The other day in class, I was to lecture on the Marrow Controversy (c. 1700–1733) but as I listened to what the students were discussing (while I was getting the tech set up) and as I scanned their faces, I could see that something other than The Marrow of Modern Divinity was on their minds. About 70% of our students are headed for pastoral ministry and, in a given classroom, the percentage may be higher. All of the students are interested in the life and health of Christ’s church and likely more than a few of them became Reformed or were otherwise affected by the minister involved in the latest scandal. As we should all be, they were troubled. I did give the two-hour lecture on T’he Marrow, but I spent a few minutes with them on how these things sometimes happen and steps they can take to prevent this sort of thing in their ministries. I sketched my defense of the so-called “Graham Rule” and pointed them to an article I published on this issue in 2018.
The Structural Problem Of Pastoral Isolation
Most of the students in this classroom have not yet been in ministry, but I have been since 1987, when I began as a licentiate and assistant pastor in Kansas City, Missouri. I was ordained the next year. I began seminary 40 years ago this semester. In those years I have seen some of my classmates fall and demit the ministry. I have watched as more than a few high-profile pastors have gone through what we just witnessed. Many times, not always, however, there is a factor that I suppose many will overlook: the way a congregation is organized and related to other churches. To be sure, there are no magic bullets. I know of cases where even the best system of church organization (polity or church government) has failed. This is a fallen world and all church governments are populated by sinful people and the principles of even the best system must be practiced by sinful people. The first case that really hit me in the gut was that of a fellow classmate who demitted the ministry after committing adultery. I explained to the students that sometimes ministers cross the boundaries of wisdom, piety, and God’s holy law by forming an emotional connection that can lead to sexual infidelity. In another case, a minister ended up going to prison for his abuse of the sheep. The elders of that congregation were sued for failing properly to supervise him.
Still, the way the church is organized matters. In the latest high-profile case (how many low-profile cases are there each year?) the minister was part of an independent Bible Church. In that tradition congregations are typically not accountable to other congregations or to regional and national gatherings of elders and ministers. In some cases, the local minister might be accountable to an elder board but the effectiveness of this sort of accountability is open to question.
The independent church tradition, which has flourished in America, exacerbates a problem in pastoral ministry spanning traditions. There are some larger congregations with multiple pastors, ruling elders, and staff members, but most of the time pastors work alone. Sometimes, in smaller congregations, the office is at home, which can help prevent isolation, but sometimes the pastor’s office is at church and he might spend a lot of time by himself. He makes hospital visitations, home visitations, and even holds counseling sessions by himself. As a practical matter, most pastors are on their own for much of what they do during the week. They study by themselves. In very small churches, they mow the church yard and prepare the bulletin by themselves. The ruling elders, if there are any, have no idea what the minister is actually doing from day to day.
Even in a larger, multi-staff church, in an independent church the senior minister can sometimes become a de facto bishop or even pope. If anyone asked, of course, the church leadership would deny that the minister has that sort of authority, but when a minister serves in a congregation for decades he can accumulate the sort of authority that practically places him beyond accountability. Those who form whatever council might exist are those who agree with and support the senior pastor—they may even be hand-picked by the pastor. The associate pastors and staff typically owe their positions to the senior pastor. Indeed, in the earliest post-canonical use of the New Testament word typically translated overseer or less felicitously bishop (ἐπίσκοπος) probably signals something more like senior pastor.1 I am thinking of the way Ignatius of Antioch uses the word in his letters to the churches who had sent delegates to see him on his journey to Rome to be martyred c. AD 117.2 Sometimes he wrote in ways that might be fairly understood hierarchically but just as often he correlated three offices: the Episkopos, the Presbyter, and the Deacon. It is unfortunate that we translate Episkopos into English rather than simply using English letters (transliterating) as we do for the other two offices. As a result, because of the freight that the word bishop has accumulated it is difficult for us to hear that word without thinking of a regional manager in the church, in a hierarchical system.
The Biblical Pattern
When the senior pastor, in any polity, becomes a de facto pope, the office from which all others flow, it can be practically impossible to hold him accountable. When the Presbyterian and Reformed (P&R) churches are at their best, when we are functioning as we ought, ministers, elders, and deacons are accountable not only to one another but to broader (or higher) assemblies. We see this sort of accountability in the New Testament on an individual level in Paul’s confrontation of the Apostle Peter (Gal 2:14–14). When Peter came to Antioch he ate with Gentiles until some Judaizers from James’ congregation showed up. Then he stopped eating with Gentile Christians because he feared “the circumcision party” (Gal 2:12). Others went along with him and even Barnabas was “led astray” into nomism (Gal 2:13). Paul confronted Peter and he repented of corrupting the gospel this way.
