The Function of a Pastor, Part 1

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 community For more content or to request a speaker for your church go to striving for eternity org

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

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 a 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 kind of 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,

I 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 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 an 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 an 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 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 that 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 gonna 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 part the man who is going to be looking at the scriptures

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 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

Dale dealing with the day -to -day issues The there is some discussion maybe slash debate in Acts chapter 6 when we for we see what some say would be the first of the

The deacons we get that we see the word deacon OS use there it is in verse 2

It says there in Acts chapter 6 starting the verse 2 and the 12 were summoned The full number of the disciples and said 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

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? Huh? 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

Deaconess 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 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 3 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 1 was the feeding of the widows see as it 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 Hellenist that spoke Greek so that Hebrew were more religious the

Hellenist 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 and prayer But the widows have to be taken care of who's gonna 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 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 and 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 gonna deal with deacons Let me deal with another issue with deacons just to tackle it this again will be new for some people but 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 3 and we're gonna look in detail first Timothy 3

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 1 the saying is trustworthy 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

So 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 now

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 could 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 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 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 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 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 wise 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 connection to a specific man it is

Generally referring to his wife Now 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

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 this the singular fruit, that's the fruit and all those other descriptors define love

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 reproach

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 slanders 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 13 are specific now to the men let each

Deacon let Deacons each be the husband or 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, 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? well 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's 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 But if you want to email us and what we said is we're gonna give away these these

Lux mag fast 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 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

If you would like to get yourself a nice comfortable pillow good night of sleep want to get yourself a great great towels

The I really enjoy their towels There have a sale on them right now

And so if you get their towel set you could use the promo code SFA It stands for striving for eternity so that you can not only get the the towels

But you will be able to get a great discount and let them know that You heard about them from us using the promo code

SFE so they continue supporting us Their support is greatly appreciated. It helps us do some of the work that we do here on the podcast

So if you want to support us, obviously the best way is to go to striving for eternity org slash support but if you that that way we get all of your support, but another way of Supporting us while getting some good products that you may need for your a good night of sleep or for your bathrooms

You could go to my pillow comm use promo code SFA 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 pastorate

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 so 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 a view it's not

Something where you can really make a biblical case and Okay 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 well,

I like that. Well now all of a sudden you go. Wait a minute 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 $100 and suddenly start giving 50

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 had 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 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

In 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 and 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 it 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 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 so 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 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 encouraged 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 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 their 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 A Sunday came to TurboTax after graduating from culinary school and landing a job in the hottest kitchen in town

My hands are full all day every day. I love it Asante as your

TurboTax expert. I'll make your moves count Guaranteeing 100 % accurate filing and your maximum refund sound good.