Character Qualities For Elders, part 1

Transcript

GR1762
4/6/20174
Character Qualities of Elders Part I
I Timothy 3:1-2
Gil Rugh

I Timothy chapter 3. What a privilege it is for us to come to the Word of God and have His Spirit open its truths to us on the rich treasures of God’s truth, what a blessing. What he is instructing us on in this letter written to Timothy, directed to the church at Ephesus but preserved by the Spirit for our benefit is the conduct and behavior of God’s people as He has brought us together in the church and the church comprised of all believers from Pentecost down to today but that manifestation of God’s church in the world today being demonstrated in individual local churches like ours and multitudes of thousands of local congregations of believers around the world.

We come into chapter 3 he is giving instructions on those who would have leadership and oversight responsibilities for His people. Some of these things are foundational and crucial for the proper functioning of the church and to enable the church to fulfil the purposes God has for it.

He begins in chapter 3 by talking about elders or overseers or pastors and we took the time in our previous study to look and note these three words, these three titles are used interchangeably where he talks about the overseer in verse 1 and 2 and what the qualifications of an overseer – a literal translation, one who oversees God’s people. At other time they will be referred to as elders. We learn something of the dignity of the position, perhaps. They are also pastors which will be similar to overseer and then the pastor is responsible for the care of the flock so these words cannot denote three different individuals or groups of individuals but rather different ways of identifying the same position.

God’s intention is that these are the individuals who would have oversight of God’s people. They are not the dictators of the church. The church does not belong to them. The church belongs to God as we have noted on a number of times in chapter 3, verse 15: “It is the church of the living God.” It is His household, His family. These are simply individuals that God has appointed to serve in this capacity.

Come back to the book of Acts if you would in chapter 14. Just note, it was Paul’s practice from the beginning when he established churches in different areas he would appoint men to serve as the overseers, the elders, the pastors of that group of people and the example of that is in Acts chapter 14. Here is Paul’s first missionary journey where he travels out into the Gentile parts of the world to carry the message of Christ. Remember him being designated as the apostle to the Gentiles, carrying the Gospel beyond the borders of Judaism to the Gentile world. On that first missionary journey he traveled to various cities and people were saved so local churches are established and as we noted he traveled through the region here in Galatia and established churches and then he retraced his steps and we are told in verse 23: “When they had appointed elders for them in every church having prayed with fasting they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed.” Now these are relatively young churches, young believers so in a sense we would say the maturity here is relative to the church. How long the church has been in existence, how much opportunity they have had time to grow but here even at this early stage it is important that there be oversight for God’s people. Then when we come into Acts chapter 19, you want to turn over there. We are on the third missionary journey so Acts 14 we noted that had happened on the first then we had his second missionary travel. Now we are on the third missionary journey and we mention this because Acts chapter 19 records the establishing of the church at Ephesus and Timothy is at Ephesus when Paul writes the first letter to Timothy which we are studying together. Now what I want you to note – Paul establishes the church in chapter 19 and then there is conflict. The Word of God stirs up opposition and Paul moves on and he travels over into Greece in chapter 20 still on that third missionary journey. The third missionary journey began back in chapter 18. You pick up with verse 23 and that begins the third missionary journey.

In Acts chapter 20 as Paul returns out of Greece and is going back, he will be going to Jerusalem, he stops at Miletus, not too far outside of Ephesus. We looked at this passage in verse 17 of Acts 20: “From Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church.” Now he spent three years at Ephesus before he left and went into Greece and then when he left there were elders established in that church. It’s still a relatively young church, three, four years in existence but Paul had appointed elders there and they were identified and recognized so that he could send and have the elders come and meet with him in Miletus and he talked to them about their responsibility and we noted in this context they were called elders in verse 17. Down in verse 28 they are told the Holy Spirit has made you overseers and they were to shepherd which we have as our word pastor, a shepherd, a pastor, the church of God which belongs to Him. He purchased it with His own blood. But you see, elders were part of God’s plan from the beginning.

