What Is the Difference between Pastors, Elders, and Overseers?

NATHAN W. BINGHAM: This week on the Ask Ligonier podcast, we’re joined by Dr. Burk Parsons, Ligonier teaching fellow and also the senior pastor at Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Florida. Dr. Parsons, what is the difference between pastors, elders, and overseers?

DR. BURK PARSONS: Well, that’s a great question, and it’s a question that I get from time to time because I think it is an issue that there’s a lot of confusion surrounding. I think a lot of Christians really don’t understand the differences between pastor, elder, overseer, and the similarities, and how they are different and how they are the same.

The reality of it is that when we look at the New Testament, we see the New Testament authors using all of these different terms. You see the word pastor, and that word is from the Greek word poimēn which means “shepherd.” We see that word being used in Ephesians 4 and elsewhere as the pastor-teacher or shepherd-teacher.

And then we see in passages like Titus 1, where Paul writes to Titus, “This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you” (Titus 1:5). And the word “elder” there, as it’s used in Titus and throughout the New Testament, is a word that is translating the Greek word presbyteros. Now of course, you hear the word presbyteros and recognize that the cognate that we have for presbyteros in English is presbyter. We get presbyterianism from that. And so, presbyteros or presbyteroi, in the plural, are elders, and they are those who serve the church by ruling and governing the church under Christ.

And then you mentioned the other word, overseer. And that word, overseer, also comes from the New Testament. In fact, in that same passage in Titus 1:7, Paul writes, “For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach.” The word that Paul uses there in verse seven, “overseer,” is the English translation of the Greek word episkopos. And of course, there again, we have the cognate in English, episcopal. And we have Episcopalians. And so, the episcopal form of government, or the proleptic form of government, sees a church government where you have one overseer or a bishop and then an overseer under him and then another overseer under him. But there is a singularity to that sort of government.

And so, in the New Testament, we have all of these words. We have pastor, or shepherd, we have elder, presbyter, and then we have episkopos, or overseer. Now, we believe that all of these terms are used more or less interchangeably—that there really is, at the end of the day, no real distinction between pastors, elders, and overseers, that they are all one and the same.

The reason, so often, in most churches we have those that we call pastors, who are the full-time vocational men that we hear so often preaching and teaching, is really more or less because of our tradition. Both in the United States and throughout the world, often we reserve that term, that role in the church, that office in the church only for particular men. But the truth of the matter is that in the New Testament, the term pastoring or shepherding is used for all elders. And so, all elders are pastors. They are all doing the work of shepherding.

In fact, in 1 Peter 5, Peter writes, “So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:1–3).

And so in this passage, Peter is referring to himself as a fellow elder among the elders. He’s not lifting himself up. He sees no hierarchy in the church. But rather he, as the Apostle Peter, whom Christ used mightily by the power of the Spirit, sees himself as an elder among elders. And then he directs and charges all elders to shepherd the flock of God. Whose flock? God’s flock.

The congregation that I serve at Saint Andrew’s isn’t mine. They don’t belong to me. They’re not my congregation. That’s the congregation to which I belong, but this is God’s congregation. This is God’s flock. And the elders that I serve with are not my elders; they are the elders of God, and they are elders whom I serve alongside.

Now in certain Presbyterian traditions, they have a different way of looking at that. There’s not an exact parity between pastors and elders. But when I look at the New Testament, I see that elders and overseers and pastors are all one and the same. And it’s important that we understand this so that we can rightly respect, and rightly regard, and rightly care for, and listen to, and pray for all those officers of the church that God has given us.

And so, what’s the answer to this? Well, we certainly understand that among the elders, we have certain elders that are more given to ruling, some elders that are more given to preaching. In fact, even Paul—in 1 Timothy 5, we read the following, “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching” (1 Tim. 5:17). We understand that God calls and gifts certain men to preach. And that is the case, but we have to also understand that according to the qualifications for the office of elder in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 that all elders should be apt to teach. If they’re not able to teach and they’re not able and willing to rebuke those who contradict the teaching doctrine of Scripture, then they are not qualified to be elders.

But what we need to understand, and what pastors in particular need to understand, is that the elders they are serving alongside, the elders that I serve alongside, are fellow elders of mine, and I am a fellow elder of theirs. We all have equal voices. I as a pastor do not have a greater voice than they do. We are all serving the flock of God with that equal authority, but it’s an authority not inherent in us, nor is it an authority that is inherent in our office. It is an authority based on the Word of God. That’s why our authority is ministerial or declarative authority. Our authority is standing on the Word of God and its infallible authority for the people of God.

And so, it’s important that we understand these things so that we as God’s flock and we as God’s people—because we’re all among God’s flock, even those who are under shepherds under Christ are all the sheep of Jesus Christ—and as we rightly regard the officers that God has given us in the church, both elders and deacons, that we do not see a hierarchy in the church that the Bible does not give us.