Since some CC members have complaints about modern day churches, I'd like to put the following question: Could churches do better if they had unpaid rather than salaried pastors? I've seen some unpaid pastors preach; some of them were really guided by the Holy Spirit while others did a poor job due to lack of Bible knowledge. The upside of not being paid is that ministers have more freedom to preach the narrow way, but what's the downside?
One thing to keep in mind is our modern role of 'pastor' is not explicitly Biblical. I mean the way it is set up, the traditional pastoral duties, etc. aren't really laid out in scripture and in some cases are different from what we see in scripture.
One pastor?
We don't see the apostles appointing just one leader in a church and calling him 'the pastor'. We see the apostles appointing a group of elders (or 'older men') and charging them to pastor the flock of God (e.g. I Peter 5, Acts 20:28.) Elders are referred to as 'bishops' (or 'overseers'- Acts 20:28, c.f. Titus 1.) In English, translators translated a Greek verb form that is closely related to poimen, the Greek word translated 'pastor' as 'feed' or 'tend' which obscures the relationship to the Greek word 'poimen'. Some translations tell the elders to shepherd the church/church of God in Acts 20 and I Peter 5.
We don't see the apostles appointing just one of them. They appointed a group of them. There is no evidence that one was called the 'senior pastor' and put over the rest of them. There is no reference to a 'senior pastor' or 'associate pastor' in scripture. I Peter 5 mentions the 'chief Pastor', but that is a reference to Christ.
In the 1800's, it became common to refer to the epistles to Timothy and Titus as 'pastorals', but these men are never called 'pastors' in scripture. They were likely doing work similar to the apostles Paul and Barnabas, travelling from place to place preaching, teaching and strengthening new churches, and appointing elders. Titus and Timothy were to appoint elders/bishops. The text does not say that either of them was to settle down and be the local bishop. There is a tradition that Timothy was the bishop of evidence, but the Bible doesn't teach this. And reading writings from a few centuries later, it seems likely that later expositors may have re-cast the role of some Biblical characters into the mold of their then-current church government system which had one 'bishop' in every city over a group of elders. But Paul called the elders of the church in Ephesus 'bishops' and saluted 'bishops' (plural) in the opening of his epistle to the Philippians.
Paul tells Timothy to 'do the work of an evangelist' and apparently refers to himself, Silvanus, and Timothy as 'apostles of Christ' (I Thess. 1:1, 2:6-7.)
Appointed from within the Congregation
In Acts 14, Paul and Barnabas appointed elders from within local churches. Paul told Titus to appoint elders in every city. The elders came from within their own communities. In many denominations, pastors are brought in from the outside and serve as hire professionals. If finances don't work out for them or some better opportunity arises, the pastor may move to another city. The elders the apostles appointed were raised up from within their own churches, a part of the local community already. The people knew them and likely knew enough about their lifestyles to know if they fit the Biblical requirements listed in I Timothy 3 and Titus 1.
Historical Sources of Confusion
The English word priest derived from presbuteros, the Greek word for elder. But the word came to be used for the Old Testament descendants of Aaron. New Testament presbuteros correspond with Old Testament zaqenim-- elders, not the kohenim, the descendants of Aaron (though I can't say that a qualified priest might not also have served as an elder.) The Anglo Saxon mission evangelized the Germans, back when Anglo-Saxon and mainland Saxon were mutually intelligible. German had certain church vocabulary words that were cognate with those used in English. 'Priest' and its German equivalent were messy words. Were the church clergymen priests? Were they the same thing as what the Old Testament called 'priests', those sacrifice-offering descendants of Aaron. Luther wrote of the 'priesthood of all believers', but did not believe that all believers were elders.
So the church in the Reformation in Geneva Switzerland renamed their clergymen to be 'pastors'-- or that's our English equivalent. Since they sought to have a Christian government, they looked for models from church history and found that Greek speaking communities in North Africa and Syria in the 4th century had 'garousia'-- elders. So they named their city government officials 'elders.' In their society, church and state were mixed, and these officials were very much involved in church-related matters. John Knox praised John Calvin and the 'school of Christ' in Geneva. The Scottish took the Geneva model and blew it up on a national level to be Presbyterianism. They took the city official of 'elder' and turned it into a national church office.
That is where we get the extra-biblical nonpastoral board elder from and the unbiblical distinction between 'pastor' and 'elder. The Scottish Presbyterians, at first, used verses about Biblical elders to refer to their pastors, not their 'elders.' But over time, this changed. And many other denominations absorbed the model of the Presbyterians. The
The Job of Pastors
Pastors are to tend the flock. Pastor means shepherd, and literal shepherds don't usually give 45 minutes talks one minute a week to their livestock (I assume). But many westerners think this is THE job of a pastor, the main job.
But if we look the Bible, there is no evidence that a church service must consist of an opening prayer, songs, offering, sermon, (communion), songs, and a closing prayer. Many people think the sermon is the central part of the meeting, but where does the Bible teach we must have this. We have one long passage that deals with what to do in church, I Corinthians 14, two if you could the long chapter on how not to do communion, I Corinthians 11. I Corinthians 14 tells us 'when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying.' (v. 26.) The passage encourages all to prophesy, and deals with how to speak in tongues, interpret, and prophesy in an edifying manner. The underlying assumption is that the church meeting will be filled with members of the congregation taking turns speaking to edify the body. There is no mention of a pastor or elder in the whole chapter, and no reference to a sermon.
How This Relates to Payment
We need to stop thinking in terms of paying one man to speak every week and bringing in a hired gun from the outside. We need to consider the cultural context. It is very different if we think of the apostles appointing a group of older men who already had some way to earn a living somehow, to lead and pastor in the local assembly. They could already survive financially before they were appointed. Then, the church should honor those who rule well, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. This is a different scenario from the hired religious professional we see so often these days.