Bible Text: 1 Peter 5:1-4 | Preacher: Pastor Joe Ricchuiti | Series: 1 Peter, The Proper Exercise of Authority

The New Testament church is led by elders, a group of spiritually mature men who provide direction and oversight to the Body. The nature and quality of leadership in the church is always crucial to the life of the church and never more so than when it faces suffering and trials. It is a principle of church leadership that as the leadership goes so goes the church.

 

The terms “overseer,” vs. 2, (some translations “bishop”) and “shepherd,” vs. 2, (“pastor”) are used synonymously with the term “elder.” (1 Peter 5:1-2; Acts 20:17,28; Titus 1:5,7). All three terms speak of the same office, they do not denote different offices in the New Testament.

-“Elder” describes the title and dignity of the office (a term used especially in the Jewish world)

-“Overseer” describes the function of the office (a term used especially in the Greek world)

-“Pastor” or “Shepherd” describes the manner of the work of the office (The shepherd was an appropriate metaphor for the shepherd feeds, protects, disciplines, cares for, leads, and supervises his sheep, as does the shepherd of God’s flock; feeding them from the Word of God, protecting them from harmful influences and false doctrine, disciplining them caring for them, instruction them and leading them.

 

Churches were led by a plurality of Elders, not a single Elder. “The evidence of the New Testament points to a plurality of elders in a church. It is not until the second century that the rise of a single bishop [or overseer] is found” (Dr. Gene Getz).
Peter exhorts these elders with humility. He does not approach them as some sort of pope, not even as an apostle, but rather as a “fellow-elder.”