I suppose I should explain why I posted this in an attempt to head off speculation or even assertion on that issue.

I’m worried that some might get the impression that the PCA’s Book of Church Order is supposed to function as an authoritative interpretation of the Scripture. Or that the Presbyterian understanding of Pastors, Elders (or Elder-Pastors) and Deacons is obvious from Scripture and anyone who resists its claims (or the diverse [!] opinions of those claiming to portray Presbyterian government out of the Bible) are perverse or stupid.

Perhaps the latitude that allowed Dr. Wilson to pastor in the Presbyterian Church was too much. Perhaps his attitude was too strong to possibly count as regarding Presbyterian government as “agreeable to the Scriptures.” That may be so. I don’t agree with his position (though I do agree that the term “Presbyter” in the NT refers to clergy, not to lay rulers of the church). But I think is possible that the pendulum has swung too much the other way in our circles.

And really, what was the alternative to tolerating Dr. Wilson’s weird ways? Are we really going to say that anyone who has any difference of opinion about church office is not called to the ministry or is duty-bound to find some other denomination? We have many denominations in North America, but we the number doesn’t remotely begin to amount to the number of different possible constructions on the Biblical data. Do we want a new denomination for every divergance from what is popularly perceived as the Presbyterian mainstream?

My question is: Do we want to be pastored by conscientious Bible readers? Or do we want people who will simply give the “company line.” Yes, someone can be convinced that Acts 6 is about our deacons (even though the word is never used) and that Paul really never meant for Phoebe to be considered one, and that there are two different Church offices laid out in First Timothy 3 and only one of them happens to need to be tested before being given office. But is it reasonable to expect every Presbyterian pastor to come to these conclusions apart from a desire to please the denomination that he is already loyal to on other worthy grounds? How do we know that Stephen’s powerful preaching and Philip’s evangelizing and miracle dispensing were not of their office? Well, because we already know what the office is and so these other things must be superfluous. Someone must have later ordained Philip as an Evangelist and you can prove otherwise so we’re right.

(Ask an Eastern Orthodox believer about chrismation and you will be led through more prooftexts for an “anointing” in the NT than we have for officers. See? It all comes from the Bible, he will say. Our practices are always finding texts to root in almost before we open up the pages.)

I realize there is a culture in Presbyterian circles that claims that the ratonale for Presbyterian view of offices is easily evident. But the fact is that the rationale has changed quite radically over time. Calvin’s argument for Ruling Elders is nothing like Thornwell’s. Charles Hodge had his own argument.

And if Calvin and Gaffin can find ruling elders in the gift of administrations or governments in Romans 12 and First Corinthians 12, then the gift of helps or generosity should be all we need for a diaconate. It isn’t as if all the different paths through the Scripture always lead to entirely different destinations.

In the PCA there are presently a number of churches that have deaconesses. This has been done for years. I’ve been amazed to read people act like these churches now have some reason for feeling obligated to change their practice. This just seems ridiculous–like claiming that any congregation with an office of church historian must immediately repent because there is no such office in the BCO which is now an exhaustive list of any office a congregation may have.

Also, some churches are criticized for not having deacons at all.

For the record, if any of these groups believe that deaconesses are simply female deacons, I think they are wrong. I like the BCO the way it is so that these are kept as two different offices by definition. And I would like presbyteries to discourage congregations from anything that might look like training people to accept what is an ordination service in all but name.

But at the same time, the denomination has allowed diversity on this and a host of other issues. And I don’t see much rationale for someone having the authority to eliminate congregational level offices or require a congregation to have a diaconate. (In fact, I’ve never seen anyone even attempt to construct an argument that every congregation in the NT was expected to have deacons. Nowhere do we read of Apostles appointing deacons in every town. All we know is that the Church in Ephesus and Philippi had them, oh and Jerusalem too because we say that the Seven were deacons. But what is our assumption, that any office mentioned must be universal? The widows of First Timothy 5 are not treated that way.)

I repeat that I don’t embrace the views of Dr. Wilson as related by Charles Hodge, and I’m not sure it was right to allow for them in the ministry. But I do think we could stand to be a little bit more flexible and maybe even a little bit more humble in how we declare the Lord’s will on these issues.