Take your Bibles, if you will, and open them to 1 Timothy.
All right, let's begin with a word of prayer.
Our gracious Lord and Father of all mankind, we come before you grateful for the day that you've granted to us and the blessings that you offer us each and every day.
Thankful for the energy and the abilities that we have to assemble together, to encourage one another, to provoke one another, to love and good works, to focus on your word and
understanding your will for our lives and for mankind.
And we also pray for those who are unable to be with us because of illness or injury or difficulties.
We pray that you be with them and pray that they will be able to fully recover back to their desired health.
We pray for those who have lost loved ones in recent days.
We pray that you give them comfort and strength through the difficult days ahead.
We also pray for those who uh are traveling, those who are abroad, and those who are serving as missionaries throughout this world.
We pray that they might be faithful to you, that they might have open doors of opportunity, and they might grow strong in all of the areas where they work.
Lord, we pray that you will be with us as we go throughout the remainder of this uh day.
We pray that we might say those things which are right in accordance with your will, that we might be encouraged by your word.
All this we pray and ask in Jesus' amen.
First Peter chapter, or sorry, First Timothy chapter three, uh as Paul is writing about the qualifications of elders, he is writing to a congregation or an individual.
An individual, who is he writing to?
Timothy, okay.
What was Timothy supposed to do with this information?
Okay, two areas and both of them covered uh in the answers.
One is he was supposed to pass it on.
It was Paul instructing a teacher what to teach.
But additionally, what did Paul send Timothy and Titus to do as he was traveling through different regions when he would send them back to a congregation?
All right?
They were to educate, they were to teach, and they were to find and appoint elders within those congregations.
So when you write something to a congregation, the congregation's supposed to learn from it, they're supposed to apply it themselves.
Paul didn't write this to a congregation.
He wrote it to someone who was then charged with the responsibility of implementing it.
He was giving him his marching orders.
This is what you're looking for.
This is who you are to appoint.
This is the type of individual that you are to find to be put in that role of being an elder.
And uh Timothy had a direct responsibility in this regard because it was tasked to him, it was tasked to Titus.
And by the way, where's the other list of qualifications for elders?
In the book of Titus.
Both of these individuals, Paul has sent with a responsibility and a mission to ordain elders in all these congregations, and they're both given a list that is basically an
identical list.
Some things we learn from that.
Does the culture of the church or the culture that the church comes out of dictate the qualifications for the elders?
Do the qualifications change based upon whether it's a small congregation or a large congregation?
No.
Do the qualifications change because the congregation says we don't think that those qualifications are going to work here?
No.
Paul didn't say when you get to Ephesus,
You've a big congregation, you've got a lot of people, you've got some really good strong Jewish influence in Ephesus uh from Christians, so here's your qualifications for Ephesus.
Macedonia is going to kind of be a different situation.
We've got a lot of poor people there, and so over here in Ephesus, I want you to make sure we've got some good business people.
Over there in Macedonia, you're going to have a bunch of slaves.
So you're just going to have to deal with what you...
No.
Paul's instructions for Macedonia are the same as Paul's instructions for Ephesus are the same as Paul's instructions for everywhere else.
When you go over to the book of Corinthians, and you look there in 1 Corinthians chapter 16, ah you find there the instructions that Paul gives to Corinth for how the collection
for the saints is supposed to occur.
And interestingly, he says, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, so also do ye.
What's that mean?
It means Paul's instructions were the same for them.
that they were for the churches of Galatia.
That the instructions, the commands don't change based upon where you are.
That God's pattern and God's expectations and God's qualifications are the same no matter where you are.
So if you go to Africa and you start doing work in Africa,
and you start evangelizing in Africa, and you start teaching people in certain countries in Africa, and you come across the problem of you've got some really morally conscious
men, you've got some individuals in the congregation who you are thinking, you know what, these people have, uh
they have a real opportunity to become elders.
But you just got there.
You've only met them.
You're there for a little bit of time.
You're there for a month.
I think there's a month.
And then you find out that there's one of them that has three wives.
In Africa, the problem isn't marriage, divorce, and remarriage.
It's one man has three wives, or five.
Just same Old Testament problem the Jews had.
So do the qualifications change because you're in Africa?
No.
Do the qualifications change because you're in America and the scriptures say the husband of one wife and yet this person's been married and divorced and remarried and divorced and
remarried?
