Dennis Tuuri

into Mount Zion and under the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and into innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel. See that refuse not him that speaketh.

For if they escape not, who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven, whose voice then shut the earth. But now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, yet once more, signifyth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.

Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved. Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire.

Let’s pray. Almighty God, we thank you for calling us into holy convocative worship this morning. We thank you, Father. You have brought us forth in obedience. We thank you, Lord God, for the blood of sprinkling that Jesus Christ has paid the price for our sins once for all 2,000 years ago.

And we come now before you, Father, forgiven and accepted our sins being made atonement for through his precious blood. We thank you, Lord God, for his imputed righteousness in which we now stand before you. We thank you for the absolution of sins and for assuring us that as we come forward obedient to your voice that calls us to worship this day, that as we come forward in Jesus Christ, we are accepted in our covenant mediator.

Lord God, empower us now with your Holy Spirit to worship you correctly, to serve you in this service with reverence and fear, for you are a consuming fire in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praise unto thy name, O most high, to show forth thy loving kindness in the morning and thy faithfulness every night.

Please be seated. Scripture is Exodus 20:12. Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

This is the sixth of six talks on church office. We’ve talked about the two officers, the elders and the deacons. We’ve talked about church polity for one Sunday. We’ve talked about the tithe and its relationship to the elders and deacons. And we’re going to talk today about honoring church office bearers and its larger context.

I wanted to mention something I said I would do this again and I’m going to do this. One of the Sundays we talked about qualifications for office. We as a result of the men’s study group over the last year, we came up with a series of character attributes, marks of a spirit-filled life in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. We came up with questions that people can use to evaluate themselves.

And what we said last week, we’ve said this a couple of times now, is we want you to use these in your homes. We want all the husbands in the church to sit down with their wives and to have their wives help evaluate how well they meet these character qualities that are listed in the qualifications sheet for office. That’s this sheet here. It says qualifications for office up at the top. I’ve got more copies downstairs.

I warned you that I would ask again this week, who has done that so far or begun to work through those. Can I see the hands of those families that are doing this now or have done it? Maybe I should ask next week for the hands of those who haven’t done it. Turn up the heat a bit. It’s a very important thing for lots of reasons. And if you don’t believe me, you talk to me afterwards.

I wanted to review also quickly before we get into honoring church office bearers the tithe. I wanted to just review what we said last week about that. Remember we talked about the antiquity of the tithe. It predates Mosaic legislation. Not as important for us as for non-theonomists, but nonetheless it is an important point to remember that the tithe predates Mosaic legislation. And so the assumption is it would post it as well. And of course it does. We talked about Abram and Melchizedek and Jacob at Bethel.

Then we talked about the case law, the tithe. And we said from Leviticus, Leviticus 27 teaches the redemption of the tithe. That it’s consecrated to God and it’s a tithe of all things, the herds and then the whatever is grown in the land as well. And Numbers 18 gives the specific reason for the tithe. The tithe is to support Levitical ministries of which there are various types of course.

The tithe is specifically given for their support because they have no inheritance in the land. They have no means of production. They have nothing to pass on to their children as inheritance either unless they’re supported by the congregation. And if they aren’t supported, then they’ll fall into disuse and the word of God won’t be preached. And of course, that’s what happens throughout Israel’s history at various times.

Then we talked about the book of Deuteronomy and the tithe and how Deuteronomy 12 talks about the administration of the tithe. That there was going to be a place where they chose to take their tithes and offerings to, which is Jerusalem, as opposed to the pagan worship which was decentralized with little idols and altars everywhere. He wanted to teach them that there is one God whom we worship. And then in Deuteronomy 14, we have two different aspects of the tithe spoken of: the joy and grace aspects.

And then in Deuteronomy 18, there’s a description of the priest portion of the tithe. And then in Deuteronomy 26, the tithe is seen as covenant ratification and coming at the end of all the stipulations of the covenant document of Deuteronomy. The tithe is then seen in a formal rite to be the vehicle whereby the covenant is ratified. And the person makes a statement: “At the end of three years, I’ve done all these things. I’ve done the tithe and all that it entails. And by doing that, I symbolize that I’ve done all the covenant requirements.”

