Who Appoints Elders?

I'm Adam. I'm here again with Andrew, and today we're going to look at the topic of who appoints elders. Different churches around the world have different traditions of how they raise leaders and appoint those leaders, but if the Scripture is our primary authority, then we need to look to the Scriptures and see how it tells us to do these things.

So, how do we raise leaders, and who actually appoints them?

Jesus Ultimately Appoints Elders

Well, ultimately, it's Jesus that raises leaders within His church. You know, and I think there's a sense that He sees faithfulness. He finds people that have faithfully served Him in the secret place, in the little things, and then He appoints. The Bible says He actually called us before He created the world, and so there's unique places that we have within the body of Christ.

And so He calls some to be leaders, and then He begins to work on them from the time that they are born again by the Holy Spirit to try and prepare them, that they can, in terms of their character, meet the requirements that He has for them. God appoints those who are ultimately faithful to leadership.

And so we read in Timothy and in Titus, in the first few chapters of both of those books, that there's qualifications that have to be in place in terms of character. How does a man love his wife? How does he lead his family? Does he have a good reputation with outsiders? These are things that are important for the community to see, and then ultimately it's God that then will raise that unique person up.

Elder Qualifications Include Calling and Christlike Character

So you'd say even if a person met the qualifications, that doesn't necessarily qualify them?

Definitely. There's definitely got to be a sense of calling. You know, Paul said, “Paul, called to be an apostle.” And at the end of the day, every one of us who loves Jesus is going to ultimately begin to look like Jesus. That doesn't mean we're all going to become elders. It just means that you can't be an elder until you look like Jesus.

And so you can find people that are very mature in their faith. They've grown in their faith, that they're reflecting Him beautifully, but they're not called to that specific role. And so they shouldn't be given that role, because you're playing somebody out of position.

Age, Maturity, and Recognizing Elders

There's that verse about not being quick to lay on hands. And obviously, as guys are raised up in the church and we see their character develop, we'd want to encourage people and raise them through leadership. Is there a particular age, or is there a particular maturity? Does a person have to be married or something like that before they could be an elder?

You know, when Jesus left us, He said that He would leave the Holy Spirit with us, who would lead us and guide us. And I think it's so important that, as churches and as leaders, we acknowledge that ultimately we need to keep in step with the Holy Spirit.

We'll talk just now maybe about how apostles appoint elders, which is an important part of that discussion. But ultimately, it's the Lord that needs to raise somebody up. And, you know, you look at somebody like Timothy, who was young in his culture. He was so young, Paul had encouraged him to not let people look down on him because of his age.

So it's not that there is an age-specific thing here, although obviously age would be a factor, because you want to watch that person. They're called elders.

Yes, that's right.

Yeah, but certainly Timothy would have been very young when he was appointed and started, you know, serving really in some way in an apostolic-type role even, and appointing elders. But generally, the rule generally, you would find it to be older, older people that have been called to it and have shown a track record.

How Apostles Appoint Elders in Local Churches

So you say ultimately it's the responsibility of apostles to recognize elders and bring them through. How would that work in a local context?

Yeah, you know, one of the things is there's numbers of ways that churches try to appoint elders, and invariably, if you do, I think we need to follow the ways of God, the patterns of God. And God is quite clear in the New Testament how they appointed leaders.

In Acts 14:23, Paul and Barnabas have been preaching the Gospel in a number of cities, and obviously those people have got saved. There are churches that have been established, but they don't have leaders.

And they don't decide to vote for leaders. In fact, if you look at the votes, invariably—I mean, they voted to crucify Jesus. That's the bottom line. You know, votes generally don't go well, and it becomes very political. You know, at the end of the day, we don't really care what people say; we want to hear what Jesus says. And when people have a vote, we often miss that.

But ultimately, in the New Testament, we see they then came back into those churches, and Paul and Barnabas, the Scripture says, appointed elders for them in every church. Now, Paul and Barnabas were functioning as apostles, and so you start to see it was actually these apostles that had something of the grace of God to build well, and they would be able to come in and discern and recognize grace and calling and character, and then really pick up what the Holy Spirit was doing in that moment and appoint for the local church its elders.

And so it was an appointment from outside into the local. It wasn't that that group voted. It wasn't that the pastor decided, although obviously, ultimately, there needs to be a team. And so any apostle working into a context would need to try and, you know, that team's got to gel. And so you'd obviously, in some ways, listen to the church.

It may be an example of that would be Timothy, where Paul came through town and there was a young man called Timothy who just had a lot of potential, and the church presented him to Paul and said, “Look at this young guy.” Paul interviewed him and spent time with him: “This guy's got something on his life in the apostolic.” And then brought him with him, and then ultimately he became Timothy. He really functioned in an apostolic-type role within the church.

