Dexter, Congregationalism, 52—“Calvin was a natural aristocrat, not a man of the people like Luther. Taken out of his own family to be educated in a family of the nobility, he received an early bent toward exclusiveness. He believed in authority and loved to exercise it. He could easily have been a despot. He assumed all citizens to be Christians until proof to the contrary. He resolved church discipline into police control. He confessed that the eldership was an expedient to which he was driven by circumstances, though after creating it he naturally enough endeavored to procure Scriptural proof in its favor.” On the question, The Christian Ministry, is it a Priesthood? see C. Anderson Scott, Evangelical Doctrine, 205-224.
(c) In certain of the N. T. churches there appears to have been a plurality of elders (Acts 20:17; Phil. 1:1; Tit. 1:5). There is, however, [pg 916] no evidence that the number of elders was uniform, or that the plurality which frequently existed was due to any other cause than the size of the churches for which these elders cared. The N. T. example, while it permits the multiplication of assistant pastors according to need, does not require a plural eldership in every case; nor does it render this eldership, where it exists, of coördinate authority with the church. There are indications, moreover, that, at least in certain churches, the pastor was one, while the deacons were more than one, in number.
Acts 20:17—“And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called to him the elders of the church”; Phil. 1:1—“Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus that are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons”; Tit. 1:5—“For this cause I left thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that were wanting, and appoint elders in every city, as I gave thee charge.” See, however, Acts 12:17—“Tell these things unto James, and to the brethren”; 15:13—“And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Brethren, hearken unto me”; 21:18—“And the day following Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present”; Gal. 1:19—“But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother”; 2:12—“certain came from James.”These passages seem to indicate that James was the pastor or president of the church at Jerusalem, an intimation which tradition corroborates.
1 Tim. 3:2—“The bishop therefore must be without reproach”; Tit. 1:7—“For the bishop must be blameless, as God's steward”; cf. 1 Tim. 3:8, 10, 12—“Deacons in like manner must be grave.... And let these also first be proved; then let them serve as deacons, if they be blameless.... Let deacons be husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well”—in all these passages the bishop is spoken of in the singular number, the deacons in the plural. So, too, in Rev. 2:1, 8, 12, 18 and 3:1, 7, 14, “the angel of the church” is best interpreted as meaning the pastor of the church; and, if this be correct, it is clear that each church had, not many pastors, but one.
It would, moreover, seem antecedently improbable that every church of Christ, however small, should be required to have a plural eldership, particularly since churches exist that have only a single male member. A plural eldership is natural and advantageous, only where the church is very numerous and the pastor needs assistants in his work: and only in such cases can we say that New Testament example favors it. For advocacy of the theory of plural eldership, see Fish, Ecclesiology, 229-249; Ladd, Principles of Church Polity, 22-29. On the whole subject of offices in the church, see Dexter, Congregationalism, 77-98; Dagg, Church Order, 241-266; Lightfoot on the Christian Ministry, appended to his Commentary on Philippians, and published in his Dissertations on the Apostolic Age.
B. The duties belonging to these offices.
(a) The pastor, bishop, or elder is:
First,—a spiritual teacher, in public and private;
Acts 20:20, 21, 35—“how I shrank not from declaring unto you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly, and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.... In all things I gave you an example, that so laboring ye ought to help the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that he himself said, It is more blessed to give than to receive”; 1 Thess. 5:12—“But we beseech you, brethren, to know them that labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you”; Heb. 13:7, 17—“Remember them that had the rule over you, men that spake unto you the word of God; and considering the issue of their life, imitate their faith.... Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit to them: for they watch in behalf of your souls, as they that shall give account.”