http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15413778/ministry-like-a-nursing-mother

First among equals. In the panoply of church polity, this phrase — derived from the Latin primus inter pares and used to describe a local church’s lead or senior pastor — pokes a tender spot. After all, if someone is first, then we’re certainly not equal. Or are we? It just feels so out of step with our current climate, like lead pastors are going to wake up one morning on the wrong side of history.

But what if I told you that this role reflects a principle that can mark the difference between duty and delight for a church leadership team? For church leadership to flourish, the elder plurality must be led.

Elders Need a Leader

Throughout the Bible, when God chooses to execute his will upon the earth — when he reveals his redemptive purposes, forecasts the future, or frees his people from bondage — he begins with a leader. The Old Testament offers a gallery of names that remind us of God’s regular pattern of using one to influence many — Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, just to name a few.

In New Testament times, we’re told Christ chose the twelve (Luke 6:12–16), but Peter functioned as the leader among them. The early church enjoyed a similar plurality of leadership, yet it appears James exerted a unique role and influence as the key leader of the Jerusalem congregation (Acts 15:13; 21:18; 1 Corinthians 15:7; Galatians 1:19; 2:12). The same is true in the church today. An eldership, as a body, needs a leader.

“For church leadership to flourish, the elder plurality must be led.”

Now, I can almost hear you saying, “Where is there any reference to a lead or senior pastor in the Bible?” You’re right. There is no single, airtight Bible verse that decisively proves that pluralities should assign a lead pastor. But there is a broad pattern of order — a beautiful tapestry of leadership — that appears from the opening pages of Scripture to the final words in Revelation.

The necessity of a first among coequals in human economies is resonant with (though not equivalent to) the way the Son submits to his Father in the incarnation (Philippians 2:5–11), as well as in the order God ordains in the home (Ephesians 5:21–33). Leadership is not a consequence of the fall, but represents God’s good design for human flourishing in a well-ordered world.

Nineteenth-Century Perspective

Back in the mid-nineteenth century, Southern Baptist professor William Williams (1804–1885) offered a short historical survey on how the “first among equals” role developed (with quotes from historian Edward Gibbon):

“The want of united action among the different presbyters [elders] of the same church when they were all of equal authority,” and the order of public deliberations requiring that there should be someone “invested at least with the authority of collecting the sentiments and executing the resolutions” . . . of the church, led to the appointment of one of their number a permanent president or moderator. The title bishop, which was applied to all the elders, came after a while to be applied exclusively to the president — elder, as Justin in the middle of the second century still calls him, merely to distinguish him from his equal co-elders. He was not superior to them, but only “first among equals.” (Polity, 532; emphasis mine)

Williams gives us several gems in this little paragraph. He tells us both what a primus inter pares (“first among equals”) is not, and what it is.

He is not a command-and-control guy.

These days, Christian leaders often draw their model of leadership from sources outside of the Bible. Don’t get me wrong — it’s good to read broadly. You must read to lead. But church leadership literature and practice often draws heavily from the business world, which in turn borrows freely from the military.

In the military, particularly during warfare, command and control are a necessity. It’s never good to stop and question your commander when you’re taking fire. My son had six deployments in the Army, several of them in hot zones. When he was there, I wouldn’t have wanted his superior officer to stop and convene the group for some mid-assault collaboration. When you’re taking a hill, having a top-down, centralized authority structure is necessary. In wartime, you need a commander who compels compliance and disciplines anything less than complete obedience. Pity the poor platoon with a leader just “collecting the sentiments and executing the resolutions” of the group.

But we can’t import a command-and-control leadership model into a local church eldership, where the culture (as well as the means of doing ministry) should be defined by Scripture and the fruit of the Spirit. Whatever “first among equals” means, it does not mean absolute ruler over the team. As Williams says, “he was not superior to them.”

“Whatever ‘first among equals’ means, it does not mean absolute ruler over the team.”

In fact, it’s hazardous when pastors organize their vision of leadership around the word first in “first among equals” — when the lead pastor’s opinion is first, his preferences first, his sensitivities first, his entitlements first. A primus-driven team culture often incubates celebrity entitlements and leadership ecosystems grounded in power and authority. For the plurality, the church staff, or the congregation, this plays like a karaoke machine at a funeral — seriously misguided and hopelessly out of place.

Primus-driven leaders can be tempted to relegate godly character and humble service to the margins, sentencing fellow team members to a fear-based and unsafe culture. When that happens, guys know they serve at the pleasure of the senior leader, whose agenda defines direction and whose perspective dictates reality. No wonder staff turnover is common; team members leave because the senior leadership is no longer tolerable. Or worse, no longer respected.

He is not merely a moderator.

