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What are the roles of a pastor? Is there a difference between pastors and.
Bishops.
Overseers elders, what are all these terms mean? We're gonna get into that on this episode of the rap report.
Welcome to the rap report with your host Andrew Rapaport where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of striving for eternity and the Christian podcast. For more content or to request a speaker for your church go to striving for eternity.
Well, welcome to this edition of the rap report. I am your host Andrew Rapaport. We are here to provide biblical interpretations and applications for all things in Christian life. I am the executive director of striving for eternity and the Christian podcast community of which this podcast is a proud member with over 50 heavily vetted podcasts you will find something that you can enjoy listening to.
With that we are continuing our Study in the topic of what is a pastor now? We spent some time looking at what a pastor is not. That was important. We looked at the fact that a pastor is not a woman. We spent a lot of time on that because well, that's the biggest issue that gets raised.
We're done with that. We talked about the fact that pastor is not someone that just goes out on the street and preaches that doesn't make someone a pastor. But what is a pastor and what I want to do is I'm gonna share some things that for some in the audience.
This may be the first time you're hearing it and it may seem a little different you may go wait that sounds off. That sounds odd. I'll challenge you to continue with us the we'll do an episode where we'll dig in to Specific scriptures and look at things in more detail.
I want to give an overview here and we're gonna look at some Passages to help us, but essentially let me give you some things right up front if this triggers you. Please don't turn it off. Don't ignore.
Listen to the whole thing check the scriptures and let's see what the scriptures actually say. Because in some churches now, there's different hierarchies of churches when it comes to the role of pastor or office that we call pastor now there are some churches that start to make distinctions between Pastor or a bishop an elder.
There's churches that start to make a view that there's Really the in function no difference between pastors and deacons. I'm gonna talk a little bit about deacons today and the differences that that role is.
The other thing that we end up seeing is the that there's some churches now you have the Presbyterian churches which have a Hierarchy of views of the the role or I'll say title office that I'm using those words can interchangeably of Pastor they have the teaching pastors.
They have lay pastors. There's differences there in in some Baptist churches. You have the the preaching pastor that is the paid guy and then they have deacons who function as pastors. Sometimes they have the pastor who's paid and the elders who are not paid are those two different roles.
Do they have two different authorities? These are the things that I'd like to dive into today and Look at because there's a lot of questions that we have With the office of the pastor and so what I want to do in this episode is to look at what is a pastor when we use the term a Shepherd or elder or overseer?
What what do those mean? What role does the pastor have? And as we do this, I hope that this will help you to start to have a Really a more biblical view. Why do I think? Historically, we've gotten the confusion.
Well, I want to take a little step back in history. When the church first started you you had what we can see in Scripture is Churches that would be for one area or region and there were multiple pastors for that body of believers.
This is before the time that there was a first second third fourth fifth Baptist Church. Right. So you had a case where you'd have one church in the area. There wasn't division between Baptist Presbyterian Luther.
They didn't have all that. So what we see is as we examine the scriptures there were multiple pastors that were over a local body and If you really struggle with that only give you it right out the gate a resource that you could get.
It's called biblical eldership by Alexander struck very valuable book really kind of a book that became like the de facto standard only because At least in the Baptist circles you had a pastor that was paid maybe associate pastors that were paid and then you had deacons and those deacons function mostly as pastors and.
So that's what really kind of set. This book is to say no there's there's a multiple pastors and pastors roles different than deacons role. So we're gonna get to that so historically though when you look at the way human beings are.
You had Constantine who just makes the decision that the entire Roman Empire is now Christian just by decree. Well, that's not how you get Christian. Christians don't become Christians by decree of an emperor.
Before this Christians were persecuted Christians were in jail. They were Losing property things like that Constantine when he legalized Christianity one of the things he did Was to now try to make up for those wrongs, so he frees everyone from prison.
People who want to take the role of pastor were getting land and homes salary all provided by the government and unfortunately, it became a cushy job and There were those that really didn't want to have to deal with the people.
But they wanted the cushy job and so you had people that started to develop a hierarchy within Christianity. So you started to have people that got different titles. Eventually those titles would become things like priest.
Which was over a local congregation and you'd have over there. And I don't know all of the structure that we now would have in the Roman Catholic Church. But you you have the idea of bishops and a bishop would be someone who is over several local churches and it's a little bit of hierarchy then you have Cardinals all the way up to a Pope and so there was a hierarchy of Pastors and I'm using that term very very very loosely.
But historically you had a hierarchy that got developed some of that hierarchy was still carried over as There was the Reformation and people revisited things. That was the Catholic Church and some of that hierarchy stayed in fact even churches that Would say that they're they're looking to the scriptures.
