History of Churches & Church Governance

This time here we're looking, going through all of church history, the history of churches and church governance. That is, how does the Lord intend for a church to be structured in order to be governed? And one of the points we're going to underscore at the end here is the church is not first and foremost an organization.

People in the world have a hard time understanding it. Frankly, a lot of Christians have a hard time understanding it. It's not first and foremost an organization. It is first and foremost an organism, because we are the body of Christ. That's the primary identity. The tendency for the Church over time has been to set up worldly hierarchies, thinking that organization and having this organization is somehow the first characteristic. It's not.

So we'll be taking a close look at that, and we'll be looking at the impact throughout history of what people have thought the Church ought to be, based on its being first an organization. Even the issue that came up a couple weeks ago with this Episcopal bishop who was openly and declaredly gay. My first question is not, why are you appointing a gay? But, why are you appointing a bishop? That's the first problem. You have a problem before you even look at his personal qualifications. You're pointing to a position that biblically does not exist.

We'll take a look at that. We're going to step into the apostolic era. From there, we'd like to take a look at what does scripture teach. The biblical pattern is elders, plural, and deacons, plural. By the way, this red one there is intended to symbolize that's the first one on page one. That's to help clue me and you, so I hope to remember those. So anyway, the biblical pattern is elders and deacons. What you see as you go through scripture is multiple references to elders plural.

For example, here's one for Ephesus, the elders plural of the church singular, and also calls them overseers. That's the pattern we see from the book of Acts all the way through 1 Peter. Everywhere that elders are mentioned, with rare exception, usually if there's a singular mention, there's a reason for it. The overall pattern is plural elders, in singular churches. And then for deacons, from Acts 6, seven men, these, them, Philippi, overseers, plural, and deacons, plural, as we went through, remember that was 30 weeks back. And then in Ephesus, deacons, plural, references to deacons is the pattern that we have. Here is an equivalency for elders, and you have this in your chart as well. I think this chart is very insightful, and here's why. Here's Paul, he wants the elders, plural, from the church, singular, at Ephesus, and what does he do?

In the Greek, he has presbyteros, which is elder, noun, and he calls those elders, okay, in Acts 20.17, and then he tells them, you know, you are overseers, episkopos, And then he tells them in a verb form command, you are to shepherd the church. And so here is where we get elder and overseer or bishop. That's taken from there. And shepherd or pastor, all three are equivalent. An elder is a bishop is a pastor.

That's the biblical pattern. Our culture has broken them all up and put them in different roles. That's not the biblical pattern. We see that again down here when Peter writes. It's funny, here's Paul and Peter. You'd think they're on the same wavelength, right? And they are. Peter says elder, using the noun form, prospeteros, and only he uses the verb form for overseer, the one that's typically looked at as a bishop.

And then for pastor, he uses 1 Peter 5.2, but he uses the verb. It's interesting when Paul and Peter talk to elders. They don't call them pastors, except this one instance as a noun.

It is always a command to shepherd. Isn't that interesting? God is not interested in titles. He is interested in action. He is interested in the life of Jesus Christ, lived at, and those men who have the qualifications. An important distinction. What you see clearly from this pattern of verses is that prosputeros, episkopos, And poimen or poimino, they're all addressed to the same group of people, no distinction, there is no separate pastor and elder, there is no separate bishop and elder, there is no distinction between those levels. And real interesting, the only place where pastor, poimen, is used as a title, the only place that's used as a title, is where it refers to Jesus Christ.

In 1 Peter 5.4, Jesus Christ is called the chief shepherd hoyman. That's the only place where pastors use the title, Jesus Christ.

Amazing, huh? Yes? We have no indication at any place as to the number of elders. There was a publication we put out, and I could bring a couple more out. We put it out like last fall or something of that sort. There is no indication of how many. What we do see is plural. Obviously, two is plural, but that's a bare minimum.

I think for the sake of some of the roles that elders or pastors or shepherds have to take, there's reason to look at three as an actual reasonable minimum. Here is why. If you have a situation where you have to discipline an elder, then you've got two other elders and it's not just one elder versus another. Then also if you have an elder that must be disciplined or one that dies or leaves or is disabled or whatever happens, then you've still got a plurality of elders even if by a bare minimum.

