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The Ordinal gets it right - the Vicar is not Timothy
By Julian Mann
www.virtueonline.org
October 21, 2016
The briefing paper for the recent ReNew conference of confessing Anglicans in England warned against local church leaders directly identifying themselves as the Timothy to whom the Apostle Paul wrote two pastoral epistles in the New Testament.
Pointing out that no sensible reader of the Bible would directly identify with David in the slaying of Goliath, the paper argued that local church leaders should rather identify themselves with the presbyters Timothy appointed.
It was a helpful warning because Timothy was a personally appointed delegate of the Apostle Paul in Ephesus and authorised by him to ordain ministers of the Word, hence Paul's instructions to him about the qualities required for church leaders in 1 Timothy 3. Local church presbyters in connectional churches, such as Anglican vicars or rectors, are certainly not Timothy in this respect because they are not authorised to ordain.
The ReNew warning was timely because shortly after the conference the 9:38 Network, which runs conferences for people considering church leadership, circulated a booklet called Mind the Gap: Raising up the Next Generation of Gospel Workers.
This booklet directly applied 2 Timothy 2v2 to local church leaders: 'What you (Timothy) have heard from me (the Apostle Paul) entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also' (RSV).
The booklet concluded: 'When we seek to appoint ministers to a local church we must be clear that we expect them to engage in training people for ministry...The future of our churches and the growth of the gospel demand that we ministers make identifying the right men, and entrusting gospel ministry to them, an urgent priority.'
Certainly, given the profound Apostolic concern for the continuation of authentic gospel proclamation, local church leaders should be on the look-out for men who may have a vocation to ordained ministry. But not being Timothys they are not authorised to ordain them. They have a responsibility to refer these men to the senior pastors who are. In the Reformed Anglican tradition such senior pastors are bishops.
This distinction is clearly reflected in the Book of Common Prayer Ordinal. The presbyter makes no promise that he will ordain men for Word ministry, but the Bishop does: 'Will you be faithful in ordaining, sending, or laying hands upon others?'
The benefit of this distinction in connectional churches is that the man being ordained is not the sole property of the local church minister. If he were, that would make ministers of our Lord Jesus Christ's Word vulnerable to cloning and personality cult-following.
Thank the good Lord, the Ordinal is so biblically faithfully, steers clear of presenting the local church presbyter as Timothy in every respect and thus safeguards pastoral ministry from becoming ego-trip ministry.
Julian Mann is vicar of the Parish Church of the Ascension, Oughtibridge, South Yorkshire, UK - http://www.oughtibridgechurch.org.uk/our_prayers.html
