Prayer: Lord, show us Your way in the eldership. We ask You to cleanse us with Your precious blood. Because we are often polluted by our old man, our fallen nature, and our flesh, we need Your cleansing and Your forgiveness. Lord, open Your heart and open our mind so that we may have a way to get into Your Word.
First Peter 5:1 says, “The elders among you I exhort, who am a fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, who am also a partaker of the glory to be revealed.” Peter’s main thought concerning the elders is about the same as that of Paul. We should pay special attention to the main points in Peter’s charge.
First, he exhorts the elders as a fellow elder, a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker of the glory to be revealed. Although Peter is directly referring to only his own status, all the elders should be witnesses of Christ, especially of His sufferings, and partakers of the glory to be revealed. This indicates that we should live a life that is absolutely one with Christ, a life that is Christ Himself. Such a life is a life of sufferings in this age and a life of glory in the future. The Greek word translated “witness” also means “martyr.” If we are martyrs, those who share in the sufferings of Christ, we will be partakers of the glory in the coming age.
The qualifications of the elders are not matters of ability but altogether matters of their life, living, and person. Being a witness who shares in the sufferings of Christ and being a partaker of the glory to be revealed are matters not of what we can do but of what we are. It is possible to be a very capable person yet not be a witness of Christ or a partaker of glory. Therefore, we should care more for what we are than for what we can do. An elder should be a martyr, sharing in the life of Christ. We should live a suffering life because Christ, who is still the suffering One today, is life to us. Such a living prepares and qualifies us to be partakers of the coming glory. It is a basic thought in the New Testament that suffering comes first and glory follows (Rom. 8:17; 1 Pet. 1:11). If we suffer with Christ, we will surely reign with Him. However, the main thought here is that the eldership depends not on what we can do but on what we are and the kind of life we live.
First Peter 5:2a says, “Shepherd the flock of God among you.” He also calls the Lord Jesus the Chief Shepherd (v. 4). In order to understand the concept of shepherding and martyrdom in 1 Peter 5, we must remember the words of the Lord that Peter heard in John 10 and 21. Peter heard the Lord say, “I am the good Shepherd; the good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep” (10:11). The Greek word translated “life” in this verse is psuche, which refers to the soul-life. The Lord laid down not His divine zoe life but His human life. As the good Shepherd, He sacrificed His psuche life for His flock. After the Lord’s resurrection, He found Peter and asked him, “Do you love Me?” Peter said, “Yes, Lord, You know that I love You.” The Lord responded, “Shepherd My sheep” (21:16). After the Lord charged Peter to be a shepherd, He prophesied that Peter would be martyred (vv. 18-19). Eventually, Peter was martyred because of his shepherding of the Lord’s flock. Because the Lord laid down His life for His sheep, He was the first martyr—He lived a life of suffering for His flock. Peter was also a martyr. The elders today must live as martyrs, sacrificing their lives for the church, the flock of God.
To be an elder requires us not only to be humble, temperate, and sober but also to be ready to suffer as a martyr for the church. As the good Shepherd, the Lord laid down His life for His sheep. Today He is the Chief Shepherd, and as His fellow shepherds, we must follow His pattern to sacrifice and live His suffering life as martyrs for the flock of God. The eldership requires not only that we give hospitality but also that we give our soul-life in martyrdom. We must give our life and our being for the church. If we have such a spirit of martyrdom, we will be a proper elder even if we cannot speak or pray eloquently. We must be willing and even aspire to give our life for the church. We should love the saints under our care to the extent that we would give our soul-life for them. If we do this, we will be partakers of the glory to be revealed. In order to be proper shepherds caring for God’s flock, we must be witnesses of the sufferings of Christ and partakers of the glory to be revealed.
In Acts 20:28-29 Paul said to the elders in Ephesus, “Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among whom the Holy Spirit has placed you as overseers to shepherd the church of God, which He obtained through His own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.” In Matthew 10:16 the Lord said, “I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves.” Because there are wolves, the elders must be martyrs in order to shepherd the flock. The wolves in the Lord’s time and the apostles’ time were mainly the Judaizers, who were the Jewish religionists. In the same principle there are religionists today who seek as wolves to damage and destroy the flock of God. When we consider 1 Peter 5 together with John 10 and 21 and Acts 20, we can see that to be an elder requires a spirit of martyrdom. Although we may not suffer physical martyrdom, we must be willing to sacrifice our life for the church.