Hi, I'm David Bercot, and tonight we're going to be talking about what the early Christians believed and practiced concerning church government. We're going to be looking at four things. First, we'll talk about what type of church government they had in the early centuries. Next, we're going to look at the type of training that these men received who served as leaders. Third, we're going to look at how the leaders were chosen, whether it was by lot, by democratic election, or by appointment.
And then fourth, we'll discuss how the early Christian leaders were supported materially. Then after that, in the final part of tonight's message, we're going to look at what went wrong with the pattern of church leadership over the centuries. And at the very end, I want to talk a little bit about how to restore early Christian government in our churches today. So to begin, we're going to be talking about the type of church government the early Christians had. Let's begin by looking at the New Testament model.
Now, throughout much of the period covered by the book of Acts, the type of church government was in flux. New things were being established and set up as churches were growing throughout the world. But by the end of the book of Acts, I think there's a model in place that was no doubt universal throughout at least the established churches. Paul makes reference to this in his letter to the Philippians, chapter 1, verse 1.
He says, "To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons." So he talks about two types of church leaders. There were the bishops. The Greek word there is episcopos, which means literally overseer. It was not a specialized church term, although it became that over a period of time. And then the second class of leaders were the deacons. And that is translated, it's really a transliteration from the Greek of diakonos, which meant simply a servant.
Now, one of the things that's, I think, important we notice is that there was a plurality of leadership. You never read in the established churches of the presence of a single pastor. It's always bishops plural, or overseers plural, and deacons plural. In 1 Timothy, chapter 2, verses 2 and 8, or really you could read the entire passage, but I'm going to just be reading from those two verses. Paul talks to Timothy about the qualifications of a bishop and of a deacon.
He says, "A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate," and then he gives a number of other qualifications. And then further on he says, "Likewise, deacons must be reverent, not double-tongued." Now, when you compare the two lists of qualifications, one of the things that stands out is that for a person to be qualified to serve as an overseer or bishop, he had to be qualified to teach. However, that is not one of the qualifications for a deacon.
And from the writings of the early Christians, it becomes quite obvious that the bishops and the deacons had separate functions. The deacons tended more with physical matters, like the seven men in Acts who were appointed to wait on the tables to distribute food to the widows. In contrast, the bishops are normally the ones who are pastoring, that is, shepherding the flock, and who are doing the teaching in the church.
But in both of these letters of Paul, Philippians and 1 Timothy, he only notes two orders or two types of leaders. There's bishops and there's deacons. Now, when he wrote Titus with very similar instructions, he says this. He says, "For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking, and appoint elders in every city, as I commanded you.
If a man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of dissipation or insubordination, for a bishop must be blameless." Now, here we're introduced to a new term, that is, elders. The Greek word there is presbyteros. But as you notice there in that passage from Titus, Paul uses the terms interchangeably.
He starts off telling Titus to appoint elders in the city, and then he starts giving the qualifications, and at the end he says, "For a bishop must be blameless." So obviously a bishop and an elder are one and the same at this point in church history. And that becomes clear from other New Testament passages. If we go to the 20th chapter of Acts, and I'll start reading there from verse 17, we read this account, "From Miletus, he," that's Paul, "sent to Ephesus and called for the elders of the church.
And when they had come to him, he said to them, 'Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among whom the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God.'" So there again, he's addressing the elders, and he says, "The Holy Spirit has made you overseers or bishops." So there aren't three orders at this point: bishops, presbyters, and deacons. There's this bishops and deacons or elders and deacons, however you want to say it. Bishops and elders or overseers and elders were one and the same.
And this usage is also mirrored in the first letter of Peter, 1 Peter 5, verses 1 and 2. He says, "The elders who are among you, I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed, shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers." So very similar to Paul's message to the elders from Ephesus, Peter addresses the elders in his letter and says to shepherd the flock, serving as overseers.
So one of the functions of the bishop or elder was to be shepherding the flock of God, to pastor it, and to be exercising oversight over it. That's never mentioned in connection with deacons of exercising oversight, of shepherding, or of teaching. As I said, their function seems to be limited to more physical types of ministry.
Now, there's one other passage I want to read from the New Testament before we move into the early part of the second century, and that's Ephesians 4:11, where Paul says, "He himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry." Here we're introduced to a whole different set of terms: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.
And some have asked, "Okay, are these additional offices like that of bishop and deacon? Was there also an office of evangelist or pastor or teacher or an office of prophet?" The New Testament doesn't shed a whole lot of light on that question. There's a little bit, but it is noteworthy that when Paul is giving instructions to both Titus and Timothy about appointing leaders in the church, he only talks about bishops or elders and deacons.
He doesn't talk about appointing pastors, appointing evangelists, appointing teachers. Interestingly, one of the earliest Christian writings we have after the New Testament, that is the Didache, sheds considerable light on this question of who were these prophets and teachers. I'm going to read to you a passage from chapter 11 of the Didache. It says, "Whoever therefore comes and teaches you all these things that have been said before, receive him.
