Under 30 and Elders

[Andrew P.C.]

I wasn't sure how to title this but i think it gets the point across. First I would like to give a specific situation and then see what others have to say.

I attend a church of maybe 30-40 people with some Sundays being as big as 50-60 on a good day. We have one teaching elder and one ruling elder. The church and our session have been praying for other men in the church to become elders or deacons within the church. Now, the make-up of our church is mostly people in their 40's or younger, but we do have older saints as well. I would say 2/3 are 40 and under and 1/3 is over 40. None of the older men (with the exception of our ruling elder and pastor) have asked, or desire an office (we recently have had an older gentlemen who was in the CRCNA for quite some time that has been asked to sit in on some meetings). None of the younger men have had or have a desire for an office as well, with the exception of one in particular. This young man desires the office and has told the pastor. The man is 26 years old. The pastor thinks that this young man is ready to go through training but the ruling elder differs because he doesn't think him, or anyone else that young has enough experience (I have to admit, this elder doesn't know this young man very well since he hasn't spent time with him).

So here is the question, is age and life experience a REQUIREMENT for the offices of elder and deacon? If so, why? If not, why not? Where, in scripture, would you go to for your position, and why?

I'd like to point out that, in the specific list Paul gives in both Titus and Timothy, experience and age are not present. Yet, there might be elsewhere implicitly. Also, I have already searched and found this thread beneficial.

So, what say you?

 

[MW]

Yet, there might be elsewhere implicitly.

Perhaps in the very word "elder."

 

[Andrew P.C.]

So are you saying that maturity is defined by the number of years one has been alive? If so I might as well throw out Calvins Institutes since it was first published when he was 26.

 

[Andrew P.C.]

Calvin also became a minister of word and sacrament before he was 30.

 

[SeanPatrickCornell]

Spurgeon became a Pastor at 17.

If God wanted an age limit on His leaders, He'd have inspired an author (like, say, Paul) to include it in the canon of scripture.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

So are you saying that maturity is defined by the number of years one has been alive? If so I might as well throw out Calvins Institutes since it was first published when he was 26.

Calvin also became a minister of word and sacrament before he was 30.

So then perhaps you have an answer in mind already, no?

Actually, I think Rev. Winzer intended you look up the teachings of Holy Writ on the matter of the word "elder", in particular, their qualifications in 1 Tim. 3, and you will find the answer. The matter of age and experience is implied therein by good and necessary consequence.

AMR

 

[Reformed Covenanter]

Generally speaking, common sense and experience teaches us that 30 is a good lower-age limit for ministers and elders. There are of course exceptions, but they are precisely that: exceptions. In my denomination, I only know of two men who were ordained as ruling elders while still in their twenties and they were exceptional individuals.

 

[Alan D. Strange]

This is one of those areas in which the proper distinction between the offices of minister and elder tell (when it comes to governance they share duties, but do not both have the same calling to minister Word and sacrament).

Whatever minimal age may be argued for with respect to the elder (as a governor, together with the minister(s) in the local church), it cannot properly apply to the minister, whose life calling is to minister Word and sacrament wheresoever the Lord our God should call. In the pursuit of this, it is ordinarily expected that the minister would be younger, given the nature of his service: giving his life to gospel preaching and pastoring, understanding that those who do such should, as the Apostle says, live of the gospel.

In other words, a man thus called, after proper training (university and seminary, as prescribed by most of our church orders), should be expected to take up this call. He will be serving on a session or consistory with elders who presumably will be mostly or entirely older than him and thus help to balance out his initial lack of practical experience. I see no warrant biblically, however, to suggest that such a man called to gospel minisry needs to "do something else" or "wait" for some unspecified number of years before entering the ministry. Such a position has been forwarded by some in recent years but it is unprecedented in the history of the church with respect to the question.

