There is a variety of practice among Christians regarding church leadership (part of the area of theology known as ecclesiology). The Reformed churches, including the Dutch Reformed and Presbyterian churches, have held the Bible to teach that each church should have a plurality of elders and deacons in leadership. However, there has been debate over the relationship of the pastor/minister to the office of elder. Is the pastor a third office in addition to elder and deacon? Or is the pastor an elder who has the special task of teaching and preaching in addition to ruling?
The Three-Office View—Pastors Are Not Elders
Following the Protestant Reformation, John Calvin held that the pastor/minister is a separate office from that of elder. Thus, Calvin’s view was that there are three offices of church leadership—pastor, elder, and deacon. (Though Calvin also held to a fourth office of “doctor of the church,” which was something akin to a seminary professor.) This three-office view was followed by the Dutch Reformed churches and the Westminster divines in the Form of Presbyterial Church Government (1644), though they did not include this view in the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (the standards of doctrine adopted by Presbyterians).
This three-office view limits the requirements for the ἐπίσκοπος (episkopos, “overseer”) and πρεσβύτερος (presbuteros, “elder”) in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 to the office of pastor/minister. So where then does the three-office view root the office of elder? The three-office view looks to the Old Testament elder as the basis for the New Testament elder and sees this office continuing in passages such as Romans 12:7-8 [προϊστάμενος, “the one who leads”] and 1 Corinthians 12:28 [κυβερνήσεις, “administrating”]. Just as the NT elder corresponds to the OT elder who was primarily a ruler, the NT pastor corresponds to the priest and Levite, the teachers of the Old Testament. While the priests and Levites also shared the task of ruling with OT elders (Deuteronomy 17:8-13; 21:5; 1 Chronicles 23:3-4), the three-office view responds that their primary task was teaching the Word.
The Two-Office View—Pastors Are Teaching Elders
Later Presbyterians, particularly the Southern Presbyterians in the United States, departed from this Reformation view. They held that there are only two offices of the church (elder and deacon) but that there are two orders of elder (the teaching elder and the ruling elder). The pastor/minister is an elder, but he has the special responsibility of preaching and teaching the Word and administering the sacraments. Thus, the pastor (teaching elder) has a distinct role from other elders (ruling elders).
The two-office view builds its case on the following three points.
There are only two offices mentioned in the New Testament—“overseer” [ἐπίσκοπος, episkopos] and “deacon” [διάκονος, diakonos] (Philippians 1:1; 1 Timothy 3:1, 8). There is no third office distinguishing between pastors and elders. The “overseer” [ἐπίσκοπος] must therefore refer to elders generally (both teaching and ruling elders).
The words for “elder” [πρεσβύτερος, presbuteros], “overseer” [ἐπίσκοπος], and “pastor” [ποιμήν, poimen] are used interchangeably throughout the New Testament and thus refer to one office (Acts 20:17, 28; Titus 1:5-7; 1 Peter 5:1-2).
1 Timothy 5:17 speaks of “elders” [πρεσβύτεροι] both “ruling” and “preaching and teaching” (just as the “overseers” [ἐπίσκοποι] both rule and teach in 1 Timothy 3:2, 5). This supports the view that there is one office of elder but that the pastor is an elder who focuses on preaching and teaching. The two-office view holds that the requirements in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 apply to both orders of elders (ruling and teaching) and not just to pastors.
R.L. Dabney Defends the Two-Office View
In order to strengthen the above case for the two-office view, let us look at the arguments from Robert Lewis Dabney (1820–1898), one of the great Southern Presbyterian theologians. He published an article entitled “Theories of the Eldership” in September 1860 in the North Carolina Presbyterian as a response to the three-office position advocated in the Repertory. (The article can be found in volume 2 of Dabney’s Discussions, pp. 119-157.) The following summary of Dabney’s essay is helpful in supporting the two-office case.
Dabney begins by stating that there was disagreement over how much discretion Christ has left the church regarding forms of government. While the Repertory three-office view held that Christ only fixes the general outlines of church government (leaving the door open for a non-explicit office of elder), the Southern Presbyterian Review two-office view held that “Christ has fixed jure divino [by divine law] the whole form of the church in all its details, so that nothing can be instituted in the church unless a New Testament warrant can be found explicitly for it” (121). Dabney’s position was somewhat in between these two, holding that Christ has given a “definite—not merely a general—outline” of church government based in the New Testament (122).
The key question in the two vs. three-office debate is whether a ruling elder is identified as a πρεσβύτερος (presbuteros, “elder”) and ἐπίσκοπος (episkopos, “overseer”), or whether these terms are reserved only for ministers. The three-office view still views ruling elders as a biblical office, but not based on the Scriptural passages on πρεσβύτεροι and ἐπίσκοποι, such as Acts 20, 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. Dabney defends the two-office view, holding that “There is one class of presbyters embracing two orders” (133).
Dabney gives six reasons for the two-office view (aiding the three mentioned above):
The NT institution of elders was borrowed from the government of the OT church. The synagogues of the Hebrews were governed by a bench of elders, called זְקֵנִ֔ים (zekenim) in Hebrew and πρεσβύτεροι in Greek. The church is modeled on the synagogue (128).
The meaning and usage of πρεσβύτερος and ἐπίσκοπος shows that they must apply to the ruling elder in addition to the preacher. These terms mean “elder” and “overseer,” which describe the function of ruling elders and do not emphasize the role of the pastor/minister/preacher (130).
