SHEPHERDING AND TEACHING—THE OBLIGATION OF THE VITAL GROUPS (5)
In addition to the shepherding by the main function of the gifted persons, Christ as the Head of the church also charged the apostles to appoint elders (overseers) in all the local churches to carry out His shepherding of His flock (1 Tim. 3:1-7; 5:17a). The Head of the church gave many gifted persons to function in shepherding for the building up of His Body, but the Body is manifested in the local churches. The Body is universal and abstract, but the churches are located and substantial. In the local churches the elders as the local shepherds are needed. The local shepherds are more practical. Christ as the Head of the church charged the apostles, the universal shepherds, to appoint some local elders to take care of the located churches.
The elders are also obligated to teach to strengthen the shepherding and carry out its goal (1 Tim. 3:2b; 5:17b) according to what Christ taught in the four Gospels and what the gifted persons taught in the Epistles. First Timothy 3:2 says that the elders must be apt to teach. This means that teaching is their habit. Some elders have a quiet disposition. These ones especially must deny themselves to be apt to teach, and to be apt to teach is to be apt to talk. This is to talk not about vain things but about the truths of God’s economy. We have to be equipped by the Lord’s grace to speak for Him. We should speak the high peaks of the truth of God’s eternal economy. Paul also says in 1 Timothy 5:17 that the elders who labor in word and teaching are worthy of double honor. In 1 Timothy 1:3-4 Paul charged Timothy to remain in Ephesus to tell certain ones not to teach anything different from God’s economy. He also charged the Corinthians to speak the same thing so that there would be no divisions among them (1 Cor. 1:10). We all should speak the same thing—God’s economy.
The elders shepherding the churches by taking the lead should not lord it over them, God’s allotments to the elders, but should become patterns of God’s flock (1 Tim. 5:17; 1 Pet. 5:2-3). The churches have been allotted to the elders, entrusted to them by God for their care. They have to shepherd the saints, not lord it over them.
The elders should gird themselves with humility to serve the saints (vv. 5-6). In 2 Corinthians 4:5 Paul says, “We do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake.” The co-workers and the elders are slaves. Matthew 20:26-27 says, “Whoever wants to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you shall be your slave.” There is a negative illustration in 3 John 9-11: “I wrote something to the church; but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not receive us. For this reason, if I come, I will bring to remembrance his works which he does, babbling against us with evil words; and not being satisfied with these, neither does he himself receive the brothers, and those intending to do so he forbids and casts out of the church. Beloved, do not imitate the evil, but the good. He who does good is of God; he who does evil has not seen God.” The self-exalting and domineering Diotrephes is an evil pattern.
The elders’ willing and faithful shepherding will be rewarded with the unfading crown of glory at the manifestation of the Chief Shepherd (1 Pet. 5:4). Christ as the Chief Shepherd is taking care of the shepherding of His churches. When He comes back, He will reward the faithful ones who cooperated with Him. (The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 5, “The Vital Groups”, ch. 7, pp. 116-118)
The church in Zamboanga 