Christian Ethics and the Old Testament - Lesson 44

Show Notes

Dave Rich continues his series on Christian ethics, focusing on the qualifications of elders in the local church. He discusses the qualifications of not being addicted to wine, not being pugnacious, being considerate and gentle, leading a household well, having a good reputation, being righteous, being holy, and being self-controlled. Rich emphasizes that these qualifications are not just suggestions but necessary for elders. He also mentions that some qualifications, like being a new convert, are not ethical obligations but qualifications. The lesson concludes with a reminder that these qualifications are necessary for elders and that if a man is not qualified, it is important to speak up. The session ends with a prayer, thanking God for his word and protecting his body, and asking for honor on Lord's Day in worship and in all who claim his name.

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Dave Rich

Pastor-Teacher, Kootenai Community Church

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The expository preaching ministry of Kootenai Community Church by Pastors/Elders Jim Osman, Jess Whetsel, Dave Rich, and Cornel Rasor. This podcast feed contains the weekly sermons preached in the adult Sunday School class on Sunday mornings at Kootenai Church.

The Elders/Teachers of Kootenai Church exposit verse-by-verse through whole books of the Bible. These sermons can be found within their own podcast series by visiting the KCC Audio Archive.

Today is lesson number 44 in our series on Christian ethics. It is the Hank Aaron of Christian Ethics Lessons. However, if you're more into basketball, you could call it the Jerry West of Christian Ethics Lessons. Really isn't anybody else that you could say. So if you're not in sports, what I just said was won't, won't, want, won't, won't, won't. All right. So last time we began a section on authority and submission in the local church. And we started by looking at the terms that were used for the office of elder. Looked at those three terms and what they kind of told us about the role. We looked at how plurality was pervasive, that in every church there was a plurality of elders. And we kind of teased the question of how does that work? How does plurality work in the local church? But we can't answer that question until we understand the qualifications of elders. That's going to be key to that question. So then we started in looking at the qualifications of elders really for a couple of reasons. There are ethical duties within those qualifications for not only elders, but also for the people of the church. And those lists of qualifications of elders largely serve as a nice list of virtues for us to cultivate, for all of us to cultivate. So kind of looking at it from both of those. So we're going to hopefully finish through the qualifications today and then look at the duties of the elder and the duties of the church probably next week. It's on your handout today on the off chance that things go really well and we get there. Probably won't. So last week we got through that first column. So we're on number nine, not addicted to wine. So I'm just going to pick that up there. This is two words. One is the negative participle not, and the other is a compound word that means with wine. So not with wine or not given to wine. This would be someone who's given to wine would be someone we would call a wine bibber, if you use that term, or toper, heard that term. These are all old words that might translate that. It's somebody who is into or associated with wine, with alcohol. Translations include not an excessive drinker, not a drunkard, not given to drunkenness. We're going to talk about this a little bit. I'm going to argue that this isn't, this isn't just, this just doesn't just mean someone who gets drunk why? Because drunkenness is a sin. It's explicitly a sin in the Bible. And so to say that here would be not much of a qualification in that sense, right? So what does it mean? There's in fact another Greek word that means a drunkard, means someone who gets drunk. And it's not this word. So of course, we can establish, I guess I should have already been there, we can establish from the Bible that drunkenness is a sin. Ephesians 5.18, did not get drunk with wine. Command. For that is dissipation, but be filled with the spirit. Doesn't mean you can get drunk with other things, by the way. Okay. Proverbs 20, verse 1: wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise. Wine is a mocker. That implies that the drink that they referred to as wine was capable of inebriating. So there is a kind of channel in New Testament Christianity that people will look at that and say, well, the wine of the New Testament wasn't alcoholic. It was more like grape juice. And so when Jesus turned water into grape juice, he wasn't turning it into wine and all that. And it can't be established by the facts. In Proverbs 20, wine is a mocker. That word wine is obviously not a Greek word, but in the Greek translation, it's the same word. So the way that they made wine, it would have less alcohol than it has today unless they intentionally made it so that it didn't. But it is still capable of causing drunkenness. So what is this qualification? This qualification is someone who uses wine to excess, who is into alcohol. Not necessarily a drunkard, but somebody who has a reputation as a drinker, somebody who's really into it. So why would this be an important qualification for an elder that he's not into? He's not given to, he's not addicted to, if we want to use that term. Yeah, Carol? He has to be clear thinking and in fellowship with God at all times. He has to be clear thinking and fellowship with God at all times. That idea of clear thinking, we have seen.

