Dennis Tuuri

We return to Acts 6:1-8 for the sermon text today. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

Acts 6, verses 1-8:

And in those days the number of the disciples was multiplied. There arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them and said, “It is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables.

“Wherefore, brethren, looking out among you, seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. And the saying pleased the whole multitude and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip and Prochorus and Nicanor and Timon and Parmenas and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch whom they set before the apostles and when they had prayed they laid their hands on them.

“The word of God increased and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith. And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people.”

Please be seated. We thank God for his word and pray that he would illuminate our understanding.

I was listening this last week to a tape by Greg Bahnsen that’s essentially a report of his trip to Moscow, Russia this year. And in this tape, Dr. Bahnsen talks about many problems in Russia. And by the way, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there are more problems today in Moscow. Looks like the confrontation between the seated parliament, which are mostly old hardliners—many of them former communists and they haven’t really changed their stripes—and between Yeltsin is in growing today and there are now thousands of people supposedly who are now going to the parliament and also taking over portions of other government buildings.

So Moscow has a particularly difficult day ahead of it and no doubt a difficult week and month as well. In any event, Dr. Bahnsen was talking about going to a restaurant in Moscow and there was about 35 or 40 tables and all of them empty and he had a Russian translator with him and he said he wanted to be seated to have a meal and the lady said all these are reserved. So the man said, “Well now, who could all these tables be reserved for?” and she got real snooty and said, “Well for the city council,” which was not true obviously.

So they called the manager of the restaurant and he came over and they did get them seated and gave them a different waitress. And Dr. Bahnsen was asking the translator what the problem with this waitress was. He said this is very typical because the waitress gets paid the same no matter if there’s anybody sitting down and having a meal or if there’s nobody there at all or if the place is full. So she doesn’t want to work and so as a result she tries to shoo away as many customers as is possible. And of course Dr. Bahnsen’s response is, “Why doesn’t he fire her then?” and then the translator said that the man who runs the restaurants is in the same position. He gets his government stipend regardless of whether or not there are any people in the restaurant, so he has no incentive to get people in there either and so he has no incentive to fire the gal.

Now, I bring all this up because Dr. Bahnsen points out in this tape, which I would highly recommend you get a copy of and listen to. We do have a copy that Janice Jacobson has made available to the church. I’d encourage you to listen to it to get Dr. Bahnsen’s perspective on affairs in Russia and also to see how God has used him in mighty ways already in that area for the gospel. But in any event, his point was that the population may be free of communism, but they have no idea of the concept of service. Service is an unknown quantity in Russia.

For the most part, people have been—the whole idea of a servant mentality has not been built into their culture at all for the last 80 years since the communists took over. And as a result, you have a population that does not understand one of the most basic elements of the Christian faith and one of the most basic elements also that’s necessary for the concept of capitalism. To them, Dr. Bahnsen said, capitalism is middleman capitalism. The only thing that you create with capitalism is you buy something at a store or you go out to the street and you sell it for a higher price. They think that’s what capitalism is. No concept of service.

That’s at the core of the capitalistic system is a service to people that’s then rewarded by the people that you serve.

Now, I bring all this up because really that’s the whole point of Acts chapter 6. These first few verses we’ve been talking about for a couple of weeks. At the core of the Christian faith is the concept of service, ministry, diaconal functions. And while some believe—and I think there’s evidence in the scriptures to support two offices, elders and deacons—they’re both deacons in a sense because they’re both servants. And in Acts chapter 6, the apostles say, “We will be servants of the word of God and you will be servants of the table or administration. Everybody are servants in the body of Christ.”

And so Christianity is absolutely essential to reconstructing Russia because without a Christian concept of service, they will, as Dr. Bahnsen said, have seven worse demons come in to replace the vacuum left at the expulsion of the one demon of communism—of course quoting from our Savior in the gospels referring back to his account of what would happen to Jerusalem.

