As Incarnations of Christ’s redemptive love, we are to be salt and light in the very midst of the world. We are always to be at the very center of things.
Darrell L. Guder declares:
“This Good news is rooted in God’s self-disclosure as loving, saving, reconciling and redeeming. The incarnation of Jesus is the climax of that self-disclosure.” (The Contining Conversion of the Church p. 2)
Structures must always be subservient to that mission! We are to focus on the function not so much the structure of the Church. There is no final or perfect structure.
Kent S. Knutson reminds us that “we are an incarnational community”:
The institutional forms through which this community seeks to express itself may and do vary, but these forms are to a large degree irrelevant insofar as the essential nature of the community is concerned.”
pg 57
Gospel Church Mission
Kent S Knutson
Augsburg publishing house Minneapolis Minnesota 1976
Church Polity – Leading God’s Dream
New Testament believers are exhorted to obey their leaders. Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation (Heb 13:7)
Their leaders were to watch over the flock (Acts 20:28). They were to be servants and not demi-gods. (1 Peter 5:2-3) But who were these people who ran the affairs of the Church?
Leadership in the Church
The New Testament uses three different terms for the same office. Episkopos, is translated “bishop” and “overseer, the term emphasizing administrative oversight. Presbuturos, is translated “elder”. It is a term denoting maturity and wisdom (1 Peter 5:5; Acts 2:17; Acts 4:8). It is the term most associated with the function of what we think of as the “pastor” (Acts 14:23; Acts 15:2; Acts 20:17). Poimen is translated “pastor” and “shepherd”. This term emphasizes spiritual leadership, and in its verb form, is used to show the feeding/teaching ministry of church leaders (John 21:16; Acts 20:28; 1 Cor 9:7).
All three terms are used interchangeably and of the same persons. The Ephesian “elders” were identified as “overseers” and told to “feed” (pastor) the flock (Acts 20:17, 28). The “elders” ordained by Titus are identifies as “bishops” (Titus 1:5,7). The “elders” are instructed to “feed the flock” and to “take the oversight” of their churches (1 Peter 5:112). The qualifications for the church’s spiritual leaders are clearly set forth in 1 Tim 3:1-7 and Titus 1:6-9. They demand a man with an exemplary personal life. He is to be “blameless,” “unaccused” “not ashamed”[5]. He is to be the “husband of one wife” (not a polygamist). He must rule his own house “well”. He is to be vigilant, of watchful sobriety, known for good behavior and must have a “good report of them which are without.”
The Christian leader is to be an example rather than an executive. In 1 Peter 5:3, Peter contrasts “control” with “impress”. The shepherd cannot be a “lord,” one who desires to subjugate others. Jesus specifically prohibited this type of leadership (Matt 20:25; Mark 10:42). The shepherd is to be an “example,” literally “a die cut, a stamp, a mold.” A leader who shepherds must lead with his life not control with his commands.
This concept is amplified by other qualifications for the bishop. He must be “patient,” “appropriate” and “mild” (2 Cor 10:1; Phil 4:5; James 3:17) and “gentle to all men”. He must be “affable” and “kind” (2 Tim 2:25; 1 Thes 2:7; 1 Tim 2:2). He is not to be quarrelsome (1 Tim 3:3), not of violent passion (Titus 1:7; Col 3:8; 1 Tim 2:8). He is not to war, to quarrel or dispute (2 Tim 2:25). He is to be “apt to teach”, which demands maturity in the Scriptures. He is not to be “greedy of money”, literally “shameful profit”[6].
Timothy was commanded to be an “example” to the church, (1 Tim 4:12) in word, behavior, love, attitude, faith and purity.