Elders in a Baptist Church - Plural…Yes, Lay…No.

I’ll sometimes hear the claim from some men that a plurality of elders, made up of “staff elders” and “lay elders” in a local church, represents orthodox, biblical ecclesiology and that any church (such as mine) with only one paid elder, several deacons and no lay elders represents a deviation from biblical church polity, or a sub-standard incarnation of it. I do not object to these men for coming to their conclusions about polity, but I confess I do struggle when such men act as if a plurality of “lay” elders is transparently the biblical position and all who reject it must be exegetically dishonest, or hopelessly beholden to some unbiblical ecclesiological tradition.

 To be clear: no one needs to convince me that a plurality of elders is a biblically-sanctioned model. I agree with this. As a Baptist, I am convinced that the Bible stipulates only two offices for the New Testament church: elder and deacon. I believe when Scripture refers to a pastor, an elder, or an overseer, it is referring to the same office. I moreover believe that some kind of plurality of elders in local churches seems to have been a pattern in the apostolic church. And on the purely practical level, no one needs to convince me of the wisdom and practical benefit of having several elders in a church. Certainly my own local church practices a plurality of shared leadership, and has had plural elders at different times in its history. What I am not convinced of is the practice of having several unpaid or “lay” elders in the church, laboring alongside one or two paid elders. The debate occurs because proponents of lay elders believe a plurality of elders requires the presence of lay elders. They regard these ideas as virtually synonymous, and think the one means the other. They regard this equation as supposedly too obvious to require defense. Lay elders are then often introduced because its advocates believe that a plurality of elders is an explicit or implicit requirement of the New Testament, and the practice of ordaining or appointing lay elders seems to them to be the only practical way to achieve the required plurality.

In fact, the concept of lay elders as a kind of orthodox ecclesiology probably dates to Calvin’s introduction of it in Geneva (where there were four offices: ruling elder, teaching elder, deacon, and doctor). Having multiple elders finds circumstantial support in the narratives of Acts and references to elder in the plural in the epistles. However, there is simply no way that careful theological method could turn having “lay elders” into some kind of biblical requirement for churches striving for biblical ecclesiology.

The most common form of defense I hear of this practice is almost always of the practical and anecdotal kind, rather than the exegetical. “The best thing I ever did was to train up lay elders to serve with me” “Having a team of lay elders protects the teaching pastor from being overburdened” “A single pastor without lay elders leads to megalomania and abuses of power”. The problem with building the case for lay elders from stories or practical concerns is that one can with some ease recite just as many horror stories of divisive, uncooperative, immature lay elders that ruined a ministry, or speak of the divisions and differences that occur between “staff elders” and “lay elders”. Alternatively, one could speak of the servantlike deacons that served a single staff pastor in a thriving church. At this point, all we are doing is trading anecdotes, hoping that one person’s story is more persuasive than another’s. We need to do more than claim pragmatic results or successes for one system over another. We need biblical evidence one way or another. Furthermore, we need a careful theological method to handle rightly the biblical data. There are two theological and exegetical points to consider. The first is whether or not Scripture mandates a plurality of elders. The second is if Scripture mandates the financial remuneration of elders.

Are Plural Elders Required By Scripture?

On the first score, the Bible describes without anywhere prescribing the common ancient practice of having a plurality of elders in a church. In good theological method we say, descriptions do not become prescriptions. Simply because some or even all of the churches did something in the first century does not make it normative and required for all churches of all times. Men and women sometimes sat separately in church. People of the same sex greeted with a kiss. The churches used one loaf of unleavened bread and a single cup of wine.

There could be all kinds of reasons why churches had several elders in the first century. The practice may reflect early carryovers from the synagogue, or how ancient towns and cities were governed. The practice may reflect particular manners and customs of the time. Particular churches in particular cities or towns may have had idiosyncratic needs (e.g. one elder per house church). The most we can say about the New Testament descriptions of multiple elders in a single local church is that multiple elders were present in apostolic times, and therefore the practice is permitted by the modern church. It is entirely permissible to have several pastors in one congregation.

The real question at hand is how many elders a church of any period is required to have, and how to reach that number. To answer that, we cannot simply rely on narratives. Good theological method will always prioritize didactic passages over descriptive or narrative passages to answer a question of church order. Specifically, we need a passage that is unambiguous as to its meaning, and in its context specifically aims to define church order and church offices.

