THE LORD SPOKE (April 19)

Daily Reflections from Scripture:

Old Testament: I Samuel 1-2

"Hannah's Prayer" is found in I Samuel 2. I've read it over 40 times in the past (that's not a guess - I just tried counting it up). I found one verse in there that I never saw before and it doesn't even seem to fit what immediately precedes it. But, without a doubt, God put that verse in there specifically for me today.

Do not keep talking so proudly
or let your mouth speak such arrogance,
For the Lord is a God who knows,
and by him deeds are weighed.
I Samuel 2:3

I've needed that verse a lot this week. Several times I've heard the Lord saying, "You talk big. So, why don't you do it yourself. Put your money where your mouth is. How can you lead others to do it if you're not doing it yourself."

Talk is cheap but God weighs our deeds.


New Testament: Acts 20

There are not three (or more) biblical offices in the church. There are two and only two. When Paul writes to the church at Philippi, he writes “to the bishops and the deacons” (Phil. 1:1). That eliminates deaconesses (as an office) and it eliminates the distinctions that some have between pastors and elders.

This passage, Acts 20, is the key to understanding that issue. When Paul is about to sail for Jerusalem, he makes a stop in Miletus on the coast of Asia Minor. Wanting to have one more opportunity to speak to the leadership of the church at Ephesus but knowing that if he goes there himself he will be detained, he calls them to come to meet him.

From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus for the elders [presbuteros] of the church. (Acts 20:17)

When he speaks to the group, he says:

Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers [episkopos]. Be shepherds [poimainein] of the church of God....” (Acts 20:28)

There you have it, as plain as can be. The three terms, “elders” (presbuteros), “overseers/bishops” (episkopos), and pastors (poimainein) are used for the same office. They may well speak to different aspects or functions of the office but they do not refer to three different offices.

Paul makes a similar link between two of the terms, elders and overseers, in Titus 1:5 & 7. But Peter again uses all three terms interchangeably in I Peter 5:1-2 where he says:

To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder... be shepherds of God’s flock [literally, “shepherd the sheep herd”] that is under your care, serving as overseers....

There may well be different emphases among these leaders. For example, Paul speaks of administrative and teaching elders in I Timothy 5:17. But the office is one and the same.

As Paul spoke to the Ephesian elders, he reminded them that the job involves fighting off savage wolves (Acts 20:29), combating twisted teachers (Acts 20:30), and lots of hard work (Acts 20:35). The compelling reason for this loving care is that Christ so loved the church that He bought it with His own blood (Acts 20:28).