Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church

Taking some time. Now we’re working our way through church again. We’re going to be spending a number of months talking about that study for consideration. I thought it’d be a good idea to begin this study leading up to more elders qualification system and so doing required. Now having said that, last week took a diversion from that state. Now that was very interesting week since that afternoon church. They didn’t know Heat.

Heat. Heat. Heat. Yeah. Heat. Because of all these things, I decided to Heat. Heat. That’s coming up. Right.

Today we want to begin, as I said, to talk about the false s of Eldership. I prepared a list of the false safety 3 and Titus 1. I wonder if a couple of guys could get up and maybe make sure that everybody has all the families. We’re going to be going over these qualifications in a very summary fashion in a couple of minutes.

They have to be summary. The time allows. We’ll be coming back to these qualifications regularly though as we go through study of Old Testament offices and New Testament offices. So, I’d encourage you to use these now, but then also if you keep them, don’t lose them. Make sure they stay in front of you as it were the next few months.

And there’s I’ve tried to leave room on there for lots of notes you can take this morning yourself. Under the way it’s laid out is the first column is characteristics. Simply a number there. What I’d encourage you to do this morning is we go through some of these characteristics. You would make a little note by the number to help yourself maybe a word that you think would help you to sum up what that characteristic is talking about. So that’s for your use there.

There’s also space below the actual verses themselves. You can write in material also. The way it’s laid out is see characteristic number one under 1 Timothy 3 there’s two things blameless and above reproach.

The original the top entry is the King James version translation of that characteristics. The second one below that is the New American Standard translation. So it gives you two different translations, King James and New American Standard that will begin to help you develop your own study in that matter. And the same thing over in the Titus side. So what I did is I correlated these two lists and when there’s common ground, which is many of them, you put them together.

So this morning we’re going to begin by briefly going over this list. Then having gone over the list in summary fashion, we’ll then make five basic comments relative to these qualifications for eldership laid out in these two portions of scripture. That’s the point.

Now, as we go through some of these qualifications, there’s really many ways to you could use and I’m sure some of you will use or have used in the past to sort of lump these qualifications together.

I think for instance, one way to look at the qualifications would be to look at how we know that God has called us to righteousness, holiness, knowledge, and dominion. And it’d be a good thing to try to go through all these characteristics and put them under categories displaying those four basic areas that God has called us to. You could perhaps lump them under the three offices of Christ and the offices that we know that we’re called to all of us being prophets, priests, and kings before God.

Again, this qualification fits into that sort of a scenario. One obvious scenario will also begin to qualify these characteristics in your own mind. The idea to applying them in your own life would be to look at them in terms of ruling and teaching. We know the eldership and we haven’t done a study of this of course throughout the scriptures yet but we know that eventually what we end up with are ruling and teaching positions here as well as other functions as well.

Those are two major functions. So it’d be interesting to look at some of these qualifications in light of apply to ruling or teaching or maybe subvert the qualifications of a qualified person to do both. We’ll sort of make comments like that as we go through. This is in no means saying that these categories are hard and fast. And it’s also an encouragement for the men of the church to work through these things themselves and to think of their own system of categorizing these qualifications to help us understand them to the end that we’ll do them and strive for them as individuals in the church.

There are many of these qualifications also of course that are also important for the women in the church also to strive for. We’ll talk a little bit more about that later, but I think almost all of these is really applied to the women as well.

Both sets in Timothy 3, 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 begin with the statement that the elder or the bishop must be blameless or above reproach. That’s in both sets that particular qualification.

Now, the word there word the word used in first Timothy means comes from two Greek words. A lot of these I’ll say this once now so we won’t have to go over this again, but a lot of these words are going to be we’re talking about are words, descriptive words and then an a in front of them or an a in front of them meaning not that. Okay. So if for instance in blameless the Greek word used there indicates to be holding on to something to be laid upon held up and so to be blameless means somebody can’t put a hold upon you okay because it has that that prefix attached to the beginning that says that’s or the prefix rather not the preposition the prefix attached to the beginning it says it can’t be in that case.

