earth cannot certainly be distinguished. The qualifications of membership in it are internal and are hidden. It is unseen except by Him who “searches the heart.†“The Lord knoweth them that are his†(2 Tim. 2:19).
The church to which the attributes, prerogatives, and promises appertaining to Christ’s kingdom belong, is a spiritual body consisting of all true believers, i.e., the church invisible.
(1.) Its unity. God has ever had only one church on earth. We sometimes speak of the Old Testament Church and of the New Testament church, but
they are one and the same. The Old Testament church was not to be changed but enlarged (Isa. 49:13–23; 60:1–14). When the Jews are at length restored, they will not enter a new church, but will be grafted again into “their own olive tree†( Rom. 11:18–24; comp. Eph. 2:11–22). The apostles did not set up a new organization. Under their ministry disciples were “added†to the “church†already existing (Acts 2:47).
(2.) Its universality. It is the “catholic†church ; not confined to any particular country or outward organization, but comprehending all believers throughout the whole world.
(3.) Its perpetuity. It will continue through all ages to the end of the world. It can never be destroyed. It is an “everlasting kingdom.†1
CHURCH.
I. Meaning
The English word ‘church’ is derived from the Gk. adjective N\ULDORV as used in some such phrase as N\ULDNRQ_GR.PD or N\ULDNH._RLNLD, meaning ‘the Lord’s house’, i.e. a Christian place of worship. ‘Church’ in the NT, however, renders Gk. HNNOH.VLD, which mostly designates a local congregation of Christians and never a building.
Although we often speak of these congregations collectively as the NT church or the early church, no NT writer uses HNNOH.VLD in this collective way. An HNNOH.VLD was a meeting or assembly. Its commonest use was for the public assembly of citizens duly summoned, which was a feature of all the cities outside Judaea where the gospel was planted (e.g. Acts 19:39); HNNOH.VLD was also used among the Jews (LXX) for the *’congregation’ of Israel which was constituted at Sinai and assembled before the Lord at the annual feasts in
the persons of its representative males (Acts 7:38).
In Acts, James, 3 John, Revelation and the earlier Pauline letters, ‘church’ is always a particular local congregation. ‘The church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria’ (Acts 9:31) may look like an exception, but the singular could be distributive (cf. Gal. 1:22) or, more likely, is due to the fact that the verse concludes a section about how ‘the church in Jerusalem’ (Acts 8:1) was persecuted and its members scattered. Although
every local congregation is ‘the church of God’ (1 Cor. 1:2), Paul makes no use of the term in connection with his doctrine of justification and
salvation, and it is conspicuously absent from his discussion of Israel and the Gentiles in Rom. 9-11. But in the later Colossians and Ephesians Paul generalizes his use of ‘church’ to indicate, not an ecumenical church, but the spiritual and heavenly significance of each and every local ‘body’ which has Christ as its ‘head’, and by which God demonstrates his manifold wisdom through the creation of ‘one new man’ out of all races and classes. In God’s purpose there is only one church, one gathering of all under the headship of Christ. But on earth it is pluriform, seen wherever two or three gather in his name. There is no need to explain the relation between the one and the many. Like the believer, the church is both local and ‘in heaven’. Heb. 12:23 also has a picture of a heavenly ‘assembly’ (HNNOH.VLD), but this is based on the model of the ‘congregation of Israel’ at Sinai, and it is uncertain whether the ‘first-born’ who comprise it are human or heavenly beings. Likewise, Jesus’ ‘church’ of Mt. 16:18 may not be identical with what Paul means by ‘church’. Jesus may mean the gathering of his apostles to form, under him, the restored house of David (cf. Mt. 19:28; Acts 15:16), by means of which salvation would come to the Gentiles (Rom. 15:12). (In Mt. 18:17, ‘the church’ refers to the synagogue.) Paul likens the local church to a *body whose members are mutually dependent (1 Cor. 12:12ff.), and to a building being erected,
especially a *temple for God’s Spirit (1 Cor. 3:10ff.). Metaphors of growth are used, and also the image of a flock being fed (Acts 20:28; 1 Pet. 5:2). ‘Church’ is not a synonym for ‘people of God’; it is rather an activity of the ‘people of God’. Images such as ‘aliens and exiles’ (1 Pet. 2:11) apply to the people of God in the world, but do not describe the church, i.e. the people assembled with Christ in the midst (Mt. 18:20; Heb. 2:12).