All of this having been said, my interest is not to argue that there is a minimal age for ruling elders. I think that such needs to be taken on a case by case basis. I do think that the implication of the word would not suggest someone in his twenties ordinarily. But however one decides such matters, the age of ministers at the beginning of their pastoral service is an entirely different matter and it would be to the detriment of the church (and without clear historical precedent) to insist that men called to preach the gospel and who are otherwise trained to do so and have demonstrated fitness for such should "wait" until they are some certain age to embark upon such callings.

Peace,
Alan

 

[Andrew P.C.]

Thank you for the replies. I do appreciate the response, yes, including rev winzer. Within the biblical qualifications, teaching "elder" and ruling elder both have the same qualifications.

Dr. Strange, I know that there is no official position on terms for elders or deacons, but from your perspective, are you implying that ruling elders are not called to a lifelong office?

 

[SeanPatrickCornell]

Don't hit me for asking this.

Why do Presbyterian churches make a distinction in office between Ruling Elders and Teaching Elders? I don't see the biblical support.

 

[earl40]

Don't hit me for asking this.

Why do Presbyterian churches make a distinction in office between Ruling Elders and Teaching Elders? I don't see the biblical support.

Good question in respect to a ruling elder leading a bible study? Personally I am not sure this should happen.

 

[Jake]

Don't hit me for asking this.

Why do Presbyterian churches make a distinction in office between Ruling Elders and Teaching Elders? I don't see the biblical support.

Someone else can chime in with more, but I believe one passage that would support this is I Timothy 5:17, showing that there are particularly those who labour in "word and doctrine" (that is, "teaching" elders):

"Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine." (AV)

 

[Alan D. Strange]

Andrew:

With respect to qualifications for the teaching and ruling offices, there has been a historic discussion as to what the precise respective qualifications for each are. No small part of that discussion has been that I Timothy 3:1-7 refers to ministers and only inferrentially to ruling elders. I don't intend to engage that argument fully here and have published elsewhere on this recently (in Ordained Servant, December 2013).

Also, narrowly, the question of lifetime office is extraneous to this, though I am a Second Book of Discpline man and happily affirm lifetime service for the elder. Narrowly speaking, however, again historically, neither the ruling elder or deacon were said to be called in the precise sense of that word, at least in the way that a minister is. A minister gives his whole life to the preaching of the gospel while an elder and deacon remain in secular vocations and serve as office-bearers in the church in addition to their secular vocations.

And Sean asks what's the distinction between teaching and ruling elders. Again, historically, the question was not so much the warrant for the teaching office (that was manifest under both testaments--see the Westminster Directory for Worship and Presbyterial Form of Church Government) but for the ruling office. Other church governors, commonly called "ruling elders" again both in Old and New Testaments, join together with the Levitical priests (in the Old) and evangelical ministers (in the New) in the joint governance of the church.

Much more could be said about all of this and it not my intention or desire to derail this thread with the question of how many offices there are. I am only interested in it here because the argument was put forth that we have ministers in their twenties, why not ruling elders and I forwarded some practical sorts of considerations as well as the assertion that I dipsute that we should regard this in the same way. Historically, they have not been regarded in the same way: young men meeting the qualifications and testifying to a call have been placed in the ministry. I would encourage us to continue to proceed in that way and not refuse to have a twenty-six year old man as pastor because we would be hesitant to have a twenty-six year old man as a ruling elder. They are not the same thing.

Peace,
Alan

 

[Reformed Covenanter]

Alan, thanks for your comments on this thread; they are a helpful reminder to me of how much 2-office leaven I need to purge, despite (in theory) being very much a 3-office man.

 

[MW]

So are you saying that maturity is defined by the number of years one has been alive?

No, but it seems to me to require experience, and such experience as enables one to exercise oversight with maturity. One might be a younger man, but he should still have what would be expected of an older man so far as character is concerned.