And we see that throughout many of these words, the blameless means there can’t be a charge upon you. You can’t be laid hold of or opened up to a charge. In the in the Titus passage, the word means to be called to account. And that word again is prefaced by this prefix that says you can’t be called to account. So the elder can’t be called to account in terms of having charges laid against him by people.

Now, I think that what one reason why this heads of both lists. We don’t want to put a lot of importance necessarily to the way these qualifications are listed. I’m not sure we see any kind of hierarchy at all. But I think that above reproach really characterizes the whole life of an individual who’s set apart the work of overseeing or an elder teaching a ruling elder in the church. His whole life should be characterized by being above reproach.

And so it is a summary then qualification as it were of all the things to follow which are more specific. And immediately the next qualification we get to a very specific thing: the husband of one wife. Now I will just touch on this briefly. This is rather a controversial qualification and I’ll just tell you several ways that various commentators have interpreted it from their own personal study.

Some people believe that when it says that the husband of one wife, it means you cannot have been divorced and then remarried. Husband of only one wife, married only once. Other people believe that what this passage infers is that you have to be married. So a single man would not meet a qualification for eldership. There are other verses other qualifications also that they would use to support that.

A third way of looking at this qualification is as an admonition against polygamy. And that may or may not meet with much ready acceptance to first hear that explanation. You got to recognize that at the time of the writing of the scriptures, polygamy was not uncommon. Now my wife was very kind this year and gave me my Christmas present earlier. I had to buy it myself actually. She didn’t know where to get it from. She brought me a copy of the Geneva Bible which was produced in Geneva the Chinese similar copy and in the foot one of the nice things of the Bible besides the translation which is excellent. One of the nice things is that it has a lot of footnotes or marginalia written into it for a very good perspective. Why I guess our answer to the SC and it came first to her. But in the marginalia attached to this husband of one wife, it says there indicating that the polygamous relationship is wrong.

So the interpreters of the translators of Judea Bible believe that was the reason why this thing was attached, the husband of one wife specifically as an admonition is polygamy. Now I’m not going to take a position on that. I haven’t studied it up personally enough. Plus I think that we want to wait for some of the specifics in terms of some of these things until we develop this study of all the New Testament authors.

It’s important to recognize here that the office of eldership isn’t it doesn’t say well here’s a new office they’re going to start and here’s what they do and here are the qualifications these letters were written in two different situations but for instance in Titus it was clear from the rendering of that passage that what’s going out is Paul said now I want to put things in order in the work you’re involved with there the various churches and priests and so here’s what we’re going to do you have to make sure you appoint elders he doesn’t think it sign something new though it wasn’t something new we’ll talk about this more later but it really is a transition from the old covenant synagogue system into the new covenant church.

So it was there’s a there’s a continuity of office as it were between the old covenant and the new covenant. The old covenant had a lot of different offices. New covenant only two at this point we believe anyway deacon and it’ll be important to see how those things all work out. What I’m stressing here is that to correctly interpret a passage such as the husband of one wife, it would be absolutely foolish to ignore the balance of scriptural teaching regarding offices and the Old Testament.

So, we’re going to want to look through all those Old Testament offices before we come up with hard and fast definitions for things like this passage to your husband. On the other hand, it’s important that you do begin to study it for yourself. Of course, based on the text and based on whatever race you have, there’s a specific qualification.

Third, that the characteristic or qualification for eldership, he has to be vigilant or temperate. Now, here again, they’re two different words, but they imply the same thing. And the in the we’ll start with the Titus passage the word for temperate comes from two words in or with and then strength. So it’s to be under control to have strength as a man and be temperate or to be self-control is the way the New American Standard Version translates. That’s a very good translation to be within strength as it were not wild not out of control.