II. The church at Jerusalem
The church in the Christian sense appeared first in Jerusalem after the ascension of Jesus. It was made up of the predominantly Galilean band of Jesus’ disciples together with those who responded to the preaching of the apostles in Jerusalem. Its members saw themselves as the elect remnant of Israel destined to find salvation in Zion (Joel 2:32; Acts 2:17ff.) and as the restored tabernacle of David which Jesus himself had promised to build
(Acts 15:16; Mt. 16:18). Jerusalem was thus the divinely-appointed locale for those who awaited the final fulfilment of all God’s promises (Acts
3:21). Externally, the group of baptized believers had the character of a sect within Judaism. It was called ‘the sect of the Nazarenes’ by a
professional orator (Acts 24:5, 14; cf. 28:22), while its own adherents called their distinctive faith ‘the *Way‘. It was more or less tolerated by
Judaism throughout the 30-odd years of its life in Judaea, except when the Jewish authorities were disturbed by its fraternization with Gentile churches abroad. But the essentially Jewish character of the Jerusalem church should be noted. Its members accepted the obligations of the law
and the worship of the Temple. Their distinctive belief was that Jesus of Nazareth was Israel’s Messiah, that God himself had vindicated this by raising him from the dead after he had suffered for Israel’s redemption, and that the ‘great and manifest day’ of the Lord was even now upon them and would culminate in a final appearance of Messiah in judgment and glory.
Their distinctive practices included a baptism in the name of Jesus, regular attendance at instruction given by the apostles, and ‘fellowship’ on a household basis, which Luke described as being ‘the breaking of bread and the prayers’ (Acts 2:41-46). The first leadership of the church was by the twelve (Galilean) apostles, especially *Peter and *John, but soon gave way to that of *elders in the regular Jewish manner, with *James the brother of Jesus as president (Gal. 2:9; Acts 15:6ff.). The latter’s presidency extended through most of the life of the Jerusalem church, possibly from as early as the thirties (Gal. 1:19; cf. Acts 12:17) until his execution c. AD 62. It may well have been associated with the church’s Messianic conceptions. ‘The *throne of David’ was a much more literal hope among believing Jews than we commonly realize, and James was also ‘of the house and lineage of David’. Was he thought of as a legitimate Protector, or Prince Regent, pending the return of Messiah in person?
Eusebius reports that a cousin of Jesus, Simeon son of Clopas, succeeded James as president, and that Vespasian, after the capture of Jerusalem in AD 70, is said to have ordered a search to be made for all who were of the family of David, that there might be left among the Jews no-one of the
royal family (EH3. 11-12).
The church became large (Acts 21:20) and included even priests and Pharisees in its membership (6:7; 15:5). At the outset it included also many
*Hellenists, Greek-speaking Jews of the Dispersion who came as pilgrims to feasts or for various reasons were staying in Jerusalem. Such Jews were often more wealthy than those of Jerusalem, and displayed piety by bringing ‘alms to their nation’ ( cf. Acts 24:17). When the church adopted the practice of mutual support, a typical benefactor was the Cypriot *Barnabas (Acts 4:34-37), and when a committee was needed to administer the relief the Seven appointed were, to judge by their names, Hellenists (6:5). It was apparently through this Hellenist element that the gospel overflowed the narrow limits of Judaistic Christianity and created fresh streams in alien territories. *Stephen, one of the Seven, came into debate in a Hellenist synagogue in Jerusalem (of which Saul of Tarsus was possibly a member) and was charged before the Sanhedrin with blaspheming the Temple and the Mosaic law. His defence certainly shows a liberal attitude towards the inviolability of the Temple, and the persecution which followed his death may have been directed against this sort of tendency among Hellenist believers rather than against the law-abiding Christianity of the apostles who remained in Jerusalem when others were ‘scattered’.
*Philip, another of the Seven, took the gospel to Samaria and, after baptizing a foreign eunuch near the old Philistine city of Gaza, went preaching up the coast till he came to the largely pagan Caesarea, where soon afterwards Peter found himself admitting uncircumcised Gentiles to
baptism.
