Dennis Tuuri

In Deuteronomy, the 1st chapter, verses 9-18. Deuteronomy 1:9-18.

“And I spake unto you at that time, saying, I am not able to bear you myself alone. The Lord your God hath multiplied you, and behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitudes. (Ude) the Lord God of your fathers make you a thousand times so many more as ye are and bless you as he hath promised you. How can I myself alone bear your cumbrance and your burden and your strife?

Take you wise men and understanding and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you. And he answered me and said, The thing which thou hast spoken is good for us to do. So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, captains over hundreds and captains over 50s and captains over tens and officers among your tribes. And I charge your judges at that time, saying, ‘Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother and the stranger that is with him.

You shall not respect persons in judgment, but you shall hear the small as well as the great. You shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God’s, and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it.’ And I commanded you at that time all the things which you should do.”

Let’s pray. Almighty and gracious Father, for as much as our whole salvation depends upon our true understanding of thy holy word, grant to all of us that our hearts being freed from worldly affairs may hear and apprehend thy holy word with all diligence and faith, that we may rightly understand thy gracious will, cherish it, and live by it with all earnestness, to thy praise and honor through our Lord Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

We continue this morning with our third talk on the topic of church government, basically going through our confessional statement. This is the second talk, though, in a portion of the larger talk on church office dealing with the Old Testament offices. And last week we began a series going through those Old Testament offices, and this series followed several weeks before that the distribution of a list of qualifications for eldership in the church, which I’ve reminded you twice now to go through periodically, particularly to men of the church, the heads of household, to determine their own walk before God in relationship to that list of qualifications.

And I guess I won’t do it this morning, but I probably will for the next few Sundays that we meet, ask for a show of hands of men who have reviewed those lists of qualifications throughout the week.

Those are important, and I think we should all be held accountable for looking over those qualifications and for setting goals for ourselves as head of households and in our own families to do the job of elder that God has called us to do in our own household. Regardless of whether or not you will eventually attain to the office of elder in the church, you have the office of elder in your own household.

And those qualifications are applicable to that as well as to your walk in God’s—all of God’s callings that he gives you. So it’s important to remember that list of qualifications. And again, I’d remind you that if you don’t have that list anymore, I have copies of the list and you can get it from me later.

Last week we began, though, specifically talking about Old Testament offices. We talked about the need to study government because it’s basic to our calling as Christians. It’s part of the dominion mandate that God says was part of our being created in his image—to exercise dominion, to have government, as it were, over the earth and over the various things in the earth. So it’s part of our basic calling.

Government—we talked about the need to look at it from a scriptural perspective, because the scriptures say that those things may seem right in our own eyes, the ends of those ways that seem right in our own eyes are the ends of the ways of death. And so it’s important to look to God and his scriptures, not to common sense or not to some kind of standard outside the word of God for our understanding of government and evaluation of it.

And then we said it was necessary to look at the Old Testament because the scriptures are one word. And though eventually what we’re going to talk about are the offices of the New Testament church, we can only understand the New Testament if we understand it as part of the entire revealed word of God—one word, old and new covenants together. And so it’s important that we understand those offices as being continuing in the development of the offices of the church of the old covenant into the new covenant. And that’ll be very expressly seen this morning as we talk about one of the offices of the old covenant.

We talked last week also about the family context of the overall structure of Old Testament offices and their place in the family structure. And that’s extremely important also as we look for application in terms of our church.

We talked about there being three basic groups under the family structure in Egypt, in the wilderness, and then in the land of Canaan. There was the Beth—the house of the father, first of all. And you remember that—you’ve got to keep reminding yourself—that isn’t just the nuclear family that we see it as today. That was a man with his various children, and then his sons would marry and those people would come into their house of the father, as it were, in terms of a governmental structure. Not into the actual domicile, and they’d be part of that house of the father as well. So it’s like an extended family is the basic unit of the family structure.

Beyond the extended family itself, the Beth ab—the house of the father—is the clan. And when several extended families would be linked together through genealogies, you’d have a clan of those people gathered together on occasion to have feasts with God or to have sacrificial meals together, that would be a clan. And then the larger group above that is the tribe. And there are, of course, 12 tribes.

