All right, we are going to be continuing our study of 1st Timothy chapter 3 and the qualifications for elders this morning.
encourage you to turn over there as we continue that study, 1st Timothy chapter 3.
Let's begin with a word of prayer.
Our gracious God and Father, we come before your throne grateful for your many blessings, grateful for all that you do for us each and every day.
Mindful of your word and your wisdom that you have given to us to guide us in right paths, to be able to know how we ought to serve you in meekness and in love.
Lord, we pray that we might strive diligently to both
serve you in a way that is acceptable, but also rely upon your grace and your mercy for the assurance, the hope of salvation that we have in Christ, knowing that it is not our
righteousness, but His, which allows us to stand before you justified and sanctified and holy.
Lord, we pray that you be with the church throughout the world.
Pray that congregations will be mindful to reach the lost, to
encourage those who are downtrodden to edify those who are members of the body of Christ and be diligent about their work.
Lord, we pray that you be with nations throughout the world.
May they choose the right paths.
May they choose things and decisions and directions that will be those things which promote the opportunity to hear the gospel, to be obedient to the truth.
And Lord, may we always be willing to stand up to speak the truth no matter what the worlds and the nations around us say or do.
Lord, we thank you for your Son who came and died on the cross for our sins.
And we pray also and thank you that he did not remain in that grave, but rather was resurrected and ascended back to sit at the right hand of your throne.
All this we pray and ask in Jesus' name, amen.
When Paul writes to Timothy about elders, is Paul giving his opinion on the matter?
No.
When Paul writes to Timothy about deacons, is Paul giving his opinion on the matter?
If he's not giving his opinion, what is he giving?
All right, the requirements from God.
It is important as we go through any text to number one, understand who's talking and are they speaking with the authority of God?
Somebody name a text in scripture where someone is speaking and yet they are not
speaking by the authority of God.
Great example.
In the book of Job, if you've read it recently, or at least remember what's in it, the first two chapters start out introducing us to Job, and then chapter three Job begins to
speak, and then in the consecutive chapters after that, Job will speak and then one of Job's friends will answer him.
And then Job will speak and one of Job's friends will answer him.
Then Job will speak and one of his friends will answer him.
From chapter three all the way to 37, the speeches that are made by Job and his friends are uninspired speeches.
just the same way that you might find four five friends talking.
They're talking about a matter regarding scripture and the record of their speech is inspired.
That is that the Holy Spirit accurately presented what they said, but what they said wasn't inspired.
Where in the New Testament do you find examples of people speaking where the things that they speak are not inspired?
Think about the life of Paul.
All right, there's a great example.
When the Pharisees come and they ask questions or they speak in different occasions in scripture, how about when the accusers of Paul come and speak and declare their
accusations concerning Paul?
How about when Jesus' accusers accuse him before Pilate?
All of these are records of someone speaking and the record is accurate.
and the record is inspired, but the speech wasn't, okay?
So I bring that out to point out that when we're opening scripture and when we're reading scripture, it is important to not just go here, you know, we read something, that sounds
good, and start teaching it.
one area where that would be a mistake?
Genesis chapter three.
There there's a record that is an inspired record of an uninspired speech because Satan says to Eve, you shall not surely die.
Now would it be appropriate for us to begin teaching you shall not surely die if you violate God's commandments because that's in the Bible.
Should we be teaching that?
No.
Why?
Because it's not authoritative.
It is rather an inspired record that is accurate of what occurred, but it's not God's word given to us as to how we are to live.
Bring that up, go through this whole thing for the purpose of reminding us that as we're opening scripture,
When we get to God's word, his revelation given through men to the church, we are absolutely accountable for doing what he commanded.
When we open up the word of God and we realize this isn't man speaking, this is someone with the authority of God declaring his commandments to us,
We better be taking notes, as it were.
We better be notating what it is that we are to do because it is no longer optional.
It is not judgment.
When Paul would reply back to the church in Corinth, because the church in Corinth, by all indications of the text, had sent questions to him concerning a number of matters.