No.
Well, what about
If in Africa they have a lot of children, but maybe only two or three of them are faithful.
I mean, got seven kids, two or three are faithful, isn't that a good enough ratio?
40%.
How about in America?
Well, they only had one kid and he kind of went off the rails.
You see, the culture doesn't matter.
The qualifications are the qualifications.
It doesn't matter what part of the world you implement it.
And part of the reason why that is so important as we understand and structure our thinking around Scripture is that God created and handed off through the apostles and the
prophets of the first century a structure, a framework that worked.
everywhere.
If one day Elon Musk and all of his great visionary thought, maybe, maybe not, ends up with a whole colony of people on Mars.
Are the qualifications for elders in a church on Mars going to be different than the qualifications for elders in the church in America?
No.
They're going have some different gravity to deal with.
but they aren't going to be anything other than people.
When we come to a mindset, and this is, here's where I wanted us to frame ourselves in this discussion.
When we come to a mindset that says, I know that's what it says, but that doesn't work here.
We have said that God wasn't wise enough.
God didn't know humanity well enough.
God wasn't forward-thinking enough.
God was not able to push through man's particular first century problems enough.
to hand out a standard that would work 2,000 years later or 4,000 years later or on another planet or amongst a people in Africa versus a people in America versus a people in
Israel versus a people in Rome.
All we've said by saying, I know that's what it says, but it won't work here, is that we don't trust God.
That's it.
That's all we've admitted, is that God was insufficient for the task.
But we, in all of our wisdom,
in all of our foresight and all of our knowledge and all of our vast experience have a better idea.
Turn to Proverbs chapter three before we get into the text of First Timothy three.
Proverbs chapter three.
Beginning in verse five, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.
In all of your ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths.
Do not be wise.
in your own eyes, fear the Lord and depart from evil.
It will be health to your flesh and strength to your bones." The Proverbs writer may not have always lived out that admonition, but as given by God through inspiration, it was
accurate.
And God makes it clear, if you think, if you imagine, if you dwell on the possibility for a moment that you know better than me, you're a fool.
And too often we have congregations where the people who are deciding who should be elders are fools.
Exactly.
My thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways, says the Lord.
You know, Paul will point that out to the church at Corinth where he emphasizes that it's not many wise men who obey the gospel.
You say, wait a minute, these are the smartest among us, these are the most intellectual among us, these are the people who have devoted their lives to studying and understanding
philosophy in the world and all the things around us.
And Paul says, yeah, and they won't humble themselves and submit to God.
Why?
Because they're wise in their own eyes.
All right, 1 Timothy chapter three.
Verse five, for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?
Not a novice, as Paul continues with the qualifications.
Not a novice, what is a novice?
A rookie, an unskilled individual.
Okay, the context here is their knowledge of the word of God.
time as a Christian, their experience within the body of Christ.
Paul is making it clear you're not going to take someone who's been a Christian for a year, whose only prior background was as a pagan, believing in Greek mythology, and you're
not going to take that individual after a year and make him an elder.
You're certainly not going to take an 18-year-old or a 16-year-old, Mormons, and make him an elder.
There's no such thing as an 18-year-old elder.
There might be an 18-year-old fool, but not an elder.
Paul says this individual must be not a novice, therefore what must they be?
seasoned, experienced, skilled, masterful in their knowledge of the Word of God.
Mature.
It doesn't mean that this individual can't have things they don't know.
It doesn't mean they can't have books of the Bible that they're not as knowledgeable about those books as maybe some others.
It doesn't mean that they couldn't possibly have some holes in their Old Testament understanding and some really good qualifications in their New Testament understanding.
But it does mean they can't have spent, oh, maybe about 100 or 150 hours with the Word of God in total in their life.
You know, in business, we know a number of things.
As we're educating people, we know somebody who spent 10 hours with something has been introduced to it.
Somebody who spent 100 hours with something has started to understand it.
Someone who spent 1,000 hours with something now has gotten below the surface.
And someone who spent 10,000 hours with something has generally become a master of the subject.
Paul says you can't have the novice be an elder.
Why can a novice not be an elder?
Is Paul just thinking that, you know what, if he starts off as a novice, he'll never develop?
Is it a doubt in the person's ability to develop or is it something else?
Okay, knowledge, why does knowledge matter as an elder?
Alright, direction, he may not know the right direction, he may not know how to make the right choice, what else?