We talked about the importance of that because the various offices we’re talking about are related to each of these family structures. The elders were elders in the Beth—the house of the father—who was headed by an elder, the eldest man, normally the man with wisdom and discerning in terms of the word of God. Then the clan was headed by a head of a thousand, an aloof or a sar officer. And the word came from the actual word meaning thousands. And so the clans were large groups of people, and they had important officers over them as well. And then the tribe is headed by a prince.

And so it’s important to understand that family structure.

We study the basis of that. For instance, one of the passages we’re going to look at in a little bit is Numbers 11. Numbers 11 talks about the selection of a group of 70 to receive the same spirit that was upon Moses for a purpose. And we’ll talk about that in a few minutes. Also, it’s important to look at the genealogies in the book of Numbers, to recognize the census that was taken there, to recognize that there were 58 clans and there were 12 tribes. And so you had a group of 70 various groups of tribes and clans. And then you had a council of 70 appointed to assist Moses in a specific function.

And so there’s reason to believe that 70 is a relationship to those 70 groups of clans and tribes. Interesting. In my studies this last week, I looked at Calvin’s explanation of the number of 70, and he thought actually there were 72 in this council, that there were six for each one of the 12 tribes. Six times 12 is 72, and God just rounded it off maybe. But I think he missed the idea of this connection to the census and the groups of the clans and the tribes.

Then last week we discussed specifically four offices that we’ll be looking at over the next few weeks. Out of the first couple of verses of Joshua 23 and Joshua 24, Joshua brings the people of Israel to him represented by four specific officers. They were the rosh, which were like captains or heads, or various other terms are used. They were the judges. There were officers—sharim—and then there were the elders of the people—kazain. And this morning we’re going to talk about specifically the office of sharim.

Now this is just by way of review. We’re going to review this frequently throughout this series because I want you to get an idea of the overall perspective as we talk about the individual offices within the overall perspective. And it’s important that we have to recognize, of course, these are not easy things to keep in mind, so we’re going to review them occasionally.

Those last two—the sharim and the—or rather, the middle two—sharim and judges—two of those four offices, officers and judges, in addition which had elders and captains—the officers and judges in Deuteronomy 16:18 were told specifically by God that they were to appoint those two—officers and judges—in each of the towns when they went into the land. And we’ll talk a little bit more about that later as well.

And then finally, last week we talked about the Rechabites who had obeyed their father, the father of their clan as it were, Jonadab, for 250 years and so received blessing from God.

Today we’re going to turn specifically to one of those four offices mentioned in Joshua 23 and 24. One other reminder verse for you is Joshua 7. Joshua 7 is the chapter to keep in mind for this division of the Beth, the clans and the tribes, because in Joshua 7, as we mentioned last week, Achan—the sin of Achan was found out, who committed the sin by going through these three structures.

First, they took the tribe and selected the correct tribe out of the tribes. Then they took the clans underneath that tribe and selected the right head of the clan out of that group underneath that. Then they selected the head of the household, rather, the household in which the sin had been committed. Then at that point, they selected the individual man, Achan.

So if you look at that structure in Joshua 7, there’s really no place for the nuclear family, is there? Representatively, in terms of God’s structure there. That is interesting, with ramifications for us today.

When, for instance, we get around next week, I think, to talking about the heads of tens, 50s, hundreds, and thousands, what were they heads of? 10 what? Certainly not 10 individuals. We know that’s not true. And we’ve always assumed in this church there were 10 families, which I think is correct. But what kind of families are they?

There’s lots of reason to suspect that they were Beth Ab—extended families—and so there’d be a lesser number than if they were 10 heads of nuclear families, if you understand what I’m saying there. That has direct implication for us today as we seek to understand and obey the pattern of leadership that God structures both in the old covenant and then extending into the new covenant community.

Okay, that’s another reason why it’s important to study this stuff. Very important.

So this morning we’re going to talk specifically about the sharim, which were the officers, one of the four groups mentioned in Joshua 23. So if you mention in your own mind, keep in your own mind Joshua 23, Joshua 7, review those chapters occasionally, and you’ll get the basic overview structure of the sharim. And they’re also mentioned, of course, in the passage before us this morning, the one we just read. We’ll get to that in just a second.

But first, I want to give a brief history of the use of the term sharim throughout the old covenant and throughout the history of the old covenant people.

