A Message of Hope

I’ve never been very comfortable with the title “pastor.”  The biggest reason is that we just didn’t use it in my Church of Christ upbringing.  Another reason was that in Africa it tended to be a title that could only be worn by those who had a certain level of theological education, and was often worn with a certain amount of pride and arrogance.  And then there’s the idea that the biblical usage is interchangable with elders and overseers, whereas today it’s usually reserved for a credentialed and salaried church employee. The idea of a “Senior Pastor” or “Associate (junior?) Pastor” just doesn’t seem to fit the biblical usage.

I spent some time yesterday and today looking more closely at the biblical use and it occured to me that, with the exception of Ephesians 4:11, the noun pastor does not appear in the New Testament as a title for anyone.  In the Ephesians passage, it’s part of what would be better rendered a hyphenated “pastor-teacher,” or “shepherd-teacher.”  As Lynn Anderson says in They Smell Like Sheep, “These leaders ’shepherd by teaching’ or, conversely, ‘teach by shepherding’” (p. 83).

With the exception of this occurence, however, the word pastor, as applied to church leadership in the New Testament, is a verb.  In both Acts 20:28 and in 1 Peter 5:2, ”Be shepherds,” as in the NIV, or “(to) shepherd” as in the NASB, is one word in the original text.  The KJV translates it as the verb “feed,” and  that is certainly involved, but to shepherd or to pastor involves more t han dumping food out.  It implies tending, nurturing, treating wounds, rescuing, caring for, and leading, as well as feeding.

Pastor is something to do, and not primarily a title to be worn.  Those who do it best will probably never wear the title.  And to them, titles are more scorned than sought after.  Last night in our class on shepherding I asked those in the class to write down the names of three people that they could go to in a spiritual crisis.  I didn’t ask anyone to reveal names, but Sister Tincy, our very sweet  octogenarian, wanted to honor those who shepherd her by naming them, and they were all sisters in the church who she could always count on.  There wasn’t an “office holder” among them.