Significantly it was Hellenists who went from Jerusalem to Antioch and there preached to Gentiles without any stipulation about the Mosaic
law. After Stephen, the Hellenistic element in the Jerusalem church seemed to disappear and its Judaic character to prevail. Some of its members
disapproved of the gospel’s being offered to Gentiles without obligation to keep the law and went off to press their point of view in the new churches (Acts 15:1; Gal. 2:12; 6:12f.). Officially, however, the Jerusalem church
gave its approval not only to Philip’s mission in Samaria and the baptism of Cornelius at Caesarea, but to the policy of the new church at Antioch
and its missionaries. In c. AD 49 a *council of the Jerusalem church was formally asked what should be demanded of ‘those of the Gentiles who
turn to God’. It was determined that, while Jewish believers would, of course, continue to circumcise their children and keep the whole law, these
requirements should not be laid on Gentile believers, although the latter should be asked to make certain concessions to Jewish scruples which
would make table-fellowship between the two groups easier, and to keep the law concerning sexual purity (Acts 15:20, 29; 21:21-25). The proceedings reflect the primacy of Jerusalem in matters of faith and morals. Indeed, throughout the first generation it was ‘the church’ par excellence (see Acts 18:22, where the Jerusalem church is meant). This is noticeable in the attitude of Paul (Gal. 1:13; Phil. 3:6), who impressed it on his churches (Rom. 15:27). His final visit to Jerusalem c. AD 57 was in recognition of this spiritual primacy. He was greeted by ‘James and all the elders’ and reminded that the many members of the church were ‘all zealous for the law’. Its scrupulosity, however, did not save it from suspicion of disloyalty to Jewish national hopes. James ‘the Just’ was judicially murdered at the instigation of the high priest c. AD 62.
When the war with Rome broke out in AD 66 the church came to an end. Its members betook themselves, says Eusebius, to Pella in Transjordan (EH 3. 5). Thereafter they divided into two groups: the Nazarenes, who keeping the law themselves, had a tolerant attitude towards their Gentile fellow-believers, and the Ebionites, who inherited the Judaizing View of obligation to the law. Later Christians listed the Ebionites among the heretics.
III. The church at Antioch
The Jerusalem believers had no exclusive claim on the term HNNOH.VLD, despite its OT associations, and the mixed assemblage of Jewish and Gentile believers which was formed at Antioch on the Orontes was without ceremony also called ‘the church’ there (Acts 11:26; 13:1). Moreover *Antioch, not Jerusalem, was the model of the ‘new church’ which was to appear all over the world. It was founded by Hellenist Jews. Here believers were first dubbed *Christians, or ‘Christites’, by their Gentile neighbours (Acts 11:26). Antioch became the springboard for the expansion of the
gospel throughout the Levant. The key figure at first was *Barnabas, himself perhaps a Hellenist but enjoying the full confidence of the Jerusalem leaders who sent him to investigate. He is first named among the ‘prophets and teachers’, who are the only functionaries we know to have been in this church. He brought Saul the converted Pharisee from Tarsus— an interesting solvent for the ferment! Barnabas also led two missionary
expeditions to his own country of *Cyprus, and with Paul made the first incursions into Asia Minor. There were important links between Antioch
and Jerusalem. Prophets from Jerusalem came up and ministered (Acts 11:27), as did Peter himself and delegates from James (Gal. 2:11-12), not to mention the Pharisaic visitors of Acts 15:1. In return, Antioch expressed its fellowship with Jerusalem by sending relief in time of famine (Acts 11:29) and later looked to the Jerusalem church to provide a solution to the legal controversy. The prophetic leadership of the church included an African called Symeon, Lucius of Cyrene and a member of Herod Antipas’s entourage. The author of Acts has been claimed as a native of Antioch (Anti-Marcionite Prologues). But the greatest fame of the church at Antioch was that it ‘commended’ Barnabas and Saul ‘to the grace of God for the work which they. . . fulfilled’ (Acts 14:26).
IV. Pauline churches
While *Paul and Barnabas were clearly not the only missionaries of the first generation, we know next to nothing about the labours of others, including the twelve apostles themselves. Paul, however, claimed to have preached the gospel ‘from Jerusalem and as far round as Illyricum’ (Rom.
