The overwhelming majority of people are familiar with a church having a pastor. In town after town after town all across the land, there are dozens or even hundreds of churches, and nearly all of them have a Pastor.

Other very charitable people have no pastor, opting instead for what they call a plurality of elders. Still others on the charitable side of things have what they call bishops. We who hold to the office of the Pastor should be equally charitable to them.

On the decidedly non-charitable end of things, a tiny handful of aggressive online pseudo-theologians in our day actually slander the idea of a church having a singular or senior pastor, going so far as to call it heresy, and teaching that if a church does not have a plurality of elders who run everything, they are Biblically illiterate.

The most radical view holders on the subject go so far as to teach that there is not, nor has there even been, any office of the Pastor in the New Testament, thus relegating millions of churches through thousands of years into the category of grave error.

That is a very wide range of opinions.

So, what does Scripture have to say on this subject?

Let’s begin by defining a word, the word elder. Here is a pretty important place it is found in Scripture:

Acts 20:17 And from Miletus he [Paul] sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church.

Elders, here, is from the word presbuterous. If you are familiar with the word presbytery, or Presbyterian, they come from that word. Sometimes, it simply referred to those who were older, but in this case and many others, it referred to an office within the church.

Go to verse twenty-eight, and notice the instruction Paul gave to these elders:

Acts 20:28 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

Paul said that God had made those elders “overseers.” That is from the word episkopos. If it sounds like the word Episcopal, it should; they are from the same word. It means a bishop; it is found seven times in the New Testament. Here in Acts 20:28, it is translated as overseers. The other six times it is actually translated as bishop.

We then come to the word feed in verse twenty-eight. That may seem like it does not fit with the list we are examining, but believe me, it does. It is from the word poimane. It means to shepherd a flock. In Ephesians 4:11, that root word is translated as Pastors. Thus, we find that elders are bishops are pastors. Those are not three different offices, they are three different names for and aspects of the exact same office. Paul called this one group of men elders, overseers (bishops), and pastors.

As Qurollo observed, “Elders, overseers, and pastors are not three separate offices but one office with three separate functions.” (Qurollo, Acts, P.392)

Paul spoke specifically of the office of the Pastor when he wrote to the church of Ephesus:

Ephesians 4:11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

Whether one views pastors and teachers as two people/offices or one with two functions (I hold the latter view), there is clearly such a thing as the office of a Pastor in the New Testament, or Paul would not have mentioned them. If one does not believe pastors existed/exist, then he must also be consistent enough to disbelieve there ever are or were apostles, prophets, and evangelists.

But why were there elders plural, rather than singular? For a practical reason rather than a doctrinal reason. In the early days of the church, with no church buildings to meet in, though there was one official church per town, that church met in many locations, often someone’s home:

Romans 16:5 Likewise greet the church that is in their house. Salute my wellbeloved Epaenetus, who is the firstfruits of Achaia unto Christ.

1 Corinthians 16:19 The churches of Asia salute you. Aquila and Priscilla salute you much in the Lord, with the church that is in their house.

Philemon 1:2 And to our beloved Apphia, and Archippus our fellowsoldier, and to the church in thy house:

Many different locations for a singular church necessitated many different people acting in the role of an elder/pastor. By the time John the Apostle wrote the book of Revelation nearly four decades later, though, he addressed one pastor, one angel in each of the seven local churches.

Is there wisdom in having a group of men to help in leadership rather than having one man call all the shots? Certainly. Our church has deacons and trustees that I lean on heavily for that; Proverbs 11:14, “Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.” Most people would look at them as “a board of elders,” and such terminology does not bother me, though I do not use it.

There is, then, an office of the Pastor. Be sure and pray for and help yours!