Systematic Theology - Church

Presbyters

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: Government

Genre: Speech

Track: 12

Dictation Name: 12 Presbyters

Year: 1960’s – 1970’s

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we come to thee again rejoicing in all thy blessings. Give us ever grateful hearts that we may use the abundance of thy good gifts, ever mindful of our responsibilities to thee and to thy kingdom. Great and marvelous are all thy ways, O Lord. Give us grace to trust in thee, to cast our every care upon thee who carest for us, and day by day, to walk in the faith that thou who hast made all things will bring all things to their destined purpose. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

Our scripture this morning is from the first letter of Paul to Timothy, 1 Timothy 3:1-7, and our subject is Presbyters. “This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?) Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.”

The word “presbyter” which we have in English used also for the term “elder” is, in the Greek, almost exactly as we meet it in English: presbuteros. It is the office which is described in Deuteronomy 1:15-17, the elders, or captains, or overseers, or bishops who had charge of Christ’s flock, of the people of Israel who were rulers over families of tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands.

Now, the word that is used here in 1 Timothy 3:1-2, translated as bishop is, in the Greek, again almost exactly as it is in the English, episcope, bishop. We have it in the English as Episcopal. These two words are essentially one and the same word in meaning, so that presbyter, elder, and bishop are interchangeable. We know that this is the case from Acts 20:17 and 28. Now, in verse 17 of Acts 20, Paul sends for the elders, or presbyters, or the church of Ephesus. Then, in speaking to the elders, he calls them bishops in verse 28, so that the word there as elsewhere, is used interchangeably. Now, the word “bishop” in root form means overseer, superintendent, or most clearly, bishop. It has reference to visitation and to oversight. In 1 Peter 5:1-2, both words, presbyter and bishop, are used by Peter for the same men. Thus, in the New Testament, the meanings of elder, presbyter, and bishop are identical. There is no difference between them. However, very clearly also, there are degrees of authority within the office in the New Testament. Just as in Israel, the elders of fifty had more authority than elders of ten, and the elders over thousands had more authority still. So, too, there is a difference of authority within the New Testament. Thus, Paul calls the elders, or bishops of Ephesus with authority over them. Paul’s authority over John Mark also is very clear, as well as his authority over many other associates.

Now, this should not surprise us. The very word “elder” or presbyter, does signify maturity, authority, and age, and so the word makes room for differences, for degrees of experience and of leadership.

Now, the Presbyterians are by and large insistent on the fact that there is just one kind of presbyter. In this they are correct. Presbyter and bishop are one and the same. However, they do not allow for differences in the office, although there are differences between the pastor and the lay elders in the Presbyterian system. We know from Calvin’s correspondence that he was ready to accept bishops in the Church of England provided it was an administrative and not a sacerdotal office, but our concern is less with the office and more with the function, and even there, we shall go beyond the idea of office and function in a few minutes, but first of all, our thinking when we think about the church is too much colored with the Greco/Roman world and its thinking, because the Greco/Roman world placed emphasis on status, on office. Whereas{?}, using the terms office and function, the biblical emphasis is on function.

Now, in the history of the Christian church, there has been a tension between the idea of office and function. To illustrate, what do you do if you have a king who, by heredity or by election, or by whatever process, because various processes have existed whereby a man became king. What if his function is not royal? What if he is indeed incompetent or evil? What takes priority, his office or his function?

Today, in our system, we have left room for doing something about it: impeachment, but we’ve never successfully impeached a president. It is almost unheard of for a judge to be removed from office. So that while we have legally left room for removing from office a man who does not fulfill the function thereof, we have not, in our political systems, solved that dilemma.

In fact, we’d have to say, in the history of the church, it has been dealt with much better than it has in politics. Very early, the church said that a ruler, a civil authority, who did not meet his function in a godly way need not be obeyed, and so theological grounds were established very early for civil disobedience. Now, granted that the decision must be made by church leaders and theologians after deliberation, and it is not left to the people at large to say, “I don’t like that man. I don’t feel he’s meeting his function. Therefore, I cannot obey him.” However, the problem has also come up with regard to office and function in the church. The Medieval church had to wrestle with the problem. There were, after all, some popes whose function clearly was not a godly one. Now, some of these were indeed removed, because for one reason or another, it was held their election was not entirely legal. However, the Council of Constance had three popes to deal with, and while it could perhaps call two of them illegally el3ected, one of them clearly was not illegally elected. Thus, there was Pedro of Luna who claimed the title of Benedict XIII, there was Angelo Carario, who claimed the title of Gregory XII, and there was Baldassarre Cosa who called himself John XXIII.

The Council of Constance deposed all three of them. John XXIII, because he had not discharged his function in a godly manner. There were very serious moral charges against him, and the Catholic Encyclopedia lists some of them and says he was an ungodly and an immoral man, although it says not all the charges against him were valid. However, those that were, were enough to remove him on the grounds of being notoriously immoral.

