I Wouldn't Put It Pastor!

Dan McClellan Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan And this is Data Over Dogma, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan?

Dan Beecher It's good. Things are good.

Dan McClellan Good.

Dan Beecher And I'm ready for you to shepherd us through the difficult landscape that is- Yes ... church organizational structure.

Dan McClellan To lay you down in green pastures, so to speak.

Dan Beecher Yes, please.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher We'll do that. We're doing a What Is That? So let's just dive into it.

Dan McClellan Let's do it.

Dan Beecher In this week's What Is That?, we're going to talk about the word "pastor," to some extent.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And what that is, and then sort of the org chart- ... as it is laid out, or as near as we can tell, in what is and isn't actually in the Bible, because boy, pastors will tell you that it has laid out for them what they're supposed to do.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And I don't think it has- And that's- ... to be perfectly honest.

Dan McClellan Yeah, and that's really what's inspiring this. We see a lot of arguments about who is and is not allowed to be a pastor, and what the Bible says about the requirements for being a pastor.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan And the problem is the word "pastor" only occurs one time in the entire New Testament.

Dan Beecher And- And what is the word that... I know it's not pastor, because that's our word. What's the Greek that they're using?

Dan McClellan So, the Greek word is, you have the plural in Ephesians 4:11, and poimen is the singular word, but poimenas is the masculine accusative- Okay ... plural that we see in Ephesians. And this comes from a word that has reference to sheep. So the idea is to pastor. In fact, when you have in John 21, and we'll talk a little bit more about what's going on here, but when Jesus tells Peter, the three-fold, "If you love me, feed my sheep."

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan The verb there doesn't say feed. It actually says pasture or pastor my sheep.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So, it's related, and we'll get to that. But you have a lot of people who are arguing that you have to be a man to be a pastor. You have to be a husband of only one wife. You have all these qualifications for a pastor, and the big problem is that that isn't in Ephesians 4. And that's somewhere else where they're actually talking about an overseer, a word in Greek that is frequently translated bishop.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan That's what they're talking about in those other passages. And in Ephesians 4:11, we just have, "He himself granted that some are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ." That's the only reference to pastors anywhere in the New Testament.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan But and now you know who you're dealing with in terms of singing prowess. Nobody, absolutely nobody. There is an argument. People will say, "Oh, no, that's about pastors, too. An overseer is a pastor," they will say.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And then you've got to say, "Well, cómo? How is that precisely that an overseer can be identified as a pastor?" And I saw someone post on Twitter this big, long thread about how an elder, an overseer, and a pastor are all the exact same specific office within the institutional Christian Church. And so everything that is said about overseers, everything that is said about elders, is also said about pastors. And the passage that is adduced to prove this is Acts chapter 20, verse 28.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And here's what that says, and I'm reading from the NRSVUE, as is our wont.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, all of which," or excuse me, "of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God that He obtained with the blood of His own Son." And so the idea is overseers, therefore, are pastors, because Acts 20 says an overseer is shepherding, is pastoring, and therefore, well, they must be the same thing.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So basically, if the role is to pastor, then whoever has that role, they're a pastor. And here in Acts 20, verse 28, it's the overseer who is described as pastoring or shepherding the church of God. Now, here's my problem with this. Well, I have- Yeah ... a couple problems with this. One is this is presupposing univocality, because the author of Acts is not the author of the Pastoral Epistles, is not the author of Ephesians, is not the author of any other text apart from the Gospel of Luke. So, what they have to say does not necessarily have to agree with everyone else. So, we're creating an institutional structure, an org chart, if you will, where it's not necessarily true that one existed.

Dan Beecher Well, and it seems to me that each of these- These books that you're mentioning is being written in a different time and a different place, and this was a sort of diasporic thing that was happening.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher So, it seems unlikely that a unified, almost Mormon, super delineated- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan structure- Yeah.

Dan Beecher Very systematized ... was even a glint in anyone's eye at that point.

Dan McClellan Right. Well, and this is why you only see references to a lot of these offices in the text that might've been written either at the end of the first century CE or the beginning of the second century CE, because Ephesians was not written by Paul.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Ephesians was probably written, again, end of the first century, beginning of the second century, when the church had had several decades to get bureaucratic. So, that's why when you have the, "If you desire the office of an overseer, that's great. Here are all the qualifications," that's in the Pastoral Epistles, which I think is early second century CE. So yeah, this is a later time period when we've developed from, "Oh, he's pastoring, he's pastoring. What if we just called a specific office in our organization the pastor? Oh, great. There we go." And now we've got a new title, a new conceptual suite or package or constellation that did not exist in the before times. So, I think that's absolutely a big part of it. But for folks who do presuppose univocality and say, "Well, the text says an overseer pastors, shepherds. Therefore, that must be what a pastor is, an overseer," there's just one problem. A bunch of different figures in the New Testament and ostensible offices within the church are also said to shepherd- Uh-huh ... or pastor. And it starts with, we can go all the way back to Matthew when Matthew 2:6 is quoting Hebrew Bible passages about who Jesus is going to be. Quoting Micah 5:2, "For out of you," who? Bethlehem, that's who. "For out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people." So, Jesus pastors, Jesus shepherds. Does that mean that a pastor is also Jesus? Does that mean Jesus is a pastor? Does that mean that's the office he held? Of course not. You have Luke 17:7, we've got a bit of a parable. "Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or shepherding sheep in the field," now this one is a little sillier, but is your enslaved person also a pastor because they're pastoring? That doesn't have to do with church responsibilities. But we already mentioned John 21 when Jesus says, "Do you love me?" And Peter goes, "I love you, man." And he says, "If you love me, pastor my sheep." Peter was not a pastor. Peter was an apostle. So, his job was to pastor. Does that mean an apostle is a pastor? Is that the specific office of a pastor?