Unbeknownst to them I think have a hierarchy. I know this is a very familiar thing within many of the Baptist type churches. Where they do believe in a plurality of elders, but what they do is they call those elders Pastor if they're paid and elder if they're not.
Whether you realize that or not that creates a hierarchy is if they're two different offices you have the office of pastor and office of elder. So are there two different offices. I'm gonna say no now if you have your copy of God's Word you can open to first Peter chapter 5.
Because in verse 1 and 2 we are gonna see all the terminology that we have for this office this one office that we call pastor or Elder or bishop or overseer whatever you want to call it most commonly at least in in America.
We call it pastor. So Peter says this in first Peter 5 1 and 2 so I exalt the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the suffering of Christ as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed Shepherd the flock of God that is among you.
Exercising oversight not under compulsion, but willingly as God will give will have you not for shameful gain. But eagerly now in this these two verses we see all three titles that are throughout the New Testament used for the the role or.
Or.
Office of pastor. So I believe in Scripture. There's only two offices for the church. It is pastor and deacon. But here you see he's referring to himself as an elder. That's one word for it another shepherd.
He says shepherd the flock of God and then third oversight the overseer the bishop. And so you see you can sometimes get into different Greek words that are mentioned Where presbyterians get their name the presbytos?
But what you have here is three different ideas of The role. He's a shepherd. He's an elder. He's an overseer. And we're going to dig in deeper on each of those.
But.
I also want to make the distinction That the deacon is not a pastor. There is a difference between the role of pastor and role of deacon. The pastor is someone in the church who would have the oversight That he's going to be the person who's the more long-term thinking looking at the broad picture of the church.
The per the man who is going to be looking at the scriptures. And we're going to by the way in a future episode dig into the qualifications of a pastor. What makes a godly pastor what doesn't. But when we look at the qualifications.
There is this notion that somehow you if you really serve in church, you become a deacon and then when you graduate you become pastor. That is not the case. These are two separate roles. The pastor is someone who is devoted to the study of the word of God.
Who is Going to look at the issues within the church. Have that oversight and lead them by scripture. Not so much deal dealing with the day-to-day issues. There is some discussion maybe slash debate in Acts chapter 6 when we we see what some say would be the first of the.
The.
Deacons we get that we see the word deacon us used there. It is in verse 2. It says there in acts chapter 6 starting in verse 2. And the 12 were summoned The full number of the disciples and said it is not right that we should give up preaching the word of god.
To serve tables that serve tables is the word deacon us where we get the word deacon.
Now.
Interesting thing.
Why.
Do we have the word deacon when we see right here a perfectly good english word? For deacon us. Now i've mentioned the history a little bit. So now I want to bring that back. I mentioned the hierarchy.
Well what happened at the time that we had the writing of the english bible the translation of it?
Well.
You had deacons who were leaders in the church. And they were the unpaid leaders so you had paid pastors and unpaid deacons that all acted as leaders. So if you translate the word deacon us as servant or waiter of tables.
What does that say to those people who are serving as leaders? Confusion. Confusion. Now this is where I have issue with translators trans the translations are not inspired because the translations provided a confusion.
To our understanding of god's word it would have been much better to refer to two offices the overseer and the servant. Or the pastor and the servant. That would make it really clear. And but here what you have is when they came to the specific deacon us that is the office.
They referred to them as deacons. They transliterated the word deacon us created a new english word which adds confusion on that role. Because it would have caused confusion within their church. Now. Here's a simple thing guys.
The word of god is authoritative not our churches. So if the if our church disagrees with something with the word of god change the church not god's word and by transliterating it, I think they've the translators.
Introduced confusion. And it's something that every translation has done since but the term is to wait on tables and so here you see that the the apostles end up selecting seven men to act. As what we might call deacons today.
There's some people think that these were not the actual people who had that new office. Many people myself included believe that this was the first of this new office that being created and being filled.
So what is it that they did he said verse three therefore brothers pick out from among you seven men of good repute full of the spirit and wisdom. Whom we may appoint this duty. What duty. Well the duty that they were fighting over in verse one was the feeding of the widows see as within judaism widows would be provided for by the synagogues and now that they've come out of that and they're in Christian churches the synagogue is no longer providing for the widows.
And so there's there needed to be within the church funds that were raised to take care of the widows, but the within the area there were the More jewish widows that were being cared for but that what's called the hellenists the hellenists were Those that were greek-speaking Jewish people.
So you had the hebrew that spoke hebrew you had the hellenists that spoke greek. So that hebrew were more religious the hellenists typically were not more secular and the hellenists were Widows were not being cared for.
Well, that's a day-to-day type of operation. And so what you see is a distinction I see here. Between a pastor and deacon is that the pastor gives the oversight. But the deacon would be underneath a pastor.
