One of the church’s greatest difficulties has to do with the nature of ministry and leadership. How that question is resolved will have great bearing upon the shape of the institutional church in the future.
If the New Testament offers no single coherent model for the institutional structures of the church, what organizational directions, however incomplete, does it present? As I see it, the New Testament contains two different and fairly clear descriptions of the church, and the rudiments of a third. Each of these derives, in the manner discussed last month, from a secular model of social interaction.
I would call Jesus Christ and his disciples the first church, for though it seems at first a confraternity of disciples and master, living together in a community, those disciples share fully in their master’s life and ministry. In a sense that was the first church. Its organization was extremely simple: the master and his disciples. We see a little of the interworking of the community: the unique relationship between Peter and Jesus, between Peter and the group, between John and Jesus, so we know that relationships within the group were not all identical. We see different functions, such as looking after the purse, but we have very little evidence of how that community functioned and operated.
The next structural evidence of the church is with those disciples in positions of leadership. This is the first instance where a secular model was used, that of the natural family. At this point “elder” has some meaning. The natural family, in either the Jewish or Roman cultures, was centered around the leadership of the mature, the senior. In the Jewish family this was the father. He was known to be an elder in the household. This was not an office—it was a description of his relationship to the rest of the family. And this is how I understand the New Testament to use the word elder. It is a description of a relationship within the community, of the mature to the not-so-mature. In the Christian culture, eldership is not limited to chronology as in the Jewish culture. The principle of eldership is in terms of maturity to immaturity, even if the chronology is turned upside down.
The organization of the early church was that of an extended family. As the family grew, life became more complex and sophisticated, and so more was needed. We see emerging overseer elders—the pattern of one bishop: James in the church in Jerusalem; references to one bishop in Paul’s letter to Timothy and Titus. By the year 110 AD a whole new structure of church organization had appeared. Again it was based upon a secular model, that of a princedom or monarchy. There was one monarchical bishop and several elders and deacons relating to different congregations. By the second century this had become the universal organization and leadership of the church.
I don’t think any one of these three structures is better or more hallowed or divine than any other. They are all based on secular models and each was perfectly appropriate in its day. They served the purposes of the Spirit of God to propel the church forward, and they allowed the people of God to express all the graces of Christ so the coming kingdom could be implemented. Since they are all based on secular models when they have ceased to serve their purpose we ought to have done with them. But underlying all three structures, I see a basic scriptural principle which we should keep.
This principle we first see in the Old Testament’s revelation of the nature of the family. A good father in a Jewish family gave his entire life to his son. He didn’t just give him an inheritance of money, or just teach him to be a person of influence. The father lived what he knew of God’s word, and that was the son’s inheritance. He imparted to his son this very life. And an obedient and good son had only one thing to do, and that was to relive his father’s life. He didn’t look-for his own life, his own independent identity. In his turn he became a father to his, and so on, generation after generation. In this way the truth of God’s word could be imparted without being watered down, modified, or compromised.
The terms “father” and “son” in the Jewish mind are very important. The impact of this misses us because these words as they relate to family are almost meaningless in our culture. We hope that our children, our boys, will find their own life; that they will get away as soon as they can and be their own men. We center the natural family upon the husband-wife relationship, not upon the father-son relationship. But the father-son relationship in the Old Testament is quite significant, for it was the way in which God’s word, thought, and judgment are imparted generation after generation.
The life that Jesus lived upon this earth was the life of the father. He lived the basic father-son relationship, but transformed the principle for his disciples into the relationship of “brethren”: he’s the elder brother, they’re his younger brethren. Jesus translated into the terms of the Messianic community the basic principle which was first revealed in the Old Testament, then in his relationship to the father. He called his disciples “brethren”—he is not their father, they are not his sons. He said, “as my father has sent me, so send I you.” They are brethren of the same father.
Thus we see the development of a system of elder-younger relationships in the Messianic community, which is a community of brothers and sisters. What has this to do with ministry and leadership in the contemporary church? Just this: that the basis of our relationships to each other is one of family. Some brothers and sisters are elders, but they’re not heavy-handed rulers who lord it over others. They are beloved brothers and sisters, who have laid down their lives for the others in the family, following the Old Testament pattern of the father laying down his life for his son and the New Testament pattern of the son laying down his life for the father. So when we are obedient to them and submissive to them, the dynamic impartation of the life of God goes on between the elder and younger, generation after generation.
The heart of this principle is a relationship, an incarnate, warm, human, touching, caring, affectionate involvement of person with person. It is a careful commitment of humanity to humanity, a tender giving of self to others. Jesus gives us an example of this type of relationship when he washed the disciples’ feet. With what tenderness he must have done that.
I see this kind of relationship, the New Testament revelation of family, to be the basic structure of how the ministry and leadership of the church must function, regardless of organizational structure, in order to be the people of God.
Former rector of the Church of the Redeemer in Houston, Graham Pulkingham was a contributing editor of Sojourners and one of the leaders of the Community of Celebration in Scotland when this article was published. This is the second in a series by Graham Pulkingham.
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