Take your Bibles, if you will, and open them to 1 Timothy chapter 3.
1 Timothy chapter 3 is where we'll be taking our study from this morning as we get into the qualifications of elders.
So let's begin with a word of prayer and then we'll get started in our study.
Our dear Lord, God and Father of mankind, we come before you grateful for the day that you've given to us and the life that we have.
the blessings and the opportunities that we have to worship and to praise your name, to glorify you for truly you are worthy of that glory.
We pray that you will be with us as we go through this period of study.
May the things that we say and do be those things which are right in your sight.
May we be encouraged and edified by the letters that the Spirit gave through the apostles to the first century church that we might know how to live, how to work, and how to remain
steadfast and faithful in your body.
Lord, we pray for the work of the church throughout the world that they have boldness and open doors of opportunity to preach the gospel, but also that they have willingness
and we have willingness to teach and preach the truth.
All this we ask and pray in Jesus' name, amen.
Ahem.
What's the first description of elders that we noticed in our study?
Shepherds.
In 1 Timothy chapter 3, Paul doesn't use directly the word shepherd.
What term of description does Paul use for this role in the first century church according to 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 1?
Bishop.
And what did we say bishop means?
Overseer, okay?
The idea and probably the closest English term by way of description that we could use is superintendent.
Someone who watches over the work of others, okay?
but overseer is one of the terms used to describe elders.
you could, and we use the term elder to describe elders.
What, and we'll get into this more as we get into the qualifications, but what does the term elder mean?
Well, but the word itself.
All right, have you ever seen someone who's a Mormon walk up to your door and they have elder so and so when they're 17 years old?
They're not using the word right, okay?
Elder by definition means older, okay?
It's part of the description which connects not to their role but to their
age, their position as a result of age.
So to have a man who is 20 be an elder, he better be an elder over a group of people who are all 12.
At that point he's the elder, all right?
When Jesus used the term the elder brother, what did we come to surmise about that?
that of the two brothers, he was the older one.
It didn't necessarily mean he was walking around with gray hair.
It meant he was older, okay?
So the term in and of itself is descriptive of an attribute of elders.
They are to be those who are older.
We'll see that somewhat in the text.
Now, of course, that will eventually lead someone to say,
But how old do you have to be?
Deal with that when we get to it.
so overseer, bishop.
Shepherd, one who leads, guards, protects, cares for, nourishes, feeds the flock.
elder, one who is older.
Okay?
So these are all descriptions of the same position.
What about the term pastor?
Okay, it is an elder, not a preacher, but the term pastor is just the same term for shepherd.
That's what a pastor is.
It's a word that means shepherd, which in a sense, hold on for a minute, in a sense is the work of a minister and a preacher that which...
Shepherds, a flock, guides, leads, teaches, cares for.
Yes, but it also happens to be the role of ministering to the flock, right?
Do we use the word ministers for a preacher?
All right, but in the Greek, the word minister is deacon.
The word deacon means servant or minister.
So is a preacher a deacon?
No, not by way of role.
But do they serve and minister to the flock?
Yes.
Are some of the roles and responsibilities and functions of a preacher those roles and responsibility and functions which will shepherd a flock?
Yes, but not with the authority of the role of an elder.
Okay?
and this is, I'm bringing this up for reason.
What was the role of the elder by way of the term bishop?
The term bishop means to oversee the work of others.
If the bishop is overseeing the work, does that imply that someone else is doing the work?
Yes.
So when someone is overseeing a shepherd, then there is a shepherd who is under them who is shepherding, right?
Right?
Shake your head this way.
It's right, all right?
If there is a chief shepherd, and there is, Jesus, are there shepherds who are shepherding under the chief shepherd?
Have you ever seen the pictures of a child playing all by himself?
And the mother comes and says, sweetheart, what are you playing?
Indians?
Who are you?
I'm the chief?
He's playing by himself.
Chief over what?
All right?
There are no more Indians.
He's not chief over it.
So in order for there to be a chief shepherd, there must be shepherds beneath the shepherd.
In order for shepherds to be overseers in regards to shepherding, there would have to be someone under them who is doing what?
The work.
But does the worker have the same authority, role, and responsibility as the shepherd, the chief shepherd, or the elders in this case, the bishops?