And then we talked briefly about Hezekiah and Nehemiah. At times of reconstruction such as the days we’re in, and the reconstruction of the proper use of the tithe was essential to those periods of time. The Levitical ministries, the preaching and administration of God’s word could go forward. And so the tithe is important in times of reconstruction.

And then finally we talked about the wisdom of the tithe. That there are blessings, covenant blessings, and cursings attached to it. Malachi 3 says if you rob God you’re in for big trouble. On the other hand, if you pay God his tithe he will bless you and the storehouses will be made full. Also mentioned that in the history of the church, tithe has been very important and it’s only been in the modern age that the tithe has been done away with. And specifically we mentioned as an example of that: a little picture in your mind of what’s happened to the tithe. The French Revolution. It was the national assembly that abolished the tithe in 1789, I believe. And effectively cut out support from the church and got rid of that one of God’s institutions so that the civil magistrate could exercise greater and greater power.

And so the tithe is quite important and has historical roots as well as biblical roots. It teaches us the importance of the men that are called to these special offices, Levitical functions, distilling down in the new covenant days to elders and deacons.

We talked about the importance of these men. Leviticus, the whole book of Leviticus ends with a discussion of the redemption of the tithe. The law code of Deuteronomy begins with a discussion of the tithe. And then the covenant formula as we mentioned before of covenant ratification shows the tithe as the central means of saying that you have kept covenant for three years.

We talked a little bit about how the tithe is to our money as the Sabbath is to our time and as special officers are to our persons. So God takes special officers to represent the firstborn of all the nation, which is what the Levites represented, which represents all the families. And so they’re set apart in a special way as a consecration of all things to God. The Sabbath is set apart one day out of seven as a sign of consecration of all things to God in terms of our time. And the tithe is set apart to God and consecrated to him to show that all of our production—the people working in time produce things—and those things are also consecrated to God and belong to him.

And so the tithe shows that. In terms of this morning, these things are important to mention because we mentioned in Proverbs 3:9 to honor God with our substance and with our tithes. And so honoring office bearers, honoring God, is seen in correlation and has an economic reality to it as well as a time reality.

In Isaiah 58:13, we’ve read that verse on any number of occasions to open church worship services. We’re told to turn away our foot from our normal work, normal pleasures on the Sabbath, and turn them especially to God and the worship of him, to call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable, and shalt honor him. And so the use of one’s time on the Sabbath is consecrated to God in a special way and that honors God, the way that the tithe honors God.

And so it is applicable to this morning’s talk to review all that.

Also I wanted to review it because while we dealt a lot with theory last week, I didn’t probably help you a lot in terms of practice. And I just wanted to mention briefly a couple of items there. The point of what we said is that the tithe primarily does not go to an institution. It really goes to people—to Levites, people doing Levitical work.

I heard a tape that I don’t know if it came from Tony originally or who it was, Gary North interviewing Larry Abrahams. And North was talking about the edifice complex found in too many churches and other people that want to help or affect societal change. They want to build buildings as opposed to the substance of what we’re doing. And if you think of the tithe as essentially building an edifice, you know, I think you’re kind of falling into that edifice complex. It’s not primarily geared at the institution, but rather the men who comprise the equipping ministry that God gives to the church.

Now, the joy and grace aspects. We talked last week a little bit about how the joy thing was three times a year they went up to Jerusalem. The tithe—the portion of the tithe—an aspect of the tithe was to use to buy whatever your heart desires before God. You went up to those things to deposit your tithe there and you were supposed to rejoice before God for a whole week and buy whatever your heart’s desires. And we mentioned the proof text there for alcoholic beverages as well.

Now what we have in the new covenant, and we’ve talked about this before, is that both the temple and the synagogue system of the old covenant focus down to the new covenant church. And so we get together every week in holy convocative day of rest like they did at the synagogue of the old testament system according to the book of Leviticus. But we also get together in God’s presence and have a special meal with God at communion, which is like going to Jerusalem three times a year for special meal. And we also get together and have a meal together where we rejoice and we bring whatever our heart desires and we rejoice together in convocative rejoicing as well as worship.

