A Biblical Look At A Plurality of Elders

It is two in the morning and the phone rings. On the other end is a husband whose marriage is coming apart at the seams, or a family in the middle of something nobody saw coming, or a young man with a question about doctrine that has eaten at him for months and he finally cannot wait until Sunday. The pastor picks up. He listens. He prays. He does the best he can.

But what if the question is too hard for one man? What if the situation calls for more than one voice, more than one set of eyes that has read the Scripture and walked with God long enough to know what to say?

That is not a hypothetical. That is Acts 15. A controversy had broken out in the church at Antioch, serious enough that it could have fractured the whole young church. Men were teaching that circumcision was necessary for salvation. Paul and Barnabas pushed back hard. The church at Antioch did not leave the two of them to settle it alone. They sent them to Jerusalem, to the apostles and the elders. Not one man. A body of men who could hear the matter together, search the Scriptures together, and speak with a weight no single voice could carry on its own.

The Lord knew what He was doing when He gave elders to His church. More often than not in the New Testament, He gave more than one. That is what we are going to look at here. Two texts, one question. What does the Scripture actually say about elders in the local church?

One Office, Three Names

The first thing we have to settle is the language itself, because the New Testament uses three different words for what is, in fact, the same office.

You have the word pastor. That is the word most of us are comfortable with. It means shepherd. It tells you something about function: a pastor feeds the flock and guards the flock. You have the word elder. That is the word you see in both of our texts. In the Greek it is presbuteros, and it carries the idea of maturity, of a man who has seasoning and gravity. It tells you something about character. You have the word bishop, or overseer. In the Greek, episkopos. It tells you something about responsibility: this man watches over the congregation and is accountable for the souls in his care.

Are these three different offices? No. The Scripture treats them as three angles on the same man. Look at Acts 20. Paul calls the Ephesian elders to meet him at Miletus. Verse 17 says he sent for the elders of the church. When he addresses them in verse 28, he says this:

You see it there. The same men are called elders in verse 17. In verse 28 they are called overseers, and they are charged to shepherd. One man, one office, three names. He feeds. He leads with maturity. He keeps watch.

Peter does the same thing. He names himself a fellow elder, then turns and charges the elders to shepherd and oversee the flock.

Pastor, elder, bishop. Three words, one office. Why does this matter? It matters because some people have built entire church structures on the idea that the bishop is a separate and higher office than the elder. The Scripture does not support that. The Holy Spirit made those Ephesian elders overseers. The office is one.

Look at how Paul opens his letter to the Philippians.

One church at Philippi, and Paul greets the overseers, plural, right alongside the deacons. There is no bishop sitting above them. There is no tier of rank. Two offices in the Lord's church: overseers, who are the elders, who are the pastors, and deacons. That is the structure the Scripture gives us, and it is a flat one.

The Pattern: More Than One

I want to do something simple here. Walk through the book of Acts and a few other texts, and just look at the words on the page. Start with our second anchor text. Paul and Barnabas are on their first missionary journey, planting churches across Asia Minor in places like Lystra and Iconium and Antioch of Pisidia. Look at what Luke records when they come back through those towns:

Elders. Plural. In every church. Pause on the word appointed. There has been discussion about what it means exactly. I believe the pattern of Scripture, including Acts 15:22 where the whole church takes part in the decision, points to something like what we practice today in ordination: a congregation involved in the recognition and affirmation of the men God has called. It was not one apostle installing whomever he pleased. There was prayer, fasting, and congregational witness.

Keep reading. In Acts 15:2 the church at Antioch sends Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem to settle the circumcision controversy, and they go to the apostles and elders, plural. In Acts 15:4 the church receives them and the apostles and the elders hear their report. Acts 15:6, our anchor, says both the apostles and the elders came together to look into the matter. In Acts 20:17 Paul calls the elders of the church at Ephesus to meet him. One church, multiple elders. In Acts 21:18 Paul goes to Jerusalem and all the elders are present. James 5:14 tells a sick church member to call for the elders of the church. Not the elder. The elders.

This verse implies something. Not every elder does the same amount of preaching. Some labor more heavily at that work than others. But they are all elders of the church.