Thus, the church also said that an officer of the church could be removed for failure to fulfill his function. Protestantism has also had to deal with this, with varying successes depending on the particular church. Thus, the distinction between office and function has been a continual one and a problem, because there is no question that in terms of our background, of Greco/Roman thought, we do see the office as very important, but on the other hand, because of our biblical background, we also see the function as very important. We know that in the Bible, again and again, priests, prophets, and kings are set aside by God because they have failed to meet their function, and men have been used by God to tell them that they have failed to meet their function.

However, as we come to the heart of the matter, we have to go beyond office and function as a distinction while recognizing it’s a real one, to say that the Bible places the emphasis on something else, on God’s calling. So that, in terms of scripture, both office and function are subordinate to God’s calling, and therefore, the fulfillment of God’s law. Again and again, God speaks of the fact that an office or a function are aspects of his calling. Thus, the prophet Nathan reminds King David that God called him from a sheep coat{?} from following after sheep and made him king, and so God lays down the terms whereby he is to function and to continue as a king. Calling thus, is basic.

Now, with this in mind, we can look at 1 Timothy 3:1-7. The first thing that we must note is that a novice is not to be made a bishop or a presbyter. We have the word novice, the Greek word, in English as neophyte, someone who is new to something, just a beginner, and Paul makes clear that God does not want a neophyte, a beginner, however able, however, talented, to be ordained. The presbyter or bishop must have roots in the faith and in the life of the faith. John XXIII, by the way, was a very brilliant political figure. He was elected pope on, I believe, a Monday. He was ordained on a Tuesday and consecrated later in the week. He was a novice, in other words.

Now, the bishop must not be a novice. The word, by the way, in the Greek, means newly planted. He must have roots, because only then can he appreciate the life of the faith, and the community of the faithful, the history, the tradition, all that is important in the community of the faithful. The novice is an outsider to a life he has newly entered. Hence, he cannot govern wisely. He will be tempted to apply his abstract ideas to something that he has no knowledge of. Now, a novice in any field is a dangerous person. I know that some years ago, a major mushroom growing firm on the West Coast was taken over by a major conglomerate, and they decided since they knew more about administration, and this was a small outfit, small in that it had only about four mushroom plants on the West Coast, they knew more about administration and everything, and they fired everyone connected with the mushroom company, and tried to do everything from the ground up with better administration, but the men were novices, and within a year, they had the net profits down 90%. They had brought in the best kind of talent from New York, talent that knew nothing about growing mushrooms. Simply had administrative ability, abstract ideas that sounded good, but incompetent in performance.

Now, Paul is saying the life of the faith requires men with a background in the faith, men with roots, and hence, the novice cannot be ordained, because he will, in his pride, apply his abstract ideas to the house of God, and fall under the same kind of condemnation as the Devil who thought he was wiser than God.

Then Paul says, secondly, not only must the bishop or presbyter be a man of experience, but he must be wise in terms of family life. The virtues of the bishop or presbyter are family virtues. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity, for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? Again and again, as we go through the scriptures, we find that the family virtues are basic to the life of faith and to government within the church, authority within the church. The elders of Israel were family men, first of all. No one could rule in the civil government of Israel in the Sanhedrin, or in any other position of authority unless he were a family man. This is why we know that Paul was almost certainly a widower, that he must have been married at one time.

In 1 Corinthians 9:5, Paul makes clear that the other Apostles were married men. If Paul actually voted against Stephen, he had to have been, at one time, a married man, because he could not have sat in the Sanhedrin otherwise. Moreover, we are told he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, a leader among the Pharisees as well, very obviously so in that he was entrusted with authority to persecute the Christians. He could not have had any position among the Pharisees unless he had been, at one time, married. Moreover, we have the witness of Clement of Alexandria that Paul had been married. Thus, very clearly we are told that the family virtues are basic to government, and therefore, to trust somebody with authority in any sphere who is incapable of ruling his own house is very unwise.

Now, in 1 Timothy 4:3, Paul speaks of the prohibition against marriage in the name of holiness as the doctrine of devils. However, at the same time, our Lord says in Matthew 19:12, that some are called to be eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. Thus, we have very clearly in the Old Testament, Elijah and also Jeremiah were called to serve God as celibates. Thus, we cannot arbitrarily exclude all such, because the Bible does not. What Paul speaks of is that to speak of the single estate as the way of holiness, as though marriage were not is clearly the doctrine of devils, that normally, the presbyter or bishop is to have the family virtues to be a husband, but not exclusively so.