And being underneath a pastor that would then. You would have a deacon who? Would be doing the the day-to-day type things.
So.
The pastor would would stick to would be focused on the study of the word of god in prayer. But the widows have to be taken care of. Who's going to take care of the widows. They would they would send people out here.
You men you go take care of Raising the funds within the church collecting taking the collections and distributing that out. So in our day and age the the deacons would take care of the things such as paying the bills for the church.
The pastors should not get Tied down with that that that the operational things that would pull them out from the study of the word of god. I hope that becomes helpful Within this and this will be since this is the only time i'm really going to deal with deacons.
Let me deal with another issue with deacons just to tackle it. This again will be new for some people.
Again the way that we have historically deacons were leaders. Women couldn't be leaders and therefore deacons.
Would.
Have would only be men. And so when we look at the qualifications for a deacon in first timothy three and we're going to look in detail first timothy three For the pastor's qualifications in a later episode, but it says deacons likewise was likewise referred to.
Well it refers back to Where it says that in verse one the saying is trustworthy if if Someone aspires the office of overseer now notice it says office of overseer. Well likewise if someone aspires to the office of deacon.
Okay.
Same thing.
What I see here then is the fact that there is a two offices that we can see those two offices. Are pastors and deacons.
It gives the qualifications of the pastors. And as it we do so. We have to recognize.
That.
There is one phrase that gets people stumped. Or causes issue for some and that is in verse 11 where it says their wives. That's how it's translated remember. At this time all of the leader all the deacons were leaders and therefore they had to be men.
The word there is women. Okay. Now does that mean it's just any woman? Well, there is good arguments that can be made because of the fact that this particular word Can mean a any woman or a specific woman a wife.
Now when it's typically what we see now and i'm saying typically because you know some things you may hear people do is they look through the bible and say well if if this Word is used with a husband in tied to it.
It always means a wife. Well, if there's something in the language that defines that then that's okay to say but it is not good to just look at the scriptures and Define that alone to say how people use language.
Words change they have a context they have a context within a culture. I always use the example the word gay when used of Fdr the president united states many years ago. He was a very gay man. It meant he was a very happy man.
Not that he was a homosexual man. Big difference between those two but culture changed. So using that word you have to figure out what culture you're in. What is it? What's the usage of that time? That is true for language everywhere and that's why I I say When we look at this, we can't limit ourselves to the scripture.
But look also and there's plenty of tools to help people do this to look at the way greek words were used outside the bible in the different time periods.
And.
That's beyond the what we want to cover in this but suffice it to say. The word here could mean women it could mean wives. Both are a fair interpretation. And within the scripture it is common. See i'm not saying it's always the case.
It's common that when you have this word used in in connection to a specific man it is Generally referring to his wife.
In this case, you don't have a specific man mentioned. It's a general person. Who's a deacon. And so what we see here is several qualifications. That would be true for both men and women. Verse 8 it's likewise.
Uh deacons likewise must be dignified. Also, I should say the likewise. Because I believe goes on to more than just the the desiring of the office. But where it says in verse 2 therefore an overseer must be above reproach.
My belief and we'll get to it in detail is that the above reproach Is the overarching thing that all these others fit under. So just like when you have in galatians 5 with the fruit of the spirit. The fruit of the spirit is love.
That's the the singular fruit. That's the fruit and all those other descriptors define.
Love.
It it's different areas and how love works out. Well, that's what I believe here. The overseer must be above reproach. The idea of above reproach means it's nothing that anyone can can nail something to him.
So is he gonna sin? Yes. But does he. Is he quick to ask forgiveness? Yes, so then you can't use it against them. That's the type of thing and I think this deacons likewise is also tied to the above approach.
So all of the other things for the pastor the husband and wife. So reminded all that is under Above reproach. These are ways you are to be above reproach and they all have to do with character. I think the same way deacons have to be above reproach.
How well he gives a list of character issues here. Starting with the men because it says deacons.
Male.
This again really it's waiter of tables servant. Be dignified. Not double-tongued not addicted to much wine not greedy for dishonest gain. They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.
And let them also be tested first then let them serve as deacons if they've proven themselves blameless. Then it just says women some translations are good they just say women. King james would say their wives and there's the confusion.
Because here now what you have is it gives qualifications. For what I would say are female deacons not necessarily the wives of the deacons. I think it's strange that the deacons would who are doing day-to-day operations would have qualifications for their wife.
That the pastors who have oversight of the church their wives don't have qualifications. I don't think. I think this is meant to be Servants now remember if they're servants, it's not a problem. They're not leading.
Okay. So what we end up seeing with this is that the deacons Wives as people try to argue I think are really deaconesses female servants. And so they must be dignified not slanderers. Sober-minded faithful in all things and then notice what it says in verse 12.
