I.

OFFICERS AND PEOPLE: THE NEW TESTAMENT IDEA.

IMAGINE a log schoolhouse in the mountains of West Virginia. There, some Sunday afternoon, a little girl drops a penny into the missionary box. The penny contribution is carried across lands and seas to the opposite side of our planet, and with hardly an appreciable loss of value helps to heal a disease or to save a soul in Korea. The same thing will be true of the next Sunday's gift, and the next, and so on indefinitely. And if one should ask the name of that marvelous method by the aid of which so great a little thing is done, the answer would be, Organization. Not through magic, but through simple orderly coöperation, the penny falls from the child's hand into some outstretched hand in the antipodes.

Nor need the organizers of a Christian church entertain a moment's doubt that they are following a Divine method. For the further one goes, with observation and research, toward some sort of intelligent acquaintance with the world we live in, the more astounding is the evidence that everywhere the Maker of all things organizes. "The body of an ant," we are told, "is many times more visibly intricate than a steam engine." It comes as a genuine revelation, to find that the smallest bit of living matter which the microscope brings within the range of vision is in its simplicity full of complexities, and most beautifully organized. And when one follows the scientific imagination in its incursions into the constitution of matter itself, with the ever-regulated and interrelated movements of its atoms and electrons, the very last word and the strongest conceivable word seems to be spoken for the ideals of system, order, unity, organization in the making of the world. From the electron all the way upward to the man, it is the same Divine idea, endlessly

illustrated. Truer than he could have known are the words of an ancient sage in praise to the God of his fathers: "Thou hast ordered all things according to measure and number and weight."

It is, then, not unreasonably a practical necessity that Christianity, in the doing of its world-wide work, should be organized. But this means that it should have specialized organs, or officers, who, as servants of the one Lord Christ, shall "each in his office wait."

"Even dumb animals and wild herds," says Jerome to his young friend Rusticus, "follow leaders of their own. Bees have princes and cranes fly after one of their number in the shape of a Y." Office, leadership, administration must be. It is a necessity which, variously foretokened on the lower planes of life, asserts itself universally in the human sphere. All serious associations are fain to organize. It is not a conspiracy of lawmakers and rulers that wills a nation into existence, but the people that will the existence of such officers. It is not the priests that make the religionists, but vice versa. Social life, like any other, will inevitably put forth organs for the attainment of its ends. Will the social life of Christianity appear as an exception? On the contrary, it will prove to be a most conspicuous example.

It is our present attempt to trace, in the New Testament writings, the processes of office-making, or organizing, in the first Christian churches. True, there is nothing in either the Acts or the Epistles that approaches a detailed account of the organizing of a Christian congregation. Yet sundry notices of such a process occur. In several instances the appointment of ministers, or officers, is narrated, official duties described, or the part of the people in government indicated. Fragmentary information, to be sure; but by careful grouping of passages a reasonably fair outline of the order of the rising Christian communities may be made to appear. We may hope at least that

"The Book of Wisdom," xi. 20.

enough will be seen to illustrate the principles on which the organization proceeded.

1. THE BEGINNING AT JERUSALEM, AS SHOWN IN ACTS.

Let us begin at Jerusalem. For it was here in the City of David, where the Lord had been crucified, and where, in obedience to his command, the Messianic testimony of the chosen witnesses had begun to be offered, that the first Christian congregation was formed. We know that it began in much prayer, in the power of the Holy Spirit, in a new realization of the sense of brotherhood; and that for a short time there was little more. than simple association.

Mary the mother

But we must now follow the course of events somewhat more closely. Immediately after the Ascension the Eleven returned from Olivet to "the upper chamber," for expectant waiting till the promise of the Father should be fulfilled. There were others with them, about a hundred and twenty in all. of Jesus, certain other women, and Jesus' brothers were of the number. "These all with one accord continued steadfastly in prayer." They elected Matthias to fill the vacated place of the traitor-apostle (a hint of organization)—seeking guidance in a petition that has been reported in the New Testament story.1

They were still "all together in one place" when the Pentecostal blessing descended. Its symbol was the tongues of flame; its reality, the Spirit given as never before from the beginning of the world, and to abide with the believers in Jesus unto the end.