Then, third, we are very plainly told that the bishop must be apt to teach, skilled in teaching. It is interesting that the Bible does not use the word “preach.” The word is used elsewhere, but here, in this text it is “apt to teach.” To preach is “to proclaim.” Now, we can proclaim ably, or as many pastors do, proclaim badly, or incompetently, but the word that is used by Paul here is a single word which means “apt to teach.” Paul stresses the ability. Too many today are unable to teach or do not place sufficient emphasis on the teaching aspect of the ministry. This is a hindrance to the house of God. The domestic virtues put the stress on the ability to govern, on sobriety, on the ability to rule one’s self, and to handle money, which is very clearly stressed, and it is a sad fact that we have too many presbyters or bishops today who cannot handle money.

I know that one of the more prominent pastors here in the State of California, whom I used to know rather, better than I wanted to, was totally incompetent when it came to handling money. His wife had to handle all the accounts and give him so much spending money every day, because he could not be trusted with it. It was not the only sphere, of course, that he was incompetent in, because people are of a peace. How can men rule the house of God if they cannot rule their own homes, Paul says. They must be in command. They must be gracious, helpful, hospitable, setting example in these things for others, but above all, they must excel in the ability to communicate the faith. It’s a sad fact that in our time, seminaries turn out lazy, bumbling, incompetent men, and their attitude is, “Well, let the church decide. They got their grades and we’ll turn them loose,” and the church says, “Well, if the seminary graduated them, they’ve got to be good,” and so nobody does the obvious thing, to say, “You don’t belong.”

Some very tragic cases could be cited here, but to continue. Then fourth, Paul makes this point, the overseer must have a good report of them that are without, of those who are outside the church, in order to avoid reproach. Too many people within the church are unwilling to be plain spoken about the faults of the clergy. In fact, it’s a sad fact that bumblers within the church and incompetent men are very commonly put up with and the good men criticized, because they’re not perfect. One reason for this is it’s harder to tolerate a man who challenges you, calls attention to your sins and shortcomings, and summons you to grow. It’s much easier to be tolerant towards a man you can look down on, and too often, the church tolerates incompetent pastors, and so Paul says it is important that he have a good report from those outside the church, that they don’t look upon him as a fifth rate person, because they’re not going to be merciful, or indulgent of his faults.

Now, in this catalog of the requirements of a presbyter or a bishop, Paul has left out something that troubles some people. He has said nothing about the sacraments. Does this mean that the sacraments are not important in the life of the church? Is there a reason why Paul does not concern himself with the administration of the sacraments? After all, the traditional definition of a true church is one where there is the faithful preaching of the word, the proper administration of the sacraments, and proper disciple. We can say that Paul here has spoken of discipline; one that rules well his own house, and of the faithful ministry of the word. What about the other element? The sacraments. The answer to that is that Paul is not distinguishing nor does scripture distinguish between the word and the sacraments. What we have done in the history of the church is to separate the two, and say, “Here we have a ritual, and here we have something verbal, a speaking, and these two are distinct and different.”

But remember, we dealt with the Passover a few weeks back, and we say that in the Passover and in the other services of the Old Testament church, ritual and teaching were one and the same. The Passover is the communion of the Old Testament, and how does it begin? The youngest male child in the family begins the service by saying, “What is the meaning of this service?” and then the whole of the service, both that which is enacted and that which is spoken has a teaching function, a teaching function. There is no separation, none whatsoever. What has happened in the Christian church is that, at times, the sacraments have been separated over here, and emphasized to the detriment of the word, and other times, the word has been emphasized to the detriment of the sacraments, as though the two were separate and distinct, but the Bible does not permit us to do so. The Bible, in fact, emphasizes over and over again that the two are identical. They have a teaching function. So that even with respect to the teaching of history, the stones, the monuments were there so that the children might ask, “What mean these stones?” and they were to be taught, and they were to remember every time they saw them what the teaching was.

Thus, in terms of scripture, we cannot separate the two. It is a false distinction.

There is another thing that seems to be left out: visitation. In terms of the life of the modern Protestant church, visitation is half the work and sometimes nine-tenths the work of the pastor. He is expected to be out there going morning, noon, and night. Some years ago, a Scottish pastor visiting in this country, a member of the Church of Scotland, commented that back in Scotland, it would be impossible for a pastor to function without a study. In the United States, it would be impossible for a pastor to function without his car. This is because of the heavy emphasis on visitation, but in Acts 6:1-4, we find that the Apostles declare that the deacons are appointed for this task. We saw last week that all the members have a duty to call on one another, to be members of a family, whereas the pastors must give themselves to the preaching of the word, to the ministry of the word and the study thereof, and to prayer. In other words, what has happened within the church is that the Pauline, the biblical emphasis on the word, has given way to visitation, and it has made of the pastor the errand boy of the congregation who is expected to call on everybody when they’re not feeling well.