Let each deacon now goes back to a male Representation now after this so I believe that what you have is. Verses 8 to 10 are for both male and female deacons. That office we call deacon the the office of servant.
Then verse 11 is specific Qualifications for the female servants and then verse 12 and 13 are specific now to the men. Let each deacon let deacons each be the husband of one wife. Well, that's hard for a wife to be.
Well, okay in the day we live in now people try to argue that but biblically marriage is the husband of one man with one woman, so. But it's a you know that they manage their children well and you say well that's that is that the wife's role.
No, that's actually the the man's role to manage the house to have oversight over the house. Why might that be important?
Because he's his role is going to be to manage the church to to take care of things under the leadership of the pastors in the church and. So just suffice it to say I don't want to spend much more time on this.
I know we'll probably get some emails about this. I get it. We actually already got one email that asked said that. We got an email saying you briefly spoke about deaconess our church just proposed this.
Can you expound this topic and that is why I said those who email us? We're gonna try to get to all of your questions. So this was something that I didn't plan to get into as much detail when I talked about this series.
But because of you the audience We're digging into it. And so I want you to know that I am trying to tailor these Lessons for you. You're the audience. You're the ones that are. This needs to be for it's not for me to hear myself.
I've written written much on these things and spoken on these things and so therefore it's it's nothing new for me to cover. But I cover it because I want to make sure I'm covering what you guys want to hear and so because of that We want to hear from you.
And so maybe I'll get more questions and have to dig deeper in this if it was confusing but I believe that there's a separation between leaders and Servants and servants could be male or female. I think it's practical because especially nowadays We you there may be things you don't want a man to go and do you don't want a man going over to a single woman's apartment to provide food.
And go inside the apartment. Maybe a lady would do that or to take care of things maybe taking someone out to a to a doctor you know, we live in a different generation where maybe you have a woman who doesn't have a car and You go and pick them up.
Well should a man be doing that with a woman. Maybe not maybe if you have a female servant she should do it. Okay, these are things where I think there's there's Ways to when we look at it this way We shouldn't have problems with it because they're the deacon is not a leader a female.
The deacon is not giving Instructions or having oversight over men. She's receiving that instruction and oversight from the pastors. And then from there Continuing so if you I should say if you want to if you do want to contact us the way to do that is info at striving for eternity org info at striving for eternity actually calm either one gets to us.
But the dot-com is is better for that because it goes to the better channels. So.
If you want to email us and what we said is we're gonna give away these these Lux MagFest Lux charging cables now. I know some people have contacted us and just said hey, I just want the cables. I get it.
But if you don't send us your address, you're not getting it. I'm just saying so if you do send in something and you do want the cables you have to give us your address. Because we just get the email saying as one person said hey, I just want the free cables.
That's nice. Don't know how to send them to you. But we do appreciate to hear, you know as one person who who said, you know about the deacon role. Deaconess role. We wanted to answer that so. The idea here is that I think a deaconess is fine.
If.
Notice the qualifier if that role is a servant role in other words When I was pastoring a church we would have pastor and deacons meetings. But there would be some stuff that was discussed only with the pastors because they had oversight.
So typically we'd have pastors and deacons meet for the first part where the pastors would give instruction to the deacons With things that they need to take care of. Then and the deacons would bring to the pastor's attention anything that needed the the pastoral attention that they knew of.
And then they were excluded from the meetings and then the pastors would get to the business of the meeting. So that first part was not Discussing how to run the church making decisions it was more Informational from pastor to servant and servant to pastor, but the servant Office is a recognized office.
We call it deacon within the church. I hope that was helpful and Longer than we wanted to so we'll we will probably Dig in more to the the functioning of the pastor in another episode as well. But I want to get it started here so I mentioned as We look at this That there's different roles or different titles for pastor and I want to now dive into looking at What that role is and before we do I do want to Give a word from our sponsor, which is my pillow.
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You could go to my pillow comm use promo code SFE. So let's get back to the functioning of the pastor. Now. I believe there should be multiple pastors. Here's the other thing. I believe the office of pastor is.
Is one where there is equal authority. Now this has a way of working out and there is in Alexander Struck's book. He talks about the one among equals. Most preaching pastors notice. I don't refer to senior pastor.
If you've been tracking with me so far without throughout this podcast, you've probably already figured out. Why why don't I call someone a senior pastor. Was there a senior and a junior? No, there's no junior pastor.
They usually refer to senior pastor and associate pastors or a senior pastor and then they give them worship pastor children's pastor. What are they actually doing by calling someone the senior pastor?