The overseer has the greater responsibility, though there can be those under him who are doing the work.
This is important because sometimes
Someone will use a term and they mean the role, but when they really should be using it, they should be talking about the action, okay?
Let's differentiate this just a little bit more.
Are there some words that define a role in the noun sense in English and some words, the same word is a verb, means you're doing an action?
Okay, so for the role, who is a shepherd in the structure of the church of God?
The noun sense of the word.
An elder.
Is a preacher a shepherd in the church in the noun sense of the word of role?
No, not unless he is both a preacher and an elder.
Do we have any biblical examples of someone who is both a preacher and an elder?
Yes, we have at least three.
Anybody name a few of them?
not Paul, Peter, John, and James the brother of Christ.
James was an elder in Jerusalem.
James was also clearly a minister and a preacher and the writer of the book of James.
So James the brother of Jesus would become an elder, would also be a minister.
a teacher fits in across all of them, okay?
I bring this up because...
If someone says, hey, Pastor Aaron,
Am I a pastor by way of the noun role?
in the body of Christ here in Collierville?
Am I an elder?
No.
Do I, to a degree, by way of teaching and instruction, feed and shepherd the flock by way of leading the flock in Collierville?
Yes.
So in the verb sense of pastoring or shepherding or leading and feeding, I'm...
kind of like the hireling sense of a pastor in the sense that I'm the guy who the shepherd says, go take the feed over there and feed that part of the flock that food.
That guy's not the shepherd by way of roller authority.
He's the one going and handing out the food, right?
He's not the shepherd, but he is.
helping the shepherd fulfill the role, okay?
I only bring this up because sometimes we get in very nuanced arguments with people about words that they don't have a clue what we're talking about.
Because they've always heard the word used the wrong way.
And they have no definition in their mind about the difference between a role and authority.
and a work and carrying out the work.
So, when an elder in a body of Christ has a deacon whose role is to go and make sure the widows are being fed,
Is that feeding of the widows and caring for the widows part of the role and responsibility of a shepherd?
Yes.
And are they fulfilling that by acting out that role through the work of the deacon?
Yes.
But who's making sure that the widows get fed?
The elder or the deacon?
The deacon is.
He's taking on the responsibility, reporting back to the elder.
The elder is overseeing the work.
Turn to Acts chapter 6.
We'll get into chapter 3 verse 2 in a minute.
Acts chapter 6.
Now in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplying, verse 1, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists because their widows were neglected in the
daily distribution.
Then the twelve...twelve who?
Apostles, okay?
So the apostles are currently leading the church in the first century in Jerusalem.
All the church basically is in Jerusalem at this point in time.
The twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables.
What are they saying?
when they say it is not desirable.
Okay, it is not in the best interests of the Church.
They're not saying, you know what, we've never really envisioned ourselves as those who wait on people.
No, that's not it.
They're not talking about their own desire for it.
They're talking about what is desirable for accomplishing the work of the Church.
It's not desirable, it's not good, it is not appropriate that the 12 of us
who are the apostles of Christ leave off the work of being apostles to go wait tables.
It's not appropriate.
So they say, therefore brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.
What if they had said, you know what, it's not appropriate for us
as apostles to be waiting tables, so you know what?
We're just not going to fix the problem.
Would they have been properly shepherding the church?
No, they would have become like those shepherds that Ezekiel accused, that they are only interested in one thing and they don't take care of the poor and the needy and the lame
and the sick and the hungry.
They're neglecting their responsibility, not fulfilling it.
So they have to provide for the need, but do they have to do it themselves?
No, okay.
One of the roles of a shepherd, talking about actual sheep, is to feed the sheep.
Does that mean the shepherd has to feed each sheep by hand?
No, what can the shepherd do?
He could delegate.
He could lead them into pastures where there's food that they could graze upon.
He could do all sorts of things without feeding them by hand.
Now, as you'll notice here, verse 4 says, but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.
There are some things that only we can do in the way they need to be done.
So we're gonna focus on that and we're gonna delegate this work to these individuals who you, the assembly of the church in Jerusalem, bring forward.
We're going to appoint them to the work.
So notice what happens.
Yeah.
Right.
So the idea is it's not reasonable.
It's not appropriate.
Now, he says, or we read in verse 5, and the saying pleased the whole multitude.