Titus 1:5 (“For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking, and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you”) does not meet these criteria of being unambiguous in meaning and a Scripture that intends to define church order in apostolic, prescriptive form. The command Paul gave to Titus may be unique to Crete or normative for all churches of all times, but we have no way to know from the context, for the reference is historical, not prescriptive. Further, the semantic structure is ambiguous. “Elders in every city” could mean more than one thing. It could mean multiple elders in each city. It could mean elders distributed throughout the island of Crete, perhaps one elder in every house church in each city. It could mean multiple elders in each church. The point is, it is far from unambiguous, and as we say in any Theological Method class, ambiguous passages are not sufficient to settle a debate.

For an unambiguous, didactic passage dealing intentionally with church order and the appointment of church officers, we turn to 1 Timothy 3:1-13. Significantly, here Paul deals with the overseer in the singular, but deals with the deacon in the plural. Is this just stylistic? It is doubtful, but even if it is simply Paul’s writing style, it is besides the point. Paul here has the opportunity to mandate a plurality of elders in a church, but instead he speaks of an overseer and deacons. If a plurality of elders is God’s requirement for every local church of every period, the omission here is glaring, and the syntax misleading. Conversely, if we stop turning narratives into imperatives, we’ll see that 1 Timothy 3:1-13 indicates that a church is properly constituted when it has at least one elder and at least two deacons. This is the biblical requirement, and it is all that can be mandated of a local church. So, on the matter of the requirement of plurality of elders, the New Testament teaching might be summarized thus: a church may have more than one pastor, but it is required to have at least one; and if it has only one, it has not transgressed a New Testament principle. It’s really very simple: before you tell me that I am required to have a plurality of elders in my church, could you at least supply one New Testament verse that makes it a requirement?

In summary, in some cases, “lay” elders are introduced into Baptist churches because those doing so believe that a plurality of elders is an explicit or implicit requirement of the New Testament. Many believe a church with only one pastor has a sub-standard or sub-biblical ecclesiology, and the pragmatic solution to achieving this supposed requirement of multiple elders is to enlist men as unpaid elders. This is unnecessary, since the New Testament does not make the plurality of elders a requirement either explicitly or implicitly. Advocates of a plurality of elders almost instinctively assume that denying that a plurality of elders is a biblical requirement means one must be arguing for a single-elder model to the exclusion of a plurality of elders. On the contrary: multiple elders are permissible in a local church. But so is a single elder.

Is Remuneration of Elders Commanded?

 We come to the second matter: whether or not Scripture requires the remuneration of an elder. Should the ministry be built with the labors of unpaid elders simply to gain the desired (or as some imagine, required) plurality, with its benefits? Even if the church sees the plurality as beneficial and not mandatory, can some of the elders be deliberately unpaid? Here is where the Bible is far more prescriptive. Whereas the Bible describes (without prescribing) a plurality of elders, the Bible prescribes that elders are to be remunerated.

Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer is worthy of his wages.” (1 Timothy 5:17-18)

The debate around 1 Timothy 5:17-18 hinges on the word translated especially in 1 Timothy 5:17. This Greek word malista can be taken either as restrictive or as descriptive. (It is used both ways in the New Testament.) Here is a world of difference hinging on one word: we are either commanded to pay some elders, or we are commanded to pay all.

A translation of this verse with malista understood restrictively would be: “Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, particularly those [elders] who labor in the word and doctrine.” Taken restrictively, it narrows the group of elders who rule well and are worthy of double honor (a term referring to financial remuneration) into a sub-group: those who labor in the word and teaching. Here you can have elders who rule well, and among them, elders who rule well and teach from an intense labor. On this interpretation, the double honor (the financial remuneration) is to be given especially (but perhaps not exclusively) to that sub-group of teaching elders. This would leave the other elders, those who rule without laboring intensively in the Word and doctrine, as legitimately unpaid, or “lay”.

A translation of 1 Timothy 5:17 with malista understood descriptively would be: “Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially as those who labor in the word and doctrine.” Taken descriptively, malista equates the elders who rule well to those who labor in the word and doctrine. In this interpretation, there is only one kind of elder who rules well: the one who labors in the word and doctrine, which requires that he be remunerated. (And if he is not ruling well by laboring in the Word, he ought to step down from his office.)

The restrictive position, favored by many Reformed evangelicals, seems to produce problems of a complex taxonomy of elders. For Presbyterians and others, it creates the two offices of ruling and teaching elder. For baptistic groups, it creates the amorphous category of “lay elder” alongside the elder(s) designated pastor-teacher. But once we add the adjectival modifier of “well” to ruling, it would seem that we then have the possibility of 1) elders that rule; 2) elders that rule well; 3) elders that teach; and 4) elders that rule well and teach from an intense labour. On this scheme, the elders in the fourth category need to be remunerated, creating space for “lay” elders, who would be elders from the other three categories.

