Date
5-22-2024
Department
Rawlings School of Divinity
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Chair
Benjamin P. Laird
Keywords
Stratified, Leadership, First-Century Church, Stratified Leadership Model
Disciplines
Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion
Recommended Citation
Edsall, Barton Schuyler Garratt IV, "The Stratified Leadership Model of the First-Century Christian Church" (2024). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 5702.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/5702
Abstract
As Christianity enters its third millennium, it faces the sharpest decline in the number of people attending church congregations compared to the total population. In Romans 1:13, the Apostle Paul states that God’s people should not be ignorant that the purpose for leaders within the collective church body, beginning with himself as the example, is so the people’s lives would be fruitful–spiritually enriched and productive. Logic dictates that if the lives of those who attended Christian churches in the twenty-first century experienced and displayed such spiritual quality, attendance would not be declining but contrarily on the rise. Regarding church clergy and their congregations, are the shepherds genuinely caring for and tending to the spiritual needs of their flocks if the people are departing? This study proposes that modern Christian churches reform and realign their leadership structures according to the examples of the followers of Jesus Christ, as found in the Book of Acts and the Pastoral Epistles. Most churches still follow their inherited traditions from past centuries and millennia and seem little inclined to question the possibility of a better format. This study argues that the Scriptures promote a more efficient archetype that has been forgotten and replaced in favor of traditions. This discourse aims to demonstrate from selected New Testament scriptures that God’s leadership design of the early church was a stratified model, different and superior to the religious hierarchical models of the Second Temple era. The stratified leadership model of the First-century Christian Church presented herein is a viable doctrinal and practical formula for modern churches to utilize as they carry out the Great Commission entrusted to them.
