by

Clifton D. Healy

In my Christian journeying among various church groups, one of the contentious issues with which I have been faced is that of the New Testament origins of the bishop. That is to say, most of the Protestant groups I have been among have rejected the bishop as a later, pagan addition to the New Testament leadership ministry of elders and deacons, something based on the Roman political/governmental administration of various provinces. This viewpoint was certainly one held by my own heritage churches. In fact, the office of the bishop was something of a litmus test of the "New Testament" status of a particular Christian group or denomination: if they had bishops they were questionable. As was once expressed to my wife by a friend and mentor, it was hard to see "how anyone who believed in the Bible could accept bishops in the Church."

As I will show below, what is ironic about this is that in the early Church, it was in fact the absence of a duly qualified or ordained bishop that cast one’s "status" as a New Testament Church in doubt. However, at the time, the criticism struck home. Were bishops part of the New Testament, or better, the Apostolic Church? Because if there were anything about which I was convicted, it was that of the imperative to pattern my life and beliefs, and that of the local congregation, after the New Testament and the teaching of the Apostles. I had a sense that the criticism, that bishops were not according to the New Testament pattern, was in error. But I had not looked closely enough at the New Testament and the earliest history of the Church to see how clearly in error this sort of criticism actually was. In short, a cogent and fair case can be made, based on the biblical and historical evidence, that the ministry of deacons, presbyters, and bishops, arising out of the priesthood of all believers, is not only an ancient form of Church polity, but was the New Testament form.

My faith heritage was very definite about what the New Testament model of local church leadership was to be: a plurality of male elders led and guided the congregation, supported by a plurality of male deacons (and in some cases deaconesses, though deaconesses did not vote on the church board or in other ways "usurp authority over a man"). It was clear, in our churches, that the title of "elder" was the one to be used of church leaders. "Bishop," we were taught, was a Roman Catholic innovation.

I eventually came to understand that the word for bishop, episkopos, was used in the New Testament, though in many Bible translations that word is rendered as "overseer." Now it is certainly true that the Greek word episkopos does translate quite literally into "overseer." Any good lexicon and grammatical study will back this up. But what is at issue is not the etymology of the word, but its use. Was it used of a specific person and that person’s ministry? Furthermore, I was taught that the use of episkopos was relatively rare and ambiguous. It was primarily limited to the Pastoral Epistles and was used synonymously with the word for elder, presbyteros. Thus, the churches in which I was raised conflated the two terms into one person and ministry. An elder and a bishop/overseer were the same thing. Given my ability to read Greek, as well as my own propensity to "find things out for myself," it was rather surprising for me, as I went back through the Greek text, to discover that bishops are much more frequent in the New Testament than I’d thought.

For a ministry that was supposedly a Roman political and administrative innovation, there are actually quite a few references to bishops in the New Testament. In various verbal forms, "bishop" can be found at Acts 1.20 (which refers to Judas' "place" as bishop, quoting an Old Testament text), Acts 20.28 (where the "elders" are said to have been appointed "bishops" by the Holy Spirit), Philippians 1.1 (in which the bishops are included in the opening address of the epistle), 1 Timothy 3.1,2 (in which, bishops, not elders, are described), Titus 1.7 (where bishops are described again, though apparently in terms synonymous with elders), 1 Peter 2.25 (in which, in what I take to be a very important passage, Jesus is called our bishop), and 1 Peter 5.2 (which refers to the act of "bishoping," usually translated as some form of oversight).

The typical Protestant interpretation is that presbyter and bishop are used synonymously, and the references in Acts 20 and Titus 1 are usually presented as "conclusive" proof. There are a couple of responses that are helpful here. First, there is no real dispute that the ministries of presbyter and bishop have overlap. Even in the practices of the Church today, a bishop is one who has first been (and remains always) a presbyter/priest. So, in Acts 20, in particular, there is no need to explain away the fact that the men who came out to meet Paul were, indeed, presbyters/elders. However, Paul also mentioned that these men had been made bishops/overseers by the Holy Spirit. Though the text is not exactly clear in what sense these men as overseers are different from other presbyters who are not overseers, still it is reasonable to infer that there was likely a difference. Also, though one need not infer that Paul’s mention of their oversight is either limited only to those present to see him, or that those present to see him comprised all the elders of their respective churches, still, it is reasonable to infer a difference. In other words, these men who met Paul were bishops: presbyters/elders with additional oversight responsibilities in the churches. While I grant that this is only one of a few possible ways to interpret the text, when one adds the weight of the earliest Christian writings and of the earliest histories of the Church, this specific interpretation is given additional weight.

