Introduction
In the last Article (The Tidings, July 2015) we studied the way in which there are references to the Church in the Gospels, and we saw that the disciples of Jesus, in the period covered by the four Gospels, were not formed into any recognizable groups. They had no special membership. They had no churches in which they met. They went about with Jesus wherever he went, accompanying him on his journeys. The Church as we find it in the Acts of the Apostles, however, is clearly much more organized than this. It is no longer a disjointed society of disciples moving about with their Lord. It is now becoming an organized entity.
The embryonic church of the Gospels was brought to birth at Pentecost, and in the opening chapter of Acts of the Apostles we’re told that they were to “tarry at Jerusalem” until the Holy Spirit came upon them, and that then, with the power of the Spirit, they were to go out into all the world and bear Christ’s testimony to the whole of mankind. Now if we go to Acts 1:15, we immediately see that instead of a dispersed number of people who were disciples of Jesus, some of whom went around with him and some of whom did not, we now have all the disciples gathered together in one place. “And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty…)”.
Just pause there for a minute. We have the number recorded of the disciples of Jesus. In other words, somebody must have counted them; somebody took stock. I do not say they had a registrar appointed, but there were “about 120” names of disciples who were recognizably members of the Church, gathered together in the upper room. Notice the definite article in the margin. Gathered together in “the” upper room, presumably the same upper room in which the Passover had taken place. And their names, or more exactly, the number of their names, is clearly recorded. There were 120 of them.
In Acts 2:41 we read: “Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.” So again they are counted. They know how many there are. I know it says “about,” but to say “about 3,000” means that somebody had taken the trouble to number them; give or take one or two, we may suggest, there were 3,000 persons added to the Church on that occasion. So there are 3,120 now — members of the Church.
“Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand” (Acts 4:4). Notice the staggering numbers here — 120; 3,000; now 5,000 — that makes a minimum of 8,120. And it says “the number of the men,” so presumably there were women as well who were baptized, but who appear not to have been counted; or it may have been that only the men were there at the time listening to the word being preached. This we do not know.
“And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of priests were obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7). So we have got 120 + 3,000 + 5,000, and now we are told the numbers “multiplied in Jerusalem greatly.” So how many thousands and thousands of Christian believers there were in Jerusalem by the 6th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles I do not know. But it is interesting to notice the numbers, and we shall have cause to refer to the tremendous numbers involved later on in our study.
Now we go back in Acts and read: “And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty). Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas” (Acts 1:15). He goes on to say that Judas having fallen by the wayside through his betrayal of the Lord, another apostle has to be appointed to make up the number of the twelve. It is clear that the qualification of apostleship here is “those that have companied with us ever since the Lord went in and out among us.”
Two things arise from this incident.
- Peter clearly, at this stage, was the leader of the Church at Jerusalem. Here are 120 members of the church gathered together in the upper room, and Peter stands up in the midst and obviously takes the lead, and says, “Now we have got to do something about it brethren, we’ve got to fill the place of Judas.”
- I think, though you may not agree with me, that we have here the first election of an ecclesial officer. That is to say, Peter advised the assembled brethren that one must be ordained who has the qualifications for apostleship; and “they put forth two.” Who put forth two? — the assembled multitude. It has been suggested that they had a ballot. That they said, in effect; “Now brethren, we need one brother for this office”; and there were two who were put forward by the assembled multitude. Two nominees for one office having an equal number of votes. And so they cast lots. Having two candidates for the post each equally qualified, each with their supporters among the church, they said, “Well, let the Lord decide.” And they cast lots, and “the lot fell upon Matthias.”
The first “deacons”
Now we go over to Acts 6, and here we have what is generally called the appointment of the seven deacons. Now they are not called deacons in the record, and we shall have something to say in a moment about the office of a deacon in the New Testament, but generally these are thought to be the first “deacons” of the church. At any rate they were “seven men of good report, full of faith and of the Holy Spirit” who were chosen for the day to day ministration to the poor.
The business of administering the ecclesial largess, as it were, had become too much for the Apostles to manage. They said, “It is not meet that we should leave the word of God and serve tables.” “So now you had better appoint some brethren to do it.” And, again, “the Church” appointed them. Look at Acts 6:5: “And the saying pleased the whole multitude”: and they chose Stephen, Philip, and the others. So who chose them? The Apostles did not say, “It’s you and you, and you and you and you.” That was not the way it was done. The Apostles said to the whole multitude, “Look out seven men of good repute, and let them be appointed to this task”; and they appointed them. And I suggest that, having in mind the tremendous growth in numbers which we have already seen described in the Acts of the Apostles, there would be no other way in which they, the multitude, could make these nominations except by having some kind of ballot system; some kind of voting. It is even possible, I would now suggest that there was more than one church in Jerusalem, and that it might have been representative of several churches who through their nominees made the recommendations as to the brethren who should till these offices. It seems a little incredible to me that such vast numbers of believers as are described should all be housed together in one church or ecclesial building in Jerusalem. (Certainly not in the Upper Room of Acts 1.)
