Why We Hold to Biblical Eldership
Calvary Community Church
When people struggle with questions about God or the difficulties of life (family, finances, and relationships, etc.), they go looking for someone to help them through such difficulties. This matters to God so he designs for some people to exercise spiritual care (to shepherd) within the church. Tradition has told us that the person we turn to for this care in difficult times is “the pastor.” For a moment, we would like to set aside our traditional view of a pastor to consider how Scripture itself explains how church leaders are to care for its members. To do that we will first need need to understand how Scripture uses key terms such as “pastor”, “elder” and “shepherd”. Secondly, we will need to understand how God gifts “pastors” or “shepherds”.
Understanding Terms
The term used for “Pastor” in the New Testament means “shepherd”. Its various usages range from a sheep-herder (Mt. 25:32, Lk. 2:8); to Jesus himself (1Pt. 2:25; 5:4; Heb. 13:20); to a leadership role given to the church (Eph. 4:11). Notice that “Pastor”, in the sense of a church leader is used only once (Eph. 4:11, pastor-teacher). The word used by Paul in Ephesians is a noun form (of a much more common verb, “to shepherd” (). Based on its usage, the word pastor literally means shepherd.
Another key term used in Scripture to describe those responsible for shepherding the flock (Church) is “elder”. The word “elder” found in our English translations is derived from two different nouns that describe the role of an elder in the NT. First, there is overseer (Tit. 1:7; Acts 20:28; 1 Tim. 3:1; Phil. 1:1). Second, there is elder (Titus 1:5, Acts 20:17, 1 Tim. 5:17, Acts 14:23).Both terms are used interchangeably to describe the office. Elders are to oversee the ministry of the church and be responsible to lead.
At Calvary Community Church we believe that elders are pastors and pastors are elders. This is because elders are explicitly told to “pastor” ( the flock. In Acts 20:28, Paul calls on elders to “pastor/shepherd () the church of God”. Peter exhorts elders to “pastor/shepherd () the flock of God that is among you”(1Ptr. 5:2). This responsibility includes spiritual care, feeding, protecting and nourishing the flock (Jn. 21:15-17, Acts 20:28-32, 1 Tim. 3:2, Titus 1:9, 1 Ptr. 5:1-5). The New Testament never gives the spiritual care of the flock to any one individual, but a group of elders. The only distinction made in Scripture regarding a group of elders are those who carry a greater responsibility to preach and teach (1 Tim. 5:17). If term the “pastor,” means “shepherd” and elders are called to pastor/shepherd the flock, then pastors are elders and elders are pastors.
Understanding the gift of “Pastor”
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastor-teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ… (Ephesians 4:11-12 ESV)
Paul lists four ministry roles in Eph. 4:11-12 that help to equip the body: apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastor-teachers.[1] Paul is not explaining the special abilities (gifts) that he has given to these leaders, but that these leaders ARE themselves gifts to the church. They are a gift from Christ because they help to equip the body for ministry. This is important because ministry leads to maturity, maturity leads to unity. Apostles were appointed to a role, not given special abilities to be apostles. Paul’s Gentile ministry was a grace-gift that he was to steward (Eph. 3:2, 7). In short, we must be careful not to read in the ‘special ability’ type gift into this passage since that is not Paul’s purpose (unity). To summarize, the pastor-teacher in this passage is not a special ministry ability but a role to equip the body for ministry.
Elders not only can fulfill the role of shepherd-teacher, but are required to by Scripture. They must shepherd (Acts 20:28, 1 Ptr. 5:1-5) and be able to teach in order to refute false doctrine (Titus 1:9). In our view, Eph. 4:11 is a summary description of the elder role as described in the rest of the NT.
Leadership Model at Calvary
Scripture clearly states that there should only be one mediator, one priest, and one Chief Shepherd (Heb. 13:20), and that is Jesus Christ himself. God instituted the Church to be run by one God-Man, Jesus who Paul calls the head of the Church (Eph. 4:15, Col. 1:18, ). While Christ is the only appropriate head for church, God has also instituted a leadership structure to feed, protect, and care for the Church. This leadership structure is always given to a group of leaders called elders. Therefore, we feel it is imperative that Calvary Community Church aligns her leadership structure to what the balance of Scripture describes. This alignment means that Calvary Community Church is lead by a plurality of elders. This plurality means that we do not have one “Senior Pastor” but instead we have multiple pastors willing to shepherd the flock of Christ’s church through the difficult times. Though it is uncomfortable to challenge tradition, we believe that a greater faithfulness to function in accordance with Scripture will result in greater spiritual care for the flock.
Additional Resources
Gilbert, Greg. "EJournal : The Case for the Senior Pastor | 9Marks." 9Marks | Building Healthy
Churches. Web. 26 Oct. 2011. <
Wright, Shawn. "EJournal : The Case Against the Senior Pastor | 9Marks." 9Marks | Building Healthy
Churches. Web. 26 Oct. 2011. <
Allison, Gregg R. “Chapter 27: Church Government.”Historical Theology: an Introduction to
Christian Doctrine : a Companion to Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011.
Strauch, Alexander. Biblical Eldership: Restoring the Eldership to Its Rightful Place in the Church.
Littleton, CO: Lewis and Roth, 1997.
[1] The in Greek indicates a list, the in between pastor and teacher means “that is” or “in particular” which indicates that they are viewed as a common group.