The sharim were mentioned first in Exodus 5 in several different verses in Exodus 5, where they were apparently an existing office in the nation as they were in oppression in Egypt. The sharim were mentioned as the people that the officers of Pharaoh told how many bricks were required and then told them that they didn’t have to make the bricks any more. The sharim were responsible for then translating that instruction and giving it back to the people of Israel themselves. They were representing the people in Exodus 5.

In the wilderness, in Deuteronomy or Numbers 11, we have a selection of a group of 70, and it says specifically those 70 had to be sharim or officers. In Deuteronomy 1, the passage we just read, we see that Moses says these selected heads of tens, 60s, hundreds of thousands and officers. And so we’re seeing there the institutionalization of an office that had preceded in Egypt.

In Deuteronomy 29 and 31, they’re also mentioned as being representative of the people. In Deuteronomy 29, they’re one of the groups that represent the people and they retake the covenant with God. And in Deuteronomy 31, they’re mentioned as a representative of the people in terms of being witnesses. God has witnesses against or in front of the sharim. Heaven and earth he calls to witness the covenant made with Israel as represented by the sharim among various other offices. So again, they’re represented in terms of blessing and cursing.

In Joshua, the first chapter of Joshua, the sharim are mentioned as being important for the preparation for warfare. Joshua 1 and 3, that is chapters 1 and 3. In Joshua 8, again, we see them representing the people, and the sharim were among that group of people that would assemble, half in front of Mount Gerizim and half in front of Mount Ebal, and proclaim forth the blessings and cursings of God’s law. So again, they represented the people as it were, the sharim did, in Joshua 8.

In Joshua 23 and 24, we saw the verses last week and talked about them this week again. They represent the people along with three other groups. And then so that’s all occurring in the wilderness basically in the land.

We also see the sharim functioning more—and what they’re actually doing—in 1 Chronicles 23:26-27 and in 2 Chronicles 19:26 and 34. In each of those chapters, there’s references to the sharim. In 1 Chronicles 23:26-27 and in 2 Chronicles 19:26 and 34, we see them actually functioning in office in the land. So the people were obedient to the extent that they did actually appoint sharim and judges in the land when they went in to take possession of it.

1 Chronicles 23 mostly occurs during the time of David. 2 Chronicles 19 and the other passages refers to the time of Jehoshaphat. There’s one other reference. And by the way, in all those verses except the last one, each of those chapters, the word in the King James version is officers. That’s the translation of it. In 2 Chronicles 26, it talks about a specific individual and it’s translated their ruler. In Proverbs 6, when we talk about when God tells us “Be wise and go to the ants.” He says that they have no guide, no overseer, and no ruler. And yet they do all this work. And the word overseer there is this word sharim. And that’s the final occurrence in the old covenant or in the scriptures to the office.

That’s a brief overview of the history of the office. It existed in Exodus prior to the deliverance of the people of Israel. It was in a particular—it was actually designated by God as an established office with the establishment of the 70 in the wilderness, and then the command to appoint sharim in the land when they went to possess it. And then in the history of the scriptures, when they actually go in into the land itself, they function as officers within the land. That’s what they do. That’s a brief history.

What did the sharim do, however? What was their particular function?

After much study and much prayer and meditation on the scriptures, I’ve come to the conclusion that in Deuteronomy 1, as we turn out specifically to our portion of scripture that’s before us for the sermon this morning, Deuteronomy 1 forms a transition, as it were. One way to look at it is from the exilic offices that were held by people in Egypt. We have a transition into God establishing a form of government for the old covenant community. And that transition, I think, occurs in Deuteronomy 1.

And there are two groups of people that are specifically mentioned in Deuteronomy 1. They are not the same group. And I think that Deuteronomy 1 capsulizes or brings together two separate occurrences in the scriptures that had already occurred in the wilderness.

The first occurrence was at Sinai itself. And we’re told that at Sinai or just prior to them arriving at Sinai, Jethro comes up to Moses and joins the group. And that’s a very interesting story itself. But in any event, at that particular point in time, Jethro instructs Moses to appoint heads of tens, 50s, hundreds, and thousands to help him to judge the people. That’s the specific reference of that selection of tens, 50s, hundreds, and thousands.

