When Is an Elder Disqualified from Ministry

We all have treasured items we keep for special events. It may be a shirt, a dress, a pen, dishes, or a piece of jewelry. We pull them out to be used for something unique, but otherwise, we leave them tucked away and protected from daily use. These items are set apart.

In the same way, the person who is called to Gospel ministry is “set apart” for God’s special purposes. We call these men pastors or Elders, in many, if not all cases, these titles are interchangeable. This does not mean these individuals are more special or more loved than any of God’s other children. However, God has “set them apart” for His special use.

s early as the tabernacle period, it seems God set certain people aside, namely the Levites and other individuals throughout history, for His special purposes. However, God loved all people equally, such as the eleven other tribes. Think about the set apart tribe of the Levites for a moment. They were to live, eat, dress, make money, and serve others in a specific way that was different than the other tribes. They didn’t have all the same privileges as the others, such as inheriting their own land, but they did have the special privilege of mediating between God and man.

While pastors and Elders of today are not the same type of Levites, they do seem to have a special set of explanatory Bible verses on how they are to be “set apart” for serving God’s people. We desire for every man at Grace Chapel to be Elder-qualified if he may never be Elder-called. Read More

Also See:
The Leadership Practice That Could Also Ruin Your Ministry
6 Practices to Overcome Criticism

In post-apostolic times the role of New Testament elder would be confused with that of Temple priest, giving rise to the sacerdotal view of the clergy that characterizes the Roman Catholic Church. At the time of the English Reformation the Anglican Church rejected this view of the clergy. While the Anglican Church would retain the word "priest," it was understood to be a contraction of the Greek word "prebyter," or elder. The nineteenth century Oxford movement and the resulting Catholic Revival would reintroduce into some quarters of the Anglican Church the Roman Catholic sacerdotal view of the clergy. In these quarters of the Anglican Church the unbiblical notion that Christ through the priest at Mass offers himself to God for the sins of the living and the dead would overshadow the New Testament teaching that the calling of the elders of the church was to teach and shepherd Christ's flock, a teaching embodied in the Anglican Ordinal.