But if the teacher himself turns and teaches another doctrine to the destruction of this, do not listen to him. But if he teaches so as to increase righteousness and the knowledge of the Lord, receive him as you would the Lord. But concerning the apostles and prophets, act according to the decree of the gospel. Let every apostle who comes to you be received, but he shall not remain more than one day, or two days if there's a need.
But whoever says in the spirit, 'Give me money,' or something else, you shall not listen to him. But if he tells you to give for other's sake who are in need, let no one judge him." So the Didache was written at a time when many churches apparently did not have permanent leaders, and they were served by traveling prophets, teachers, and apostles.
Now, here the word apostle is being used not in the strict sense of like the 12 or Paul, someone directly appointed by Jesus himself, but rather someone more like a missionary, a person we would call a missionary today. And so they would refer to Timothy or Barnabas or Mark, someone like that as an apostle, even though they weren't one of the original 12.
But if the Didache was written about the year 100, which is the usual estimated date given, the type of leadership that it gives light to probably existed only in new churches that were being founded, because we know for a fact that in Philippi, Ephesus, these other places, they already had permanent leaders there, bishops and deacons or elders and deacons, however you want to say it. Now, chapter 15 of the Didache sheds even more light.
It says, "Appoint for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, meek men and not lovers of money, and truthful and proved, for they also render to you the service of prophets and teachers. Therefore do not despise them, for they are your honored ones together with the prophets and teachers." So with that piece of information, I think we can put it all together.
The permanent offices in the church were bishops and deacons, but you did have traveling teachers and apostles and prophets, and one person might be all three of those. He might be an apostle and a prophet and a teacher all in one. Now, over time, the office of these traveling ministers of God, the evangelists, the prophets, the traveling teachers and apostles, they all disappeared. You don't read about any such people in the second half of the second century or in the third century.
The traveling offices gave way to the bishops and deacons in the church, permanent men who stayed in one place. But again, it's interesting to note that in the New Testament and here in the Didache, it's always plural. It's never one pastor or one deacon. It's always mentioned in the plural. And that seems to be an important apostolic principle that began with Jesus' selection of the 12, that he wanted the ministry to always be plural, that authority would not reside just in one man.
Now, another very early writing we have is the letter written by Clement on behalf of the church at Rome. The reason why the letter was written by the church in Rome through Clement was that different ones in the church in Corinth had written them and asked for their help because apparently after the apostles had all died, there was a rebellion in the church. When we read 1 and 2 Corinthians, we're aware that there were divisions there.
Well, apparently these divisions then became bold enough to rear their faces, and they threw out the whole body of leaders that the apostles had appointed there, and they selected a new body of elders. But what we're interested in in the letter of Clement of Rome is what it reveals about church leadership. Here's a couple of passages I want to read.
One of them, Clement writes, "Preaching throughout countries and cities, the apostles appointed the first fruits of their labors to be bishops and deacons of those who would believe afterward." So again, we see the same pattern of bishops and deacons, and from what we know, Clement of Rome was a disciple of the apostle Paul himself. So he's speaking from personal knowledge.
Another part of his letter, he says, "Our sin will not be small if we eject from oversight those who have blamelessly and with holiness fulfilled their duties." He's talking about what the group there in Corinth had done, had ousted the ones the apostles had appointed, even though they were blameless.
He goes on and says, "Blessed are those presbyters who have obtained a fruitful and perfect departure, having finished their course before now." So we see in his letter the same use of elder or presbyter and bishop interchangeably. He never talks about more than two offices, bishop and deacon or elder and deacon. He never mentions bishops and elders as being separate. He uses them interchangeably in the letter. So once again, we have a twofold order, and we have a plurality of leaders.
The letter of Hermas, which was written sometime between the year 100 or maybe 150, it also gives witness to this ancient order of leadership. It writes, "Those square white stones which fitted exactly into each other are apostles, bishops, teachers, and deacons who have lived in godly purity and have acted as bishops, teachers, and deacons chastely and reverently." So this is still very early in the church's history. And again, he talks about bishops and deacons, and then he also talks about apostles and teachers.
It's very reminiscent of the Didache, which is why I tend to think that the writing of Hermas was probably closer to the year 100. Regardless, we see the same pattern that the apostles set up. Now we're going to move all the way to the year 170 or 180, the writings of Irenaeus. And he says this, "We refer them to that tradition which originates from the apostles and is preserved by the succession of elders in the churches.
The faith preached to men comes down to our time by means of the succession of the bishops." So there he talks about the succession of elders, and then in the very next sentence, he talks about the succession of bishops, indicating that in his mind, elders and bishops were still regarded as one office.