Or will see again. Certainly, an elder has to be that. So he's not a stumbling block to others, probably. Right, so that's why we don't want somebody who causes offense is a stumbling block to other people for whom wine would be something addictive, something that they should avoid. Imagine if you knew that one of your elders, there's only one in the room today, I don't want to pick on him every week. So imagine somebody else, you knew that they like to go to the bars. They like to go to the bars. It's kind of a regular thing that they did. And they were kind of into that. It was kind of their hobby. Not necessarily getting drunk at the bar, but they're going all the time. It just, there's a certain damage to credibility that's associated with that kind of thing, right? So shouldn't be addicted. The way that this translates, addicted to wine, I think there's a lot of reasons for this. Let's talk about alcohol in general for a second. The Bible doesn't condemn reasonable, moderate alcohol consumption. It doesn't. Whether the person is an elder, a deacon, a Sunday school teacher, whatever, we see later that Paul actually tells Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach. If you're underage and it's illegal for you, well, then it would be a sin. If people around you would be offended by your drinking, you ought to abstain from that. If you're addicted to it, clearly, best to avoid it altogether. Freedom from addiction to alcohol or anything else is really a virtue that all of us should aspire to. So when we think about this particular qualification for elders, I think it's a virtue that all of us would aspire to. It's an ethical obligation to exercise spirit-empowered self-control. We'll see that in another qualification later on. But I want to stop here because I've said this a million times, but it bears repeating a million more. You do not have to sin. If you're a Christian, you have all the power that you need to abstain from sin in any particular moment. You will not be successful in 100% abstaining from sin. We know that. I'm not teaching perfection. But you never have to sin. You are not a slave to sin. You are not a slave to sin if you are a Christian. 1 Corinthians 6. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God. All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. It's a little confusing because in the context, all things are lawful for me just means that the grace of Christ has extended to all things. Paul is free. He won't be damned by anything because Christ has covered all things. But the things that he's talking about, the former sins, certainly were not profitable, and they're not lawful in the sense of being ethical. They're lawful in the sense only he's saying they're permissible. I could do them and not lose my salvation, but I don't do them. They're not beneficial. He won't be mastered by anything. So I think this is a good standard for ethics. Just from this one qualification, kind of a good standard here. A thing may be lawful, may be permissible, may even be ethical, okay, permissible in that sense. Like moderate alcohol consumption. But I think it's reasonable to ask ourselves: is it beneficial? Does this do me good? Does this promote my sanctification? And drinking wine could do that. If you engage in something that God has given with that in mind, you do it joyfully and gratefully, that can be sanctifying work. For some people, it might be. For others, it may not be. If it has mastery over you, it needs to be dealt with. So I think we can say, back to this more narrow thing: being into alcohol or not allowing alcohol or anything else to be your master is a virtue. An ethical obligation for all of us. Does that make sense? If you have questions about alcohol, it's very easy to go and look at everything the Bible says. You can look these words up nowadays.