So anyway, that's I think the implication from Scripture. Scripture never gives a number other than to indicate clearly plurality. Does that make sense? So anyway, this I think is an extremely potent and valuable table. It's not that complicated, but boy, it gives the message real clear.

Elders setting themselves above the flock and other elders and other churches is not biblical. All the flock among you, 1 Peter says, which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. The flock of God among you. Excuse me, the same thing there, the first one was Acts 20, 28. 1 Peter 5, 2 says the flock of God among you.

Here again, Peter and Paul are on exactly the same wavelength. Here's two guys frequently separated by miles and not really spending that much time with each other. What they say in each of those passages is identical. Amazing. You'd think they had the same author. Okay. Yet, it says, yet, excuse me, nor yet is lording it over those allotted to your flock. How do they lead? By example. Okay? That's the clear message there.

And then here's the point that I made before. when the chief shepherd appears. That's the only place, and there's one other, where Christ is called the shepherd, poyman, that we translate pastor, and overseer of your souls. But this is the only place, and one other, where the word poyman is actually used as a title, pastor. The title pastor is never used in the New Testament for human being. Essentially what happens, because Christ is the chief shepherd, any elder at a church is an under-shepherd to Christ.

And finally, here's a negative statement. Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say. Here's a fellow who is a leader in a church, and he wants to be singular, and he loves it. He loves to grab hold of authority, and that's one of the things that you see in 1 Timothy 3 and in Titus 1. not someone who likes to grab hold of authority and get attention. Not somebody who is eager to put others down, but looking to glorify the Lord Jesus.

Elders and deacons are to be selected on the basis of character qualifications, a real important principle. That sort of lineage, what has happened, case in point, where they had appointed, now it's history, they appointed a fellow to be a bishop who was gay, You've got character qualifications issues. So what's happened is they're looking at the organization did what they did. Have they got a biblically qualified guy for a biblically qualified position? No. That's the problem. They're not looking at character qualifications, they're looking at the organization and the lineage in that organization to carry it on.

Big difference. The succession and lineage is to be the life of Christ and in biblical truths. Not in, hey, we got a good old boys club here and I'll pick you next, right? Big difference there. By the time the ink was drying on the last New Testament book, we had a couple of guys, and this was when John was writing the book of Revelation in his last days. This took place.

Clement, who was called the Bishop of Rome, wrote a letter to the church at Corinth. That's 96 AD, the year John died. You also have Ignatius, who did die a martyr. The exact dates are tough to nail down, so I see dates from 98 to 117 AD. He was called the bishop of the church at Antioch.

So now you've got these guys calling themselves bishop, separate from the elders, and we just saw that table that shows that there is no separate distinction. The elders were called bishops, or actually episkopos, is the Greek term. And there is no distinction. But look at what these guys did.

Here's Clement writing from Rome about 800 miles to the church at Corinth. By the way, he wrote to Corinth about every subject that Paul wrote about in 1 Corinthians except tongues. Then you find over here Ignatius writing about 500 miles to write to the church at Smyrna. That's a church that's mentioned in the book of Revelation, right? So here are these guys writing to churches hundreds of miles away exercising authority over them.

No biblical basis for that whatsoever. They didn't even wait until the apostles are a memory before doing this. They started moving in, swooping in, to grab up authority, and taking authority that they had no biblical basis for. Now, we step into this era right after the era of the apostles, what we call the early church. These guys started this concept, you have God sent Christ, Christ sent the apostles, the apostles appoint their successors. And so they started this idea of apostolic succession, but we have no record that the apostles actually appointed successors on the basis of, you know, I pick you and I pick you. Instead, what you see is these guys are being appointed, yes, as elders, but qualifications are always put out there as the criteria, not we're in the right lineage.

That's an important distinction that was lost early. What you see here is called the rise of the episcopy. Now I get these bishops who start setting themselves up in a higher plane than everybody else. Now they've got this high position. So what you see about this time of Ignatius and Clement, now you start seeing these bishops putting themselves rising above other churches and other elders. Furthermore, one of the trends is those that were in the cities began to take precedence over those who are out in smaller towns and out in the country because they had a larger population base that was more of a power base to start setting up.

