Should every church appoint elders? And if so, how much weight do we put on that decision? Truth be told, many times we make it far bigger than scripture ever intended. Today we're taking a careful look at what the Bible actually says about elders and why faithfulness matters more than formality. Coming up right now on the Clear Beat Today Show.
You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis. Welcome to the Clearview Today studio here with our host, Dr.
Abadan Shah. If you guys are listening for the very first time, Dr. Shah is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show, Dr. Shah. Christmas is beyond.
We are in the gray waste of the year, as people say. The cloudy, dreary summer. Winter Wonderland. This is the winter wasteland. Weird, awkward.
Have you ever been like, have you ever been like. You have a meeting in like an hour and 15 minutes, but you've already left the house.
So it's like, it only takes me like 30 minutes to get there. I got to kill like 45 minutes just sitting in the parking lot. That's December 26th through the 31st. But you can use that as a time to kind of evaluate your year. Yeah, true.
2025. Did it stink? Was it good? And then maybe even regroup and come up with some resolutions for 2026. True, true.
So there could be something positive. In the waiting period. Could be. Could be. We've got a couple of days left until 2026.
How do you guys think 2025 went for us? Oh, for us? Excellent. Fantastic. I mean, we've had incredible conversations on the show.
We've got so many people writing in. Our reach and our ability to impact people has expanded greatly through different platforms. We started TBN Plus right here at the end of the year. Yeah, fantastic. I thought for sure we were going to start in 2026, but they actually emailed us and said, we're ready to go right now.
Let's do it. I mean, after NRB back in February of 2025, we got on Prey.com. Yes.
So that expanded our platform. And I think, did we expand some in Truth Network as well? Yes, we did. We expanded. We added stations on Twitter.
So added stations on Truth Network, which we love. We love Stu Epperson, by the way. And then, of course, we got on Prey.com, which has significantly raised our visibility all over the world. Yes.
And then. Towards the end of the year, we are now on TBN Plus. Yes, our show is on TBN Plus, which is quite amazing to think about. 2025 was a monumental year of growth. Yes, I will say, especially regarding media.
Media-wise, it has been phenomenal. Great year. Great year. Thank God for that. I mean, it's, and I know you guys say it all the time.
So I just want to chime in that God has really blessed us. He, without His grace, without the gospel, without the Holy Spirit guiding us and keeping us from going over the edge, just sovereignly, supernaturally guiding and putting the right people in our lives. I mean, we would not be here.
So. Not only do we thank God for this, But we also want to thank our leaders. We want to thank our givers. Thank you for giving, by the way. If you're giving, please don't stop giving.
Keep giving. Maybe if God enables you, we would love for you to give more. That's right. But that's between you and God. But we would love to see you support our ministry and continue doing that.
And I also want to thank our team here today. John and Ryan are here. John is kind of like the mastermind behind this thing. Ryan and I really work together to kind of make that a reality. Ryan, with his sharing and talking, and I'm with the information I have.
And then David's not here, but Thomas is here. Yeah, Thomas is back behind the switcher. Our son is here. And so he's here. And then Nicholas as well.
And Adam, but the whole team. Yes.
It's a great team effort. And it's really cool to see, especially at the end of the year, I really appreciated. And we actually put this out on Dr. Abadan Shah's PhD page. We put it out on YouTube, but the stats from Prey.com came in.
At the end of the year, over 3.5 million impressions. Wow. An impression, by the way, but just in that in Pray.com nomenclature, it's just a click.
Someone has come and clicked on a piece of media. It might have been a devotional, it might have been one of the sermons. It might have been one of the, but 3.5 million people engaged. Engaged with content. Yeah, that's insane.
That's huge. That is really, really insane, especially to be our first year. And even the guys over at Prey said, hey, look, you know, we set a bunch of goals.
Some of the goals we fell short on, but impressions were well above what we expected for 2025. Very first year, 3.5 million clicks. Those are numbers that at a certain point, it stopped kind of, it stopped feeling like tangible. Right. But it is.
Each one of those is a person. Each one of those clicks was a decision for someone to engage with the gospel.
So we want to thank you guys for that as well. That's right. And it is the end of the year.
So people are kind of naturally thinking about giving and charitable donations and things like that. Want to ask you to consider donating to the Clear View Today Show. If it's been an impact in your life, if you believe in the mission of the Clear Vee Today Show. Which is impacting hearts and minds with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Put us on your donor list.
