Why Acts 6 Does Not Teach Congregational Rule

It is not secret that over the past few years, my study of God’s Word has led me to the conclusion that God’s intended leadership structure of His church is a plurality of Biblically qualified men. In fact, over the past month or so I have been preaching sermons on the leadership of God’s church, laying out the Biblical case for why I have come to this conclusion publicly. I grew up, however, with the understanding that the congregation should have the rule/leadership in the church, and I became a pastor with that impression in my mind. What I realized, though, is I did not have a Biblical basis for that, rather I only believed that because it was what I had experienced, because it worked well, and because I was never told anything different. Something I realized, though, is no one had ever laid out a case for me for the structure of the church, rather all I was told was that the Bible has left it open and there is no absolute case to be made.

I did, however, believe that someone in that camp must have had to lay out a case for congregational governance from God’s Word. I believe many who believe this are very godly, Biblical people who love the Lord deeply, and therefore, I had to believe that they had sought to make a case from God’s Word to defend their view on church governance. Knowing that, then, I sought out where I could find the Biblical case laid out and study it out, wanting to be sure to see all sides and remain informed. Acts 6 is one of the “go to” texts for many to show God’s Word gives us congregational governance, and while I think I see what they are seeing, I also think they are ignoring important pieces of this text. So, I want to rightly divide this text and show why, not only does it not support congregational governance, that if this narrative supports anything, it is something very different from congregational governance.

The section in particular that the congregational governance supporters will point to is in verses 3-5, and I trust you have your own Bibles so you can follow along. Verse 3 opens with the apostles speaking, and there the apostles tell the congregation that they are to choose seven men who are godly and Biblical to serve tables so that the apostles could spend more time in the Word and in prayer. The congregation responded to this well, and then verse 5 lists the men who they chose. The congregational governance supporters point to this and say that this supports the idea of congregational rule because the congregation was put in charge of choosing these men, and therefore, the congregation should be able to govern itself.

There is great irony in them choosing this passage, however, because if we properly exegete the text, rather than come to the text looking for support for congregational governance, we find a very different model. I would say first that context rules everything, so we should look at all of the verses, not just verses 3-5. When we do, we see the problem in verse 1, that the Hellenist widows were being neglected and had a complaint. In verse 2, we find out the apostles were having to take considerable time sorting this out, and they declared in verse 2 that this was not pleasing to God. Now, note what happens in verse 2, the apostles initiate this decision and call the congregation together. Who is clearly the ones governing this church? We can already see, the apostles are the ones in charge, they are leading this church, they are governing this church.

So when we come to verse 3, we see the apostles giving the church instructions. Now, the apostles clearly entrust the duty of the choosing of these men to the congregation, but that does not put the congregation in governance over all decisions. In fact, the congregation seemed to have no authority except the authority to choose these seven men, and that authority was delegated to them by the apostles who were giving the governance. What we see here is a group of men governing a church who are willing to delegate aspects of their authority to the church. Notice, they did not delegate the problem to the church and let the church come up with the decision, they did not call a meeting with the congregation to ask their opinion, instead, they directed the church telling them that this was what they were going to do. The congregation here is under clear authority, but clear authority that is not lording it over, but delegating an important aspect to the congregation. If anything, this passage negates congregation governance and makes the case for elders who lead well, as the apostles could be representing the elders in this case.

I also think in verse 6 we see the same thing, because there the men stand before the apostles and the apostles laid hands on them and prayed. The apostles gave approval to the men who were chosen by the congregation, which would indicate to me that these men needed final approval, not by the congregation, but by the apostles for this duty. While the apostles delegated the authority of choosing these men for this task to the congregation, they maintained the final say as to whether these would be the men who would serve. It would seem to me that if the apostles would not have approved of one or some of these men, they would have been able to exclude them and not lay hands on them since we know we are not to lay hands on someone too quickly according to 1 Timothy 5:22 because we are now attaching our character to their character.

Having said all of that, while I believe this text is consistent with elder leadership more so than congregational leadership, one more thing must be pointed out here. The context of this passage is narrative, or we could say, descriptive. Luke is recording what happened in the early church. This narrative, then, must be put in context with all of Scripture, including the prescriptive. To rightly divide the word of truth as to whether this text is teaching congregational governance or elder governance, we have to look at the prescriptive. Is their prescriptive passages that teach us that the congregation should be governing itself, or that there should be elders governing the congregation. That answer is easy if we take that this text teaches elders governing, because there is a lot of prescriptive passages on this matter. Acts 20, while being descriptive, contains Paul’s words to elders which are prescriptive, and he calls them overseers and tells them to shepherd the flock. In 1 Peter 5 they are called to give oversight to the flock. In 1 Timothy 3 they are called overseers. If, however, you argue this is teaching congregational church polity, then you have to back that up with prescriptive, and that is not possible. We have no prescriptive passages that give the oversight of the church to the congregation itself.  

Acts 6 is not the only passage or idea used for congregational governance in the church today, but it is one of the primary ones utilized. Examining the text, however, and practicing good hermeneutics, we can see that at best, this is tangential support for congregational input, but in no way necessitates or even supports congregational governance. I intend to write more blogs posts in the coming days and weeks on other arguments that are made in favor of congregational governance.

Let me make one thing clear, though, and I will try to reiterate this over and over again, I love my brothers and sisters who believe in congregational governance, and I was there not that long ago. I would urge any of them that read this to challenge your position a bit more against God’s Word, and if you remain convinced from the Word of God, I wish not to spend time arguing with you any further, but if you desire more conversation or wish to challenge my position, I would love to hear that as well. I believe the majority of those who disagree with me on church governance who are in faithful churches would agree on this, that Christ is the Head of the church, with ultimate authority, and whatever governance a church has, it must recognize this fact.