Uh-oh, this is getting bad fast. You see it? Getting bad fast. Then what you find out, here's this concept being developed here of a federation of bishops. You've got a group of bishops and they're the big city bishops and there's a federation of them and those big city bishops are now getting into power. The Church is still under persecution of Rome when this gets introduced. Look at this. It's amazing.

The persecution is already well in force, well in place, when this Federation of Bishops idea starts coming into play. By 450 you got Leo I, who was the one that went out twice to talk to barbarians and to say, don't hurt us, just take stuff, in the city of Rome. He walked out and talk to the barbarian leaders and talk them into, you know, don't burn anything, don't rape the women, just take the stuff. Now, we step into this imperial era, and boy, here it really moves fast.

We have major bishoprics, these are the federations, because why? These are the big cities, and they're kind of distributed around the old Roman Empire, the only exception being not having one over here. Now these bishops are getting special status, and you know what they were called? These bishops now are no longer referred to exclusively as bishops. They're now in the Greek, Papas.

You see what that's starting to sound like? Okay. We have compliments of Norm. I see he's not here. This was a Coptic medallion. Coptic is like Coptic Orthodox. Here's this guy. It was given to him in 89. This guy is Pope Shendua. Pope Shenouda III. So even among the Coptic Church, they still got this title.

And it comes from this bishoprics establishment around the Mediterranean, where they are basically starting to act with positions of authority. Yes. Coptic is largely Egypt, that area. And there still are Coptic Christians over there. severely persecuted, you and I probably have a hard time relating to what they call Christianity, though. But nonetheless, that's where they're located.

Here's the development of the episcopy. You should have this as a handout, I believe, in your handout section. I won't go over the details, but it'll give you some detail to start looking. What had happened here by the 5th century, this Leo I had actually started to claim authority over the whole church. but it in fact was not granted. There were still others that resisted and held out. It wasn't effective yet, but this title Papas was starting to catch hold. Okay, so we notice here, on the basis of succession from Peter. Hmm. Whoa. See, this apostolic succession idea had been entrenched now. But let's check that out.

You also have a handout. one looks like this, and thank heaven you don't have to read what's on the screen, right? Okay, but you should have one, it should be color like this one, and what you'll find basically is we have biblical record for those that are color-coded in red, and what that does is that it puts Peter not in Rome, where? Jerusalem. Yeah, Peter in Jerusalem.

Add this to that, and that is that it takes In that period it takes, in normal travel times, at least a few months each way. So tack on a few months to each end of those red zones there and the zone gets whiter. By the time you add on these other little green-coated times here, those additionally imply that Peter was not in Rome. So what does that leave you?

Peter wasn't the bishop in Rome. It's historically not possible unless he's a totally absentee bishop except for a few rare events. Historically, it's just not feasible. There is no historical basis for him being in Rome except possibly at the very end of his life. That's it.

So this claim that Peter was the first bishop and we have succession from Peter, no. One other thing to think about When you look at Acts 15, here's the whole church gathering together, who speaks? James. Now, James is the one that speaks there, not Peter. And then you get into Galatians, and who does Paul confront to his face? Peter.

Does that sound like the Pope? Does that sound like the Bishop of Rome in charge of everybody? Doesn't sound like it. Neither historically, in terms of this timeline, nor in terms of what we see in terms of precedent do we see Peter acting as the Bishop of Rome. None of it makes any historical sense. Peter was never the Bishop of Rome by any historical record that we have, biblical or otherwise.

Now, let's step ahead here. 590, by then, you have Gregory the Great calling himself the Pope, exercising what we would call in the full sense, papal authority. And by this time, you have this pattern. Remember, we said elders are bishops, and we got deacons. So we have elders or bishops are shepherds or pastors in the first category. That's the biblical pattern, plurality of leadership in each church. Then we have the pattern of bishops starting to rise above.

By this time here, we're shifting with Gregory the Great into a singular leader over all the churches, exception in the Orthodox churches. We're reluctant to embrace that entirely. That finally, that schism finally took place in 1054 when the Orthodox Bishop and the Roman Pope excommunicated each other, okay? And that schism finally took place.

But even here, what you see is an attempt at least to govern all the churches with one leader, but it was an evolutionary process. It wasn't something that has a lineage back to Peter, in spite of whatever listings you may say, see, or claims that you may hear.

