1. It is a matter of scriptural wisdom in the churches of the Reformation that the work of the office-bearers in Christ’s church is always a work-in-communion.

Each one of the office-bearers — the minister, elder and deacon — has his own specific task and his unique, inalienable responsibility. But that does not mean that any part of their concrete practice in office can be isolated or protected from the empathy, the help or the supervision of the fellow office-bearers.

A deacon, or a council of deacons, can turn to the elders when a serious diaconal problem needs to be solved. An elder can ask for help from his fellow elder or from his pastor if he cannot go any further with a case at a given moment.

The minister — however much he works for hours in the quiet of his study or ventures out on his own — does not work for himself alone. He is constantly in touch with the consistory, where he can go to with his problems and he is even obliged to report on the majority of his visits to his consistory.

In addition, each of the office-bearers mentioned can be approached by a brother office-bearer at a council meeting about his ministry (the censura morum according to the Church Order).In case of serious failure he can be admonished by the church council or also through discipline (about doctrine and life, according to the Church Order) he can be kept from the exercise of his office, for the protection of the congregation and to the honour of God's Name.

This entire arrangement of the work of office-bearers in the congregation gives evidence of scriptural wisdom.

Our fathers had experienced quite clearly what it means when the ministry of office-bearers becomes a single-handled affair. If this were allowed to happen we would see sovereign and haughty rulers in the church, who imagine themselves to be accountable only to themselves and therefore can decree all kinds of decisions based on their own powerful positions.

Rulers in the Church — that is the reversal of all relationships, an inner contradiction, a foolishness in Israel, a discarding of the only Lord of the church, an undoing of the expensive purchase at Golgotha. Our fathers have seen those rulers with their own eyes –the prelates of the Roman hierarchy, and over against this they have confessed that all office-bearers are “servants together of Jesus Christ, the only general Bishop and the only Head of the Church” (Art. 31 of the Belgic Confession in an older version).

Therefore, since the Reformation, none of the office-bearers could pretend to be complacent or think that they would be able to carry out their official work without any obligation or responsibility.

Since the Reformation, the responsibility and accountability over against the fellow office-bearers constitute the form and shape in which the lordship of the Word of Christ is embodied in the church on earth.

It is not the bishop but the consistory who now makes the decisions that are needed for the determination of policy in the church.

... it is [the elders’] duty to assist the ministers of the Word with good counsel and advice. They are also charged with the supervision over the doctrine and conduct of these fellow servants. They shall permit no strange teaching, so that in every respect the congregation is edified by the pure doctrine of the gospel.

from the Form for the Ordination of Elders and Deacons

2. All of this means with respect to the tasks of elder and minister, that a continuous cooperation will be taking place between these two ministries.

When the apostle Paul appears to have no difficulty in speaking of his fellow servants, fellow workers (see Col. 1:7; 4:7), co-workers (Rom. 16:9, 21; 1 Cor. 3:9; Col. 4:11; 1 Thess. 3:2), associates (2 Cor. 8:23; Phil. 2:25; 4:3; Rom. 16:9; Philemon 1, 24), and fellow warriors (Phil. 2:25; Philemon 2) and when the apostle Peter speaks to the elders of the congregation as fellow-elders (1 Peter 5:1), and the apostle John desires to work together with others for the sake of truth (3 John 8), then it will not lessen the position or dignity of a minister to recognize in the elders of the church his fellow-servants of Christ and to honour them as such; men who are placed with him on the same way and who share with him in the one great responsibility for the church.

Minister and elder are partners in the joy that is experienced in their office work; in the disappointment and sorrow that will be the portion of the office-bearers of the church when they experience opposition to God's good Word and the slowness of heart to understand it in the church. They are also partakers of the promises given by Christ for their faithful ministry, as our form for ordination attests.

What the office bearers do, they do together and face each other in their task. This is how the Spirit of Christ wants to live among us.

3. This also applies to the specific task of the preacher: the ministry of the Word. Taking care of this matter is the preacher’s life task, and the churches have expressed that he should be thoroughly equipped for this great task beforehand.

As a rule (for now we leave out of consideration the provision for exceptional gifts as per the Church Order) this person therefore has studied at length and he will also have provided himself with a good range of instruments (his library treasure). All of this determines the specific character of his official service. Yet this service is certainly not a “one-man” ministry in a Reformed church.