But it is not that simple. How do we tell a laboring teaching elder from his less diligent counterpart? And is it possible to have an elder who does not rule well who retains his position without disqualification? Furthermore, it seems the double honor is for all elders that rule well, so then perhaps two out of the four categories ought to be remunerated: the ruling-well elders (who do not teach), and the ruling-well teaching elders. But if we are going to remunerate the ruling elder who rules well, how do we distinguish him from his ruling-elder-but-ruling-not-so-well counterpart? In all seriousness, this complicated taxonomy introduces distinctions between elders not seen in other Scriptures such as 1 Peter 5:1-4 or Acts 20:17-31. The restrictive position creates difficulties, if not absurdities and, in my opinion, should be abandoned.

The descriptive position is simpler, and harmonizes with the way the terms elder, overseer and pastor are used in the rest of the New Testament. There is no distinction between kinds of elders. Every elder is to teach. It is precisely his labour in the word and doctrine that is considered by Scripture as ruling well. In fact, understood this way, an elder’s authority exists solely through his teaching of the Word and his exemplary obedience to it. He rules through teaching. And when he does this, in some shape or form, he is to be given double honor. His labor and skill in the Word determines how the church will remunerate him, in comparison to how they will remunerate the other elders. Yes, there is a contrast here, but it is a contrast between elders who teach adequately and elders who teach exceptionally. The accent is on the intensity of the labor of preaching, not on the activity of preaching and teaching, which all the elders are expected to do. Some are more intensely engaged in it, and the church does well to recognize that in its remuneration of them all. Theological Method textbooks will tell you that the simpler explanation is usually to be preferred over the more complex explanation, and the descriptive interpretation is simpler than the restrictive interpretation of malista.

With all that said, a lot hinges on the interpretation of this one word, malista. While I think the descriptive interpretation is more likely, the text is not an unambiguous one, and neither side can make their whole case using this text. Once again, in good theological method we say, an ambiguous passage is not sufficient to settle a debate. If this is your only evidence for splitting elders into teaching elders and lay elders, it really isn’t sufficient by itself. Nor, for that matter, can 1 Timothy 5:17 prove beyond doubt the position that every elder should be remunerated. For further evidence, we turn to 1 Corinthians 9, and the question of vocation, avocation and remuneration. 

Eldership: Vocation or Avocation?

Webster’s defines avocation as “a subordinate occupation pursued in addition to one’s vocation especially for enjoyment”. No one questions that a “full-time” pastor views his eldership as his vocation. But what of the “lay” elder, whose time is spent primarily as a financial planner, or surgeon, or I.T. Manager? What is his vocation, exactly? Is it his eldership, or his career? Does he see himself primarily called to be a pastor, or to be a surgeon, financial planner, or marketing manager? Why is it only the “staff” elder who seems to see his only calling to be that of pastor?

This is not a question of working two or three “jobs”. Many have to do so, for financial reasons. A “job”, to use the rather unfortunate term, is mostly a financial means to an end. A vocation, on the other hand, is a calling. Vocation deals with the question of what domain of creation someone believes he is primarily called to labour in for the glory of God and the good of his neighbor. While it is true that we may have separate callings (to be married or unmarried, to work at home or in the marketplace), that is not the same as saying someone is called to different callings simultaneously. One may be single, a carpenter, and a church musician. But you cannot be called to singleness and marriage simultaneously. We all wear multiple hats, but we can all distinguish between our vocation and our avocations.

An unmistakable disparity exists between most “lay” and “teaching” elders, when it comes to ministry as one’s vocation. While “staff” or “teaching” elders feel prompted to pursue full-time ministry, attend seminary, and equip themselves to shepherd, many “lay” elders would not have considered the task of shepherding to be their calling in life had not the “teaching elder” invited them to do so. Granted, all pastors are encouraged to pursue the office by someone. But it is hard to argue that most “lay” elders have pursued the office with the initiative and effort that “staff” elders have, as if it is their primary vocation. Judging by appearances, some lay elders are elders by avocation, not vocation.

Texts such as 1 Timothy 4:15, 2 Timothy 2:3-7, 2 Timothy 2:15 and 2 Timothy 4:5 seem to suggest that Paul expected eldership to be Timothy’s primary and not subordinate occupation, one entirely given over to leading through teaching. It is impossible to separate an elder’s oversight or leading from his teaching, which makes it unlikely that Paul had two classes of elder in mind when penning 1 Timothy 5:17. If eldership is truly a man’s vocation, then Scripture makes it very clear: all else being equal, a man is to earn his living from his vocation.