The Church of the New Covenant was now made possible. Many people, even thousands, at once accepted the evangel of Jesus the Christ. Becoming his followers, they continued in the Apostles' teaching, and in the breaking of bread and the offering of prayers together. Their fellowship was real. Out of a common treasury the wants of all were supplied. home together; amid threatening dangers their prayers were as the prayer of one man.*

They were at

'Acts i. 14-26. *Acts ii. Acts iv. 23 (τοὺς ἰδίους).

'Acts iv. 24-31.

This indeed was not the whole story. That sin' and infirmity' should have stained the lovely picture, and shown that not even in those conditions had Israel reached an ideal state, is no more than the persistent power of evil in human hearts might have foreshown.

Thus, then, did the Church of God in the new age of Christ and the Spirit begin. Sharing in the life of the Living One, she arose and entered upon her awful yet glorious mission in a redeemed world of sin.

The first distinct traces of organization are seen in the acknowledged authority of the Twelve-the people voluntarily laying down their money "at the Apostles' feet" for distribution among the needy, and in the election of the Seven to relieve the Apostles of this administrative work. About fourteen years later we find presbyters in the church in Jerusalem, and James the brother of the Lord in a position of presidency or leadership. But as to when or how these appointments were made, no information is available.

James's position of preeminence was unique. There is no other instance of a single presiding minister of a church in the apostolic age. How, then, may this instance be accounted for? The supposition that the appointment of such an officer in Jerusalem was due to the fact of James's kinship to our Lord, has been made with some show of probability. At any rate, ecclesiastic tradition relates that, on the death of James, Symeon was chosen as his successor precisely on the ground of being of the lineage of Jesus' kinspeople. Perhaps there was a hope that such a succession might be kept up till the Lord's coming again.'

It was probably about the year 46 that Paul and Barnabas ap

Acts iv. 34, 35.

'Acts vi. 1-6.

1Acts v. 1-11. "Acts vi. I. "Acts xi. 29, 30; xii. 25. "Acts xii. 17; xv. 13; xxi. 18; Gal. ii. 12. "After James the Just had suffered martyrdom, as the Lord had also on the same account, Symeon, the son of the Lord's uncle, Clopas, was appointed the next bishop. All proposed him as second bishop because he was a cousin of the Lord." (Hegesippus, quoted by Eusebius, Bk. IV., xxii., 4.)

pointed presbyters in the recently gathered congregations of Asia Minor.' But this is the only note of organization in these churches.

2. TESTIMONY OF THE EARLIER PAULINE EPISTLES.

Turning now to the Pauline Epistles, it will be well to divide them chronologically into the three following groups: those written before the author's imprisonment in Rome-Thessalonians, Galatians, Corinthians, Romans (ca. 53-58); those written during this imprisonment-Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians, Philippians (ca. 59-66); and those written subsequently-Timothy, Titus (ca. 64-68).

Two most significant facts will meet us in this study. One is the different rate of development of church organization in different localities. The other is the prominence of the charismatic ministry, or ministry of gifts-that, namely, of Apostle, prophet, teacher, speaker with tongues, interpreter of tongues, discerner of spirits, worker of miracles, "helps," "governments." For this ministry of gifts was much more prominent than the appointed ministry, or ministry of government, which was that of presbyter (bishop) and deacon.

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In the Epistles to the Thessalonians there is no little exhortation to the members of the Christian community that they encourage and help one another, but only one reference to officers: "Them that labor among you and are over you in the Lord." And even here the term (poïoraμévovs) is general, not technical. It may mean prophet-preachers and teachers, or it may mean officers corresponding more or less closely to those who were afterwards called presbyters-no one can tell.

In Galatians no form of organization is mentioned. Such words of counsel are given as, "If a man be overtaken in any trespass, ye who are spiritual [you that have not given way to such trespasses, but have continued to "walk in the Spirit"] re

1Acts xiv. 23.

"I Thess. v. 12.

1 Thess. iii. 12; iv. 9, 10, 18; v. 11, 14; 2 Thess. iii. 14, 15.