What About the "Office" of "Pastor", Part II

For the most part, this blog is for the purpose of providing Christians with the tools to defend the faith when speaking to non-Christians. In this particular case, however, I am going to deviate a little in order to feed you some information you need to defend the faith from within Christianity, as there are some rather "unusual" ideas out there about how to "do church".

I recently read a claim that the word "pastor" only occurs in the Bible once, in Ephesians 4:11. This is a rather ingenious misapplication of research and language. This statement is true in that, in the English Bible, "pastor" only occurs once. However, the Bible wasn't written in English. The Bible was written primarily in Hebrew (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament), with some bits of Aramaic thrown in here and there.

The Greek word "poimēn", translated into English as "shepherd" (16 times) or "pastor" (once), is scattered throughout the New Testament. It is found in all four Gospels, the letter to the Ephesians, the letter to the Hebrews, and Peter's first letter. (You can see for yourself. Go to www.blueletterbible.org. Search "Eph 4:11". Click on the "C" to get the Greek lexicon. Click on the Strong's number G4166. [Yes, I could have just given you the direct link, but I want you to see how to do it for yourself - God's Word is for all, not just the elect])

Now, the argument being made is that the "office of pastor" is unbiblical because the word "pastor" only occurs the one time in a context explaining a calling (as if God has to repeat Himself over and over for us to take it as His Word). This is also rather presumptuous. Jesus Himself created the first "pastor" when he directed Peter to feed His lambs and take care of His sheep (John 21:15-19). Later, in Acts 20:28, Paul tells the elders in Ephesus to "shepherd" (verb poimainō) the church. Peter also exhorts the elders of churches at large to shepherd (poimainō again) the flock of God.

I pray this helps explain this troublesome situation. I found all of this information using a hardcopy "Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible", a "Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old Testament and New Testament Words", and Blue Letter Bible. These tools are available to the public at large, and are not written at the Ph.D. level for scholars alone. I encourage you all to "test the spirits" (I John 4:1) by going straight to the Word of God. Use whatever reference material available to get there, but don't simply trust a commentary. Reading books about the Bible is great, as is reading books about Christian living, but it is no substitute for standing on the Word.