It's as if he's the head over the other pastors in the church. And you've already probably figured out why I would be against it. I don't see that in Scripture. I don't see anywhere where it talks about a hierarchy among the pastor.
This is the problem that happened historically when people just didn't want they Wanted to have some sort of title above others now. There is a sense where you you you have people that in some churches.
You have the senior pastor and all of the other pastors all the staff report to him. I don't think that's the way it should be when we get to the episodes on Qualifications, I'm probably gonna get myself in trouble because I'm going to say that I don't think the way we hire pastors today is biblical.
What? Yeah, well, you're gonna have to keep listening to the episodes if it's this is the first episode you heard then follow this podcast. So that you don't miss an episode and you could share this with others so that they know about it, but when what I'm gonna say is that there is a.
A.
Office of pastor where they're all equal in authority in the church. However there is Good function where you have what Alexander were struck would refer to as a one among equals now way most Guys that call themselves a senior pastor use that is they say they're the one among equals.
So all the pastors are equal, but they're the one above them. I've talked with Alexander struck personally because I've Heard lots of debate on this and asked him my interpretation having read it. Is that within the church each of the pastors would have different things that they have oversight over and in that area?
That one person would have more oversight or or more knowledge of the that area and therefore in that area he would Be the one among equals so they're all equal when they come to the meetings. They have an equal vote.
But they all Including guy does the preaching submits to one another and that's why I refer to it as the preaching pastor. So when I was my first pastorate, I was the preaching pastor. We had a pastor over the worship.
The nursery services were under the worship. The music was under the worship. And so that was his responsibility and not mine. What ended up happening we had an issue that came up with regarding the nursery and someone came to me as the preaching pastor and My advice to this person was you need to go talk to pastor Tim.
He is the pastor over the worship. It is his decision to make what am I doing? I am submitting myself. Even though I'm the guy everyone looks at and calls the pastor. I wasn't the pastor. I was a pastor and I was submitting to another pastor because he in the area of worship is the one among equals we he and I may have equal authority within the church, but in that area I Divert to him I submit to him when we get together for pastors meetings issues that come up under worship he would raise up and When if there was a thing where we in in that church, we we didn't have it it was it was majority rule versus one church where the other two churches that I had been in where it was a Unanimous rule and so There he was so I've been a pastor in two churches.
That was majority rule two churches that were Unanimous and unanimous has certain advantages to it. So it all everybody the unanimous every pastor has to be in agreement. Now that does have the thing where is that that is supposed to create the idea of the equality of pastors.
The problem is you still can have one person who can who can basically make decisions by saying no. And has veto power and that veto power gives that that one pastor more influence then and so I'm on the fence with which is better having.
Everyone must be an agreement on a decision or a majority rule but what I do think has to be within the the leadership leadership being pastors only is. That there has to be submitting to one another they have to be men who submit to one another and.
The example I gave I am submitting to someone else. Another pastor in the church in the area. Now when it came to what book is going to be preached. That was under my purview. Under my purview is also the Christian education.
So if it became an issue What are we gonna teach in Sunday school. Or who is gonna teach Sunday school. Or who are we gonna have Bible studies? Who's gonna lead those Bible studies. That came under me and he would submit to my decisions in that.
Now if there was a case where we had a tie vote the way that we did it if it was a Needing a 51 and in the time when I was only two of us if it was the area of.
Worship.
We would talk through it. But if we came to a disagreement I submitted to his decision in the end. Submitting means I don't fight it. I don't try to undermine it. Okay, but if I have strong views on it.
If either of us had strong views. We decided to table things until we could work through it. But if it's usually it's not an area where you have strong views. You have a view the other person has of you.
It's not something where you can really make a biblical case.
In the case that I'm talking specifically it was where to have nursery the the actual room. That was set up. And so is that something you're gonna find in the Bible? No. Did I I had a reason for the room that I thought he had a reason for the room that he thought I?
Submitted to him in his decision and I never brought it up again. That's what it should look like. That's my view of. The one among equals so when we look at the titles now. Elder has the idea of someone who is older.
But it really what it focuses on is someone who is mature. So that tells you something about this role of pastor when Peter is gonna refer to it as elder. It's the idea of someone who is mature. Someone who is leading managing.
The idea shepherd it has the idea of caring protecting. The idea of overseer. Well, that's oversight, right? We get that clearly. It's the it's the person who who's thinking in the future thinking the vision planning ahead.
Thinking through how things are gonna affect things long-term thinking and then also the the Breadth of thinking of realizing when when you make a decision. How's that gonna affect the rest of church?
You know, it's easy way for some people to just say well, you know. Say say Bible studies some churches have Bible studies where everyone all the men and women get together for a Wednesday night Bible study.
And some have ones where it's the men and women are separate. Some people like separate Bible studies between men and women and some like it where it's all together. How are you gonna make those decisions?