After they leave Sinai—shortly after they leave—in Numbers 11, there’s a separate occurrence that happens. And Moses, now complaining because of the number of people and his administrative tasks, says the burden of the people is too great. I need help. Now he’s already been given the tens, 50s, hundreds, and thousands to assist in the judging. So I think here what we’re talking about is Moses needing help managing the people. And God, in Numbers 11, tells Moses to select 70 men of the elders of Israel—who are elders and sharim. And God will take from the spirit that’s upon Moses and put it upon this group of men, and they’ll assist Moses then to lighten his burden.

Now, those two occurrences—the selection of the tens, 50s, hundreds, and thousands, and then the 70—are two separate occurrences. They’re two separate offices being appointed by God there. But we have them combined in the account in Deuteronomy 1.

Now in Deuteronomy 1, specifically, the verses we read in verse 9, Moses said that I’m not able to bear you myself alone. Verses 10 and 11 is a recognition that God has multiplied the number of people from when they went into the land. And we’ll talk about the implications of that toward the end of the talk this morning. He had multiplied the people, for which Moses thanks God and sees as a blessing from God. But it’s produced various problems.

And these problems are in verse 12: “How can I myself alone bear your cumbrance, your burden, and your strife?” And the word burden there is also used in Numbers 11 to speak of the problems that Moses was encountering dealing with the people of Israel administratively.

Specifically, Numbers 11, the context is the people had gotten manna from God, were tired of manna, wanted meat, and were very upset and wanted to go back to Egypt to have better food. And Moses then takes his complaint to God. And God does two things in response to that. One of the things he does, he provides quail, lots of it. The other thing that he does, though, is he provides a system of ministry of officers to assist Moses in administering this large group of people. And he says to take 70 men, elders of Israel, and I’ll make them—I’ll make them officers. And there had to be sharim as well.

So God has 70 of these officers that were pre-existed now from Exodus who were already functioning to a certain degree. And he now takes the spirit of Moses, puts it upon them, and they now assist Moses in his administration of the people. And so that same word burden is used in Numbers 11, and it’s used in Numbers 12. And so Numbers 12 talks about burdens and strife. And strife were part of the problem that led to judicial cases. It was part of the necessity of God giving Moses judicial assistance and not administrative assistance in the tens, hundreds, and thousands.

And Moses says then that he took wise men, and he made, in verse 15, “I took the chief of your tribes, wise men and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, captains over hundreds, captains over 50s, captains over tens, and officers among your tribes.”

Now that may seem real obvious now that I’ve explained it that way. We have two separate offices here. Both offices under the common heading of captains, or not captains, but heads—where he says that I took chiefs and made them heads, captains, and officers. May seem obvious now when you look at it that way.

Numbers 11 and Exodus with the heads of the tens, 50s, hundreds, and thousands. These are two separate offices being brought together and talked about in a common history by Moses. But it wasn’t at all obvious to me at the beginning of my studies. And I haven’t seen much writing on this on the offices of the old covenant to go to assist in interpreting some of this stuff. I think it’s correct. And I think it’s important to recognize that. Then it makes sense.

I struggled all week trying to figure out why we had officers and judges here, being almost the same office, and yet in Deuteronomy 16 specifically saying appoint judges and officers, and in the rest of the history you always have judges and officers as separate offices before God. The only place where you have confusion is in this passage in Deuteronomy 1.

And that’s interesting because in Deuteronomy, which is a recitation of the history of Israel in the wilderness prior to their going into Canaan, you don’t have the tens, 50s, hundreds, and thousands mentioned without the officers, and you don’t have the officers without them. So God takes these two, or Moses took these two separate occurrences—two separate offices for two separate purposes, judicial and administrative—combines them into one historical account here.

How God provided help for Moses in terms of administering and judging the people of Israel. And that’s just what Moses was. He was an administrator and he was a judge.

Their function, then—and this is pointed out throughout the scriptures in the rest of the references we mentioned earlier—is that they were administrative assistants. They were administrators. I suppose Keith was over last night, and he said, “I guess they were the executive branch.” And he said I had to give him credit if I use that. But I suppose that’s correct in a certain way. They were the executive branch of the government. They were bureaucrats, if you will.

Now I say that with some reservation because today our idea of bureaucrats is something different than what this is. But they were administrators. And Moses had a tremendous problem administering the people of God as well as judging them. And so he was given assistance by God specifically.

