1 Thessalonians 5:12

But we beseech you, brethren, to know them that labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you;

In this study, the entire paragraph beginning here and through 1 Thessalonians 5:22 is accepted and explained as Paul's instructions to the elders at Thessalonica. In all the history of true Christianity, there were never any persons appointed "over you in the Lord" except elders of the church; and the mention of this is a definition of the persons addressed. Although some deny it, substantial scholarship supports this opinion:

Certainly, if there were elders in the church at Thessalonica - and it is highly probable that there were - these are meant in 1 Thessalonians 5:12.[19]

They (of 1 Thessalonians 5:12) are no doubt identical with those elsewhere called pastors, elders and bishops.[20]

The probable reference is to the presbyters sometimes called overseers.[21]

It is plain from Acts 14:23 that Paul selected elders to guide the churches he founded, and so in Thessalonica.[22]

Frame rejects this idea, "for we are in the period of informal and voluntary leadership." But elders were appointed from the earliest times (Acts 9:30; 14:23).[23]

It was Paul's custom to organize the churches which he had founded, and to appoint presbyters among them. Although the church at Thessalonica had been so recently founded, yet it had its presbyters.[24]

Scholars who reject such opinions do so upon a priori attitudes which they bring to the consideration. For example, the notion that church government is something that "developed" in the early church, or that Paul was "feeling his way along" in the formulation of his doctrine - these and other such assumptions enter into the rejection of that which is, on the face of it, rather simple truth revealed in the New Testament.

Regarding the duties of the officers in view in this passage, Mason stated:

The presbyters are not only organizers, managers of the corporate affairs of their church, but also spiritual guides to give practical advice. These are the two senses in which they "are over you."[25]

[19] William Hendriksen, op. cit., p. 135.

[20] A. M. Stibbs, New Bible Commentary, Revised (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970), p. 1160.

[21] J. R. Dummelow, op. cit., p. 989.

[22] Peter E. Cousins, op. cit., p. 497.

[23] Leon Morris, op. cit., p. 98.

[24] P. J. Gloag, op. cit., p. 104.

[25] A. J. Mason, Ellicott's Commentary on the Holy Bible, Vol. VIII (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1959), p. 144.