Another passage of his, he says, "The church nourishes such elders of whom also the prophet says, 'I will give you rulers in peace and your bishops in righteousness.'" Again, using the terms elders and bishops interchangeably. I'm going to give you one other passage in which he uses the terms interchangeably again. He says, "Now all these heretics are of much later date than the bishops to whom the apostles committed the churches.
Therefore, those who desert the preaching of the church call into question the knowledge of the holy elders." Now, Irenaeus was writing from the country of Gaul, not in the mainstream of things, more towards the edge of it. And his writings would indicate that at that late date, at least in Gaul, that the office of bishop and elder were seen pretty much as interchangeable, not as two different orders.
So up to this point, we see that the pattern the apostles left was that of a twofold order, bishops or elders and deacons. And we've seen that at least in some parts of the world, this may still have been the order in place, as late as the year 170 or 180. But way back around the year 100, there was a different order being used in other churches.
And the person who gives witness to this is Ignatius, who was a disciple of the apostle John, and he wrote letters about the year 105 when he was on his way to Rome under chain to be put to death. And on his journey, he would stop and write letters to various churches to encourage them to remain faithful. And here are some passages from some of his letters.
He says, "I have had the privilege of seeing you through Damas, your most worthy bishop, and through your worthy presbyters or elders, Bassus and Apollonius, and through my fellow servant, the deacon Zotion." And again, in another letter, he says, "He who does anything apart from the bishop, the presbyters, and the deacons, such a man is not pure in his conscience." And again, in another letter, he says, "There is one bishop along with the elders and deacons, my fellow servants." So he gives witness to a threefold
order of a bishop and then elders and deacons.
And he's not the one who instituted that. These were already in order in a number of the churches to whom he writes. And the big question that comes up is, was this an early corruption that had come into the church, or was this an apostolic arrangement? Well, that's a question we're not going to be able to answer with certainty in this life because there just isn't enough evidence to be able to say with certainty, this was definitely a human innovation or this was definitely something the apostles had set in order.
I'll let you weigh the evidence and make your own decision on that. Let me explain to you a little bit about how this threefold arrangement worked. In the large cities, there were many congregations of Christians. They didn't all meet in one place. At the time when Ignatius was writing his letters, it was a capital crime just to be a Christian. I mean, he had been arrested by the Roman authorities and was going to be put to death just for being a Christian. So Christians didn't meet in big auditoriums and that.
They had to meet in small house churches. Now, each house church would have its own elders or maybe elder and deacons to serve it. But in order to coordinate the whole city, there would be one bishop and only one bishop for the city. So you would have all of these different elders who were pastoring various house churches, say, in the city of Ephesus, and then the bishop would act as the coordinating person, the spokesman for the whole city.
Now, on the one hand, we see no witness to this type of order in the New Testament. And so that would argue that perhaps this was simply a human innovation. On the other hand, the first place that we see this threefold arrangement is in Asia Minor, where the apostle John had his final ministry. This is the area that was last influenced by one of the 12 apostles. And so it would seem strange if this was a human innovation, why it would spring up at the very place that had its last apostolic overseer.
And so my own guess, this is just my opinion, I think this was an arrangement that the apostle John put into place since the age of the apostles was passing from the scene. Now, it's important to remember that this office of bishop later became something very different from what it was in, say, the year 105, where a bishop served more in the capacity as the chairman, the spokesman for the body of elders in a given city.
Well, regardless of whether the threefold system was a corruption or something that the apostle John had established, by the year 250 AD, this threefold order is universal throughout the church. In fact, by 150 AD, it appears that the threefold order is the predominant form in use. Let me just read to you a few quotations. This one is from Clement of Alexandria from about the year 195.
He says, "Innumerable commands like these are written in the Holy Scriptures pertaining to chosen persons, some to presbyters or elders, some to bishops, some to deacons." So there in Alexandria, they evidently had a threefold system in order. He refers to it again in another one of his writings.
He says, "According to my opinion, the grades here in the church of bishops, elders, and deacons are imitations of the angelic glory." Tertullian, who wrote from Carthage in one of his works that dates back to about the year 212, says, "But when persons in authority themselves, I mean the very deacons, elders, and bishops take flight, how will a layman be able to see?" The letters of Cyprian all make reference to this threefold order. He was a bishop who lived around the year 250.
Likewise, the letters that were written to him, for example, a letter to him is addressed this way: "To Cyprian, bishop of the church of Carthage, Moses and Maximus, elders, and Nicostratus and Rufinus, deacons." A fairly minor early Christian writer named Malchion, who wrote about the year 270, mentions this.
He says, "To all our fellows in the ministry throughout the world, bishops, elders, and deacons, and to the whole Catholic Church or Universal Church under heaven." The letter of Phileas, written about the year 307, says, "All these bishops, elders, and deacons had suffered martyrdom in the prison at Alexandria." In fact, I've been unable to find any references to the twofold order after the year 250 AD. So, as I said, it had become pretty near universal by that time.
