What is an overseer in the church?

To sum up then, an overseer is here presented to us as being one whose moral weight inspires confidence as to supervision, the house in order, passions excluded, good things cultivated, and the faithful word held fast.

The elder is expressive of the dignity of the person derived from the respect due to age; not that the elder must needs be an aged man, but one of experience. Thus the title was derived and applied even if there was no great age, where suitability for the position existed. The bishop, or overseer, expresses rather the nature of the office, which was to take account morally of the saints, and to maintain godly order. Oversight in short was the constant duty privately and publicly.

Verses 5 and 7 apply differing terms to the same person - elder and bishop (or overseer), the first speaking of him personally, the second of his work. As an elder he is one who has had experience, an important qualification, as 1 Timothy 3:6 insists, "not a novice," one new in the ranks of Christianity. His work of overseeing is that of caring for the spiritual order and welfare of the assembly.

The apostle next points out to Timothy the qualities necessary for a bishop or a deacon, as well as for the wife of the latter. He supposes here that there were some who desired to undertake this work. It was a good work. To care for souls and have a vigilant eye upon the walk of believers; to watch over them in order that the members of Christ should answer to His love and lose no christian privilege; to do this by maintaining that happy order and that precious unity which were realised at that time, and to protect the flock of the Lord against the ravaging wolves that were seeking to invade it: this indeed was valuable work, and he on whose heart the Lord had thus laid the souls of His people might well desire to undertake it. The apostle felt this: it was a true and faithful saying; but certain qualities were needed to make any one fit for such a charge. Gifts are not included among them, unless the being "apt to teach" might be so considered; but even this is presented as a quality — the man must have aptness for it — not as a gift. Power to use such truth with others was very useful in fulfilling his charge, without saying at all that he taught publicly in the assembly. The essential thing was that which gave moral weight.

In the Apostle's address to the elders at Ephesus, three things are brought before us as characterising oversight. Firstly, the overseers are to take heed to themselves and “to all the flock”. They are to seek that their own walk, and the walk of the Lord's people, may be worthy of the Lord. Secondly, they are to “feed the church of God.” They think, not only of the practical walk of God's people, but they seek the welfare of their souls, that they may enter into their Christian privileges and make soul progress in the truth. Thirdly, they are to “watch” over the flock that it may be preserved from the attacks of the enemy without, as well as from the corruptions that may arise within the Christian circle through perverse men who divert souls from the Lord to themselves (Acts 20:28-31).

In the days of the Apostles, a bishop was simply an "overseer", and a deacon was simply one who serves. The office of overseer seems to have dealt more with the internal, the spiritual, side of the affairs of the assembly; though he is to be given to hospitality, which includes the temporal side. As we search the Scriptures we may find a good deal of light on what the office of a bishop entailed. In 1 Peter 5:1-2, we see that an "elder" was to "Feed the flock of God." The word translated "feed" is really much wider than simply to feed. It means, "To act as a shepherd." It carries with it all the loving, faithful care that a good Shepherd gives to his flock. This one word alone will, perhaps, include all those which follow.

"Bishopric," or "office of a bishop," misleads here; because the modern office, with which most are familiar, so greatly differs from the primitive reality. For there were in each assembly several, with co-ordinate governmental duties of a circumscribed nature, however valuable and to be honoured in their place. Hence it appears best and wisest, as well as most consistent, to call the function "oversight" and the functionary "overseer," in accordance with the Authorized Version of Acts 20:28, where the elders of the Ephesian assembly (ver. 17), who met the apostle at Miletus, are so designated. There it will be observed that it is not episcopal rulers of many dioceses or of separate assemblies, still less the several chiefs! that are styled and called presbyters, because they must have been of the lower grade to attain the higher. But the elders, or presbyters, are called "overseers" or bishops; and this of the single assembly in Ephesus.

The Greek word ἐπίσκοπος is once translated 'overseer,' Acts 20:28, and this occurrence shows conclusively that the 'elders' and the 'bishops' were the same. Paul called for the elders of the church at Ephesus, Acts 20:17, and called them 'overseers.' The same thing is seen in the epistle to Titus: Paul left Titus in Crete to "ordain elders in every city . . . . for a bishop must be blameless." Titus 1:5-7. The above two passages prove that, instead of a bishop being set over a large district, with inferior clergy (as they are called) under him, as is now the custom in Christendom, each city had more than one bishop or overseer, and at that time there was only one assembly in a city. Titus was to ordain (literally 'to appoint') elders in every city.

In Titus 1: and in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 the qualifications necessary for a bishop are given. Special gifts are not mentioned, but moral qualities are essential. A bishop must be blameless, the husband of one wife, having his children in subjection, etc.; but he must be able to 'take care' of the church of God, and be 'apt to teach.' The bishops of Ephesus were exhorted to take heed to all the flock, and to feed the church of God. Though an apostle or his delegate was the instrument used in the appointment of the bishops, and thus the unity of the church was preserved, Paul could say "the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers." Acts 20:28.

Now a 'bishop'2 is an overseer, and a 'deacon'3 is a minister who serves. No question can be justly raised as to either of these meanings, both of which are exemplified originally and supremely in the living Truth Himself. For the Lord is the Bishop also, or Overseer, of the flock which, as the true Shepherd, He has purchased for Himself, and which He both guards and guides through the effectual ministry of the Spirit in the constancy and patient grace of His unalterable love. In a secondary sense, all elders in God's Church or assembly in any locality are also ipso facto overseers or bishops;4 the first description indicating their needful maturity of age, the latter declaring their official charge. But we may not infer from this that all aged disciples are 'elders' also. For the latter name is a title as well as a description, and is attached by the Spirit to those Christian men of age only in whom a fitness for oversight is also found.

Led of the Spirit of God to hold up his own example for their imitation, he proceeded to found thereon an appeal to themselves; and let every one who holds any position of responsibility among the saints of God ponder well and prayerfully its terms. "Take heed therefore" - to be diligent in your work? No, but "unto yourselves." As he afterwards wrote to Timothy, it is, first of all, "Take heed unto thyself" This is the primary responsibility, the neglect of which has rendered so many servants powerless, and has caused so many shipwrecks. (1 Tim. 1:19.) Having taken heed to themselves, they were then to care for all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost, not man, had made them overseers (bishops), and to feed the church of God so dear to Him in that He had purchased it with the blood of His own.* The apostle thus supplied these elders with the most powerful motives to diligence and fidelity in their service, motives which sprang from the origin of their office, from the fact that the church belonged to God, and that He had acquired it at no less a cost than that of the precious blood of His own beloved Son. He helped them in this way to understand also that the magnitude of their responsibility was but the measure of their unspeakable privilege.