A second response, though less persuasive, would have to do with consistency of terminology among my own heritage churches. In the light of my heritage churches’ convictions about "Bible names for Bible things" (to cite one well-known motto), it would be important to consider why our churches’ leaders are not called bishops but elders. "Elders" as a designation is certainly used frequently in the New Testament to refer to Church leaders, and Paul is described as having returned to his churches to appoint "elders." However, consider that the single most-used text in our churches to discuss the role and character traits of elders in the Church is 1 Timothy 3, which does not call the leaders elders, but bishops. It begs the question: which is the "more biblical" designation, elder or bishop?

Finally, a brief response to the notion that bishops were derived from the Roman Empire’s governmental structure is needed. Given that the texts refer to bishop well within the time frame of the active ministries of the Apostles, and more to the point, given that the ministry of bishop is itself derived from the ministry of Jesus as our chief bishop, the understanding of the development of the Episcopal ministry as having come from the Roman cultural carries less weight. It is true, that the earliest Church councils, a few hundred years later, did organize the various dioceses (regions of a bishop’s ministerial activity) along the jurisdictional lines of the Roman Republic, but this is different than claiming that the office of bishop came out of the Roman governmental practice. Many Protestant churches also organize their administrative areas along political and regional boundaries derived from the cities, states and nations in which they minister. This later development in the Church was no different.

Furthermore, we should not discount the ancient understanding in the Church of the bishops as the appointed successors to the Apostles. The accounts in Acts and the epistles were written during the lifetime of the Apostles. It makes sense that since the Apostles were around, any talk of "bishops" would have been, well, too "early." But not early enough, apparently to have escaped all mention. Thus, though bishops are present in the New Testament, while the Apostles were still alive, it is reasonable to conclude that a bishop and a presbyter would have very similar functions/roles, and the relatively synonymous use of the terms would not have been out of sorts.

So, we can grant that in the A. D. 60s, about the time that Acts and Peter’s and Paul’s epistles were written, the roles of elder and bishop, as described in the New Testament, would have been fairly similar, since it was to the Apostles that the task of oversight of the churches had first been given. Even so, given the use of the word for bishop ("overseer"), and the Pauline references in Timothy and Titus, it seems the New Testament itself suggests the transition from oversight by the Apostles, to oversight by bishops.

Now, jump forward about 30 years to the lives of Clement of Rome and of Ignatius of Antioch. These two men are among the earliest witnesses to the ministry of the early Church, indeed that of the New Testament Church, we know. Clement lived roughly AD 30-100, and was the leader of the church at Rome. He is known to have been a disciple of Paul and Luke. Though some conjecture that he wrote his letter just after the persecution under Nero in the 60s, most scholars agree that it was probably written at or near the close of his life in the 90s, during the lifetime of the Apostle John. I will cite from this epistle below. Ignatius lived around the same time as Clement, about AD 30-107, dying as a martyr at Rome. There is a legend in the early Church that Ignatius was the little child that Jesus placed in the midst of the disciples (Matthew 18.2), but there is no way to tell the historicity of this account. Ignatius was a disciple, with Polycarp, of the Apostle John. It is almost universally acknowledged that he wrote his letters near the end of his life, in 107.

First we turn to Clement who writes in his epistle:

Our apostles also knew, through our Lord Jesus Christ, and [sic] there would be strife on account of the office of the episcopate. For this reason, therefore, inasmuch as they had obtained a perfect fore-knowledge of this, they appointed those [ministers] already mentioned, and afterwards gave instructions, that when these should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed them in their ministry (The First Epistle of Clement, 44, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, [hereinafter ANF] vol. I, p 17).

Earlier, Clement appeals to Isaiah 60.17 to show the prophetic promise that God would "appoint their bishops in righteousness and their deacons in faith" (First Clement 42, ANF vol. I, p 16). This is clearly either a form of the Septuagint text we no longer have, or, perhaps more likely, Clement is quoting from memory and inadvertently alters the text. But the point is not textual criticism, but to highlight that Clement very obviously had an understanding that the ministry of bishop was one settled in the will of God.

