18th April 2025

18th April 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Philippians 1:1-2)


Message (Alan Burke)


I’ve written a few introductions to today’s devotion and that is because while the others might be true, sadly even though they shouldn’t have been, they had the potential to be pretty incendiary in some quarters so I thought better. When I was in Union Stafford Carson was the Principle and he made the point that in PCI the number of congregations and ministers has remained fairly static over the past 100 years but that the number of elders has increased ten fold. Why is it so? I would suggest that we have misunderstood what an elder is. Paul wrote to the saints and the overseers and deacons and today we are going to focus on the offices of elder and deacon. An elder is an overseer (the KJV uses bishop which is an old English word for overseer ie an elder). The greek word that is often used of an overseer is that of presbyteros. Now hopefully that should sound somewhat familiar, presbyteros if we transliterate it to English becomes Presbyter which is where we get the name Presbyterian for we have overseers, known as elders, who oversee, who watch over the spiritual welfare of the congregation that is what elders do.


The role of an elder isn’t like an MP.  The really sad thing is that some people think this is what an elder is and they should listen to their districts like an MP does with their constituents and then go to the Kirk Session meeting and try to sort out all our gripes. That is sadly how it works but it should not be this way, may God forgive us in this. The role of an overseer, an elder is completely different. An elder is an overseer for they exercise oversight over the congregation, they are those who exercise authority, they are the ones who are set aside by God to rule over the church on God’s behalf. A Kirk Session is made up of what are known as ruling elders and a teaching elder, ie minister and the teaching elder is set aside to teach but the ruling elders are set aside not to lobby the Kirk Session and sort out all your gripes but to rule. They have a responsibility to God to manage and care for those whom they have oversight of (1 Tim 3:5), they act as undershepherds to the Lord Jesus and they are to set and example to all. We have some congregations in PCI some with as many as 1/4 of the visible church on the Lord’s day as elders, either their are incredibly blessed by the Lord to have that many elders or they see elders not as spiritual leaders but as those who are there to keep the minister right. Recently I was speaking to a baptist pastor who has a congregation of 250 on the Lord’s day and in PCI you’d need at least 25 maybe even 67 elders for that and they have a grand total of 3. If you want to see what the scripture says about elder the qualifications are laid out in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9. 


Deacons comes from a greek word that can be translated as servant. Acts 6 helps us to understand this office for they were those who were appointed to meet the physical needs of the widows in the church. So while the elders of a church rule the deacons deal with the practical matters, they attend to those in need, they care for those who are housebound. Now according to the code of the Presbyterian Church Members of the Congregational Committee are appointed to fulfil the biblical role of deacons by discharging the duties delegated to them of caring for those in need and managing the temporal affairs of the congregation. (Para 16.4). 


In scripture the office of Deacon is a permanent one and as a Down presbytery we see that there is an apparent contradiction in what the scriptures teach and how we act, so we are memorialising this years General Assembly ie we have written to ask that consideration be given to our practice. This is because we believe that biblical church government contributes to the well-being of the church. It is important that we practically care for brothers and sisters in need (Galatians 6.10) and until there is change that is what the committee is tasked with this. Please be praying for this years General Assembly as this memorial comes as we try to move more to the model of scripture, and pray for the committee as they practice this role, please pray for your elders, teaching and ruling for they are spiritual leaders and pray that they would act like it and pray that we would know the blessing of elders who love the Lord and who act as overseers, ruling as undershepherds on behalf of our saviour Christ Jesus.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q61 What is forbidden in the fourth commandment?
A. The fourth commandment forbiddeth the omission, or careless performance, of the duties required, and the profaning the day by idleness, or doing that which is in itself sinful, or by unnecessary thoughts, words, or works, about our worldly employments or recreations.
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