Rethinking Church: Pastors and Priests

Taking church back to the drawing board: Part Two

Photo by Marek Studzinski on Unsplash

In the first part of this mini-series, I spoke about how we have a window of opportunity at the moment to totally rethink church. Because many people have grown unhappy with traditional denominations, including myself, we are starting to think about how church should be, not simply how it is. This means going ‘back to the drawing board’, which in this instance entails going back to the Bible. Last time I spoke about the centrality of the Bible, and you can read that here if you missed it:

At the end of that post I said that I was planning to cover a few more areas of church life, starting with church leadership. This is what we are going to examine today. I appreciate that church leadership is a huge topic and to fully cover it would require far more than a single post on Substack! So this post will be an overview and hopefully a topic that we can return to in due course.

Let’s start with a question that’s deceptively simple…

What do you call a ‘church leader’?

We have a plethora of English words which can be used to describe a ‘church leader’: Priest, pastor, rector, minister, vicar, presbyter, elder, not to mention curates, deacons, archdeacons, bishops… The words vary between denominations — it seems to me that most independent churches prefer the word ‘pastor’ (e.g. John Piper’s podcast is called Ask Pastor John), whereas many high churches prefer the word ‘priest’. Some of these words are drawn directly from the Bible, some of them are Latin translations of Biblical words, and some of them are not in the Bible at all.

The Anglican church states in Canon C1 (“Of holy orders in the Church of England”):

The Church of England holds and teaches that from the apostles’ time there have been these orders in Christ’s Church: bishops, priests, and deacons.

At the time of the Reformation, the Church of England chose to continue the so-called ‘threefold order’ of bishops, priests, and deacons. (Richard Hooker, one of the key intellectual defenders of Anglicanism, wrote a huge book — which became famous — called The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity defending the way the CofE does things). Those of you who are familiar with the CofE, and other denominations, will undoubtedly be familiar with these titles and likely have a fairly good idea of what they do.

The problem is, as Dr Tom Wadsworth points out, this ‘threefold order’ cannot be justified from the Bible. In fact, the Biblical picture of ‘church leader’ is a complex one and definitely does not admit to easy demarcation into three distinct groups. Let’s turn to think about what the Bible calls ‘church leaders’.

Church Leadership in the Bible

Old Testament

You might think that spiritual leadership in the Old Testament is fairly easy. There are priests, and… that’s basically it, right?

It’s fair to say that the Old Testament picture is a bit more simple, or at least structured, than the New. God ordained a system of sacrifices which were to be administered by the priests. This was all described and regulated by the Law. There was also a high priest who was to oversee it all, and offer the annual sacrifice on the Day of Atonement. Ultimate responsibility for the religious life of the Israelites rested with the king.

But is this relevant to us in the New Testament? The book of Hebrews makes clear that the Old Testament system of priests and sacrifices has been rendered “obsolete” by Jesus¹. Similarly, we no longer have an earthly king, because Jesus is our king.

I have argued in a recent video that Christians are the true inheritors of all God’s promises. Everything God promised to Israel is fulfilled in Christ. Therefore, we no longer have need of priests and kings.

So does that mean the Old Testament has nothing to say about church leadership? Not, I believe, through its system of sacrifices and priests. However, the priests were not the only people who God trusted with special ‘spiritual’ duties. There were prophets — some of them named, and some of them anonymous (such as the unnamed “man of God” who came to Eli in 1 Samuel 2:27-36). God chose to govern his people by sending them prophets who spoke his Word to them. They called the people to repent of their sins and turn to God.

In my opinion the Old Testament prophets — whether named or unnamed — come much closer to the New Testament’s vision of a church leader. Let’s turn to look at the New Testament.

New Testament

There are several terms in the New Testament used for what we call today a ‘church leader’, but three in particular stand out:

Firstly, “elder” (Gk: presbyteros). In the ancient world, ‘elders’ were older men who were considered to be wise enough to trust with governing. Tom Wadsworth points out that elders were simply the normal way of governing in the world at this time. For example, the Jewish people had elders (they are often mentioned along with the chief priests and teachers of the law, e.g. Matthew 21:23; Mark 11:27 — to give but two of many examples).

In the church, elders were appointed by the apostles (Acts 14:23), and Paul commands Titus to appoint elders in Crete (Titus 1:5). Peter speaks of elders as “shepherds” (or pastors — 1 Peter 5:1-3), which we will come onto below. Paul makes a comment in 1 Timothy 5:17 which suggests that there are some elders who are particularly dedicated to “preaching and teaching”, but not all. Finally, elders are almost always referred to in the plural — a church would contain several elders, rather than the ‘one church, one pastor’ mentality we tend to have today.

Putting this together, I suggest that an elder was a man who was mature in faith and was given the responsibility of helping to shepherd a church. That is, watching over people to make sure they were growing in faith, helping them to reach maturity in Christ, disciplining them when they went astray, and so on. Some elders had a particularly responsibility for preaching and teaching.