And so the New Testament agape or love feast is a direct descendant from the three times of rejoicing that the tithe is used to support. What does that mean? It means that when you come to church on Sunday and you bring your meal or your drink or whatever else it is you bring for the Sunday agape love feast prior to communion, then it is appropriate and indeed one might say commanded that you use a portion of your tithe to finance that meal. Okay.

And additionally, the grace aspect that’s repeated in the New Testament—of course the idea of widows and fatherless. Denny mentioned that in his communion passage last week. The requirement in the book of James is that pure religion is to show grace, extend grace to visit these people. It’s interesting that the stranger is left out. We’re not in a physical land anymore. But in any event, we obviously also there should be times at that rejoicing feast we have together when we invite in widows and fatherless for a time of rejoicing and extension of grace to them. And that’s how we can build in the joy and grace aspect of the tithe.

Remembering as God reminded them repeatedly in Deuteronomy 12:14, not to forsake the Levite, because the purpose of the tithe is essentially to support those Levitical ministries. These are aspects of the tithe and if you use more than—if you use the majority of your tithe for those aspects, it’s wrong. Point is, you’re going to disinherit your Levites and they’re not going to be Levites anymore and they’re going to go do other kind of work and you’re not going to have the word of God preached and served through the diaconate office as well.

So the joy aspect of the tithe should be used to finance your meal here on Sunday and it should be in your mind as you prepare that meal. Ryan and I were talking about this last week. It’s certainly appropriate to think of ways to make the meal the day of heaven, to give yourself a day of rest. I assume that it’s usually the wives who are preparing these meals. Maybe it’s not in all families, but in any event, it’s important that we recognize that’s a good thing to do with meals—is to make things that are easy to make and that you can bring here and have rest.

On the other hand, it’s also very important that you realize that what you bring should be a delight to you and it should be a delight to others. Okay? And so you have to have those aspects kept in mind, remembering that God specifically gives you back some of that consecrated tithe. It’s for his special ministers. He gives that back to you so that you can have things that your heart will delight in. You’re not cutting into your food budget for the rest of the week and starving so that you can rejoice. God gives you back a portion of the consecrated tithe to use for that meal to come together and rejoice. Okay?

Now, so it’s important that when you prepare your meals, you keep that in mind. What you bring is supposed to be rejoicing.

Now, I bring it up for one other reason. I have forgotten, for probably the third time, to put an announcement in the bulletin that Roy has asked me to put in relating to the portions we bring. And the portion should also be a cause of rejoicing. We should have lots of food here on Sunday. And the portions that are recommended are 12 to 15 servings.

Now, you know, in your house, 12 to 15 servings may be, you know, small or large, whatever. But you got to remember that we’ve got some guys here who 12 to 15 portions would be a big thing. So just keep in mind that you’re thinking of the whole body and their eating habits when we say 12 to 15, and have that aspect of joy in your preparation of it when you come and share it with others as well.

And finally, of course, this means that what we bring on Sunday is an offering really. It’s part of our consecrated offering to God when that we get to eat and have the meal with him. And of course, it’s important not to judge other people in their offerings. But it’s important that we all instruct each other that the proper aspect of those offerings should be rest, but it should also be joy and surplus of food.

Having said that, and having instructed people in that, then we want to let God deal with them in terms of their particular offerings. We don’t want to judge. What I’m saying is when you go through the line, don’t look at everything people are bringing and say, “Well, that guy is doing this right or doing it wrong.” You rejoice. You eat what’s there. You assume that it’s going to be enough. And if you know somebody who doesn’t understand these things, you go out of your way to instruct them because that’s what we’re supposed to do. Strengthen the hands that hang down according to the book of Hebrews. Okay.

Now, we’ll go to honoring office bearers. And we only have one verse for our scripture sermon reading this morning. And that’s because really the honoring of church officers, which we’ll talk about in more detail a little later in the sermon, really has its basis in the fifth commandment. The commandment to honor your father and your mother.

The fifth commandment has an action. It has a source of the action and it has the object of the action. The action is to honor. The source of the honoring is yourself. You’re the one supposed to be doing the honoring and the object of the honoring is your parents, your father and your mother.

And so we’ll talk about it. The outline is taken out that way where we talk about first the action of honoring, then secondly who we’re honoring, which is our parents—your father and mother. And then third, within that we also talk about who is doing it—the functional inferiors. And then finally the reason for all this.