Concerning the term "elder," consider the explanation in John Brown's Self-Interpreting Bible on Titus 1:

After comparing v.3, in which Titus is appointed to “ordain elders in every city," with v. 6, in which every such elder is required to be “blameless," and then with v. 7, in which every such blameless elder is described as a “bishop," it will be difficult to deny that in the apostolic church “elder" and “bishop" were but two names for the same person -- one the title of qualification derived from age, or its equivalents, wisdom and gravity; the other the title of office and duty, the rule and oversight of the church.

 

[Andrew P.C.]

Rev. Winzer, thank you. Just a few questions regarding the quote: is bishop the same as a minister? If so, would john here be concluding that a ministet must be older as well?

Thank you for your insights Dr. Strange and Rev. Winzer and all.

 

[whirlingmerc]

Older might be normative, but Paul did tell Timothy not to let people look down on his youth.
It is probably wise for leadership development for a church to resist the temptation to make leadership exclusively grey haired
Help form the next generation of leaders.

 

[MW]

Rev. Winzer, thank you. Just a few questions regarding the quote: is bishop the same as a minister? If so, would john here be concluding that a ministet must be older as well?

This is a running debate within Presbyterianism. The agreed position is that bishop and elder are one and the same order of office. How this applies to the differences between minister and ruling elder is a matter of disagreement. There are those who say minister and elder are both bishops in the full sense of the word. Others say only the minister of Word and sacraments is a bishop. The middle ground says the minister is the bishop in the full sense of the word but ruling elders are also bishops in government. I take the latter view.

For a person to become a minister he must undergo training and prove himself. If the training and trial process is careful and disciplined the person who takes up the ministry, though a younger man, will have given signs that his character is developed enough to act as if he were an older experienced man. Ruling elders do not undergo the same kind of training and trial. This generally means there is less opportunity for a younger man to prove himself, and there is no harm in waiting.

 

[Alan D. Strange]

Andrew:

In my OS article, I deal briefly with this in the ancient and medieval church. What happened, especially in the latter, was that each of the three offices (deacon, presbyter, and bishop) came to be conceived as degrees within the priesthood, with deacon being the lowest rung on the ladder, presbyter being the parish priest, and bishop the head of the diocese (regional church).

The Reformed insisted on parity of office, meaning that the presbyter and bishop did not hold different offices, but that all ministers held the same office (presbyter and bishop being taken to signify different aspects of the ministerial office). Neither of these words were understood directly to signify the governing office that came to be called "ruling elder," the warrant for which tended to be taken from Romans 12:8, I Corinthians 12:28 and the like (though Calvin and others saw, at least part of, I Timothy 3, as applying to ministers and ruling elders).

This is not entirely satisfactory and over time some sort of solution along the lines of what Matthew suggested tended to prevail: the ruling elder is a presbyter as to governance even as the minister is a bishop as to pastoring and teaching. The linguistic issues have been variously treated but what has emerged in those who hold to a three-office position is something like this: the minister and ruling elder hold the same office as to governance (they are equally governors), but the minister is, in addition to that, something which the ruling elder is not, a minister of Word and Sacrament. There have been different ways of conceiving this from the biblical witness. Even most who hold what they call a two-office view believe that the ruling elder must be ordained as a minister to serve as such and the ruling elder may not administer the sacraments.

Peace,
Alan

 

[whirlingmerc]

So... do you think the woman called a deacon in Romans 16 was 'virtually' a deacon... acting with a deacon's heart... or ordained?

 

[earl40]

Pastor Strange quick question.....I am astounded how "difficult" this all is. This morning as I was thinking if we should have only a 2 office view with the decons doing the duties of our ruling elders now?

 

[Alan D. Strange]

I'm sorry, Earl, but I am a bit fuzzy on just what you are asking? Would you care to clarify?

Peace,
Alan

 

[Alan D. Strange]

And as for the difficulty, Earl, it stems from the different ways that we have interpreted both the Old and New Testaments witness to office.

