Abundant Joy

“I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and witness to the sufferings of Christ, as well as one who shares in the glory about to be revealed: Shepherd God’s flock among you, not overseeing out of compulsion but willingly, as God would have you; not out of greed for money but eagerly;not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.”

We are finally on the last chapter of 1 Peter! Today we are going to start on the first four verses, but it’s going to take more than one blog post to cover them. These first four verses go together, so I couldn’t divide them up. We’ll have a part one and a part two. Let’s dive in.

Peter starts this section by saying, “I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder…” We’ll start first by looking at this word ‘elder’. We also see the terms ‘pastor’ (in Ephesians 4:11), and ‘overseer’ (1 Timothy 3:1-2, Titus 1:7). These terms seem to be interchangeable but are all referring to the same role. Peter is beginning this section by saying he exhorts them. He is teaching them what it means to be an elder. He is going to teach them and then encourage them toward action.

Notice here that Peter says that he is a fellow elder. He has humbled himself to the same level as the people he is talking to. He could have said that he was “Peter, an apostle of Christ”, because he had that credibility. But instead, he says he is a fellow elder “and witness to the sufferings of Christ…” Wayne Grudem explains that he could have described himself as a witness to the transfiguration, or a witness to the resurrection, but he instead recalls the most painful period in his life. “Why does Peter recall this? Probably to demonstrate that restoration even from grievous sin is possible with Christ (cf. Paul’s similar use of his life as an example of restoration totally by grace, (1 Tim. 1:16) and thus to encourage in the elders a humble willingness to be penitent for sin rather than a hypocritical pride and unwillingness ever to admit doing wrong.”

But I’m moving ahead of myself! Let’s get back to the word elder. It’s used in the plural here, so we see that in the early church there were more than one in leadership positions. We have no detailed plan of church governing given in the New Testament, but we are given rules for what the elders/pastor/ overseer’s character must be. For that, we look in 1 Timothy 3:1-7, and Titus 1:6-9. Those qualities include being: above reproach, the husband of one wife, self-controlled, sensible, respectable, hospitable, not an excessive drinker, not a bully but gentle, not quarrelsome, not greedy, able to manage his own household competently and have his children under control, not a new convert, have a good reputation with outsiders, blameless, holy, not arrogant, and not hot tempered. Those are the character qualities listed. In addition, there is one skill listed. In 1 Timothy 3:2, it lists “able to teach.” In Titus 1:9, Paul writes, “…holding to the faithful message as taught, so that he will be able to both encourage with sound teaching and refute those who contradict it.” So, the elders need to know the Word of God, be able to get the Gospel message across to people and be able to defend the faith.

In our churches today, we usually have a head pastor who does the teaching, and then perhaps a board of elders, depending on what denomination you are in. According to New Testament teaching, the pastor position is one of the elders. I think we have made the pastor position in many churches (especially mega-churches) into something that it is not supposed to be. Krista Bontrager of the Theology Mom podcast has been doing a series on the church and what it is. She talks about the American model for church leadership. It is a personality driven, business model with the senior pastor acting as CEO. The staff acts as administrators, the congregation are loyal customers and visitors are potential buyers. I think this is what led to the seeker-sensitive church movement several years back. According to the Theopedia website, “Church service is structured in a way that is sensitive to seekers (i.e. those interested or curious about church). In other words, church services are designed to appeal to the unchurched, non-Christian, in an attempt to draw them into the church community where they might receive the gospel and be converted.” But isn’t this backward? Shouldn’t the church be going out into the community and being salt and light? That should be what draws people in. Church is for the believers to be filled. It is the pastor’s job to shepherd (as we will see in the following verses) not to water down the service to make it appealing for non-believers.

Back to the American model again. In many large churches and in this age of television and online personalities, we have placed pastors on a pedestal. The problem with this is that it is easy for them to fall off. As we will see in the next verses, it is next to impossible for television and online pastors to effectively do the job of shepherding their flock. Too often the sin of pride gets in the way.

Because the members of the church have become more like consumers, we focus more on the personality and teaching of the pastor rather than the character traits. Don’t get me wrong! It is vital that the pastor be able to teach! The Bible is clear on that. But too often, we overlook the character flaws because we are drawn to the personality of the pastor. We overlook outright sin because the pastor can preach. I have been blessed to go to churches where the pastors have the qualities listed in both Timothy and Titus, and correctly teach the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15). We need to focus on both the qualities listed and the ability to rightly handle the Word of God. Without that balance, the church is out of balance.

In Part 2, I will address the three sins to which elders are prone to and the antidotes. These include: 1) doing the job out of obligation- he should serve willingly; 2) serving for shameful gain (with greedy or selfish motives)- he should serve eagerly; and 3) domineering over those in their charge-he should be an example to the flock.

Grace be with you!