Read everything the Bible says about wine, about strong drink, and come to your conclusion about it. I think the conclusion is clear. As we've said, moderate use of alcohol is permitted. Drunkenness is a sin. But then, for you, thinking through how you're going to deal with alcohol is an easy thing to do. It's easy to go through the whole Bible and understand that. And again, I think it applies to any other addictive substances or activities. If you're addicted to something, you ought not to be. And you don't have to be. All right. Not pugnacious. The elder is not to be pugnacious. It's not a word we use a lot. It's a great word, though. Like a pug. Not pugnacious. It means literally not violent. It means literally not a striker. Some translations translate it as not a bully, which I think is kind of good. But it literally means not a striker, not a giver of physical blows. But figuratively, it would mean somebody who's not prone to lash out either physically or verbally. They have that, they have their temper under control. They don't lose their temper. So why is this important for an elder? Very tense situations in rooms with people who are very upset. Accusations often fly, and so being not pugnacious is very important. But obviously, this is a virtue for all Christians. We're not to be volatile or violent, walking around with a chip on our shoulder. That is the exact opposite of what it might mean to be Christ-like. Be pugnacious. But just as a note, it doesn't prohibit fighting altogether. We don't want to go crazy here. The Bible speaks positively of the work of the soldier. Paul uses the analogy of a boxer, describes his own work. There's nothing wrong with learning how to fight. There's nothing wrong with learning how to physically spar or to prize fight or none of that. It's not immoral. There's nothing wrong with fighting physically when it's necessary to do so. I don't have to go into that too much. Elders are called to fight. They're supposed to fight. They're supposed to fight against false doctrine, to fight against sin in the church. So you even see in the terms, overseer, shepherd, that's one of the things the elder would have to do is protect the flock, be ready to fight against wolves when required. But the point is, elders aren't supposed to love the fight. They're not supposed to relish the fight, like, oh boy, here comes something. I can get into it. They're not looking to own the libs. Okay? They're not social media warriors. They're not just looking to take up every possible fight. That's not, that's not what. That's not, that's pugnacious. They're not looking to, willing to fight, not afraid to fight, good at it, but they don't love it. They don't seek it out. Okay? And I think it's a virtue for all of us. And it ties into several of the others we're going to see here. The next one, considerate, gentle. This has a sense of being appropriate, being equitable, gentle, reasonable, magnanimous, gracious. It's that idea. It's the opposite of pugnacity. It's kind of meekness, gentleness. It's the essence of the attitude of Christian love. So it's a virtue to be cultivated for all Christians. Same with the next one, peaceable, very similar. It means not quarrelsome or not a brawler. The word is used only twice. It's used here, and it's used in Titus 3. And Titus 3 is to everybody. Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to slander no one, to be peaceable. Same word. Consider it, demonstrating all gentleness to all men. And it does literally mean not quarrelsome, not a battler. That's literally what it's got the knot and then the word for battle. So not a battler, somebody who doesn't have battles. So again, very similar to being not being pugnacious, not going out there and always trying to fight. Even when an elder is involved in a fight, a doctrinal fight or a fight against sin or dealing with some accusation, they're always recognizing that their opponent is an image bearer of God, do the grace of God. Even in those situations.

They're not looking to battle. That's not the point. So along with gentle, it's peaceable, it's kind of, again, the opposite of Pugnatius. I think, again, applies to everybody. It may be especially important for elders, but applies to everyone. You see that in 2 Timothy 2. The Lord's slave must not be quarrelsome, but must be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness, correcting those who are in opposition. Perhaps God may give them repentance, leading the full knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. Again, this is chiefly focused on the work of the elder, but the Lord's slave, we would all call ourselves that. So we should not be quarrelsome. So it's a virtue. It's a virtue for all of us. The next one is free from the love of money. It's an interesting word. It's a long word. It basically means not loving silver or not loving money. So I'll look around here. Most of you have been on the planet for a little while. You know that the two things that most often disqualify a man from being an elder are sex and money. So if everyone took these qualifications very seriously, that would go a long way towards solving those problems. If you see that a man has a love of money, being an elder is not his job. He can't have that job. He's not qualified to have it. If you observe that in him after he has it, he's disqualified. He's no longer qualified. Because these are qualifications. So if a man has a love of money, he's not qualified. It's a pervasive American sin. No question about it. Anybody can struggle with this sin, whether they have a little money or a lot of it. It doesn't really make any difference. It's talked about many times in Scripture. This is 1 Timothy 6. But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. For we brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all sorts of evils. And some by aspiring to it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. And then in Hebrews, something similar, make sure that your way of life is free from the love of money, being content with what you have, for he himself has said, I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you, so that we confidently say, the Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. What will man do to me? You see in that that the love of money is a disdain for the providence of God. We ought to have this attitude. The Lord is my helper. I'll not be afraid. What will man do to me? But instead, we, do I have enough money? Do I have enough money to take care of myself? Nope. Okay. Now we're going to say a lot more about that in the context of the tenth commandment. If you think about the tenth commandment, shall not covet, you see why we would come back to that. But money is a vice to be avoided by, the love of money is a vice to be avoided by all of us. It should be replaced by contentment. And that's the outworking of a belief. So do you believe that God is sovereign? Do you believe that God is good? You will be free from the love of money. Let's look at the next one. Leading his own household well, having his children in submission with all dignity. The rationale is given right there in verse 5. If a man doesn't know how to lead his own household, how will he take care of the church of God? We'll look at that rationale. As far as applying this, there's really only one word that we need to understand clearly. It's the word translated well. It's the Greek word kalos. It's used often in the New Testament. It's usually translated as right or well or good. It refers to something that is beautiful, something that is well built, apparently and outwardly, actually right. It's proper, it's fitting in the sense of the word fitting. It fits. It's right. So elders have to manage their own household in such a way, doing their part as head as husband as father, that they achieve an outward, apparently good result, one that can be observed. These are qualifications after all. So it must be observable. And you see why it's so important. If a man cannot lead his wife and children,