In Acts 15, we see that the churches sent delegates to what is fairly considered the first synod, which gathered to address the doctrinal and practical problems posed by the reaction of the Judaizing nomists who were teaching “unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1). Paul and Barnabas were delegated to synod (Acts 15:2) to meet with other apostles and elders to address these issues. “After there had been much debate, Peter stood up” and spoke to the assembly about what he had learned, “that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:7-9). He concluded in favor of what the Reformers called the doctrine of salvation sola gratia, sola fide (by grace alone, through faith alone), “But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will” (Acts 15:11). James agreed (Acts 15:13). The rest of the body agreed and they issued a synodical letter to be circulated among the churches (Acts 15:22–29). The letter was received with joy in the churches (Acts 15:31).
The assembly corrected individuals. The assembly held individual pastors and elders to account for their doctrine and their ministry. There are hints in the pastoral epistles that this sort of thing also occurred relative to the doctrine and morals of those involved in ministry (e.g., Hymenaeus and Alexander, 1 Tim 1:20; Phygelus and Hermogenes, 2 Tim 1:15; Philetus, 2 Tim 2:17; Demas, 2 Tim 4:9; Alexander the Coppersmith, 2 Tim 4:14).
The New Testament speaks of multiple offices in the visible church, each with its own authority and responsibility. Our Lord Jesus has three offices: prophet, priest, and king. Thus, in Heidelberg Catechism 31 we ask and answer:
31. Why is He called Christ, that is Anointed?
Because He is ordained of God the Father and anointed with the Holy Spirit to be our chief Prophet and Teacher, who has fully revealed to us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption; and our only High Priest, who by the one sacrifice of His body, has redeemed us, and ever lives to make intercession for us with the Father; and our eternal King, who governs us by His Word and Spirit and defends and preserves us in the redemption obtained for us.
This way of speaking in the church has roots that go back more than a millennium, and behind that is the biblical teaching about Jesus as prophet, priest, and king.3 It is challenging to sort out exactly how each of the New Testament offices related to the others, but it is clear that among them there were pastors/teachers (ποιμένας καὶ διδασκάλους, Eph 4:11), elders (πρεσβυτέρους, 1 Pet 5:1, 5), and deacons (διακόνους, 1 Tim 3:8). If the early post-apostolic church is any guide, the three offices that persisted seem to have been pastor, elder, and deacon. Certainly we may not assume that the hierarchical episcopal form of government, in which the bishop was the regional manager of the church, as he came to be by the time of Cyprian in the mid-200s, was the predominant form during the apostolic period or immediately after the apostles.
The biblical and early Christian pattern is not that there is a hierarchical bishop who is, either in principle (de iure) or in practice (de facto), accountable to no one but himself.4 The biblical and early Christian practice and the practice of the confessional P&R churches is to hold our special office bearers (ministers, elders, and deacons) accountable to each other and to other congregations beyond themselves. The Jerusalem synod is clear evidence that the New Testament congregations were not altogether independent of each other. That body had real, binding authority. We know that because the synod issued “decrees” (τὰ δόγματα). It certainly was not mere advice. The early post-apostolic church followed this pattern by convening synods to address the crisis created by the Montanists.5
Our Lord Jesus instituted the visible, institutional church (e.g., Matt 16:13–20; 18:15–20) as the Christ-confessing covenant community, and through his apostles he instituted special offices, but those offices were not hierarchical, whereby authority flowed from Christ through a single bishop to all the other bishops, nor were the churches independent of each other. Rather, the churches were connected and accountable to each other. The officers were to be accountable to each other and to officers in other congregations and to assemblies.
I have long been impressed by the fact that the apostle Paul humbled himself to be delegated by a congregation to a synod where he was just one among other apostles, including Peter and James. There today are so-called “rock star” senior pastors who would never allow a congregation to send them anywhere and certainly not to an assembly where they would be only one voice among many. By contrast, the Apostles, who held special, temporary offices instituted by Christ himself, gradually divested themselves of the three offices by instituting pastors, ruling elders, and deacons. In Acts 6, we see the apostles establishing the diaconal office so that they, the apostles, could pursue the “ministry of the Word” (διακονίᾳ τοῦ λόγου; Acts 6:4). The noun for ministry means service. The one who serves is a deacon (διακονος) or, in Latin, a minister. Whenever we say “minister of the Word” we are talking about servants not masters or lords. The minister’s job is much more like the guy who has the shoe-shine stand outside the office building than it is like that of the CEO in the penthouse of the office building. Even though he had been to the third heaven (2 Cor 12:2), had seen the risen Christ (Acts 9:3–5), and had the power of the Holy Spirit (in a way that none of us has now), he was sent to and he collaborated at Synod with other apostles and with elders. Even Paul was not too big, too powerful, or too popular to be accountable. The uncomfortable truth is that today, in the evangelical world, there are senior pastors who are more unaccountable and who hold a degree of authority with their staff, fellow pastors, and followers that no Roman pope has ever held. If the latest episode teaches us anything, it is that Acts 15 and Galatians 2 ought to be our model much more than the independent and untouchable rock-star pastor.