15:19), and we know that he founded churches on the Antiochene pattern in the S provinces of Asia Minor, in Macedonia and Greece, in W Asia where he made *Ephesus his base, and, by inference from the Epistle to *Titus, in *Crete. Whether he founded churches in *Spain (Rom. 15:24) is unknown. Everywhere he made cities his centre, whence he (or his associates) reached other cities of the province (Acts 19:10; Col. 1:7).Where possible, the Jewish *synagogue was the jumping-off point, Paul preaching there as a rabbi as long as he was given opportunity. In time, however, a separate HNNOH.VLD_the word must sometimes have had the
flavour of V\QDJR.JH. (cf. Jas. 2:2, RV) of Jewish and Gentile converts came into being, each with its own elders appointed by the apostle or his delegate from among the responsible senior believers. The *family played an important role in the development of these churches. The OT in Greek
was the sacred Scripture of all these churches, and the key to its interpretation was indicated in certain selected passages together with a clearly defined summary of the gospel itself (1 Cor. 15:1-4). Other ‘traditions’ concerning Jesus’ ministry and teaching were laid on every church (1 Cor. 11:2, 23-25;7:17; 11:16; 2 Thes. 2:15), with fixed patterns of ethical instruction in regard to social and political obligation. It is unknown who regularly administered *baptism or presided at the *Lord’s Supper, though both ordinances are mentioned. How frequently or on what days the church assembled is also unknown. The meeting at Troas ‘on the Saturday night’ (Acts 20:7, NEB) may be a model, and if so would support the view that the use of ‘the first day of the week’ (or ‘the first day after the sabbath’) for Christian assembly began simply by using the night hours which followed the close of the sabbath (see H. Riesenfeld, ‘The Sabbath and the Lord’s Day in Judaism, the Preaching of Jesus and Early
Christianity’, The Gospel Tradition, 1970).
But it is not clear that there was a church at Troas; the occasion may merely have marked the parting of Paul’s travelling companions, the time
being dictated by travelling arrangements. The first day could not have been observed as a sabbath, however, since it was not a holiday for
Gentiles, and Paul would have no binding rules about keeping days unto the Lord (Rom. 14:5). Jewish members must have observed many customs
not joined in by their Gentile brethren. The fullest evidence for what took place when a church actually assembled is 1 Cor. 11-14. There was no
organizational link between Paul’s churches, though there were natural affinities between churches in the same province (Col. 4:15-16; 1 Thes. 4:10). All were expected to submit to Paul’s authority in matters of the faith hence the role of Paul’s letters and of the visits of *Timothy— but this authority was spiritual and admonitory, not coercive (2 Cor. 10:8; 13:10). Local administration and discipline were autonomous (2 Cor. 2:5- 10). No church had superiority over any other, though all acknowledged Jerusalem as the source of ‘spiritual blessings’ (Rom. 15:27), and the collection for the saints there was a token of this acknowledgment.
V. Other churches
The origin of the other churches mentioned in the NT is a matter of inference. There were Jewish and Gentile believers in Rome by c. AD 56 when Paul wrote his Epistle to them. ‘Visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes’ were present at Pentecost (Acts 2:10), and among greetings in
Rom. 16 is one to two ‘of note among the apostles’, *Andronicus and Junias, kinsmen of Paul’s who were converted before him. Is this a
complimentary reference to their having brought the gospel to Rome?
‘Brethren’ came to meet Paul and his party when they went to *Rome, but our knowledge of the church there, its composition and its status, is
problematical. The address of *1 Peter shows that there was a group of churches scattered along the S coast of the Black Sea and its hinterland (‘Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia’) of either Jewish or Jewish-Gentile membership. These are the parts which Paul was prevented from entering (Acts 16:6-7), which may imply that they were the scene of another man’s foundation, perhaps the work of Peter himself. But we learn nothing distinctive of these churches from the Epistle. Oversight and responsibility for ‘feeding the flock’ in each place was exercised by elders (1 Pet. 5:1-2).
