Page 1 of 8 BIBLICAL PRESBYTERIAN PRESBYTERIES Rev. Professor-Emeritus Dr. Nigel Lee Foundation Presbyterian government is ecclesiastical rule by mature Presbyteries of Presbyters or Elders -- in and from Presbyteries responsible for associated Sessions confederately constitutive of Synods or General Assemblies.   As to its inception, Presbyterian government is not just apostolic but also primordial in its antiquity.   For unlike the Campbellite "Disciples" or that congregationalistic sect named "The Church of Christ   (alleged to have been established only in 33 A.D.) -- and unlike the tyrannical Papal Church (launched only during the sixth century A.D.) -- the very representative Presbyterian Church of the Triune God was established, unto all eternity, already in 4004 B.C. There is very great merit in seeing the Eternal Trinity -- the One God with His many Members -- as being the first and the last Presbytery.   He Himself is also the Foundation of all presbyterial government -- and of His one Church with its many Presbyteries, all baptized into His Triune Name.¹    The Triune God is a Presbytery.²      Also His Church should reflect this.³ Definition. A ‘Presbytery   (or Presbuteerion) is a group of Ruling Elders, including some Preaching Elders, which governs the Church of the Triune God.⁴   Such  may be either local, e.g., the Session; regional, e.g. the Classis, usually named ‘Presbytery   in English; provincial, e.g., the State Assembly; or the National, e.g., the Great Synod. Thus the head in each of ten households chooses from those heads one mature male, to be the Elder-over-ten in that local tithing or ward.   Every five Elders-over-ten then in turn choose one Elder-over-fifty.   Next, each two Elders-over-fifty choose one Elder-over-hundred.   Thereafter, each ten Elders-over-hundred choose their one Elder-over-thousand. Finally, all of the Elders-over-thousand are convened to constitute the largest national Ecclesiastical Parliament of the people of God -- "the General Assembly of the Church of the firstborn.⁵ Dimensions Clearly, then, a Presbytery     just like the Trinity     could consist of as few as three Members.⁶     Yet it should represent perhaps a minimum of five Sessions of Christ’s Church.   Compare Exodus 18:25  s "Rulers-of-fifty" in the Older Testament -- with the five Preaching Elders in the Newer Testament which Acts 13:1 mentions within the Presbytery of Antioch.   Optimally, however, some seven Sessions are repre-