But again, in speaking of bishops and elders or presbyters, we shouldn't necessarily conjure up the images that those words might bring up in today's church or in the church of the Middle Ages. At least at the beginning, the bishop was essentially a first among equals. There's no references of bishops operating independently of the body of elders there in the city where they served as bishop. They appeared to be more the chairman or coordinating elder and a first among equals.
But as time passed, they became to be viewed as a rank above elders and that only they could perform certain functions that even elders couldn't perform. Now, I briefly want to talk about the training of church leaders in the early centuries of the church and how things basically worked. Now, today's evangelical churches are typically governed by a pastor and a board of deacons or sometimes a body of elders.
Normally, the pastor is a professionally trained man with a seminary degree who wasn't raised in the congregation that has hired him. He usually has a contract or some sort of understanding. He's paid a certain amount of salary, and the congregation can hire and fire him. Likewise, he's free to move to another congregation if he so desires. Now, sometimes the pastor in today's evangelical churches has governing authority. Sometimes he doesn't.
Sometimes all the governing decisions are made by the elders or deacons, and he's just paid basically to preach and to pastor. In larger churches, there will often be assistant pastors, youth pastors, other positions like that. And again, they are normally professionally trained people, and they're given a certain salary. There's a hiring contract there. Likewise, in today's churches, the body of elders or in Southern Baptist churches are called deacons. They're normally men with full-time jobs.
Their basic function is to oversee church finances and programs, and often they're the ones who establish church policy. But typically, no one in the church goes to them for spiritual counseling, and the typical thing is they're not even shepherds of the flock. Now, maybe they're supposed to serve in that function, and sometimes in some churches they do, but normally all of the shepherding is done by the hired pastor or assistant pastors.
So, although we use many of the same names for church leaders as did the early Christians, such as elders or presbyters and deacons, the church government in most churches today differs considerably from that of the early church in substance. Because in the early church, the bishops or elders, they weren't outsiders who were brought into the local church. They had generally lived in that community for years.
Their strengths and their weaknesses were well known to the entire congregation, and they didn't qualify to serve as an elder or bishop because they had studied in school and had all of this great theological knowledge. There were no seminaries in the early church. A man learned the necessary skills to be a church leader through the school of experience. He was trained by the existing body of elders, and he learned how to walk closely with God and how to shepherd others by seeing and imitating their examples.
He was given hands-on experience under their supervision. He was allowed to make mistakes. And he was a person who had to be able to teach by example as well as by word before he would even be considered to serve as an elder or bishop. The congregation was just as interested in the depth of a leader's spirituality as they were in the depth of his knowledge. That's what they were looking at before they would select him. How close was this man to God? Had he lived for years as an example to other Christians?
Was he ready to lay down his life for Christ? As Tertullian told the Romans, he said, "Our elders are proven men who obtained their position not by purchase, but by established character." The early Christian writer Lactantius explained the difference between Christian leaders and teachers and those of the pagan teachers and philosophers. He says, "As to anyone who teaches principles to live by and molds the characters of others, I ask, is he not obligated himself to live by the principles he teaches?
If he himself does not live by them, his teaching is nullified. His student will answer him like this: 'I can't practice the things you teach because they're impossible. You forbid me to be angry. You forbid me to covet. You forbid me to lust, and you forbid me to fear pain and death.' This is totally contrary to nature. All living creatures are subject to these emotions.
If you are so convinced that it is possible to live contrary to natural impulses, first let me see you practice the things you teach, so I will know they are possible." And Lactantius continues, he says, "How will the teacher take away this excuse from the self-willed unless he teaches them by his example so they can see with their own eyes that the things he teaches are possible? For this very reason, no one obeys the teachings of the philosophers.
Men prefer examples to words because it is easy to speak but difficult to act." Now, once an elder or bishop was appointed in a church, he normally stayed in that local church for the rest of his life unless persecution forced him to move out. He didn't serve there for three or four years and then move to a larger congregation with a bigger salary or something like that. It was a lifetime appointment when an elder or bishop was selected. Now, let's talk about how the early Christians selected their leaders.
In fact, let's start with the beginning of the church. Right after Jesus ascended to heaven, the book of Acts talking about the apostles said, "And they prayed and said, 'You, O Lord, who knows the hearts of all, show which of these two you have chosen to take part in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell.'" And it says, "And they cast their lots, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the 11 apostles." That's Acts 1 verses 24 through 26.
So the very first leader selected in the church after Jesus ascended to heaven was selected by lot. However, this wasn't a random lot. The apostles had narrowed down the selection to two men who were both fully qualified, and then they let the Lord make the final decision from there. In fact, our English word clergy comes from the Greek word kleros, which means lot. And so, based on this passage in Acts, some churches today choose their leaders by using a lot.
