Elder Rule
“The best way to show that a stick is crooked is not to argue about it or to spend time denouncing it, but to lay a straight stick alongside it.” D.L. Moody. The doctrine of the local church is laid out for us in the New Testament. Pauline literature contains most of this truth considering the fact that he was the minister of the mystery of church. The issue that we want to address today that leaders will face when they leave Bible College is that there are churches in this country that claim to be Baptist but yet practice elder rule or Presbyterian Church government. Rather than spending our time here arguing about why elder rule is wrong we will allow truth to expose error light to expose darkness.
The doctrine of the local church that is found in the New Testament only has qualifications for two church offices that of a pastor and a deacon. In the list of qualifications it gives also the duties that the pastor is to carryout in his ministry as the shepherd. The duties that he is to carry out are: ruling, guarding the truth, general oversight, and teaching. Those are the duties that are listed but his ministry will consist of preaching, teaching, and evangelism.
The one major characteristic that differentiates between people who know the Bible and people who know about the Bible is whether they use the Bible as a whole or isolate scripture to prove a point. When we examine these verses they all give the qualifications for one office. They also list the duties for one office. The first duty we will look at will be ruling. 1 Timothy 5:17 (ESV) 17 let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. In this verse it states that they are worthy of honor those who rule and teach. 1 Timothy 3:5 (ESV) 5 for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? This verse says that his ability to rule his house is an indicator of his ability to rule the church. 1 Peter 5:2-3 (ESV) shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; 3 not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. In I Tim 3:2 it says that he must be apt to teach. In these verses as we are given qualifications for Pastors it says they rule and teach.
When we continue in I Timothy 3 starting in verse 8 we find the qualifications for a deacon. The issue in these verses here is that the only difference in the two offices is that the deacon does not have to teach. Deacons still must be blameless and have their house in order but they do not need to teach. One may argue then that the deacons contain the qualifications then for the ruling elder if that were the case then you would still have only two church offices not three.