In our cynical culture, plurality is much easier to support than the guy who feels called to lead one. People love the democracy, co-equality, interchangeableness, and accountability implied in plurality. This pares-driven model feels extremely enlightened, remarkably fair. Suspicions are stirred by the misguided man who feels a distinct call to exercise the gift of leadership (Romans 12:8). It feels like a power-grabbing conspiracy against the laity. To center preaching and leadership in one is to diminish the strength of all.

I’ve known churches where the elderships were unadorned with senior leaders. Where you see this model working well, it’s typically due to some remarkably humble elders seeking to uphold a principled vision. But I believe it works against an order outlined in Scripture and applied throughout church history and human civilization. Where the leaderless-equals model seems to be working, chances are that someone is, in fact, the consistent initiator and buckstopper, the collector of sentiments, and the executor of the group’s resolutions. It’s just undercover — influence without a title.

For most elder teams, however, it actually prevents confusion and helps avoid misuses of authority to identify the real sources of leadership and power. And honestly, in many cases, the absence of this order brings the presence of chaos as conflicting visions, the want of elder care, and alignment complexities consistently tempt the unity of elder teams. In fact, Williams tells us that the “first among equals” role arose because of “want of united action.” At the end of the day, disunited action often has a dividing effect.

He is a leader from among.

These two errors — the error of overbearing primus-driven ministry and the error of egalitarian pares-driven ministry — highlight the truth that to be healthy, both the eldership and the senior leader must operate within a humility-empowered tension.

On the one side, the lead pastor advocates for the opinions and involvement of the team as a whole. As Williams observes, he must “collect the sentiments” of the elders, which requires listening well as he solicits their counsel, understands their thinking, and leans on their gifts.

On the other side, the plurality of elders creates space for the senior role to actually use his gifts to lead. Once again Williams is clear. He tells us that the “first among equals” is invested with authority to “execute the resolutions of the church.” This means the elders grant the senior leader latitude and followership to order and direct their efforts.

But don’t think battalion commander or CEO. As Andy Crouch once said, “Think of a symphony conductor!” The senior pastor’s leadership does not coerce toward action, but directs skillful people whose gifts need to be organized, prioritized, and united to produce magnificent music. The result is a beautiful blending of leadership and teamwork, where the elders remain jealous to be conducted by the senior leader, and the lead pastor knows he needs the gifts and unity of the whole team for the church to flourish. Why is this so crucial? For church leadership to flourish, the elder plurality must be led.

Call for Gospel Guts

A healthy plurality led by a humble leader is not accidental. It happens where men have the guts to apply the gospel. In a self-emptying display of humility (Philippians 2:5–11), the elders subordinate themselves and appoint a leader as “first among equals.” Through self-crucifying displays of love, the lead pastor embodies Christ’s application of “first” — among them as one who serves (Matthew 20:26–27). And within the exquisite torture of this tension between “first” and “equals,” the gospel grows more precious, and the humble leadership of one enhances the ministry joy for many.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast. We have been doing this podcast for almost a decade now. And over those ten years there have been some moving pastoral moments. I remember one from a long time ago. I looked it up. It was back in APJ 131. It’s an oldie. There, Pastor John was talking about important Bible verses to memorize, ones that he has found particularly useful in serving others. One such text was Psalm 130:3: “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” There Pastor John testified, “How many times have I knelt down, put my arm on somebody who has just been broken over some sin that they have committed, and been able to pray over them this text: ‘Lord, if you would mark iniquities, who could stand?’” That’s a moving picture of a word spoken pastorally.

That image, and that text, comes to mind when I think of today’s sermon clip because there’s a question about how we approach God in the midst of our brokenness, particularly in this brokenness we experience over our own sins. This very question gets answered robustly in Nehemiah 9–10. God’s people are in distress. It’s distress caused by their own sins. They know it. And they know they deserve the distress itself. So how do we approach God now? Here’s Pastor John to explain, looking at Nehemiah 9.

Starting with Nehemiah 9:6–37, the Levites are praying. This chapter is a prayer. They’re praying to the end of verse 37, and they’re crying out “to you, O God.” The word you in reference to God occurs thirty times in these verses. What did they do? What did they say? How did they deal with God in great distress? That’s what we want to know. How did they do that?

Under God-Given Distress

Before we ask further, let’s get more specific about the distress, because this will clarify your situation. There are some of you right now who are perhaps arguing with yourself, if not with me, “What you’re about to say is not going to apply to me because you don’t understand how I got where I am.” Let’s see whether that’s true or not.