They were administrative assistants to the chief magistrate. In the case of Moses and Joshua, that was those individuals. They were the chief magistrates. And later, as the people move from a government by judges to a government by kings, you see the sharim assisting the king as well. In those other passages we mentioned, they assist David in 1 Chronicles 27:1, for instance. They’re specifically mentioned as assisting the head of state, which was David, a king. The same way they had assisted Moses and Joshua in the wilderness as being the head of state, who were judges at that time and not kings.

And then later, with the time of Jehoshaphat, they’re still in place.

In Joshua 1 and 3, specifically, what they do there is Joshua tells them prepare for going forth into battle into the land, and he has the sharim act as his assistants in that. They go throughout the tribes and they instruct the people in the exclusions from military service. And they say, “If any of you have built a vineyard and haven’t eaten the fruit of it yet, you’re excused from military service. If any of you are married and haven’t lived with your wife for a year yet, you’re excused from military service. If any of you are faint-hearted, you’re excused from military service. You have a military deferment, as it were, from the word of God.”

And so they were assisting Joshua in instructing all these tribes as they prepared for warfare and in the future about the biblical exemptions for military service. We could spend probably another whole week talking about those exemptions and the implications, but we won’t. But they’re interesting points to study out for yourself—why those exemptions were given. And we’re told right in Joshua 1 and 3 exactly why they were given.

But in any event, they were assisting Joshua then in the administration of the people.

Now this is very interesting because in Numbers 11, as I said, the spirit of Moses is put upon the spirit of the 70, and they prophesy. And there are tremendous implications for that in trying to reform our minds about administrators and bureaucrats and the executive branches of our various governments, both at the civil level, in our church, and in our homes.

What it says is that administration is an important function of God. That these members, these people, were servants of God. They had received the spirit of God to fulfill the calling of their office to administer the people properly in relationship to God’s law. And what that means is that it’s not just judges. It’s not just the civil judges, as it were. It’s not just the lawmakers, but it’s the people that administer those laws in our land that are a holy calling before God as well and a prophetic office of God.

They were prophetic in that they told the implications of God’s law at the specific situation that existed in the particular time—for instance, the war. They were being prophets for God, as it were, and instructing the people of God from the scriptures as to their exclusion. And then they could only excuse those people from service and make a list of those that were excused based upon the law of God.

So it’s important that this begins to reform our own mind in terms of the sort of men that we select in our church, in our civil government, and in our businesses to administer things. Administration is not a second-class calling, as it were. Administration is a first-class calling before God.

I think that many times we get into a latent dualism in our minds, and we deny the creator-creature distinction when we start to think of some offices as more holy offices and some as being secular offices. The spiritual and secular distinction is a rejection of the creator-creature distinction.

Why? Because it says that behind this can be the thinking that there’s a great chain of being somehow between the lower creatures and God, and we’re a link in that chain, as it were. And in the offices of man itself, we have a chain of being as we get holier and holier and more and more part of and like God. So that we have bricklayers down here, and we have maybe bureaucrats up here, and lawmakers, and then finally the king up here who is the closest to God and shares in divinity.

That’s the kind of thinking that so easily creeps into our minds and our thoughts as we run our affairs as fallen people before God—although redeemed in Jesus Christ. And it’s important that we root that out.

The scriptures tell us specifically through the office of the sharim here that administrators, bureaucrats, can be a holy calling before God, exercising the power of the Spirit and exercising an understanding of the word of God and its application to that function. And when we go to select administrators in our churches and in our governments, we need to keep that in mind.

We need to look at the qualifications of these men first of all for selecting those people that fulfill the office of administrator or administrative assistant in our churches. We have to look at those same qualifications, and then we have to expect them to exercise their office prophetically and in a spirit-filled manner.

Okay, administration is an important godly task, and the selection of the sharim in Numbers 11 reminds us of that and the necessity of rooting out any kind of latent dualism in our own thinking.

Well, let’s turn to the qualifications required of those offices, then. And in Deuteronomy 1, we’re told the qualifications both for the offices of the judges and for the offices of the sharim, because he says that he appointed two kinds of offices here—judges and officers.

And he has qualifications for both of them. It says specifically in Deuteronomy 1:15, “I took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands and officers.”

So we have several qualifications listed here. The first qualification the scriptures tell us is what I would call pre-existent functioning—functioning in the office to a certain degree before the office is given to the person.