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So, Dr. Sha, right here at the end of the year, we actually got a check-in that I thought would be a cool conversation for us to have. And maybe this conversation doesn't lend itself to an academic nature. Maybe it's just a chat between us, but I think it's a conversation that people. I think some people are not ready to have, and a lot of people are really, really hungering for it.
So, this actually comes from Charlie B. From Chicago, Illinois. What do you think Charlie B stands for?
Well, I think it's probably Bishop. Oh, Charlie B. Charlie Bishop. That's going to be funny here in a minute. Once you guys see it, you're going to get that joke in just a second.
All right. Here goes. Charlie Bishop from Chicago, Illinois. Shout out to Chicago, by the way. They are in our number one spot for pray.com.
There's our number one city. We love you, Chicago. Hey, Dr. Shaw, I wanted to check in with a question I've been praying about. I've recently started attending a church that doesn't have elders.
Uh-oh. Uh-oh, Charlie. Not the elderly. Elders. I've always attended churches that have elders and deacons, but honestly, I can't tell that big of a difference.
I've been attending for just under a year and I haven't even really noticed. I've invited friends from my old church to visit me, but they've asked whether my new church has elders, and honestly, I wasn't sure how to answer that clearly. I love this church. I trust the leadership. I know that the teaching is biblical, but in the moment, I struggled to explain that to others, especially when they suggested that a pastor-led church could be unhealthy or even cult-like.
I completely think you need new friends, Charlie. I completely disagree, but I'd love some help knowing how to respond graciously and biblically when that question comes up again. Thanks for reading this email, Charlie Bishop.
Well, Charlie? You come to the right place. You're in good luck. You come to the right place because this is the place for you.
So, earlier when I said, uh-oh, I was being completely facetious. Dr. Shaw, have you had people ask you this question before? Why don't we have elders? I mean, or really, why don't you have elders?
Yes, I mean, elderly, we have plenty. We got hills and spades. And the thing is, at our church, even the elderlies don't want to be known as the elderly. That's true. They don't like, look, I am young.
I'm going to be young as long as I can. I want to be as independent as I can.
So they don't like to be called elderly. There's a few who are in our theater ministry who are more spry than me. Yeah. Absolutely. They're like there at every rehearsal.
They're going, and I know they're pushing like, what, 75, 80? Yeah. And they're like, I can do this all day. I'll be after 15 years. I've heard them say, don't look at my birth certificate.
Don't pay things for that number. I'm as young as I feel. That's right. Which is great. And I really appreciate that heart, that spirit of enthusiasm in them.
But going back to the question this person asked, so. I've had people ask that question, you know, why. Do you not have elders? And I tell them that's not true. We do have elders, except.
The way those people are used to having elders is not the way we have elders. And they think in their minds that the way they are used to having elders is the biblical way. Right. But it's not. Right.
It is socially um uh has been uh You know, they've been conditioned to believe this is how it was done in biblical times. Who are the elders? Elders are a group of people that come around the pastor. And they This sort of In a sense Are like a hedge of protection around him, like these people who like protect him from the masses. Might be only 20 people in the church, but 30 elders.
Yeah. but also they are like making sure that the church doesn't go off In some, you know, off theology.
So that was what I was going to ask: is protection from. What? Protection from people getting to him and him. Going off the deep end.
So that's really more the heart of it, right? Because at the end of the day, it's like, hey, we're going to protect the pastor. But really, by that, what we mean is we're going to. I think they mean both. Yeah.
Okay. On paper, both a fence and guardrails. Yes.
Okay. That is how they They see it.
Now they may deny it and then, you know The conversation breaks down. But if you're truly honest, that is. The typical understanding of the elder-rule church, or we have elders, or we have a board of elders. That's what they mean. We're protecting the pastor from people who may try to harass him or try to intimidate him.
So we stand with him. We stand with this man who is in the position of. the chief elder. But we're also making sure that he doesn't go rogue and go off the deep end and lead us all down a narrow path. Alley or Off the deep end, somewhere.
So, so someone's listening to this, and they've been in that way of thinking. They've grown up that way, and they may be saying, Yeah, what's wrong with that? You can do that. 100% you are Perfectly authorized to have that kind of a system. You just cannot say that that's what they did in the Bible.
Right. You cannot find that anywhere. Right. It's not. There's zero New Testament evidence that the early church functioned that way.
