Two minute commentary on the word "pastor" in Ephesians 4:11

This is a republishing of a blog I originally did on December 4,2010.  It is unique in that, unlike any of my other blogs, it never received a page view.  Maybe it is because of the title I gave it, or that it was with the first few days after I started this blog.  This piece was written to be a one minute long radio commentary.  At the time, I recorded it and was able to say all this in clear English in two minutes.  Later, when I compiled a recording, I did five minute commentaries.  Because of the time limit I was working on, there is one statement below that comes across less nuanced than may be proper.

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95—“pastor” word study

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            The modern job, position, and title of the word “pastor” is far different from what Paul meant in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11.  The Greek word “poimen” appears 18 times in the New Testament.  The other 17 times it is translated “shepherd” meaning either a) a sheep herder, or b) a reference to Jesus, that what He does for his people is like what a shepherd does for the sheep.  Neither of those meanings fit Ephesians 4:11.  Paul is speaking about gifts of ministry.  Pastor is the Latin word for shepherd; its use is a distinction in context, but not in the word itself.  The way the sentence is constructed, Paul was putting shepherd or pastor together with teacher, such as we, in English, would write shepherd hyphen teacher.  This was an experienced, faithful, obedient believer who has accepted a gift to care for and teach others in Christian love as a matter of their growing in spiritual maturity.  Such maturity is a criterion on the shepherd’s part.  Intellectual achievement was not.  Certainly no man or organization was or is today capable of giving God’s gifts.  It was not an honorific title.  It had nothing to do with getting paid. 

            Another thing that shows that pastor or shepherd does not stand alone from teacher is that, in the New Covenant days scriptures, one can find persons indicated to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers, but no person is designated to be a pastor.  How did we wind up using the term to designate the leader of a group of believers? Before the Reformation, the word “priest” was used, but the Old Testament shows that a priest is a mediator between man and God.  Jesus’ death destroyed that need.  After the Reformation, over time, the word “pastor” worked itself out over time.

            You can email me at 757757tev@gmail.com.(1) For more info on organic worship, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally at (local website).
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 What would be more nuanced is the idea that pastor/shepard and teacher definitely would be a hyphenated two word phrase in English.  This, I am told by people who know this better than I, is a maybe yes, maybe no thing, although, personally, I believe it makes better sense when combined with the fact that we have no early examples of a person being called a pastor or shepherd, and we have a woman, Junia, being called an apostle in Romans 16:7.
I got all this information from Barna & Viola's Pagan Christianity, which, in turn, has the scholarly references.
1)  In the original post, I had a different email address, but that one I am no longer watching.  I have inserted the one I do regularly use for all kinds of purposes.

Simple Church Minute--Leadership among God's people over history

 Today, I am reprising my post of September 14, 2011.  About three years ago, I wrote a number of scripts for what, in my mind, were two minute radio commentaries on various subjects which are behind what has been called simple, organic church.  Almost all never got used as radio programs, but they do break down the reasoning behind non-organizational fellowship around Jesus from a belief and history standpoint.  On this one, at the bottom, I have added footnotes (when I originally published these, as I was thinking radio, I didn't write my sources down--I am attempting to correct that).  At the bottom, I reference www.hrscn.com, a website that services non-organizational churches in the Hampton Roads, VA area--at www.simplechurch.org, there is a place to possibly find similar connections in other areas of the world.
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2016—leadership in God’s people over history

            My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.  In the Old Testament, after Joshua led the chosen people into Israel, the Bible tells us that for about 200 years, God Himself was the leader, with persons called judges as the human leaders.  These persons had wider responsibility than what we think of a judge today as having. For one thing, having responsibility for people before God did and still does have a spiritual element.  Still, as it says in Judges chapter 21 verse 25, “In those days, there was no king in Israel, everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”  There were threats by enemies in various directions, and the people, who were the chosen people not by faith but by to whom they were born, eventually demanded a king, the story of which is in First Samuel chapter 8 and following.

            In the time of the New Covenant, God raised up a new chosen people by faith, not ethnicity.  They were opposed by both the Old Covenant status quo supporters and the government who heard that believers in Jesus saw Him, not the emperor, as king.  The church had no buildings to destroy, and leadership was by gifting, not to which family you were born to or under what person or group you were trained by. As an underground group that wasn’t a true organization, there was no need to collect money, except to help the poor, both from within and neighbors in need nearby AND also to assist fellow mature believers who were constrained by the Spirit to travel to areas where people had not heard the message of Jesus.  Even then, the apostle we know the most about is Paul, who had a skill by which he didn’t have to depend on others as he spoke about Jesus in his travels around the northern Mediterranean.