And our first point: So first we got to understand, if we’re going to understand the fifth commandment and how it relates to parents and then to office bearers, we got to understand what honor means. And just really briefly here, we’re going to divide it up into the Old Testament and New Testament.

I thought about subtitling the Old Testament. Instead of honor, I was going to put “He Ain’t Heavy” or “She Ain’t Heavy, She’s My Mother.” Now, the reason for that is that the word honor in the Old Testament is a word meaning heaviness, weightiness. And actually, it has the literal meaning in several of the passages translated to actually be heavy or fat.

And in fact, Eli, when he hears of God’s judgment upon the people, he’s sitting on his chair there and he falls over and dies. And the text specifically tells us that he was an old man and heavy. And in his case, it means he weighed a lot. And when he fell over, it broke his neck, I guess, is how that happened.

And so it has this idea of physical weightiness to it or heaviness.

In Isaiah 3:5, a time of judgment is described where children will storm against the ancients. And when the base and the word there means light, lightness, fluffiness—the base will storm against the honorable, will come up against the honorable, the light will rise up against the heavy. And so in the opposite word that’s given there, the base, we have the same idea of physical lightness.

And so that’s the root meaning of the word. This heaviness can relate in the Old Testament usage to either good or bad. And by that I mean that Sodom and Gomorrah, for instance, are specifically said that their sins are very grievous. And that word grievous means heaviness. I mean, if you wanted to translate it honor, their sins were very honorable. Not honorable, of course, but in a negative sense, they had weight to them that was grievous. Okay?

So this idea of weight and heaviness can have either a negative connotation or in the sense of honor, a positive connotation. Conversely, Abraham was said to be very rich. He was—he had a heaviness of goods. And remembering of course that money was related to weight is related to weight according to the scriptures.

One other example to help us understand what this means is Samuel. When Saul and his friends go looking for some flocks, he was trying to find his dad’s flocks, his herds, couldn’t find them. They said, “Well, there’s this fella, Samuel, who lives here at this place, and he’s an honorable man.” It says his advice carries weight. In other words, to these men. And they say that specifically: he’s honorable because everything he says comes to pass.

And so you can give weight, credence to Samuel because he’s a prophet of God, and what he says comes to pass. And that makes him honorable. We can put a lot of weight on his opinion. And so the idea of honor has this idea of weightiness, heaviness, and as a result value, and as a result also then honor and prestige given to that person.

Now in the New Testament, the word has really a little bit different connotation in its base meaning. That connotation is valuation or money. That’s the specific root of the word used translated honor in the New Testament. It means to place a value or a price on something, with first reference, as I said, to monetary weight. And again, it’s important to remember here that this is indirect, but it’s certainly true that in the scriptures, money is weight. And what we have today is money isn’t really money. We use it as a medium of exchange, but it’s not biblical money because it doesn’t have a weight or a value to it.

Silver coins, gold coins are weighty items, and that’s God’s means of currency. And that’s why you can have this word—two different words being used for the same word, honor. One being heaviness and the other one being money in the New Testament.

As an example of this, for instance, in Matthew 27:6, they talk about the thirty pieces of silver. And they say it’s the price of blood. The—we could translate again honor if you were not quite understand what you’re doing here. The—it’s the same word and here it’s translated price.

Additionally, Acts 5:2, when Ananias and Sapphira keep back part of the price, his wife also is being made privy to this and they end up both dying. So they keep back a part of the price or the honor that they receive for their land. And so that’s indication of the base idea in the New Testament is one of money.

And again the connotation can be negative or positive, as we just pointed out. Some of those uses of the price there are a bad price that’s paid. And additionally, sin—the price that one must pay for sin—is also the word used for honor here is also used as a price used for sin, a price paid for sin rather. Okay.

So the idea of honoring then has this idea of giving weight, credence and then monetary value. And honoring then to one’s parents, it means to place a weight of value upon them and to consider them in a heavy sense in terms of giving a lot of credence or weight to what they have to say and placing a high valuation upon those people that God has brought into your life.

And that’s the idea behind honoring.

