“Their duty is to supervise every person’s conduct.”  (On elders in “Ecclesiastical Ordinances”)

Last week in this space I invited you to join me in a dialogue about the role of elders in the church.    We began with a brief overview of key Bible texts on church leadership.  The New Testament never says, “Here’s how to organize the church.”  But there is a pattern of various offices. 

                During the sixteenth century, Protestant reformers attempted to recover what they believed were key elements of the Bible’s teaching that had been obscured or replaced by fifteen hundred years of church tradition. 

Martin Luther of Wittenberg, Germany famously challenged the church on basic issues of Scriptural authority and salvation.  Another stream of the Protestant Reformation emerged in Switzerland, with Ulrich Zwingli leading the fight (quite literally) in Zurich as a contemporary of Luther. 

By the middle of the century, John Calvin had become the key scholar and leader of the Reform movement in Geneva.  Although “Calvinism” is often connected to doctrines such as God’s sovereignty, man’s depravity, and predestination, Calvin also organized church and society according to his understanding of the New Testament.

Calvin’s church order included four offices –

·         Pastors, who are “to proclaim the Word of God, to teach, admonish, exhort, and reprove publicly and privately, to administer the sacraments and, with the elders or their deputies, to issue fraternal warnings.”

·         Doctors (teachers), whose duty is “to instruct the faithful in sound doctrine so that the purity of the gospel is not corrupted by ignorance or wrong opinions.”

·         Elders, who are “to supervise every person’s conduct.  In friendly fashion they should warn backsliders and those of disorderly life.”

·         Deacons, who receive and distribute offerings for the poor and also “tend and look after the sick.”

It is clear from the writings of Calvin that he believed the elders had a serious responsibility to keep the faithful on the right path in both their beliefs and their practice.  “Their duty is to supervise every person’s conduct. In friendly fashion they should warn backsliders and those of disorderly life….They should be chosenfrom each quarter of the city so that they can keep an eye on the whole of it.”  Calvin’s Geneva punished citizens by fines or imprisonment for missing church, coming late to church, attending Catholic mass or feasts, inviting others to drink, drunkenness, indecent songs, or dancing.”

What do we learn positively and negatively from John Calvin’s Genevan system?

(Next week: Elders in the Evangelical and Reformed Church.  Please leave your comments here.)