Someone will raise an objection here, and it deserves an answer. In the book of Revelation, the risen Christ sends letters to the angel of each church. Revelation 2:1 begins, "To the angel of the church in Ephesus write." Some preachers take that angel to be the single pastor of the church, and they use it to argue against any plurality at all. Two things. First, the word is angel, a messenger, and John was writing from exile on an island. It is just as fair to take the text plainly and read these as messengers who carried the letters to the churches. Second, even if that angel were a single pastor, addressing one man does not prove there were no others. We have already seen from Acts 20 that Ephesus had elders, plural. One letter to one messenger does not undo that.

T.P. Simmons, a careful Baptist scholar, wrote that the plurality of elders in the New Testament was "incidental, and is not incumbent on all churches." There is something to that. I would add, though, that what drove those churches to multiple elders was not just size. It was the gifts God placed among them. When God calls men with the gifts and qualifications, the church should recognize them. The New Testament churches had plural elders. That is undeniable.

This is not a threat. It is a description. The Lord is sovereign over the gifts He sends to a congregation. If He sends men with the gifts and qualifications, the church does right to recognize them. If He does not, the church is no less a church. Sovereign Grace Baptist Church is as much of a church with one pastor as the churches in Acts were with several. But we should not be closed to what the Lord might be doing.

The Practice: What This Means and What It Does Not

Let me say something directly. I am not writing this to push any congregation toward a structural change. This is not a sermon with an agenda behind it. It is a sermon about what the Bible says, and the Bible is the only agenda I have.

What it does not mean

A plurality of elders does not make a one-pastor church deficient. A church is a church. The Lord meets His people whether there is one pastor or five.

It does not mean a church should ordain men just to have a number. Listen to what the Scripture is most concerned about. The qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 are demanding. A man who is not qualified has no business being ordained. It would be better to have no additional elders than to set apart the wrong men. I have seen more damage done to churches by men who should never have been ordained than by churches that simply had one faithful pastor.

The error runs in both directions. If it is wrong to ordain the wrong man just to manufacture a plurality, it is also wrong to look down on a faithful church that has more than one elder simply because we have never done it that way. God blesses some churches with one man and others with several. Let us be honest with the Scripture and gracious with one another.

It does not mean the congregation loses its voice. Acts 15:22 tells us the decision seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church. That is elder-led congregationalism. The elders lead. The congregation is not bypassed.

What it does mean

Pastors are a gift Christ gives to His church. When He gives more than one, the church is richer for it. More men feeding the flock. More men keeping watch. More men to bear the weight of the hard decisions that pastoral ministry requires. No one man carrying everything alone. That is not a new idea. It is the New Testament pattern, preserved on the page for us to see.

The Gospel

There is something in this subject that bears on every person reading, saved or not. If you are outside of Christ today, hear this. The church has elders because the sheep matter to the Shepherd. The Lord Jesus purchased His church with His own blood. That is Acts 20:28. He did not build an organization. He bought a people. And He gave them men to care for them because He cares for them.

That same Savior is calling to you. He is not asking you to clean yourself up first. He is not offering grace on the installment plan. He is offering Himself. Come to Christ as you are, trust what He has done at Calvary, follow Him in baptism, and you will find not just a Savior but a church, a family, and men who will give account to God for your soul.

If you are in Christ, let this be a comfort. The elders of the church are not just administrators. They are under-shepherds appointed by the Chief Shepherd. When they feed you from the Word, Christ is feeding you through them. When they pray for you, the Lord uses it. You are not alone. You have never been alone.

A Word to the Church

Do one thing this week. Find a way to encourage your pastor, or any elder or teacher in your church. Not a generic "good sermon." (Although that is encouraging for sure!) Something specific. Tell him what the Word of God did in you. Pray for him by name. If you have been carrying something heavy, let him know.

Ask God whether He is raising up men in your congregation with the gifts and the calling. Encourage men who show gifts for teaching and leading. Do not assume the pastor is the only person in the room God might be preparing for something. He might be preparing someone sitting right there. Elders are a gift. Treat them that way.