As far as Ignatius is concerned, in his letter to the Philadelphians he refers to "the bishop, presbyters, and the deacons, who have been appointed according to the mind of Jesus Christ, whom He has established in security, after His own will, and by His Holy Spirit" (Philadelphians 1, ANF I, p 79). Again, this understanding of ministry was taken to be the unambiguous will of God. Furthermore, as evidence that this was the will of Christ for the leadership of the Church, he writes, "For even Jesus Christ, our inseparable life, is the [manifested] will of the Father; as also bishops, settled everywhere to the utmost bounds [of the earth], are so by the will of Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 3, ANF vol. I, p 50; emphasis added). In other words, not only is it God’s will, it is what is done everywhere, by all.

I have chosen these two men, Clement and Ignatius, because they are both among the earliest Christian writings we have dealing with the ministry of the Church, and they were both disciples of the Apostles, and thus were in direct continuity with the Apostolic ministry and teaching. I am not claiming that Clement and Ignatius both had exactly the same conceptions of how bishops, presbyters and deacons were distinguished from one another. Arguments could be made that Clement saw bishops and presbyters as the same person and ministry. It has certainly been argued that the model of ministry Ignatius espouses (the so-called monarchical episcopate) was unusual among the worldwide Church in his day, so that his did not reflect a universal practice so much as the practice of the Syrian region, and he was exaggerating the extent of his model when he claimed it so everywhere. There is no problem admitting these sorts of anomalies into the discussion. Clearly the ministry of the Church has grown and developed both as the theology of the Church has developed and as local needs have exerted their pressures on the churches. But my argument is less about a particular model as it is about the origins of the ministry of the bishop, as increasingly distinct from that of the presbyter, and as distinct from the deacon, in the New Testament, the Church, and the will of Christ.

Protestants have typically argued for the late development and extrabiblical origin of the office of bishop. It seems clear to me that the earliest origins of the bishop lie in the New Testament itself and in the will of God. Even given the Protestant arguments about the person and ministry of bishop in the New Testament, the rapid development of the Church’s ministry within the lifetime of the Apostles has to be explained. To explain it away by referring to the surrounding socio-political culture is to assume too much. In our own day with the increase in convenience and ease of travel and communication, when we have readily available and complete canons of Scripture, when our societies are much less traditional and equally, if not more, pluralistic, we, ourselves, strongly resist changes in how we worship and do ministry. To assume that the ministry of bishops, presbyters, and deacons would supplant (within 30-40 years from the deaths of Peter and Paul, and within a decade of the death of John) a presumably more clear and simple ministry of presbyters/elders and deacons, and also presumably more apostolically authoritative, is, it seems to me, to be assuming too much.

The New Testament Model of Church Polity

I think a reasonable conclusion, based on reading the New Testament, Church history and the Church Fathers, that within the lifetime of the Apostles, and by their teaching and the will of God, the basic structure of Church polity had developed, one that has lasted from the first century down to today. Clement and Ignatius, both disciples of the Apostles, describe a developed and established ministry of bishops. It is indisputably accepted throughout the entire Church by the end of the second century. Those facts alone, resting on the New Testament texts, make the case for bishops as the New Testament model of Church leadership.

Aside from the one comment referred to above, that essentially one could not both take the New Testament seriously and accept a church polity of bishops, priests and deacons, I have not had occasion to wrestle with this issue until the writing of this essay. Previously, it had progressed in my thinking from "bishops are not in the New Testament" to "bishops are in the New Testament, but church polity is a matter of freedom among believers--one may have bishops or one may have elders." But if I am to face the New Testament and the historical documents responsibly, it seems to me that the implication from the facts is: "the Church must have bishops if it is to pattern itself after New Testament."

Now this doesn’t straighten out the issue altogether. Having bishops, and making bishops, and the responsibilities of bishops are wrapped up in this as well. That is to say, is a name change, from elder to bishop, enough to warrant the label of New Testament church? Or is something more than nominalism at stake here? Already in the texts above there is an understanding of some sort of continuity between those Apostles appointed by Jesus, the men the Apostles appointed, and those who should follow. That continuity has been technically rendered as apostolic succession, which, according to the Tradition of the Church is as much about continuity with the teaching of the Apostles as the continuity of appointment from the Apostles. But these are issues outside the scope of this essay.

It is enough here to simply point to the origin of the ministry of bishops within the pages of the New Testament and the decades of the New Testament Church.

© 2002 Clifton D. Healy

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