Can Women Be Pastors But Not Elders?

Reflections on Mohler's SBC Resolution and Its Implications

The annual meeting of the SBC concluded yesterday, and the two most controversial resolutions discussed concerned immigration/deportation policy and whether a church in fellowship with the SBC (a convention, not a denomination) can have women functioning as pastors. The latter generated quite a bit of buzz for two primary reasons. First, it was introduced by Al Mohler, longtime president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Second, and more importantly, the language of the resolution—seeking a constitutional amendment and therefore requiring a 2/3 majority for two consecutive annual meetings—initially seemed to many to be ambiguous and overly restrictive as a result.

Apparently, in response to feedback, Mohler changed “such as” to “specifically” to narrow the focus of the resolution, which ended up proposing that a church in friendly cooperation with the SBC “does not act to affirm, appoint, or endorse a woman serving in the office or function of a pastor/elder/overseer, specifically preaching to the assembled congregation” (emphasis mine). The resolution as phrased in its second iteration easily achieved the two-thirds majority with 74.66% of ballots cast for “yes.” Given that the SBC amended the Baptist Faith and Message in 2023 to reflect that ‘overseer,’ ‘elder,’ and ‘pastor’ refer to a singular office in the New Testament, all the controversy seemed to surround the function of pastor that women should not be performing.

Of course, the shift from “such as” to “specifically” significantly clarified the function in question—Mohler was not suggesting that women couldn’t make hospital visits, minister to people in their homes or be missionaries. And yet, we can imagine sober-minded Baptists asking: should a woman who is not an elder be determining how to allocate the benevolence fund, choosing which sermon series to start next or architecting a church merger provided she isn’t preaching to the gathered body and isn’t ordained?

In other words, does Mohler’s resolution only get halfway there (even though he is certainly “all the way” there)? In considering the question, I’ll offer my own sketch of why ‘overseer,’ ‘elder,’ and ‘pastor’ should be understood to refer to the same office in the New Testament church and why more is at stake than bare vocabulary.

Overseers Pastor, Pastors Oversee, Elders Oversee and Elders Pastor

The noun form of pastor (lit. “shepherd,” Gr. poimēn) occurs only once in the NT as it relates to designations within the church (as opposed to shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night or Jesus being the Good Shepherd, et al.). That (plural) occurrence is found in Ephesians 4: “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ...” (vv. 11–12).

This will likely be surprising to many Baptists, for whom the designation “pastor” is the title for church leadership with which they are most familiar and which they use most frequently (if we don’t count “brother,” a biblical term but one that doesn’t distinguish between church leaders and Christian men in general). However, in both 1 Pet. 5:1–2 and Acts 20:28–29, the command to shepherd/pastor (the verbal form of the same word) is tightly linked with the office of elder/overseer. In 1 Pet. 5:1–2, Peter exhorts the elders to shepherd/pastor the flock of God, exercising oversight of them. In so doing, they model the work of the Chief Shepherd (1 Pet. 5:4). In Acts 20:28–29, Paul addresses the Ephesian elders as overseers of the flock that the Spirit has appointed them to shepherd.

One might object that calling elders/overseers to shepherd/pastor does not mean that they are pastors but, instead, that pastoring is just an aspect of what they are to be doing as elders/overseers, alongside teaching and leading, for example. But this objection falters on at least two counts.

First, the command to shepherd/pastor is never given to anyone other than elders/overseers in the New Testament (in contrast to teaching; cf. Col. 3:16). This strongly suggests that pastoring, despite functional approximations in the church at large that may align with the general concept of “looking out for” others, is something that elders are uniquely responsible for doing. Accordingly, there is an important distinction to make between those who happen to be doing shepherd-like things in a church and those actually responsible for doing them. Surely, if we are to take our categories and words seriously, shepherds are responsible for shepherding. And since that responsibility is given only to elders/overseers, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that ‘pastor/shepherd’ is simply another designation for that office.

Second, by hand-waving away the verbal instances of exhortations to exercise oversight and shepherd, the objection fails to take seriously the contextual elements of both 1 Pet. 5:1–5 and Acts 20:28–29. For example, in his concluding charge to the elders, Peter says that they are to be examples to “the flock” (1 Pet. 5:3). But who leads and cares for flocks if not shepherds, the very elders he is addressing? Further, it seems that someone serving as a pastor should be able to answer the question, “Over what flock?” The “pastor” of technology and the “pastor” of music won’t have an answer, and neither will the person just trying to “watch out for people” more generally. To pastor—or to be a pastor—it seems, requires overseeing a collective (i.e., a local church), a role assigned to elders/overseers in the New Testament.

In the same vein, by serving as exemplary pastors/shepherds, Peter writes that elders will be rewarded by the “Chief Shepherd” (1 Pet. 5:4). It’s very difficult to avoid the conclusion that Peter understands the elders/overseers to be pastors/shepherds themselves who are to serve as under-shepherds of Christ.

In sum, the New Testament data suggests that ‘overseer,’ ‘elder,’ and ‘pastor’ refer to the same office in the church. These men are responsible for exercising oversight over and shepherding local church bodies. The implication is that, while women should be committed to robust local church ministry, they should never feel or be given the final responsibility of shepherding the souls of parishioners (even women); such a yoke is reserved for qualified men to bear with humility, love, and wisdom—along with fear and trembling.