NOTES
- The Greek word ἐπίσκοπος became in Old English, then Middle English, et seq. biskop, bisschop, and finally bishop. I guess that the epsilon fell away and the πισκοπ became biskop etc.
- E.g., Ephesians 2:2; 4:1; Magnesians 2:1; 6:1 in Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, 3rd edition (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007).
- See also this explanation.
- Since the promulgation of Unam Sanctam by Boniface VIII (1305), in theory, no pope been accountable to a council. Since the election of Martin V (1417) by the Council of Constance, the pope has arguably been beyond the reach of a council.
- For more on this movement listen to the Heidelcast series Feathers and All: The Scriptures Are Enough.
©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.
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R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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Great article, Dr. Clark! A great reminder of the humble calling of all, especially leaders, to serve in submission.
Your Greek “keyboard” / text translator may have accidentally made “Pet” as the Greek in your reference to scripture for elders:
“elders (πρεσβυτέρους, 1 Πετ 5:1, 5),”.
My question, for those who wish to become “truly Reformed” (and commune with a proper body): what resources may I access to understand what it takes to bring a truly Reformed church to town?
(Wichita, KS)
Thanks for the article, brother!
Carmen,
Thank you for the correction.
Here’s article concerning what to do when there isn’t a confessional P&R congregation (or if there is one but it is disappointing).
As for planting a congregation, there are two or three schools of thought:
1) Raise and spend a ton of cash, be a pragmatist, and it two years. If it’s not a “success” then close it and move on.
2) Start with a small core group and build slowly from there. Start with a bible study and when there are enough people send/call a man to the field.
3) Send a man to the field to start from scratch by aiming predominantly at the lost.
Within the NAPARC world, the these are ranked in order of their use. The first approach is likely to produce a congregation that is more broadly evangelical rather than confessional. The second approach is more likely than the first to produce a confessional congregation. The third is relatively rare and the sample is, as far as I know, too small to judge.
There are some things you could do in Wichita. There is a PCA congregation in town. You could start there. Wichita is certainly big enough, however, to sustain multiple P&R congregations. On the resources we have section dedicated to helping people find/plant Reformed churches. On one of the two map pages (to which we link but which we did not create nor do we maintain) I wrote:
1. Contact the nearest confessional Reformed congregations to tell them of your situation. Perhaps they know people in your area? Opening lines of communication is always a good idea. After you get to know one of those congregations, ask them if they will allow you to unite with them in the hope that may be able to attend on some regular (if not frequent) basis so that you have some pastoral care and guidance for finding some place to fellowship and worship in the meanwhile. For more on this see the resources below.
2. Pray. Who knows what the Lord is doing in your community? Perhaps there are others who also have Reformed backgrounds, who, like you, are looking for fellowship?
3. If you would like to plant a URCNA congregation in your area please contact Missions Coordinator, Rev Rich Bout using the form at the bottom of this page.
When I type “Wichita, KS” into the NAPARC zip code page I find three PCA congregations within 25 miles of Wichita, Heartland PCA (which I mentioned above), Evangel PCA and Kirk of the Plains in Andover. There is a URCNA congregation in Kansas City. You could contact them to ask if they know of people seeking to plant a URCNA congregation. Perhaps they are already working on one? The OPC has a Regional Home Missionary in West Plains, MO. You could contact him. There is an OPC RHM in Waco, TX that might also be able to help.
Please let me know what you find out.
Good article, good reminder. I’m always concerned to see social media pages including reformed pages that quote Celebrity pastors, past and present, rather than quoting scripture.
1st Peter’s reference to Noah and the ark has had me thinking recently that the officers of any given church should envision themselves as simply doing maintenance in God’s ark i.e. the church. Maybe it’s a good thing to just see oneself in such a way as opposed to being the ones who steer the ark to our predetermined destination.