Leadership in the Church pt 2
08/08/2010
We looked at the origins of these roles to clarify what each has been designed by God to do: Elders give their attention to the ministry of the Word and to prayer, applying both of these in their work of caring for the people that God entrusts to them in the local church.
Deacons are also people of spiritual maturity who have been given specific tasks to perform. They have the confidence of the congregation in performing those tasks because they are full of the Spirit and wisdom, and they have been empowered and entrusted to those tasks by the Elders.
Of course every Christian has a specific role to play in the church. We are all deacons in the sense of what that word means. However some people are given particular authority to make decisions on behalf of the church and to carry them out, and it is therefore important that they are recognised, supported and held accountable in those roles.
Today we are going to look more closely at the type of people who we should be appointing to these roles. As we saw in Acts 6 last week, good leadership helps to provide the right environment for church health and church growth. Poor leadership creates an environment of tension, unhealthy conflict, spiritual immaturity and corruption and compromised witness.
Churches need godly leadership.
As we go through the qualifications of leaders today I hope that you will also keep in mind that these are things for us all to aspire to and to be growing in. They are not just for people appointed to positions of leadership. They are things that God expects and wants to produce in all of us.
Pray
Let’s begin by looking at the qualifications listed in 1 Timothy 3 for overseers (Elders). I want to warn you that we will spend the most time looking at the ones at the start of the list, so don’t panic when you look at your watch and see how far we still have to go!
Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task.
I want you to realise that authority in the church should never be given to those who seek it. The people we want serving as Elders are in that role because they love God and they love the congregation. They want to serve both God and the congregation in the challenging yet noble task of applying the ministry of the Word and prayer to the lives of those they lead. Being an Elder is not about getting together once a month to make decision on what happens and how things happen. It’s not about getting your own way in anything. It’s about the noble task of shepherding souls.
When Jesus’ disciples were experiencing conflict due to personal ambition, He corrected them by saying:
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” [1]
(Matthew 20:25-28)
That’s how it is with Elders. To be qualified for Eldership a man must desire to serve in a noble task, not lord it over others. Jesus Himself is our example – it’s a high calling but not glamorous!
So when you look for people who are suited for the role of Elder, look for men who delight in serving. Look for people who are not ambitious or self-important but men who serve humbly out of love for others.
2 Now the overseer must be above reproach,
One of the problems that many people have when they look at these qualifications is that they seem to rule everybody out! Is anybody able to live up to this list?
We often think being above reproach means never falling short, never needing correction or rebuke. However that completely contradicts everything the Bible teaches about the Christian life and how we need to do those things for each other. There are no perfect Christians, just a perfect Christ.
To be above reproach means that there should be no continuing sin in your life. It means that you are not harbouring sin. We all have our own particular weaknesses and temptations, but we should not allow them to have a permanent presence in our lives.
When a Christian sins, the Holy Spirit convicts us in order to produce confession and repentance. We own up to it and we turn away from it. God forgives us and cleanses us from that sin (eg: 1 John 1:5-10).
Often, however, we have blind spots in our own lives where we have not been sensitive to the Spirit’s quiet voice of conviction. God has designed the Church to help us overcome sin in these areas as people speak the truth to us in love. Elders in particular are charged with admonishing those who are under their care (1 Thess. 5:12). We cannot expect people in our congregation to accept admonishment from us if we do not accept it from each others and from other believers. In fact one of the most important things that Elders do is keep watch over each other to make sure that our lives are above reproach (Acts 20:28). If there are any issues that exist in our lives we have a responsibility to each other and to the whole church to make sure that we deal with them.
So to sum up what this qualification is all about, it is simply that when an Elder becomes aware of sin in his life through the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the ministry of fellow believers, he sets an example by confessing and turning away from that sin so that he may be above reproach. If he will not turn away from sin in his life he is disqualified from being an Elder.
Elders should never, ever pretend to be perfect or even to be closer to perfect than anyone else. That is hypocrisy and it denies the gospel. The holiest people I know are the ones who seem to consider themselves the most wretched!
Elders should model the Christian response to their own imperfections with honesty and humility. That’s what it means to be above reproach.
the husband of but one wife,
Now we’re going to get into the issue of whether an Elder must be a man. This is an issue that has caused a fair bit of debate over the years as you can imagine.
We simply don’t have enough time for me to give you a thorough exposition of the Scriptures on this topic today, so what I will do is summarise our church’s position on that by highlighting the key issues, and I will happily talk to anyone who is interested in further depth later on. I will also assure you that as we study God’s word together at some point in the future this issue will arise because of the passages we are studying and we will deal with it thoroughly then.
But what we need to emphasise when we look at male and female roles in the church or in families, is that there is no such thing as a battle of the sexes in the Church of God
We believe that God created us male and female in order to complement and complete one another so that both will be blessed and God will be glorified. We believe God is the One who determines how men and women should relate and how they should support one another, and that He has revealed these principles through His Word.
