2. Our best interpreters and
commentators do render and expound the word generally to this effect:
e.g. He that is over[46]--one set over[47]--he that stands in the head
or front[48]--as a captain or commander in the army, to which this
phrase seems to allude--_he that ruleth_. 3. This word, wherever it is
used in a genuine proper sense, in all the New Testament, notes rule, or
government. It is used metaphorically for taking care (as one set over
any business) of good works, only in two places, Tit. iii. 8, and iii.
14. Properly for government which superiors have over inferiors; and
that either domestical, in private families, so it is used in 1 Tim.
iii. 4, 5, 12, or ecclesiastical, in the church, which is the public
family of God; in this sense it is used, 1 Thes. v. 12, 1 Tim. v. 17,
and here, Rom. xii. 8, and these are all the places where this word is
found used in all the New Testament.

3. _He that ruleth_ here, hath an ordinary, not an extraordinary office
of rule in the church. For he is ranked and reckoned up in the list of
Christ's ordinary standing officers, that are constantly to continue in
the church, viz. pastors, teachers, deacons. Commonly this place is
interpreted to speak of the ordinary church officers, and none other;
consequently he that ruleth is such a one.

4. _He that ruleth_ here, is an officer distinct from all other ordinary
officers in the Church of Christ. For in this place we have a full
enumeration of all Christ's ordinary officers, and he that ruleth is a
distinct officer among them all. 1. Distinct in name, he only is called
_he that ruleth_, the rest have every one of them their several distinct
name, ver. 7, 8. 2. Distinct in his work here appropriated to him; the
doctor teacheth; the pastor exhorteth; the deacon giveth; this elder
_ruleth_, as the very name signifieth, ver. 8. Compare 1 Tim. v. 17, 1
Cor. xii. 28. As the elder ruleth, so he is distinct from the deacon
that hath no rule in the church; and as he only rules, so he is distinct
from both pastor and teacher, that both teach, exhort, and rule; they
both have power of order and jurisdiction, the ruling elder hath only
power of jurisdiction. 3. Finally, he is distinct among and from them
all in the particular direction here given these officers about the
right discharge of their functions. The teacher must be exercised _in
teaching_; the pastor _in exhortation_; the deacon must _give with
singleness_; and the elder, he m