I fear that sometimes for the leadership and oversight in the church we have lost our way and it has disastrous consequences. We’ve developed a thinking, well everybody should have a say. Everybody should have input and everybody makes the decision. We know the truth. We are all believers. We are equal in our spiritual standing before God as His children but there are different responsibilities assigned for the good of God’s people. It doesn’t mean the elders do all the work, everything to be done. I mean the body functions. The analogy is of the body and all the parts are what make it. The elders simply have the responsibility for overseeing the flock, for guarding the purity of the doctrine, for opposing any false teaching. They have responsibility in those areas as we will see.

So you come back to I Timothy chapter 3. From the time Paul met with the elders from Ephesus in Acts chapter 20 about maybe six years have gone by. I note that because there are things that need to be clarified. He had appointed elders in the church and he wants to now give specific instructions so that they understand more clearly something of what is required of a man who would serve as an elder and then we will talk about as a deacon as well. We saw in Acts 20 the Holy Spirit has appointed you as overseers but we recognize those that the Holy Spirit has appointed. Some of these, we call them qualifications in chapter 3, are character descriptions if you will. So you get the idea of the kind of a man who should be in the position of elder and then we will do deacon.


The chapter opened in verse 1, chapter 3 of I Timothy: “It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer it is a fine work he desires to do.” There ought to be a desire on the part of an individual to serve. It is a work. It is going to take time and energy and effort. Now just a desire is not enough. He is going to go on and say then in verse 2, an overseer must be these things and the qualifications here aren’t exceptional in the sense well, I don’t want to be an elder. They wouldn’t apply to me. As we will see as we move through these most of these are simply marking off what a man of God is to be and so he should manifest these kinds of qualities. Though even a man who does not desire to be an elder, does not believe that God has called him to that position would still desire as for example, to be free from the love of money which is one of the qualifications. We simply would be selecting out men who do meet these qualifications.

So he starts out: “An overseer then must be above reproach.” That doesn’t say he must be perfect. And he is not telling Timothy he has to appoint elders. It’s a reminder to the church at Ephesus because certain men may have infiltrated among the elders even. Remember he told the elders when he met with them in Acts chapter 20: “From among your own selves men will arise teaching perverse things and seeking to draw away the disciples after them.” Be on guard. Now he’s told Timothy, sends him back, the church has gotten lax in this. You instruct certain men. You command them not to teach other doctrines we will see as we move along. Now this is something the elders are to be doing and there may be a sifting out here.

One of the things we went through in a conversation this morning as a church to reconsider our structure in the early years as we searched through the Scriptures and we studied Timothy not with a goal to changing the way we were arranged but as we studied we said, “well the Bible says elders ought to be leading.” Why do we have an official board? Maybe we ought to call the leaders of our church elders because you know what happens when we give them a different title? We lose the connection to what the Scripture says is required of a man who serves in this position. Well, they have been here a long time. I think they are good people. They should serve on the official board or whatever they call it.

We call it elders or overseers or pastors. Now we can come to the Scriptures and say here are the requirements for a man who would serve in this position. It’s not just a matter of wanting to debate what’s the difference, what the title is? Well the only difference that I can see that is important is when you move away from calling them what the Scripture calls them you tend to move away from the qualifications as well. Well our governing board, you know, we don’t consider them elders so you know they don’t have to meet the qualifications that are here. Well they shouldn’t be in the position of governing, overseeing, pastoring God’s people then. I mean we just can’t take the church of the living God and decide we are going to put different kind of men in charge. So one of the things that helped us is just we’ll start calling our official board elders. If we are elders I guess we ought to find and make sure we know what the qualifications are, so the process there. The church has gotten away from the Biblical structure that it makes it difficult to continue and function as God would. So I think it’s important that we be Biblical at the beginning because the cracks and the weaknesses of not doing it Biblically often don’t become clear until you get in trouble.

I was talking with a pastor a while back. He came because the church he was planting he wanted to have elder government and he wanted to talk about that. I said the danger is any kind of government works okay when everything is going well, we get by. I mean there is no trouble, no problem but like at the church at Ephesus, now you’ve got false teachers who have infiltrated. How are we going to deal with this, call a congregational vote? There ought to be godly men who have been recognized as appointed by the Spirit of God to lead in dealing with those. The elders were to step up in defense of the flock so Timothy has to come back and remind them, be sure the elders are meeting the standard.