Here's the Roman Empire structure and the church structure. Basically, the Roman Empire had this political structure, and the church basically followed the political structure, including the Pope having the title Pontifex Maximus, which was basically what the Roman Emperor called himself. and having broken up political areas within the empire called the diocese and having people who were in charge of those areas called the vicar. The idea is you are vicariously carrying out Rome's authority. It was carried over to the church with the same title.

So finally you see this pattern. One of the things we're going to see, because we're going to see it in the next few times that we talk on some other subjects, this structure set things up for the church basically to reign, to have the authority that it did, and to further implement some new teachings. You have a handout from earlier on that looks like this.

This was one of the first few times we got together. One of the things you see here is kissing the Pope's feet. It began with Pope Constantine. This is happening just about a century after Gregory the Great comes on the scene. That pattern comes into place. You have the College of Cardinals. Remember, they are the second layer after the Pope. It is typically from those that the next Pope is drawn. And so then you find the celibacy of the priesthood. This is almost a century after the New Testament, when that was put into place.

Prior to that, it was not a uniformly established thing. It was a pattern that was developing. Pardon? Did I say century? Yes, pardon me, a millennium, a full thousand years. Thanks for the correction. And then finally, confession of sins to priests. 1,250 years, 1,200 years basically after the New Testament era, when you see this pattern taking place. This authority structure had to develop, then the doctrines followed along with it.

Yes? Yes, and I think we see the first example of it where John makes reference to diatrophies. He loves to be first. I think there's both, yes. Helmuth's right. It is both if you really look at that. You ask an excellent question. Because the reality is this doesn't happen until it comes both ways.

There are people who want to climb the ladder and there are people who want to have somebody to look to. Think back, just for an example, what did Israel clamor for? They wanted a king. People like to have a singular focal point. Here at Holly Hills, I don't want to be it. If we have a singular focal point, it's Jesus Christ.

He's the chief shepherd. I'm one of the under shepherds. A sheep herder. You could translate it sheepherder if that helps. So I'm just a fellow sheepherder among other sheepherders. But we're also under-shepherds because there's one who's the chief shepherd. Now into the next section here we step into the Reformation era. The Reformation period trends, and this begins page 2 on your handout series.

The Reformation period trends, there were church groups maintained political and military ties, those church groups who maintained the political and military ties also tended to gravitate towards this Episcopal structure, where you get these bishops and this hierarchy.

Isn't that interesting? Those patterns tended to align themselves, so you get this hierarchy growing up alongside alignment with the political churches and churches that were aligned with specific governments and military groups. Churches that didn't do that tended to move in the direction of elder-led churches, or deacon-led churches even, from that period of time, and avoided a lot of the same hierarchies. Now, there are some exceptions we'll talk to in a bit, because, boy, church history, if anything, is real confusing. But these are some general tendencies that you can put your finger on. Now, remember this little diagram of the family of churches. One of the patterns we see is many of the elder-led or congregationally governed church groups came out of the Anabaptist branch.

Remember, that was the branch that broke off... Be careful here. This is a very powerful little piece of equipment, but oh boy. Sorry about that. Okay. What we see here, remember the Anabaptists broke off here, but their break off was very much one that was reacted to. There were the Reformers who were out there, and these guys broke off and said, no, we're going to baptize believing adults. We don't care if they've been baptized as infants before, because scripture doesn't say to do that.

And so those are the ones that tended to go off in this group. Baptist churches, and notice, here's this Baptist and then this other group here, Baptist churches have traditionally been deacon-led, with a pastor as a separate role. Some Baptist churches actually have hierarchies of bishops, though. They stuck with that. There's a Baptist branch that you see here is one of the most mixed groups in terms of what they do. I've even heard of Bapti-costals, if you can imagine that. Yes? Are there any elder-led Baptist denominations? Not denominations that I know of, but very few Baptist churches have that orientation, but it's rare. Most of them, the pattern tends to be deacon-led.

Basically, it grew out of Episkopos. In other words, we have Presbyteros, which is elders, and Episkopos is where we get our English word, bishop, and they centered on that title and made that a separate and individual title above others. There's no biblical basis for that, even in the slightest. But that's where it came from. Does that address it? One of the things I point out here is that there is now governance diversity among most groups. That is, you can find exceptions to a whole bunch of these things.

