Not every Baptist Church is like this

[Bob Jones VI]

I read a blog about this and found this interesting discussion.​

This person left the Baptist Church. I have not. Here is one of their reasons.​

The Baptist church does not have leadership as prescribed by the Bible.​

Anybody who knows anything about a Baptist congregation, knows that there’s a pastor who leads the congregation. Just one man. No where in the Bible do we see a hierarchy of one man leading the church. A pastor is another name for elder, bishop, or overseer. In the Bible we see a plurality of leaders, meaning more than one pastor/elder/bishop. Notice 1 Peter 5:1-2: “The elders who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed: shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly.” We always see overseers/pastors/shepherds/bishops mentioned in groups. Christ is the head of the church and does not intend for one man to take the lead and make all the decisions that govern His people.

 

[ALAYMAN]

Essentially, I agree, but also know that in a multi-elder model there is always, explicitly or implicitly, a lead pastor—a first among equals.

 

[Bob Jones VI]

In our church, all 5 elders preach. One does the majority of the preaching, but none of them have a different title. But practically, he is who everyone calls our lead pastor, like you said. I think they are genuinely trying to practice the equality of plurality, but there is one who has to lead. And I think that ok. It's the one pastor, everyone else is a deacon, and has no real authority that I have experienced and struggled with. When I was pastoring, we moved to multiple elders and it was better.

 

[brianb]

Unlike Paul, Peter doesn't seem to writing to one particular church but keep in mind that they met in houses which may have held 100 or so people. So while a church in a city may have multiple elders if that church as 1000 or so (the first church had 3000 who continued with the apostles), they may only need one elder in one assembly (but it depends on the church's needs). Titus 1, Paul tells Titus to ordain elders in "every city/town" not every church though he'd have to go to every church of course to do this.

 

[Ransom]

I'm glad he said "a Baptist congregation," so we knew all the other Baptist congregations aren't necessarily beholden to his sweeping generalizations.

The Bible says a proper New Testament Church has deacons and elders. It doesn't say how many, nor does it say how to divide labour between them. Within the biblical norm, a church has the freedom to select whatever elders, for whatever duties, they deem appropriate for their own situation.