And so beginning in 1 Corinthians chapter seven and in verse one,
Paul begins answering those questions and Paul answers first a question concerning marriage and he answers a question concerning women's roles and he answers a question
concerning the miraculous gifts and he answers questions concerning the collection for the saints.
When he answers those questions he's not answering with his opinions.
He's answering with the authority of the Holy Spirit
directly from God.
All right, so as we get into our study and as we remind ourselves of where we are, we are in a series of qualifications that are not Paul's opinion.
They are the commandments of God.
All right, now as we go through class, James and Isaiah are gonna come by and they are going to hand everyone a survey that's part of the evangelism seminar.
It's just kind of a...
a follow-up survey on that, please take that.
Don't fill it out during class, but fill it out and get it back to Eddie, if you will, so that we have a record of that.
It also includes a number of questions regarding things that you may be willing to participate in.
For those who've been at the seminar during the evangelism seminar, you're gonna be familiar with most of these things, but the second page is kind of a description of what
those items are.
So just because you volunteer for it or say you're willing to do it doesn't mean you're going to do it.
So sign up for all the things that you think, yes, I would be willing to do that.
And that will help Justin especially as he tries to find coordinators and volunteers for these different areas.
So.
Paul will say, concerning a bishop, a bishop then must be blameless, verse 2.
The husband of one wife.
So we get to that passage.
Is an individual being the husband of one wife in order to be an elder a matter of opinion or a matter of command?
Command.
It's not a matter of opinion.
It's not a question as to whether or not we can choose
if we like that idea or not, it is a command.
When individuals come to a passage like this, there are unfortunately, there's a movement within churches that claim to be the Church of Christ doing this, they'll come to this
passage and say, well, it's written that way because what it really means is an individual who's the spouse of only one other person.
Is that what the text says?
You mean it doesn't mean that as long as it's the wife of a man and they only have one spouse, then she's qualified.
Doesn't mean that?
No, it doesn't.
And if we were to handle the text that way, then we would introduce all sorts of issues because Paul doesn't say this is someone who's married to someone else.
The qualification is not an individual who's married.
The qualification is not someone who's married to only one person.
The qualification is the husband of one wife.
True or false?
If God had wanted to say one of those other things, he has the language capabilities to be able to do it.
True?
Yes, he didn't.
So we come to these passages and we open this list, we look at this and we have to evaluate, has a person met this qualification?
Or have they not?
A husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach.
Now, in the evangelism seminar, you might have noticed that hospitality,
came up a lot in that seminar.
When you consider that a Christian who is utilizing the opportunities that they have to be hospitable, they're actually utilizing the opportunities that they have to reach those who
are lost.
That's part of the reason why an elder has to be hospitable.
An elder who
or an individual seeking to become an elder, desiring to become an elder who has not chosen to be hospitable towards his neighbor is not one who's qualified to hold the role.
If he is an individual who, as we discussed as we were going through that particular qualification, would see an individual who's beaten and who's been robbed and he'd passed
by on the other side.
He's not qualified for the role.
He's not qualified because he does not have the compassion and the love and the care and the concern for souls to hold that position.
One of the accusations, just bringing our minds all back to some of the things we've discussed, one of the accusations that God gave against the shepherds in the Old
Testament, the spiritual shepherds in Israel, is that they didn't take care of the lame.
They didn't take care of the injured.
They didn't heal the sick.
They didn't provide for the ones who had been damaged, and they didn't have compassion on them.
Rather, they feasted off of the flock.
God says, you can't have people like that in leadership.
Now, consider as well, he says, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous.
We introduced this idea in the last discussion, not given the wine.
The idea here is a derivative of the term, the base term for wine, but it is not the word, the word wine is not in the text.
It's a derivative of it that meant not a brawler, not someone who lives a lifestyle of one who is in the association of drunkards.
This is not an individual who lives this way.
But, as you notice this text, everything about this individual is an individual who would not give his mind over to wine.
He would not give his mind over to alcohol.
He would not give his mind over to inebriating substances.
He would not give his sobriety, his sober-mindedness, his holiness, his blamelessness over to the influence of substances.
He wouldn't do that.
That's not the character of an elder.