Vigilant on the other hand in 1 Timothy 3 the word used there indicates has the base of the base of the word that’s used there indicates to be free from intoxicants to be free from intoxicants not to be drunk not to be under the control of drugs for instance that would be this Greek word the base for this word means that so what it’s talking about is that the Titus passage is more of a general qualification of hand has to be under control has to be in strength with strength under control and not out of control and specifically he can’t be under the influence of intoxicating beverages.

Now it’s important to recognize there, of course, that in terms of a ruling position for the elder, which is a position the elder performs in a in the institutional church. That’s very important, isn’t it? There are specific admonitions in the Old Testament against drunkenness. There specific admonitions against the use of wine while the person judges, for instance. And so, he has to be under control, not of some sort of intoxicant, but rather under the control of the spirit of God as a result of self-control man, able to be tempered and self-controlled.

Now, last what I guess what I’m saying is there’s lots of ways not to be self-control besides intoxication with a beverage or a drug. Samson at one point in his life was not really under control. He was under the intoxication as it were of an affair with of a of a relationship with a woman who blinded him to his own self-control under God. And so he lost self-control. An elder must be under self-control. Samson wasn’t at times and it led to ruin for him led to led to really the removal of his office by God.

Fourth, the elder must be sober. The word there is identical in both passages yet comes from two words meaning save and mind. So and friendology the study of the brain. So it means to have a mind that’s saved. In other words, a sound mind to be a sound mind, to be sober, to be prudent, sensible is the way the American standard translates it. Have a good mind about you. Okay? And again, that’s extremely important in terms of ruling. If you’re going to be ruling on a making the decision on a case, whether it’s a formal court case in the church, whether it’s an informal counseling situation, you have to be soberminded and have your sense of your wits about you as it were.

Very important qualification.

Fifth, the elder must be of good behavior. Now, that isn’t listed in the in the Titus passage. And again, I would tend to think it’s more of a generalized pattern for somebody. The word there of good behavior comes the word for behavior is cosmone which has the same root as cosmos or world and remember we talked before about God’s order in the world that word order has that same Greek word as its face and so to be of good behavior means to be orderly to walk in the order or fashion that God has directed you into okay again as opposed to being wild be orderly. We talked about how when Jesus tells us in the beatitudes blessed are the peacemakers what he’s saying there is the same thing blessed are those who bring God’s order to a situation. Illustration for the children is and we use this you know it’s interesting how these things stick with the kids we went through the beatitudes 3 years ago I guess we were listening to case by brother Russian my wife and I were teaching Sunday school I taught the girls they were all girls at that time Sunday school one we had them draw pictures about the attitude and for being a peacemaker we had them draw a picture of their bedroom whether it was messy or orderly. And if a child attends to their bedroom, makes their bed like their parents wants them to do, eat their room in orderly fashion, they brought God’s peace or order to that environment.

It’s a very important qualification for all of us. And it’s certainly important for an elder in terms of ruling again to be able to see God’s order in a situation to bring it about. If the order is then disturbed by sin, by transgression, one against the other, the elders can bring order back to that situation. And so he must be ordered. He can’t be a hypocrite about it. The elder must be of good behavior, quarterly and respectable.

Sixth, the elder must be given to hospitality. Again the same phrase in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, identical phrasing and it comes from two words meaning to love a stranger. Now you have to understand the context of that of course the context was the church was under persecution and it was frequently the case where Christians would have to run for their lives, would have to seek shelter as it were, get turned out of their homes.

And the elder had to be able to bring those people into his house to be hospitable to strangers in general and then specifically in terms of persecuted people that were in the church. The elder had to be hospitable. Now, it’s certainly not the case that it was the only elder. The elder wasn’t the only one who was hospitable. It’s interesting that under the synagogue system, a member of the synagogue was under obligation to house and clothe a persecuted Jew for a period of 3 days under instruction from the ruler of the synagogue.

