Church Government According to the Bible. Simon V. Goncharenko
(Acts 17:11).
Gene A. Getz
Wayne Barber
Preface
Another book on elders? The answer is “Yes,” and, at the same time, “Not exactly.” There are several factors that make this work unique and different from all the other material on elders as part of the biblical idea for church government. Before I start listing these factors, however, perhaps an interesting tidbit on the origin and the long journey of this manuscript from its creation to its publication is in order here. This work originated as an attempt at a doctoral dissertation in one of the seminaries of the Southern Baptist Convention. As the conclusions of this research regarding a particular style of church government ended up diverging from the majority view of the seminary, the project was set aside, for there was no way to move forward to a successful degree completion. So I wrote a brand new dissertation on a completely different subject and received an excellent mark on its defense. Following the graduation, I revisited this subject and, since the conclusions of this work represent my deep-seated biblical and theological convictions, I decided to make my research available to you, the reader, so that you too can judge for yourself the validity of the evidence presented here. There are some other unique characteristics about this work.
First, the author’s multicultural background adds an inimitable perspective that is not limited to North America alone. As someone born behind the Iron Curtain, yet who spent a large part of his formative years in the United States, this author recognizes God’s providential hand in his upbringing and understands all life as preparatory for the next divinely assigned task. In the case of this work, here is what led him to the point of making it available to the reader.
The journey that led to this work started with God’s providential removal of one of the many thousand young men in the former Soviet Union to be placed in the middle of the USA at the age of sixteen. The credit for this young man’s preparation for life and maturation at this relatively young age can only be given to God, whose sovereignty kept him on the straight and narrow even while far from the home he knew and everything that was familiar to him. God’s enabling hand oversaw this young man’s rapid progression through American university, though he had never studied in a foreign language before.
The kind hand of the Almighty availed an unusually smooth transition for this young man from college to Dallas Theological Seminary, the school of his dreams. The merciful hand of his creator led this young man to meet the most wonderful woman in the world on that campus. The odds of such an encounter at an institution with such a skewed ratio of male to female students was quite unbelievable.
By God’s grace, having graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary, my wife and I—the aforementioned young man—moved to Houston, Texas, where the Lord opened an opportunity to work with junior high school students at a large Bible church. His blessings were poured out abundantly on our family in the form of two beautiful children. In continuing to follow the Lord’s plan, we subsequently found ourselves in East Texas, where God blessed us with two more children and where I was almost supernaturally directed to the PhD program at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. It was there, in the midst of the period of intellectual rigor and spiritual stretching, that I was challenged to examine biblical data with reference to church polity.
My interest was initially limited to the issue of Scripture’s sufficiency with regard to church polity. Having answered the question in the affirmative, my mind wanted to push the question one step further and find the form of church government that is most consistent with biblical precedent. Thus, the birth of Church Government According to the Bible.
The second factor that makes this work unique is the method of the argument employed here. While seemingly circular in nature, the argument presented here progresses from identifying common theological foundations for any ecclesiological polity type, to analyzing these foundations in light of the biblical data, to synthesizing the resultant information with multiple-elder congregationalism emerging as the primary form of church government. So the support for the thesis presented here is derived from two avenues: biblical/exegetical and theological, which end up intersecting as they really ought to.
As I mentioned earlier, my multi-faceted, multi-cultural, and multi-lingual background affords me a unique perspective from which to consider the question at hand. My story also crosses between a number of denominations from Russian Baptist Union to American Bible Church movement to Southern Baptist Convention. This constitutes the third factor contributing to the distinctiveness of this manuscript compared to other relevant material on the market today. Having spent equal time within the nondenominational Dallas Theological Seminary-established Bible church movement and the Southern Baptist Convention, the author’s perspective is not restricted by the denominational lenses or narrow vision of the traditional way of doing things. Yet, at the same time, as more and more churches within the Southern Baptist Convention are transitioning from single-elder governance to multiple-elder congregationalism, the reader may find it helpful to see this work address some common objections to this form of church government within Baptist circles. Additionally, those pastors who are convinced by the biblical, theological, historical, and practical argumentation within this work will find some practical advice from those within the Southern Baptist Convention who have successfully led their churches through transitions in government structure.
Finally, the fourth element of this work that makes it stand out from the rest is the dual benefit it offers the worlds of academia and the church alike. The research presented here is carefully documented and can be easily verified for academic pursuits. The multiplicity of the footnotes, while not as common in the books for the church, will provide additional resources for the pastor and the layman alike, should they desire to pursue an issue further than the boundaries of this work allow.
As for the quick synopsis of the chapters of this book, they proceed as follows. Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the argument. It sets the context for the issue at hand and provides a historic preamble. Chapter 2 defines the terms frequently used in this work and provides a broad overview of the main models of ecclesiastical organization. Chapters 3 and 4 identify, examine, and analyze the six theological principles that form hermeneutical parameters for one’s choice of polity. Chapter 5 synthesizes the information at hand, resulting in the emergence of multiple-elder congregationalism as the most defensible model of church polity. Finally, Chapter 6 more deeply explores the key elements of the model that chapter 5 introduces, addresses objections to it, and offers recommendations for its successful practical implementation on a local church level.
May God bless your reading and open your eyes to discern his best plan for the governance of the body that to him is the most important organization on earth!
Midway, TX
1. For further thoughts from Getz and Barber, please see the Appendix.
2. Waldron, “Plural-Elder Congregationalism,” 66.
1
What Is Church Government?
Historical Introduction
The year was 1572. Arguably the most important theological development of the time in Elizabethan England was a duel—a literary one—between Archbishop of Canterbury John Whitgift and Presbyterian theologian Thomas Cartwright.1 This debate would last until 1577 and center around the six propositions Cartwright set forth in his exposition of the model of the primitive church based on the first two chapters of Acts. Cartwright’s propositions dealt with orders of clergy and with their offices, duties, and calling.2 At the center of the controversy was the governmental form of the church. Was it to be Episcopal or reformed, in the direction of the Presbyterian model?3
John Whitgift, adopting a relativistic stance on church polity, considered