Note: the word ‘priest’, as it is used in the Church of England, actually derives from the word ‘presbyter’ rather than the priests of the Old Testament. This is without a doubt one of the most confusing aspects of the Church of England and I’m not here to defend it! The New Testament is clear that there is no need for priests in the Old Testament sense any more.

Secondly, “pastor” or shepherd (Gk: poimen). The modern word comes straight from the Latin word ‘pastor’ which means, ‘shepherd’. Paul mentions ‘pastors and teachers’ in Ephesians 4:11 — in fact, the way he puts it strongly suggests that he sees these two as the same thing, leading some translations to translate it “pastor-teachers”.

Pastors and elders are generally put together and even used interchangeably, for example the passage from 1 Peter 5 I mentioned above. Paul also uses the same word in Acts 20 — more on that in a moment.

Thirdly, “overseer” (Gk: episkopos). This is the word which was translated ‘bishop’ in older translations of the Bible. Paul outlines the qualifications for an overseer in 1 Timothy 3:1-7), before going on to talk about deacons. An overseer, in a nutshell, should be someone of mature Christian faith, whose life evidences their commitment to Christ in every way. They key thing which differentiates them from deacons is their “ability to teach”. Paul adds in Titus 1:9 that an overseer must hold firmly to sound Biblical doctrine, so that they can refute those who oppose it.

Once again, it seems that there is very little, if any, difference between elders and overseers. In Titus 1:5, Paul refers to “elders” — but then two verses later talks about the role of an “overseer”. It seems that he is not talking about two separate roles but one. Similarly, in Acts 20 Paul calls the Ephesian “elders” to come together (20:17), and then says to them:

Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.

Acts 20:28

In this one verse we see the three different words come together — elders, overseers, and pastors. Not three separate roles but one.

One of the most interesting things about this, at least to me, is asking the question — where are bishops? If there is no difference between an elder / overseer / pastor … what is a bishop? The apostles seemed to exercise some kind of external oversight during their lifetimes, but what happened after that? I’d like to do more on apostolic oversight in a future post in this series, but for now I’m going to leave that question hanging…

Note: there did seem to be a separate role for deacons (the word deacon meaning ‘servant’) in the New Testament church. I believe these were godly and mature people who were set aside for practical tasks but were not there as shepherds / teachers. Due to space constraints we won’t go into deacons here.

I appreciate that we have only gone through this quickly, and there is much more that could be said. However, I think we’ve reached a point where we can draw a few conclusions about church leaders today.

Summary: what we’ve learned so far

• The biblical words for church leaders (elder / pastor / overseer) were used interchangeably.

• The church was to be led by mature Christian elders — note the plural — who displayed the fruits of holiness in their own lives, and had a responsibility for the maturity and holiness of the whole church.

• At least some of them were to be dedicated to preaching and teaching the Word.

• There is a fundamental connection between the task of an elder and the Word (Hebrews 13:7, “Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you”). As we saw last time, Christ rules over his church by his Word and Spirit — and that means that those who have the task of overseeing the church must be dedicated to that same word.

In short, a church leader is someone of mature godly character, who is recognised as such by the church and shares the responsibility (especially through teaching the Scriptures) in ensuring the whole church grows in godliness.

Let’s finish off by thinking about how that might apply in our ‘blank slate’ church today.

Lessons for today

1: Pastor is a spiritual role, not a job title

‘Pastor’ is my favourite New Testament term for a church leader, because I think it describes it well. God is our shepherd (Psalm 23); Jesus is the good shepherd (John 10:11); elders serve as under-shepherds of the good shepherd (1 Peter 5:4). The one word ‘pastor’ encompasses everything: leading and guiding everyone towards the spiritual goal of maturity in Christ, as someone who has already attained a degree of maturity.

It’s important to stress that being a pastor does not mean merely ‘teaching the Bible’ in an intellectual or academic sense. Pastors must have a living relationship with the Lord. When I read books by puritans such as John Owen and Thomas Watson, one of the things I’m often struck by is how much they knew the Lord. They didn’t simply know information about him or about the Bible, they knew the One to whom the Scriptures bore witness.

You can see this shining through in their writings. For example, this is from the introduction to John Owen’s catechism. He wrote this for the parishioners in his first church:

You know, brethren, how I have been amongst you, and in what manner, for these few years past, and how I have kept back nothing (to the utmost of the dispensation to me committed) that was profitable unto you; but have showed you, and taught you publicly and from house to house, testifying to all repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, with what sincerity this hath been by me performed, with what issue and success by you received, God the righteous Judge will one day declare; for before him must both you and I appear, to give an account of the dispensation of the glorious Gospel amongst us; — in the meanwhile, the desire of my heart is, to be servant to the least of you in the work of the Lord; and that in any way which I can concede profitable unto you, — either in your persons or your families.