We’ll talk more about specifics in terms of the civil magistrate, for the church magistrate, for later. But now I want to just mention briefly that while we’re talking about the fifth commandment that says to honor your parents, it is true that Romans 13:7 tells us that honor is to be given to whom honor is due. And while Romans 13:7 has the original reference to the civil magistrate, the point is there’s various honors for various people and for various positions.

And Calvin has said by way of synecdoche—my pride, synecdoche—that what is going on in the fifth commandment is that father and mother are used by way of synecdoche for all the other superior inferior relationships that we enter into.

And so I’ve given you copies this morning. I hope you picked them up out there of the Westminster Larger Catechism. And we’ll be looking at some of those questions and answers as we go through this. But the important thing we want to talk about here is that these things relate not just to father and mother. Remember the Ten Commandments are have multiple equity to lots of other things. The case law helps to flesh all that out and many portions of the case law show correlation between that fifth commandment to honor your parents and then honoring of rulers, church authorities, the elderly, etc. And so it has multiple equity.

And so the catechism correctly says in question 124 and 125: “In verse question 124 of the catechism, who are meant by fathers and mothers in the fifth commandment. The answer is: By father and mother in the fifth commandment are meant not only natural parents but all superiors in age and gifts and especially such as by God’s ordinance are over us in place of authority whether in family church or commonwealth.” And then it goes on to talk about why they use the terms father and mother.

One thing I want to just point out briefly without dwelling large on this: if you understand this, then when it says honor your father and your mother, it describes the relationship between all functional superiors and functional inferiors which we’re going to specify here in a minute. You got to keep in mind that God uses the terms of the family to describe all subordinate, inferior superior relationships.

In other words, you don’t want to just kind of go by that and say, “Well, that’s a code word for all these things.” It means that basic authority, if it isn’t in the family, it’s in nothing else. The importance of the family is stressed by God’s use of familial terms, father and mother, to describe all superiors in our relationship to them. Very important point. Can’t dwell on it at length, but it’s very important to realize that.

Now, in my outline, I’ve listed six functional superiors and inferiors. And behind five of them, I’ve put different types of fathers. That listing comes from Thomas Watson’s Body of Divinity, which we’ll be quoting from in a couple of minutes.

Now, let’s look at a few of these then. Who are we supposed to honor? Well, I said our functional superiors. And I say functional superiors to help you realize that we’re not saying these people are superior in terms of their essence, but rather in their function. Hopefully, you won’t get hung up on that. We’ve talked about that an awful lot here, and we should be able to move on just having said that it’s functional superiors, not in terms of their essence. Okay.

First of all, there are family superiors. Parents, of course, is the direct content of the fifth commandment—fathers and mothers. But additionally, husbands have a functional superiority in terms of their wives. And so husbands are to be given honor in this sense as well according to the fifth commandment. And we’ll talk about this more in a couple of minutes as well.

Additionally, there are church fathers—spiritual fathers is what Watson calls them. And I almost hate to use that term because it’s important to recognize that father, of course, is first and foremost a familial term. But it’s a good way to think of these as spiritual authorities, I guess might be a better way to put it. In any event, within the church there are elders and deacons. We’ve talked about that before. That the elders have a functional superiority in terms of administering the word of God, ruling by teaching, bringing those functions together that the diaconate has an administrative responsibility in terms of serving tables and essentially administering all the temporal needs of the church. And they have authority that goes along with that functional authority.

The elders are specifically said to be given honor in 1 Timothy 5:17. “Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor.” And again that has reference to pay, but it also has reference to the whole idea of honoring as the fifth commandment tells us to honor those.

That’s rather obvious in terms of the diaconate. We mentioned before that in 1 Timothy 3:13 we read, “For they that have used the office of a deacon well purchased to themselves a good degree and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.”

Now, we want to stop here for a couple minutes and talk about this. First of all, let’s talk a little bit about the words. “They that have used the office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree.” The word good just basically means good. Okay. And the idea of those who have used the office of the deacon well is an adverb that comes out of that word for good. And it’s used actually the adverb is used three times. The adverb well appears there in the book of First Timothy twice in connection to ruling your own household well, and then third in this verse where it says they use the office of a deacon well. I bring it up for a reason we’ll talk about in just a second.

