Getting Ordination Right: Essential Elements of Ordination in the Bible and History

By P. Steven Paulus and Kenneth L. Swetland

Getting Ordination Right addresses the basic questions: What are the essential elements of ordination? How is ordination practiced in the Bible and in the church throughout its history? How should it be practiced today?

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781973663157

P. Steven Paulus

Steve Paulus has served in pastoral ministry for over thirty years. He is pastor of Staunton Grace Covenant Church in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Steve lived with his wife and three children in Croatia in the 1990s where he taught and served as the dean of the Evangelical Theological Seminary (ETS) in Osijek. He teaches regularly at the Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary (UETS) in Kiev, Ukraine and leads the Institute for Pastoral Studies in affiliation with ETS. He and his wife, Jane, have three children and seven grandchildren. Steve has earned a DMin from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, MA, an MDiv, and an MA in nonprofit law and management from Regent University in Virginia Beach, VA.

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Copyright © 2019 P. Steven Paulus.

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-6316-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-6317-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-6315-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019907152

WestBow Press rev. date: 07/10/2019

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Author’s Preface

Foreword

Chapter 1 Questions about Ordination

Chapter 2 Patterns of Ordination in Scripture: The Old Testament

Chapter 3 Patterns of Ordination in Scripture: The New Testament

Chapter 4 Patterns of Ordination in Scripture: Paradigm Breakers

Chapter 5 The Essential Elements of Ordination in Church History

Chapter 6 Recommended Practices for Evangelical Churches

Chapter 7 Postscript

Appendix

Bibliography

Dedication

To Jane, a lovely and faithful companion

In Memory of Ken Swetland, a good friend and gracious mentor

Acknowledgements

This book is based on my thesis project in the Doctor of Ministry program at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, MA. The project was completed in 2005. Most of the material is taken from that thesis with some additions and deletions. My original research has been sharpened by experience and discussion in the subsequent years.

My thanks go out to my advisor on the original project, Dr. Ken Swetland of the faculty at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, who encouraged the project from its inception. He graciously consented to write the foreword to this book. His recent passing makes this publication a bittersweet tribute to his encouraging guidance. I also want to thank my students at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Osijek, whose questions and interaction with the concepts in this book have honed my thinking on the meaning of ministry and ordination over the past twenty-five years.

I also am thankful to the many pastors from Bosnia, Croatia, and Macedonia who have interacted with this material in the Institute for Pastoral Studies seminars which I have been conducting since 2011.

My involvement with the leaders and pastors of Grace Network (Grace Presbytery and Ministries International) since before its inception in 1987 has led me to ask, and helped me to answer, many of the questions addressed in this project. My thanks to these colleagues, who have consistently sought to serve the Lord faithfully, with accountability, and in good conscience for many years.

Thanks also to Jeff Ell and Justin and Nicole Cober-Lake of One Focus Press, who have shown genuine faith and enthusiasm for this project and have assisted greatly in the early stages of editing Getting Ordination Right.

Members of the ordained ministry and several denominational judicatories in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia where I currently pastor have contributed their time and interest by participating in personal interviews that formed the preliminary phase of the thesis project. They include Todd Brown, Owen Burkholder, Ed Fisher, Chip Gunston, Bob Holley, John Lane, John Petersen, David Reid, Clay Sterrett, Paul Walters, and Larry Thomas. Rabbi Joe Blair of the Temple House of Israel, Staunton, Virginia, contributed very helpfully on the perspective of Judaism concerning ordination. I extend thanks for their sincere interest and encouragement. I also recognize that any deficiencies or errors in the text are mine alone.

Chapters Two, Three, and Four of this book, which cover the patterns of ordination in Scripture, were published as an entry in First the Kingdom of God: A Festschrift in Honor of Prof. Dr. Peter Kuzmic, published by the Evandjeoski Teoloski Fakultet, Osijek, Croatia, 2011. I am grateful for permission to republish this material here.

My deepest thanks to my wife, Jane, and my children, Ben, Anne, and Thomas, who have always willingly served the Lord with their husband and father, even when it meant living in difficult circumstances and conditions and leaving familiar places. God has also blessed Jane and me through our sons’ wives, Anna and Rachel, and our (so far) seven grandchildren.

Author’s Preface

The practice of ordination is a commonplace in the life of every church, regardless of tradition or doctrinal persuasion. Yet it is a practice, or better, a process, which few can describe with much precision. In many cases much guesswork is involved in recognizing and installing church leadership. Remarkably few books have been written exploring the practice, especially when we consider how ordination affects the life of any church or ministry.