Everything about this screams ‘pastor’ to me. He was clearly a godly man who loved his flock and deeply desired them to grow in godliness and holiness, and dedicated his life to helping them and teaching them. That is a true pastor!

Too often today, the word ‘pastor’ is confused with a job title. Someone is employed to be a ‘Pastor’, it has that on their payslip, so clearly they must be a pastor. It doesn’t matter whether they’re actually a shepherd of God’s flock! But there’s a huge difference between being called a ‘Pastor’ and being a pastor in the biblical sense.

Tragically, I can think of many church leaders today who may be employed as pastors (or whatever word their denomination uses), but are not actually pastoral in the true biblical sense.

2. Pastoring is about holiness

The word ‘pastoral’ has today come to mean, looking after people. Does your church have a “pastoral care” team or committee? Does this committee have any spiritual purview, or does it only exist to help people with their physical needs? In my old church, “pastoral care” was mainly to do with elderly people who needed looking after (e.g. home communion), or people who were in hospital, all that sort of thing.

However, pastoring in the biblical sense is helping people grow in holiness. True pastors recognise that the greatest issue we face in life is not to do with our circumstances but our own sin. Although practical needs are important — as James reminds us, we must demonstrate our love for people in practical ways² — pastors are given by God to direct the church towards holiness, rather than simply caring for people’s practical needs.

I used to bemoan the fact in our old church that it was only older folk who got “pastoral care”. I used to question why it was that younger people — i.e. people in work, people with families, young people at school and college, etc — didn’t need “pastoral care”. The truth is, we all need pastoring in the biblical sense, from the youngest to the oldest.

Given this, the church needs to reclaim the word ‘pastoral’ to refer to helping people grow in holiness. And this is not simply a minor point of language: one of the things I’ve realised over the last few years is that the words we use are highly important to our beliefs and actions. If we use the wrong words, or use the right words but in the wrong ways, we’ll end up with wrong beliefs and actions. I believe we need to use the words ‘pastor’ and ‘pastoral’ to refer to the correct, biblical, understandings of these things. The way we use them at the moment is hindering us rather than helping.

3. Pastoring is about the Word of God

When I was doing my curacy training in the Church of England, we had sessions on lots of different topics: how to take a funeral; how to engage with church schools; how to manage ancient church buildings and so on. It was entirely focussed on the practical points around leading a modern Church of England church. Looking back, I would summarise it now as how to manage a church as if it was a business. It tried to ape the world’s methods of leadership and strategy, as if the church was a business and we needed to run it like that. (Needless to say, it aped the world’s strategies really, really badly — it was a kind of monstrous hybrid between Christian practice and worldly management, but neither one nor the other, and it was disastrous).

One thing which was conspicuous by its absence was the Word of God — in particular, the idea that everything pastors do should be built on the Word of God. Is it any surprise that CofE ministers, even good ones, have abandoned the Word of God when everything about the CofE is ranged against it? The Word of God is more or less seen as an irrelevance by the hierarchy in the CofE. It’s no surprise that many clergy have become infected with that same attitude. This is why ‘walking together’ with people who do not believe in the gospel is so toxic: I’ve come to realise the wisdom in Paul’s words not to be “yoked together” with unbelievers (2 Corinthians 6:14).

The truth is, everything about being a pastor is to do with the Word. Pastors must know the Word intimately themselves — as I said before, not simply in an intellectual sense but in a spiritual sense. They come to the Word to find the Lord Jesus and get to know him better. Not only must they read the Word only, but also obey it. Then, their task is to help people understand the Bible for themselves, to get to know the Lord Jesus and his salvation, and to lead them on the path of righteousness and holiness until they reach everlasting life.

I think the call of Jeremiah is very much akin to the call of a pastor:

But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord.

Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”

Jeremiah 1:7-10

Here we see Jeremiah being commanded by the Lord to say “whatever I command you”. The Lord says “I have put my words in your mouth”. And those words have immense power even over nations and kingdoms — to tear down and overthrow, to build and to plant. The Word is how God accomplishes his purposes; it is the “sword of the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:17).

Pastors, above all else, must brandish the Word of God: both in their own lives, and in the lives of others.

Conclusion

I think this piece is long enough for the time being, so I will leave things off there. However, I hope that I have demonstrated just how far the idea of church leadership today has come from the biblical picture. In particular, I think pastors today need to focus on the Word of God — the sword of the Spirit — and on ‘pastoring’, that is, shepherding people by helping them to grow in holiness.

Writing this piece has led me to a couple of further avenues to explore:

1. The connection between the family and the church. Paul makes the point about an elder managing his own family well and linking it with “God’s household” (the church). I’d like to do a follow-up piece about what it means for elders that the church is God’s household.

2. I’d like to explore the question of bishops (or whatever word you want to use). Are bishops really necessary in the church?

Thanks so much for reading this far — I look forward to the next part in the series, whenever that will be!

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1. Hebrews 8:13, “By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.”

2. James 2:15-16, “Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?”