An elder must be above reproach, not perfect but that above reproach that’s a general overarching qualification and what it means will be elaborated in the subsequent specifics. It means there is nothing in his life that you get a handle on, that he could be accused of, that would be dishonoring, discrediting, above reproach. No accusations can be justly brought against him. Obviously, true believers like Paul are always being accused by an unbelieving world but there ought to be no substance in those things and we ought to recognize it. So we are looking for men who have good, upstanding character not only among believers but in the world generally. I mean they attack my beliefs and so on but my business dealings ought to be honorable. My treatment of people ought to be fair, those kinds of things. So, an overseer must be above reproach.

The first qualification is the most discussed and the most controversial, must be the husband of one wife. What does that mean, the husband of one wife? There are a variety of views and we are going to take a little bit of time on this qualification because it is the most controversial and it will come up again so we will deal with it now then we will just mention it when it comes up for a deacon down in verse 12. Deacons must be the husband of only one wife and then it will come up in a little different kind of reference over in I Timothy chapter 5. You reverse the statement. A widow who is going to be enrolled in the church, verse 9 of chapter 5 of I Timothy: “A widow must be put on the list only if she is not less than sixty years old, having been the wife of one man,” same expression. It’s literally a one man woman or here it’s a one man woman and the elder it’s a one woman man. So the meaning will be the same. So look a little bit at the possibilities on interpreting this and I am just going to go through what some of the views are and what the problems are and why I think one is the best which of course it is.

The first one is the elder must be married. Some would say the literal expression, keep that in mind, is a one woman man, three words. The word “one” is first, it gets the emphasis here, a one woman man. We have it translated in our English Bible here, “The husband of one wife.” Well that could be a translation or the meaning of what is said. And some would say since it says an overseer must be the husband of one wife he must be married. He won’t have a wife if he is not married. I don’t think that is the point here. The point is not on having a wife. The emphasis is on the one so he wants to stress something here. I don’t think it’s married. He could have said, must be married so I don’t think that’s the stress here. I think Paul would be considered an elder. He’s an apostle and so in that sense had authority over the elders but he seems to join himself with the elders in the context of the Pastoral Epistles.

Turn over to chapter 4 and I am of the view that Paul was not married in light of some other Scripture that we are not going to take time for. In verse 14 of I Timothy 4: “Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you,” writing to Timothy, “which was bestowed on you through prophetic utterance with the laying on of hands by the presbytery, the elders.” Remember that word presbyteros means elders, translated elders. I have it translated the presbytery who the group of elders laid their hands on Timothy setting him aside for the ministry God had called him to. The elders together had done that.

Now turn over to II Timothy chapter 1, verse 6: “For the reason I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.” Well in I Timothy 4, verse 14 it was the spiritual gift that you have in connection with the laying on of the hands of the elders. In his second letter he talks about the spiritual gift connected with my laying on of hands. I think the indication is Paul was part of that group of the elders who represented the church in recognizing Timothy and the use of the Spirit to convey a spiritual gift to him. If Paul was not married he was functioning among the elders. The unmarried state, another reason why I don’t think it says he has to be married is commended by Paul. He uses himself as an example. It’s strange that as an apostle he ends up being an elder of the elders. He is over the elders in authority if you will as the Word of God is being given in the churches that are being established and he used himself as an example in I Corinthians chapter 7 that “he wishes that all were like him, unmarried but each has his own gift from God.”

Then he goes on telling the advantage of being single. You are not taken up with the cares of married life. Not that that’s wrong but God has gifted some to be free from that but they are not qualified to be spiritual leaders in the church when really the gift of celibacy given to them may free them for taking responsibilities that others may not have. So I don’t think the emphasis here and it’s not one of the more popular views although there are some that hold it. Not saying that the elder has to be married.

Second view: an elder cannot practice polygamy. I can’t figure out why anybody would want to but it has been practiced. I mean I would like to have ten Marilyn’s, don’t get me wrong but we don’t want to have multiple wives. This is forbidden for all believers. It’s not like we are just singling out elders. They shouldn’t be practicing polygamy. Each is to have their own wife, their own husband in I Corinthians chapter 7, verse 2. And at this time polygamy was forbidden even in the Roman Empire so it was not a common practice.