Gay pride.
I heard something else.
Okay, leadership ability, so as you are trained in the Word of God, you are better able to lead people in the Word of God.
If you're a novice, you may be lifted up with pride and think, well, look at me, I've been given the role of an elder.
Stretch your stuff and be a peacock, it's got feathers everywhere.
Hey, look at me, I'm an elder.
Because you're not.
knowledgeable and wise and experienced enough to realize that humility is one of the core tenets of an elder.
he is leading and so if he is not knowledgeable the word
he could lead some people straight to hell by the decisions that he makes, whether he uh has a wrong stance on marriage, divorce, remarriage, whether he, uh a wide variety of
things.
So if he is not knowledgeable, he could very well, it turns into the situation of the blind leading the blind and they both fall into the ditch.
So anybody who's got much experience in groups has observed this before.
You get in a group of people in a work scenario or a school scenario or some social scenario and someone is put in charge.
Why are they put in charge?
Because somebody has to be in charge and they decide, well, everybody likes so and so, they're in charge.
So and so doesn't include what they're doing.
but they're popular, how likely are they to be successful at what they're doing?
Not very, unless the task is menial in its importance.
When you're dealing with an elder and their role, their role is to shepherd the flock, their role is to lead the flock, their role is to tend for and take care of the flock.
You know, there are some things in the medical world where I don't mind somebody who just got out of school who has no real practical experience working on.
uh
There's a reason why they take the students and they put them in the hospital and they do their rounds and they're supervised, but they're, you know what, I can set a broken bone,
right?
Somebody who's a novice can set a broken bone.
They can give an IV.
They can do, but brain surgery is probably not the thing that you want the first year graduate doing.
Let alone soul surgery.
Elders are going to deal with problems in the congregation that take great care, knowledge, and experience and more than one of them, more than one elder to resolve.
And if you've got one who's experienced and one who's a novice but is very popular,
You can quite often have the novice leading the congregation down the wrong path and destroying individuals unintentionally because of their ignorance and their lack of wisdom
and their lack of understanding.
and Hebrews five dealt with not specifically to elders but to Christians because he talked about the time when these individuals should have been teachers yet they needed somebody
to teach them again.
And in chapter five verse 13 he said for everyone that uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness for he is a babe.
And I think that is the point that Paul is making when he's talking about not being a novice.
Why?
Because the person who's still on the milk of the word is unskillful in handling righteousness.
Absolutely.
And I do think it's also
interesting that there's not a time given for this novice versus not a novice.
You could have somebody who has been a Christian for fewer years and be more mature and more skillful than somebody who's been a Christian their entire life and has never grown
past the milk of the word.
Correct.
And so, know, as what Eddie's pointing out is accurate, you know, as the Hebrew writer demonstrates in Hebrews chapter 5, here were individuals who should have moved past the
milk of the word.
They had been Christians long enough.
And by the way, the Hebrew writer is writing to a Jewish background of Christians.
These are Jews who were Christians considering going back to the old law, which means they were raised up under the Old Testament scriptures, they were raised up in the synagogue.
It's not that they weren't aware of the scriptures, it's that they had never bothered to use them and they had never bothered to mature.
So you could have someone who becomes a Christian and five, six years later, because of their focus on developing themselves and growing themselves and because perhaps their
mindset and their attention to morality and character all of their lives, you could have an individual
who's prepared to be an elder within less than a decade of becoming a Christian.
And yet here are these Jews who've been sitting over here, they've been Christians for 20 years.
Well, wait a minute, why is he an elder?
I've been a Christian for 20 years.
I should be an elder.
Paul says, you're not skillful in the word.
You don't know how to use it because you've never bothered to try.
You've never held yourself accountable for doing so.
Absolutely, absolutely.
uh More than a few platoons of soldiers have found that out in history.
Now he says, not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride, he fall into the same condemnation as the devil.
Paul gives a warning here, and that is that with authority and responsibility comes temptation as to how you use the authority and the responsibility.
And so he warns that this not a novice is because there's danger involved in being an elder.
There's danger involved in having authority because you could become lifted up with pride thinking you are something important, that you are something of great value, that you are
something to be observed and followed.
What did Paul tell the elders in the church at Ephesus would be a problem for the church at Ephesus?
In Acts chapter 20.
that some from among their own selves would seek to draw away people after themselves.