He further says, not violent.
What is the idea of violence here?
All right?
This is someone always ready to fight.
This is someone who's on the edge and can become violent at any moment.
Question, does this mean that an individual who has participated maybe in his younger years in the military and gone to war and defended his country is not qualified to be an
elder?
No.
Does this mean that a police officer who may encounter and have to be involved in violence in some way because of his occupation and because of his role as a police officer is not
qualified to be an elder?
No.
Rather, this has to do with a character.
Every individual who is of the right character, who is in the military or who is holding a role as a police officer, is in some area in law enforcement that is of the right
character.
Do they ever look forward to the need for violence?
No, as a matter of fact, they do everything they can to avoid it.
They actively seek
on a daily basis to make sure that that never becomes the result.
And it's only when there's no other option that violence becomes the method whereby a situation has to be dealt with.
In contrast to that, you have individuals who are of a character that is very different where they look for opportunities for violence.
When you go back in your mind, and I think one of the
examples of this in my mind is in the Old Testament, and it's Joab and his brothers.
You remember in the days of David when David was king, his cousin Joab became the leader, one of the leaders of the army, one of the commanders of the army.
And Joab was one who on two different occasions murdered an individual
because he didn't like what David was doing in creating alliance between the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Israel.
Joab further murdered David's own son, Absalom, because Joab was in a scenario where David had given a direct order not to kill Absalom in the fight that was going on and yet Joab
found Absalom hung up and Joab had him
Joab had him killed.
Joab was a man who was violent.
Joab was one who gave over to his violent tendencies and as a result created many issues, many problems throughout that time.
But you can also see this to a degree even in the life of David.
What is the reason that God says concerning David that David was not going to build the house of the temple?
Alright?
God said, you're not going to build the temple because you are a man of war.
You're a bloody man.
Now, was that always David's fault?
Was David the one going and creating all the wars?
No, he was not.
Not in all scenarios.
Now, some of them we was, but generally speaking, those were the ones where he was told by God to go and deal with that.
But the majority of the circumstances in David's life from his youngest years all the way forward, David was involved in conflict.
And David was involved in conflict between the one tribe in Israel and another tribe in Israel.
What if a king who had been in conflict between the southern and the northern tribes had been the one who built the temple?
Would the northern tribes have been as...
willing to come and worship at the temple.
So rather it was a king who was of a peaceful time, a unified time in Israel, who builds the temple.
There's a collective, belongs to all of us.
All right, so sometimes you have an individual who because of their life leading up to where they are when they're older,
They're not qualified.
It's not as though they're actively participating in that violence, but their character and their lifestyle has been such that they've created so many issues with those around
them that their lifestyle leading up to this point will disqualify them.
We're actually gonna see that as we go through this.
But he says, not violent, not greedy for money.
What does that mean?
Not greedy, yeah, it's pretty obvious.
As you look at this, this is quite literally one who loves money, okay?
This is an individual who is a lover of money.
This is one, it corresponds later to not covetous, but here is one.
who desires what isn't his and covetous is he loves what isn't his.
He's greedy for money.
He's desirous of what others have.
What is one of the 10 commandments from the Old Testament that regards to, or that has application to this?
Alright, turn back to Exodus chapter 20.
in Exodus chapter 20.
You'll notice, verse 13, you shall not murder.
Verse 14, you shall not commit adultery.
If you're committing adultery, are you, let me ask it this way, can you commit adultery with the person who is your spouse?
Can you commit adultery with your own wife?
No, it's not even possible, okay?
By definition, it has to be the spouse of someone else, all right, or an individual who's not married and you're the spouse of someone else.
In order to commit adultery, somebody has to be someone else's spouse, which means you have desired what someone else has, okay?
Covetousness is bound up
in adultery, but then consider as well.
He says, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal.
Why would a person steal?
Because they want something.
Specifically, they want something that someone else has.
Now, even the Old Testament and the law recognize there were times that people stole because of desperation.
They didn't steal because they desired what someone else had, they stole to eat, to live.
And by the way, the law had different punishments for the person who would steal while he had...
abundance or steal while he had plenty and someone who would steal to survive.