The word for degree, of course, is the thing here that’s tough to figure out. The root word is the Greek word bathos, which comes from bathos or depth. You know, a bathosphere, I guess, is something that goes way down in the ocean. And the idea behind bathmos is a degree, a step, a rung on a ladder. Some people have looked at it as a position that is somewhat up from the people that they’re operating in the context of. It is an honorable position then. And in fact there’s indications that they used to have in the early church seats and the deacon would sit in on a raised platform as the elders would sit there. And so those who have done well get themselves a good degree.

Now obviously what it’s talking about here is not primarily where they sit. It’s talked about the honor and respect and reverence due to those that rule well and do their job good.

Now some people have used this to say the diaconate as a matter of course graduates up to the office of elder. This is wrong. It’s wrong for several reasons. First, it’s wrong because the diaconate is a separate calling. It has separate giftings for it—administrative as opposed to teaching and ruling and judging through teaching. Whole separate qualifications, whole separate ways of doing things. It’s not an apprenticeship position. I don’t think the scriptures teach that anywhere. They have common qualifications, which is a spirit-filled life—men who are filled with the spirit. But they do have separate requirements in terms of their particular task of administration as opposed to the elder’s task of teaching, ruling and praying.

Additionally, it’s wrong because if you take that point, then what you’re saying is the diaconate is not an honorable position. See, he’s got to be a deacon real good for a long time, then he’ll get a good degree. Doesn’t have a good degree now just as a deacon. And so it buys into this whole superior inferior Neoplatonic idea that the things the spiritual ministration of administration is somehow inferior to the administration of the teaching of God’s word. And the spiritual physical distinction—and we know that orthodoxy and orthopraxy go together and we want to keep that in our mind and not to get fall into this Greek dualism idea. Okay.

And a couple other considerations for how to interpret this correctly. The term use the office of a deacon—okay—does not necessarily have direct reference in this text to the office of a deacon. That’s the way the King James translated it. But the word can also be translated served in a general sense. It’s one word being used here. It is used in a general sense in other verses. And so the term can be understood to have simply served well without reference to the office of the deacon. Okay. Lenski brings this out.

One other thing before I mention that: the Geneva Bible, done at the time of Calvin at Geneva, of course, translates this term simply as ministered. Okay. “Whoever has ministered well, served well.” Additionally, Lenski points out this interpretation because Lenski believes that coming as it does in this portion of the text, it sums up all the other—Lenski believes in three offices: elder, deacon, deaconist. And at the end of those verses in verse 13, it says, “Anybody who serves well in any one of these positions purchases to himself, obtains for himself a good degree or great honor from the people.” And so he sees it as a summary statement of all that have served well. And that may well the thrust of the verse, okay? Because it does simply mean to serve. And of course, the elders serve in the ministry of the word and the deacons serve in the ministry of the table, but they’re both servants. They’re both ministers. They’re both deacons in that sense.

Additionally, another possible interpretation is that this has reference back to what just preceded it in verse 12, which is that the deacon must rule his household well. And that’s one of those three occurrences I said of that adverb well. The first is the elder ruling his household well. The second is the deacon ruling his household well. And then it goes on to say in verse 13, “For those who have served well obtained to themselves a good degree, an office, a position of respect and honor in the church.” And it could be saying that the deacon who rules well in his household and then is given the trust of administering the church has obtained himself a good degree. Okay, so it’s antecedent. What it is modifying, what it is talking about, could be all offices. It could be the office of the deacon. In that case, the deacon who does things well is more honored than those who don’t. Or it could be the idea of ruling well in your house and serving and ministering your household being a prerequisite for that good degree of honor in the church.

Now, whatever you—it doesn’t really make a lot of difference which one of these things it is in terms of our study this morning. It refers to deacons either by way of having served in their households or by way of inclusion with the elders or by direct reference to the deacons. And it says that the deacons are to have a good degree of honor and respect from the congregation in which they serve, from the flock.

And so a primary implication of this verse for our studies: The deacons do deserve honor and respect for a good job well done. And secondly, this also means that honor and respect from the flock must be earned by the deacon’s work. If they minister well, they get more honor, more respect.