There was a gathering recently of 99 Methodist groups, and that's not all of them, but they had some sort of a gathering to compare notes with each other. All sorts of differences. The main Methodist Church, the 9 Methodist Church, has an Episcopal structure. They appoint bishops and go through all that sequence. So that's one thing. You will find exceptions to almost anything.

Nancy and I were at a church, it was an evangelical free church, decades back. And the church, just after we moved away for me to go to engineering school, had a church split over should we have elders or whatnot. And the denomination at that point in time was contrary to the idea of having elders and that actually caused the split because It was under discussion until the denomination came in and said, no, we're not elder led. Now I understand that some of them are allowing that. So here's again more diversity among the group. So you'll have some that are, some that aren't. So you find that pattern.

Congregationally governed churches. Congregationally governed churches tended to be formed, again I'm generalizing here so you will find exceptions. as a reaction to the autocratic and severe authority of those churches that were politically and militarily aligned.

They would say, we don't want to have these heavy-handed leaders, so we're just going to vote. We don't want anybody trying to rise above anybody else or anything of the sort. So they went the other way. In alignment with the government of the nation from which the church developed.

Notice, if there was a democratic form of government, they said, let's do that too in the church. There's a tendency to do that. What you see though, if you see that, is either way, they're still looking to the secular political system, either in compliance or reaction, to govern the church, instead of saying, what does scripture say?

See that? So it's either I'm lining up with the government, or I'm reacting to the government. Either way, you're looking to the government to determine the church structure instead of the scripture. See that? Amazing, huh? Still looking to the world. Finally, we find in our current era, it's important, just massive diversity, thousands of denominations, all sorts of intermixtures.

There is no absolute rule as to who's got what kind of government, because with all the different denominational split ups, one of the ways that things have crossed over is different kinds of governance. The thing we focused on first, and we bring back to again, the Church is first a heavenly organism, not an earthly organization.

Paul writes this in Ephesians 4, 15 and 16, But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects unto him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. Radical difference from all the arguments, who's going to be the bishop? Who cares? Because what we're looking at here is not human structure and how we're going to put who and what kind of authority. It's a heavenly organism. It is the body of Christ seated with Christ, positionally. It is not primarily and first and foremost an earthly organization. Let me give you a practical for instance.

My brother is one of the pastors at a church over in a small community in Northern California. Down the street and across the street is this United Methodist Church. The United Methodist Church has a pattern of every few years shifting their pastors around. And the bishop for that area is the one who makes the decision. Well, the church that was in the same town, down the street and across the street from where my brother's church group meets there, the bishop for the Methodist church there told the local Methodist church, we're going to be switching pastors and you're going to get this guy.

Well, so happens that this guy that they were pointing to, I'll tell you myself, I've met him, he's not a believer. He does not believe in the inspiration of scripture. The guy is just basically a humanist, and that's what you get. So, the church came back to him, the Methodist church came back to him and said, we don't want this guy. And the bishop came back and said, you're getting him.

And several back and forth like that, all but two couples of the church left. and went over and joined up with the church where my brother is at. The church basically just evacuated except for a few people. What happened there? What happened there is you had the hierarchical structure looking at things not first and foremost from what's the biblical position, but what's the hierarchy say?

And then you end up getting something, the hierarchy is already unbiblical, And so now you're forcing a pastor on a church where the pastor is not a saint. He's not a believer. The pastor does not believe in the authority of scripture. He doesn't believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins. He is still shepherding about four people, right?

And the people have now moved over to this other church. And about a few weeks ago, my brother was teaching the identification truths to them out of Romans 6, and the people were jumping up and shouting. They were excited as can be, they never heard such a thing, but they're happy about it.

Hebrews 13.17, a real interesting verse because it's very revealing and I think if we look at some of the Greek meanings carefully, it's even more revealing. Let's take a look at it.

It says in English, Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Now, there are some things that come out of the Greek that don't immediately jump out at you in the English. Let's go over them.

The first one is patho, and by the way, we've talked about that some in Philippians here, but it means to assent to authority. It means to recognize authority, not just walk in lockstep like you don't think. It means to recognize authority. That's what it's talking about. The second word that jumps out, this word leaders, It's hegeomai, and we have talked about that in Philippians 2.