The NT always speaks of a plurality of πρεσβύτεροι and ἐπίσκοποι, and therefore they could not all be preachers (Acts 14:23; 20:17; Philippians 1:1; Titus 1:5). Many of these churches were “too small to need or admit the stated labors of more than one preacher, and too weak to support them. Yet they always had more than one πρεσβύτερος or ἐπίσκοπος. Therefore some of them must have been ruling elders” (135).
There are Scriptural proofs of the two-office view, including 1 Timothy 5:17 and Philippians 1:1. 1 Timothy 5:17 states, “Let the elders [πρεσβύτεροι] who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.” This passage calls the ruling elder a πρεσβύτερος “in the same sense” as the preaching elder. Some such as Charles Hodge argued that πρεσβύτερος is only used here in the “general sense,” but Dabney responds, “If the ruling elder is not here called πρεσβύτερος in the proper, technical, official sense, then neither is the preacher a πρεσβύτερος in that sense.”
In Philippians 1:1, Paul addresses his letter to the ἐπισκόποις (“overseers”) and διακόνοις (“deacons”). Dabney asks, “Where is the mention here of the ruling elders?” Since Paul is addressing the entire church, ἐπίσκοποι must include ruling elders (140-141).
If the ruling elder is not found in the office of ἐπίσκοπος and πρεσβύτερος, then “we have no sufficient warrant whatever from Scripture for the office” (140). And if there is no sufficient warrant from Scripture, then we should not have ruling elders.
Dabney then responds to the strongest counterargument to the two-office view, that it cannot draw a consistent line between ruling elders and ministers since all ἐπίσκοποι are to be “able to teach” (1 Timothy 3:2). However, Dabney responds that ruling elders must still be able to teach, though not in the same sense as the preacher. The ruling elder must still be a private instructor and be able to catechize, and his ruling involves teaching (144-145).
Dabney then responds to the historical precedent argument that Calvin, the Reformed divines, and the Westminster divines held to the three-office view. Dabney counters by pointing out that the ruling elders in Calvin’s Genevan Church were appointed by the senate of the Republic for only one year of service and the French and Dutch ruling elders were appointed to serve only for a limited time. If we are to follow the three-office view of these Reformers as the standard, Dabney asks whether we should follow these other practices as well. He says these men inherited unbiblical ecclesiology:
The truth is, the proper functions and nature of the office of presbyter, as distinguished from minister, had been so utterly lost in the Romish—the prevalent—Church for so many centuries, the proper representative independence of the church in choosing its pastors was so nearly unknown among the Reformed churches themselves—(the systems of the Swiss, the German, the Dutch, the Westminster, and the Scotch churches, were all devised with express reference to a union of church and state)—and the reforms had to be carried out among so many political difficulties, that the Reformers plainly had no chance to attain unto the full scriptural system at first. It would have been almost miraculous if they had. Hence we do not bow to their crude, incipient opinions here (149-150).
In other words, the office of presbyter had been so corrupted by Rome, and there was such a strong state-church connection after the Reformation, that we cannot hold these churches up as the ideal for proper ecclesiology. We must look first to the Scriptures on this question.
After other discussion, Dabney closes his essay with the practical basis for ruling elders—“First: one man can preach efficiently to a great many more people than he can inspect, just as one field-officer can command many more men that he can possibly drill. Second: In the usual course of providence, the church can find many more men who have qualifications for inspectors than of those who are able to preach” (157). Dabney concludes, “The true, the divine wisdom, in economizing all the efficiency of the material, then, is to have an order of inspectors, clothed with all the proper sacred authority, who shall not be required to preach, and then to have with them a smaller number of inspectors who can and do preach. THIS IS PRESBYTERIANISM” (157).
Conclusion
I think the two-office view has the compelling argument from the Bible. The strongest case for the three-office view stems from the practical realm, asserting that the two-office view diminishes the special calling of the pastor/minister. This is the argument of Robert Rayburn, who claimed that viewing the pastor as an elder is a “lower view” of the pastor’s ministry that has led to seeing this ministry as “something much less than an exclusive devotion to the Word of God” (“Ministers, Elders, and Deacons,” Presbyterion 12 (Fall 1986)).
My response is that the problem here is not too low a view of the pastor, but too low a view of the ruling elder. The two-office view holds that both teaching elders and ruling elders must be “able to teach” (1 Timothy 3:2) and “give instruction in sound doctrine” (Titus 1:9). Yet churches so often appoint men to the office of ruling elder who are lacking in biblical and theological knowledge. They treat the church like a corporation and think economic success qualifies a man for church leadership.
Thus, instead of separating pastor and elder into two offices, the church should raise its standard for ruling elders, following that which the Apostle Paul laid out in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1—including the high standard for theological knowledge. Churches ought not to appoint ruling elders because they think they could use more, but because there are men in the church who are highly qualified for the office. And churches can aid this practice by providing extensive biblical and theological training for men aspiring to the office of elder.
For more on this debate, see the Knight–Rayburn exchange: George W. Knight III, “Two Offices (Elders/Bishops and Deacons) and Two Orders of Elders (Preaching/Teaching Elders and Ruling Elders): A New Testament Study,” Presbyterion 11 (Spring 1985): 1-12. Robert S. Rayburn, “Ministers, Elders, and Deacons,” Presbyterion 12 (Fall 1986): 105-114.
See also James Henley Thornwell’s defense of the two-office view, as well as Thomas Smyth’s defense of the three-office view and Charles Hodge’s defense of the three-office view (see pages 118-133).