Additionally, he was under obligation again under the instruction and command of the supervisor of the synagogue to issue an interest free loan to a fellow believer in need. So all people have that have that and scriptures are clear about it. All of us have the obligation to be hospitable or loving a stranger. It doesn’t mean to have people into your house a lot and then have them over for dinner and you go to their house for dinner.

It’s not what it’s talking about. It’s talking about taking a stranger in a strange environment and befriending of what’s going on here. Great example of that, of course, is Abram in Genesis 18 where three strangers come to him. He sees them from afar and he actually runs out to greet them and say, “Come aside, out of the way. Come into my house. I’ll entertain you. We’ll have food and I’ll take care of you. I’ll help you. I do whatever you’re doing.” Now, it turns out, of course, he’s dealing with God himself in that situation. But I don’t believe Abraham knew that because it says in Hebrews 13, not neglect taking care of strangers because in so doing some of entertained angels. I have specific reference to Abel which means that what he was doing was showing love or kindness toward a stranger in that situation with God.

Very important that we all develop that trait of hospitality and that the elder be show the way as an example as it were being hospitable and taking in people who need help into their own home.

Seventh, the elder must be apt to teach. The word apt is kind of a not quite a good translation of that word. Apt to teach is really only one word in the Greek and it means skilled in teaching. You have a lot of ability to teach, gift to teach. The New American Standard is able to teach. Now in Titus we have a little more definition in terms of that requirement of teaching. And again one of the reasons for that problem is that at the time of the situation that Titus was involved with, we had a very unruly situation going on. It wasn’t as developed as Paul’s correspondence to Timothy where things were much more order in the churches that Timothy was overseeing.

So in Titus, he gives more specific instructions as to why the elder had to be able to teach. It says in verse 9, holding fast the faithful word, being able by sound doctrine, both to exhort and to convince the gains. There’s two things going on as a result of the instruction of the teaching of the elder has and can deliver. New American standard says we should be able to exhort and sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict.

We should all be able to teach specifically and the elders should be able and skilled and gifted to teach so they can exhort the congregation, encourage them in the faith, build them up in the faith. And secondly, that he can refute the gains that those people who who are troubling the people of God and troubling the faith and causing dissension could be refuted by the person who has an ability to teach and so demonstrate the wrongness of the other person’s position as well.

There both an offensive and a defensive position going on there. And always talk about the idea of Nehemiah sword and fowl. revealed with his teachings, build the wall as it were. He’s all set with his teaching. Use the sword of God to fend off the enemies of God’s people. And if you look at Titus and Titus 2 and what Paul was talking about in the context, it was obvious there were big problems that were being addressed that needed to be addressed by the eldership that Titus would put in place in the churches and priests.

People were troubling them and Paul said, “Rebuke them severely.” If you look at Jesus Christ also who had rebuke Satan using scripture again. He had to understand the word of God and teach be able to teach so he could refute Satan’s temp.

Number eight, the elder has to be not given to wine. Now, this is obvious shouldn’t say it’s obvious, but it should be if you look at the Greek word at all. It means to be being long at one’s wine, to sit there a long time drinking wine. The American standard says not addicted to wine. I don’t know if Addiction is something we really want to get into our scriptures. The idea that there’s no control of a person over how much you need to drink wine. But the idea is there that you don’t want to be a drunker. And again, it has obvious implications for ruling. You know, you can’t be somebody who is continually drinking because you have to have a sound mind and not under the influence of the consequence.

Eight, no striker. Again, rather obvious word, although it’s interesting. Some of these translations are interesting as we go through them. The numeric standard, which is a more modern translation, some is more difficult to understand. American standard word there is not pugnacious. I don’t pugn a lot of people sitting out there don’t know what pugnacious mean. It’s not necessarily an easier translation.