Again, normally they narrow it down to men who meet the biblical qualifications, and then from those men, they use a lot to select which one God would have serve in that capacity. But the lot isn't the only New Testament method that is described. When we move over to Acts chapter 6 verses 2 through 4, it says, "Then the 12 summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, 'It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables.
Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business, but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.'" Now, even though these seven who were chosen are not specifically referred to as deacons, normally we look to their selection as maybe the first instance of deacons being selected because their ministry was to serve the tables, to take care of the widows and orphans, while the
ministry of the apostles, it says, was for prayer and ministry of the word, which eventually devolved down to the bishops and elders having that responsibility.
But here we notice that instead of using a lot, the apostles told the congregation to select the men. First, they had to meet the qualification of being of good reputation and full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. And then the apostles were the ones who did the appointing after the congregation made the selection. So, based on this, many congregations today would select their elders and deacons through a vote of the congregation.
Okay, then when we go further in Acts, go to chapter 14, it's talking here about Paul and Barnabas, and it says, "When they had appointed elders in every church and prayed with fasting," and it goes on from there. So here it talks about appointing elders and that Paul and Barnabas did that. Now, it's possible the congregation voted for those elders, just as had occurred in Acts chapter 6, voting for the seven men, even though the apostles did the final appointing, and so that may have been the case.
But when we move to the letters to Timothy and Titus, it certainly gives the impression that Titus and Timothy were the ones making the selection because Paul gives them the qualifications that a bishop or elder and a deacon must meet.
For example, he says to Titus, Titus 1 verse 5, he says, "For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you." So some churches today, based on this apostolic pattern, feel that bishops or elders or any other type of minister should be selected by the existing ministers, just as Titus and Timothy apparently did the selection of the elders and deacons in those congregations where they ministered.
So we see three patterns in the New Testament: using a lot, using congregational voting, and using appointment by an existing minister. And as I've mentioned, there are churches today that would fall into each one of these categories, and every one of them can say, "Well, we're following the example in the Bible." Perhaps the lesson from all of this is that God isn't as interested in the method we use to select our church leaders, but in the qualifications of those leaders whom we do select.
Now, when we leave the New Testament, Clement of Rome, in his letter written about the year 96, says, "In preaching throughout countries and cities, the apostles appointed the first fruits of their labors to be bishops and deacons of those who believed afterwards." So there it talks about the apostles doing the appointing. And you may remember I read to you that passage earlier when we were talking about the two orders of bishops and deacons in the church.
Likewise, I read to you this passage from the Didache where it says, "Appoint for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, meek men and not lovers of money, and truthful and proved." Now here, the Didache is being written to the people of the congregation, and it says, "Appoint for yourselves." So it implies that the congregation did the selecting and appointing. Now, when we get to the third century, we find that the system has become a bit more fixed.
In one of his letters, Cyprian, who was the bishop in Carthage around the year 250, he described the process of selecting a new bishop or new overseer. He says, "He should be chosen in the presence of the people under the eyes of all and should be proved worthy and suitable by public judgment and testimony. For a proper ordination, all the neighboring overseers or bishops throughout the same province should assemble with the congregation.
The overseers should be chosen in the presence of the congregation since they are intimately familiar with his life and habits." So it sounds that the system that was in place there in Carthage and in the nearby area was that the congregation would make the selection since they knew the people intimately, but the ordination or appointment was carried out by the overseers or bishops of the surrounding churches in nearby towns and throughout the province.
And as far as I can tell, that was the process pretty well followed by all the churches in the third century and going up to the time of Constantine. Now, the last topic I want to discuss concerning the early church and church government before we get to the concluding section of our message tonight is how the leaders in the early church were supported.
When people ask me what the early church believed about supporting their ministers or paying salaries to them, they're almost never happy with the answer I give them. That's because there are virtually no churches around today that practice exactly what they did. Here's a brief description of what the early Christians did practice.
The church leaders, that is, the elders, the deacons, and later the bishops, they were all expected to give up any secular jobs that they had and to devote their full time to the ministry of the kingdom. In turn, they were supported by the offerings of the church in the same way that the church supported widows and orphans.
The bishop basically made the decision of how much of the offerings that he would use for his own sustenance and the sustenance of his family and what would go for the other work of the kingdom, such as supporting widows and orphans. The general rule is that the church leaders lived in poverty, living not much better than the widows and orphans.
One writer suggests that the bishop perhaps should receive double the portion that would be given to widows based on Paul's command about giving double honor to those who were devoting their lives to teaching in a fine manner. Interestingly, we have copies of a series of letters that were exchanged between two of the early Christian congregations. This would have been in the third century concerning the fact that an elder had been named as the executor in the will of a deceased Christian.