Dan Beecher Maybe one of the things we should talk about is, because all of this arose out of Judaism, out of that Greco-Roman period Judaism- Mm-hmm ... were the offices that are discussed in Ephesians, apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds/pastors, teachers, were those offices official offices within Judaism at that time, or was this a new concept?

Dan McClellan I wouldn't call them official, but you had concepts of prophets and teachers and things like that. A rabbi would be kind of more official in later periods within the Jewish structure or hierarchy. It's kind of an admixture of Greco-Roman period Jewish ideas and the developing hierarchy because you are borrowing a bit from the Greco-Roman world as well with some of these titles to some degree.

Dan Beecher Okay. So, I don't think it's just a straight ripping it off from an earlier tradition.

Dan McClellan But pastoring, for instance, is something that we find in the Hebrew Bible, Micah 5:2, will shepherd the people. But the good shepherd is an idea that goes all the way back to Hammurabi- Right ... and is in a few different places in the Hebrew Bible. And so a lot of these have deep, deep roots, but they weren't formal, official org-charted offices within bureaucracy.

Dan Beecher Yeah, it seems like even in Ephesians, it feels like these are sort of descriptive terms rather than prescriptive terms. It's just like there are these people, and some of them- Yeah ... seem to be-- I don't know what an apostle is really.

Dan McClellan I don't know what that- It's one who is sent, and that seems to derive from the Gospels. But yeah, it might be the same as somebody being like, "Oh, in our community, we've got seekers," and I can't think of any of the others from the- And teachers and- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher yeah. And people who-- And missionaries and- Yeah.

Dan McClellan And we've got mothers in the sense of people who are mothering just by their very nature.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So yeah, it could just be we're just characterizing the different folks rather than saying, "This is their job title."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan It could be doing that, but I think the later you put Ephesians, I think the more likely it is that it might be something understood closer to a specific office.

Dan Beecher Does it seem like they're hierarchical in some way, or does it seem like these are just different things that different people do. Because now it feels, when you talk about words like bishop, pastor, prophet, those all seem like there is a strict hierarchy.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher It may be different in different organizations, in different church organizations, but- Yeah ... we think of those as being, "This guy's above this guy, this guy's above that guy," sort of thing.

Dan McClellan I think you could probably argue for kind of a loose hierarchical arrangement, like apostles and prophets certainly would've likely been considered higher than evangelists and pastors, who probably would've been considered higher than teachers. You probably had multiple teachers within your congregation. You probably only had one pastor. Evangelists, they refer to the gospel authors as the evangelists.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan But when it comes to apostles and prophets, they would've probably had purview over multiple congregations. And when we looked at the Didache, you had prophets and apostles who would swing by and have dinner and stuff, and you were supposed to kick them out after three days and- That's right ... all that kind of stuff. So, they were itinerant. But I think you could probably try to make a case for a kind of a loose hierarchical arrangement here. But I'd have to look into that. I'm sure that has been discussed in the literature of the- Yeah ... 2,000 or so years- ... of discussion and debate about what all this means.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And then you have in Revelation, you have, "She brought forth a man child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron." Well, rule there is pastor, is shepherd- Oh, okay ... with a rod of iron.

Dan Beecher That's a very different- Usage ...

Dan McClellan connotation.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And then also we're- Like- Go ahead.

Dan Beecher So, wait. Would you agree with that being, with ruled being a good translation, or should it not be changed? Should we not understand that as... Because to me, ruling over someone and pastoring them are very different concepts.

Dan McClellan Well, this seems to be a quotation from Psalm 2:9. Let me go see what the Hebrew is there. Yeah, so it looks like there we have a word that... So tårûwm is a second masculine singular verb with a third masculine plural pronominal suffix or object suffix, but it's based on ra'ah, which is רעע, which means to smash or shatter. But it looks an awful lot like the verbal root רע. I think it's רַעָה is the verbal root for, to shepherd.

Dan Beecher Huh.

Dan McClellan So, I think what you probably have here is, if I'm correct about the רַעָה, which I may not be. I have to look at the Hebrew lexicon.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Shepherd, to shepherd.