King James says no striker. And that’s really what it’s talking about. The word there that a is attached to means to be a brawler to hit somebody. So what he’s saying is the elder can’t be anxious to go out there and punch somebody out. Very important. He’s going to find himself in situations where he’s going to want to do that. Later on, John Thomas will tell you the circumstances of his arrest yesterday at the Love Clinic.

And it would have taken a great deal of self-control on the part of many of us, and probably myself included, not to throw punches at all that he was dealing with. John didn’t do that, but there’s an example. You’re going to be in all kinds of situations where you’re going to be prone to do that. One of the translations says here that the elder should not be quick to quick to inflict harm. And that’s probably a pretty good way to put it.

And that’s probably why the New American Standard translates pugnacious. The elder shouldn’t be quick to move toward hurting people on the basis of very little evidence. Again, very important for ruling.

Tenth, the elder must not be greedy of filthy lucre. Now, there’s a note here that’s not found in the national text. In other words, they think that is not the best reading. It shouldn’t be included in the scriptures. However, in Titus, we do have that phrase specifically there. And so whether or not you leave it in first Timothy is really kind of not given to filthy lucre. The important thing there to recognize is that in our in our day and age we think of lucre as money. The New American Standard correctly translates that not fond of sorry gain. And the word there means to gain. The same Greek word that’s used there for instance is used in Matthew 18 the section of discipline.

But if you go to a believer who has stumbled and who sinning and you correct him, you get him to see his fault. You’ve gained your brother. Okay? You look your brother. So it’s talking not just about money. It’s talking about any gain at all. It’s not saying gain is bad, but it’s saying game is bad. Ill got okay. One example, probably many of you know this, but David and Bathsheba. David wanted out of that relationship. Bathsheba, but it was not there’s certainly nothing wrong with marrying somebody who was attractive and was who would be a good mate for David’s gain of Bathsheba was still gotten gain or so did and led to problems for him as well. The elder can’t be given to filthy lucre and he’s going to be in situations of course in terms of ruling now where he could produce for himself gain out of situations be in personality conflicts resulting in gain for education, be it monetary gain, whatever it is, he’s going to be in situations where he’ll be tempted to produce gain for himself or for his office apart from helping the situation correctly.

But the elder can’t be given to not fond this sort of thing. Very important.

Verse 11, the elder must be patient. American standards say gentle. This isn’t listed in the Titus passage. What’s going what that word means? I think from what I’ve been able to understand of it so far, it’s a little bit difficult to get a handle on. But basically, I think what that word is saying is the guy can’t be demanding perfect justice here and now in every situation.

And we talked a lot about this when the character qualities necessary for the building up of the body of Christ and unity we have hopefully a reformation covenant church, but the church is called to general universal church as well. We don’t press every right that we have over people. If somebody offends us through their speech, for instance, it’s not always the right thing. Call that person short and say, “Let’s go to the elder and work this thing out.” Pressing your right not to be offended by that.

Now, he shouldn’t have offended you if it was sinful for him to do so. What we’re saying is you got to be forbearing. There are certain sins you have to overlook as it were. Okay? And the elder is called here to be patient or gentle, not pushing or insist on the letter of the law in all cases. Now there are on the other hand of course there are various instances where a sin has been committed. There has to be church action involved or civil action involved.

We’re not saying he shouldn’t move in those areas. But there are other areas where he isn’t quick to push his own rights as it were. He has to be gentle toward people giving them room for grace giving them room to grow as individuals in the grace of God and mature in the faith. Very important in terms of his personal interaction with other people.

Qualification number 12, the elder is not to be a brawler. And the word there that interesting that the a prefix is attached onto is machos or mache. In other words, the elder is not to be a macho man. Okay, a macho man is a fighter. Somebody who’s always kind of looking to demonstrate his, you know, his manhood, his virility in a combative situation. And the elders not to be that. That’s real important for us. We have boys to begin to teach our boys. I know that Elijah and I when I come home, what he wants to do is wrestle.

