The Office of Elder

In Acts 15 we find a description of the Jerusalem Council, the fist synod of the Church. It was regarding the issue of Gentiles and whether circumcision should be required of them to join the covenant people of God.  After speeches given by Peter, Paul and James, the council unanimously agreed that Gentiles ought not be circumcised and affirmed the doctrine of justification by faith alone. In Luke's telling of the event, however, we find an odd thing. No less than six times, we read that the ones who were making the binding decision upon the entire church were "the apostles and the elders" (15:2, 4, 6, 22, 23; 16:4). If ever there was a time in the history of the church where the church of Christ could be led by only a select few, it was the age of the apostles.  What we find, however, is that even those who were given a special commission by the risen Lord himself, and thus possessed unparalleled authority, felt it necessary to include "elders" in even the most important of their decisions. 

An obvious question can be asked, where did these "elders" originate from? Unlike what we find in Acts 6, which describes the origin of the office of deacon, there is no New Testament scene which tells of the beginning  of the office of elder. That is because they were there all along. What I mean to say, is that the covenant people of God were never without those who fulfilled the role of "elder of the people." In the Old Testament, we read of the  zaqen ("elder") who because of his maturity and status was given unique authority over the covenant people (e.g. Num 11).  Therefore, arguing from the fact that there is indeed continuity between the Old and New Testament people of God, we see the infant church adopted the same office of elder in a natural and organic way. There is, however, one major difference between the duties of elder in the OT versus that in the NT. The Israelites were  unique in the fact that their religious life were one and the same with their social and political life ("cult" and "culture" were the same). In the New Testament, however, we read that Christ's kingdom is not of this world, therefore, the office of elder no longer holds any political power, but rather is to focus upon the spiritual well-being of the church. One may contrast, for example, the corrupt Jewish "elders" in Acts who used their political authority to persecute the early church (4:5, 8, 23) with those who are later appointed to lead in each congregation (14:23). 

Clearly, the model of church government  as it is presented in Acts and the rest of the New Testament is not a "one-man show." Ironically, in our day, many churches that heavily emphasize the discontinuity between Old and New Testament, nevertheless, find their model of church government in the OT. Misapplying the so-called "Moses model," their churches are often led by the absolute power of the senior pastor. All decisions are ultimately made by the one charismatic leader because he allegedly is a "man of God" and accountable to Christ alone. There's only one problem with this scenario (actually, there are many)...we're not Moses.  No one living today possess the unique authority and special revelation that he had (see Num 12 and Duet 18). But even Moses knew that he could not do it alone, he appointed seventy elders to possess real authority and decision making abilities (not just "yes men").  When I was first joining a Reformed church, it was during a time when the well-loved and  respected minister was retiring. He assured us new members, however, not to fret because it wasn't his church anyways, after all, the elders weren't going anywhere.