            Whether it was intentional or accidental, when the Roman Empire made faith in Jesus officially legal, it forced the trappings of religions of the world it was familiar with onto Christianity—buildings, paid staff, regular collection of money to pay for the buildings and paid staff, and tax-favored status for the now formal organizations. History shows that if something is forced onto a culture for a period of time long enough that no one remembers the thing not being around, everyone treats it as normal.  For instance, in this culture, no one remembers not having radio, and almost everyone doesn’t remember not having TV, and with them, news from around the world being whipped to us almost immediately. 

            I grew up with it assumed that a church was a building and a pastor held a job that one went to school for years to be able to do.  When I was in high school, I learned that there were some pastors and people who taught them or were their overseers who did not believe the standard beliefs of faith in Jesus.  Years later, I learned about spiritual gifts, but where I was, most of the talk was about speaking in tongues, not about who was the one who appointed the leaders.  About this same time, I met persons who didn’t have a church leadership title, but did have a special ability to teach about faith in Jesus in a way that spoke to both my mind and into my spirit, or at least the latter.  Some of these people did normal, everyday jobs.  Only in the past couple of years did I learn that the title “pastor” was not used as a title for a leader until after the Reformation, and that that word’s appearance uniquely in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11 in our English Bibles does not reflect a unique word in the original written language, but was a translation decision by persons who reflected their experience of church—whether accidentally or intentionally, only they knew.  Leadership in the true church, the believers desiring to follow Jesus, is not a title for any person or group to hand out, but a responsibility accepted by a believer in Jesus who cannot do other than whatever the Spirit guides, AND if that includes sharing with other believers or not yet believers what he or she has learned about following Jesus rightly AND if that falls into one or more of the categories of leaders mentioned in the Bible*, so be it.

             I can be reached by email at (757757tev@gmail.com--website posted originally is no longer in use) or by phone at 757-735-3639.  To see a transcript of what I just said, my blog is tevyebird.blogspot.com, and this is the posting of September 14, 2011.To find out more about simple church internationally, visit www.simplechurch.com, and in the local area, at, www.hrscn.org.
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Frank Viola and George Barna, Pagan Christianity, 2002: Present Testimony Ministry, later, Barna Books/Tyndale House, p. 12,13, 18, 21, 107, 176, 177.
2 Cor. 2:17 clearly connects to this discussion, but not mentioned in the text above.
*correction of the way I phrased the sentence originally.

1004--pastor, as a one minute commentary

Today, I am posting another one-minute commentary that I somehow neglected to publish earlier.

1004—pastor

            My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.  You may have heard that the one place that the word “pastor” appears in the New Testament is Ephesians 4 verse 11.  In English, this is true.  A standard tenant of the Christian faith is that we believe that God inspired the writers of the Bible to say what they did in the original languages.  In studying the Bible, one finds that the original words have some extremely meaningful nuances, and, as much as we can appreciate translations, they invariably and unavoidably add and delete nuances.  In the original Koine Greek, the word translated “pastor” is poimen, and that appears 18 times in the New Testament.  All the other times it is translated “shepherd” and refers to either a sheep herder, or that Jesus cares for us as a shepherd cares for his sheep.  In Ephesians 4, there is reason to believe that the word is modifying the following word, “teacher”.  We have no evidence of this being used to designate a type of leader in the church by itself until after the Reformation.  You can find out more about simple worship at www.hrscn.org. You can call me at 757-735-3639.

Thoughts on Leadership

            I will start with a disclaimer:  although I lived in the greater St. Augustine, FL area for a number of years, I do not personally know Tim Tebow or his family, although I cannot help but think I am one introduction away, but by who, I have no idea.  Today, it came across my mind, while watching sports news, that he must be the most divisive athlete in the U.S. since Jackie Robinson.  With Robinson, the issue was race, and this country has seen sufficient healing with this regard that the way it was then is unimaginable to those of us who didn’t live through it (that was about two decades too far back for my memory).  With Tebow, the divisiveness comes from his faith combined with what the media has told us is his exceptional leadership ability at a time where there is more open hostility to believers in Jesus. 

            I live in a military area, and what we hear in the recruitment ads speaks about leadership.  This concept of leadership is nearly totally based on discipline and training.  I occasionally read articles about a military unit, and it seems it always has to be mentioned that, for those in the unit, what they do is a job, and not a matter of passion for the ideals of this country.  The ideals are respected, and mentally saluted, but it isn’t a matter of passion, the way a football team gets worked up before a game.  Of course, that type of emotional excitement only is functional for certain short periods of time, and totally the opposite of functional for many endeavors.  I say this, as my son is in the military working on electronics, where getting excited (upset) is a reason to go take a walk for a minute.