You know, he wants to wrestle right away. Used to like box right away. Then I saw the Rocky one of the Rocky shows was going to be on TV and I showed him just about that Rocky movie to see what these guys would do with each other in the ring. Traffic seems to know he hasn’t asked the box. Well, we should. It’s to wrestle with our kids and to teach our kids to be able to defend themselves. Of course, we got to be very careful. We don’t teach our boys to be brawlers going around being a little macho man because the influence from the world today is an odd thing that happens. But if you watch any Saturday morning cartoons at all, you know, that’s exactly what they produce out of those sort of shows. All these superhero types are always out there away with people and everything that really plays the baser nature of our children.

We have careful. We got to be careful of ourselves as well, though. It’s easy if we think we have an advantage over somebody else in the church as men, to be able to pummel them, not necessarily physically, but maybe verbally with words, maybe with trying to shame them to seek their position. It’s easy to bully people. And the scriptures say we can’t be a bully. The elder cannot be a bully or a pretentious person. Can’t be a macho man.

13th qualification. The elder cannot be covetous. Isaiah the numeric standard version is much better. It says free from the love of money. The word comes from three basic words attached together. Ah that you know not prefix love and arbor silver not a lover of silver. Okay. So this is like a subset of that not greedy of filthy gain that we had a few verses up and now we’re talking about not a lover of silver.

In other words, he doesn’t want you’re not seeking the position to enrich his own pockets. He won’t rule in cases to enrich his own pockets. Again, there are other admonitions in scripture as well that tell the rulers not to be fond of gain again because they’re in a position where they can achieve it. If they’re fond of gain, if they’re fond of silver, as it were, they can go after that silver through their office and get it.

So, it’s important that you when you examine a man for eldership, you understand that he’s not to be a lover of money and not prone to that sin.

14th very important qualification, one who rules well his own house. Having his children in subjection with all gravity. New American Standard Version, manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity. The word rule there or manage is really, I think, better translated presiding over his house. The Greek word has the element of presiding over an official meeting or a Senate or something. The elder in his own household, the Kennel household presides over his house. He’s responsible for the administration of that house and the rule. These are males we’re talking about. Okay. Now, certainly that power can be delegated to one’s wife and one’s absence or brother’s cabs around the house. But the men in their homes are supposed to be presiding over their household.

Having children in subjection, the word subjection there is tasso which we talked about when we talked about God’s order in the world. It comes from the idea of the military term of having soldiers arrayed in a regiment in an ordered fashion in line marching as it were in the drill field. And you should think of families that way. You’re to preside and mend the household so that your children are ordered well ordered and disciplined as military soldiers and rank under you to earn rank under Jesus Christ our commanding officer.

Children should be in subjection and well ordered and disciplined with all gravity I think refers not to the children but to the to the man ruling administering the household presiding over the household. He is to have with all reverence or venerability dignity is the res translates it. There should be a sense of decorum that we as presiding officers over our household, over the military group as it were that God’s given us to be in charge of.

There should be a sense of decorum and reverence in that household that proceeds down to the example of the father providing an example for the rest of the family to look at and to imitate as well. It’s important that we give that sense of order and call to our households. In a few minutes here, I’m going to talk about perfectionism. The s of actually and it’s important that we remember that. I’ll really stress that in a few minutes.

But you know this morning as we came get ready for church. I didn’t really it’s easy sometimes to see these qualifications in light of our own shortcomings and this morning because of preparing the last minute things for the talk and everything. I wasn’t really there present with the families. We were all getting ready for church and as a result the children got really disordered. As fathers we have to be present in our households.

Not all the time obviously but when we’re there we have to reveal the presence. The presence that is noted by the children, the presence that the children is filled with dignity and venerableness. It then translates that to having our children under subjection to us as the presiding officers.

