The Senior Pastor - Conclusion
In conclusion, while I would not go so far as to say that the presence of a senior pastor is unbiblical, it would seem that its Scriptural justification is weak and that the rationale used to support the need of a human senior pastor, which appears to be rooted more in tradition or pragmatism than in a solid Biblical mandate, are unconvincing. It would seem, then, that in the case of a plurality of pastors, given the weak Scriptural evidence for a designated human senior pastor, allowing Christ to be the senior pastor and the elders to serve as the Holy Spirit leads, with no hierarchical titles, would be the better New Testament model. Even though a few practical considerations have been proposed, the most important factor to consider is that this position seems to require fewer assumptions to be made about details that Scripture does not furnish.
- Introduction
- New Testament Evidence (Intro)
- NT Evidence: the angel to the church at ...
- NT Evidence: James and the Jerusalem Council
- NT Evidence: a final word
- Old Testament Evidence
- Evidence from the synagogue
- Some first and second century evidence
- Arguments from pragmatism
- First among equals: final comments
- Fourth view: final comments
1 comment:
Great series! I agree with you that all believers are to operate equally together as opposed to falling within a hierarchical system. The scriptures certainly point in this direction but it's so rarely lived out in the life of a church. One reason may be because we seem to exalt the preaching pastor of a church above any other.
In your post regarding OT evidence, you bring up Moses as an example to support having a single leader for the church. However, Moses would actually be more akin to a national leader and could be a closer example to a "judge" like those found in the book of Judges.
You're arguement would be stronger to include Aaron. Aaron and his descendants were the High Priests and the Levitical priesthood would be a better argument one could use to argue the senior pastoral position if they so chose to do so.
However, in the Levitical priesthood there was a High Priest with priests who served equally various functions under him. So then a proponent of the senior pastor position could either argue that their senior pastor functions now in place of the levitical High Priest (easily rebutted) or that since Christ is our High Priest their senior pastor functions as a priest under Him. It's a flawed argument because it betrays their lack of knowledge to how the Levitical priesthood functioned (a single High Priest with equal priests under him), but a stronger argument an opponent could use from the OT than Moses.
Now today Jesus is our High Priest (Hebrews 7) and 1 Peter 2:4-5 calls us a holy priesthood and so as the old covenant was a shadow of better things to come, perhaps we're now meant to function as a new sort of priesthood, with Christ as our High Priest instead of a descendant of Aaron equally serving together under the direction of our High Priest.
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