The word pastor appeared only 9 times in the bible and only 1 time was it mentioned in the new testament. Just one time in all of the new testament, that is very very small. But today, that word is one of the most popular word in Christianity. What is even worse is that the way the word is defined in the bible is completely alien from how it is used today.
According to the Bible, pastors are usually prophets that receives instruction from God. They feed the people with God's instructions, commandments, words and precepts. Nowhere is it written that the pastors govern the people. The pastors were never part of the political system in Israel, they were simply religious teachers. They didn't rule over anybody, they didn't have the power to do so, and God never asked them to govern the people. They were prophet that usually come with instructions from God and that was all.
"And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers" (Eph 4:11).
This is the only time that the word pastor was used in the whole of the new testament. And notice how it was used, "some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers". Notice how it kept using some for each of the ministry, and when it came to pastor it said, "some pastors and teachers". It didn't say some pastors and some teachers, but it joined pastors and teachers as one ministry. This is because pastors are teachers, the people of Israel have always understood pastor to be simply teachers. The pastors comes and teach the instructions of God, that is all they were and this is why Paul joined pastors and teachers together.
While talking about the gifts of the Spirit the bible did mention the gift of government. But no where was it mentioned that the pastors are the ones with the gift of government. Now in the churches that existed during the time of the new testament they usually have more than one person who govern each church. The church was called ecclesia, the word ecclesia is gotten from the Athens democratic system where all the adult male citizens gathered to make decisions concerning the community. This means that to the early Christians the church is governed by every member. The members gathered to make decisions concerning the affair of the community. Now concerning government there were also elders or bishops. The word used for elder had a Hebrew origin, while the word used for bishop had a Greek origin. Both words referred to a group of people that people that are responsible for making decisions for the community. It is not possible to always gather all the people together whenever they want to make a decision, therefore there is a need of an inner body, a smaller group of people that can easily gather to make quicker and immediate decisions. Elders or bishops were that inner body, and they were a group of people with no single head.
The churches in the new testament never had what we call pastor today. The churches were not govern by a single head called pastor, in fact they were never govern by any single head (we would talk more about this in another post). Today's Pastoral System is alien to the bible and to the early believers, it is something that was later constructed by man and anything man-made cannot bring about the kingdom of God.
"As you watched, a rock was cut from a mountain, but not by human hands. It struck the feet of iron and clay, smashing them to bits. The whole statue was crushed into small pieces of iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold. Then the wind blew them away without a trace, like chaff on a threshing floor. But the rock that knocked the statue down became a great mountain that covered the whole earth." (Dan 2:34-35).
That which will bring about the kingdom of God must be a stone cut not by the hands of man. We would never experience the kingdom of God if we continue to hold on to system that are man-made.
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