And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith, and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, Teman, Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch, whom they
set
before the apostles and when they had prayed they laid hands on them then the word of God spread and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of
the priests were obedient to the faith."
In this passage, you will find the apostles delegating responsibility.
Now, they set qualifications for the men who would fulfill the responsibility because they needed these men to be able to take this over and handle it and do it right.
So they had to be men who were full of faith.
They had to meet qualifications, but they handed the responsibility over to those men
and what happened as a result.
you look at the verses that we just ended with and consider it in the context to be a result of solving this problem, then the result was then the Word of God spread and the
number of the disciples multiplied.
What would have happened, potentially, had the apostles stopped preaching the Word and started feeding people at tables?
the Church would not have multiplied because the thing they needed to be doing, they weren't doing.
Now, the reason why this is so important...
is because in too many congregations, you've got elders that are spending an abundance of their time taking care of the building, mowing the lawn.
Making sure that the widows are taken care of.
Making sure that the benevolence is taking place.
Are any of those things bad things?
Are any of those things things that elders should not do if they have the ability and the availability to do them?
No, there's nothing bad about them doing them unless, of course, they're not then shepherding.
They're not actually doing the work of overseeing because they're so busy doing the work of manual labor.
Now, those two things, the manual labor and the overseeing, can definitely be joined at the hip.
Can you oversee something you never actually pay any attention to or never have any involvement in?
No.
What if Michael over here is responsible for an elevator and making sure the elevator gets built right and it's found out he's never actually looked at the elevator?
that'd be bad.
Well, he just trusted his guys to do it right.
He's been sitting back at the houses doing other things.
He sweeped the shop floor back at the warehouse.
Well, the shop floor needed to be swept, not in replacement of making sure the elevator was right.
You've got oversight.
You've got to lay eyes on it.
Now, as we go through this, what we're trying to draw out is what is the role of an overseer?
And why does that matter to a degree when you meet someone, especially from a denominational background, where everybody and their brother is some sort of pastor?
and they don't know what the word means.
And they don't differentiate the work of helping a flock with the role and responsibility and authority of an elder.
Then you have other churches who they flop the terms and the deacons get the role and responsibility of elders and elders are under the deacons.
It's like, have you not read this book?
But when you're talking with someone, when you're studying with someone, when you're having a casual conversation with someone, and they use the wrong term, and this happens,
it never happens to me more than at funeral homes, because you never know what you're gonna get called when you walk into a funeral home by the directors of the funeral home.
You're gonna get called any sort of thing if you're a preacher.
I've been called Reverend, I've been called Pastor, and it depends on which part of the country you're in.
You're gonna get called one thing more than another depending on where you are.
But do I need to stop every time someone calls me the wrong thing, which I'm not, and correct them?
Would it be helpful for their Bible knowledge if I did?
Maybe, but it might be the last conversation I have with them.
Was it the most important thing I could talk to them about?
No.
There's a point in time where when you know something is the right way and someone describes it the wrong way, you don't have to correct everybody who describes it the wrong
way.
until you first address all of the bigger issues they may have.
Which is part of the reason why as you're studying the Bible with someone, I did have a reason for bringing all this up.
When you're studying the Bible with someone, especially in a personal Bible study, it is very important we get closer to our evangelism training next month.
It is incredibly important.
It's something I love that Rob
really highlights.
that you don't chase rabbits.
Because the most important thing for a person who's lost is not to understand the difference between a reverend and a pastor and an elder and a bishop and a presbyter.
That's whole nother word we haven't gotten into yet.
That's not their most important issue, is it?
For a person who's lost, what is their most important issue?
They're lost and they need to be saved.
So when you're studying with someone, when you're talking with someone, and your goal is to get them to open up the Word of God and actually read it and actually understand it for
themselves, guess what?
You can let a whole lot of topics wait.
If they're willing to open it up and study for themselves, they'll eventually teach themselves.
They'll eventually apply the learning that they have and they'll start understanding the difference between this term and another term and another term.
but until you can get them in the book and get them to start studying for themselves and get them into Christ where they both have grace and salvation, all the effort talking to
them about the proper way to worship, all the effort talking to them about the proper structure of the church and correcting all of their misunderstandings.
I'm not talking about informing them about what the Bible says.