Well, the pastors are you know, someone that just likes, you know, I know a lot of men they love the the men getting together and discussing issues without women there, but. That's if a man is making that decision because why like that when now all of a sudden you go.
Wait a minute. And what are the women gonna do? Was that best for the women? So so the pastors need to think more than just what one person comes them. So let me give a real-world example. I had someone that came to me got very much after listening to a Ministry that does prison ministry.
They were really thinking that the whole church needs to be active in prison ministry as the pastor. As a pastor, I'm looking at this and and actually at that time I was the only pastor. We had deacons, but we didn't have any other pastors at that point.
Not good and so I started training some men to be pastors and Two of those men became pastors. One I already referred to and it was just he and I the other one became pastor later. That aside someone came to me and thought everyone should be involved in prison ministry.
But I also had someone that was kind of tugging at me because they're very much interested in answers in Genesis and wanted everybody to be active in creation ministry and I was involved in a lot of evangelism and a lot of people because that got spurred on and thought.
Everyone should be coming to your way of the master classes. Well, the the reality was that you can't have a church where everyone in church is focused on one area. It's not healthy. Power church ministries do it.
But it's not healthy for the church and a pastor has to step back and say well look. You have a heart for prison ministry. And this is what I said to the individual. You should be doing it and if there's others in the church that that have that same passion.
They should do it with you, but we shouldn't expect everyone to do it same with creation ministry and same with evangelism. It's not that everyone in the church should be doing all these parachurch ministries.
We're gonna have some that do. But it's the diversity that helps and a pastor needs to think beyond the one person who's coming to them with that concern and so this is where they have to have that oversight so just in the three terms or Titles for this office you see some of the function.
Let me just start by diving into some of that how this looks and I'm gonna spend a lot more time in a later episode what I want to do in a later episode is is literally dig into first Peter sorry first Timothy and Titus two books that we call the pastoral epistles where Paul is giving instruction to Timothy and Titus on how the church should function and more specifically how Pastors should function how what the leadership should be and we're so we're gonna spend time digging into that in a later episode.
So let's just give a overview for this one. What is a pastor? Well, we said a pastor is an elder a shepherd an overseer. So what does that end up meaning? Well, it means that they're going to be the leaders of the church.
Yeah, this this is also why I would say in in America. At least there's a requirement for a board of trustees and in a lot of churches. The deacons are the board of trustees. The deacons are the board of trustees because they're the the financial.
They're typically the ones that take care of paying the bills. However, it really should be the pastors because if you do have to have a board of trustees. Those are the people that make the decisions according to the state.
So that should be the pastors. The pastors then have to have final say over the finances. It doesn't necessarily mean that they have to do to know the giving. Who gives what? But I do as a side note think that it's wise.
I know this is gonna some people are gonna think counter to this and I get it. I think it's wise for the pastor at least a pastor if not several to be involved in Knowing the giving who gives what why do I say that?
For this reason.
The first thing to leave a church is your wallet. Let that sink in. The first thing to leave a church is your wallet. And so The if a pastor is going to be handling the counseling Then the first thing that is going to be the indicator to an issue is when someone stops giving or cuts their giving.
Now you can have the deacons who? Can know the exact amount that's given and Then have a policy in my view. This is how I did it, especially when I was the only pastor. I don't want to know the the individual giving from people but if Someone cut their giving.
Okay, maybe they if they pay every week and they miss one week not a big deal. But if they give every week a hundred dollars and suddenly start giving fifty. Or stop giving altogether. The deacons would let me know.
They didn't know they didn't let me know how much it was just there was a sizable cut or they've stopped giving. And I would reach out to the people and say hey, is everything okay with you with the church?
That way it's a way I can start counseling them and know about them. But but just kind of side note if you do have to have a board of trustees I believe it should be the people that are the leaders and that would be the pastors.
So when we talk about Shepherds or elders or pastors or overseers Bishop, whatever title you want to give it. It's all the one office. I've said this over and over because I really want that to be clear, but it's the imagery of someone who is caring for the church as a shepherd there are many people who who think that there's a difference between the pastor and the sheep.
I Knew one pastor. He used to always tell me in one church where I was in. As as we were pastors there and and he would always use this phrase as we'd shepherd people. He'd say well Andrew. That's why they're sheep and we're the shepherds.
That always bugged me. Does it bug you think about what that person's saying? They're the sheep and we Educated seminary graduates with the title of pastor. We are the shepherds. We know better than them.
That's actually how it came across. He got very upset with me and One day because I said to him I said, you know just remember something we are sheep also. See the pastor is a sheep the true shepherd is Christ.