Pastor-Teachers

In Eph. 4:11 (see above), the Greek grammar clarifies that “pastor” and “teacher” are to be understood as a unit. Eph. 4:11 reads: kai autos edōken tous men apostolous, tous de prophētas, tous de euangelistas, tous de poimenas kai didaskalous (“And he gave the [Gr. men] apostles, the [Gr. de] prophets, the [Gr. de] evangelists, the [Gr. de] pastors and teachers...”) Notice that a singular article precedes and sets apart “pastors and teachers” at the end of the chain. Grammatically, this indicates that the two are to be understood together as a unit—though not as identical (i.e., it isn’t a Granville Sharp construction, which only holds for singular nouns and when the article is repeated).

What is the relationship, then? The most plausible conclusion is that pastors should be understood as a subset of teachers—“pastor-teachers” as opposed to “non-pastor” teachers, we might say. All pastors are required to be able and gifted to teach, but not all teachers are required to be able and gifted to pastor. While it seems obvious that the ability to teach is wrapped up in the role of “teacher” (cf. Rom. 12:7; 1 Cor. 12:28), the only local church office enumerated in the New Testament that requires the ability to teach is the office of elder/overseer (cf. 1 Tim. 3:2; Tit. 1:9).

For this reason, surely Eph. 4:11 itself gives us meaningful reason to believe that pastors should be understood as elders, those tasked with overseeing (among other things) the teaching of the church. What follows is that, while many churches have tremendously gifted female Bible teachers, such women should not be confused with pastors on account of their title or their audience.

Faithful Guides

There is also a biblical-theological reason to believe that elders/overseers are to be understood as pastors. In the Old Testament, the prophets time and again criticize the shepherds of Israel (e.g., Jer. 23:1–2; Ezek. 34:2, et al.) and promise that one day God will give them shepherds after his own heart (e.g., Jer. 3:15; 23:1-4, Ez. 34:2; Zech. 10:2-3 et al.). The LXX (the Greek translation of the OT) uses poimēn (shepherd/pastor of Eph. 4:11) to translate the Hebrew ro‘i/ro‘im in these passages with great consistency. True, the same word often refers to non-leaders, as we might expect given the prominence of the profession. But in the context of 1) prophetic criticism and 2) prophetic promises regarding what God is going to do for Israel, ‘shepherds’ always refers to those tasked with oversight and care of the people.

It is quite plausible to think that Old Testament promises of better shepherds to come should lie behind our understanding of the scant New Testament usage of ‘pastor(s).’ After all, such a biblical-theological approach is taken when seeking to understand other important but seldom-used New Testament terms (e.g., Gr. hilastērion, trans. ‘propitiation,’ is used only twice in the New Testament—Rom. 3:25; Heb. 9:5). Thus, as leaders tasked with shepherding local congregations of God’s people, elders are the New Testament fulfillment of God’s promises that his latter-days people would have shepherds with renewed hearts who would feed them instead of leading them astray. If elders—those laboring under the Chief Shepherd—do not in some way fulfill these promises, who does? And if elders do fulfill these promises, then, given the office is reserved for qualified men, women shouldn’t be serving as pastors.

Something Identifiable

Finally, there is a serious pragmatic concern that accompanies broadening the pastoral office beyond elder/overseer. For if the designation “pastor” is reduced to a general description of anyone who cares for others in the church or has some kind of responsibility within it, the term becomes so broad as to lose all definitional force. In that case, nearly every mature Christian engaged in “one-another,” local church ministry might be called a pastor. But that raises an obvious problem: how would we identify the office at all? Where are its qualifications, boundaries, or responsibilities? Let’s be honest—if everyone is a pastor, no one is really a pastor. If we are going to designate people as pastors in our churches, our only non-arbitrary criterion for placing people in those roles and understanding their responsibilities comes from understanding pastors to be elders/overseers and evaluating them accordingly.

For these reasons, it seems best to conclude that a pastor—a shepherd—in the New Testament church should be understood as an elder or overseer and that these terms refer interchangeably to the same office, to be occupied only by qualified men. For whatever other ministry occurs within a church, these men bear the responsibility for shepherding and overseeing the flock with the teaching of the Word being a central aspect of that task.

Mohler’s resolution is welcome, but my suspicion is that even if the constitution is successfully amended by another two-thirds vote next year, the door has not closed on the discussion in the manner some might hope on account of the resolution’s amended scope. In fact, the final “urgent request” from the floor—conducted during the vote itself—was potentially quite prescient. Requesting clarification, the questioner asked, “Does the intent or implication of the motion have any present or future impact on women serving in ministry in positions such as, but not limited to, missionary, minister, director, or teacher outside of the position as stated as pastor, overseer, or elder?”

Clint Pressley’s answer from the podium: “Brother, the amendment says what it says.”

Yes, indeed it does.

Which is why the SBC is one female “Executive Minister” or “Director of Missions” away from revisiting the whole conversation a few years down the road.