Now we go over to Acts 15, to which we shall have occasion to refer on a number of occasions in these studies, because it is one of the wonderful little insights into the ecclesial situation in the New Testament times. Trouble has arisen in the Church at Antioch because Paul and Barnabas, having taken the Gospel to the Gentiles and founded the Church at Antioch, there are now “certain men come down from Jerusalem,” Judean Christians, who are saying (verse l): “Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.” And in verse 2, it says, “When there had been no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question.”
So, clearly, here we have a situation in which the Jerusalem Church is looked upon as being the mother church, and the Antioch Church is looked upon as being, shall we say, an off-shoot that has gone out from Jerusalem. And when the difficulties arose in the Antioch Church, they determined to send to the Apostles and elders at Jerusalem and ask their opinion on the new situation. Who determined? I suggest again that it is clear that it was the Church at Antioch. It was the whole body of believers, or their representatives. We could say it was the rank and file members who said, “Well, we seem to be in a lot of trouble over this. Let us send representatives up to Jerusalem to find out what the Apostles and the elders of the church at Jerusalem, think about it.” So Paul and Barnabas are sent up to Jerusalem on behalf of, as representatives of, the Antioch Church to discuss the problems with them. And in verse 4: “When they were come to Jerusalem,” (I want you especially to notice the next words) “they were received of the church, and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God had done with them.”
“They were received of the church and of the apostles and elders” — so I suggest that it was one vast ecclesial meeting that took place in Jerusalem on this occasion. Whether it means, again, that all the 8,120 (or however many there were by now) were all present in one vast concourse, or whether through ecclesial representatives, cannot be known, but certainly the rank and file of the church were represented. It was the body of the church that met Paul and Barnabas, with the apostles and elders as their leaders. I would suggest that there were at least 10,000 souls either present or represented here — in the Church at Jerusalem at this time. And to them Paul and Barnabas communicated the nature of the problem that they had come to discuss.
And, then, there were objections (verse 5) from the Judaizing element, those who had gone from Jerusalem to Antioch and were disrupting the faith of the believers. “There rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed.” Two interesting points here to notice in passing. First, “a great company of the priests,” we have read already, were obedient to the faith; secondly, many of the Pharisees apparently came to believe. Members of the sect of the Pharisees became Christians! Go back to the Gospels and you would think it impossible. The Pharisees were the ones who were always at the end of the lash of Jesus’ tongue, were they not? But some of them took notice. Some of them were affected, no doubt, by the wonderful news of the resurrection, and thus both priests and Pharisees are represented in the Jerusalem Church. But, of course, they had this tendency, and it runs all through the New Testament, to try to bring the church back to the synagogue; to say that belief in Jesus is one thing, but to turn away from Moses is something quite different. They wanted to have it both ways. They wanted their old prejudices concerning the Law to be carried over, as it were, into the new Christian church; and this was the nature of the problem that the church had to deal with. So verse 6: “And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter.”
Delegates discuss
Now here a new point arises. First of all the whole church was there — the church, with the apostles and elders; and now it would seem that the apostles and elders went into some kind of committee meeting (as we should say). They seem to have said, “Well, we will talk about it and think about it, discuss it, and then report back to the church”; and this is exactly what they appear to have done. Verse 12: “Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them.” So the apostles and elders having considered the matter, in their position of responsibility for the leadership of the church, now go back to the whole meeting to report the situation; and Paul and Barnabas make their report to the whole church.
In Acts 15:13 it would appear that by this time James had taken over the leadership of the Jerusalem church, because he appears to have acted as president at this, what we might call, “business meeting” of the ecclesia. “After they had held their peace, James answered them.” And he summed up the matter in words with which we are all familiar, pointing out that Peter had already had this revelation from God, through the vision that was given to him at the time of Cornelius’ conversion, that he should consider no man as being common or unclean, but that God is taking out of every nation a people for His name. And then in the 22nd verse they summarize the whole thing, and a decision is arrived at. And I want you to notice how the decision is arrived at — “Then it pleased the apostles and elders with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. And they wrote letters by them after this manner. . .”