These two implications of the fifth commandment—in terms of both the honor due and honor being earned by the person doing the work—are both implied in the fifth commandment and are brought out in other places as well.

What I’m saying there is that while the fifth commandment tells children to honor parents, it also has the implication that parents should be doing things that earn them that heaviness of opinion and weight on the part of the child. Okay? And so there both those things are true of church officers. It’s true of parents as well. Okay.

So there are office bearers in the church who are the recipients of this honor. And then finally there are commonwealth officers—civil magistrates, political fathers, political authorities. And of course the Romans verse we mentioned earlier, “Honor to whom honor is due,” is a direct citation of that. Then there are a couple of others that I’ve thrown in here: Masters, employers, domestic fathers is what Watson calls them in terms of business and running of a household, etc. And you are as an employee to honor your employer. And then there’s the hoary head, the ancient, the elders in the land. Leviticus 19:32 says, “Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head and honor the face of the old man and fear him. I am the Lord.” And so those are some other ones. I haven’t done an exhaustive listing, but I’m trying to get you to see here is that it has lots of equity to all inferior superior relationships.

Now, who is doing this honoring? Who does the “thy” refer to? You are the one to give this honor. And you then are in the position of being a functional inferior in terms of the children—in terms of the family, the children ought to honor their parents obviously. And then secondly, the wife is to honor her husband. And then third, the congregation—the members of the congregation ought to honor the spiritual authorities in the church.

The citizens of the commonwealth are to honor their functional superiors, the civil authorities that God has placed in them. And then the employees are to honor their employers and the young then also are to honor those who are more ancient.

In terms of that employee employer relationship, 1 Timothy 6:1 is a good text to remember. “As many servants were under the yoke and count their masters worthy of all honor that the name of God and his doctrine and be not blasphemed.” So employees are specifically cited in 1 Timothy 6:1—slaves and by way of application employees—to honor their employers. Okay.

Now we’re going to talk about specifically church office bearers then in terms of how all this is brought about. At first we’re going to talk about why they’re honored. And this what we’re going to have say really has application to all these other functional superior inferior relationships but we’re going to talk about it specifically in terms of church offices because that’s the point of our talk this morning.

Why are these people to be honored? They are honored to be honored for two reasons. First, because of their office and second, because of their work.

John Calvin notes in various writings of his that God condescends to let men use terms that appropriately apply only in the ultimate sense to God himself. And that God does this for two reasons. First, to remind the people who are given these offices of their serving at his pleasure and for his purposes. And then secondly, he instills in those under their authority a proper sense of their obligation to obey the secondary means that God has established for the right ordering of the universe.

And so the church we have overseers of the church, the elders. We have servants of the church. Ultimately Jesus Christ is the true servant of God, of course, and God the Father is the true overseer in terms of directing and ordering all things according to his providence and to his rule. And so the elders and deacons have titles that really belong properly in the ultimate sense to God alone. And that’s to remind the elders and deacons that they serve at God’s pleasure and represent him and therefore must serve underneath his law.

And then secondly is to remind the congregation that these men represent God to you. They’re God’s ministers among you. And so you’re supposed to honor them regardless of what they do. There’s some honor due to them just because of their office and the title that God and his providence has brought them to. And then secondly, of course, they’re to be honored for their work itself.

Now, in this regard, we’ll have our first quote from Watson’s Body of Divinity. If you don’t have this book, it’s really an excellent book and it’ll be very useful when we start next week our ten week series or ten or fifteen week series on the order of our service, which we’re going to start next week and carry on for three months or so. Watson has some tremendous material in terms of preparation for Sabbath worship. We’ll be referring to that as well.

But in terms of the honor due those who work in the ministry in terms of the church, Watson says the following, talking about their work. He says: “Their work is to redeem spiritual captives and turn men from the power of Satan unto God. Their work is to enlighten them who sit in the regions of darkness and make them shine as stars in the kingdom of heaven. These spiritual fathers are to be honored for their work’s sake.”

So I guess one thing I thought of as I was reading this: they’re sort of like, you know, church officers, if they do their work well, are sort of like spiritual RaMBOs. You know, there’s a idea of rescuing people out of spiritual darkness through the preaching of God’s word and the proper administration of God’s word and how the church runs. And that has a redemptive effect to it. It brings us away from certain sins that we’re engaged in. And because of that work, they should be honored.