Dan Beecher רַעָה.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So, they appear to be almost identical. Only by the vocalization would you be able to tell that one doubles up the second character versus drops the last character of the verbal root.

Dan Beecher Wow.

Dan McClellan And so, I think the Septuagint renders pastor or shepherd. And so, it looks like the Greek translators misunderstood the Hebrew verb there and said, "Somebody's going to shepherd you with a rod of iron. And it's going to hurt."

Dan Beecher So, yeah. So, that means that the translators of Revelation have then gone back and tried to retroject in the earlier Hebrew meaning from the Psalm?

Dan McClellan No, because Psalm 2 says, and I'll read the NRSVUE, "You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And so, when we get to Revelation 9:15, that's what it says. Or it says something related to that. "From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will shepherd them with a scepter of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty." So, the Psalm 2 is- Okay.

Dan Beecher So, shepherd in that case doesn't make any sense.

Dan McClellan Yeah. I imagine they were like, "All right. I can picture a mad shepherd."

Dan Beecher Weird.

Dan McClellan He got caught beating his wheat, and so he was like, "All right. Well, I'm going to beat my sheep instead."

Dan Beecher And- Oh, man. That's crazy. So- I thought I was asking a much simpler question than I turned out to be asking.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Well, let that be a lesson to you.

Dan Beecher Right. Don't ask questions.

Dan McClellan But that's about Jesus pastoring.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So, if the fact that a specific person or a specific office is described as pastoring or shepherding means that that is an identical office to pastor, well, we've got everything from the Messiah to Jesus to an apostle to the mother of Jesus, all the way down to an enslaved person who were described in the New Testament as shepherding. And so, I don't think that argument holds water. I think that argument is presupposing an awful lot. In fact, it already has to presuppose univocality, which I think if you don't accept the presupposition of univocality, then the argument falls to pieces already.

Dan Beecher Interesting.

Dan McClellan In other words, an overseer is not a pastor according to the New Testament.

Dan Beecher Right. And when people do try to define down terms like this, you talk all the time about the consolidation of power.

Dan McClellan Annoyingly so.

Dan Beecher That's what we're talking about, right?

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Is that they want to define it down to the point where they can gatekeep who gets to say one thing and who doesn't, and who gets to fulfill a role and who doesn't.

Dan McClellan And it's used explicitly to say women are not allowed to be pastors. And also, we talked about the one pastor who is polygamous. That's the other thing.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan The overseer is supposed to be the husband of one wife, so it also means, uh-oh, the overseer's got to do it, but the pastor does too. So no, the pastor can't be a polygamist. So, yeah, it is about gatekeeping. It's about structuring power. It's about having control over who gets to participate in what way.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Well, there you go. I guess part of the thing for me is just it feels like because all of this was written before church structures really started to set in anyway.

Dan McClellan I think so.

Dan Beecher Long before it got third century or whatever it was when things really started to solidify. So it just seems like to take what they're saying here in the New Testament as a rule book for how the various offices are meant to be viewed, it seems bizarre to me.

Dan McClellan Yeah, I think it is. Because it's an attempt to look back on a bunch of writings that had nothing to do with trying to curate a bureaucratic superstructure, and then said, "Well, we have to use them to curate that bureaucratic superstructure anyway-" Right "... so we're just going to interpret them however we need to interpret them." Yeah, I think it's rather silly.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan This is something I always think about when I think about how they used the New Testament when they ran across issues that are not covered in the New Testament. I think about the first meeting of Congress after the Constitution. One of the very first things that they had to decide was, okay, it says in the Constitution that the president gets to appoint executive officers with the advice and consent of the Senate. Who gets to remove them?

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It's just not in there. And there's no way to... The Lego blocks, the Lego bricks are missing. You cannot construct that answer from the available stuff. You just have to say, "All right, we're going to say X." And you have to do that with the New Testament if you're trying to put together a church. And unfortunately, there's a lot of mental gymnastics involved in trying to make it seem like the New Testament thought of everything, and is sufficient to cover everything, and it's really not.

Dan Beecher Yeah. And it's almost silly to impose that on the New Testament. It's just like you don't have to do that.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher You can just say, "This is how we structured it. We learned what we could from the book, and then this is what we did." But boy, do people like to say, "This is the only way, and we're doing it right, and everybody else is doing it wrong, and it's making Jesus sad all the ways you guys do it, and we're doing it in the way that makes him happy," or something.

Dan McClellan Agreed.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan All right, friends.

Dan Beecher Well, if you would like to become a part of helping us continue this endeavor that we call Data Over Dogma, we'd sure love for you to join us over on patreon.com/dataoverdogma, where you can choose whatever level you want to contribute every month, and you can get access to our after party, which is bonus content that we do each week, as well as you'll have a better shot at reaching us if you want to about things, and that's always great. Subscribe to us if you please, and we'll talk to you again next week.

Dan McClellan Bye everybody.