What is a "pastor," according to the scriptures?  Actually, let's look up the word in an English dictionary first.  I'll just use Google. There it is.  A minister in charge of a Christian church or congregation.  I guess now I need to do an article or video on, "What is a 'minister' according to the scriptures," right?  Well, the short story on that one is that it is just the word διακονος in the Greek, which just means "servant," but that's yet another topic of yet another traditional religious word.  Back to pastor.  I'll click on Wikipedia while I'm at it here.  There it says, "A pastor is an ordained leader of a Christian congregation."  And there's a picture of one of them, wearing robes, with traditional church paraphernalia in the background.

The word is actually a Latin word which, when translated, just means "shepherd" in English.  Google Translate works for Latin actually.  Or, here it is in Lewis & Short's Latin dictionary.  A herdsman, especially a shepherd.  If you go down here to [quote]"ecclesiastical Latin"[unquote], which would be in the later era of the Roman Catholic church, definition II.2 has, "The minister or superintendent of a church or congregation."  But that is, of course, begging the question we are now asking, since this is reciting the religious use of the word.  The Latin language predated Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church by many hundreds of years, so the religious meaning was obviously a later development in Latin.

That brings us to the one and only occurrence of the English word in English translations, which is in Eph 4:11.  The actual Greek word is ποιμην, so let's look that up in the classical Greek dictionary.  There you go.  Shepherd.  A herdsman, whether of sheep or oxen, and that can be contrasted to the lord or owner of the sheep or oxen.  Then, in the definition II.2 you see the word "pastor" in the definition, but of course that is again begging the question that we are asking, since the secular dictionary is just documenting the current religious understanding of the word in the Bible.  Then, you can scroll up and down and see the variations having to do with shepherds and flocks.  For example, here's ποιμενισσα, where the -ισσα is the feminizing suffix, like with English "-ess," to make shepherdess, and then up here we have the verb form, ποιμαινω, which is to shepherd a flock, and some obvious figurative uses.

Now, the Greek word ποιμην, shepherd, occurs many times in the Bible, both literally to refer to herdsmen of animals, or figuratively to shepherding people.  It just is only translated "pastor" once in the entire Bible, in Eph 4:11, beginning with the Protestants' Geneva Bible of 1560 and then the Church of England's King James Bible of 1611. Before that, Wycliffe, Tyndale, and others translated it as "shepherd" in Eph. 4:11.

In James Strong's KJV concordance and numbering system, G4165 is the verb, ποιμαινω, used 11 times in the New Testament, G4166 is the noun, ποιμην, used 18 times, then G4167, ποιμνη, referring to the flock, used 5 times, and then G4168, ποιμενιον, used 5 times, where the -ιον is just a diminutive suffix, where we would use the English diminutive suffix, like "-let," to make "flocklet."  So, ποιμην is used 18 times, and the other variations another 21 times, but translated "pastor" only once in English translations.

The question is, do we even have a [quote]"pastor"[unquote] role defined in the New Testament?  Well, no and yes.  I just quoted the one verse where you find the one instance of the English word, and that verse does not define what it is.  But we have other scriptures that refer to mature believers who have oversight and shepherding responsibilities, such as 1 Peter 5:1-2, Acts 20:28, and Titus 1:5-7, using three somewhat interchangeable words, of which shepherd is one of them.  Another word for them is overseers, using the word επισκοπη, where επι- is the Greek preposition or prefix for "upon," and σκοπη means "lοοκ," so that is very straightforward, although there we have the religious word "bishop" substituted for that common word in the more archaic translations. Then, there is πρεσβυτης, an elder, literally by age or figuratively by seniority or class status.  These three terms are intertwined in the New Testament, and applied to the one and the same leadership role, such that Christian leaders should be elders, at least spiritually in terms of maturity, who have oversight and shepherd the flock of Christian believers.

Even in Eph. 4:11, if you take a close look at the grammar, the word shepherd is connected to the word teacher, unlike the other items.  So, now you don't have, as some are fond of saying, a [quote]"five-fold ministry"[unquote], anymore, because the list is reduced to four categories, and we can conclude that the shepherd is also a teacher, which is one of the things all modern-day pastors routinely do anyway. So, using all four words, now the teaching shepherd is an elder who has oversight over the people under him.  Pretty straightforward.

Notice in Eph 4:11 the lack of any language using the words "office," "something-fold," or even, [quote]"some to be"[unquote].  The word "some" would be τινες and the verb "to be" would be ειναι.  "τινες ειναι."  It's not in there!  And there is no [quote]"office"[unquote] mentioned here, or anywhere else, for that matter, nor does there need to be, as leadership roles are just common sense that even applies in the natural world of employment, government, and other man-made institutions, that you have leaders who lead those under them.

Of course, as Christians we are free to do anything and make any labels we want, so I'm not saying that all of the church "pastors" have to quit, or stop using the title that they are fond of.  We just need to recognize that it's a traditional religious label and that the traditional institutional role of today, which is patterned after Roman Catholicism, which had its origins in Rome in the fourth century, is not so clearly defined in scripture.  There are no "pastors" in the Bible, as "pastor" is defined today, although, again, there are leaders who are expected to be mature believers who have oversight and shepherd and instruct those under them.

I wrote an article some time ago and am also now doing another accompanying video documenting all these lists of things in the scriptures, none of which are meant to be itemized lists or prescriptions, but only examples to illustrate the general point being made in context.  I also wrote an article documenting all the religious words that shouldn't be religious, as well, so refer to those for more information.