Paul says you in Ephesus are going to have problem with this.
He warns them, this is coming for you.
And they as elders in Ephesus needed to be ready for it.
They needed to be watchful not just for the wolves outside the flock, but the wolves inside the eldership.
He says, moreover, he must have a good testimony among those who are outside.
As Paul gives the qualifications for elders, Paul,
rounds it out in this section with this individual's reputation outside of the church matters too.
They have to be an individual who has a good reputation outside the body of Christ.
Why is that?
Okay?
His influence amongst the community, amongst those who are outside of the body of Christ, is going to matter about the effectiveness of the church.
What else?
Okay.
One of the biggest problems that Jesus dealt with among the religious leaders in Israel was that the Israelites were blind to their hypocrisy and everybody on the outside could
tell.
Pilate was not ignorant of the hypocrisy of the Jewish leadership.
But the Jews were.
They had blinded themselves to the lifestyle and the actions of their leaders.
While those on the outside are going, really?
Pilate goes, I find no justification, no fault with this man.
And the Jewish leadership cried in response, crucify him.
when Paul is on trial.
They try and bring individuals to bring testimony against Paul that was false testimony.
When Jesus was on trial, they go through the list of witnesses finding two people who would lie the same way.
Do you think that the individuals who were of such upstanding moral character as to be interviewed as witnesses against Jesus were in any confusion about the moral character of
the people interviewing them?
You see, those who are on the outside, those who freely admit that they don't live to that moral standard also are sometimes the best judges of character when it comes to those who
are on the inside.
So if you have a man in a community and inside the church he seems to be a great upstanding individual, he always is helpful, he's conscious of others, he's mindful of
things, he's very focused on the scriptures, it just so happens that during the week he launders money for people.
Maybe his reputation on the outside needs to be considered before he's appointed as an elder.
Maybe when they come to his store, you know, buy a gallon of gas, but they only get nine-tenths of a gallon of gas.
Maybe he has a reputation that every time he gives someone a quote, the quote is one thing, and then when he charges them, it's something else.
Maybe what he says in his classroom is not what he says in Bible study.
You know, all of these things matter.
And so it is on the required obligation of the church that if someone's name is being put forward as an elder, that they go talk to the people he knows who are not in the church.
Because his reputation must be that on the outside that he must have a good testimony among those who are outside.
Not just people feel good about him.
Like Joe, he's a good old boy.
Right, you're going put that down in words and you're going to let us know exactly what you think his character is.
See, he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil twice in the last two verses the devil's been brought up.
Why is that?
Alright, so warning, just pause for a moment, get off the subject of elders and let's get on the subject of the devil.
What do we know about Satan?
Alright, he seeks those who he can devour.
Jesus calls Him a liar from the beginning.
Jesus calls Him a murderer from the beginning.
What else do we know?
Do any followers?
Are they all human?
No.
There are other angels, there are other spiritual beings who followed after Satan in his rebellion against the Lord.
He is an individual who in some scenario, by the way, uh there's a passage that uses the term Lucifer in the Old Testament, which a lot of individuals think has to do with Satan
and his fall.
doesn't, it has to do with Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar.
So put that aside for a minute.
But there's enough evidence in scripture to point to the fact that Satan had some form of leadership
Position.
and as a result of his pride, as a result of his willingness to rebel against God, he not only rebelled, but others rebelled with him.
When Jesus describes hell and its purpose, who did he say hell was prepared for?
The devil and his angels.
Twice Paul gives a warning, you be careful who you put in the role of an elder.
You be sure they're not a novice, and you look at the reputation outside.
because they're susceptible.
Does that mean there could ever be a situation where an elder has to be removed from an eldership because he has become not just susceptible, but guilty?
Yes.
All right, so we're gonna introduce a judgment issue here.
You have an elder who's serving in an eldership who's now unqualified to be an elder.
How do you get him out?
Okay?
So, first thing to recognize, there is no such thing as an elder holding the role of the eldership.
All right?
There's never a time in all of scripture where elders are spoken of in the singular sense unless an individual like John who was an elder is being discussed.
uh Someone could be talked about in a singular sense as having that position.
Peter who is an elder is discussed in that sense, but a congregation's elders are always spoken of in the plural.
You go to the beginning of the book of Philippians, you go to the beginning of book of Galatians, you go to the beginning of many other books.
