A Few More Challenges
The "Moses Model," angels in Revelation, and more
In a recent post, we saw the local church should be led by a team of pastors, with no senior or lead pastor. Last week, we looked at some challenges to this teaching. This week, we’ll consider a few more challenges, as well as a counter-challenge.
The “Moses Model”
If you’ve served in leadership in certain church traditions, you’re likely familiar with the term “Moses Model” or at least the idea behind it. This is a variation of a leadership model we see in church history. By the late second century, most churches had developed a different form of leadership than we find in both the New Testament and the earliest history of the church. While the Bible used the Greek words for “elders” and “bishops” interchangeably, showing them to be referring to the same church leadership role, by the end of the second century the churches had begun distinguishing one leader as the sole Bishop of the church, now in authority over the other elders. (Eventually this developed even further into each Bishop exercising authority over a whole region of churches.)
The “Moses Model” is a variation of this “sole bishop + elders” model. This particular version of the leadership model was most clearly articulated by Chuck Smith, longtime senior pastor of the original Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, CA. Smith first showed the leadership structure for the people of Israel charted as a pyramid, with the people on the bottom, the priests and judges above them, Moses at the top, with God over all. According to Smith, we should follow this pattern in the New Testament church, and he pictured it with the people on the bottom, the elders / deacons / assistant pastors above them, the pastor on the top by himself, and Jesus over the pastor. (You can find this teaching and the diagram below presented in The Philosophy of Ministry of Calvary Chapel by Chuck Smith.)
There are many serious problems with this approach. To begin with, Moses led the entire nation of Israel, not just a local gathering of Israelites. If we consistently apply this model to the church, it would lead us to something closer to a Pope than a local pastor. Thankfully, we know Moses’ role was a unique one, and that he didn’t foreshadow the New Testament local pastor, but the New Testament Chief Shepherd, Jesus Christ (John 1:17; Acts 3:22-23; Hebrews 3:1-6). Moses was the mediator who went between God and the people. Today, the pastor doesn’t fill that priestly role—Jesus does (1 Timothy 2:5).
While many insist the pyramid is actually turned upside down, with the pastor serving the entire body, it still leaves a diagram showing not “one mediator between God and man,” but two—Jesus and the pastor. Most of the people in the churches don’t see much of this. But when you become a leader, you’re taught to not question the leadership or views of the senior pastor, publicly or privately. To challenge him is seen as sin just as Aaron and Miriam sinned by challenging Moses. To even ask questions is often viewed as being divisive, and if those questions involve the senior pastor, you’ll be told to “touch not God’s anointed” (misusing Psalm 105:15, and also 1 Samuel 24:6 and 26:9-11). You’re taught if you can’t agree or follow the senior pastor, then you should quietly leave the church and go someplace else.
Seeking to avoid being a “hireling” (John 10:12-13), these men make themselves the Shepherd of the church. We see this honor as reserved for Christ alone. He is our Chief Shepherd, or Senior Pastor (1 Peter 5:4). Jesus graciously calls the elders of the church to assist him in shepherding their fellow believers, and we want to faithfully fulfill this pastoral ministry. But we see no place in Scripture where anyone other than Jesus follows the model of Moses and serves individually as the Shepherd of the church.
The angels of the churches in Revelation
In Revelation chapters 2-3, John is instructed to write seven letters to seven specific churches. Each letter is entrusted to the “angel” of the intended church. Some see these angels as indicating the senior pastor of each church. Does this work? We should first note there’s no consensus among Bible scholars regarding the identity of these angels. And a claim these angels are actually senior pastors is rarely, if ever, used by scholars arguing for a senior pastor type role. Let’s see why.
Each letter to one of the seven churches begins the same way: “To the aggelos of the church in ____________ , write . . .” This Greek word is found over 170 times in the New Testament. It’s almost always translated “angel.” A few times it indicates a human “messenger.” So this now shows us the key interpretive question for these references: Are these aggeloi angels or human messengers?
Notice—either way—the substance of each letter isn’t written to a single angel or messenger, but to the entire church of Ephesus, Smyrna, etc. Each church is either commended or confronted, not a sole messenger. Each letter is written to a single church, entrusted to an angel or human messenger, and each letter is addressing the whole congregation.
So, to whom are these letters entrusted: angels or human messengers? Could these be literal angels? This isn’t as odd as it sounds, and many scholars think this natural reading is the best one, especially in the context of Revelation. The word aggelos is used over 60 times in the book of Revelation; every other time (other than these chapters) it means “angel.” Unless we want to assume angels have no real part in God’s work with the church, we shouldn’t too quickly reject the idea of angelic participation in the revelation of these letters to these seven, specific churches. We should especially be careful since we’re reading these letters in this highly stylized, dramatic book, that so often shows direct involvement of angels in human events.
But could these be human messengers? That’s certainly a plausible interpretation of this Greek word. Let’s assume these passages are, in fact, speaking of human messengers. If so, there was one messenger designated for each church. Each letter was written to the whole church, but entrusted in some way to a messenger. That’s it; that’s as far as we can go. There’s nothing in these chapters indicating any kind of leadership or pastoral role for these messengers. Some have tried to read back into this passage our traditional practice of having one main pastor for each church. But not only is this alien to everything else we see in the New Testament, there’s absolutely nothing in the text of these passages indicating such a pastoral role. Even the wording shows us the weakness of this claim; the word “aggelos” either means angel or messenger—not pastor or leader.
We want to make sure we don’t slip into circular reasoning—reading some senior pastor role into the passage, and then using the passage to prove a senior pastor role! Regardless of whether we understand the aggeloi in Revelation 2-3 as angels or human messengers, there’s nothing in these passages that point to a senior pastor role in the churches, and there’s no scriptural basis for turning these “messengers” into pastors.