Back to verse 37. They’re not just in distress. They are in a distress that they deserve to be in because of their sin. And they are in a distress that God himself put them in. Let’s look at verse 37 to see that. “[The land’s] rich yield” — which we’re supposed to inherit as a promise — “goes to the kings whom you have set over us . . .” Slave masters. You put them over us, God, “. . . because of our sins” (Nehemiah 9:37). In other words, the great distress that we are in, we deserve to be in. And not only do we deserve to be in it, but it’s judgment sent from you.

So now we get clarity on this. Some of you might be tempted to say, “The rest of you in here, you can call upon God in your distress, but not me because I sinned my way into the mess I’m in. God put me here as a discipline or a punishment. So the rest of you can go on about your merry way, following this preacher and learning how to call upon God in your distress because it just came upon you. It didn’t just come upon me. I brought it on me.” That’s their situation.

If you’re in that category, you dare not talk like that. Don’t talk to God like that. Do not say to God, “This text is not addressing my need because I sinned my way into the mess I’m in, and you brought it on me.” That’s irrelevant. That’s the whole point of this text. These people are in a distress they deserve to be in, that God put them in. None of you may escape the good news of this text. You have no right to tell God he can’t give you good news.

“You have no right to tell God he can’t give you good news.”

Oh, how many people I have dealt with over the years who try to tell God they are beyond good news. And I get upset with them because they are belittling the cross, diminishing the blood, crying down the mercy, exalting themselves in their self-pity. I won’t have it, neither in this room nor in the counseling chamber. Don’t tell God that he can’t give you good news because you’ve sinned your way into your misery, and God himself brought you under his discipline. That’s exactly their situation. We’re in this together, and we want desperately to know, How do we approach God now? How do you talk to God in that situation? That’s what they’re doing, and I want to learn as best I can how they do it.

Rehearsing Stories of Hope

So what do they do? It’s astonishing what they do. They pray back to God the entire history of the Old Testament. This is the longest — or maybe the right word is that this is the fullest — retelling of the Old Testament in the Old Testament. Jim Hamilton says in his new commentary, “This is the fullest retelling of the Old Testament in a short space in the Old Testament.” And it’s a prayer, so they’re telling God what God did for a thousand years — more than a thousand. That’s a remarkable way to approach God in a deserved, God-ordained distress.

So in Nehemiah 9:6–31 they’re telling the story of the Old Testament. Why would they do that? Here’s why. God does not exist so that we can enjoy Bible stories. Bible stories exist so that we can enjoy God. And they desperately, desperately need to know whether our God is the kind of God in whom there’s any possibility of enjoyment in our great distress — well-deserved and given by God. Is there any hope at all that there’s a God in heaven that would give us hope that he could be enjoyed in this? That’s what they need to know.

And they know where to find the answer. It’s in the story, because that’s what the stories are for: to reveal God. They desperately need to know, What kind of God do we have? Is it over for us? Or is he the kind of God that perhaps there might be some hope in a deserved, God-given distress? That’s why they’re retelling the stories back to God.

Great and Only God

In Nehemiah 9:6–15, the Levites celebrate the power of God, the righteousness of God, and the covenant-keeping salvation of God. Verse 6 says, “You are the Lord” (Nehemiah 9:6). You know what that refers to: Yahweh. That’s his personal name. It’s like, “You are James,” only it’s not James — it’s Yahweh. “You are Yahweh.” And you know where the name came from. “God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’ And he said, ‘Say this to the people of Israel, “I am has sent me to you”’” (Exodus 3:14). And the name Yahweh is built on “I am who I am,” which means every time you see big L-O-R-D, this is God saying, “I am God, and I have no competitors, and I depend on nobody and nothing. I had no beginning; I will have no end. Deal with me because that is reality.” That’s God.

“You don’t negotiate with God. He is absolute reality. We are defined, he is definer.”

So they began, “You are Yahweh.” It’s a good place to begin. You are absolute God. There’s no negotiation going on here at all. You don’t negotiate with God. He is absolute reality. We are defined; he is definer. We are dependent; he is totally independent. Our being comes into being; his being has always been, as inconceivable and glorious as that is. We begin here. This is a place of reverence and humility and lowliness. You begin your dealing with this God in your great distress by saying, “You are Yahweh, the great and only and absolute God.”

Verse 6 in the middle says, “You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you” (Nehemiah 9:6). You made everything; you uphold everything. Therefore, “the host” — I like the translation army — “the [army] of heaven worships you” (Nehemiah 9:6). You are exalted. “Your glorious name . . . is exalted above all blessing and praise” (Nehemiah 9:5).

That’s where you begin, right? In dealing with God, just lift him up. Now remember, these are people who are totally guilty, under distress given by God, okay? You lift up your soul in your guilt, and you lift up your soul in your distress, and you lift up your soul under the mighty hand of God, and you say, “You are God.” That’s a great place to begin.