Elders in Every City
- Daniel Kirk
- 9 hours ago
- 4 min read
I was a young whippersnapper of twenty three when I first attended a Baptist Church in Mexico. One of my godfathers had defected from the C of E to a Baptist church and loved telling the ‘joke’: ‘Why will Anglicans be the first into heaven?’ This usually left people thinking of obscure theological reasons why this might be so until he put them out of their misery by saying with a great big smile - ‘because the Bible says that the dead will rise first!’ (1 Te 4.16)
Having grown up in Anglican churches and used to the single vicar/pastor model what surprised me most was that this Baptist church, which I ended up attending for five years, had a multiplicity of church leaders. There were five of them; of whom three preached regularly and others focused more on the leadership and organisational side of church ministry, all of them had full time jobs. It seemed to work really well and there was no real stand out ‘first amongst equals’ leader.
Now that I am exploring my own defection from the C of E (albeit to another Anglican denomination) my thoughts have strayed to thinking about that lovely church and whether a system of elders might work for us. So, the fact that a new version of ‘Elders in every City: The Origin and Role of the Ordained Ministry’ fell into my lap has been a real blessing.
Already seen as a classic by some (can you get a shorter or better endorsement by a more respected theologian than J.I. Packer’s ‘a little gem!’?), this new edition of Roger Beckwith’s kicks off with a glowing endorsement by Oxford Professor Andrew Atherstone who has been looking at Beckwith’s papers (the author died in 2023) giving some interesting biographical background.
Firstly there is Beckwith’s involvement in the foundation of Latimer House ‘designed… to promote the study of evangelical doctrine, liturgy, history and ecclesiology’ (p.1) at a time of ‘urgent crisis in the Church of England’ (has anything changed?!) with the aforementioned Packer as Warden and Beckwith as his deputy and librarian.
Secondly, was the interesting fact that he did his curacy (like many other notable conservative evangelical leaders) at our neighbouring parish of St. Peter’s Harold Wood.
Thirdly, that Beckwith, with his ‘flair for patristic scholarship’ & ‘impressive learning and originality’ (p.4) only wrote this book in his retirement after being asked to give a series of lectures on how ‘the ministry of presbyters and bishops evolved in the early church’ to clergy of the diocese of Blackburn. So this book is the result of long reflection and wide experience in ministry.
This is particularly interesting because, then (40 years ago) like now, saw a dearth of new ordinands and a falling off of clergy numbers. It was a time when the role of a pastor/theologian was in decline and the presbyter was progressively losing his position in society both in numbers and in influence as other professionals took over some of his traditional roles, for example in education, counselling, social welfare and marriage guidance’.
Beckwith does a deep and precise dive into the roots of ordained ministry, where his understanding not only of the biblical text and patristic church history is evident but also his knowledge of second temple and early rabbinic Judaism stands out - to a degree that most contemporary authors could only dream of. He begins by looking at the Anglican ordinal (Beckwith declares that the foundational documents of the C of E and the writings of Cranmer and Hooker are ‘the finest expressions of Anglicanism - of historic Christianity as reformed by the word of God’) (13) and seeing that the threefold ministry was widespread in the early second century that it is a matter of ‘probability that the first bishops were appointed by the apostles themselves’ (Hooker) (18).
Beckwith then looks at the biblical material related to church ministers mentioning the importance of Ephesians 4.11-12 to those who exalt the ministry of the laity. He mentions the four-fold ministry there and explains how the pastor-teachers became difficult to distinguish with the ordained presbyter-bishops.
I would have liked an historical explanation of why the evangelist seems to have disappeared as a formal office (the traditional reformed view that apostles and prophets had ceased with closing of the biblical canon) - something that has always puzzled me - although I expect it has something to do with the advent of Christendom and the presumption that all were Christians and just needed teaching and pastoring.
Chapter three looks at the difference between charismatic and institutional ministries and the development of deacons and elders vis-à-vis deacons, presbyters and bishops. Beckwith then looks at the theories of Bishops Lightfoot and Kirk about the separation of the presbyter-bishop into two offices. Sadly it appears that Kirk is on shakier ground but both, with other writers, agree that Christian presbyters or elders were modelled in the elders of the synagogue. They don’t build on this foundation but Beckwith does in the two subsequent chapters - which contains very interesting, and to me, unknown material.
In the subsequent section on deacons and the development of clericalism it is fascinating to see how early the plural presbyterate lost ground. In the NT congregations were mainly planted in towns and by the second century a city bishop was surrounded by a group of presbyters who could be sent out to evangelise the countryside. As large chunks of the Roman Empire began to be converted these presbyters ended up staying in villages as sole presbyterates and then the same begun to happen in towns. There is lots to mull on here about how plural presbyterates in local churches might be revived in our times. Not solely with a lead senior pastor and other ordained leaders in a team ministry but as a genuine leadership of elders, like my Mexican church.
Beckwith finishes off by looking at some lessons for today from all the wealth of historical and theological insight that he has shared. There is much to mull over and reflect on - and perhaps some challenges to the way we have always done things. Who am I to disagree with J.I. Packer? Well worth the read!
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