            Leadership is a fascinating subject for me.  I had the honor to be around about two persons in high school and three in college who had a gift for leadership.  One of the persons I knew in college is a believer, and has been involved in leading in traditional churches during his adult life.  I can clearly say that his gifting for leadership was on his life at 19, long before the denomination he is connected to accredited him as a leader.  I didn’t know him before he was a believer, so I have no clue how believing increased his leadership ability.  I fully well know from the other persons that exceptional leadership ability appears in them to be a natural gift, not a learned thing.  At my age, I don’t really know how to separate a natural ability to lead, and the spiritual gift of leadership Paul speaks of in Romans 12:8.

            I can further say that, when I was in high school and college, a gift of leadership, whether natural or spiritual, was more obvious then than when I became an adult, where our society, be it business, politics, church, or whatever, attributes leadership to a position, so it is really hard to tell whether there is giftedness behind it.  First Corinthians 12:10 tells about gifts (plural) of healing.  Further, nothing is indicated in scripture that the spiritual gifts spoken in Romans 12, Ephesians 4, and First Corinthians 12 are the complete list.  Therefore, it is unsaid that there may be degrees of leadership ability.  One problem in the church in North America is the idea on both sides of the divide within the church on understanding spiritual gifts is that the discussion gravitates toward the gifts of tongues and prophecy, and doesn’t discuss the others much.  To that effect, when I walk over to the discussion of leadership, there is a problem on both sides of the previous controversy that leaders are oftentimes recognized by positions given by fellow humans.  One aspect about any spiritual gift is that, if it is truly given by God (I am not questioning God’s giving these gifts, I am using “if” in the sense of a logical if-then sentence), then the gifting upon a believer is not dependent upon whether an organization, or even any other believer recognizes it.  It is God’s gifting that makes one a pastor (Eph. 4), a discerner of spirits (1 Cor. 12:10), a giver (Rom. 12:8), or, possibly, one who possesses a gift God gives over and above the names he has elaborated for us. 

            A further problem with leadership giftings is beginning to show itself here in the West, with the rise of the megachurch, which could not have happened previously without the ability of most people to come many miles, experience the presentation called worship that is dependent on many modern technologies, and the highly able leader.  I avoided the word “gifted” there, in that we have seen such churches built around one person with extreme talent, or is it a spiritual gift, for leadership, and then the world has seen such organizations financially collapse if something happens to that person, and there is no other person who can fill his shoes.

            I come back, once again, to First Thessalonians 5:11, which tells us to edify each other.  Such a gifted person can speak to thousands, but it gets in the way, not only of those persons edifying each other, but in some cases even knowing each other.  I have come to believe that Jesus, who as God had more ability than any of us, chose to intensely mentor 12, and it appears mentor to a significantly lower degree, another 70.  Paul taught 24 young leaders in Ephesus.  We can have “iron sharpens iron” relationships with only a few others.  If you ask me a question that I haven’t thought about lately (or ever), it may take me a little while to think and study through it, and give a proper answer.  ESP is not a (Godly) spiritual gift, and to say that a traditional pastor preparing a sermon is answering the questions those listening to him/her have (knowingly or unknowingly) is implying that something like it is.  I have come to believe that the participatory Bible study, where everyone to wishes to knows what will be examined to examine beforehand for him/herself to prepare so as to help others, makes for a situation in which those who have not grown to the maturity to study for oneself, will ask spur of the moment questions which are far more likely to produce the “teachable moment” in which the right statement, which is actually the Spirit speaking into that persons’ spirit, happens. 

2016--leadership in God's people over history

2016—leadership in God’s people over history

            My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.  In the Old Testament, after Joshua led the chosen people into Israel, the Bible tells us that for about 200 years, God Himself was the leader, with persons called judges as the human leaders.  These persons had wider responsibility than what we think of a judge today as having. For one thing, having responsibility for people before God did and still does have a spiritual element.  Still, as it says in Judges chapter 21 verse 25, “In those days, there was no king in Israel, everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”  There were threats by enemies in various directions, and the people, who were the chosen people not by faith but by to whom they were born, eventually demanded a king, the story of which is in First Samuel chapter 8 and following.