It means to judge or appraise or assess. To look and see what's happening. See what's happening. One of the pictures that you see for leaders in a church is shepherds. And Peter and Paul both say, shepherd the flock. It's a verb form, not a title. Shepherd the flock. And one of the things is, how are they doing? What's going on? How well off are they? What do they need to have next? That's this assessment.

The next thing he says, and submit, it's a different word than we frequently find in the New Testament, and that basically means to yield under. And it's not the word under-attach. Hupotasso, like you will find in other passages in the New Testament, means to yield under.

And then, real interesting, this keep watch, it means not sleep. Whoa! It means they're constantly keeping watch. It means that they're looking when nobody else is. Yes, that's right. That's right. My wife will tell you, I used to quote Proverbs 6.4 all the time, about not sleeping. Anyway, it's interesting that they would choose that phrase. They're the ones who don't sleep for you. I do sleep, by the way.

Apodidomi is this last one here, to give an account. It's a future active participle, and it says they will be giving an account. And the idea here is these leaders who will give an account to the Lord on a future day, and we have several passages that make reference to that idea, that there's a giving of an account, rather than the position that, hey, I'm going to climb the earthly hierarchy, It's a matter of they're given positions as under-shepherds, as ones who don't sleep, and instead of trying to climb the ladder of earthly authority, it's ones who are going to have to give an account to the one who has authority over all eternity. That's a real different picture, isn't it? We're no longer in a spot of trying to climb the ladder and kissing somebody's feet or bowing down or giving them special titles. None of that. Instead, you're looking at these are leaders who are under shepherds who will give an account.

Yes, Marilyn. That is true too. This is pointing specifically to those leaders are ones who need to be accountable to the Lord. So this is not independent. Yes, you are going to give an account before the Lord. No, no, no. This is an account to the Lord in the future. It's not to displace your giving an account or your standing before the Lord at all.

This is every person. Everyone will stand before the Lord. But in the role of under-shepherds, those who take that role will give an account for the Lord. How did they under-shepherd? Or go beyond it. Yes, as to their specific role. Yeah. Yes, thank you. Yeah, Ben?

Yeah, I mean, if you think about it, if I'm told, don't lord it over, and I look at verses like this, this isn't the sort of thing that says, hey, I'm going to try to climb for every bit of authority I can have and try to get people under my thumb. That's the last thing I'm going to do. Instead, when I see verses like this, I say, I better take what I'm doing real carefully and come before the Lord with it.

Remember that shepherds were not well regarded in the biblical times. That was a low position. When the shepherds who were told of Jesus coming went into Bethlehem, we know not from scripture but from the cultural descriptions at the time, people probably didn't even want to talk to them. So being a sheep, pardon? Sure, they're hanging out with sheep all the time. They're sitting out there in the field and hanging out with the sheep. Here's these guys, they haven't slept all night and they're stinky and everything. Now you're coming in and trying to, you know, ask us where this baby is when we're busy, you know, okay? Yeah, Carol? Well, it seems to me that for many churches, the robe, the robe is a set of... Robe, and then they put them on some highly exalted pedestal up there and the titles are phenomenal. the right reverend, prebendary, whatever that means.

There is no title reverend for any under-shepherd in scripture. Just isn't. As a matter of fact, the one place where the word reverend is used in the King James, it says, God says reverend is my name. Whoa. That's not something I want to grab. And that's even why even just grabbing a title pastor is not something I want to grab for either, because the only place the word pastor is used as a title is for Christ, not for me. I'll take it with a small p. Yes, and that's the Ephesians 4 passage that is referenced there, Ephesians 4 11, and that's the only place where it's given as a noun. The other places in Acts 20, And 1 Peter 5, it's given as a verb command.

You must shepherd. Again, God's not interested in titles, He is interested in action. And I think that's something explicitly, when you look at elders as shepherds going before the Lord someday, there's an accountability. Did you take this as action or did you take this as title? Were you grabbing for power or were you grabbing for people to understand their position? and a huge distinction, and the whole church has obviously gotten caught up the wrong way in looking at that. 1 Peter 5, 1-4, here's the pattern you see, here's Peter, I exhort the elders among you, notice that, among you, here's the elders, prosputeros, and what does he tell them in a command form imperative verb, shepherd, poimaino, shepherd the flock.