Now, how is—how do we do that? I guess then what are the requirements of the honor due to church office bearers on the part of the congregation?

The catechism again addresses this question under the general question of what is the honor that inferiors owe to their superiors? And I’ll just read the answer. “The honor which inferiors owe to their superiors is all due reverence in heart, work, and behavior. And that’s the outline we’re going to use here in a couple of minutes to talk about the specifics: heart, word, and behavior. Then they go on to say, “Prayer and thanksgiving for them, imitation of their virtues and graces, willing obedience to their lawful commands.” And of course, that’s a restriction, isn’t it? You don’t have to obey their unlawful commands, but their lawful commands are to be obeyed. And also their councils are to be obeyed. Due submission to their corrections, this is question 127. We’re looking at fidelity to defense and maintenance of their persons and authority according to their sub ranks and the nature of their places bearing with their infirmities and covering them in love that so they may be in honor to them and to their government.

What are the sins of inferiors against their superiors? The sins of inferiors against their superiors are on neglect of the duties required toward them. Okay. Additionally, envying at contempt of and rebellion against their persons and places in their lawful councils, commands and corrections. Cursing, mocking, and all such refractory and scandalous carriage as proves a shame and dishonor to them and their government.”

And that is an excellent summation. I would encourage you to become very acquainted with those answers of the catechism and the texts that provide their basis in scripture because all of us, if you realize this list we just read, all of us have some sort of superior inferior relationship. We’re all superiors probably in one sense except to children at this point in time. And we’re all inferiors in one sense.

And so if we acquaint ourselves with what the catechism teaches of our obligations in terms of relationships here, it’s going to be very good for us in terms of how we live our lives and the honor we give to God in them. Okay.

So the congregation has obligations and we’re going to talk about those obligations in terms of, as I said, the designation the catechism put to it: thought, word, and deed.

First, the congregation is to esteem those that rule over them, the diaconate, the eldership. They’re to esteem them highly. 1 Thessalonians 5:12: “We beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake and be at peace among yourselves.” So we’re commanded by God in applying the fifth commandment to our relationship within the church to esteem those that God has placed in the position of authority over us in the church very highly, to think highly of them, to esteem them, to honor them, to put a lot of weight to their office and to their work. Okay? So we’re commanded to do that in our heads, in our minds.

Again, Watson has some good things to say about this. He says: “Surely were it not for the ministry, for their ministry, you would not be a vineyard, but a desert.” We’ve talked about that before, of course. The model in the scriptures being from desert to Garden of Eden and how we’ve been brought out of—by salvation in Jesus Christ—out of the desert into the well-watered land, a constant theme throughout scripture. And to the effect that the ministers among you help you get rid of sin in your life and help you improve in righteousness, you become more and more a vineyard and less or less a desert.

And so Watson says: “Surely were it not for the minister, you would not be a vineyard, but a desert. Were it not for the ministers, you would be destitute of the two seals of the covenant, baptism in the Lord’s supper. You would be infidels, for faith comes by hearing, and how shall they hear without a preacher?” The long-term effect of denying Levitical tithe, for instance, was a diminution of the preaching of God’s word and a diminution of faith. And the judgment that always came upon it was as if they were back in the wilderness. Wild animals will roam in the streets. Owls will be flying around in the temple, etc., etc. And that’s a picture of what happens if you don’t honor and esteem the church officers that God has placed over you. You got to begin in your mind with thinking of them correctly, esteeming them for their position that God has placed them in.

Additionally, that would take its activity then in terms of our words. There’s some negative admonitions about people here in terms of their church officers. First of all, 1 Timothy 5:1: “Rebuke not an elder but entreat him as a father.”

So you’re not to rebuke church officers. Church officers are also included under this term elder here. 1 Timothy 5:17 where we talked about the double honor due to elders that rule well goes on to say as an application of that in verse 19: “Against an elder receive not an accusation but before two or three witnesses.”

Now two or three witnesses were required in capital cases. They’re required in rules of evidence to substantiate things. But what Paul is telling Timothy here is: don’t even make an investigation. Don’t even hear the accusation unless there are two or three witnesses.