This exhausts our knowledge of the founding of particular churches in NT times. A little more about the W Asian churches emerges from the
Apocalypse. It is thought that churches must surely have been founded at least in Alexandria and in Mesopotamia, if not farther E, within the 1st century, but of this there is no certain evidence.
Of the life and organization of the churches generally, we know very little, except for Jerusalem, which was not typical. Yet what we know makes us confident that their unity lay in the gospel itself, acceptance of the OT Scriptures and acknowledgment of Jesus as ‘Lord and Christ’.
Differences of *church government, forms of *ministry, moulds of thought and levels of moral and spiritual achievement were probably greater than we commonly realize. No one NT church, nor all the churches together— though they formed no visible unity— exercises any authority over our
faith today. This divine *authority belongs only to the apostolic gospel as contained in the whole of the Scriptures. (*Power of the Keys; *Peter, IV.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY. F. J. A. Hort, The Christian Ecclesia, 1897; R. Newton Flew, Jesus and His Church, 1938; K. L. Schmidt, TDNT 3, pp. 501-536;
BC; Hans Lietzmann, The Beginnings of the Christian Church, 1937; F. F. Bruce, The Spreading Flame, 1958; Gregory Dix, Jew and Greek, 1953; E.
Schweizer, Church Order in the New Testament, 1961; A. Cole, The Body of Christ, 1964. D.W.B.R 2
CHURCH GOVERNMENT.
The NT provides no detailed code of regulations for the government of the church, and the very idea of such a code might seem repugnant to the liberty of the gospel dispensation; but Christ left behind him a body of leaders in the apostles whom he himself had chosen, and he also gave them a few general principles for the exercise of their ruling function.
I. The Twelve and Paul
The Twelve were chosen that they might be with Christ (Mk. 3:14), and this personal association qualified them to act as his witnesses (Acts
1:8); they were from the first endowed with power over unclean spirits and diseases (Mt. 10:1), and this power was renewed and increased, in a more
general form, when the promise of the Father (Lk. 24:49) came upon them in the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8); on their first mission they were sent forth to preach (Mk. 3:14), and in the great commission they were instructed to teach all nations (Mt. 28:19). They thus received Christ’s
authority to evangelize at large.
But they were also promised a more specific function as judges and rulers of God’s people (Mt. 19:28 ; Lk. 22:29-30), with power to bind and to loose (Mt. 18:18), to remit and to retain sins (Jn. 20:23). Such language gave rise to the conception of the keys, traditionally defined in both mediaeval and Reformed theology as:
(a) the key of doctrine, to teach what conduct is forbidden and what permitted (this is the technical meaning of binding and loosing in Jewish legal phraseology), and
(b) the key of discipline, to exclude and excommunicate the unworthy, and to admit and reconcile the contrite, by declaring or praying for God’s forgiveness, through the remission of sins in Christ alone. Peter received these powers first (Mt. 16:18-19), as he also received the
pastoral commission to feed Christ’s flock ( Jn. 21:15), but he did so in a representative, rather than in a personal, capacity; for when the commission is repeated in Mt. 18:18, authority to exercise the ministry of reconciliation is vested in the body of disciples as a whole, and it is the
faithful congregation, rather than any individual, which acts in Christ’s name to open the kingdom to believers and to close it against unbelief.
None the less, this authoritative function is primarily exercised by preachers of the word, and the process of sifting, of conversion and rejection, is seen at work from Peter’s first sermon onwards (Acts 2:37- 41). When Peter confessed Christ, his faith was typical of the rock-like foundation on which the church is built (Mt. 16:18), but in fact the foundations of the heavenly Jerusalem contain the names of all of the
apostles (Rev. 21:14; cf. Eph. 2:20); these acted as a body in the early days of the church, and, despite Peter’s continued eminence (Acts 15:7; 1 Cor. 9:5; Gal. 1:18; 2:7-9), the idea that Peter exercised any constant primacy among them is refuted, partly by the leading position occupied by James in the Jerusalem *Council (Acts 15:13, 19), and partly by the fact that Paul withstood Peter to the face (Gal. 2:11). It was in a corporate capacity that the apostles provided leadership for the primitive church; and that leadership was effective both in mercy (Acts 2:42) and in judgment (Acts 5:1-11). They exercised a general authority over every congregation,
sending two of their number to supervise new developments in Samaria (Acts 8:14), and deciding with the elders on a common policy for the admission of Gentiles (Acts 15), while Paul’s ‘care of all the churches’ (2 Cor. 11:28) is illustrated both by the number of his missionary journeys and by the extent of his correspondence.
