Eldership

[Toledo]

Originally Posted by YP0534

I think you realize that my radical working thesis is that we must not have the old Hebrew artifacts among us,

Nobody in the scriptures opposed "the old Hebrew artifacts among us" more than the apostle Paul. He was persecuted because he refused to preach circumcision. He confronted Cephas with regard to separating from the Gentiles and the holy diet. He wrote that it was up to the individual believer to keep the Sabbath or not.

Yet he appointed elders in every church, and advised Titus to appoint elders in every city. On his way to Jerusalem that last time, he called for the elders of the church to meet with him. He wrote regarding the eldership in the books of Timothy and Titus.

You can make a fair point that the eldership has been abused in the local churches, among the Roman Catholics, and elsewhere. However, in the light of the scriptures, to claim that the New Testament eldership is simply another "old Hebrew artifact" seems more than frivolous.

[YP0534]

Paul's appointment of elders is certainly a point that we plainly have before us in this thread. It has been repeatedly mentioned, in fact, by me. But I sure don't want to have a practice like the synagogues did, which, I believe, is what the Roman Catholics have done and which, to my appreciation, has been practiced via one type of hierarchy or another throughout all the centuries of Protestantism as well.

I am not able to find the word "eldership" in the Bible, though, and this is causing me problems at present. So many use this word as if they know what it means, but I do not. I would like to understand this idea as revealed in the Bible itself. I am aware that some denominations teach that elders and bishops are different and I am not ready to just assume they are the same things, as taught by the Local Church. I have gotten to know that the Local Church is not right all the time.

Thus, I cannot find the word "eldership" to refer to an office or position in the New Testament and I cannot equate overseers and elders to say that "overseership" just means "eldership" as some apparently do.

[Peter Debelak]

Originally Posted by Toledo

Nobody in the scriptures opposed "the old Hebrew artifacts among us" more than the apostle Paul. He was persecuted because he refused to preach circumcision. He confronted Cephas with regard to separating from the Gentiles and the holy diet. He wrote that it was up to the individual believer to keep the Sabbath or not.

Yet he appointed elders in every church, and advised Titus to appoint elders in every city. On his way to Jerusalem that last time, he called for the elders of the church to meet with him. He wrote regarding the eldership in the books of Timothy and Titus.

You can make a fair point that the eldership has been abused in the local churches, among the Roman Catholics, and elsewhere. However, in the light of the scriptures, to claim that the New Testament eldership is simply another "old Hebrew artifact" seems more than frivolous.

Toledo:

I just want to make a quick distinction here:

Paul vigorously opposed those "old Hebrew artifacts" which were insidious and undermining of the gospel. It very well could be the case that the Jewish practice of the "eldership" was, in fact, simply inherented by the early church, but was a fairly innocuous practice. If such were the case, it would not be incongruous that the practice was still "an old Hebrew artifact" and Paul nevertheless did not oppose it.

Refusing to eat meat of strangled animals was "an old Hebrew artifact," and yet Paul did not seem to take its presence in the early church as something to oppose in Acts 15. Just because Paul didn't oppose it, or even perpetuated it, does not mean it isn't neverthelss descriptive and not universally prescriptive.

Does that make sense?

Peter

[YP0534]

Originally Posted by Peter Debelak

Refusing to eat meat of strangled animals was "an old Hebrew artifact," and yet Paul did not seem to take its presence in the early church as something to oppose in Acts 15. Just because Paul didn't oppose it, or even perpetuated it, does not mean it isn't neverthelss descriptive and not universally prescriptive.

Yes, and I believe a larger example of what you are speaking about here may be the widows' roll. I am still not certain about the Jewish customs of the day concerning care for the widows but since I'm not really aware of the widows' care being much of an issue throughout the remainder of Christian history, I'm led to believe this may have been more or less a cultural thing among the Jews and subsequently the Jewish believers.

We had at one point in Acts a dissention about the dispensing to these which led directly to the "appointing of the seven" and then we got some really explicit directions from Paul on precisely which women could and couldn't qualify for the assembly's widows' benefits. (Widowers need not apply.) But I'm not really aware of any modern denominational expression of this practice as defined by Paul. I'll admit my probable ignorance but my point would stand that this seems to have been a kind of big deal in the day and it's like it just doesn't exist any longer. Certainly not in our Western culture where it would appear that we have mostly brought the practice onto the side of general civil government, but what about in other nations who don't have something like Social Security and Medicare?

Do believers in less-developed countries have the common practice, or take it as a prescription, that they must maintain a scriptural roll of widows, excluding those under a certain age and requiring a specific set of qualifications? If they practice this in varience to the "apostle's teachings," by what authority might they do so? Can we care for a 58 year old widower but just not officially on the books lest we cross brother Paul?

I don't want to get off topic, of course, but to the extent that there may be a way of having "elders" which is culturally-based, rather than purely Biblical, I would like to identify what that is. If there is merely a Jewish custom of having "elders," I don't need to practice that any more than I need to practice abstaining from strangled animals, maintaining a widows' roll, recommending head coverings for sisters, remaining single and celebate, washing feet, or any number of other Biblical activities which are commonly dismissed as unnecessary for faithful contemporary Christian practice.

By the same token, if we are eventually led to conclude the entire matter that there is indeed a Biblically-based, titled position of "elder" which we must have among us as authentic believers, as essential as assembling itself, a further inquiry is still warranted to describe the complete ambit of such an office, rather than merely relying upon the familiar customs of our culture in having a similarly-named practice. I don't think you can legitimately dismiss the breaking of bread as a mere cultural practice but surely there is something of culture in the way that is practiced by the Roman Catholics. Similarly, if we maintain that there is the Biblical "office" of "elder," we are at least on notice that the way this or that group has their "eldership" doesn't help us define what the Bible says about that at all or, perhaps more importantly, doesn't help us know best practices in our situation.

Thus, that the Bible says that Paul appointed "elders" or even that he defined the kinds of people who should hold "ecclesiastical" offices of "presbyters," "bishops," "deacons," "apostles," etc., is only the very beginning of the inquiry which needs to be undertaken. (Isn't it funny, all those transliterations we can use?)

If every time we ask the question, "How to have elders?" we answer with reliance upon the group that came before us, we will again in short order erect a papacy, I would think.

That's kind of what I see in the Local Church example.