We're just fellow sheep that happen to be in the role of a shepherd. The the idea of the shepherd is to give that idea of the functioning of the pastor. It is not to say they're not sheep. It's not to say they're above the sheep.
No pastors are sheep also, but we have a different function in the church. Part of our job is to protect the flock and this is a major thing that and we'll dig into this a lot more detail. But Paul makes this abundantly clear to Timothy and Titus there to protect the church.
That comes in many ways is one is to protect sheep that that are straying. Like I said knowing that wallet is gone that the wallet left the church is a way of going out and saying is something wrong. You know not to wait and let them go a good shepherd doesn't let people walk out that door and not find out what the issues are because sometimes the the issues that people have they're legitimate and.
The the pastors need to make corrections. Sometimes they're frivolous. Often the the charges that the people give to the pastors are not the real issues when you start hearing these frivolous things. It's like yeah, no, what's really going on?
But but the the role of the pastor is to protect the flock and. And there's several ways that's protecting some of its from false teaching. Pastors must have an understanding of the false teaching out there and Train their the the church to know how to identify false teaching.
How to spot it how to avoid it. What to avoid? The the pastor's job is also to feed. They have to feed. How do they feed well through the Word of God. Providing good teaching. That's gonna come through.
You're not just at the pulpit, but it's gonna be something that in the feeding of the the flock there must be.
Some.
More detailed instruction. And it may not be the pastor doing it all. The preaching pastor I should say it may not even be all the pastors. But there should be one-on-one discipleship that's going on within the church that is overseen by the pastors.
So you you have to have? Some sort of feeding of the flock and then there's the leading of the flock. The the role of this office is to lead to oversee. So he's got to have some sort of management skills.
He's got to be able to lead his house. Well, because he's got to lead the church. Well. He needs to know the resources that are gonna be helpful for the church he's gonna need to be able to provide for the church the training that they need and.
Every church may be different because different churches in different areas may have have Differences that they have to deal with maybe you're in a church where word of faith is a major issue. The the area in in your area might have a lot of word of faith people so you need to focus in on that where other areas not an issue and.
So you have to know your local congregation. It's also some part of oversight. He's got to be devoted he's got to be hard-working. He's got to be someone who is going to not just brush it off there. I've often said there are two different types of men that are pastors.
You have the pastors and you have the lazy. You you have that person who is going to care for the flock and and work and when you think about a shepherd. They're there. They don't get days off. They take the sheep out.
They're with the sheep as they graze all day. And they go and put the sheep into a sheepfold at night and they sleep at the door to protect the sheep at night. There's no days off. That's the idea of the shepherd.
That you're working day in and day out for weeks or even months. Before you get to the point where you're going to be, you know. When they're done grazing and you're bringing them in to be sheared. And so That's the idea is that yes, you have multiple shepherds taking care so you can have some time off in that sense but the idea they have to be hard-working and If you have someone that doesn't care for the flock, they're not going to do that.
So that's also something that we end up seeing is this idea. They have to have some care. They have to love the church and and this is where I think because of the way we hire pastors. We have more dilemma.
We hire people from outside the church not from within the church and because of that I think what we have is we end up having people who are not looking to take care of. The people they're looking to take care of their job.
And in that case what ends up happening is they make decisions that are Good for them and not the church. This is especially true for the paid pastors. And so What you have is when you hire guys from outside people say why is the church so anemic?
Why is it suffering so much these days? Why are churches going? Left or you know doing the whatever appeals to people a lot of it's because the pastor wants to keep his job. So he doesn't want to ruffle feathers.
He wants to keep people happy. And and so you have guys that may have a tendency to just go weak on things. Because they want to make sure they can feed their family they don't want to have to be kicked out and go look for more work and so.
Because of this I mean think about what you do on your job. You want to keep that job? You're gonna do things that keep you employed. There are some people who will not speak up. When there's talk and when you have to go take a maybe your job site.
You have to take the some diversity training and there's some people that just take the training and don't speak about it. Why? Because they want to keep the job. Well when pastors are hired from outside.
They want to keep the job. I Think when pastors are from within the church. They were a part of the church and from within the church are given the office of pastor. They love the flock a lot more and so they have a different view of that.
So I think that what will stop this here. We're gonna pick this up and we're gonna do in a later episode. We will look more specifically at first Timothy and Titus and go through that and we're going to find several.
Well, actually a dozen Characteristics of a godly elder and I'm going to go through those so we see the functioning of an L. How does an elder function. I I gave kind of an overview here? I want to dig in deeper to see what that looks like from the scriptures and.
And then we're gonna look at the qualifications of a pastor. How do we know what if someone is qualified for that role? And I'm gonna give some ideas some practical stuff on praying for your pastor again.
