Word of the Week
September 28, 2024
Poimēn: The Missing Job Title
And He gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers.
Ephesians 4:11 NASB2020
What do you call the person who functions as the leader of a church?
In most cases, “Pastor” is the title that appears on the church letterhead. Since we have spent the last two weeks investigating the different New Testament terms for church leaders, I thought we should turn our attention to the most common title of all: the pastor.
Imagine my surprise when I did a search for “pastor” in the New Testament and came up with only one verses that mentioned the word! I tried the King James, the New American Standard, and the New International Version and got the same result.
The only place where I found the word “pastor” was in Ephesians 4:11, the verse quoted above. It makes you wonder why the word is so scarce. Are we missing something?
As usual, a question like this drives us to see what we can find out by looking at the original Greek word used.
The Greek word that we have translated here as “pastor” is poimēn [poy-MAYN]. It occurs 18 times in the New Testament, and everywhere else it is translated “shepherd.”
Let’s take a tour of these passages to see what kind of shepherds appear in the text.
- Poimēn can mean the literal shepherds who spend their days taking care of a flock of sheep (or goats).
- It was a group of shepherds who heard the angelic announcement of Christ’s birth and went to the manger to worship Him (Luke 2:8, 15, 18, 20).
The shepherd was not always respected in society. The ancient Egyptians despised anyone who worked with herds (Genesis 46:34), and the rabbis suspected them of dishonesty because they were poor and often nomadic.
- Jesus sometimes compared the crowds who thronged Him to sheep who had no poimēn to care for them.
- He “felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36)
- He used the same description of the 5000+ who gathered for His teaching -and eventually shared the miraculous meal he provided (Mark 6:34).
- Many ancient cultures from Sumer to Egypt described their rulers as the “shepherds” of their people. Isaiah even called the Persian Cyrus God’s “shepherd” (Isaiah 44:28) because of his role in restoring Israel to their own land.
However, the Old Testament designates God Himself as the true shepherd of Israel, not merely in Psalm 23, but in many other passages (for example, Psalm 28:9; 80:1; 121:4; Isaiah 40:11; Ezekiel 34:11-12; Micah 7:14).
- So it is no surprise that the New Testament draws our attention to Jesus Christ as the true Poimēn of the church.
- He calls Himself “the good shepherd” – not just a hired hand, but the actual owner of the flock (John 10:11-12, 14).
- He is “the great shepherd” who died and rose for us (Hebrews 13:20).
- He is “the shepherd and guardian” of our souls (1 Peter 2:25).
- In addition, He is the “chief shepherd” (Greek archipoimēn) – the “arch-shepherd” of the flock (1 Peter 5:4).
- Finally, our verse in Ephesians makes it clear that Jesus our Shepherd uses human beings to help take care of His sheep. We typically call them pastors, and that’s the title you will find in Ephesians 4:11, but the underlying idea is “shepherd.”
Just as wooly lambs on a farm need a caretaker, people need someone to watch over them. That is true for nations, and it is true for churches. We can be grateful for the human leaders who provide care for believers. At the same time, the emphasis of the New Testament reminds us that we look to the divine Shepherd for all our needs. At all times, we can listen for our Shepherd’s voice.
Coming Up
This week’s study centered on the noun for “shepherd,” and we thought about the identity of the shepherd. Next week we will move to Part 2, studying the verb for “shepherd,” and thinking about the tasks of a shepherd. We will learn principles that apply to church leadership as well as our shepherding roles in other areas.
©Ezra Project 2024
12 Responses
Thank you. This is especially helpful right now as we both have been sick and need some extra care. Thank you!
Thanks doctor Ezera ot do wonderful inspiring mostly wen you go back to the original language be blessed shalom
Jesus Christ our true Shepherd. The word is used only a few times in the NT. This tells me how significant the word is.
If the word is shepherd everywhere else in the NT, I think it means the same in Eph. 4.11. Nowhere in the NT do we find one man over a church. It is always a plurality of overseers/elders, which I take to be the same. A part of their duties is to shepherd the church. I do not believe pastor is a biblical term. It is interesting to me that just a few days ago I got curious about this word poimen and looked up its uses. Eph. 4.11 was the only verse I found that translated pastor. I concluded that that is not what the word means. It means shepherd. Our modern-day church system is not biblical, but largely of man’s doing.
Good observation. In Eph 4:11, pastoring or sheperding is mentioned as a gift. Everywhere else it refers to Christ as the Shepherd.
Exactly! There is no title in the NT equivalent to ‘senior pastor’ or ‘lead pastor.’ People who are gifted in pastoral care are not necessarily gifted in preaching or teaching, they are clearly different gifts in Ephesians 4:11.
The Church has been obsessed with human style hierarchies since the Bishop of Rome decided that he was head over all the other bishops.
This is 100% true. Jesus forbids the use of titles including rabbis (same thing) and honourifics in the church community, Matt. 23:9. Ephesians 4:11 speaks clearly to giving GIFTS. not Titles or importantly “Offices”. There are but 2 Offices (appointing’s) Elders (plural) and their practical helpers Deacons.
Also there is no such thing as clergy or “men of the cloth”. Jesus says there not to call any man Father, because you have one Father in heave.
Modern man-made idolotry.
RIght on!
In. Greek is there a distinction between pastor and teacher in other words…are there 4 or 5 gifts? Teacher is the name JC was addressed by-…..
In Ephesians 4:12, the Greek grammar suggests that the two words describe two parts of the same office, so we would call it a “pastor-teacher.”
Elsewhere, there is a difference between the two words. Teacher emphasizes the way a person passes on truth to his/her followers. Shepherd reminds us that a leader cares for his people in all areas, not just in giving instructions.
Jesus was called a teacher, as you said, but he also called himself the good shepherd in John 10. He was everything you could ask for, including the teaching side and the shepherding side.
Ephesians 4:11 names four shepherd types of doma/giftpersons in whom Jesus Christ imparts at conception one of His four God-natures–as apostle, prophet, evangelist, or teaching shepherd–to serve others personally through His relational aspect while equipping, maturing, and bringing order to them within the Body.
Since Jesus never said the word that is translated into “church”, and the “leadership positions” in Eph 4:11 are supposed to be gifts among the congregated, both “pastor” as a leader and “church” as the thing being led are non-sequiturs.