Well, if he can't do that rightly with the right result, how could he be expected to lead a church? A church is full of people who are adults who don't have a natural affection for the man. They don't have the affection that his wife should have for him. They don't have the natural affection that a child has for a father, that natural respect. So if he can't even lead those kinds of people, people who do have that, how could he be expected to lead a church? He couldn't. So now, we're asking ourselves on all these: is this a general ethical obligation? Is this a virtue that you should be cultivating? Well, you see how we have to kind of think through this one. If you lead a household, if you lead a household you should do it well that's essentially what you should do that's the ethical thing right to do it well to do it in a way that God approves yes it would apply to you if you don't lead a household then doesn't apply to you right not in the strict sense but anything we do we ought to do it well do it in a way that comports with God's way okay let's look at the next one who does Julie hi so the question is about wayward children it comes up often and when we're in reality when you're qualifying a man what if they have a wayward child that lives in the home or what if they have a wayward child that's an adult and has moved out and I think that's a little bit of judgment there that the qualifications in Titus we'll see them up on the board later but the qualifications in Titus are a little different it says having faithful children can't be accused of dissipation or rebellion so I think that's the standard and I think that applies to adult children because it wouldn't apply to small children so the big question is faithful children do they have to be Christians or do they have to have some sense of being faithful and I've kind of gone in public teaching I've kind of gone back and forth on that over the years so just to summarize if if you have rebellious children living in your home you're not qualified that may seem harsh but you know what dwarves were not qualified to be priests in the old testament it's not their fault they didn't do anything wrong and it may be that you have rebellious children even though you did everything right that's possible but you're still not qualified to be an elder it's not some sort of right i think the same thing if you have adult children who could be accused of of being unbelievers who by their behavior could be accused of that then you're not qualified or you are disqualified not everybody agrees with that but people are always free to be wrong so does that answer that okay let's go to the next one then not a new convert translated not a novice sometimes it's another qualification so pretty obvious what that means somebody who's fairly recently converted recently saved immature in their faith they just haven't had time to learn and grow not kanye west yeah be clear on that you know you always try to find a way to derail because you know how so this is about if we ask ourselves well how many months does a person have to be or how many years does a person have to be a believer before they're qualified to be an elder the bible doesn't tell us that it's that there they can't be somebody that you would consider to be a new convert somebody who they just don't have the time they just don't have the time behind the wheel yet they don't know enough they haven't learned enough they're not ready yet they're just not there yet when i came to this church i was i think the ripe old age of 33 and we walked in and there was a guy with a kind of like curly hair sticking out the back and he was 28 years old and we were like that was jim but he was he was you get to even at the time he was a very mature very knowledgeable in his faith and you know spurgeon was a pastor at what age 16 i think yeah 16 17. so you know it's it's not it's not about that kind of age this is about are they capable of the job do they have enough knowledge they have enough experience would they be somebody that could be described as an elder without some sort of contradiction okay one of the things for example simon's teaching that bible survey class he's going through the entire bible sort of book by book a book per week crazy