If you want us to address some things. Just let us know and we will try to get into that. There are several people who have emailed us and given us a number of things that we want to cover. I'm gonna cover one of them right now and Just in case.
Because we finished the episode on women shouldn't be pastors. This doesn't have to do so much with women pastors, but Catherine had asked about a woman's place in seminary. Can women get a earnest a pastoral degree in a seminary degree.
There's seminaries that are exclusively for male students. My seminary was that way. But nowadays they're open to women students. And so should there is there any biblical evidence? Any bit actually she's any biblical prohibition on women.
You know as far as getting into a pastoral degree. You know, can a woman consider going to seminary so let me answer that the answer that I'd have for that is Yeah women, I believe can go to seminary.
But can can they get a jobs pastor? No, can they should they take a preaching course? Well, I think they could take the preaching course as long as they're not preaching. To the men students, right? So It becomes a question of.
They could be taught how to preach. But I don't think that they should be doing the preaching with with the men there.
Why would women get a degree? Well seminary is really good just to get learning to get teaching to get more in-depth study. There are plenty of women who love to study the Word of God and that's not a bad thing.
And so they want to go to seminary for no other purpose than to learn more and that's fine. I would have no problem with that. I do think it's it's a little bit Confusing when they get a degree because they can't hold the office of pastor.
And that's where people have a little bit of a knee-jerk reaction to say well women shouldn't be in Seminary because then they're gonna be pastors. No the seminary should make that distinction. And I would say that if if a seminary does have a degree for women They should Regularly be making that distinction in other words.
So the women know it should be something the women have to sign that they accept coming in in my mind. Would be to sign something that says they recognize that women cannot have give instruction or have authority over a man within the church and That has to be really clear and it has to be something that they go over and over and over.
It's not good enough just to put it in a doctrinal statement and leave it there because if it's just in a doctrinal statement, unfortunately, not all doctrinal statements are practiced and so the repetition of it the reminding of it is What you'd have to do and I would say that if the school should probably have something that says that if a woman from their institution functions in the role where they take a pulpit and Preach.
Or if they give any kind of teaching or exercise authority over a man that the the school has the right to revoke that degree. Okay, I think that would be fair. All right, so that would be a thing one other.
One that I wanted to read just because I thought this was this was kind of nice. It was good encourage me and Also someone that asked for the the actual the subject line is free charging cables question mark.
But this person did not provide His address so no no charging cables for you. Until you send us your address. All right, so he said just just heard your podcast. You're giving away the charging cables.
I love your content alone. Had nothing more Intellectually slash biblically sound that. Then what you already provide so I thought I was missing out. If you're being generous, I would love to get a charging cable.
Love your YouTube content and podcast. I try to listen to everything you put out not trying to butter you up for the cable. Genuinely edified by your content and growth that occurs. So yeah, if you if you just genuinely want I love the encouragement.
So if you want to send me the encouragement, I love to hear it. Because look folks, it's just me in this microphone right now I don't see anybody and so it is encouraging when I can hear directly from you so if you want to send some encouraging words, I Appreciate it.
So yeah, but we will send about we. I bought several cables donated them to the ministry and for the record I'll say this again. I did not pay 75 79 dollars, whatever they are on Amazon. I paid far far less.
Only is because this is a company. I am an investor in and so with that investment I was able to to get a large number of cables at a very inexpensive price. I donated those to the ministry and therefore those are few what those cables what's special about them?
Well, they're longer than most cables. They do have a lifetime guarantee or lifetime warranty so that if the they break or anything. They're designed so that they they shouldn't snap at the end is where most of them kind of break and fray.
They won't do that. If they do you get a new one. They're gold-plated. So they're faster. They charge quicker than than other cables. They're USC to USC cables that we're giving. That's the future. They I do have a USB a Port, you know, so you can do the USB a to USB C.
I don't know what happened to USB B. Maybe they just realized that didn't sound good USB BB.
Right, so.
But those were giving out and so they're really good cables. I really enjoy them. I I have given the people and everyone has thoroughly enjoyed the that I have heard. So if you want to get one, feel free to let us know.
Email us at info at striving for eternity comm that is info at striving for eternity comm. Let us know if there's things you agree with disagree with throughout this series. I'm sure that this episode will get some Responses from folks saying hey, I disagree with this and here's why don't just say disagree.
Give us the here's why because maybe you're gonna have a point. I haven't considered and I will bring that up. So until then. Till next week and by the way next week We are gonna have a discussion those of you who know that we are with the Christian podcast community.
There is another Kind of podcast network out there and we're gonna discuss whether we're competitors or Collaborators. So next week is going to be that discussion on Christian collaboration and with that that's a wrap.
This podcast is part of the striving for eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church Go to seven for eternity org.
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