            In the time of the New Covenant, God raised up a new chosen people by faith, not ethnicity.  They were opposed by both the Old Covenant status quo supporters and the government who heard that believers in Jesus saw Him, not the emperor, as king.  The church had no buildings to destroy, and leadership was by gifting, not to which family you were born to or under what person or group you were trained by. As an underground group that wasn’t a true organization, there was no need to collect money, except to help the poor, both from within and neighbors in need nearby AND also to assist fellow mature believers who were constrained by the Spirit to travel to areas where people had not heard the message of Jesus.  Even then, the apostle we know the most about is Paul, who had a skill by which he didn’t have to depend on others as he spoke about Jesus in his travels around the northern Mediterranean.

            Whether it was intentional or accidental, when the Roman Empire made faith in Jesus officially legal, it forced the trappings of religions of the world it was familiar with onto Christianity—buildings, paid staff, regular collection of money to pay for the buildings and paid staff, and tax-favored status for the now formal organizations. History shows that if something is forced onto a culture for a period of time long enough that no one remembers the thing not being around, everyone treats it as normal.  For instance, in this culture, no one remembers not having radio, and almost everyone doesn’t remember not having TV, and with them, news from around the world being whipped to us almost immediately. 

            I grew up with it assumed that a church was a building and a pastor held a job that one went to school for years to be able to do.  When I was in high school, I learned that there were some pastors and people who taught them or were their overseers who did not believe the standard beliefs of faith in Jesus.  Years later, I learned about spiritual gifts, but where I was, most of the talk was about speaking in tongues, not about who was the one who appointed the leaders.  About this same time, I met persons who didn’t have a church leadership title, but did have a special ability to teach about faith in Jesus in a way that spoke to both my mind and into my spirit, or at least the latter.  Some of these people did normal, everyday jobs.  Only in the past couple of years did I learn that the title “pastor” was not used as a title for a leader until after the Reformation, and that that word’s appearance uniquely in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11 in our English Bibles does not reflect a unique word in the original written language, but was a translation decision by persons who reflected their experience of church—whether accidentally or intentionally, only they knew.  Leadership in the true church, the believers desiring to follow Jesus, is not a title for any person or group to hand out, but a responsibility accepted by a believer in Jesus who cannot do other than whatever the Spirit guides, AND if that includes sharing with other believers or not yet believers what he or she has learned about following Jesus rightly AND if that falls into one or more of the categories of leaders mentioned in God’s Word, so be it.

             I can be reached by email at simplechurchminute@yahoo.com or by phone at 757-735-xxxx.  To see a transcript of what I just said, my blog is tevyebird.blogspot.com, and this is the posting of September 14, 2011.To find out more about simple church internationally, visit www.simplechurch.com, and in the local area, at, www.hrscn.org.

Simple Church Minute 95--"pastor" word study

95—“pastor” word study

THIS IS NOT ON FIRST RECORDING

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            The modern job, position, and title of the word “pastor” is far different from what Paul meant in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11.  The Greek word “poimen” appears 18 times in the New Testament.  The other 17 times it is translated “shepherd” meaning either a) a sheepherder, or b) a reference to Jesus, that what He does for his people is like what a shepherd does for the sheep.  Neither of those meanings fit Ephesians 4:11.  Paul is speaking about gifts of ministry.  Pastor is the Latin word for shepherd; its use is a distinction in context, but not in the word itself.  The way the sentence is constructed, Paul was putting shepherd or pastor together with teacher, such as we, in English, would write shepherd hyphen teacher.  This was an experienced, faithful, obedient believer who has accepted a gift to care for and teach others in Christian love as a matter of their growing in spiritual maturity.  Such maturity is a criterion on the shepherd’s part.  Intellectual achievement was not.  Certainly no man or organization was or is today capable of giving God’s gifts.  It was not an honorific title.  It had nothing to do with getting paid. 

            Another thing that shows that pastor or shepherd does not stand alone from teacher is that, in the New Covenant days scriptures, one can find persons indicated to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers, but no person is designated to be a pastor.  How did we wind up using the term to designate the leader of a group of believers? Before the Reformation, the word “priest” was used, but the Old Testament shows that a priest is a mediator between man and God.  Jesus’ death destroyed that need.  After the Reformation, over time, the word “pastor” worked itself out over time.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com. For more info on organic worship, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally at (local website).