I'm talking about trying to correct every
misconception that they have.
would have been better spent talking to them about being saved, would have been better spent talking to them about how they need to change their life to conform to God, and how
they need to open God's Word and actually allow it to measure their lives.
Because guess what?
When you show someone how to use a ruler, and then you show someone how to use a measuring tape,
Is there only one thing they can measure?
no, they can measure all sorts of things with it.
Because you taught them how to use the device.
You taught them how to use the ruler.
So they can use the measuring tape and measure a church building.
And they can use the measuring tape and measure a piece of furniture.
They can use the measuring tape and measure an object in their car.
They can use the measuring tape and measure something they're building.
Why?
Because you taught them how to use the measuring tape.
What if you measure everything for them and never tell them how it's done?
Now they need you to measure everything.
So as we go through this, elders oversee and they hand off responsibility in many of the things that they do to those who enact that work.
They delegate.
So that their focus can be on what?
So they can sit in the boardroom and have lots of meetings and talk about things.
No, so that their focus can be on the flock and shepherding the flock and caring for the flock and making sure that the flock is healthy and has what it needs, okay?
By the way,
They have a special role and responsibility in protecting the flock.
That's why they're shepherds.
Okay?
So, back in 1 Timothy chapter 3, Paul says, this is a faithful saying, if a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work.
There's work involved.
We've talked about that already.
A bishop then must be, so now...
Paul's going to talk about qualifications for the role of an overseer.
But when he gets into the bishop must be, he's already talked about one of the qualifications before he got there.
What was it?
Alright, the desire for the work.
The very first qualification for an elder is they must desire the work.
This should never be something that somebody's arm is twisted behind their back and wrenched to the point of breaking before they're willing to actually agree to do it.
They must desire the work.
Furthermore, he says, they must be certain things.
So there must be an active desire on one side, but there also must be a state of being on the other.
He says a bishop then must be blameless.
What does it mean to be blameless?
Just raw definition.
What does the term mean?
I don't think so.
If we just break it down, there's blame and less, what does the term mean?
without blame, okay?
So with the word less on the end of it means.
Without blame, they must be those who someone as was just pointing out, bring an accusation, an individual can't bring an accusation against them and then be found guilty
of that, okay?
Now, what, in the context, the idea of this is,
if someone has been defrauding people.
So let's say there's a man in the church whose role and responsibility is to go check the water meters.
So he goes around town and he checks the water meters and every water meter he looks at he marks it up 10 % and then he gets paid the 10 % markup.
Is he defrauding people?
Is he blameless?
No, he's exact opposite.
He is someone that someone could bring an accusation against and be found guilty.
So this has to do with character.
This has to do with someone who is of such character that someone could not bring an honest, right accusation against their
character.
when Jesus...
go ahead.
Absolutely.
So notice this is not, they must be blameless in their actions toward the assembly or the body of Christ.
No, this is they must be blameless.
All right?
Now Jesus is the example of this.
When Jesus was brought before Pilate and Pilate...
was told by the chief priests and the elders all the various things that they accused Jesus of.
Then Pilate goes and questions Jesus, and Pilate has Jesus scourged, and then comes back and says, I find no fault in him.
That is blameless.
Someone can look at and examine the life of this individual and the description here doesn't mean sinlessly perfect.
It means I can examine their life and their character and I can't find any fault in them.
Now, you turn over to Jesus's scenario and He was what?
Sinless.
There's a difference between sinless and blameless.
Okay?
How do I know?
Not a trick question.
How do I know there's a difference between sinless and blameless?
Okay, they're two different things.
How many sinless people have ever walked the earth?
All right.
Jesus, nobody else, okay?
And yet, every elder is commanded to be blameless.
Okay, so I know that sinless and blameless aren't the same thing because there's only one person who's ever been sinless and there's a whole category of people who are called to be
blameless.
So how do we understand and how do we differentiate someone who perhaps has sinned and isn't perfect and yet is blameless?
How would we differentiate that?
Okay.
All right, that's one of the things that I think is really critical.
As Naomi just pointed out, they don't claim to be without sin, but when they sin, they correct the thing they did wrong.
They improve on the thing that they did wrong and they discontinue the wrong that they've done.
They repent and correct their lives on a continual basis to conform to God's Word.
