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Pastors and the Church
by Pastor Matthew Johnson
Responsibilities of Pastors to the Church
God’s organized organism is the local church. The local church is made up of sinners who have placed their trust in Christ alone for forgiveness and restoration of relational worship with God having become saints. God has placed leadership over his church to guide her and protect her, not to lord and control the church’s saints (I Pet. 5:1-4). God gave the church two categories of gifted leaders both to form the structure and to facilitate growth and expansion of the church (Eph. 4:11-13). God’s ultimate intent is glory in and through the church (Eph. 3:21). God’s glory in building his church is accomplished when God’s leadership and God’s people function in harmony with each other. There is a Biblical pattern for how this is accomplished.
Formative Gifts (Eph. 4:11)
Originally, God gave Apostles to form the structure of the church, this was the job of the twelve, Paul calls himself one born out of due time, and the least of the Apostles. In other words, he recognized that the original twelve were apostles, and he was the exception to the rule. God used the Apostles to give Spirit led structure and teaching to the church. As the Apostles died off, so did their gift, but their teaching remains in the NT which really is God’s teaching as he led each one specifically in his writing (II Tim. 3:16; II Pet. 1:20-21). Prophets were other individuals God used along with the Apostles to form doctrine and correct understanding of God’s Word—Mark, James, Jude, Luke, were examples of Prophets. As the Word of God was completed and the Apostolic age came to a conclusion, the prophetic gifts also ceased to be necessary for the church. The Apostles and Prophets were used of God to form his church, and God used the next two gifted leaders to expand and lead his church.
Expansive Gifts (Eph. 4:11)
Evangelists or literally, gospelizers, were those individuals who were led by God to expand the ministry of the church by preaching the Gospel and organizing together those who accept the Gospel into local churches. I believe many have misunderstood the gift of evangelists and have characterized them as itinerate preachers who travel in RV’s doing week long revival meetings. I hardly believe that is what Paul had in mind when he told Timothy, the young pastor, to do the work of an evangelist. The fourth tier of leadership God gave is called Pastor/Teacher. These men are called in other places, elders (I Pet. 5:1; Titus 1:5; I Tim. 5:17). Whereas it was the Apostles’ job to institute God’s church with the correct doctrine and the Prophet’s job to proclaim and write down God’s Word-both being formative gifted leaders, it was the evangelists’ and pastors’ job to grow and strengthen the church upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets (which is the gospel of Jesus Christ). I believe this has been manifested over and over again as church planters are led into an area to preach the Gospel where people have not heard or no church is established. As evangelists, they plant the Good News seed, water it and nurture it and as it sprouts and begins to grow, God leads that new church to choose elders/pastors/bishops to lead the church in growing in the grace of God. Obviously if Apostles and Prophets are no longer necessary with the completion of Scripture, the role of evangelist is necessary (or we might call them missionaries today) and the role of pastors or elders is necessary to continue to guide the church. As the church grew, the infrastructure of the church needed to keep up with discipleship, so the Apostles thought it good to have the church choose out men who were honest, of good report, and spirit-filled, so that the Apostles could appoint them to different areas of service for the infrastructure of the church. These men were eventually called deacons, which mean servants. All are called to be servants, but these served in a more formal capacity than most, and their primary responsibility was to relieve the Apostles (teachers) from duties that would keep them from prayer and study. Deacons were individuals chosen not because of human ability, or potential, but because they were already devoted to Christ and to the ministry of the church (Philip and Stephen are examples). The elders and deacons have extensive character and spiritual qualifications given in Scripture, not to separate them from the rest of the flock as more spiritual; but rather, these are the only two offices chosen by the church therefore the church needed guidance in selecting them. Sadly, many pastors and deacons are not chosen based on the qualities in Timothy and Titus but on more carnal means (wealth, style, personality, vocal, etc.)
What then is the purpose of the leadership within the church, the body of Christ? Considering mainly Pastors or elders, the purpose is found in their three titles– Elder (Mature), Bishop (Overseer), Pastor (Shepherd) (I Peter 5). From this text we see that a pastor should be a mature shepherd who watches over God’s people. The role of pastor is primarily spiritual; therefore we need to add that word into the description. He should be spiritually mature feeding the people (sheep) with spiritual food, while watching over the spiritual well-being of the people of God. Hebrews 13 tells the church to obey these leaders and submit to them, not because of any superiority on their part, but because they must give an account to how they lead; and also that it is for the benefit of the church that she submit to their leadership. Obviously, we don’t want to be a stumbling block toward someone who must give an account to God, and if a pastor is frustrated and constantly fighting the people; he is less likely to sincerely care for, pray over, feed, and love them. It is similar to children who routinely exasperate their parents can expect the leadership in the home to become less and less pleasant. This is, of course, with the understanding that all pastors will fail and all congregations will fail, but blessed are those pastors and flocks that admit and repent of their sin and failure. Read the rest of this entry »