Now, under Roman law, a person named as executor in someone's will was required to serve whether he wanted to or not. Now, it's not that way today in our American law, but it was under Roman law. And the task of being an executor could be extremely time-consuming. So this elder was quite shocked that any brother or sister would name him as executor since that responsibility would take him away from his shepherding duties in the congregation. In fact, the entire body of elders were just stunned by this.
To serve as an elder or bishop or deacon in the early church, a man had to be willing to lay down everything for Christ. This began with his material possessions. As I said, an elder didn't leave his secular occupation in exchange for a middle-class salary from the congregation. In fact, actually, it was considered heretical for a congregation to pay any salary to the church leaders. And what I mean by that is the church supported its leaders out of the offerings, but there wasn't an agreed-upon salary.
It wasn't like a secular job. For example, Eusebius makes this reference. He says, "Natalius was persuaded by them to let himself be chosen bishop of this heresy on the understanding that he would receive from them a salary of 150 denarii a month.
He was ensnared by the distinction of presiding over them and by that sordid lust of gain that ruins very many." So the heretics were paying salaries to their bishops and elders, and that made serving as an elder in their groups much more desirable than in the church itself. Now, from what I've observed today, most churches differ from the early Christians in one of two ways.
One group of churches, the one I would refer to as conventional churches, they have a professional minister, someone who has gone to seminary, graduated, and applies for a position as minister. It's often someone they don't know very well. He spends a few weeks in the congregation, perhaps preaching, and they get an idea of what he's like, and then they agree upon a salary if they want to hire him. Because this congregation is hiring him, they can also fire him. But there are contractual obligations.
Like I say, he's assured of a salary and usually some other benefits. All right, that's the pattern in, like I say, most conventional churches. In other churches, such as the typical house church and in most Mennonite and Amish churches, at least the very conservative ones, the ministers and the other elders work full-time to provide for themselves and their family. They're not paid anything for their services to the congregation, but rather they have to fit their church responsibilities around their jobs.
Or perhaps it's the other way around. They fit their jobs around their church responsibilities. And the majority of churches that I've attended throughout my life would be those of pattern number two, that the church leaders support themselves with jobs and also work without compensation for the congregation. It makes for a very, very full schedule. But particularly where churches use a plurality in the ministry, it's something that is workable. It can be done.
Now, some congregations have a modified version of this type number two. The bishop and perhaps some other ministers receive some financial support from the congregation, but they provide most of their support through their own work. Now, both groups of churches, those who use the number one system paying a salary and those who use the number two where the ministers support themselves, they all have scriptures that they quote to back up their positions.
The ones who pay a salary refer to 1 Corinthians 9 verses 9 through 14, where it says, "For it is written in the law of Moses, 'You will not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.'" Is it oxen God is concerned about, or does he say it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written. The Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel. And again, what he wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2 verses 4 and 6.
Paul says, "No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life so that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier. The hardworking farmer must be first to partake of the crops." And then again in Galatians 6 verse 6, Paul says, "Let him who is taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches." So the principle is definitely there in the New Testament of supporting our ministers from the offerings of the congregation.
Now, none of those passages, however, talk about paying a salary. And as I said, in the early church, no salary was paid. Instead, as Paul says, "The hardworking farmer must be first to partake of the crops." The bishop would be the one receiving the offerings, and he would take out from the offerings what was needed for his support and the support of the other leaders, but usually it was a fairly modest amount.
That's why it was important that one of the qualifications of a bishop would be that he was not a lover of money since he would have the opportunity to misuse the situation. Now, those churches who don't pay any compensation to their leaders would point to the example of Paul in making tents to provide for his living. If we go to Acts 18 verses 1 through 4, we read, "After these things, Paul departed from Athens and went to Corinth.
And he found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome. And he came to them. So because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked, for by occupation they were tent makers.
And he," that's Paul, "reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and persuaded both Jews and Greeks." So there, when he was helping to found the church in Corinth, Paul provided for himself by making tents for a living. And then he would also preach in the synagogue, it says, every Sabbath. And I don't doubt that he preached in the marketplace and other places during the week as well. Years later, Paul wrote the Corinthians. This is in 2 Corinthians 12 verses 14 through 16.
He says, "Now for the third time, I am ready to come to you, and I will not be burdensome to you, for I do not seek yours," that meaning their offerings, "but you. And I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls. Be that as it may, I did not burden you." So even though Paul says he has the right to receive support, that the one preaching the gospel should be sustained by means of the gospel, he didn't always exercise that right at all. Instead, he supported himself in order not to be a burden to them.
And as I said, this would be the example that what are called plain churches, the Mennonites and Amish and the brethren would point to as their example for not paying any compensation to their leaders. Up to this point, we've talked about what early Christian leadership was like. Now we have to ask what went wrong. I think we all know that things changed and that church leadership departed dramatically from the pattern set up by the apostles.
Well, I think what went wrong was that the leaders of the church forgot the very specific instructions that Jesus had given them. He said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and those who are great exercised authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you. But whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave." Matthew 20 verses 24 through 27.