Simple Church Minute 81--Simson's Thesis #7

81—WS#7

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            Recently we have been visiting a writing by Wolfgang Simson called “15 Theses toward a Re-Incarnation of Church.”  Thesis #7 is “The right pieces—fitted together in the wrong way.”  About this idea, Simson wrote, “To do a jigsaw puzzle, we have to put the pieces together according to the original pattern, otherwise the final product, the whole picture, turns out wrong, and the individual pieces do not make any sense.  In the Christian world we have all the right pieces, but we have fitted them together in the wrong way, because of fear, tradition, religious jealously, and a power-and-control mentality.  Just as water is found in three forms—ice, water, and steam—so too the five ministries mentioned in Ephesians 4:11,12—the apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, and evangelists—are found today, but not always in the right forms and in the right places.  They are often frozen to ice in the rigid system of institutionalized Christianity; they sometimes exist as clear water; or they have vanished like steam into the thin air of free-flying ministries and independent churches, accountable to no one.  Just as it is best to water flowers with the liquid version of water, these five equipping ministries will have to be transformed back into new—and at the same time age-old—forms, so that the whole spiritual organism can flourish and the individual ministers can find their proper role and place in the whole.  That is one more reason why we need to return to the Maker’s original blueprint for the Church.”(Unquote)

            If one is farming, plants can be helped in growth by potash, phosphoric acid, nitrogen, and lime.  If a plant’s ground is low on lime, adding it will help growth, but if it has sufficient lime, adding it will hinder the plant’s growth.    You can find out more about Simson's 15 Theses at http://www.simsonwolfgang.de/.  You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on simple worship, one can find http://www.simplechurch.com/ and (local website). 

Simple Church Minute 80--Simson's Thesis #6

80—WS#6

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            Recently, these blips have been discussing Wolfgang Simson’s 15 Theses towards a Re-Incarnation of Church.  Thesis #6 is “No church is led by a pastor alone.”  On this idea, Simson says, The local church is not led by a pastor, but fathered by an elder, a man of wisdom and engaged with reality.  The local house churches are then networked into a movement by the combination of elders and members of the so-called fivefold ministries (apostles, prophets, pastors, evangelists, and teachers) circulating from ‘house to house’, like the circulation of blood.  Here there is a special foundational role to play for the apostolic and prophetic ministries (Eph. 2:20, 4:11,12).  A pastor (shepherd) is an important member of the whole team, but he cannot fulfill more than a part of the whole task of ‘equipping the saints for the ministry’, and he has to be complimented synergistically by the other four ministries in order to function properly.” (unquote)

            The whole idea that a healthy church has a balance of ministry from the five ministries mentioned in Ephesians 4:11 and 12 and with more than one person with each of these giftings is an idea that I, personally, have not heard of being examined, period, but there it is in scripture as a direction for the church.  Much of the church in the west is stuck on one person given the title pastor, without regard to his or her actual gifting, if any, as the end all in ministry and a title within a hierarchy which has words found in scripture as an excuse for the hierarchy’s existence.  Leadership in the church is not to be militaristic, but a structure for the purpose of helping everyone higher up and further into Jesus.

            You can read back and ahead about Simson’s 15 Theses at www.simsonwolfgang.de. You can make a comment or ask a question of me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com , and you can find out more about simple church at http://www.simplechurch.com/ and locally at (local website).

Simple Church Minute 50--pastors

50—pastors

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            The word “pastors”, in the plural, appears only one time in our English Bibles. It stands undefined.  The word in the Koine Greek is poimen, which appears 18 times in the New Testament.  The other 17 times, it is translated shepherd, and pastor is the Latin word for shepherd.  In those 17 occurrances, it either means a sheepherder, or it is referring to Jesus, usually Jesus referring to himself.  We need to remember that the societies in the days of the Bible were agrarian, and the people experientially understood a lot about sheep and shepherds. Shepherd wasn’t a religious term, it was a farming term.   This one other time, in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 11, it cannot be either of those.  It appears in the sentence defining what some parts of Jesus’ people call the fivefold ministries—prophet, apostle, evangelist, pastor and teacher.  Australian historian Robert Banks, in his book Paul’s Idea of Community, points out that in other places in the New Testament, the other four ministries are, at some point, connected to a person, but pastor is not.  Further, Banks says that there is the possibility that pastor or shepherd may have been a modifying word for teacher, that is, teachers who guide and protect.  An elder would have been understood as an older, experienced person, and in the early church, an older, experienced believer.  In Second John 1 verse 1, the apostle refers to himself as an elder.  Even if separate, a pastor would have the character of an elder and leader.  None of these positions were formal appointments, but functions that came from experience, gifting, character, and obedience to the Holy Spirit.

            We actually do not have historical evidence of the word pastor used as the term for a single person head of a congregation until after the Reformation.  The Reformers realized that the word priest implied the exact opposite of what Jesus did on the cross.  The Bible shows us only one titular office:  head of the church, which is Jesus.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on organic church*, visit www.simplechurch.com or (local website).

On the recording, at this time, it says, “house churches.”  While that phrasing is OK, to say “organic church” is better.  I comment on that in blip 94.