Amount of work that he's doing to do this. But part of the reason he's doing that is for people who are prospective teachers, they need to have a really solid grounding in the entire Bible. So they don't take a passage and their interpretation of it is contradictory to some other truth of the Bible. So you need to have that as a Bible teacher. You need to know the Bible in some degree, some depth. And why is it so important? If they don't have that, if you elevate a new convert into a leadership role within the church, it can puff them up. It can cause them pride, also failure. But this is focused on pride, the condemnation of the devil, that thinking that they should be in charge. So we all do, we do, we talk about the ethical obligation of this. We do have an ethical obligation here. We are like Timothy. Timothy was told, do not lay hands upon anyone hastily, thereby share responsibility for the sins of others. Keep yourself pure. So we, as the church, do have a general obligation here. We have to make sure that our elders don't appoint somebody who's a novice because they're famous or rich or charismatic or whatever. We participate in this. When we have a perspective elder presented to us and we're told to assess them, which I'll probably look at next time, especially how slow I'm going, we have that responsibility. You have to make sure that they meet all the qualifications. But it's certainly not unethical to be a new believer. We love new believers. There's nothing wrong with new believers. We love new converts. We want more new converts. We like to have lots of them. We just don't want to make them elders. This is one of those qualifications that isn't an ethical one in that sense. It's not that you're unethical or you're a moral failure because you don't meet the qualification. Okay. Let's look at the next one. He must have a good reputation with those outside the church so that he'll not fall into the reproach and the snare of the devil. What would violate that? Anything in a person's behavior that causes a reproach or bad reputation with those outside the church. I'm going to dwell on this one a little bit because the Bible does Philippians 2, do all things without grumbling or disputing. Yeah, we are going to come back to that. Do all things without grumbling or disputing so that you will be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world. We have to show the contrast. And then 1 Peter 2: Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against your soul, by keeping your conduct excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing which they slander you as evildoers, they may, because of your good works, as they observe them, glorify God on the day of visitation. Peter here is emphasizing the witness of good conduct toward outsiders, toward what he calls Gentiles here. He also emphasizes later the ability to silence their slander because of your good behavior. But we're supposed to demonstrate good behavior in the world in which we are put. We're put here for a reason. We're scattered here in this world so that we may be light and salt. But let's think about the qualification for elders. Does that mean that, or even for us as a virtue, does this mean that every pagan in the community is going to think we're just great? No, of course not. You know how they treated our master? The gospel is offensive. Jesus is offensive. So we're not necessarily going to be well liked, but we should have a good reputation still. If we're disliked, it's because we are like Christ, not because we are troublesome meddlers or we are hypocrites. That's the point. We all need to watch how we conduct ourselves amongst the worldly. Otherwise, we cause a reproach, cause damage to our testimony for Christ, to the gospel, to the church. The next one. Righteous. Now we have to switch to Titus. There's a couple that are in Titus that are not explicitly in 1 Timothy 3. So we're going to look at those real quick.

Righteous, translated sometimes as just or equitable. It can have the broad semantic range of just meaning righteous, like just good, morally good. But given that we already have that beyond reproach, I think I'm going to take this as the more specific meaning of equitable or treating people with fairness, not being a face looker, not impartial. Judging according to the words of the Bible. What does the Bible say about this? And applying that to the situation in hand, and not referring to, first of all, what kind of person does this person fall into a category that I already have certain prejudgments about? This is, what does the Bible say? What are the facts of the situation? Let's apply the Bible to those facts. Some of you are old enough. It's nice to teach an adult class. I can use some older culture reference. You remember dragnet? Yeah. Just the facts, ma'am. That's the idea. What's the data from the Bible? What are the facts of the situation? And we're going to apply them. I give you a quick example, no names, but we were in a dispute many years ago between someone in our church and someone in another church. It threatened to go to the courts. So we, the elders at the time, met with the elders of this other church, reached out to them, could we talk through this? Could we reconcile, figure out the issue, appropriate restitution? Could we do this as Christians? And we couldn't get anywhere with them. And it's because they were partial. They couldn't see beyond their person that they loved in their church. They couldn't imagine that the other person may not be quite as wrong as they had thought. So they immediately identified our person as somebody that wasn't a Christian. And so the scripture didn't apply. The scripture, 1 Corinthians 6, we were trying to apply. You don't take believers to law courts. It did end up going to the law, and it was very unfortunate. It's a Christian virtue. It's also a qualification for elders. We are repeatedly, as just believers, told to avoid the sin of partiality. In Deuteronomy, this is God speaking to Moses, who's the leader, of course, of the Israelites. You shall not show partiality in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not fear man, for the judgment is God's. A case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it. You to be impartial as God is impartial. Just hear the case, hear the facts of the case. And James 2.9, but if you show partiality, you're committing sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors. So this kind of partiality, it takes a lot of forms, all the isms. You're familiar with racism, sexism. If you go in with some sort of prejudgment about a person, prejudice, prejudgment, a judgment ahead of the facts, that would disqualify you as an elder, and it's a sin. We ought not to participate in those sorts of ways of thinking. We ought not to prejudge a person or the facts of their case. I'll keep going. Holy. Oh, that's a rough one. Holy as a qualification for elders. Holy, sometimes translated devout. And it means undefiled by sin, morally perfect. This is not the standard word for holy, meaning set apart. This is a different word meaning morally in line, not set apart, separated. It's used in some other places. I think that's really interesting. Revelation 15, 3 and 4. And they sang the song of Moses, the slave of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are your works, O Lord God the Almighty. Righteous and true are your ways, King of the nations. Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. For all the nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed. That uses the same word translated holy in Titus 1.8. But here it says, for you alone are holy. So if you just put those two together simply, nobody's an elder. So we have to be careful. And I think 1 Thessalonians helps us. This is Paul. For you remember, brothers, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to burden, not to be a burden to any of you. That feels good.