It’s interesting that in Deuteronomy 1:15, the translators say, “Take the chief and he makes them heads.” But actually it’s the same word there. It’s ro. I took ro from among your tribes, and I made them ro. Okay, and as part of ro, the two subsets are judges and sharim, or officers. He takes people functioning as heads of the people and makes them heads of the people. There’s a pre-existent functioning required for the offices of God.

The same thing’s true in Numbers 11. We know from this passage that he had appointed sharim in the wilderness, and he required them to be appointed in the land where they went into it to conquer it. But it says in Numbers 11 that one of the requirements for that group of 70 was that they be sharim, officers. There was a pre-existent functioning, as it were, required for selection to that office.

Now, what that means, I think, is that God requires men to understand that if they see a problem, they’re to use the talents and gifts that God has given them to fill that problem, to meet that problem. We have a responsibility. If we see things wrong in our communities or in our land that need addressing, we should move toward addressing them. We shouldn’t wait for somebody to pick us out and choose us to do that function.

Now that could obviously go too far. And there is an appointment and a calling that’s required by God, but it’s interesting how this correlates to the history of Reformation Covenant Church. And when we moved toward selection of the original elders—myself at that time—some people said there was a recognition that God had already chosen. He had already put a person functioning in that office. And I think there’s a degree of truth to that.

And there are already men in our church today functioning as administrators and functioning in various capacities. And that’s good and that’s proper. And I’d encourage you all—as you as you come into the church and those of you who have been here a while, if you see a problem or an area that you feel particularly gifted and talented to do, go for it. Talk to me, coordinate with me, but go ahead and begin to do those things that God has called you to do.

Don’t wait for the church to say, “Why don’t you do this?” Too often in our churches we see areas of problems, and we don’t recognize that God has given us the information—recognize that there’s a particular need in the congregation. He may well have done that for the specific reason that we do something about it. He may not have given us that information in terms of a recognition of a problem or a particular area that may be a good area to exercise some responsibility in just to complain about it.

He may have given it to us to do something about it as men. We should be starters, I guess is one way to look at this. There should be a pre-existing functioning among the—one of the qualifications that God places for the sharim and judges.

Incidentally, secondly, there’s wisdom required. He says, “I took the chief of your tribe.” So they had to be chiefs already. They had to be wise men and known. And this is interesting also to me because if we look at qualifications in our day and age, frequently the qualifications tend to be more academic. They tend to be more credential-oriented. And here we’re not looking for credentials. We’re looking for wisdom. We’re looking for wise men. And these were administrators.

Remember, certainly there you can understand immediately the application of wisdom to the office of judging. But to take an administrator, an administrative assistant, a town clerk, or somebody in that particular function, to require wisdom of that is an interesting thing and should tell us something again about the importance of these offices and the importance of exercising wisdom in everything that we put our hand to do, and not just in the judicial matters.

It’s important also, of course, to recognize that all heads of households are called to be administrators of their own household, at nothing else. There’s a cohesiveness to the scriptures in that the old covenant requires administrators. The new covenant also requires administrators. And some of the qualifications for elders and deacons in the New Testament church—we see the requirements that they be administrators in their own family, heads of their family, and ruling them well.

But in any event, wisdom is an important qualification. It may be—it can truly simply be said that to take somebody who is experienced or who may be doing a good job or who may seem particularly talented in terms of his gifts or abilities or because of his educational background, and yet who isn’t displaying characteristics of wisdom, and put that person in position—you’re just asking for trouble.

The scriptures require wisdom as a qualification for office, and that is consistent throughout the scriptures. Wisdom is required. And we won’t take the time to look at it, but if you look at Joseph and before any of the other selection of the leaders of God, they’re always said to be wise men.

Now let’s just talk a little bit about wisdom, then. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And so we know then that we can’t take people who are able and yet don’t have a fear of God and an understanding of the requirements that God puts upon us. These must be holy men, zealous men to do all that God has required them to do.

That fear of the Lord can be seen demonstrated in four specific areas. First, in relationship to God’s law. Second, in relationship to our tongue. Third, in relationship to instruction. And fourth, in relationship to work.

First, in relationship to the law. The wise man is the one who hears the things of God and walks in obedience to them. Wisdom is characterized by a theonomic position—obeying and understanding the word of God.