Paul begins writing to the elders and the deacons and the Christians or the bishops and the deacons and the Christians who are at a particular location.
It's always a plurality.
If you have a man who is serving as an elder and the other elders come to the realization that this man is not qualified to be an elder.
They have a responsibility to remove him from the eldership.
But what if they won't?
Say again.
All right, then none of them are qualified.
That's accurate.
By the way, I'm not looking for a book chapter verse answer for this because by the way, there are some issues where we don't always have a clear delineated set of steps.
But let's examine one.
Turn if you will.
to third John.
Someone tell me how this book begins.
The Elder.
John opens this letter.
by describing himself as the elder.
The elder to the beloved Gaius whom I love in the truth.
And he's going to write a number of things, go down to verse five.
Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the brethren and for strangers who have borne witness of your love before the church.
If you send them forward on their journey in a manner worthy of God, you will do well.
because they went forth for His namesake taking nothing from the Gentiles.
John is writing to these Christians in the first century and he's saying when you receive those who are going out doing missionary work and going out and reaching those who are
lost and they come to you, you send them on.
You make sure that they're taken care of and you make sure their work continues.
because they're going out asking for nothing from the Gentiles, meaning they're probably Jews going out trying to take the gospel of the Gentiles and they're not asking them
anything from those who they're teaching using basically Paul's methods of only asking for help from those who are already Christians.
But he says, we therefore ought to receive such that we may become fellow workers for the truth.
I wrote to the church.
but diatrophes who loves to have the preeminence among them does not receive us.
Therefore, if I come, I will call to mind his deeds, which he does, prating about us, or against us with malicious words, and not content with that, he himself does not receive
the brethren and forbids those who wish to, putting them out of the church.
Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but do what is good.
He who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God." Now there's a little phrase in there.
He says, if I come, I will call to mind his deeds.
What is John saying?
He says, if he's still in this role when I get there, he won't be in this role when I leave.
Meaning that John is handing the authority to remove diatrophies over, he's handing the authority over to who?
The congregation.
Can the congregation remove an unfaithful, unqualified elder from being an elder?
Yes, they can.
And they must.
Alright, now we have a problem.
uh
By the way, one of the reasons for all the qualifications and all the warnings in the qualifications is because there's no such thing as an easy way to get out an unqualified
elder.
The best, I'm gonna use one of the director of the School of Preaching where we attended back when we were there, Wesley Simons, he did a lesson one time on the best time to get a
divorce.
When is the best time to get a divorce?
Before you're married.
Do not marry someone who you shouldn't be married to because that's the only time you can get out without a problem is by not marrying them to begin with.
When you install an elder who is not qualified to have that role, you are asking for a problem.
When you have an elder who is installed as an elder and then after some period of time departs from that faithfulness that is required and those qualifications for being an
elder, you are going to have a problem.
And one of the biggest issues you have when you're trying to pull the weeds out of the flower bed.
is that you can easily destroy what?
Some of the flowers along the way.
By the way, Jesus taught that over in the parable of the tares, because as the wheat begins to grow up out of the field, the workers in the field come to uh the owner and
says, we found tares.
The enemy has come in the night and he's sowed tares, because we didn't sow them.
I mean, we sowed wheat.
But now it's apparent that there's tares in the midst.
And Jesus, through the parables, there's a period of time where you have to let the tares show and come to harvest, where you can discern the difference.
Because the thing is, with tares and wheat, is they're in the growth state until they're in the fruit-bearing state.
You can't always tell the difference.
And so Jesus says, gotta let him grow.
Now, that has a different application than an elder.
He's not saying let an elder continue in the eldership, but I'm saying here's an illustration of someone who appears to be one thing early on, and it's only as the fruit
starts being born you find out he's somebody else.
Was there one more comment?
seeing things in my years in different congregations, Matthew 18 is a helpful place to go when you have a situation with an eldership where you start on the small scale, the
principle of starting small in an effort to handle it.
You don't go from zero to catastrophic and cause a scene either.
There are some very good biblical principles in how we handle situations with people who are no longer qualified that can help keep a congregation from splitting or from souls
being lost along the way.
There are a number of uh passages and a number of things that we can gain and we'll examine some of those as we go through our discussion about what can be done when you have
someone in an eldership who is no longer qualified.
And we'll have some discussion on that before we're finished, but for today, we are dismissed.
Thank you for your attention.