Right, where they had this group of people around this one man to make sure that he was protected and that they were protected from him. Is there a passage that they cling to to try to justify that? Not to my knowledge.
Okay, so it's just like, hey, we have to do this because we have to do it. I'm pretty sure this is how the early church worked. This is how the early church did it. And how do we. But that's how Peepaw's church did it.
Well, actually, Peepaw's church more than likely only had deacons.
So, what's the okay?
Well, this is actually for what is the difference, elders versus deacons. What is the difference there? If someone's listening and doesn't know. For people who come from that system, they will say elders are people who give spiritual direction to the church.
Okay. Deacons are people who go out there and um I don't know, take out the trash. Make sure the AC unit is working. And that tray up there doesn't leak. They serve.
Yeah. And make sure the tables are laid out for the men's breakfast. You know, stuff like that.
So that's an interesting clarification because in the church that I grew up in, they didn't have elders. They didn't have elders, and the deacons did not do what you just described. They did. what the eld what you described elders doing. I doubt it.
On paper, that's what they but really what happened was they sat in a room and said they were going to make decisions and never came to an agreement. Right. But that's what they were supposed to do to make decisions of the church. Right. So they neither were.
elders, nor were they deacons, according to the definition of this person that do you not have elders in your church? Because how how dare you not have an elder? Because that can lead to chaos and and and some Personality cult can develop in a place like that. But personality cult, like I look at like, Like, I mean, like, like, who are some of the most like famous pastors? I hate to mention names, but I mean, just, I mean, I their names are out there.
I mean, John Piper's a pretty famous elder. A pretty famous pastor. Uh-huh. John MacArthur was very, very famous. Absolutely.
Tony Evans was very was very well known. Right. Matt Chandler was very well known. These are all big personalities. I wouldn't call them a cult of personality, but I'm saying, like.
They're charismatic and ones that define the church that they are charismatic religious leaders. Yeah. I mean, what church did. I'm asking you that. Yeah.
Did John Piper, is he pastoral? I couldn't tell you.
Okay. I don't know. Genuinely. I'm not joking around. I don't know the name of it.
It's Bethlehem Baptist. I don't know the name of the church. I mean, you're not going to be able to pull that off the top of your head. Right. Because unless you are really aware of those things, you will not know.
Yeah. Matt Chandler. I don't know what his church is. Village church, right? I think so.
I'm not positive. But the average, but you see, that does kind of prove our point is like, there's a you could call it a cult if you want. I wouldn't, but there's a there's a ring of personality around that charismatic leader, and they, that they have elders. By the way, there's many, many ways this conversation can go. And maybe it'll take us maybe two, three episodes to discuss this.
When somebody says cult, okay, what are they talking about? I picture like Jim Jones. Right. People brainwashed. Yeah, yeah.
Uh there is a very charismatic person. at the at the helm. That organization is known by that person. If you apply that definition to some of the big names, I am not known. I mean, people know Clearview, and then they know Dr.
Shaw or Pastor Shaw or Abaddon. Uh but My name is nowhere close to being any of the names we just mentioned. Yeah. That are, we know them, but we don't know their church. And it doesn't have to even be in the church.
Like you could take the, you could take the, I don't personally believe this way, but you could take the definition of a cult leader and apply it to someone like Steve Jobs. Yeah. You could. I mean, you really can. And you could say, oh, well, see, it fits.
But it's not, it's not, that doesn't make it a cult. I can throw names like Michael Youssef. Michael Youssef, okay, Anglican, right? What does that mean? What church?
I mean, you don't got the name of that church. I mean, I think it's All Saints or something like that.
So, all that to say, we need to be careful when we throw those epithets around and say that's a cult of personality waiting to happen in those churches that don't have elders. Oh, wait, there are a lot of. Churches that do not have elders and you hardly know the name of the pastor. And yet there are churches who do have elders. And you don't even know the name of the church, but you know the name of that pastor or that big personality.
That's exactly right.
Something else that happens in these cults are there is a sense of Isolation. where you cannot get to the main person. I mean If you ever come to Clearview, I'm usually the one greeting people on the way out. And a lot of people are surprised. They're like, I've been listening to you on the radio.
Man, I didn't expect to see you here. Like, where did you expect me to be? Where'd you expect me to be? I mean, w I We'll greet you here. I'll stand out there in the lobby and talk to people.