Now, the description that Jesus gave of the leaders that he wanted in the church would certainly describe the early generations of church leaders. As I've mentioned, they gave up secular employment to live in poverty. They worked full-time on behalf of the congregation and received enough to meet their daily needs, but not very much beyond that.
In many places in the early centuries, being appointed a bishop or an elder was tantamount to a death sentence because the leaders were the primary targets that the authorities went after. However, over time, the leaders forgot Jesus' words. Instead of being viewed as servants, the leaders were elevated above the people. For example, around the year 200 AD, you start seeing a distinction being made between the clergy and the laity.
The bishops and the elders start being referred to as priests, not just in the way of an analogy to the Old Testament pattern, but because they were viewed as having special powers that deacons and that the laity didn't have. This became quite distinct by the fourth century. For example, let me read to you what the apostolic constitutions have to say. Now, despite the name, this was a work that was compiled about the year 390.
It says, "When Moses made constitutions and divine laws, he distinguished among the things to be performed by the high priest, the priests, and the Levites. He distributed to each one his proper and suitable office in the divine service. The priests were not to meddle with the things that were allotted for the high priests, and the Levites were not to meddle with the things allotted to the priests.
Being taught by the Lord this series of things, the apostles allotted the functions of the high priesthood to the bishops, those of the priesthood to the presbyters, and the ministries under both of them to the deacons." And that would reflect probably the universal view in the fourth century. The only problem with this analogy is that the New Testament makes no such distinctions. In fact, the New Testament only knows a twofold order in the ministry.
I'll read to you another passage from the apostolic constitutions. It says, "Those who are called by us bishops, presbyters, or elders, and deacons were made such by prayer and by the laying on of hands. The difference of their names shows the difference of their duties.
For it is not lawful for a deacon to offer the sacrifice," that is, to present the communion, "to baptize or to give either the greater or the lesser blessing." These would be blessings given at the end of the service and one that was given during the service. "An elder may not perform an ordination, for it is not agreeable to holiness to have this order perverted, for God is not the God of confusion.
So subordinate persons should not tyrannically assume functions that belong to their superiors." See, this sounds very much like the political system set up by the Gentiles that Jesus said he did not want in his church, that the leaders he would appoint were not to exercise authority over the people. By that, he didn't mean that we shouldn't obey and honor our leaders, but they were not to be invested with this same kind of power that the Gentile secular leaders were invested with.
But that's exactly what ended up happening. When Constantine legalized Christianity and made it the favored religion of the Roman Empire, this had a considerable impact on church leaders. For one thing, the state now began paying salaries to church leaders. Bishops became advisors to the emperor. Bishops accompanied the armies to bless them and pray for them in their battles. An enormous amount of prestige, honor, and power now resided in the bishops.
This is revealed by the canons that were pronounced at the Council of Nicaea. Let me read to you just one of them, canon six. It said, "Let the ancient customs in Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis prevail, that the bishop of Alexandria have jurisdiction in all of these, since the like is customary for the bishop of Rome also. Likewise, in Antioch and the other provinces, let the churches retain their privileges.
And this is to be universally understood that if anyone is made a bishop without the consent of the Metropolitan, the great synod, that is, the Council of Nicaea, has declared that such a man ought not to be a bishop." So now, not being comfortable even with this threefold order and with the bishops being elevated above the elders, now the bishops in the principal cities of the Roman Empire, Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, wanted to have jurisdiction over other bishops. And so this hierarchy keeps increasing.
Instead of being one of the elders, the bishop is now more like one of the officers or governors of the empire. And the bishops in the big cities have authority over the bishops in the little cities, and they decide who can and cannot be a bishop. Well, before long, it was the emperors and the kings who were deciding who could and could not be a bishop, and they were appointing and removing bishops.
When the Western Empire fell to the Germanic invaders, the bishop of Rome, who we know as the pope, he took on the status previously enjoyed by the Western Roman emperor. In fact, the pope also served as the king of the city-state of Rome. And before long, the popes claimed that Constantine had invested them with all of the political power in Western Europe. As a result, during the Middle Ages, most of the popes and bishops were chosen from noble families or from very wealthy families.
The qualifications given in the New Testament for a bishop or an elder became irrelevant. What was most important was that you belonged to the right family. Most of the upper clergy in the Middle Ages were not only unspiritual, many of them were actually wicked. The church had come to own a huge amount of land in Europe, and this great wealth provided magnificent livings to many of the bishops. They lived in palaces, and often they hired others to carry out most of their duties.
In contrast, many of the parish priests were extremely poor, were illiterate, and had little knowledge of the scriptures. So there was a real spiritual famine in the church. Now, it's important when I say these things that you understand that not all bishops and not all popes and priests fit this mold. There were definitely godly bishops around. There were godly priests around during the Middle Ages. It wasn't all darkness, but it was a tremendous fall from the state that had been there in the early centuries.