We proclaim to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and so is God, of how devoutly and how devoutly and righteously and blamelessly we behaved toward you, believers. So Paul claims his behavior was devout. He uses the adverb form of the same adjective translated holy in Titus 1.8. He also says his conduct was righteous. That's the adverb form of the same word translated righteous in Titus 1.8. So those two words he attributes to his own behavior. So our behavior can be holy and righteous. We are not holy and righteous perfectly in the sense that the Lord alone is. So again, this is saying that the elders' behavior has to be consistently righteous and holy. I think that's kind of obvious. If it were the other, then there would be a reproach generated and the person would be disqualified. But this is essentially to be ethical, to do that which God approves consistently. That's what that means. And then self-controlled is the next one. That's not explicitly in 1 Timothy. And this is an interesting word. It was used, it's a classical virtue in Greek ethics. If you read all the Greeks and their ethics, this is always in the list of the classical virtues. But for them, it was restraining yourself through reason and self-discipline. In the Bible, self-control is a fruit of the Spirit. It is an essential Christian virtue. It is to be cultivated because it is a fruit of the Spirit. We have it and we can cultivate it through effort. So it's power over sin. I'll show you, it's an essential Christian virtue. This is 2 Peter. For by these he's granted to us his precious and magnificent promises so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence in your faith, apply moral excellence and your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and your self-control, perseverance, and your perseverance, godliness, and your godliness, brotherly kindness, and your brotherly kindness, love. You see that list of virtues, that chain of virtue. But it is, again, a fruit of the Holy Spirit, classic, Galatians 5. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things, there is no law. I've said it a million and one times. It's worth saying a million and one more. You have power in the moment over sin. It is yours as a fruit of the Spirit, self-control. That is a fruit of the Spirit. If you do not have self-control, you do not have the Spirit. It is a fruit of the Spirit. Now, yes, it's something that we have to cultivate and we strive for greater and greater self-control. We realize it more and more in our lives, but we have that power by virtue of our conversion. Can I mention something to that? I think in the whole minute this is in us something that is so important. That's a really important essential truth. We live the life, the resurrected life of Jesus Christ. That is the life that dwells within us. It is his life. We partake in that same partake in that same divine nature. And that is indwelling Holy Spirit that empowers us to live as he would have us to live. That's who you are in Christ. You're essentially different than you were before your conversion. That's why we call it conversion. All right. Last one. Holding fast the faithful word, which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to reprove those who contradict. So the elder, and I think every believer is to cling to the word of God, to hold fast to the word of God. That's where we get sound doctrine for all of us. That's how we can exhort others to believe it and obey it. We can reprove others. And that doctrine includes Christian ethics. We have to hold fast to the word of God as we seek to do those things which God approves. That's our quest here. And the only way to do that is to cling to the word of God. That's the only place where we learn these things. Now, really some quick points on this. First of all, I did 20. You could organize these differently. There's a lot of qualifications for elders. These are qualifications. These are not suggestions. These are not would be nice if you had. You know, sometimes on a resume, it'll say these are the qualifications. And then it'll say,