Proverbs 28:7: “Whoso keepeth the law is a wise son, and he that is a companion of riotous men shameth his father.” So we must keep the law, as it were. We must keep God’s law in order to be wise. Wisdom is the person who builds his house. Jesus tells us that the wise man is the one who builds his house upon Christ and what he tells us to do—not just who hears those words, but who acts upon them, or acts in obedience to the law of God or the law of Jesus Christ.

Deuteronomy 4:6 says that the nation itself can be seen as wise. He says in Deuteronomy 4:6: “Keep therefore and do them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations.” He says that a nation should understand the laws of God as they apply to the civil government, do it, and if you do that, you’ll be seen as wise in the eyes of the nation. There are many other scriptures, as you know, undoubtedly referring to the wisdom of obeying God’s law.

But it’s important to recognize that a person to be qualified for office must be wise, and that means he must be walking in obedience to God’s law. That also implies, of course, that he must know what God’s law is. He must study the scriptures and walk in obedience to them.

Based upon that qualification, I’m afraid that in most churches today we don’t have good officers. Most churches today reject—at least the churches that many of us have a relationship with—reject the law of God. They reject the wisdom that God has given them. It must be said that the church in America in the 20th century is a foolish church. They are fools because they reject the law of God and reject the wisdom of the law, and specifically, as we read from Deuteronomy 4:6, the importance of that law to civil magistrates or to the civil officers.

The church of America in the 20th century, by and large, has become foolish and rejected the wisdom of God.

You should begin to think of yourself in terms of wisdom. And many of the qualifications in the list we handed out a couple weeks ago refer to wise qualifications. What’s your relationship to the law of God? Do you spend time studying the scriptures and God’s law, specifically to the end that you obey it and all the callings God has given you to do? If you haven’t, then you’re not ready yet for office. You’re not really fulfilling your calling as you have it now from God to exercise the office in your own household. You’re called to be wise, wise stewards of God, making the most of the time, which means you have to study the scriptures and apply the scriptures in your family.

Secondly, wisdom can be seen in relationship to instruction. The wise man is the man who receives instruction.

Proverbs 13:13: “A wise son heareth his father’s instruction, but a scorner heareth not rebuke.”

Proverbs 12:15: “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.”

Proverbs 8:33: “Hear instruction and be wise and refuse it not.”

Proverbs 9:9: “Give instruction to a wise man and he will yet—he will be yet wiser. Teach a just man and he will increase in learning.”

The wise man takes instruction from people. He takes rebukes from people, and he responds to them correctly. He doesn’t get all flustered about it. He doesn’t say, “I want to do my own thing in this matter. Get away from me. Leave me alone. I don’t want to hear any counsel.” The wise man seeks out counsel from other wise men or from godly men and accepts instruction from them.

One of the important things, of course, about both these first two qualifications in terms of wisdom—of being obeying God’s law and of being receiving instruction from godly men—is to forsake the instruction, of course, of fools and to not spend your time listening to a bunch of people who are outside the will of God and reject God’s counsel.

But it’s important to get recognize and begin to judge yourselves and any other officers that might come before you in terms of selection of this church by the characteristic of wisdom, and specifically by how well they receive instruction. The wise men accepts instruction and counsel from other men.

If we were to judge the nation of America today by this qualification, again, we find ourselves a foolish nation. Because if there’s anything that’s stressed in our nation, one of the things that’s stressed is to do your own thing. The scriptures say no, no, no. Eventually you have to act, of course, individually, but you do so after hearing the law of God and after receiving counsel from godly men. You don’t do your own thing, as it were, in isolation from other people. You’re part of a covenant community, and you should call upon the resources of that covenant community.

How well do you receive instruction as heads of households? How well do you seek out instruction and counsel in the matters that plague you or that have problems with? If you receive unrequested instruction from other people or counsel—well-meaning instruction, of course—how well do you receive it? Do you reject it? If so, you have something to work on. You have to understand that you have to be open to receiving instruction and counsel from other godly men in the covenant community.

Third, the relationship of wisdom to our work.

Proverbs 10:5: “He that gatherth in summer is a wise man, but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame.”

Proverbs 6:6: “Go to the ant, O sluggard, consider her ways and be wise.”

