Berean Fact Sheet Number 018

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“The Pastor” in the New Testament
Copyright © 2004, 2006 by Larry G. Overton

Let’s start this Fact Sheet off with a little quiz. This quiz consists of just one question: How many times does the word “Pastor” appear in the New Testament in English?

No fair peeking! This is not an open -book test. Out of all of the words in the English New Testament, how many times does the word “Pastor” appear?

a. 1

b. 12

c. 27

d. 108

The correct answer to this question is “a.” This may sound incredible to you, but it’s the truth. Only once does the term “pastor” appear in our English versions of the NT. Furthermore, there are a number of translations in English that do not use the term “pastor” at all. So, then, this quiz is something of a trick question, and the answer is either 0 or 1, depending upon the English version you read. If these facts come as a surprise to you, then I encourage you to read on.

A Translation History

The term “pastor” is found only in plural form (“pastors”) in the English NT, and just once, in Ephesians 4:11. Here is the verse as it appeared in the 1611 King James Version.

And he gaue ſome, Apoſtles: and ſome, Prophets: and ſome, Euangeliſts: and ſome, Paſtors, and teachers:

And, as I just said, there are quite a few translations in English that do not use the term “pastors” at all. In preparing to write this Fact Sheet, I consulted 61 English versions of the NT, from John Wycliffe’s (1380) to the World English Bible (2003). That’s more than six centuries of Bible scholarship brought to bear on translating this one verse into English. Here’s how the history of this translation shapes up.

One version reads “preachers.” The majority (38 out of 61) render the underlying Greek noun as “pastors.” Two of these 38 versions have the word “pastors” plus something else in the text: “pastors (shepherds of His flock)”; and “pastor -teacher.”

There are 22 of these that do not have the rendering “pastors.” Five of these versions render the noun in Ephesians 4:11 as though it were a verb: “to shepherd”; “to give care”; “to guide”; “the work of caring for”; and “caring for God’s people as a shepherd does his sheep.” The remaining seventeen versions mentioned read “shepherds.”

A Substitution, Not A Translation

A moment ago, I referred to “the underlying Greek noun” that is translated “pastors” or “shepherds.” The Greek word in Ephesians 4:11 is poimenas [ποιμένας], which is the accusative plural of the noun poimēn [ποιμήν]. And quite simply, this noun means “shepherd.” That means that the translators of the 38 versions that rendered poimenas as “pastors” intentionally chose not to translate this word, but to substitute a Latin word into the text instead.

I admit, that is a bold accusation. The facts, however, are irrefutable. Any translator worth his salt—indeed, any first year Greek student—knows that the Greek term poimenas in this verse means “shepherds.” That is the way it should be translated. This noun occurs 17 other times in the NT, and the translators of every English version of the NT unanimously translated this noun as “shepherd” in each of those 17 instances.

But when it came to Ephesians 4:11, the majority of translators made an exception. Here the translators of those 38 versions chose to substitute rather than translate by inserting the term “pastors” into the text. “Pastors” is actually a transliteration of the Latin pastores, which means “shepherds.”

The fact that they switched from translating the Greek into English in order to substitute a Latin word is proof that this rendering is intentional. It’s not as though the translators of the many English versions were unfamiliar with this term. They had correctly translated poimēn as “shepherd” every other time it occurred in the NT.

The translators, then, chose not to translate from Greek into English. Instead, they borrowed a term from the Latin language, a term that was already widely used to describe the office of a clergyman. By this rendering, then, the translators make the Bible to appear as though it supports the concept of a clergyman with the title of “Pastor.”

The majority of English versions—from the days of the King James Version forward—have followed this practice of substitution. However, this practice of substitution rather than translation was not the norm prior to the KJV. While the Geneva Bible (1560) and the Roman Catholic Rheims NT (1582) both had “paſtours,” at least six pre-King James versions translated the word poimenas into English, i.e., “shepherds.” These six versions were: John Wycliffe’s (c. 1380); William Tyndale’s (1525, 1534); Matthew’s Bible (1537); Coverdale’s Great Bible (1540); Whitchurche’s The Byble in Englishe (1549); and the Bishop’s Bible (1595 edition).

Unfortunately, the translators of the King James Version followed the practice of substitution. The very guidelines that they were to follow insured that they would. One rule by which the KJV translators were guided in their work stated that the “old eccleſiaſtical words” were to be “kept.” In other words, ecclesiastical, that is, “church” terminology was to be used in translation.

The translators therefore rejected the scholarly precedent set for them by the majority of the 16 th century translations of the NT in favor of the ecclesiastical term “pastors.” Their decision set the precedent for the majority of English translations of Ephesians 4:11 for the next 393 years. More than that, their decision helped to perpetuate a role in church leadership that is just not Biblical.