Something like preferred qualifications. That doesn't mean that what that doesn't mean anything. Preferred qualifications? Then they're not qualifications. They're just preference given to's. These are qualifications. You have these, you're qualified to be an elder. If you don't, you are not. There's no compromise on these. These are God-given, necessary qualifications. Some of them are also, that turned out okay, I guess. Some of those are also virtues that all of us should cultivate. Now, I kind of color-coded these. You had little check boxes on your list if you wanted to participate that way and figure out which of these are virtues for you to cultivate. I would say that the ones in red are not virtues to cultivate. You don't have to have the desire to be an elder. It's not an ethical obligation. It's not unethical if you're a new convert. So those, no. Those are qualifications for elders. The ones in yellow are kind of, yeah, in a way, one-woman man. If you're not a man, you can't be a one-woman man. That's nothing unethical about that. But there is still an ethical obligation for all of us in that we ought to be faithful in our marriages, pure in our sexuality. We should be morally pure. Able to teach. We talked about that. Not everybody has to teach the way that an elder has to be able to teach, but everybody has to be able to proclaim the gospel. Everybody has to be able to teach their children if they have them and should be able to defend their faith. Leading his own household well, again, if you don't lead a household, it's not a qualification for you, but whatever leadership role you're in or really anything you do, you ought to do it well. So there's some ethical idea in there. The rest, the green, I think, are just virtues for all of us. An elder may have them maybe in a different way and in a different context, but we all ought to have these virtues. I see where I'm at here. Okay, well, actually, I'm right on time, so I'm just going to stop there. We'll pick up next time with plurality and how that works. And then we're going to look at the duties of elders toward the church and the duties of the church toward elders. And we may have time also to look at the other offices. Deacons, and what about these women? 1 Timothy 3.11. Who are they? Are these deaconesses? What are they? Okay, people are zipping up their Bible covers. This reminds me when I was teaching in college. You knew it was time to go when the backpack started zipping. So I'll just ask you the question, and you can leave if you want to. I'll ask you the question. What did you learn today? I can't leave if he asked the question he's looking around at. I do not know the definition of pugnacious. You haven't heard pugnacious? Yeah. People who should be pugnacious are boxers and MMA fighters, but only in the ring. What else did you learn? That's where they're called the pugilists. Pugilists, yeah. It has the same root. Yeah, Jayden? Yeah. I think it's Hasios. You can probably look at it. It's Hasias. Yeah. Yeah, translation is always hard. So now we have two words that translate holy. It doesn't always mean set apart the way that we think of it. Closely related. Anything else? I forgot that dwarves weren't allowed to be priests. You forgot dwarves weren't allowed to be priests. Yeah, dwarves, or if you had certain other problems or adult class, if your testicles were crushed, I mean, that's adding insult to injury. Like literally, right? You couldn't be a priest. The point is, and I think it's a really good point, actually. You could be disqualified from being an elder for reasons other than your sin. And we as a church, we have to be okay with that. And so does the elder. You have to be okay with it. If you get to the point where, you know what, I just, I'm not a good teacher anymore. My mind is, I'm getting older. My mind is getting a little bit scrambled. Then I can't be an elder anymore. And that's okay. There's no dishonor in that. If my wife, a lot of you guys know Diane, if she went crazy, and you know, this is still, okay. She would never do that. But, you know, if something happens where a man

Household is out of control, even if it's not his fault, he's disqualified. So it's important that we look at these qualifications as they are. That's our obligation as Christians part of a local church. They are qualifications. And if we observe that a man isn't qualified, we have to speak up. No, it'll be okay. She's used to it by now. Okay, I need to let you go, so let's pray. Father, we are grateful for your word, grateful of the extent that you go to protect your body. Demonstrates your love for us, that you put these very clear and extensive qualifications out there. So that may we and all of the people that call on your name be faithful to put these qualifications. I'm thinking about all the nonsense that's happening right now in churches all over the place that just adherence to these qualifications would fix, Lord. I pray that you'd be honored today on your Lord's Day, not only in our worship, but in all those who claim your name. In Jesus' name. Amen.