Throughout all of biblical history, God has always appointed one leader to lead his people. These days, people ain't too keen on that. Taking a deeper look at biblical leadership coming up right now on Clear View Today. 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. We are so glad you're joining us for the conversation today. Had a great conversation yesterday.
Going to continue it a little bit today. But before we get too ahead of ourselves, let's introduce our host for today, Dr. Abadan Shah. If you're 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, welcome. Welcome, welcome. Good to be here. Absolutely.
Great conversation yesterday. We got a lot of positive feedback. actually I was surprised that I thought for sure we were going to rein in some of the trolls that was going to come out of Haydn but actually it was a great conversation no people responded with the way that we you know we thought they were going to respond which is it was helpful yeah helpful in clarifying their understanding of what the Bible actually does say where people's opinions come in and how we should think about these roles that have been put before us now you're always going to get some people who just will put a scripture there and then just throw no context at all like they just put the scripture and that's their comment like okay yeah great one of the i think one of them just put Titus chapter one. And I was like, Yep, we read it on the show. Very good.
You didn't listen to it. But you're always going to have those. But by and large, people were very, very into the conversation. And also, we kept it sort of light-hearted, jovial, because we didn't want to get more academic because I can do that and start looking at the word meanings and this and that and the other. But we felt like, let's just read the passages.
Let's read Titus chapter one and see what is the title. The title is elder, but at the same time, bishop.
So there is some. You know, a lot of things we assume that this is what elders are supposed to be, and then we read scripture and realize that's not found in the Bible. That's right. And we got that because of a historical situation. And so we need to be careful when we take.
The happenings in history and make them normative for all Christians everywhere, as if that's the biblical view. And we need to be careful about things like that. That's right. And we want to continue that conversation today. But before we do, I thought this was really, really fun and I wanted to do it on today's show.
Dr. Shah, this is a user-submitted segment. From a man named John Dee from North Carolina.
Okay. He's a chemistry teacher. All right. And he submitted this game. I think he's kind of nerdy, man, after my own heart.
He he p proposed this game, Pokemon or Prescription? Basically, I'm going to give you a word. And you, Dr. Sha Ryan, is banned from playing because I know he's gonna get all of these uh the only problem with that is uh I know prescriptions far more than I know Pokemon.
So let's see.
So you might you might be good. I'm just gonna give you a word right off the bat. One, two, punch. I want you to tell me if you think it's a prescription drug. Or if it's a Pokemon.
Okay. Scale of one to one hundred, how confident are you with your Pokemon names? Uh Okay.
Okay. Here's the first one. Lunesta. That's probably a Pokemon. That is a prescription sedative.
It's a prescription sedative.
Now, these, I will tell you, some of them trip me up. I don't recognize some of these.
Okay. Zorua. I would say Pokemon. That's a Pokemon.
Okay. Because that's too hard for people going through a disease to go. Can I have a prescription of milligrams of Zero at least here? I don't know, maybe. Celebi.
That's Mm. That's Pokemon. Yes, that's a Pokemon. Yes.
Okay. Woo! This is crazy. If he had made a celebrador, then probably. Yeah, prescription.
Zelgens. Zeljans. Zell Jens. I'll spell it for you. X-E-L-J-A-N-Z.
Pokemon. That's an inhibitor medication used to treat autoimmune conditions. This is actually a fun game. I never was aware of this. Reggie Gigas.
Oh, that's a Pokemon. That's a Pokemon, yeah. There's no way they're going to be making drunk for Reggie Giggins. This one I got wrong. Hate to find out what your disease is.
Yeah, right. You need that. I got this one wrong: Garbador. Prescription. That's a Pokemon.
It's a big pile of trash. It is. It's a huge, like, really? Yeah, it's a, it's like. It evolves from trubbish.
Is it generation five? Is that black and white? I think it's five. They started really scraping the bottom of the barrel. They were like, that was the generation that had like ice cream cones.
Yeah, there's like, we're going to have an ice cream cone Pokemon. We're going to have trash Pokemon. It's just a big pile of trash. Xyvox. Prescription?
Yes.
Okay. Prescription antibiotic medication used to treat bacterial infections.
Okay. Arceus. Pokemon. Yes, that's a Pokemon. I'm catching on Trulicity.
Prescription. Yes.
Similar to insulin. It mimics a natural hormone in the body to help manage blood sugar levels. Last one. If you get this one, you'll be the champion of the day. Send a quill.
Prescription. It's a Pokemon. That one really does sound like a prescription. Yes, Cyndaquil is a fire type starter from the Johto region. Many, many good memories around Cyndaquil.