But it's interesting, because Titus and Timothy are ultimately sent out by Paul as apostolic representatives into the churches. And in Titus 1:5, Paul writes to Titus, and he gives him a long list of qualifications later, obviously, but then he says, “The reason why I left you in Crete was to finish what's left undone and appoint elders in each of the churches.”

And so, again, you've got an external appointment into the churches. It's not something that's necessarily done within, as much as the within needs to recognize, “We know this guy. We know he loves the Lord. We see the grace on his life, and there's a witness amongst all that this is the will of the Holy Spirit.”

Congregational Confidence in Apostolic Appointments

So the confidence that a member of a congregation can have in seeing an elder appointed when they didn't get to vote for it, they didn't get to choose that person, is the confidence that their leaders are following the Spirit and walking with the Spirit.

Definitely. And obviously, I mean, one of the things that, you know, the Bible says that the elder must have a good reputation with outsiders, even. And so to have a good reputation with those outside of the church, he certainly has a good reputation with those in the church. It's not like the apostle comes in and, “Well, he's the guy,” and the church is like, “What?”

It's pretty obvious to everyone who loves Jesus that this guy's called to this. And we know him, we know his life, we know—this guy's obviously it. It's obvious to all. You know, it seems at one point, “It seemed right to us and the Holy Spirit,” and there's a definite sense of the witness of the Spirit. But the appointment doesn't come from within; it comes from without. It comes from the apostolic.

And even from my personal experience, I was leading one of the congregations in Joshua season. I remember coming to you with the name of someone who I saw as a potential elder, and you saw it. You said, “He's not ready, but if we bring him on now, you can work with him for a year; he'll become something.”

When I went to some of my leaders in the congregation, they didn't name him. When I said, “Who do you think should be the next elder in the congregation?” they didn't see it. But when I said it, then they went, “Oh, yeah,” because they'd seen, actually, the character had been developed. The love for people was there. There was a lot of character stuff. Maybe he wasn't a microphone-kind of guy, but the character was there.

And it was interesting that the apostolic—you saw that no one else had seen it. And I think that's maybe points to something there, even in just that we as saints won't always know what's best for us.

That's right. But like a parent and a—

Child in some ways, although again, we're not acting as though we're superior in any way. But there's a grace given. And so, like, the prophet can sometimes just call you out, and, like, how did he know that? How did he pick that up in me?

Likewise, the apostolic is a building grace, and so it comes in and it very quickly discerns in the Holy Spirit. It's a gift. It's almost like glasses that are given, and it's like, “Oh, it's obvious” to the apostolic. And when he says that, everyone goes like, “How did we not see that?” And that generally is how the apostolic seems to function. It's a grace gift. It's not something that the person earns; it's something that Jesus puts on a person to be able to do.

Can Elders Lose Their Position?

Yeah, so I think maybe just maybe the last thing on that would be: once they're appointed, is that appointment for life? I mean, how does that work? Because obviously they've arrived in that position of authority, and what accountability is there then to maintain that same standard of character that got them there in the first place?

Well, certainly, if you know, elders are—the Bible says—to be rebuked publicly so that others will learn from the example. So they learn from us when we do well, but they also learn from us when we don't do well. And there's a public rebuke if it is a public sin, and even a possible stepping down if there's a sin that would affect the body of Christ.

Because remember, the elder is ultimately going to be a leader within that community, and what he does in the secret place will ripple through him spiritually into the community. So certainly, there are times that elders can lose that position. And you would see an example of that in Judas, who was actually appointed by Jesus, had hands laid on him by Jesus to be an apostle, called to be an apostle. But Peter would later say, “Let his place be deserted.” He had a place; he lost that place because of sin.

And so it's possible that elders would need to be stepped down through sin. It's possible through sickness that they can't function within the community that way. And then, obviously, you know, it's a working position. It's not just a title; it's a function. It's shepherding the people of God. It's leading. It's caring for. It's discipling. And if a man is no longer doing that, he may need to step down. And that could be for actually a number of reasons.

But again, if the Lord appoints, then the Lord needs to be the one who, in a sense, disappoints or unappoints. And again, you would see an example of even with King Saul in the Old Testament, of someone who was appointed, and then the Lord said, “I'm actually sorry that I've made him that,” and that was taken from him and given to another.

Now, it's not always sin that causes an elder to step down or need to get stepped down, but that would explain the possibility of this. And certainly, it's possible that, you know, once—and it doesn't mean once an elder, always an elder—it's possible that you would step down for the good of the people or for some other reason.

Yeah, the Lord leads that way.

Awesome. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, great.