Not a title. He says you're the shepherds. No. He says shepherd, command form. Imperative. Shepherd the flock. And then exercising oversight, that's a verb and that is the verb form that is episkopos or overseer. It is translated as Marilyn was asking about earlier, bishop. But the point being here it's not even given as a title, it's a verb.

So you find absolutely no basis whatsoever for the hierarchy. Just isn't. Don't see it. You don't see any reason for people exalting themselves over some other group or taking on special titles. None whatsoever. And notice as he puts this here, he says shepherd, and that was not an exalted position, that was a position that was low in the culture. So just take on that low role. That's your spot.

Notice in verse 4, when the chief shepherd, that's where the word poimen is used as a title that we translate pastor in Ephesians 4.11. That's where Christ is given the title shepherd. But that title shepherd is never applied to earthly elders. Never. Not once. So when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.

And that's the same message we just read in Hebrews, isn't it? You're going to appear before the Chief Shepherd. There will be an accounting given. The Lord's intent, by the way, in this accounting is not to sit there and make us shake our knees and quiver, but what can I reward you for? It's unfortunate that some will have nothing for which to be rewarded. And that's part of his point here. He says, operate this way, and then you will receive the unfading crown of glory. There is that accountability, and Peter underscores it here, just as we read in Hebrews 13. Scripture is amazingly and wonderfully consistent. We know of just in Jerusalem, you know, like one or two names.

Other than that, we do not have the name, Ben's right, of any elder in the entire New Testament. How about that? Okay? Other than just in Jerusalem, and that quickly faded, I can't tell you the name of any New Testament elder. You saw that list of appointed elders and elders and elders and elders? Can't tell you the name of one.

Anonymous. And that's a good thing. It's because those elders, perhaps the one who said, I want to be first, held that title, but he was actually exalting himself above being an elder. But you're right. We can't name a single New Testament elder outside of Jerusalem, and that only briefly. And the anonymity is, I think, very intentional. Ben's point is well taken. Very intentional. not to make a big name for themselves.

What happens now, even here in the Protestant churches, is we go and take the name of some leader, and, oh, that's so-and-so's church. And some of them even have a so-and-so Bible. Have you noticed that? They'll have a Bible named after this guy, and he's the big kahuna. There is no biblical basis for that, and for some guy to stand above, where in some cases the identity of the man is easier to recall than the name of the church. Wow. We're talking getting profoundly unbiblical quick here.

And so there are a number of churches, Protestant, Catholic, doesn't matter, who have taken on unbiblical titles and roles and positions and exalted a man. What's the first thing? Here's the immature church. First Corinthians, right? First chapter. What did he talk about? Some say, I follow Peter, and I follow Paul, and what does Paul say about that? Bull feathers. Okay? Yes. Bull feathers. He says, you know, the Lord never intended you to be following a man. Don't be doing it. Don't be splitting yourselves up by following a man. Okay? No way.

He, at the outset of this letter, here's a long list of issues, but that's the first thing he goes after, and what do churches do? Hey, let's have a, you know, so-and-so Bible. Hey, let's have a so-and-so, you know, tape series. And pretty soon we got this singular guy up there, and we have violated the scriptural pattern. Okay? Okay.

Next time we'll be going to the history of the doctrines of salvation. And as we do that, what we're going to see is that the doctrines of salvation, as the church hierarchy started developing more and more, taller and taller, if you will, the doctrines of salvation were likewise affected.

And what we'll find is that the hierarchy ends up becoming the means and channel to salvation. So the error of the hierarchy leads to the error of the doctrine of salvation. So that's the reason for the sequence that we've got here. If you were going to say that this particular guy in the hierarchy has this and this particular authority of salvation, you've got to have the hierarchy there first. So that's the reason for the sequence we've been through. Once you see the hierarchy building up, now the doctrine follows it. The doctrine of salvation got built around the hierarchy that developed. Pretty soon, instead of a saving faith in a saving Savior, at a saving church. I'll see that next. Okay? Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for everything that you have done for us, all that you have provided. And Lord, as we look at this subject of those who are to lead, Lord, that leading is not by exaltation or title, but instead by your very life. The recognition that would come with that would come on the day that the leaders stand before you and not before. We thank you, Lord, for every way in which you have blessed us in the heavenlies, each and every one of us. In Jesus' name, Amen.