So they might do something that's wrong, but when they're made aware of the fact that they did something that was wrong, what are they going to do?
They're not going to make a lifestyle of the thing that they did that was wrong.
They're not going to go, you know what, that thing that I did was wrong.
That was really profitable.
I think I'm going do that again.
I'm going to do it again and again and again and again.
You know what, let's build a whole business around it.
That person's not blameless.
When someone comes to the person who is blameless and they say, you said you were going to sell me 40 pounds of butter.
You sold me 38 pounds of butter.
and charged me for 40.
You want to know what the blameless guy's going to do?
He's not going to stand up and holler and say, you can't blame me for that, that was the guy who was checking you out.
No, he's going to say, let me go get you those two pounds of butter.
Why?
Because his character is such that he will correct things that are wrong, he will do things that are right, and he will not continue in the wrong.
Now...
What if you have an individual who made an entire lifetime of choices in the community where he defrauded people on a daily basis in the community and then he hears the gospel
and suddenly changes his life, becomes obedient to the gospel,
and a few years later the church wants to make him an elder.
What's the problem?
What's his reputation on the outside?
Here, let me give you a biblical example, not of the elder part, but of the defrauding part.
What if in Samaria,
Simon the sorcerer had been put forward as one to take on the role of being an elder after he's been converted and been part of the church in Samaria for some time.
What do all the people in Samaria remember about Simon?
that he defrauded them by claiming he was a sorcerer and had all these great powers.
When someone's character and lifestyle for a large part of their lives is to be one which is in opposition to blameless, but rather to be blamed, he's gonna have a hard time
correcting that.
It's gonna take some great deal of time to correct that in view of others in order to truly be blameless.
Not saying He's not repented and had His sins washed away, but that's not the term.
The term here is not without sin.
The term here is blameless.
It has to do with character.
It has to do with His actions inside and outside of the Church.
And, by the way, before we're done, there's even going to be a requirement that they must have a good reputation of those who are outside the Church.
Would Simon's reputation of those outside the church in the community of Samaria have been a good reputation?
not once it was proved that he wasn't what he claimed to be.
Okay?
So, when you're looking at these responsibilities, when you're looking at these roles, when you're looking at these qualifications, it's important to understand them.
It's also important to put them within their contextual limits.
So blameless in the context of Christ means sinless.
blameless in the context of human beings doesn't mean sinless, does it?
Because then, who would qualify?
No one.
Would you consider Moses in his role leading the people of Israel to have been blameless?
I didn't say sinless, I blameless.
Matter fact, in the Old Testament, Moses in Deuteronomy will rehearse over and over and over again with Israel how he was blameless.
He didn't cause them to stray from God.
He didn't cause them to rebel against God.
There's only one occasion in all of the 40 years leading Israel where you could apply any blame to Moses.
And what is it?
When he smites the rock instead of speaking to it.
one occasion in 40 years.
And there's a point at which in the book of Numbers, I think Numbers chapter 14 or 16, where Moses asked God to kill him because he's so tired of dealing with his people.
Like, could you kill me now?
So, let clarify the question.
During his time leading Israel from, yes, yes, so going back, you go back to the early life of Moses, you can find some blame there.
But by the time he's 80 years old and leading Israel and God's calling him to go, you find a man whose character is blameless.
Moses didn't accept pay from the people.
He didn't take anything from them.
He didn't take their flocks.
He didn't take their herds.
He was leading them.
but he wasn't enriching himself from it.
He wasn't abusing his position.
He wasn't doing anything other than trying to lead them in the path of God.
That's a picture of blameless, okay?
So when you're trying to evaluate, does this person have the character of a Moses, of a Peter, of a James?
Were there things that James did that we could say, hmm, maybe not everything that James did was the right choice?
How about Barnabas?
Could Barnabas be one who you say, not every choice that Barnabas made was a right choice?
Yeah, because Barnabas separated himself away from the Gentiles when the Jews came.
They're in the book of Galatians as recorded by Paul, but Peter did too.
And Paul has to withstand them.
Does that mean Peter's never qualified to be an elder again?
No.
So blameless has to do with character of life, correcting when wrong is done, repenting and restoring someone when you've injured them or done something against them, and not
continuing in a way that is beneficial for you and harmful for others.
Thank you for your time and attention.
We'll be dismissed.