That was my Johto starter. John D, thank you, man. That was a game after my own heart. If you guys have similar games that you want us to try out on the show, please, please, please write us in: 252-582-5028. Maybe next time we'll try to get Ryan.
I want to trip Ryan up, but he knows his Pokemon. I do know. I do know Pokemon. Wow.
So. I want to jump back into this conversation because yesterday we talked about, if you're listening for the very first time, we want you to go back and listen to yesterday's episode because we talked about elders. We had a woman from Chicago actually check in with us and write in and talked about she had started a new church that either didn't have elders or like just didn't really advertise that, hey, this is an elder-led church. And people from her old church were giving her grief about coming and visiting because we don't want to visit a church or be a part of a church that where one person is running everything. Yeah, I mean, they used the words like, it seems like a cult.
Right, right. To which we kind of spent that half hour yesterday kind of dismantling that and saying, you know, hey, don't look at it that way. In fact, many churches that don't advertise that they have elders actually have elders that are functioning much more biblically than what we usually see in many churches today. And so, Dr. Shaw, that brings us to kind of today's conversation, how to expand that and how, you know, a lot of times what we think is biblical is not actually biblical.
So, I want to continue this conversation because, and again, not academically, just casually, discussing passage after passage that are typically brought up in support of elder rule.
Okay, elder rule is the idea that a group of people. People, men, are to almost encircle the pastor. Or He is part of the circle. He is more the teaching Elder Leader, sort of thing, but they are. Together, going to make decisions in the church.
And it is done with the intention. Of protecting the pastor from the riffraffs out there who are going to try to distract him and detract him. but also to keep an eye on him, to make sure that he does not Go rogue or get into some weird theology or takes the church down some. Uh uh some you know, some moral or sexual or some Spiritual abyss.
So, we're going to make sure that we're protecting because we can't really trust him. How can you trust a man? How can you trust one man? It's built around that philosophy of trust. It really is.
The whole elder rule is built on the premise that you cannot trust any person. Why can't you? Because when you give them power, power corrupts.
So absolute power corrupts absolutely.
So we've got to make sure we cannot give it to him. It's coming out of a time.
Okay? Uh not really the early church or New Testament. Is coming out of the the pre Reformation period where the Roman Catholic Church uh had uh lost its focus uh and especially the papacy had gotten to so much moral corruption.
So much financial corruption, so that you needed. A multiplicity of leaders rather than this one person. And again, if you begin to dig deeper, it's not one person, it's a system. Roman Catholicism is a system, right?
So it's not just one person, there are bishops there too. the way they saw it as was this one Pope. Is doing what he's doing to us.
So we're going to make sure it's multiple. If I can take a detour here for a quick moment. You know, even Luther. When all the The allegations were going against Luther. I mean, he wrote to the Pope at the time.
He wrote to the Pope, and he did not say, You wretched, wretched Pope. I mean, he addressed him. very graciously. He addressed him And, you know, respectfully. Is that why we refer to it as the Reformation?
Like he's trying to reform the church rather than dismantle it? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But he made the break. Right. He made the break from Rome.
So we cannot just say that he was like a Puritan. No, it was more than that.
Okay, okay.
So anyways All that to say. The Reformation made a lasting impact on the thinking. of Christians in in Eastern I'm sorry, in Western Europe. specially in England.
Okay, you can say Great Britain for that matter. Sure. Especially in Great Britain. A big impact on them. And so.
Multiplicity of elders was looked upon as a must if we're going to avoid another papacy. If not, we're going to lapse into the same thing. Even Luther himself did not want to become the next pope. When people began to write to him, there were a lot of people who were publishing books. And so they would turn to Luther and say, Can you write a foreword for me?
Can you write a preface for me? And This was the way for Luther to say, okay, your work is good enough to be published. You line up with our re uh Reformation thinking, so you are good. And Luther didn't want to do that. He's like, I don't want to become another pope.
So all that to say that Protestants unfortunately had this this thinking that you cannot trust a man. and it sort of seeped into the church polity. And that's fine. If that's what they want to do, they don't trust one person. Great, do that.
But then they've looked in the Bible to find biblical references that would support their thinking. Right. So that's what I was about to say. If I can summarize your view on it, that we sort of fleshed out yesterday. And correct me if I get part of this wrong, is that.
There's nothing bad about an elder church rule. You're welcome to do it, and there's nothing sinful or immoral about it, but you can't say that this is the biblical template that everyone must follow. Right. Those are two different things. Right.
So I will never sit here and condemn elder rule churches. It's like, okay, that's fine. That's what you want to do. Um but when they start saying, well, you're a cult, Then then I have to speak up and say no. Uh y uh you you are trying to You know, purposely shame me into following your system, which is not really hermetically.