The wise man is an industrious man who works hard to accomplish the tasks that God has given him to do and works in preparation for whatever is to come before us. The wise man isn’t always reacting to specific situations around him. He determines those situations by understanding the times that God has put him in and understanding the need to work hard in the fall and into the summer as well to prepare for the winter to come.

Again, the culture we’re in, with immediate gratification, denies wisdom. And we, as men, must ask ourselves: How well do we work? How well do we do with our spare time at home? Do we begin to build for the future in that time, or do we just enjoy the sunny Sunday afternoon perpetually and never get around to working and preparing for the winter that’s sure to come?

And then finally, in relationship to our tongue.

Proverbs 29:11: “A fool uttereth all his mind, but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards.”

Proverbs 17:28: “Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise, and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.”

Proverbs 16:21: “The wise in heart shall be called prudent, and the sweetness of the lips increaseth learning.”

Proverbs 12:18: “There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise is health.”

The wise man is the one who uses his tongue for God’s purposes, has it under control and under restraint to the law of God. He counsels and now conducts his affairs verbally as wise men. The wise man isn’t quick to speak. So important for us to learn. We’re all impetuous young men, quick to offer our opinions on everything under the sun, quick to enter into judgment against each other, quick to move to verbal action in all these things. And yet the wise man is one who holds his tongue.

Continually throughout the scriptures, when you look through on wisdom, you see this idea of restraint, being under control, and not just jumping off in a direction one way or the other. And of course, that’s absolutely required if you’re going to administer and help administer the household of God. You have to be able to be restrained about things. And not only that, but your tongue shouldn’t be just restrained. It should be a source of health to other people, not a source of bringing people down or of tearing them apart, of destroying them, but rather a source of edifying them and building them up in the faith.

That’s wisdom before God. This is extremely important.

As I was thinking about this, you know, we tend to—we tend to evaluate more on other sorts of matters than wisdom and how well a person controls his tongue. And I was thinking that I suppose, although it’s obviously a great sin and one to be dealt with, I don’t think sexual problems in a church have ever broken up a church, so to speak. If the organist runs off with the choir director or whatever, which happens in many church situations—I know that we’ve all heard stories like that—that usually doesn’t tend to break the church apart, does it? Those people will be judged by God, and they should be, and they’ll be judged by the church, and they should be.

But the greater problems in churches and covenant communities are sins of the tongue. Those things can rip a church apart. They can destroy a fellowship much quicker than some of the external sins that we constantly, or that we rather primarily tend to emphasize in church settings.

All I’m trying to say is that if we’re going to be wise, and we’re going to examine men for office, we have to use the qualifications that God has given us, and recognize that those qualifications are much more important than other qualifications. And those qualifications indicate there are areas in which transgression of them will bring great harm to the covenant community.

I’m not trying to say the other things aren’t important, of course, but I’m saying in the context of a covenant community, improper use of the tongue—unwise and unrestrained use of the tongue in terms of moving too quickly toward judgment of other people and then talking about other people and murmuring and slandering—those things can rip a congregation apart, and it is utter foolishness.

The scriptures tell us the fool tears down his own house, and that’s one mechanism by which foolish people in churches tear down their own house—is by extended use of the tongue against other members of the covenant community. It’s important that we use God’s qualifications as we examine church officers in the future, and also, of course, as we examine civil officers and officers in our businesses as well.

Businesses need administration. They need officers, and our officers that we appoint in our businesses that we may control or run or be a part of also should be wise men and experienced as well.

Third, these—the third qualification: they had to be already pre-existent functioning, as it were, in terms of some functioning in terms of the office of the calling itself. They had to be wise men, and they had to be known. They had to have experience, as it were. People had to recognize the fact that they were functioning and functioning properly at whatever calling God had given them to do.

And there’s a correlation here to the selection of deacons. In the New Testament, in 1 Timothy, we’re told that deacons must be proved. They must be known to have been good in the offices they’ve been called to do.

So I think one of the most important, one of the most memorable things I learned from Alma School of the Bible—the year that I spent there—was a simple saying by the instructor of Christian education that experience is not the best teacher, but evaluated experience is the best teacher. And if we’re going to be wise, we have to have experience, but experience itself doesn’t teach us wisdom. But if we evaluate our experience on the basis of God’s word, that teaches us wisdom. And if we’ve been experienced in that way, and so known to be experienced by other members of the congregation, we have a qualification for officer in God’s selection of men.