We often think of elders being responsible for providing for the church, ensuring that the congregation are led, pastorally cared for, fed with God’s Word. There is however a crucial responsibility which gets less attention. In Acts 20:28-31 addressing the Ephesia elders, Paul says:
Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God,[a] which he bought with his own blood.[b] 29 I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31 So be on your guard!
Being an overseer and keeping watch is not, in this context so much about supervising as being there to protect. Like a shepherd and the flock, one of an elder’s first duties is to ensure that the church are safe from danger.
This means that elders have a particular responsibility to look out for spiritual attack which puts members at risk. This can come in a few ways. First, it can come, when perhaps unwittingly, wrong teaching creeps into what is communicated in church life, through worship, prophecy prayer, preaching, kids work and small group Bible studies. Elders need to be ready to correct when wrong things are said.
Secondly, it means that elders have a responsibility to look out for attitudes and behaviours that creep in, whether general “worldliness” and the danger of compromise or grumbling and division.
Thirdly, elders need to be alert for how specific people might come in with dangerous agendas. They come to disrupt, cause trouble, satisfy their own needs at the expense of others. This is particularly important when considering appointing people to roles within the life of the church. This might range from asking someone to preach, through appointing voluntary elders to recruiting a new pastor or other members of paid staff. Elders need to make sure that the right people are allowed to teach and lead and that the wrong ones are not.
Faithroots 