My defense to those who examine me is this: Do we have no right to eat and drink? Do we have no right to take along a believing wife, as do also the other apostles, the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working? Who ever goes to war at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk of the flock? Do I say these things as a mere man? Or does not the law say the same also? For it is written in the law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.” Is it oxen God is concerned about? Or does He say it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written, that he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope. If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your material things? If others are partakers of this right over you, are we not even more? Nevertheless we have not used this right, but endure all things lest we hinder the gospel of Christ. Do you not know that those who minister the holy things eat of the things of the temple, and those who serve at the altar partake of the offerings of the altar? Even so the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel. (1 Corinthians 9:7-14)

Notice the fairly strong case for remunerating those whose vocation is pastoring. In the context of explaining why he is eligible for financial support, Paul brings at least five supporting arguments.

1) The apostles themselves were financially supported (vv. 3-6).
2) Natural law indicates that people should live from their calling: soldiers and farmers reap the financial benefit of their callings (v. 7).
3) The Old Testament Law reflects the same principle: oxen were to be able to eat some of what they trod down, and priests were to eat of some of the sacrifices and offerings (vv. 8-10, 13).
4) Material giving is an appropriate response to spiritual ministry, for spiritual ministry is of greater value than material concerns (vv. 11-12).
5) The Lord Jesus has commanded us to support those who preach the gospel (v. 14).

If eldership is one’s vocation, financial support from it and for it is a just expectation. Scripture does not prescribe the extent of this remuneration. It may meet only some of a man’s needs. He may choose to refuse that support: he may be independently wealthy, supported by others, or able to otherwise support himself as Paul did, without blurring the line between vocation and avocation. We use the term “bi-vocational” not because we think a human may have two callings, but because pastors are often forced to work to support themselves in their calling. However, even if the man forgoes support from the church, the church should be willing and able to give or offer double honor to a man it calls to labor in the word and doctrine amongst them. Churches should know that if a man is truly called to the office of overseer, the church that calls him must be prepared to remunerate him, be it a periodic and growing honorarium, or a full-time salary. What is inescapable is this: if pastoring or eldership is a man’s vocation, it is hard to Scripturally defend the idea that his remuneration should permanently and involuntarily come from a source other than the church that called him. To put it another way: it appears that every elder should aim to be “full-time” in the ministry, if it is his vocation.

For a pastor, outside employment should be viewed as a (hopefully) temporary means to enable pastoral ministry. As those who have done so know, how does an elder give himself to the Word and teaching without enormous strain on his other responsibilities? The principle of Acts 6:2-4 can apply to outside employment as well as the administration within a church: it is better for elders to be able to give themselves to the Word and prayer, and if they are freed up to do so, it is better for the church. If eldership should not be a man’s mere avocation, and if one’s vocation and one’s remuneration are ideally to be united, then a church should seriously question the idea of building its ministry off the backs of unpaid pastors. Is it really permissible to have several men who are worthy of double honor, but just never receive it? The church that expects (or demands) that its elders labor intensely in the Word without pay is disobeying Scripture. Building a pastoral staff with volunteer elders who have either no hope or no desire to leave their outside employment also seems to me to be presumptuous.

Advocates of lay elders need to thoughtfully consider whether their lay elders see eldership as their vocation. Consider, does the church with five “lay elders” and one “staff” elder actually have six pastors? And do all six see themselves primarily as men called to be shepherds? Do the other five “lay” elders regard themselves as bi-vocational, tent-making pastors? This I have yet to see. Further, if they all share the same vocation, why do the “lay elders” so often serve terms of a few years at a time, while the “staff-pastor” is a lifer? Why is seminary training usually required or urged for only the “teaching pastor” (a redundancy, if there ever was one)? Let’s be honest: all too often, such churches are working functionally with three offices: pastor, lay elder, and deacon.

Indeed, it is worth comparing the role and qualifications of the average “lay” elder with that of a deacon. 

Maybe They’re Deacons After All

I find it interesting that no New Testament command is given to remunerate deacons. It seems to be expected that deacons will be unpaid, or “lay”, to borrow the terminology. Comparing 1 Timothy 3:1-7 to 3:8-13 shows that deacons are identical to elders in their qualifications, with the single exception of one quality: “able to teach.” (It is true that elders are also distinguished from deacons by the fact that they are not to be “new converts” (v. 6), but this is fairly similar to the idea that the deacons must “first be tested” (v.10).) Interesting that “able to teach” is the sole characteristic that distinguishes elders from deacons, and it is this distinguishing characteristic, laboring in teaching and preaching, that Paul calls to be remunerated in 1 Timothy 5:17-18. Could it be that the men some call “lay elders” are actually deacons?