When you look at things from a point of view of selfishness and struggle for power then any distinction between people always creates a winner and a loser. You can pretend to be civilised and try to negotiate an equal settlement, but there will always be a suspicion that you’re getting the raw end of the deal. The only way to keep everyone happy is to make everything the same for everyone. The problem is that it doesn’t actually make people happy and it wasn’t God’s idea for things to work that way.
God wants us to learn to love and trust one another. He wants us to learn to submit willingly to each other – that includes everyone just in case you haven’t read Ephesians 5:21! God wants us to be willing to serve one another. One way that God helps us to do these things is that He assigns us roles for us to carry out faithfully without striving to have someone else’s role and without forsaking our own role.
As each church or denomination has wrestled with this issue we’ve seen a wide range of conclusions reached. Some churches have succumbed to the influence of men who abuse their power and will continue to do so by keeping women firmly “under the thumb”. Some churches have succumbed to a worldly view of gender relationships and treat men and women as basically the same out of a desire for equality. Some churches have maintained male Eldership which seeks to be faithful to the Scriptures in all respects and some churches have instituted male and female Eldership with the same goal in mind. We need to speak out against the first two but accept both of the last two with good grace. In our church we are convinced of the Scriptural injunction to all-male Eldership. Therefore we need to be careful to guard against the tendency to leave women out of important decision-making processes and pastoral care processes and so miss out on the gifts and wisdom that God has placed within the godly women of our church.
So if we are convinced that an Elder in our church should be a man, must he be a married man?
The short answer is “No”! Often it is assumed that mature men are married, but that is not always the case. God calls some men and some women to celibacy – sometimes for a season and sometimes for life. The Apostle Paul was unmarried, and encouraged others to remain so if that was a gift God had given them (1 Cor. 7). It would be strange to recommend celibacy and if single men were considered of insufficient maturity to serve as Elders.
What about the issue of divorce? Many churches have interpreted this verse to imply that an Elder must have only been married to one woman.
We need to be clear about our teaching on this point – God hates divorce. I would imagine that everyone here who has been through divorce shares that opinion.
But as awful as divorce is, it is not more powerful than the ability of God to forgive and restore and grow people to maturity even through experiences that He does not desire for them. It’s happened in my life plenty of times, just with different sins.
I could talk at length about this subject and I would be happy to do so with anyone who would like to.
There are some horrible husbands who have never been divorced, and there are some godly men who have. Let’s not contradict the gospel and appoint the wrong people to leadership based on a misunderstanding of the biblical qualifications. Rather, if a man is married let’s make sure that he really is a one-woman man and completely faithful to his wife. If he is single he needs to avoid the sin of sexual immorality.
temperate, self-controlled, respectable,
I’ve grouped these three together because they really flow on one from another.
The first two terms are very closely related. The first one, “temperate” refers to being clear minded. It means to be alert and to not have your thinking impeded by anything – uncontrolled emotions, sinful desires, intoxicating substances, doubts and fears or anything else. An elder must be able to think clearly in all situations. Remember they are charged with keeping a careful watch over themselves and the flock.
The second term “self-controlled” refers to not just their ability to be clear minded but also well behaved. They put into practice the principle of Romans 12:2 – they are not conforming to the pattern of this world, but are being transformed by the renewing of their minds.
We all know what it’s like to be so caught up in something so powerfully that we don’t think clearly and therefore don’t do what is right and good. Elders need to be mature in their ability to manage their own internal dynamics and their behaviour in all situations.
Let me give you an example of one way that has worked out for me this week. Usually my stories are about me messing up but this one’s about God helping me not to mess up – except for what I did wrong at the start!
We had a topsy-turvy day on Thursday and I ended up needed to leave the Laser I normally drive at work and come home in our Falcon. As I drove into our driveway there was another car where the Falcon is normally parked so I needed to swing to the side and park in the Laser’s normal spot – making sense so far?!
Anyhow the Falcon is longer than the Laser so as I swung the car into the side carport I heard the awful crunch and scrape of the side of the car scraping along the edge of a brick wall. I reversed off and examined the damage – it’s ugly!
Now at that moment when it happened I could feel straight away a frustration and also embarrassment rising up within me that wanted to find someone to blame. I wanted to be angry that my plans for the afternoon had been messed up and I was driving the wrong car. I wanted to be angry that someone was parked where I should have been able to park.
Imagine how I would have behaved and how I would have treated people if that misplaced anger had taken hold. Thankfully it didn’t, but what if it had. To be above reproach I would have needed to go and apologise to people I’d treated badly and seek restoration.