II. After the ascension
Their first step, immediately after Christ’s ascension, was to fill the vacancy left by the defection of Judas, and this they did by means of a direct appeal to God (Acts 1:24-26). Others were later reckoned in the number of apostles (1 Cor. 9:5-6; Gal. 1:19), but the qualifications of being
an eye-witness of the resurrection (Acts 1:22), and of having been in some way personally commissioned by Christ (Rom. 1:1, 5), were not such as could be extended indefinitely. When the pressure of work increased, they appointed seven assistants (Acts 6:1-6), elected by the people and ordained by the apostles, to administer the church’s charity; these seven have been regarded as deacons from the time of Irenaeus onwards, but Philip, the only one whose later history is clearly known to us, became an evangelist (Acts 21:8) with an unrestricted mission to preach the gospel, and Stephen’s activities were not dissimilar. Church-officers with a distinctive
name are first found in the elders of Jerusalem, who received gifts (Acts 11:30) and took part in Council (Acts 15:6). This office (*Presbyter) was
probably copied from the eldership of the Jewish synagogue; the church is itself called a synagogue in Jas. 2:2, and Jewish elders, who seem to have
been ordained by imposition of hands, were responsible for maintaining the observance of God’s law, with power to excommunicate law-breakers.
But the Christian eldership, as a gospel ministry, acquired added pastoral (Jas. 5:14; 1 Pet. 5:1-3) and preaching (1 Tim. 5:17) duties. Elders were
ordained for all the Asian churches by Paul and Barnabas (Acts 14:23), while Titus was enjoined to do the same for Crete (Tit. 1:5); and although
the disturbances at Corinth may suggest that a more complete democracy prevailed in that congregation (cf. 1 Cor. 14:26), the general pattern of church government in the apostolic age would seem to be a board of elders or pastors, possibly augmented by prophets and teachers, ruling each of the local congregations, with deacons to help, and with a general superintendence of the entire church provided by apostles and evangelists.
There is nothing in this system which corresponds-exactly to the modern diocesan episcopate; *bishops, when they are mentioned (Phil. 1:1), form a board of local congregational officers, and the position occupied by Timothy and Titus is that of Paul’s personal lieutenants in his missionary work. It seems most likely that one elder acquired a permanent chairmanship of the board, and that he was then specially designated with the title of bishop; but even when the monarchical bishop appears in the letters of Ignatius, he is still the pastor of a single congregation. NT terminology is much more fluid; instead of anything resembling a hierarchy, we meet with such vague descriptions as ‘he who rules’, those who ‘are over you in the Lord’ SURÉÃVWDPHQRL, ‘presidents’; Rom. 12:8; 1 Thes. 5:12) or ‘those who have the rule over you’ or ‘your leaders’ (KH.JRXPHQRL, ‘guides’; Heb. 13:7, 17, 24). The *angels of the churches in Rev. 2:3 have sometimes been regarded as actual bishops, but they are more probably personifications of their respective communities. Those in responsible positions are entitled to honour (1 Thes. 5:12-13; 1 Tim. 5:17), maintenance (1 Cor. 9:14; Gal. 6:6) and freedom from trifling accusations (1 Tim. 5:19).
III. General principles
Five general principles can be deducted from the NT teaching as a whole:
(a) all authority is derived from Christ and exercised in his name and Spirit;
(b) Christ’s humility provides the pattern for Christian service (Mt. 17, 20:26-28);
(c) government is collegiate rather than hierarchical (Mt. 18:19; 23:8; Acts 15:28);
(d) teaching and ruling are closely associated functions (1 Thes. 5:12);
(e) administrative assistants may be required to help the preachers of the word (Acts 6:2-3). See also *Ministry and bibliography there cited. G.S.M.W. 2
1. Easton, M. G., M. A. D. D., Easton’s Bible Dictionary, (Oak Harbor,
WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.) 1996.
2. The New Bible Dictionary, (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House
Publishers, Inc.) 1962.
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