After all, as soon as it comes to the execution of this service, in the worship meeting of the congregation, the elders are present—not just as churchgoers, but indeed “in function”, namely in their function as overseers of the doctrine.

Every elder knows that he is called on a regular basis to precede the minister to the pulpit and to reach out and shake his hand both before and after the sermon. There may be some nuance in the interpretation of this old and well-known custom—in any case it is certain that this handshake speaks to the whole congregation of the solidarity and the common responsibility of church council and minister for this central issue in the life of the community.

Now such a handshake is given fairly quickly, but this symbol is characteristic of a far-reaching matter: the involvement of the elders in the matter of the proclamation of the Word.

That is why in a healthy ecclesiastical life, preaching will always be embedded in the elders’ empathy, thinking along and speaking about it both in and outside of the meetings of the consistory.

An elder will continuously ask himself what are the needs of the church, and what would constitute the greatest efficiency of the proclamation from this point of view.

He will reflect on this and talk about it, e.g., on the home visitations. He will also discuss this with the minister himself, at his home and/or at the meeting of the consistory.

It would be a matter of a serious erosion of the joint consultation of the office-bearers at the consistory meeting, if the subject of the preaching could not be discussed there in an informal and fraternal manner.

Such a disruption in the interactions between the offices can of course easily come about, e.g., by the arrogance of a minister (“after all, the man has studied!”) or on the part of an elder who thinks he knows better; by the inability to address each other as men, or by domineering tendencies.

When a discussion becomes impossible in the interaction between elders and the consistory, then there is silence at a central moment in the joint responsibility. Yet in such cases there is a substantial decline in the proper work of cooperation in the consistory, which can lead to great damage to Christ’s church.

There should be such an atmosphere between the office-bearers — and this is primarily the responsibility of the chairman of the consistory — that there is the possibility of an honest, fraternal conversation about the preaching.

4. What does all of this mean for the minister?

In my opinion, it entails an enrichment of his life when he is working in the midst of brother-office-bearers, who are essentially responsible for his life task.

Nothing is more depressing than the feeling that a person is actually all alone in the realization of the official responsibility that was assumed at the time of ordination.

It is better to face questions or criticism than to hear nothing. Moreover, the conversation with the fellow church councillors is always stimulating for the ever-continuing work of preaching—even if it is spoken in a corrective sense.

Although the minister may be deemed to be well-oriented in terms of text and context, as a rule the elder knows more of what we could call: the context of the given situation, i.e., the actual circumstances and conditions in which the sermon is brought. Both texts and contexts are of great importance if there is to be real contact and a good reception for the Word, so far as it falls within our human responsibility.

In our time we like to talk about the “dialogue” and the “dialogic character” of the sermon, and thus we turn against the “monologue”, the one-way-traffic that would take place in the more traditional church services: one man speaks and everyone else just has to listen. The dialogue is valued at a higher level and one wants to achieve that dialogue, among other things, by organizing “sermon work groups” before, and a group discussion after, the church service.

Right now we do not need to explore the (questionable) background of these theories; we only note in this connection that the propagandists of this ideal apparently no longer know what an elder may and can mean for a pastor.

It is precisely the Reformed churches that will not be allowed to become anything but “ministerial churches”, where a counteraction of “laymen” needs to be organized against the perceived “one-man operation”.

The Reformed churches will never be able to become like this as long as there are elders who understand their responsibility in the matter of preaching and are mindful of the maximum return of this primary means of grace, which the Holy Spirit wants to use among God’s people in the appropriation of salvation, which is in Christ (Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 25).

5. What does this task entail for the elder?

It is not be necessary to say much about the necessity that an elder should also speak of this important matter with wisdom and tact and in a fraternal tone.

Why should we start to dig deeper into things that are obvious?

What is more important to us is this: anyone who feels obliged to speak, must know what he is actually speaking about.

In this case it implies that an elder needs to realize the parameters of the actual task of the minister, and what it is that serves as the only standard by which his work may and must be measured.

The preaching of the gospel involves the proclamation of the promises and the commandments of the God of the covenant; it is about the administration of the Word, which is the Word of life and of the reconciliation in Christ.

This is the life task of the minister; he will constantly be busy with this matter.