That leads to the last word of the three: respectable. “Temperate” refers to our internal dynamics and “self-controlled” refers to our behaviour. “Respectable” refers to how our behaviour affects other’s opinion of us and of Jesus who we represent. Each one flows on to the other.
When I manage myself and my behaviour well, I will lead a life that brings glory to God and earns the respect of others. If I fall short, but show godly character in apologising and showing that I am working on growing in that area I still bring glory to God and earn the respect of others. If I excuse my lack of self-management and lack of self control by blaming others for my attitude and my behaviour I lose the respect of others and fail this test.
OK, we’ve made it through the ones that we needed to spend a bit more time on, let’s pick up the pace as we go through the next group!
hospitable,
Do you remember a controversial politician replying to a question with the words “Please explain?” The question she was asked was “Are you xenophobic?” Xenophobia is the fear of strangers or foreigners. The Greek word translated as “hospitable” is “Philoxenia” – the love of strangers.
Most people are a little bit xenophobic. We like to hang out with people we know and feel comfortable with. We naturally seek out our little cliques and are careful about who we let into them. God commands us to not show this sort of favouritism, but to accept others and treat them as we would like to be treated. Elders in particular are charged with welcoming strangers and making them friends.
When leaders show hospitality not only does it set a good example but it helps new people to settle quickly into the life of our church family and feel like they really belong, they are really connected. It’s an important ministry.
able to teach,
We’ve already seen that the Ministry of the Word is an important part of an Elder’s duty. An Elder needs to teach by example through the manner of his conduct. He needs to teach in the way he converses with others. He needs to be able to teach when an issue comes up that needs biblical perspective. He needs to be able to teach anyone who has questions about our faith. Whether he teaches large groups, small groups or individuals isn’t the point, the point is that he must be qualified to teach. This doesn’t mean he needs to know everything, but he must have a really firm grasp on the message of the gospel and what the Bible teaches about how we should live as God’s people.
3 not given to drunkenness,
This group of four are all related to being temperate, self-controlled and respectable, but specific applications of that principle. The issue of drunkenness is a basic one but very important. Of course some people get distracted by whether Christians should drink alcohol at all, but that’s not an issue here. Elders should not be men who get drunk.
not violent but gentle,
Violence indicates a critical breakdown in being even-tempered and self-controlled. It is ugly and happens physically, verbally and emotionally. The opposite of this is the gentleness that is the fruit of a Spirit-led life. Violence is the abuse of power for selfish purposes, gentleness is love expressing itself in care for others.
not quarrelsome,
Similarly being quarrelsome is all about selfishness and pride. It means that you have to get your way in everything. A quarrelsome person would make a dangerous Elder because they would need to have everything in the church going their way. They don’t understand that godly leadership requires submission – handing over responsibility to qualified people and letting them serve; making decisions for the good of others more than your yourself and so on. There have been times when I have allowed people to do things that I have been sure would be better done differently or not continued to argue a point even though I felt strongly about it. Sometimes I have been shown right and others have had a chance to learn from that. Sometimes I have been shown wrong and I’ve learnt from it. A quarrelsome person doesn’t learn or let others learn – they are always right.
not a lover of money.
Being a lover of money involves at least two critical mistakes:
1. selfishness
2. short-sightedness
Christians are called to love others, be generous toward others and to live for eternity not for what is temporary. You can’t do these things and love money. You cannot serve God and money (Matt 6:24).
4 He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. 5 (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?)
This is a really interesting one, particularly in the light of Titus 1:6 which says that an Elder must be “a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.”
This has caused a lot of issues for people over the years because they haven’t been sure of how this test should be applied.
The translation of Titus 1:6 raises a couple of questions: What does it mean that his children “believe” or “are faithful”; and secondly, how do we define “children” – are they children who haven’t reached adulthood, are they children who still live at home, or are they still his children regardless of their age?
We don’t have time today to explore all those issues, so let me just remind you of some important biblical issues regarding belief. God has chosen us to be saved through faith in Jesus (eg: Eph 1:4, 2 Thess 2:13, James 2:5). There are two things at play here: the divine work of God through His Spirit to reveal the truth and the free will of man to exercise belief. We could spend all day trying to explain that but we won’t! What is clear is that no human can produce faith in any other human. We can share the truth consistently and we can pray faithfully but we cannot produce illumination or faith in anyone else.
As a father I find that terrifying – I cannot control my children’s eternal destiny. I can be faithful to my role as a father so that my children when they are young inherit a rich legacy of faith in God, but as they grow up and are pulled in all sorts of directions by temptations, false teaching and their own desires all I can do is play my role and entrust the rest to God.
That’s what we need to see in our Elders – men who minister well to their families and whose families show evidence of that ministry.
6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil.