In Titus it says we have to have faithful children not accused of riot or unruly. A riot there means comes from two words meaning not save and it means to be wasteful. To be riot is to be wasteful to destroy things for no purpose to be wasteful. Children shouldn’t be wasteful and they shouldn’t be unre ruling. The word unruly is that same term for subjection with the i put in front of it now. So our children if they are not in order beneath us as presiding officer or a family can then be accused of being unruly and that’s not a charge be laid against your household.

You’re supposed to have your household in order. But those charges aren’t brought dissipation and rebellion. I kind of like really lum understand the base words there. That’s a very important qualification obviously because there’s a reason attended to it and it has that you’re going to be ruling over the household of God. If you can’t rule your own household, well, you can’t rule the household of God.

There’s another reason by the way, another reason why certain people say the eldership has to have family before they can rule the household. Family contact when they’re given the context of God’s church greater responsibility.

15. The elder is not to be a novice. Novice means neophyte, newly planted. And again there’s reasons appended to this. Lest the new the newly planted convert put into an office too quickly. Lest he falls to pride and condemnation. Pride there means be wrapped up in smoke puffed up boast highminded as it were. And there are probably some instances the reconstruction community where young men have gone out gotten extremely involved in various ministries. End up puffed up in smoke. Wrapped up in smoke and that leads to the condemnation that Satan has received himself for his pride and his being puffed up before God.

He was condemned. The neophyte put a newly converted person in that position. It’s very likely to be puffed up with pride and then undergo the condemnation of God work condemnation. It was prima means a formal verdict of guilt against somebody. Verdict of condemnation.

16 the elder is to have a good report of them without lest you suffer reproach and a snare. King James says or New Standard says a good reputation and that’s pretty well the sense of that word. It goes outside the church. It’s important we recognize that outside of the church those people are looking at what we’re doing too. One example I thought about this of course was Judge Beers who was with us for two reasons. One because of his office the office of Judge held hold a certain position that connotes dignity respect for the office that people had and then judge beers because of the way he performed his office was held in high esteem by people outside the church.

They looked at his example and saw it as a job one. They may not have recognized as a godly one but as a good one. He had a good reputation with those outside the church. It’s important that elders see one of their qualifications is you look at their relationship to the world around them. They’re employer or if the people you work with think you’re a jerk, you know, and think you got a lot of problems, but you’d want to look at it real close. Anyway, you should have good reputation of those outside as well.

Now, that’s also, by the way, one of the reasons why we want to be very careful with what we’re doing with this child discipline thing and why I want to go back over this and make sure that we all have it down what we’re doing here and why we think it’s necessary to discipline our children, why we think it’s necessary not to support those in congregation. We have to have those things done because we’re going to be being looked at from people outside, but we don’t want them laying a charge against us that is because that isn’t true and as a result of us not carrying ourselves in a certain manner or conveying to others a correct understanding of what we’re doing.

If they understand what we’re doing and then work against us, that’s fine. But if we somehow misconvey to them what we’re doing and tell them what we want to do, to do is to beat our children, you know, till the blood runs down their legs, you know, then if they work against us, they have good reason to work against us. It’s our fault for not conveying what we’re actually doing. And that’s what it’s talking about here. You want to be able to be of such a position in the community that people see it and can again lay this charge from the outside as well as the inside. That’s why we want to go back over those positions we laid out last week in much more detail. Make sure that we all have it down before we begin to come in contact as it were with the outside world with the administrative rule.

People see us being

17. The elder must not be self-willed. The word means they’re self-pleasing. Auto self mind which is like hedonism for instance is a is a position where you just go for whatever is pleasurable in life. And that’s what it’s talking about not self pleasing not self-willed. You don’t want to be pleasing yourself in these things. After all, the whole position that you’re involved with is a ministry or a service to other people and if you’re doing it for your own self, you should be disqualified immediately.

Elder cannot be selfish.

18. The elder should not be soon angry, not quicktempered, not prone to rapid anger and not prone to irassability or contention very important as well in terms of judicial matters of course.