Getting Ordination Right: Essential Elements of Ordination in the Bible and History examines the doctrine and practice of ordination from a biblical and historical perspective. In this book, biblical examples of ordination are not limited to ministry within the New Testament Church, but include Old Testament examples of the anointing and establishment of kings and other leaders of Israel. The historical research includes references to canon law; ancient, Reformation, and modern treatises on the subject; and a comparison of Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant understandings of the doctrine. Through comparison of biblical and historical sources, I’ve identified six elements essential to the practice of ordination.

My conclusion affirms that ordination is not required for validation of ministry, but is an affirmation of gifts and responsibilities bestowed by the Holy Spirit upon members of the priesthood of believers. Valid ministry is a gift of God; ordination is a means by which the church, through its leaders, blesses and endorses its ministers. The present work focuses on the entire process of ordination, including the identification, development, and establishment of the church’s ministers. It is my hope that this book will serve as a guide for free church and non-denominational movements whose ordination practices are less defined than those of other traditions. It includes a chapter of recommendations for an effective process of development and ordination of new ministers.

One major change from the original thesis format is the placement of the literature review as an appendix to this book. The review should prove quite useful for those interested in digging deeper into the theological roots of the ordination process. However, the book can be read and utilized by ordination councils and others without the literature review.

I am indebted and thankful to Scott Gibson who served as my second reader and examiner of the original thesis, for his recommendation of the title I’ve adopted for the book in its current form (though he’s probably forgotten all about that). Getting Ordination Right succinctly describes the thrust of the book.

The original title of the thesis was By What Authority? Essential Elements of Ordination in the Bible and History with Application for the Contemporary Church. The question of authority to act in God’s name as His servant and a servant of the church is a central theme of the book. Thus Ken Swetland’s foreword focuses on the issue of authority, a matter foundational to the question of the presence or absence of ordination.

Foreword

When we hear the word authority, do we have a common understanding of what the word means? Dictionaries define the word with a range of meanings, but the first definition usually refers to the right of a person to command obedience from others and to make final decisions. But then one wonders: Is this authority delegated by others – e.g., by electing or appointing someone to a position – or is it something inherent in the person, some kind of competence combined with humility (the two traits are not mutually exclusive) that contributes to people seeing this person as a leader?

If authority is positional, does competence in exercising good and proper judgment automatically come with the position? This is especially an important question if a person is anything but competent to meet a need for which the position exists. I think we would doubt the authority of decisions or actions of an incompetent person even if the position itself usually denotes authority. The political world – and the church world as well – is littered with the bones of incompetent people once in positions of authority.

If, however, authority resides inherently in a person who is not in a position that implies authority, does the person really have authority? You may remember the old advertisement for an investing firm that no longer exists: When E. F. Hutton speaks, everybody listens. This brings to mind a man I know who was a well-respected layman in a church but who held no elected office or position of power, yet when he spoke, everyone listened seriously to what he said. Authority (competence with humility) was simply inherent in who he was. Because people respected his wisdom and integrity, he could say almost anything and people would take it seriously.

In Matt. 21:23, the chief priests and the elders challenged Jesus by asking, By what authority are you doing these things? And, who gave you this authority? Clearly Jesus was acting with authority – exhibiting authority over disease, nature, and demons and teaching with authority – but he was not recognized as having positional authority. Those who had positions of authority lacked the discernment and humility necessary to see the new thing God was doing. Nor did they accept that Jesus was God in human flesh.

In today’s world, authority is up for grabs. Particularly in the West, authority is often seen only in the eye of the beholder. For example, one evening the news showed an exchange between a reporter and a man as they were leaving the courtroom; a jury had just indicted the man for a crime. The reporter asked why the man did what he did. The man turned and railed at the reporter, Who gave you the right to question my motives or actions! I am my own authority and only I decide what is right or wrong for me! And there we have it.

Add to this context the whole idea of ordination and the waters can become even murkier. The word ordain comes from the Latin word ordinare and means to put in order. The word ordination was first used in the 14th century to indicate a certain authority given to clergy who were commissioned to put in order the affairs of the church.

But is this setting apart something others do to someone, or can it be something one confers upon oneself? I know a pastor who is well-known for his excellent preaching – in fact, I would say he is one of the best teaching preachers I know – but he has not been ordained in the usual sense by any examination or ecclesiastical authority. He simply says that he has been ordained of God to do what he does and the fact that churches have called him to be their pastor confirms this call. In this case, it is not arrogance on his part but a humble conviction of the call of God on his life.

In the film The Apostle, Robert Duvall portrays an evangelist who flees from his church ministry after killing the man with whom his wife was having an affair, but who still feels the call of God on his life to evangelize. In his wanderings, in one scene he is seen alone in a fishing pond baptizing himself and then conferring authority on himself to be an apostle. Is he really?

Even the whole process of ordination – setting apart someone for leadership in the church – is not practiced the same by local churches, denominations, or judicatories. So-called low liturgical churches sometimes have only a minimal process