Formation and Functioning of a Biblical Eldership

Driving home: It is the Holy Spirit who places them, who makes them bishops or overseers.

Martin cites the rebellion against Moses and Aaron, and the Corinthian church's attitude toward Paul, as tragic examples of God's people refusing to recognize or follow God-given leaders, underscoring the need for supplication that congregations be submissive.

It is God who makes congregations submissive to the word and to the spirit in order to recognize and receive those whom he gives. those whom he gives as overseers. We have tragic examples both in the Old and the New Testaments of situations in which God gave leaders to his people, but whom his people refused either to recognize or to follow in their capacity as God-given leaders. You remember the rebellion against Moses and Aaron.

9:18 - 9:54 Read in full sermon

Driving home: It is the Holy Spirit who places them, who makes them bishops or overseers.

Martin recounts Paul's humbling experience of having to re-establish the validity of his apostleship before the Corinthian church, using it to comfort pastors facing disaffection and to highlight the difficulty of leadership recognition.

You remember the Corinthian church with reference to the apostle Paul. I think one of the most humbling things in all of the epistles where he has to re-establish the validity of his apostleship.

9:54 - 10:09 Read in full sermon

The point: Engage in constant, earnest, fervent supplication, crying to the living God that He would form men into true overseers and make your congregation sensitive to recognize them.

Martin uses the imagery of a 'heath in the desert' from Jeremiah 17:5 to describe the cursed efforts of those who try to establish eldership in their own strength, resulting in barrenness and questioning of the institution itself.

Cursed is everyone that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord. He shall be like a heath in the desert. He shall not see when good cometh. He shall inhabit a parched place, a wilderness, a salt land where no water is.

12:46 - 13:06 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The second directive is 'cultivation,' which involves promoting the growth of potential elders. This is achieved through accurate preaching and teaching on the subject, pastoral…

The congregation is likened to 'the garden of God' where the Lord grows plants (potential elders). Pastors are 'official gardeners' who must use 'gardening tools' (preaching, encouragement) to cultivate these plants, emphasizing human responsibility alongside divine sovereignty.

We talk about someone cultivating his gift. We don't mean that he goes out with a metal instrument and rakes his gift over with it, but he promotes the growth or development. And here we ought to look upon the congregation as the garden of God and believe that within that garden there are some plants whom the Lord will cause to grow into scripturally qualified and biblically functioning elders. And while we plead with God to grow such plants, to send down the influences of heaven, the rain of the Spirit's influence, the light and warmth of His own Word, the same God to whom we pray has put som...

15:00 - 16:18 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The second directive is 'cultivation,' which involves promoting the growth of potential elders. This is achieved through accurate preaching and teaching on the subject, pastoral…

Martin quotes Charles Spurgeon's autobiography, detailing how Spurgeon gradually taught his New Park Street congregation about eldership, allowing them to recognize the scriptural pattern and unanimously appoint elders, illustrating the power of accurate teaching.

And so often, there has been no establishment of a biblically functioning eldership simply because the people of God have erred not knowing the Scripture. And probably one of the most touching accounts of how this can be done is found in Spurgeon's biography. And I quote now from volume two of the edited version of his autobiography by Ian Murray called The Full Harvest. And this is what Spurgeon says with regard to this whole matter of giving biblical teaching and preaching on the subject of eldership.

16:51 - 17:35 Read in full sermon

The point: Maintain harmonious relationships with your fellow elders as brethren, applying biblical directives for mutual submission, humility, and unity with unusual vigor.

Martin uses the analogy of marriage to explain how increased intimacy in the eldership reveals previously unseen dimensions of character and remaining sin, causing irritation and testing commitment, just as marriage reveals deeper aspects of one's own sinfulness.

Any snags in your personal relationship will show up in your ministerial functions together. All right? Directives then pertaining to your relationship to your fellow elders. Your efficiency in labor will be conditioned greatly by your relationship to them as Christian brothers. If distance, suspicion, lack of trust and respect or ill will are found in your relationship to them as Christian men, you simply cannot function efficiently as co-overseers of the flock of God. Moreover, the more intimate any human relationship is, the more potential there is for the eruption of remaining sin. And all...

50:56 - 52:06 Read in full sermon

The point: Establish a functional division of labor among elders according to the nature and strength of each man's gift and his availability of time.

Martin quotes Westminster Larger Catechism Question 131 on the 'duties of equals' (regarding dignity, giving honor, rejoicing in gifts) and the 'sins of equals' (undervaluing, envying, usurping preeminence) to provide helpful instruction on transparency and openness within the eldership.

And then they sometimes tell one story to one to get a certain response, another story to another. Well, you see how vital it is that you have this regular, meeting for prayer and consultation marked by prayerfulness, submission to the word of God, transparent openness by the free flow of information. It's very interesting in the larger catechism in the section dealing with the fifth commandment, some very helpful instruction in terms of this matter of transparency and openness. Question 131.

64:19 - 64:54 Read in full sermon