It's for this reason that Presbyterians have often put the study of polity in the ecclesiastical (or church history) division of theological studies. Samuel Miller, for example, second professor at Princeton, was Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Polity. This reflected the understanding that throughout the history of the church, we've continually developed our polity. This is why, in polity as much as in any other area, it's unsafe to ignore the significant reflection that has gone on about how church office worked in the OT, transitioning into the NT. Many just go to the pastorals as if these were a book of church order. But that's a mistake. Polity, as with our theology, must arise as we work out the whole scriptural witness to this.

It's like saying "the covenant should be really easy" and just starting with, say, Peter at Pentecost. One needs to go back to Eden properly to understand covenant. Similarly, one must understand how the church was governed of old to grasp the continuity/discontinuity with respect to the New Testament.

 

[Romans922]

Robert Murray M'Cheyne was an elder from 22-29 years old. I was ordained at 26 years old.

The qualifications for elder are easily laid out. As well as the need for the congregation to elect such men. There is absolutely no age minimum or maximum in Scripture.

To me, the issue of 2 or 3 office (TE or RE) is not an issue when discussing age of an elder. Age is not a consideration in Scripture, only what has already been said in my second paragraph.

 

[jwithnell]

It seems reasonable that if scripture is silent on minimum age for an elder, that we cannot come up with an arbitrary figure as long as the candidate meets all the requirements given in scripture.

If a young man has known Christ from an early age, has been faithfully reared, meets the standards, and has matured, than a congregation would be wise to consider him. We had such an example here and were quite blessed both by his service as ruling elder and in the occasional exhortation he gave in the absence of our pastor.

I'd have a greater concern for a congregation that is trying to meet a specific number of officers. If ever there is a time to wait upon the Lord, this is it!

 

[earl40]

And as for the difficulty, Earl, it stems from the different ways that we have interpreted both the Old and New Testaments witness to office.

It's for this reason that Presbyterians have often put the study of polity in the ecclesiastical (or church history) division of theological studies. Samuel Miller, for example, second professor at Princeton, was Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Polity. This reflected the understanding that throughout the history of the church, we've continually developed our polity. This is why, in polity as much as in any other area, it's unsafe to ignore the significant reflection that has gone on about how church office worked in the OT, transitioning into the NT. Many just go to the pastorals as if these were a book of church order. But that's a mistake. Polity, as with our theology, must arise as we work out the whole scriptural witness to this.

It's like saying "the covenant should be really easy" and just starting with, say, Peter at Pentecost. One needs to go back to Eden properly to understand covenant. Similarly, one must understand how the church was governed of old to grasp the continuity/discontinuity with respect to the New Testament.

I see where we need to take the whole of scripture to clear this up and as demonstrated in this thread it is not that "easy" (2 office, 2.5 office, 3 office). No doubt there is a biblical way to run our churches and that way is especially more difficult in this day and age for many reasons. I see many devalue our pastors to the high calling of the official call of Our Lord gave in the great commission which I understand to mean that it is only the ordained who have the proper authority to proclaim His Word and deliver the sacraments. Now you can correct me if I am wrong but did not the church before the reformation, and after, have pastors only preach and teach His word to the laity? I know they were the only ones allowed to administer the sacraments but what about teaching? I know of many within our denominations have nonordained RE's lead bible studies to which I am leery of. The more I learn the less I am inclined to be taught by someone not ordained, knowing that they are the true professionals that were properly sent by Christ to teach. This is why I wonder if we should not have a real 2 office view where the deacons handle all the other duties that would take away from the enormous responsibility of our pastors to be the ones to preach, teach, and administer the sacraments.

 

[Reformed Covenanter]

In view of Alan's comments the lower-age limit of 30 that I mentioned for ministers is probably too high, but would anyone disagree that it is not a reasonable lower-age limit for ruling elders? Judge among yourselves, is it fitting that youths should rule over us? There is the odd exception of course, but an exception is not the general rule.