Acts 14:23

“Electing unto them elders in every church.” Here is another case where the E. V. inserts “ordaining” in order to sustain the authority of the Episcopal Church, of which the translators were members, there being no such a revelation in the Greek. The word translated “ordain” is cheirotoneoo, from cheir, “the hand,” and toneoo, “reach forth”; hence it simply means that they elected the elders by a vote in reaching up the hand. Doubtless they did gather around them, lay hands on them, and pray for them, thus commending them to God to use them in their offices as conservators of the general interest of the church, but there is no mention of it. The ecclesiastical ordination, of which so much is made in the popular churches, is utterly unknown in the New Testament. When the Holy Ghost had called out the saints for some special work, they fasted and prayed for them with the imposition of hands, thus consecrating them to their work, and that is all you can find in the New Testament having the similitude of ordination, which has been so woefully corrupted and perverted by the fallen ecclesiasticisms.