Bishop, Priest, and Deacon
The sacrament of holy orders is conferred in three ranks of clergy: bishops, priests, and deacons.
Clergy is a human invention meant to control the masses by inserting a professional religious class (trained by men) in the place of a divinely structured authority. Clergy are political agents whose authority comes from men. Their function is similar to the role of commisar in the soviet regime. In the Body of Christ there are no hierachies among men. All are brethren and Christ is the Head. Jesus is to be obeyed, not just have an effigy of Him made to be stuck on a wall of what is falsely called a "church." There is no priest caste in the New Testament. All disciples are priests and ministers unto God. The whole Body functions...much like the human body. One toe does not have authority over another toe...but all are subject to the head.
Bishops (episcopoi) have the care of multiple congregations and appoint, ordain, and discipline priests and deacons. They sometimes appear to be called "evangelists" in the New Testament. Examples of first-century bishops include Timothy and Titus (1 Tim. 5:19–22; 2 Tim. 4:5; Titus 1:5).
Episcopoi are overseers. From the Greek...epis (over) and scopos (see). (The word "telescope" a combination of tele and scopos means "to see far away.") Again this is a function and not an office. Overseers are trusted men who are able to teach by word and example. They are men of maturity and spiritual experience. They function as a chairman in a meeting, bringing order to what could become disorderly...since all have an equal footing in any given meeting.
Priests (presbuteroi) are also known as "presbyters" or "elders." In fact, the English term "priest" is simply a contraction of the Greek word presbuteros. They have the responsibility of teaching, governing, and providing the sacraments in a given congregation (1 Tim. 5:17; Jas. 5:14–15).
This is way off here. The Greek word for priest is Hierophant?s not presbuteros. Elders (prebuteroi) ruled villages and towns in times past. Respected elders would congregate at the gates of a city so as to influence the daily life and be an example for all. Elders gave order by their very presence in the midst of the daily goings on. The priestly class was done away with in the New Covenant. It is un-Christian to promote a class of priests as mediators between God and men. One would have not to have heard of Jesus at all to confuse this issue. The priesthood of Christ is of a new order...the order of Melchizedek....a divine priesthood. Rather the religious hyjacking spirit of men would reinstate a pagan priesthood in the church in it's place. There is but one Mediator, Jesus Christ. The world has infiltrated the church whereas it is to be the church that influences the world.
Deacons (diakonoi) are the assistants of the bishops and are responsible for teaching and administering certain Church tasks, such as the distribution of food (Acts 6:1–6).
These are men and women who serve the Body in a particular way. As with all biblical definitions diakonos is a function and not an office. A couragious person does not occupy the office of brave. Bravery is a function of the character of one who is brave. So it is with servanthood in the Body. Those who lay down their lives, time, and resources in order to serve the Body are known as deacons (servants).
In the apostolic age, the terms for these offices were still somewhat fluid. Sometimes a term would be used in a technical sense as the title for an office, sometimes not. This non-technical use of the terms even exists today, as when the term is used in many churches (both Protestant and Catholic) to refer to either ordained ministers (as in “My minister visited himâ€) or non-ordained individuals. (In a Protestant church one might hear “He is a worship minister,†while in a Catholic church one might hear “He is an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion.â€)
Thus, in the apostolic age Paul sometimes described himself as a diakonos ("servant" or "minister"; cf. 2 Cor. 3:6, 6:4, 11:23; Eph. 3:7), even though he held an office much higher than that of a deacon, that of apostle.
Similarly, on one occasion Peter described himself as a "fellow elder," [1 Pet. 5:1] even though he, being an apostle, also had a much higher office than that of an ordinary elder.
The term for bishop, episcopos ("overseer"), was also fluid in meaning. Sometimes it designated the overseer of an individual congregation (the priest), sometimes the person who was the overseer of all the congregations in a city or area (the bishop or evangelist), and sometimes simply the highest-ranking clergyman in the local church—who could be an apostle, if one were staying there at the time.
Although the terms "bishop," "priest," and "deacon" were somewhat fluid in the apostolic age, by the beginning of the second century they had achieved the fixed form in which they are used today to designate the three offices whose functions are clearly distinct in the New Testament.
As the following quotations illustrate, the early Church Fathers recognized all three offices and regarded them as essential to the Church’s structure. Especially significant are the letters of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who traveled from his home city to Rome, where he was executed around A.D. 110. On the way he wrote letters to the churches he passed. Each of these churches possessed the same threefold ministry. Without this threefold ministry, Ignatius said, a group cannot be called a church...........
click here to see the early Christian quotes