Week in and week out, this is a significant task that no man can ever master, or something that he will be able to perform “as if it were simply routine”. It requires his full commitment, a total mobilization of everything that God has given as a means of possibilities.

A minister of the Word will constantly be active to understand the Scriptures in view of the actual church that has been entrusted to his care. Every minister needs peace and space for this — mental space and time — and funds as well.

A wise elder will first of all pay attention to these things. Is the minister in danger of becoming a manager who takes care of multiple emergencies every day, driving in his speedy car to about twenty different appointments? Is he able to focus on the main task? Does he have sufficient time, does he take sufficient time for the preparation of the worship services, and does his remuneration allow for funds such that he can obtain good books and materials?

Does it appear from his entire “walk” of life (which minister is still “walking” these days?) that he takes great care befitting his high calling? And how can the consistory provide relief when he is threatened by being overly burdened?

In addition, before he speaks, a reformed elder will reflect about the question as to how God’s Word should be brought in the present times. We know that our God has not given a “‘timeless” or “supra-temporal” word to his people on earth.

So the congregation will and may and needs to hear tangible preaching every week, and the consistory will certainly have to see to it that this is happening.

Nothing is more deplorable than the so-called “objective” preaching: everything is true all right, but no truth reaches the heart; everything is true, yet man is no longer confronted with the fear of the Lord, or the church is never given any comfort. This “truth” is not the truth of God’s Word; it is the truth of the harsh and cold “orthodoxy”. The church can perish through liberalism, but also through this kind of orthodoxy. This orthodoxy has as much in common with true doctrine as a weather report with a love letter.

We may and must expect engaging, tangible preaching, in which the actuality of God’s Word resounds and by which it becomes clear to the congregation what the Spirit says to the church. But what then is “concrete preaching”?

An elder will have to learn how to think about this with his minister. For concrete preaching is not the same as crude, jovial preaching, in which the minister will demonstrate that he is not uninformed about the talk of the street.

It is also not a kind of commentary on the news that the television has just broadcast and shown in the living rooms. Nor is it sprinkling some random remarks of an edifying nature in which moralizing interjections are distributed in various directions.

As a rule, the congregation will discover such tactics very quickly, and rightly so!

It may be established among us that in the most tangible remarks, which are directed from the pulpit to the congregation, the text itself will have to resonate, if we speak with authority, that is to say, a word of faith needs to be spoken.

I can also phrase it differently: from the whole sermon, starting from the exegesis to the most practical actualization, it must be made clear to the congregation that Christ himself is present in the church in his Word and by his Spirit. He, the living Christ, is actually present; he is among us, flawed people; he rules over this world, with all its pride, despair, noise and misery; he calls us into his service and hides us in his love; he pleads the cause of our life with the Father. That is the actuality — the actuality of God’s covenant with us. Therefore the message of our situation and all admonitions that are addressed to the congregation also belong to his exhortations “in Christ” — as the apostle Paul’s letters say at numerous occasions.

And if that is not clear, then the preacher’s words can be ever so “concrete” and tangible, yet they still lack the only authority conceivable in the church.

After all, it is not the preacher’s task to model the congregation with great willpower to his own often narrow-minded, preferred ideas, or to burden the congregation with his personal problems.

His duty is to show in his words the Lordly and majestic presence of Christ to the people of Christ.

It is a wonderful thing when a healthy conversation develops about this and when the elders want to think about this and talk about it, when they want to stimulate and encourage this, when they ask questions about it or make comments.

Then the elders will gradually get a better grasp of the high standards of preaching and the heavy responsibility of preparing and actually delivering the sermons, and there will be a tight working community in the consistory, which will only serve as a blessing for the congregation.

An elder does not need to know all the details of the discussion about “redemptive-historical” or “exemplaric” preaching. At the same time however, it is true that it would be a good thing if these words were more than just terms or slogans to him.

No doubt an elder will also want to receive some information about this matter from his minister and/or to look it up in a book.

However, each office-bearer has his own tasks and possibilities, also in a consistory or council.

When those possibilities become isolated from each other, the dissolution of the body of the church has begun. Bring them together and the body stays healthy and the heartbeat of the church—the preaching—will make an impact on all its members.

It is precisely in the shared experiences as office-bearers that they may expect an ever-growing amazement about the miracle of the church.