Eldership does not come naturally, it only comes with spiritual maturity that does not develop overnight. Natural leadership is a fairly rare gift, and we are tempted to latch on to such people and follow them. But if men aren’t allowed to develop spiritually, their role as an Elder will be based on their natural ability to lead rather than on God’s Word and His Spirit. They will become independent and full of pride. It’s not fair to do that to someone just because they have the natural confidence and charisma to lead. Give them time to grow first.
7 He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap.
We’ve already heard that an Elder must be respectable, why particularly focus on a good reputation with outsiders? We have a natural tendency to act in different ways around different people. Sometimes Christians are tempted to just go with the flow and live by different standards in their workplaces or homes than those that govern what they do “in church”.
That’s not OK. It doesn’t reflect well on the genuineness of our faith or on the message of the gospel and work of the Spirit to produce transformed lives. This is the devil’s trap. He could not stop Jesus from rescuing us from darkness and giving us His righteousness. He does all he can to stop us from living in that righteousness and sharing that salvation with those who have not yet received it. He strives to get leaders of the church caught up in sin and scandal and therefore tarnish the gospel and the pure witness of the Church.
Elders must be men who live up to what they preach among Christians and non-Christians alike.
Having stepped through these qualifications of Elders as listed in 1 Timothy 3, I’m going to make just a few comments on what this passage teaches us about deacons as well.
8 Deacons, likewise,
In other words, “Deacons, in the same manner…”
We should realise the similarity in the biblical requirements that apply, so I will just mention some of the key differences for your attention.
are to be men worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine, and not pursuing dishonest gain. 9 They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience.
All very similar so far, except that deacons should keep hold of the deep truths of the faith, not necessarily be qualified to teach them. The Ministry of the Word is essential for Elders, but may not necessarily be part of the specific tasks assigned to a Deacon.
10 They must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons.
This testing is similar to what we are right now applying to both Elders and Deacons. We need to be confident in the character and spiritual maturity of our leaders. However there is an extra dimension for deacons because of the specific roles they are called to play – they need to be gifted and called for those particular roles! It would make no sense at all for someone who has struggled in the area of financial management to be installed as church treasurer. We need to make sure we have the right people doing the right jobs. We are a body and not every part is the same – we need all of the parts doing the jobs they have been designed to do.
11 In the same way, their wives are to be women worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything.
This one gets to the issue of gender – the Greek text is simply “In the same way the women of them…”. This can be translated as meaning the wives of deacons or deacons who are women, and different translations take different approaches to this.
Using the whole counsel of Scripture as a guide we see no reason to assume that deacons must only be men. There are a number of reasons for this, so as usual talk to me if you would like more info!
12 A deacon must be the husband of but one wife and must manage his children and his household well.
Again, this is very similar to the requirement for Elders. The fact that there is a requirement here for men and not women probably speaks to the way gender roles were structured in that society and which group most needed this exhortation!
13 Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus. [2]
It would be easy to misinterpret what this verse is talking about. There’s a very simple yet profound principle being described here. This has nothing to do with a person’s assurance of salvation. It has nothing to do with our position in Christ. In Christ we have been given the full measure of God’s grace, and there is nothing we can do to earn any more of God’s love than we have already been given.
The standing that is talked about here is rather the position of being well respected and appreciated by those you serve and who observe the way you conduct yourself, and also refers to the favour you find in the Lord’s eyes as a faithful servant who will be justly and generously rewarded (1 Cor. 3). There is also a sense in which deacons who serve faithfully in their specific tasks show themselves of good character to be entrusted with a role of general oversight as Elders. This is not a promotion as the world sees it, but rather an opportunity to take on even greater responsibility in service. The church does not need or want Elders who will lord it over others and use their position for their own benefit, therefore it is well advised to seek out men with a proven track record of faithful service rather than self-promotion.
As well as gaining an excellent standing, those who serve well gain “great assurance in their faith”. This is not talking about a greater certainty of salvation, but rather a greater boldness and confidence in living out and expressing their faith.
Many of the tasks that we take on in serving God and His Church are nerve-wracking or daunting to us at the start! However as we step out in faith and obedience we find that God enables us to do what He has called us to do. There is a confidence that grows in a person who has experienced that. The longer we serve in any particular task, the greater the confidence we have in doing it.
People of various ages have often remarked about how comfortable I seem to be in front of a group of people. The truth is that I don’t always feel that confident, yet I take on public tasks boldly because it is one of the things that God has called me to do. Early on in my journey, this was a much more terrifying thing for me to do than it is today, because I am further along in my journey of service. Christians should never hold themselves back from service, because if they do they will not only disobey their Master and leave His work undone, but they will stop themselves from growing in confidence and usefulness to God and His Kingdom.
Deacons who serve well are noticed by God and by others, and they grow in their own confidence in allowing their faith to make a real difference in the Kingdom of God