Okay?
The law considered those two things differently.
Now, it punished both of them because both of them were wrong.
If an individual is stealing in order to survive, what should they be doing instead?
Working.
If they cannot find work or if they cannot find the work that they need in order to survive, what should they be doing?
If they can't work and they won't steal.
Ask.
What did Jesus say in Matthew chapter 6?
Seek and ye shall find.
Knock and the door shall be opened to you.
Ask and it shall be given to you.
Do we find sometimes people are in desperate situations and make bad choices because they refuse to humble themselves to ask for help?
Which one's worse, stealing to have what you need or asking and having someone give it to you?
Stealing's worse.
But when you're filled with pride, some people because of their pride are unable to ask or unwilling to.
They're unwilling to humble themselves and ask.
But consider, he says, you shall not steal.
You shall not bear.
witness against or bear false witness against your neighbor.
Why would someone bear false witness against a neighbor?
See you again.
All right, set them up for something they did.
Jay, what did you say?
To gain something.
If you consider all the reasons why someone would actually bear false witness against someone else, there's always a motive behind it.
Maybe they don't like that person and they want to get rid of them.
Maybe they want what that person has.
Why did Jezebel find people who would speak false reports about the one who owned the vineyard that Ahab wanted?
to gain the vineyard that Ahab wanted.
Because if she could spread the false rumors, if she could spread the false reports, then the people would execute this individual for the evil that he had done, which he had never
done.
And now his vineyard is available for Ahab to take.
As you notice, behind all of these things, every single one of them is a desire for what does not belong to you.
Consider the next one.
You shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is
your neighbor's.
Turn over to James chapter four.
James chapter 4, James is writing to Christians who are Jews.
And he says, where do wars fight?
Wars and fights come from among you.
Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?
He says, where are the difficulties?
Where are the disagreements?
Where are the wars inside your congregations, as James is writing, where are they coming from?
James says, know where they're coming from.
They're coming from the desires for pleasure that your members have allowed to fester inside of themselves.
He says, you lust and do not have.
You murder and covet and cannot obtain.
You fight and war, yet you do not have because you do not what?
Ask.
There's a principle here that we must not miss.
in Exodus chapter 20.
is God declaring to the children of Israel.
that there shall forever be a class system in Israel where you have the haves and the have-nots, where you have those with abundance and those who are destitute, that God
desires for it to be the case that if someone has abundance, the person who's destitute never has abundance, and that the person who has abundance never loses it.
Is that what God is trying to infer and trying to teach Israel by these commandments of thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt
not, is that what God's trying to teach?
No.
Is that what James is trying to teach?
No.
Matter of fact, James brings it to a head where he says, the reason you don't have what you desire,
is because you don't ask for it.
but he doesn't stop there.
He says, yet you do not have because you do not ask.
There's one category.
Here's the person who desires something, they will not humble themselves and ask for it.
Second category, you ask and do not receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures.
This individual over here refuses to bow his knees, to bow his head, to humble himself before God and ask for what he desires.
This person over here asks all the live long day for what he desires.
But the only reason he desires it is to spend it on his own lusts and his own pleasures.
The only thing he's thinking about is himself.
The only reason he has any interest in these things is self-gratification.
Here's a man who because of his love for himself, that's what pride is, love of self, because of his love for himself, he will not ask.
God says, you don't ask, you don't receive.
Here's a person who will ask, but his only motivation is his love for himself.
And so God says, I won't give it to you.
He goes on.
He says, ask and do not receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures.
Adulterers and adulteresses.
Did you notice how James just took those who were only interested in their own desires, their own pleasures, their own lusts, their own passions, their own possessions, and he
just equated them to adulterers and adulteresses?
He says, adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world.
is enmity with God.
James says, do you not realize that if you are a friend of this world, you are an enemy of your God?
Now, true or false?
God created the world.
True.
True or false?
God created everything in the world.
True.
True or false?
If you have an abundance of possessions in the world, you're an enemy of God.
false.
Why is that false?