Come over to I Timothy chapter 5, verse 9: “A widow must be put on the list if she is not less than sixty years old having been a one man woman.” Well if it means the man can’t have multiple wives, this would mean a woman couldn’t have multiple husbands and there is no evidence that that was being practiced at the time either so that view is not very practical.

A third view: An elder cannot be a remarried widower. There have been some who have held this. I believe S. Lewis Johnson who spoke here on a couple of occasions and who is now with the Lord held this view and when his wife died and he remarried, he resigned his eldership if I remember correctly. So would take it you wouldn’t be a one woman man if you have had more than one wife especially if this means married only once. I don’t see how that view makes sense. Romans chapter 7 says that the death ends the marriage relationship and all the vows associated with it. There are no obligations that carry over. Now you are free and free to remarry so why this would forbid a widower from remarrying and thus serving as an elder I find it hard to follow the logic and reasoning. Also in I Corinthians chapter 7 in verse 8 and 9 and in that whole context of the chapter Paul makes clear when your spouse dies you do have the right to remarry. You are free from all marriage obligations.

In I Timothy chapter 5 verse 14, Paul says, “Therefore I want the younger widows to get married and bear children and keep the house.” Well, he says he encourages the younger widows to get remarried but if this means you are disqualified the language has to mean the same for the woman in verse 9 that would mean she would never be qualified to be enrolled later in life because she had had a second husband. It seems to be a strange thing. So I don’t think it is forbidding. I don’t see any logic to it, Biblical logic when I say that, Biblical reasoning why you couldn’t be a remarried widower.

Probably the view that has had the most recognition is the view that an elder cannot be divorced. Has to have been the husband of one wife, a one woman man; therefore he can’t have been married more than once. You have it translated husband of one wife, only one husband, I don’t think that it is talking about divorce. He could have said, not divorced. You know this ends up being the only life time disqualification or qualification that we would have in the list. Does this mean down to verse 2, respectable, well what about before he was saved? Are these life time qualifications? Then everybody would be ruled out. Was he able to teach the Word of God as an unbeliever, no. Were these life time qualifications? I have been part of churches where that was the view. If you’ve ever been married and divorced you are disqualified but all the other qualifications, of course. You could have been a drunk before you were saved but now you’ve been a believer for a number of years and you’ve demonstrated a godly life, of course you are qualified to serve as an elder. But if you were divorced some time ago you are still disqualified. I think that would be contrary to the Scripture and divorce, remarriage. We don’t want to make light of divorce, the seriousness of it, but the second marriage becomes a valid marriage. I went to a school where they did not recognize second marriages for any reason. Maybe an exception or two but other than that it didn’t matter if you had been in your second marriage for 50 years. You had to separate and end the relationship. They refused to recognize the validity. I don’t think that is consistent with Scripture and nowhere do we find anywhere in the New Testament Paul addressing such a situation. A second marriage is viewed as a marriage in Scripture. You go on and the church at Ephesus and probably the church at Corinth there were people that had been married multiple times. Now have picked up where they are.

I think the reasonable, rational answer, Biblical answer is an elder must demonstrate faithfulness to his wife if he is married. And the normal situation would be they are married. That is the normal pattern. So he is a one woman man. There are not questions about his relationships with other women. It is a moral qualification. He demonstrates faithfulness to his wife. It’s the character of the man that is in view here. The character of his life. He is devoted to his wife, that one woman that he has the relationship with. I think the character becomes the issue which is consistent with Scripture. The moral qualification of a godly life, sexual purity. So I think that is a strong, clear, solid Biblical qualification.

So a one woman man I would take it is a man who would demonstrate faithfulness to his wife. Does that mean if he has ever been immoral sometime in the past he’s disqualified? I wouldn’t see it that way. I don’t think the Scripture requires it. Now in all of these qualifications there must be time to have demonstrated this. Obviously if a man is known for his immorality and he gets saved he’s not going to be appointed as an elder next week. There has to be time for him to have demonstrated the character necessary; so obviously each situation gets dealt with in its own setting.