Exegetically accurate. Right. Right. The, the, it's not reciprocated. Like, you're not going to sit there and condemn a church that has an a board of elders, but a church with a board of elders is going to.
Say that we are wrong for not following their model.
So it's not that, hey, what you're doing is unbiblical. It's don't tell us that what we're doing or not doing is not matching your model. Right. But even then, we have not positioned our churches that, okay, we have one person who makes all unilateral decisions.
Well, like you said yesterday, we do have elders. We don't refer to them as elders. Right. But they function as Paul laid out the book of Titus and some of the other passages. Absolutely.
And they're doing what elders are supposed to do, which is give spiritual guidance. Come one morning and Um, which is once a month on a Sunday morning at 7:30, and join the men's breakfast time. You will see men. In a sense, mentoring other men. They are the elders.
That's it. And they are helping young men, newly married men, to grow in maturity, to be the godly men they're supposed to be in their homes. But those are not real elders because they don't have an office. They're not appointed elders by the church authority. Why authority?
Why does it always come back to that? Like, it's not, it doesn't count unless it's an official authoritative office. That's always what people are after. It is. And it's.
Some way to create a system that will control. The man who is speaking. We have to muzzle him. We have to somehow have a Eight. You know, a chain around his neck so we can yank it back if it doesn't go our way.
It's coming from that way of thinking. And I don't think that's very biblical or healthy. Yeah, because I could, I mean, and I think. The way you laid it out, where it was like, it was preventative. We don't ever want this to happen again back in the 1500s.
Okay, I get it. But now, like 500 something years later. Are we really afraid that that's going to happen again? Or are we just saying that, hey, this is a great opportunity to get some authority and some power and some influence within this local body of believers? Right.
And I think it is.
So here's something else I want to advance today. Is um The issue there is accountability. At the end of the day, Elder rule proponents are talking about accountability. How I mean, of course, they do want to protect the pastor and all that. I get it, the teaching elder.
But. If really if you were to say pick one. It'll be accountability. That's it. It's not really protecting, it's really accountability.
That's true.
So let's break that down. What are the places where? A man? A pastor needs to be held accountable. I would say three.
Three places. Number one is. Financial accountability. Second is sexual. Accountability.
And third is theological accountability. I mean, unless you have a fourth, fifth one, please tell me. I can't think. Those are the big three. I think those are the big three that we typically hear going south.
Yeah, that's where you hear people falling from grace is in those three areas. I haven't seen a whole bunch of pastors out there committing crimes, robbing banks. Right, but I mean, that will probably fall under financial accountability. In a way, in a way. Fair enough.
Um So those are the three areas where We have to maintain a sense of accountability, financial, sexual, theological.
Now let's begin with the financial accountability. Where is there any passage in the Bible that tells you, thou shalt have? A finance committee. Right. It's not there.
It's not there. But don't those churches have finance committees? Don't they have a board of trustees? Don't they have a property committee or assets management? I mean, some group of people who have been appointed in that position.
Now, where do you find that in the Bible? It's not there. And yet we make those committees. And our church has that. Yes, of course.
Why do they have that? Because we, as a staff, do not touch the money of the church. Right. Sometimes people even will try to give me the tithe, and I'm like, hold on one second. See the usher right there?
Please give it to them and they'll go put it. The ushers will take it. And not one person takes it. Usually there's a group.
So there's always a team that takes up the money. They count the money. They record the money. The treasurer will then take that money that has already been recorded and then they will put it in the bank. There's a bank statement and all that stuff that goes along.
We have a CPA that maintains the records, the audits, all of those kind of things. There are monthly reports that come out. Financial accountability. We didn't need a board of elders to make that happen. Right.
Right. Right. Because the board of elders will cannot do that. What are they going to do? Sit around and count money?
Now, what do typical board of elders do? They don't do the financial part. You have a finance committee. It's not in the Bible, but we do it. Guess what?
We do it too. That's right. Second is sexual accountability. This is a funny one for me because some of the people who have fallen from grace As Ryan just used that phrase, many of them came from churches that had elders. How interesting that is this band of married men that are supposed to hold somebody accountable.
What happened?
Well, that's typically, I mean, that is typically, if you list those three, we're going to keep the pastor accountable. The sexual accountability is the one that usually jumps to people's mind because I think it's the most public when it goes wrong. And it almost always goes wrong in churches that have elders. Where are they? Right.
