The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-13, titled "Bible Questions and Answers."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. Copyright 1992 by John MacArthur Jr., All Rights Reserved.

Question

It seems that every time I enter a discussion about the qualifications of a pastor, the conversation eventually ends up in: what are the biblical guidelines for a church? Should it be elder-run or should it be pastor-run? And, I don’t know how to answer that question. Does the Bible offer any guidelines as to who has the final say?

Answer

Well, the church is pastor-run or elder-run, yes, very clearly. But, pastors and elders are the same; they are the godly men--the plurality of godly leaders--that feed and lead the flock. I mean, obviously, when you say “run the church”--we have to make the decisions to lead the church. That’s pastors and elders that make that decision. I know that plays out differently in different kinds of church organizations. There are those organizations who have a board of people made up of elders, and those elders literally tell the pastors what to do. And then there are churches that have pastors and those pastors run the rest of the people in the church. It can be Presbyterian form, which tends to be a plurality of elders that lead the church; it can be Baptist, which tends to be a group of pastors that lead the church; in some cases, the pastors are under the deacons who lead the church.

The simple way to understand church government is this: pastors and elders are all the same, godly men who preach and teach, feed and lead--they lead the church. It’s that clear. Whatever you want to call them, whatever way you want to organize them. In many cases, for example, in a Baptist church, they don’t have elders; what they have is a staff of pastors. And, maybe, in a large church, they might have 15 pastors; in a small church, they might have 3 or 4. And that is the eldership of that church. They have the oversight. Now, they may defer to a group of deacons, as in Acts, chapter 6, to take care of the business of the church, but theirs is the spiritual oversight.

It should never be that that’s overturned. And where I think that Baptist churches and those that have that kind of deacon-pastor relationship get into trouble is where the pastors, who really are the elders, who preach and teach the Word, become servants to the deacons, who really are a lower-qualified group and shouldn’t be leading the pastors.

Question (continued)

I guess that how the question comes up is when the issue turns to, say, a pastor who doesn’t meet those qualifications and shouldn’t be, you know, the pastor/teacher of a congregation, but yet he’s the one who has control and is the one who says, “Yes, I’m staying.”

Answer (continued)

Yes, but again, at that particular point, the consensus of the church should come into play. No church, necessarily, is obligated to sit under and accept the leadership of one who is in violation of God’s standards. The congregation needs to rise up in that situation, if not the other leadership--the other elders, the other pastors. If it’s a single pastor, then I think the congregation needs to deal with that.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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