For like a good 40 minutes after the service. Not unless when we used to have our services back to back, then I had to kind of say, I gotta run with this, the second service is starting. But typically, just hanging out there. Yeah. I think that shows the level of intentionality on your part, Dr.
Shaw, of creating a culture where the church feels small. It feels like there's that family dynamic, even though the church has grown and the numbers have increased. That we saw that feeling of being a close-knit, loving church. Right. And part of that, and a large part of that, is you interacting with people on the way out of the doors.
Right. And being involved in the community. I'm on so many boards here. This is what we want to do.
So to become a personality who is isolated from his people, us versus them kind of mentality, deception, manipulation, all these, you know, secret boardrooms. You know, they may not be smoke-filled, but they feel like smoke-filled boardrooms where decisions are made and nobody knows, and all of a sudden. Everybody has to be subjected to the rule okay. That's a cult. Yeah.
And so we need to be careful how we throw those kind of labels on ministry just because you don't agree with their structure. Yeah. It's also interesting, and I know we've talked about this on the show before, but one of the biggest things that, and we sort of mentioned this up top, people want the elder rule in place to keep the pastor accountable, even though it's unbiblical. And on a practical sense, it doesn't work. Yeah.
I would say, I'm not going to say that it's unbiblical. You just cannot find it in the Bible. You will never find a place where it's the elders are to come around and stand like he is, like they are. A stone henge and he's standing in the middle of them. Right, yeah.
And then keeping an eye on him. You're saying it's not sinful or inappropriate to do, but you just can't use the argument that it's inappropriate. It's not prescribed in scripture. Right. You cannot find it, it's not there.
Yeah. I mean, it's just not there. Right. You cannot find it in the Old Testament. You cannot find it in the New Testament.
Do you think the people who propose and are behind elder-led churches, do you think they elevate that to a place of like scriptural authority? Oh, absolutely. All the time. And I get it, I totally get it. is it's coming from a historical situation in the history of the church.
What happened during the Reformation?
Okay, the papacy had degraded so far over the years, over the centuries, where this one man was the voice for God and he was the presence of God, he is the pope, and a lot of abuses happened.
So The reforma and so much power and authority was there in this one man. Controlling people all the way from Rome, he was controlling people in England, he was controlling people in Germany, and I mean, all over the world, the Christian world, I would say. And so. The Protestant Reformation was born Among other reasons, we've discussed that before. Because we are also children of the Reformation.
Right. But he was born One reason was to s to say We cannot have one person like this. having such power and authority. And so, how are we going to do this?
Well, there's going to be A plurality of leadership. Plurality So that We come together to make the decisions. Not one man becomes the vicar of Christ. the vicarious presence of Christ. Ex cathedral or whatever, you know, tradition over scripture.
And what is tradition? Whatever this man or his predecessors or the group behind us has come up with now is more binding than the Bible.
So It was reactionary, and I get it. But then to make it normative for every church, this is how it's supposed to be in your church, and that church, and this church, and this church. For one, it's not biblical. And secondly, um it's it's it's um Uh It's not true. Right.
You're not doing it. Right. We looked at this earlier before we turned the mics on and got the room ready. We were talking about Titus, where Paul does tell Timothy to appoint elders, and he's telling them to appoint elders to stand in the gap between this built-in structure of the synagogues and all these new Christian converts who are coming in. Absolutely.
The elders were supposed to help bridge that gap and keep out people who were coming in to twist the church.
Well, let's read that. Sure. Why don't we do that? Titus chapter 1, verse 5. Because this is where you find.
The Requirements for the elder. For the elders, okay?
So. Titus chapter 1, verse 5, Paul says, For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking. What is the purpose? To set in order the things that are lacking. How will Titus do that?
And appoint elders in every city as I commanded you. No problem with that. Yeah. By the way, our church does have elders. But they don't do what your elders do.
Like, are we going to sit around and hold the pastors responsible? By the way, Clearview does have elders. They just don't do what you think elders should do. Right. according to what you have been taught.
Or what you think the Bible is saying. They don't do that, but they're doing exactly We believe what elders are supposed to be doing, which is to maintain an exemplary life, to be able to teach, to be able to guide people. To be able to support the church, but not what you think elders are supposed to do, as in holding the pastor accountable and protecting, that's. Guess what they they're supposed to do right here, ready? Mm-hmm.