Why aren't they keeping these mega pastors? And I won't say necessarily like all of them are churches that have elders, but what I'm saying is many of them are elder-led churches. I mean, I don't want to mention names now because. Again, every time somebody does something like this, it hurts the whole body. I don't care what theological persuasion you come from, what denomination it is, as long as you believe in the Word of God and you believe Jesus is the only way, truth, and life, and you believe in the Trinity.
Okay, I will fellowship with you as far as possible.
So anytime anybody does anything sexually immoral, it affects all of us, right? But how do you hold somebody sexually accountable? I mean, in many of these elder-led churches, guess what? Brother, how are you this week? How are things going?
How is things in your home life? Many of those same men who were doing bad stuff. Sat in those Rooms. And lied bold-faced lied to all the people around there. Yeah, like what can, like, genuinely, I would love to hear someone's answer to this.
If you are an elder in a church and you have to, you're tasked with holding your pastor sexually accountable, how do you do that? Right. What can you do? I think you know, unless you would like covenant eyes on his phone or something, like, yeah, watch his computer, but do you can get around? I mean, even still, I mean, who's to say he's not going to go get another computer?
Who's to say he's not going to figure out a way around that? I think the glaring thing that people miss is that people are going to lie to cover up their sin. I mean, goodness gracious, David, a man after God's own heart, was willing to lie to cover up his sin.
Now, don't misunderstand. I believe there needs to be accountability, especially if you're dealing with pornography or you're dealing with sexual lust and you have lost your way. Oh, absolutely, 100%. You need to be in an accountability group. You need to have an accountability partner.
You need to have a pastor or a godly person holding you, men and women, you know. And gender specific, men with men, women with women, holding people accountable. I'm talking about in the context of a church leadership. Yes, yes.
Okay. People will lie. Would you like to know where real accountability happens? Is when you have a Holy Spirit ignited conscience that tells you that when I do this, when I take take that. Stephen.
And looking at pornography or the second look at a female or become flirtatious or I begin to delve into something that I know this is not right. What I'm doing is not right. The Holy Spirit telling you it's not right. That stop and you go on. At that point you have lost sight of the many, many people that you will hurt.
And if in our culture you are a reckless person, get out of the ministry and stay out. Yes.
Stay out. Please, please go. I don't care how many gifts you have. I don't care how wonderful you can be and hardworking. Please go somewhere and do something else if you cannot control yourself sexually.
That's right. The stakes are too high. Too high. And we've had too many losses already. Yes.
We've had too many hits.
So, accountability means you need to look around and see the people in your family, starting with your spouse. What will that do to her? Your children, what will that do to them? And what you do, they will follow. How will that impact their marriages, their children, your grandchildren?
How is that going to impact the people in your church? How is that going to impact the lost in your community? How would that impact other pastors like me and others who are doing the best they can to serve God and love God and and because of your bad decision? All pastors are. All pastors, man, I tell you what, they're they're crooks.
So don't do that. Forget about what does that do to the heart of. Our Saviour.
So accountability Yes, it's needed in the context of somebody struggling with this or in a marriage situation or a band of brothers, guys come together or ladies for that matter come together and say, hey, we're going to maintain purity in our marriages and stay strong. That's great. But if you think elders were appointed so that they could hold A man responsible. Yeah, you can do it. Just don't say that's a biblical role.
And I'm not even against it. But if you think that works It doesn't. Yeah. I was going to say, good luck. Good luck a lie.
Good luck upholding that. And I think we've found that out the hard way. And part of me is frustrated because it's such an obvious thing that I think we all know. I think we all know that we're not holding anybody who's bent on sexual deviancy. We're not holding anybody.
They're lying. They're going to hide it. They're going to do whatever they can to make sure you don't find out. That's right. So they'll look right in you in the eye.
They say, look at me in the eye. They'll say, okay, I'm not doing it. Yeah. I am not doing it. And then they go do it.
So the whole idea that if you're looking in the air, they're not Come on, are you what, in middle school? In elementary school? Elementary school? Middle school liar. Elementary school, kindergarten?
Yeah. So, and then the third one is theological.
Well, how do you do that? He said, Well, I'm going to have these groups of elders around me to hold me theologically accountable.
Now, Unless you are like in a Close to a good seminary setting where some of the people in your church? Or in your elder board or Seminary professors, you probably are the most theologically educated person in that church. Right? Which makes sense. I mean, the pastor ought to be the most theological.
That's what he's there to be. Right. That's his role. Yeah. You're probably more aware of the issues going on.
Like years ago, it was open theism. You should be the one knowing about it. Or the gender-neutral Bible, you should be the one knowing about it. Or the whole DEI garbage that came through our churches, you should be the one knowing about it. Right.