I just thought it just said that if you love the world, if you're a friend of the world, you're an enemy of God and he's talking about possessions.
All right.
It has to do with your heart.
It has to do with your motivation for what you will do with these possessions.
It has to do with your desires and where your heart is.
Turn to Matthew chapter 6.
Matthew chapter 6 verse 19, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth.
Does that mean that God and Christ are in absolute opposition to you properly saving for times that you may need something you don't have by way of income?
No.
That is an entirely biblical command.
and principle.
Rather, he says, lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where
neither moth nor rust destroys, where thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
God the Old Testament said, if your heart is set on this world and its possessions, so much so that you will sacrifice the people around you to gain possessions.
By stealing, by bearing false witness, by coveting, it shows you don't love the people, you love the possessions.
And James says, where are all your problems coming from, church?
Where are all your problems coming from, first century Christians?
They're coming from your passions that are allowed to pervade your lives and as a result of which you're at war with one another.
because you're more interested in possessions than people.
Jesus says where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Now notice the very next verse, he says, the lamp of the body is the what?
The eye.
what your eye dwells on.
your body chases after.
what your mind focuses on.
Your life is built around it to achieve it.
So Jesus says, let your eye be set on heaven.
Let your treasure be set on heaven.
Let your spiritual goals guide your life.
Matter of fact, verse 33, he says, seek first the kingdom of God.
Now when you come back over to 1 Timothy chapter three, it is in this background, with this context, that we are to understand what
Paul says when he says, this cannot be a man who is greedy for money.
Because what would a man who's greedy for money be saying about his heart?
that God, that spiritual matters, that heavenly matters are not His first priority.
But he says, not violent, not greedy for money, here's the contrast, but gentle.
Paul is looking at these men, looking at those who would be elders.
And he says, not only can you not be violent, have a character of violence, he says, you must be gentle.
When you see an average man, especially, hold a fairly newborn baby, they're holding that baby kind of like, I don't know what I'm doing, but if I drop this thing, it's going to
break.
Now, hand it to a woman, it's a different scenario.
They know exactly how to handle a baby, but most men, this is not the moment for strength.
This is not what they've spent their whole life being prepared for as to how to handle this thing.
Like, this is not comfortable.
as an elder.
Men who have that role are going to be in a position of holding babes in Christ.
And it is not always going to be comfortable.
It is not always going to be easy.
The struggles that they have will take a lot more care and concern and attention and detail than the struggles of the member who's been a member for 20 years.
One of the things that I need us to connect back to this last week in the seminar.
is that we will be successful in evangelism.
I have no doubt of that.
I know your hearts and your minds and your interests and your willingness to help reach the loss.
I have no doubt that we'll be successful at evangelism, but know this, as we are, we will have babes in Christ to deal with.
we will have problems we haven't had in a long time.
Not because people do what is wrong, but because they don't know any better.
We will have struggles and we will have difficulties that we have to overcome and we'll have to think differently about it because we've had a period of time in the history of
this congregation where the majority of the people in the congregation have been members of the body of Christ for a long time.
and you can deal with someone who's been a Christian for fifteen years differently than you can deal with a babe in Christ.
And so we're going to have to have a period of time where we're uncomfortable but gentle with new Christians.
And Paul says concerning elders that one of the characteristics of their life is they are gentle.
They're willing to be long-suffering.
They're willing to be kind.
They're willing to look for the benefit for the other person.
and give them time to grow.
You know, as you look at the contrast, it's interesting that the but gentle doesn't follow the violence, it follows the greedy for money.
Someone's focused on money when their life is built around money.
They'll run over other people to get the money.
They'll fail to be gentle.
They'll fail to put the soul first in their focus on the money.
And so it's an interesting contrast that it's both the violence and the desire for money that is contrasted by the gentleness of this individual.
One last thought as we close, so we're out of time, but when.
Jesus accused the Pharisees in Matthew chapter 23 and he gave that list of woes.
One of the things he accused them of is of being those who plundered widows' houses.
Why?
Because they desired their money more than they cared for their souls.
We need to be careful that never becomes a characteristic of our lives.
Thank you for your attention.