So “an overseer must be above reproach.” The first qualification is a moral qualification. He has to be characterized as devoted to one wife. We are familiar with the Biblical world had loose living. It’s been characterized of the unbeliever for well how long; so multiple involvements were viewed often as acceptable. They maybe didn’t have many wives at one time but it would be acceptable for a married man to have relationships outside of marriage but it’s not acceptable in the church. It’s not acceptable for the leadership in the church.

Alright, he moves on then. “Husband of one wife.” Next qualification. He must be temperate, temperate. A word that can be used of temperate in the use of wine but its use here he’s going to deal with wine in verse 3, “Not addicted to wine,” it seems to have the general meaning as it often does in other context like our word, “sober.” Well sometimes you could be talking about it. You are talking about someone who had a drinking problem, was a drunk and you say they have been sober now for three years but when you talk about someone else you might say he’s a sober person. You are not particularly talking about he doesn’t drink you are talking about something of his demeanor. He’s a sober person, he has sober judgment. He’s clear headed, level headed, steady, self-controlled. He’s a man who has stability you know. He’s not swayed by things. He’s a man who can be trusted to make clear headed, sound decisions. Again you can see this as something that would be desirable in all believers the way it ought to be, clear headed, sober minded but for a leader of God’s people it is a requirement.

He must be prudent. Some of these qualifications we will see have overlaps to them as you might expect. They are not clear breaks but they have overlaps, prudent following temperate would give that idea, means of a sound mind, rational, purposeful, some of the meanings given to it, intellectually sound, free from illusion, rational in that sense. Again it is clear thinking, balanced, able to manifest proper behavior in various situations. That’s why we want men to serve who have been observed and that’s why when we are recommending someone for a position like elder or deacon we present them to the congregation. As far as the board at this point has evaluated them we don’t find a problem. If there is a problem as the board finds it they don’t come to this stage to be recommended to the congregation. But then some of you may work with them or see them in a different context and you may bring to one of the elders for further consideration. I think you ought to consider, I work with this person and I’ve seen him lose his temper and he has a reputation there for not controlling his temper in situations and well we would want to know that, but demonstrating these qualities, temperate, prudent, self-controlled. Again this is not just for these men. This should be something we desire as God’s people.

Look over in II Timothy 1:7. “For God has not given us a spirit of timidity but of power and love and discipline.” That word discipline is the word we are talking about, translated prudent you have in the margin, sound judgment so that idea. God gives that. So you can see that these are things that become characteristic of that as we are submitting to the Spirit in our lives and allowing Him to mature us. He gives us a spirit of power, love, self-discipline, or self-control, kind of idea.

Turn over to one more, over to chapter 2 of Titus and in verse 11: “The grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all men instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly.” That word sensibly is the same basic word we are talking about. It is translated prudent or self-controlled. Here you have it sensibly, righteously and godly. So you see it is learning from God’s grace, the grace that has brought us salvation that is now working in us as we grow in that salvation. One of the things is that we should be living prudent, sensible, self-controlled, balanced lives. That has to be true of the leader of God’s people.

Come back to Timothy. An overseer then must be above reproach. This means he must be a one woman man. He must be temperate. He must be prudent. He must be respectable. Respectable is a word that can have a broad range of meaning. We saw it used of the women up in chapter 2, verse 9 of I Timothy. “Likewise I want the women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly, discreetly, not with braided hair, gold, pearls,” and so on, that word translated adorn, kosmeo. You connect the word kosmos, the arrangement God has brought to the world so it carries that idea of respectable, honorable, modest, orderly, beautiful. These are the kind of words if you would look up they would give as like you go to a dictionary for this word, translated respectable, honorable, modest, orderly. It was used by philosophers to convey the sense of orderliness, decorum and discipline, well-mannered; an honorable person, respectable. Their life is together. Again we are not talking about perfect people but generally speaking their life is together. They have an orderly life to lead God’s people and direct them and your life is a mess probably not going to be qualified and able to lead them.