Right? Or woke theology, you should know. I'm not even talking about the core theological things like Trinity, Incarnation. inerrancy of scripture, those kind of things.
So what happens? How do you hold accountable?
Well, when people begin to realize that this man is no longer preaching the Word of God, he's no longer teaching the Word of God. He's telling stories. He's up there, I don't know, goofing off. And you can, you begin to pick up that you're walking away Sunday after Sunday hungry. Yeah.
And there is no gospel presented where people can be saved. That's not happening. That's your accountability. People need to start speaking up and saying, Hey, can we talk to you? 'Cause there's something wrong.
Yeah. Now, if that pastor has been there for years, and you can see a noticeable shift and go, you know, you used to be here. I don't know what happened. Right. And we need to talk.
If that pastor just got there and you didn't know any better, and you hired this person, and now all of a sudden you're going, oh my goodness. This is liberal theology coming through. I'm sorry, timeout. We need to talk. Yeah.
I think we misunderstood you. This is not that kind of a church.
So, accountability is the whole church involved in this. That's exactly right. Yeah, you don't appoint. 10 to 12 leaders to handle accountability for you. It's the congregation's responsibility.
And the congregation has a yes, exactly right. And they have a voice and they can exercise that voice whenever they want.
Sometimes in the elder, this five or ten, usually the alpha male among them becomes the dominant one.
Now, if the pastor himself is the teaching elder is the alpha male, then of course he will rule that that group. But if he is not, they will make his life miserable. Because someone there Again, maybe I'm stepping too far.
Someone there in that group either missed their calling or feel that they should be a pastor, but time went by, or their wife didn't want them to be, or they rather make money than commit to living a life of a pastor, but they feel like. They're the ones going to run this place. That's what typically happens for us. I think you're speaking to a lot of people right now who are living through that. And maybe they've been unable to put it into words, or maybe they've been scared to, but I think that's the majority of cases.
Well, maybe not the majority, but I think that's a good, sizable, significant number of cases. And in many of our Southern Baptist churches, deacons become elders. The deacon bore is really these elders, because deacons, right, servants are supposed to serve. Like right here in 1 Timothy 3, if you have a minute, I just want to look at this. Let's do it.
It says, This is a faithful saying, 1 Timothy 3, verse 1. This is a faithful saying. If a man desires a position of an episcopes, whoever desires to be an episcopa. It's overseer. It's bishop.
Oh, we're not going to use that word. We don't like that one. By the way, whatever happened to Elder in. 1 Timothy. Yeah, I don't see it.
I don't see it. Bishop is there. Yeah. Have y'all considered having a bishop? No, we're not going to call it a bishop.
No, no, no. We don't want no bishop.
So, this is an elder. Yeah, based on Titus, bishop elders are the same thing.
So, we're going to apply that rule. Here In 1 Timothy chapter 3, you know. At that point you're doing like I'm pretty new to gymnastics. Whatever you want to do to make your point, okay, well. Just be careful when you do those kinds of things.
You can do it to me or do it to others that you don't agree with, but to the outside world who don't go along with your system. we look like fools because we pick and choose what works for us.
So, what do we have here? Our time is very short. It gives a listing of all the attributes of the bishop and then follows the deacon. Maybe in the next show we can talk about it. Yeah, let's do it.
Bishops and deacons, what are they and what are they supposed to be? Absolutely. Let's do it. Guys, make sure you join us tomorrow. Same time, same station.
We're going to continue digging into this topic here on the Clearview Today show. Thanks again to our sponsors for making today's episode possible. And today is your first day tuning in. Hey, we're glad that you're here. We're glad that you joined the conversation.
Hope you come back tomorrow for some more of the same. Don't forget, you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasting content from. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Prey.com, TVN Plus. And you can always support us financially at Abadasha.com forward slash give. A couple of quick announcements before we go.
We do want to let you know that we are coming to Tea Up to TV. We are coming to NRB. Lots of acronyms today. NRB 2026, Nashville, Tennessee. We're coming your way.
We want you to stop by the booth. We'll be over with Truth Network and we'll be with Prey.com so you can come and say hello wherever we happen to be, but we'd love to meet you. Just let you see the faces behind the show and get to know you and your ministries as well. We also are having a big, big apologetics conference here at Clearview Church, March the 28th. People are flying in from all over the country to come and get their tickets.
You can get your tickets. I believe today is the 30th. The last day. No, we got one more day. One more day.
One more day for early bird pricing. Listen, if you haven't got your discounted tickets, go on and do it. Don't pay a full price just because you were lazy. Go on and get your discounted tickets today. You'll be glad you did.
That's right. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow. We'll clear me today.