As a whole, the teachings of Jesus about servanthood and the qualifications of leaders given by Paul were totally ignored. Now, the Reformation corrected many of these abuses. However, because the mainline Reformation put so much emphasis on theology, it soon meant that a man was considered unfit for the ministry unless he had obtained a theological degree from a university. The 12 apostles would have never qualified as ministers in these Protestant churches.
In fact, the first colleges set up in the United States were all originally established in order to train ministers. Becoming a minister was like becoming a statesman, a judge, an attorney, or something like that. It was a professional position with a salary. And the church could use the hire or fire a minister at will. The principle of plurality of leadership was ignored in many Protestant churches.
Now, in the 16th century, many of the Anabaptist congregations did return to the New Testament principles of servanthood and plural ministry. But even there, sometimes ministers elevated themselves high above the people. But in the centuries that followed the Reformation, various Bible-believing churches, both Anabaptist and others, attempted to return to the New Testament patterns. But what are some of those patterns? Well, one of the patterns was plurality of leadership.
And there's a reason why this was a principle of New Testament church government. No one person has all of the gifts. A person might be a very good teacher, but very poor at shepherding or counseling. Another person might be a wonderful shepherd with people, but perhaps is not a good preacher, and maybe is a very poor administrator. This is what is so good about having a plurality of leaders. The gifts can be spread out among different brothers.
All of the necessary gifts should be there, but they're not all going to reside necessarily in one person. The other reason why we see a plurality of leadership in the New Testament is because Jesus did not want one person to have too much power. He wanted the authority to be spread out among various persons because power does tend to corrupt. And when it's invested in one person, then as history shows, that person tends to forget that he's supposed to be a servant.
And that's the second principle of early Christian government and of New Testament church leadership. That is the servanthood of our leaders. Leaders in the church need to be servants, not lords. Now, that doesn't mean they don't have authority. It doesn't mean that the rest of us aren't to honor them and to obey what they tell us. But it does mean that they don't have arbitrary power the way the Gentile rulers did and that they shouldn't lord it over the congregation.
It means that they shouldn't tack titles onto their names like Father or Reverend or Most Reverend or His Holiness or things like that. How contrary to Jesus' instructions, those sort of titles go. And it means that the leaders in the church aren't part of a special class that elevates them beyond the rest of the congregation. Now, it means that they recognize that there is a universal priesthood of all believers.
A third principle of New Testament church leadership is that normally an elder or a bishop is appointed for life. It's not like a secular job where a congregation can hire and fire a minister at will, and yet that's how it works in most conventional churches. There is a reason why God set it up the way he did, that it would be a lifetime appointment. Because otherwise, the pastor is afraid to take tough stands on things that are socially unacceptable to the congregation.
For example, in a conventional church today, a pastor cannot preach and enforce Jesus' teachings on divorce. He can't preach or enforce the apostolic injunction about the head covering. And more and more, he can't even preach about headship in marriage. And this is a terrible wrong in the church because what has happened in conventional churches in most cases is that the congregation has set up somebody who will tickle their ears. Yes, he will preach most of the gospel to them.
He will exhort them towards godliness in that, but he won't preach everything in the New Testament because certain things will get him fired. And so he stays away from them and ignores them. Now, when I mention a lifetime appointment, I don't mean that a leader is not answerable to the congregation or that he can't be removed for wrongdoing or for other scriptural reasons. It's just that he doesn't serve at the whim of the congregation.
His appointment is from Jesus Christ ultimately, and that's who he is representing when he serves the congregation. Well, in conclusion, let's review what we've talked about. We looked at the type of church government that existed in the early church. We saw that they had a body of elders along with deacons. These were men who were part of the congregation who were chosen locally.
Eventually, the twofold system of elders and deacons or bishops and deacons gave way to a threefold system of bishop, elders, and deacon. We learned that the training these men received was just local learning from the existing leaders. They didn't go off to a university or seminary somewhere. They were homegrown leaders who learned through example. We learned how the leaders were chosen. We saw that in New Testament times it varied, and so it did at the beginning of the post-apostolic age.
But by the third century, the general pattern was the congregation as a group selected their leaders, but the leaders were appointed by the local bishop, or if they were selecting the local bishop, then he was appointed by the bishops of the neighboring congregations. Finally, we talked about how the early Christian leaders were supported materially.
We learned that they gave up their secular jobs and they lived off the donations that were given to the church from the offerings and tithes, just like the widows and orphans were sustained. But I want this message to be more than a history lesson. We do need to return to the apostolic principles of church leadership. Those principles are plurality of leaders, servanthood of leaders, and that our leaders must be unfettered. They have to be free to preach all of what the New Testament teaches.
And these are patterns that can be restored, and they need to be restored if our churches are going to fulfill the commission given them by Christ.