I think the classic example of that was someone in his late 20’s who complained once to me that he had been a member of the church for two years, and the pastor had not called on him, and the fact was that the pastor, during those two years, had been in and out of surgery several times and had been in great pain many times when he had been in the pulpit, and I asked him, “Did you ever call on the pastor when he was sick?” and he was shocked. It wasn’t his duty. Of course, the duty of members of a family is to be concerned one with another, and a Christian family has that responsibility.

Thus, Paul here gives us the qualifications of the presbyters or bishops of the church. They are to be overseers of the flock, to guide them in their ministry, one to another. When all the responsibility is placed upon the presbyters, the pastors, or bishops, the result is an anemic church, which depends on one man for its functioning, for its life and its vitality, but it is to be a congregation of elders in which every man governing first of all his own household, learns what it is to be an elder in the community of the faithful, to exercise supervision, visitation, which is part of the meaning of the word bishop, oversight over the life of the faith in the community of the faithful. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee that thou hast called us to be members of thy household, thy family, and to be members one of another. Make us ever mindful, our Father, that we are not our own, that we have been bought by a price, a price of Christ’s blood, and that we are to be members one of another, ever mindful of the needs of our brethren. Bless us to this task. In Jesus name. Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] When you were talking about the Bible not differencing between the word and the sacraments, could you comment perhaps on the Catholic church’s position in this matter? At the time of the Reformation, I understand Martin Luther had some problems in this area, and there was some conflict between him and Calvin Zwingli in the area of the administration of the sacraments. Was this one of the problems, or could you comment on that please?

[Rushdoony] Yes. It was a problem, not only within the Catholic church, but amongst Protestants as well. We may be returning to this issue at considerable length, although we will be touching on it again and again, but the sacraments had been separated in the later Middle Ages from the ministry of the word. A great deal of this happened at the time of the Black Death. When the Black Death hit Europe, the toll was devastating. We know that after the Black Death, many men were hastily ordained throughout Europe to fill vacancies in parishes, who could not read nor write, and whose knowledge of scripture was minimal. Well, the result was that you had a warping of the leadership of the church, and it had very serious consequences, and the church did go into a decline. You had a predominance in some areas of pastors and then of bishops without any concern over things that were essential, who could not even recite the Pater Noster, the Lord’s Prayer. They were just kindly, well-meaning men who were pressed into service. So, by the time of the Reformation, abuses had become quite serious, and of course, the Reformation had a problem in that, where were they going to get competent men? We know that, in the Church of England, for example, a Book of Homilies was written to enable the pastors to conduct services and have something to say. The Book of Homilies was a collection of sermons that had been written and they were to read them, so a congregation would get a continual round of the same sermons, quite good ones, by the way, in magnificent English, and there were many within the Church of England who were lazy, who kept on using the homilies right up into Victoria’s day, in the last century. So that the Book of Homilies far outlasted its time. Then, the goal was to begin to teach these men, all the churches, Lutheran, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Catholic, had a problem: educating the clergy.

Now, as a result, there were very serious problems with the administration of the sacraments, because this divorce had taken place between the word and the sacraments. There were in both Protestant and in Catholic circles, one would have to call them superstitious beliefs with regard to the sacraments, even to a fearfulness about taking them too often, or until you died, something which you encountered also in Constantine’s day, and that tradition lingered into Colonial times in this country, by the way. One important figure who did not take sacraments because he felt he was unworthy, he believed every word of the scriptures, he fasted every Lord’s Day, but he hesitated to take the sacraments: George Washington. So, you see, the problem was not resolved then, and what’s happened is that each church has more or less frozen its decisions of the time, so it is important to rethink the doctrine of the sacraments and to begin with the recognition that the word and the sacrament cannot be separated. The Passover service of the Old Testament does not permit it.

We have time for one more quick question. Yes?

[Audience] How would you advise a man who is pastor of an ordinary church to be able to get the church to understand what his role is, and what theirs should be as far as they should have the time to study and, to the men, the officers of the church, whoever should be involved, in visitation {?} life of the church. Probably be easier before he went maybe to lay it down, but if he was already there, how would he turn it around {?}

[Rushdoony] It’s very difficult. I know because I’ve been through that. The last congregation I was with, I had an unusual elder, an old Scot, who saw the point and volunteered to take over a great deal of the visitation. Then, with every session meeting, we began with about forty-five minutes studying the Confession of Faith and the work that was theirs as elders. We did progress quite a bit towards accomplishing those goals.

Well, our time is up. Let us bow our heads now in prayer.

Our Lord and our God, we call upon thee to bless our efforts, to prepare ourselves, and to give of ourselves unto thy service. Revive thy church, O Lord, in this generation, and make it a mighty and effectual witness unto thee, tearing down of the things that are and the establishing of the things that belong to thy kingdom. In Jesus name. Amen.

End of tape