A couple weeks ago I listened to a MacArthur sermon from 1 Thessalonians 5:12 entitled The Shepherd’s Responsibility. The whole series was great, recently re-titled “The Bible-Driven Church” (you don’t think that was on purpose, do you?) Anyway, I thought the following definitions and descriptions of biblical church leaders was helpful.
As the New Testament unfolds it becomes clear who the leaders of the church are. The leaders are the church are identified under four basic titles…four basic New Testament descriptions, or words, terms. And you’re familiar with them. Number one, the very familiar term “elder,” πρεσβύτερος. Now that identifies a church leader as one characterized by, mark this, spiritual maturity and wisdom…spiritual maturity and wisdom. The leaders are those who are spiritually mature, spiritually wise. That term, elder, is used over and over and over again in the New Testament. Very early on as the church is being established in the book of Acts it is a high priority to make sure that those churches have elders, that is men who are characterized by spiritual maturity and spiritual wisdom, who can lead the church. And you find very clear characteristics required of such men given in 1 Timothy chapter 3, Titus chapter 1. Their duties are outlined without any lack of clarity throughout the New Testament. We understand very clearly what an elder is, a spiritually mature, spiritually wise man given responsibility to lead the church. There’s another word that is used to describe this man, this leader, that is the word overseer, sometimes translated by the Old English word bishop. It is the word ἐπίσκοπος in the Greek, it means to look over, to oversee. This indicates that the church leader is not only characterized by spiritual maturity and spiritual wisdom, but by spiritual oversight and spiritual authority. In this word you have oversight and authority. They go together. And you find, for example, that word used in 1 Timothy 3 and in Titus chapter 1 as THE word to describe church leaders. They are overseers. It is also used in Philippians 1:1 and Acts 20:28. Then you have a third word that we’re all familiar with and that’s the word pastor. It means shepherd, it comes from ποιμήν. This indicates that the leader in the church is characterized by spiritual feeding and spiritual protection. Here you’re looking at the duty that he has to feed the flock and protect them from the wolves. So the leader in the church is characterized by spiritual maturity, spiritual wisdom, spiritual oversight, spiritual authority, spiritual feeding and spiritual protection. And there’s a fourth term that is used. It is the word ἡγεμόνος which literally means those who led you. And we’ll just use the word leader, or chief. This indicates that the one who is responsible as an overseer, elder or pastor should be characterized by spiritual discernment and spiritual guidance. In other words, he is effective as a leader because he can assess the condition and move people to a better condition, guide them in a right path. What then is the leader of the church? He is a man with spiritual maturity, spiritual wisdom, spiritual oversight, spiritual authority who spiritually feeds, spiritually protects people who provide spiritual discernment of their condition and spiritual guidance to a better place. That’s the leader.
If you think the work of overseeing sounds overwhelming, you’re right:
Leadership success comes to those who are willing to work to exhaustion, listen to this, for the sake of objectives great enough to demand total sacrifice. If the objectives are great enough, how can you give less? And someone said, “A cross, yes a cross stands in the way of spiritual leadership, a cross on which the leader must consent to be impaled.” It was said of one leader, “He belonged to that class of early martyrs whose passionate soul made an early holocaust of the physical man.” And Richard Baxter was right when he said, “This is not a burden for the shoulders of a child.” It takes a man, every bit a man to shoulder the responsibility of the labor that is required among the sheep. And I guess it would be true to say the world is run by tired men and so is the church.
And the fact is, the glory of God is the greatest objective on the globe, and making disciples who recognize and revere God in Christ is unquestionably worth being a little bit tired.
