What Is the Biblical Model of Church Government?

There is no doubt that every local church needs leadership. However, for nearly two thousand years, one of the hottest topics within the Body of Christ is how a local church should be governed.

The Roman Catholic Church has a hierarchy system that begins with local Priests and ends with the Pope (with Cardinals, Bishops, and Archbishops ranking in between). This system is patterned after the government of the Roman Empire. It was adopted shortly after Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the land. Despite its historical popularity, it has no basis in the Bible (God's Word).

Eastern Orthodox churches have a similar system, but their churches answer to ecclesiastic authorities no greater than those within their particular country (rather than one global authority as the Pope). That is why they bear such names as Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, Romanian Orthodox, etc. Perhaps this system gives churches a little more flexibility than the Roman Catholic model, but it is still not biblical.

So what is the biblical model for local church government? The New Testament calls for no more than two ranks of local church officers. First in authority are the elders, bishops, overseers, pastors, or ministers (1 Tim. 3:1-7; Tit. 1:5-9; Jam. 5:14). Second in authority are the deacons or servants (1 Tim. 3:8-13; Phil. 1:1). Because Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church (Eph. 5:23-24; Col. 1:18), the officers of the local church should receive their marching orders only from Him, and not from some other human authority on earth (as even some Protestant denominations are structured). If your church does not operate under this system precisely, God may still use it for His glorious work, but it is still (to one degree or another) out-of-sync with His Word.

Basically all Christians seem to agree that the terms elders, bishops, and overseers are synonymous (1 Pet. 5:1). They also agree that pastors and ministers are synonymous. But some may object to my grouping all five of those terms into one single category. I do so because I believe that pastors/ministers are actually a sub category of elders/bishops/overseers. I conclude this from 1 Timothy 5:17.

Church officers may never practice polygamy or bigamy (1 Tim. 3:2 & 12), but must they be married? I could be wrong, but I would say Yes. I believe that is what Paul implied when he taught that an officer must be "the husband of but one wife." However, if we insist that our church officers to be married, then shouldn't they each have at least two children (vv. 4 & 12)? If not, then isn't that taking wrongful liberties with God's Word?

Churches may disagree over exactly how many officers are needed, how much (or even if) they should be paid for their work, how much decision making power they should have (with respect to other faithful members of the congregation), and other related issues. We can agree to disagree without being disagreeable because these particular issues are all peripheral Christian debates.