I think some people mistakenly equate and restrict church leadership to eldership. Leadership is not restricted to eldership, though eldership is the primary form of church leadership. A church may have many people who exercise subordinate or implicit forms of leadership within the church, under the oversight of the elders, for example small-group leaders, Sunday School teachers, or ministry administrators. Some forms of subordinate and implicit church leadership are necessarily exercised through the role of deacon. Of course, I understand the differences between elders and deacons. I know the difference between spiritual oversight and necessary administration. Baptist polity in three propositions is elders lead, deacons serve, and the congregation decides. In fact, I am even happy to affirm Alexander Strauch’s simple definition of a deacon as “one who assists the elders”. Nevertheless, I reject the idea that the elders provide all the spiritual leadership for a congregation, and deacons are the informal servants in the church, the chair-stackers and runners. Philip and Steven were possibly deacons (or proto-deacons, if you like) of the church at Jerusalem, and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find men of equal spiritual maturity and influence in many of today’s “lay” elders.

Given how these offices are paired in Scriptures such as 1 Timothy 3:1-13 and Philippians 1:1, we ought to see that these offices are not separated by a gaping chasm between elder-leadership and deacon-service. Rather, the servant-leaders (elders), and the leading-servants (deacons), give themselves to leading and serving the church as a team, with pastors taking oversight. Yes, there have been abuses in Baptist circles, such as deacon-led churches and deacon “boards” that control the pastor (or the church). These are unbiblical, but veering into the opposite ditch—suggesting that deacons are nothing more than the informal servants in a church, or not a church office at all—is hardly the solution.

What distinguishes elders from deacons is their teaching leadership (not merely some kind of standalone, avocational leadership) through which they take final oversight, and provide the spiritual direction and leadership for the congregation. It is precisely this teaching leadership, and the laborious study it requires, that Scripture commands be financially remunerated. If you have a man with all the biblical qualifications of an elder (making him a spiritual leader in character and qualification) but remove the requirement to lead through teaching with its required remuneration, what do you have? I think the answer is deacon, not “ruling lay elder”. Indeed, while Scripture does not prescribe (or even describe) the role of a deacon, Acts 6:1-7 may give hints, if this passage does in fact describe proto-deacons of the Jerusalem church. These men administered benevolence, administered the material property of the church (which included the finances), and cared for the members. Sounds a lot like some modern “lay elders”, to me. It freed up the apostles to focus on the Word and prayer, which sounds a lot like the job description of a “vocational elder”, to me.

It seems odd and ironic that some of those churches with “lay” elders, whose Scriptural justification is less than certain, would regard a church that has only one remunerated elder as semi-biblical (or unbiblical), when such a church is seeking to follow its understanding of the prescriptions of 1 Timothy 5:17-18 and implications of 1 Corinthians 9:3-14, not merely mimic the descriptions of the book of Acts while possibly ignoring (or explaining away) the prescriptions of a pastoral epistle. Much of this debate hinges on how you interpret malista in 1 Timothy 5:17, combined with your view of vocation and remuneration. My understanding of it and 1 Timothy 3:1-13 leads me to this position: a church is permitted to have more than one elder, but it is required to have at least one elder and at least two deacons. Every elder that it calls is to be remunerated, or offered remuneration in some form. Ministry should not be built off the unpaid backs of genuinely qualified and called pastors for whom ministry is their vocation, not an avocation. Remunerate those men, or do not call them. And title those spiritual leading-servants whose vocation is not that of pastor-teacher what they actually are: deacons.

If your ecclesiology looks different to this position because of how you interpret malista, I can respect that. If you can justify “lay” elders based upon that word in 1 Timothy 5:17, together with the book of Acts and some epistolary references to plural elders, I can understand that, without agreeing with your theological method. But given the ambiguous biblical evidence for “lay” elders in a church, and the amount of difference hinging on the interpretation of one Greek word, surely this should lead us to be careful in declaring another’s position unbiblical, and to avoid theological sneering and patronizing comments. Rather, let’s humbly defend our ecclesiological positions with careful exegesis and sound theology. Let those adhering to some form of baptistic ecclesiology agree that the two offices of elder and deacon are what Scripture requires of the local church, and that the implementation of the number of elders and their remuneration varies from context to context.

David de Bruyn