This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you… Titus 1.5

In ancient Israel no town or village would have been regarded as being “in order” if it did not have proper spiritual and civil oversight. Spiritual oversight was the work of priests and Levites. Civil oversight was the work of elders and judges. All these together served as the shepherds of God’s flocks throughout Israel.

The New Testament acknowledges, if only implicitly, a kind of analogy between the villages and towns of ancient Israel and the churches of the Roman world. Just as each town required orderly leadership, so each local congregation required leadership to administer the order required in the divine economy. In the New Covenant the work of priests and Levites fell to pastors and teachers. The work of judges and elders was assigned to “elders” or “overseers.” The various shepherding functions of the Old Testament clearly continue into the New.

Just as the elders and judges of the Old Covenant watched over their communities to promote and maintain love for God and neighbors, so this is also the duty and calling of pastors, elders, and overseers in the New Covenant. These do not bear the sword; this is a role, as we have seen, which is reserved for proper civil authorities. However, these do wield the Sword of the Spirit for the edification of the Body of Christ and its members.

No church will be “in order” that does not have proper pastoral oversight. The nature of that oversight is defined by the Lord, the Good Shepherd, Who outlined the terms by which His appointed shepherds should watch over His flocks (Jn. 10). Our churches will not be in order until they comply with these principles, derived from the Law of God, for conducting their fellowship, worship, disciple-making, and witness in the world.

The Law of God thus speaks pointedly to the right ordering of churches today. If our churches seem less effective at turning their generation upside-down for Christ than those of the first century, it may be that God, Who was pleased to honor the right order He observed in those first churches has determined to withhold His blessing from ours until we come into conformity with His design and decrees, and until we begin to discern and obey as many as continue valid of the guiding principles of His Law.

T. M. Moore

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