Now we know the kind of things they put in the letters. We need not go into that. It is not our purpose at this stage, though we may look at it later on in this series of studies. But what we are interested in is the way the thing was done. The apostles and elders considered it. They reported to the whole church. The whole church, with the apostles and elders, came to a decision as to what should be done, and the letter was sent out in the name of them all. It was “the church, with the apostles and elders” who sent out the letter guiding the Gentile ecclesias, for the time being, in the way in which they should act in this particular situation. And this is roughly the pattern we see in all the New Testament epistles.
The particular offices
I want now to consider the particular offices referred to, especially in the Epistles, and see how this early pattern is reproduced and enlarged as the church grows. First of all there were the Apostles, the “special messengers” with overall responsibility for the activities of the church, being specially appointed by the Lord as those who had been witnesses of his resurrection. There is no real counterpart today, of course, to the Apostles. Notice in passing, that the Apostles were more than “the twelve.” The title “apostles” came to be applied, first of all to the eleven. (There were only eleven when Judas had gone, although the twelve are referred to. “He appeared to the twelve,” though there were only eleven in the number at that time.) Matthias was appointed to make up the twelve, but Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 said: “He appeared to Peter, and then to the twelve,” and later to “all the apostles.” So that “the twelve” and “all the apostles” are a separate entity. There were other “apostles” besides the twelve. We must take note of that. Paul and Barnabas in Acts 14:14 are referred to as “the apostles Barnabas and Paul.” Now they were not of the original group as we well know, but they were “apostles of the Lord,” they were special messengers with a special responsibility.
When we come to the second-stage-down, if we can use such a term, we have the bishops and elders of the church. “Bishops”, — the word is “episkopoi” and “elders” is “presbuteros” whence we get “the presbytery” and they seem to me to be fairly generally mixed up. I would think that at this time in the history of the church, in New Testament times, they are used interchangeably. Whether or not there was a distinction in their responsibilities I do not know; but, for example, in the Epistle to Titus we find that Paul uses the terms “bishop” and “elder” interchangeably. It could mean, of course, that all bishops were elders, but all elders were perhaps not bishops.
It may be that as the church developed, first of all the “eldership” was appointed, and then perhaps a particular member was appointed as the shepherd or “bishop” of the ecclesia, a little bit like, though not exactly like, our own arranging brethren and recording brother. The Recording Brother has a distinct responsibility, although he is ex officio one of the arranging committee. But in Titus we read: “For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as 1 had appointed thee.— if any man be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly. For a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God” (Titus 1:5-7), and so on. So here the bishop and the elder are one and the same person. Paul is describing the qualifications of the elder, and in justification of what he is saying he says, “For a bishop must be blameless.” The elders then, or the bishops of the ecclesia, I think were the rulers of the local ecclesias; probably adopted from the Jewish custom of having rulers in their synagogues.
Do you remember how in the Gospel narrative we have accounts of how “the ruler of the synagogue” handed Jesus the scroll to read on the Sabbath day? It was another “ruler of the synagogue” whose servant was sick; these were the “elders” of the synagogue, and it seems to me as though in the early church the apostles, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, adopted many of the practices and the customs of the synagogue worship. I suppose these elders would answer roughly to our own arranging brethren, and it seems certain that they would have been elected by the whole congregation.
Dr. Alvan Lamson1in his history of the church proves conclusively, from the historical narratives that he quotes, that the appointment of bishops other than by the individual ecclesia itself did not come until late in the second century. The bishops up to that time were always appointed, he alleges, by the ecclesias themselves, and this would be in harmony with what we have already seen in the 1st chapter and the 6th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. It is possible, as I have suggested, that in time one of the elders became a permanent “chairman of the committee” as we would say, and that he had the particular title of bishop, just as the recording brother may be thought of as the “leader” of his ecclesia today. That is to say that his function is not just to be a secretary. It is to keep a general eye on the well-being of the whole ecclesia; to give a lead to the arranging brethren; and to be responsible in a great degree for the welfare of each of its members.
And this is the very essence of the idea of a bishop, a “shepherd,” one who cares for everybody in the church. So we often speak today of an ecclesia as being “brother so-and-so’s meeting,” when we mean that he is recording brother of it. We do not mean that he owns it, but that it is associated with his name and with his work, and that he is the member of the ecclesia to whom the responsibility is generally given to superintend the oiling of the wheels and seeing that the thing runs along smoothly. This, as I see it, would be the comparison between the eldership of the New Testament churches, or the bishopric if you like, and the ecclesial elders today whom we choose to call arranging brethren, or some such similar term.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One