Back in I Timothy 3, hospitable. It is a compound word from the Greek word to love and the Greek word strangers, loving strangers, hospitable and in those days you are aware they didn’t have hotels and motels like we do and as traveling believers to minister the Word they were to be welcomed into homes and provided for by other believers. John will write about this in his epistles that someone comes and brings contrary teaching to the truth God has revealed you don’t welcome into your home. You don’t give them a greeting. We are not going to help him on his way, encourage him in his false teaching so believers are to be hospitable. That doesn’t mean we can’t show you know, gracious, hospitality to non-believers but we wouldn’t to false teachers, those promoting error. That doesn’t mean we are not going to be gracious to the unbeliever, of course we want to. We want to show something of God’s grace to them and be thoughtful but the idea here particularly has to do with the ministry we’d have to one another as believers. We are to be those practicing hospitality, Romans chapter 12, verse 13 says. Hebrews chapter 13 we will get to this in verse 2 says: “Don’t neglect to show hospitality to strangers. Some have entertained angels unaware.” So believers ought to be gracious, hospitable people. We do good to all men but especially to those of the household of faith.

One quality here we will turn to, I Peter chapter 4 which is a good reminder. I Peter chapter 4, verse 9: “Be hospitable to one another.” Particularly the focus is you know you do good to all men but especially to those of the household of faith so we are especially going to be showing hospitality to believers who come through and so on but you be hospitable to one another without complaint. Not complaining about doing it, and do it because they won’t think we are good Christians if we don’t but I sure don’t like doing it. So that idea. I think it has variations in it and degrees but generally an elder ought to be open to this. In our day we have other options and there are reasons to take those. You know, so often we have traveling speakers and that we prefer to take care of the accommodations we have now in hotels and motels because there can be issues in staying in a home and so on that they want to avoid and we don’t have the issues today that you had if you stayed in the public accommodations such as they were which were not much so hospitality became part of the ministry.

I think the qualification back in I Timothy 3 is able to teach. I think we are going to leave that one because I want to say a little more about that. We get the idea here these are the qualifications of the character and life of a man who would serve as a leader of God’s people. That doesn’t mean he has to be perfect. We are not looking for something to nitpick on because they are not perfect. But by the same token God has set down standards that need to be met and we want to be careful that we are looking for men who meet these when we appoint elders. It doesn’t mean every man who meets these qualifications should be an elder. A number of men have these qualifications but don’t have the desire from the Spirit to seek such a position but we all want to be godly men and so we ought to be desiring to meet the qualifications that the elders have to. One of the things we did early on, we worked through as we were deciding what it means to be an elder. We worked through each of the qualifications and then we made up a sheet with a list of all the qualifications which we gave it out to each of the men serving on the board. We evaluated ourselves, not each other but ourself. What are areas maybe I need to improve on here that I’m not as strong as I should be? Any failures of course would be disqualifying but there are degrees in this as well since none of us are perfect in every area, areas we can work on. This helps us as a congregation as we look to the elders we have and the responsibility God gives to overseeing.

You know it’s great how the Lord has laid things out. We just come to the Word and find out, what has God said? How are we to function? This is His guide for us, multiple men who meet the qualifications that He has set down or serve together in overseeing God’s people and that is best for the people. That is best for the ministry of the church.

We will pick up with “able to teach” in our next study. Let’s pray together. Thank You Lord for the provision You have made for us as Your people. Lord in so many ways, in so many areas, You have given us Your Spirit. You’ve given us Your Word and Your Spirit as we submit to Him and submit to Your truth then Lord, we have wisdom from You as we obey this truth we experience the benefits and blessings that come. We are serving in Your family. We are serving as Your church brought together in this place. Thank You for the way You have blessed us. Lord You have brought us together each one to be part of this body, to contribute in a variety of ways so that our testimony for You can be strong and clear. And You have appointed men to serve with the responsibility of oversight of this body. We thank You for the gifted godly men who serve in the area of elder and deacon so that the body might function in a way that’s pleasing to You. Thank You for the day we’ve had together, the fellowship of believers which is rich and encouraging, the ministry of Your Spirit with the Word which strengthens us. And Lord we look forward to the week ahead, the opportunities we have to represent You in a variety of places. May our testimony be strong and clear. We pray for the evangelism meetings that will follow shortly Lord that it would be an encouragement and a challenge. Thank You for those who step forward to provide leadership for us in sharing the Gospel and carrying it to the people of this city. We give You praise for it all in Christ’s name, amen.