A few years ago a young man who had been part of our church moved to a small rural community. He started attending a non-denominational evangelical church. A couple of years later, the church got a new minister. Within a year of the minister coming to the church, he announced that the church did not have a biblical leadership structure, so he was going to teach them what the Bible taught, and lead them in writing up new by-laws which reflected the biblical structure.
When the young man told me this, I impishly suggested that he ask the pastor if they were going to have Bishops. He laughed, but said he would—and in fact he did. Later when I saw the young man again, I asked him what the pastor said. The young man responded that he gave a very long and complicated answer, the short form of which was, “No, Bishops are not biblical.”
The Church of the Messiah where I pastor is part of the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC), and ANiC has bishops. In fact, recently ANiC had an election for the next Bishop. Bishop Charlie Masters has retired, and the Rev. Dan Gifford has been elected and consecrated as Bishop.
In this article, I want to share a few thoughts about Bishops. The first of which is that Bishops are biblical.
First, the office of Bishop is biblical
Depending on the translation that you use, you might not know this. The texts which mention Bishops are: Acts 20:28; Phil. 1:1; 1 Timothy 3:1-2; Titus 1:7; 1 Peter 5:2. Most modern English translations use the word “overseer,” which describes the key task of a Bishop. The Greek word in the original is the one we get the English word “bishop” from.
Second, the New Testament refers to several key leadership positions, or “offices,” in the Church
I will not list all the Bible references, but they are: Bishop, Elder/Presbyter, Deacon and Deaconess, Pastor, and Minister. The New Testament also mentions Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists and Teachers. The majority of churches throughout history have not seen these four as leadership positions/offices for the church, but as functions or roles subsumed in one of the other leadership positions, or by lay people.
Third, I do not think the Bible teaches that there is only one biblical way of ordering these offices
My position on this is a minority position. Most convinced Anglicans, Baptists, Presbyterians – I will not list all of the denominations – are very sure that their church polity is the biblical understanding of how churches should be structured and governed (that is roughly what the word “polity” means).
The mere fact that serious and faithful Bible readers can come up with very different polities should make you pause before pronouncing that any one polity is the biblical one, and that all other polities are deficient.
I think you can have several different polities that take the New Testament teaching seriously and can claim to be biblical. It is the topic of another article to argue this. I am not a relativist. I am not saying that every church polity ever developed is biblical, only that there are several “traditions” or “streams” of church polity that can reasonably be said to be biblical. I think Anglican church polity is biblical.
Fourth, as long as the heart of church polity is based on biblical offices, then a church can have other offices/positions
I was once preaching at a church in Angola on a Sunday morning. Because I was from Canada, the people from the rural church plant joined in worship with the city congregation. When the offering was collected, someone had given a live rabbit! (It was trussed up).
I often say that one of the ways that we know the Bible is inspired by God is by all of the things that are not in the Bible. If you think about it, several of our New Testament books are letters written to churches. Given that the letters were written between 48-68AD, the churches probably had offices/positions that did not make it into the New Testament – who looked after the live chickens or goats that were tithed? Who looked after the grain, dairy, and wine that was given?
The churches probably had people set aside for stuff like that, but thank God, this did not make it into the New Testament. So, churches can have treasurers, organists, worship leaders, webmasters, graphic artists, on staff or in key positions, even though these positions are not listed in the New Testament.
Fifth, it is a biblically reasonable idea that some people will be ordained to their office
On this point I have to either be very brief or very long, so I will be brief. The Old Testament had people “ordained” or “set apart” by God to fulfill biblical offices. In Acts 14:23 we read (NIV), “Paul and Barnabas appointed Elders/Presbyters for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust.”
In other words, the New Testament pattern is that you preach the Gospel; people come to faith; they become part of a local church; and officers are appointed for the local church. It has long been seen by the Christian movement that God calls some people to be a Deacon, Presbyter, or Bishop. This call is to be discerned by the church, not just the individual.
If a person is to be “set aside” for such an office, it is surely in keeping with biblical wisdom that they should study and prepare themselves for this office, and make promises about fulfilling the call, and strive to lead a life in keeping with His call.
Sixth, in ANiC, there are three ordained offices or ministry positions: Deacon/Deaconess, Presbyter, and Bishop
All of them can be called “ministers” or “pastors.” In Anglicanism you can have non-ordained pastors. At Messiah, we also have non-ordained deacons/deaconesses. I, along with Daniel and Shaun, am a presbyter. On Saturday, Shane Wright will be made a deacon in the hope that in about a year’s time he will be ordained as a presbyter.
Please pray for Bishop Dan Gifford. Pray that he will be strong, godly servant leader who is learning to be led by Jesus, lead to Jesus, and leads like Jesus (a great leadership description from Leighton Ford.) Pray for me and all who are called to serve and lead in the Church in Canada.