So it says in verse 6, Titus chapter 1, verse 6: If a man is blameless, The husband of one wife. Having faithful children not accused of dissipation or insubordination For a bishop. Oh, wait. What happened to you? Wait a minute.
Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I'm not getting this. Elder, Presbuteros. No, no, Dr.
Shun, no. It's the same Greek word, right? Uh, bishop is episcopas. Huh? Episkopos.
You said what? Uh the problem there is why do some people not like the bishop why don't y'all call your elders bishops? I know why. I know why, too. Because it reminds you of Rome.
It's too Catholic. We cannot say. Yeah, why don't you just say? Our bishops are going to come together because what you see is people in those big red, in the big red long robes and mitres, and you know, reform voice. We do not want to go there.
Yeah, by the way, don't think for a moment I'm against. Uh Reformed because, hey, look, a lot of wonderful, precious truths have come. Through reform theology, so don't think that, but then there are places you have to go. Is that biblical or not? Right, you have to part company, right?
So, don't think. To be very honest, before you can even defend some of those cardinal truths of Reformation theology, I would be there to defend them.
So, yeah.
Okay. So now, what do we have here? Oh, we have bishops.
So it's being used interchangeably. Mm-hmm.
Which means Presbuteros is being used interchangeably with Episcopals. For a bishop must be blameless Oh, wait. Isn't that elder yeah, okay.
So we are talking about the same same Office as a steward of God, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to wine. By the way, why do some of these people also are okay with wine? Yeah, I was gonna say. You know, I I I I'm big on that, but they are not. Why is that?
Why is that? Not violent, not greedy for money, but hospitable. Yeah, that doesn't happen in this damn whoops. Look, I come from India where. We didn't just take people out.
to the fine steakhouse. We brought people to our house. Into the house. Anytime there was a guest speaker, missionary, no, we didn't put them in Motel 6. We opened our guest bedroom.
Usually that meant I had to go sleep. You were talking about hospitality. Let's talk about hospitality. We don't do that, do we?
Okay. But you want to sit around and. Be a hedge and keep an eye out on this pastor. I'm not into all this hospitable lover of what is good stuff. A lover of what is good, sober-minded, just, holy, self-con controlled, holding fast the faithful word.
as he has been taught, That he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and convict those who contradict. Wait, wait, wait.
So, all this is done so they can exhort and convict those who contradict. Yeah. I think it's a typo because I think it's what it's supposed to say by sound doctrine, hold the pastor accountable and make sure he doesn't go crazy. Did the Bible say that? Holding fast to the faithful word that you're using out of context, James.
Supportive doctrine that's not really in there, but you're saying that it is right.
Okay, and I don't know. But those of you, we're not talking mawkey, all we're saying is this is not even an academic discussion. If it was, I would read it like a paper. What we're doing here is just helping you realize that often we come up with these man-made systems and then we impose them on other people. and then expect them to follow Uh your system And then, if they don't, you call them a cult.
Yeah. Right. That's true. Let's not do that. I don't think that's fair.
I feel like that's one of those tactics where just that shuts things down really quickly. What are you gonna? Like, that's an argument ender because You're not interested in having a discussion at that point. Right. And at the end of the day, like, like you said, the thing I would say to this person, well, number one, I don't know, the person who wrote in, I don't know the structure of your church, but more than likely, all these things that you're saying are that you're, that Paul is saying that elders should be, your church probably has something like that.
So that's sort of our. Our response is always: who said we don't have elders? We have elders. They're much more biblical than a lot of the elders. They're more biblical than you realize, not part of some system.
And then, if you ever read, if you want to read more, you're welcome to read verse 10. For there are many insubordinate. Both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision. Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not for the sake of dishonest gain. Dishonest gain.
So, so all that to say, this is the reason behind appointing elders. Slash Bishops. Amen. They're the same office. That's right.
And I wish we had more time to dive into that, but unfortunately. We out. Way out, but we may need to pick this up another time. That's right. But, but for um, for you who wrote in, I've lost her name.
Uh, what was her name? Andrew Bishop, Andrew Bishop. It was, it was, it wasn't Andrew, Charlie Bishop, Charlie Bishop, Charlie. I hope this helps. And if you need more, we would be glad to give you some more information later.
That's right, guys. Thank you for joining us today. Make sure you join us, same time, same station tomorrow. We're going to be diving into another great topic here on the Clearview Today Show. Thanks again to our sponsors for making today's episode possible.
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