19. The elder should be a lover of good men. It actually I think the correct understanding of that is a loving what is good. The word man is in the text anywhere. If you love what’s good

20 and 21 20 the elder must be just the word there is the basic word for rightness or righteousness rather for justice has be translated right wise that’s where righteousness comes from right wiseness the order must be just he must understand the requirements of God’s justice and be able to apply it in this specific case must be just one who must be holy or devout.

Those two last words, justice and holy holiness, those things are in a way a summation of all that went before. We have the elder being above reproach, specific details throughout the text and then summing up at the end of the Titus passage with justice and holiness should be characteristics of the eldership. And that kind of puts a cap on everything else and brings it all back to square one.

Again, 1 Timothy 2:8 I will therefore that men pray everywhere lifting up holy hands.

This is a indication here that the holiness that’s required in our hands representative for our bringing up our whole works before God. That’s required of all men. I will man everywhere lift up holy hands to God for all to be set aside for justice and holiness before God. And so those verses tell us that same thing.

In Luke let’s see in Luke 1:75 it says that talking about Jesus’s coming that he might save excuse me that we might be saved and so serve God in righteousness and holiness before him. All our days. Ephesians 4:24 commands us to put on the new self which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness and the truth. Justice and holiness. Righteousness and holiness characteristics of the saved person’s life. Holiness in relationship to God and righteousness is the correct response to the holiness that God has given us in dealing with other people as well.

Now, that’s a list of general qualifications. As I said, we’ve just opened them real briefly this morning. However, I do want to make a few comments on these things.

First of all, when we look at these qualifications, we look at them individually in relationship to ourselves or relationship to other men of the church. We have to remember that we have to remember to avoid the sin of perfectionism. What do I mean? I mean that we could take for instance that first qualification that a person has to be above reproach and say if a guy has ever received a charge from somebody else, he’s disqualified.

The problem with that is if you look up this word above reproach, the word that the attached to there needs to be taken hold of. We find out very quickly through the cursory study that Jesus had charges laid against them like that and Paul did as well. Okay. So it doesn’t mean that you won’t occasionally suffer reproaches from those people outside of the community or even inside the community. The Jewish community laid charges against Paul against Jesus.

So you don’t want to interpret these things or in terms of perfectionism. It doesn’t mean you can never have a charge against someone, it means that the life should be characterized in such a way that the charges against them could be either refuted and shown of none effect.

Characteristic number nine, not a striker. You know, again, you can be absolutist about this thing. You may miss the whole point of it. We’re told that Paul slapped the chief priest at one point in time. Now, he apologized for that. He said it was wrong of him to do so. But why? He apologized when he found out not that he hit somebody, that he hit the chief priest, the high priest. That’s what he said. I never should have done that. Okay. So it doesn’t mean necessarily that physical activity was always wrong. We talked about Nehemiah and how he threatened to pull people’s beards out and grab people by the beard when he broke the law of God in a grievous sort of fashion.

Keith was over last night and talking about how there are churches that he’s heard about in I don’t know, Southern California or some place again, some black churches where if the per if the man if they know that a man of the church is beating their wife, the elders and the pastor will rough the guy up a little bit. Well, you know, if you got a civil government that won’t move in those areas, you got a man who won’t respond to beat on his wife, maybe it’s not such a bad idea to do it.

They’ve got biblical they’ve got biblical precedence for that with Nehemiah. So, it doesn’t mean again that all physical activity is wrong. Now, I’m not, you know, not need to worry about that, but The point is, what I’m trying to point out here is that you want to avoid perfectionism in your own life as you go through some of these qualifications and not disqualify yourself too quickly.

Number 10, you can’t be fond of filthy lucre, sort of gain. Remember there that filthy is attached to the gain. It’s not gain itself that’s bad or not to be sought after. We’re to seek our the gain of our brother, right? In that situation in Matthew 18, it’s filthy gain, ill-gotten gain that’s that’s rejected.