Once again, this is something that shouldn’t require citing chapter and verse. It should all be familiar already, just a restatement to remind us of how God says things should work under the Covenant.
1. The Body — an extended spiritual family, a household. They may be actual kinfolks, but that’s not the point. They live together like kinfolks. Americans aren’t too comfortable with shared housing across multiple generations as we once were. There are plenty of reasons, but the biggest one is financial. For the past three generations we’ve been able to afford scattered nuclear family housing and moving away from one’s roots. With the approach of economic collapse, we need to start looking into getting used to crowding into more cramped quarters.
But the point here is that we should do this first and foremost with spiritual kinfolks, not merely our blood kin. The church of New Testament times was just such an extended family household centered on a shared covenant identity. Yes, non-believing family members might be dragged into it to some degree, but they could refuse to participate in the teaching and worship sessions. And if they couldn’t tolerate the living arrangement, the non-believing family members could always leave as soon as it was legal.
The whole point of Christ’s Law is that we adopt a mindset of striving to keep peace with each other. We don’t make rules that drive people away; we don’t regulate things that aren’t critical to following Christ. Paul made a big deal of learning to be tolerant about things like eating habits and manner of dress. What limits there were had to do with keeping the testimony clear. Meanwhile, they made much of sharing material resources as far as possible.
2. Pastor — ritual leader, priestly figure. Of course pastors had to know the Scripture and the teachings of Christ; they were required to preach and teach. Still, in this role was the one person most likely to be someone brought in from outside the community. The conduct of worship was theirs to rule. Their might be more than one pastor sharing the duties, but such was not that common.
3. Elder (bishop, overseer, etc.) — administrative leader, head of household. There were frequently subordinate elders. Some emphasized teaching and others were better at management. They should be able to do some of both. Elders arose from the body itself, men whom the others naturally tended to follow.
4. Deacon (and deaconess) — appointed attendants. These were people who were particularly good at executing administrative tasks to lighten the load on elders and pastors. They were not leaders, per se, but experts who organized work and got it done on behalf of the whole body. Some specialties belonged in the hands of women for the same reason women usually became wives and mothers.
Baptists and a few other groups always get the deacon stuff wrong, treating them like elders, even calling them “elders”, when that is not at all what they were like in the New Testament.
5. Apostle — missionary. His authority bridges the gap between pastors and elders due to his commission to plant churches. His presence stabilizes the body until it’s large enough and they’ve learned enough to operate on their own. Because we no longer have vast areas that have never heard the gospel of Christ, the apostle’s historical role has changed somewhat. Unless someone manifests miraculous powers, their apostleship is limited to mission work these days.
Outside of some recognized office, a lot of men can play the apostle’s role in other ways. We use the term loosely these days to refer to someone who got a major change started in how churches do things, either in practical or theological terms. However, there’s simply not much justification for considering it an office these days.
On the one hand, we reject Cessation Theology. God did not end the miraculous gifts Paul spoke about in his letters. The problem right now is the overwhelming cultural and intellectual outlook that smothers the kind of faith and understanding that lies under the miracles. The West is truculently secular and it is frankly illegal (indirectly) to adopt the frame of reference that would encourage miracles on the scale seen in the First Century churches.