“There is no biblical model.”
Some insist: “The New Testament doesn’t give us a clear model. We have freedom to structure our church leadership in a way that works best for us.” They claim the Bible is so unclear, even inconsistent, regarding leadership structures, we can simply use whatever works best in our particular context. Is this right?
It’s true the New Testament doesn’t provide us with minute details regarding church leadership. And this gives us great flexibility in applying scriptural principles to different cultures and contexts. But there’s actually amazing consistency in how the New Testament describes the pastoral leadership of the original churches. James, Paul, Peter and Luke all describe the churches as being led by a team of elders, and there’s never the slightest hint of a senior or lead elder or pastor.
James’ letter is most likely the earliest of the letters included in the New Testament, dating from the early to mid 40s AD. He refers to church leadership by elders in James 5:14. On the other hand, Peter’s teaching on elders comes late in his life (1 Peter 5:1-4). In the book of Acts, Luke recounts how Paul and Barnabas appointed elders in each of the churches they had planted on their very first missionary journey (Acts 14:23). Years later, Paul is still following the same pattern, directing Titus to appoint elders in each church in Crete, and writing fairly detailed instructions to Timothy regarding the appointment and ministry of the elders of the church. Just as on his first missionary trip, Paul still didn’t feel the work of planting a church was completed until they had appointed elders for each church (Titus 1:5). We see this leadership structure for the churches consistently utilized and taught throughout Paul’s apostolic ministry.
As we saw before, we have accounts of elders being appointed, qualifications listed for elders, and instructions addressed directly to the elders of a church—with no mention anywhere of a sole, primary or senior pastor. Not only do we see this impressive consistency regarding the pastoral leadership of the churches throughout the New Testament, we have much more biblical teaching regarding church elders than we do for such important practices as baptism and communion. We can’t simply pretend God hasn’t provided this pattern for us. And we shouldn’t introduce another form of church leadership—or a separate church leadership role—unless it has clear, biblical (New Testament) precedent.
“The church can’t be led by a committee, it needs a primary leader.”
First, this challenge is a bit of a “straw man” argument, seeking to make another’s view sound silly and easy to dismiss. No pastor or Bible scholar who teaches about the church being led by a plurality of pastoral elders ever advocates for the church being “led by a committee.” They may use terms such as “council of elders” or “pastoral team,” but they don’t refer to “committees.”
Of course, the real problem with this challenge is that it’s not accurate. The implication here is that no one elder or pastor can ever exercise significant or unique leadership beyond that of the other elders or pastors, they all have to be equally involved in every decision or ministry. But this just isn’t the way biblical elderships operate. For example, if the church is beginning a construction project, and one of the elders has considerable expertise in construction, then the other elders will respect this expertise and entrust a great deal of the leadership of this venture to this one elder. If an elder has vast experience and wisdom in financial matters, then their voice will carry much greater weight when approaching fiscal decisions, and the other elders will respect and honor this elder’s leadership.
Leadership by a council of co-equal pastors doesn’t prevent God from using one pastor in a special, dynamic way. If one of the pastors has a tremendous teaching or musical gift, the others will strive to give this pastor ample opportunity to fulfill this ministry. Other pastors actively pursue the areas of ministry and leadership entrusted to them; there’s no need for everything to be done “through the committee.” What this model does resist is seeing one pastor as the primary leader in each and every situation, and formalizing this primary leadership into a “senior pastor” role that’s completely absent from the New Testament. In many churches, the plural leadership model serves to free a gifted pastor/teacher to pursue the ministry that best suits this pastor’s gifting, without the need for this one leader to try to be all things to all people by leading in ways in which they’re not gifted. Just as we see with the diversity within the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-31), the varied personalities and gifting represented in the church’s team of pastors may present a real challenge at times, but can also be a tremendous strength and benefit to the church as God intends.
A counter-challenge
It’s not uncommon to find churches with elders. Unfortunately, many of these churches also have a senior or lead pastor. Some of these churches even emphasize the role of the elders as an important, vital aspect of their church leadership. Because of this emphasis on elders, many would insist they already have a “biblical eldership.” I’ve attended conferences with leaders from churches such as these, and even heard them answer questions like:
Why do you have elders?
I’ve listened as they respond to this kind of question with a robust, thoroughly biblical explanation of the role of elders in the local church. Our churches must have elders because of the clear teaching of Scripture, they insist. They frequently give a very biblical description of the need for elders in each church, the plurality of elders in each church, the pastoral nature of the ministry of elders, etc. In doing this, they’ve drawn directly from clear New Testament passages in ways that would cheer the heart of the strongest proponent of biblical eldership.
But then, on a couple of occasions, I’ve had the opportunity to ask a follow-up question:
Why then do you have a senior or lead pastor?
. . . ummm . . . . . . There can be a very long, awkward pause at this point. They realize they’ve just backed themselves into a corner. Since they gave such a robust, thoroughly biblical explanation of the necessity of church elders, we all expect a similarly robust, equally biblical explanation for this, presumably, key role of senior or lead pastor. . . . But . . . it seems surprisingly difficult for them to explain. In fact, so far I haven’t found anyone who could present a strong, clear, completely biblical case for the role of the senior or lead pastor.
Any takers?
Related posts:
Why We Don’t Have a Senior (or Lead) Pastor
Challenges to Team Pastoral Leadership
What do Elders (or Pastors) Do?
Should Elders (or Pastors) Be Financially Supported?
Thanks, Steven!
Another very helpful article, Curt. Thank you.