Well, Acts chapter 6, the passage we continue to deal with today and next week we’ll talk about ordination before we move on to the rest of the chapter, chapters 6 and 7. This chapter stresses service, the servant mentality. And I thought that it’d be good to point out too that the particular context here, the service being talked about is in the context of the institutional church. Now that has implications for all of life. It affects the service outside of our culture and our businesses, service in the context of our families and in the context of the political community as well. But explicitly here the instructions are relative to the institutional church. And this is very important to just pause and reflect on for just a minute.

Much of the scriptures, particularly the New Testament, is geared specifically to teaching each of you and your children how to be better churchmen—men in the sense of representation of men and women. That’s how the term is often used and I’ll use it that way as well. You are all to be proper and good churchmen. You’re to understand the nature and structure of the institutional church and as a result of that to assist in the growth of the institute, the local church and the ministry that goes on in it—to support its officers, to select officers who are qualified according to the scriptures, to participate then in the service of the church itself.

And so that’s why we spent the time last week talking about the office in the institutional church of the diaconate, whether that’s an apprentice to the elders, whether these were elders who were essentially servants to the apostles or whatever it is that really the function is the same—that men serve the church through the administration of the temporal affairs of the church and also of course through the exhibition of grace in the covenant community.

And we’ve said that the context for this is the church is being matured by God. Blessings upon blessings upon blessings is what happens in spite of persecution upon persecution and persecution and those blessings redound as the church obeys the maturation process as the blood is brought into full bloom so to speak through varying degrees here. This particular aspect that’s being added into the church is an overt and demonstrable demonstration of service in the context of the covenant community through the selection of seven men who will be servants of the table administration and also benevolences to the new covenant community that’s organized post the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so the church is maturing and it’s maturing in Acts 6 specifically in service.

Now I might just mention here that you could see in some sense a correlation between what Dr. Jordan taught us at family camp in these last couple of chapters of Acts, chapter 6. Remember we said this follows specifically the incident with Ananias and Sapphira and the growth in the church in terms of discipline, judgment against the household of God and the apostles speak the word of Christ in a judgmental sense against Ananias and Sapphira and they fall down dead. God confirms that what they are saying really is only what God has said in heaven. Whatever you know the church does on earth is to represent the heavenly courts of God. It doesn’t change that effect. It takes that ruling by God, announces it to men and God then has things happen.

I thought of this in terms of the first three commandments. You know, Dr. Bahnsen—or Dr. Jordan rather—at family camp, or Reverend Jordan rather at family camp, said that history moves in terms of tribes, monarchies, and then empires and related monarchies and empires to the second and third commandment. The second commandment is the one prohibiting idolatry. Once you realize who God is, you want to worship him correctly. Then in the terms of the second commandment, the third commandment says you’re not to bear—you’re not rather to take the name of the Lord your God in vain. That doesn’t just refer to swearing or cursing. It refers more than that to taking the name of Christian upon yourself in a vain or empty way.

While the elders or the apostles rather, and later the elders, would provide the guarding function of church discipline. One of the essentials of the church through the exacting of an announcement of verdicts from God’s throne room and that is a guarding function and they are the ones who are given over to specifically administrate understand what the scriptures say and administer the public prayers—that is the order or the worship of the church. Remember the apostles are going to devote themselves to the word of God in prayer. Prayer, the worship of the church, is the attempt to obey the second commandment and then the deacons are added on, or the apprentices, the servants—whether they were elders or deacons specifically I’m not sure there—and these men were added on to administer the temporal affairs and that I think correlates to the third commandment, this not bearing the name of Christ vainly. In other words, the idea of Christian service and the proclamation of Jesus Christ and all that we do and particularly under the administration of things in our daily lives is a demonstration of taking the name of God upon us not in an empty fashion.

And so the deacons, the elders and deacons, can be seen in somewhat in correlation in the church, post-apostolic church, to the second and third commandments.

Well, now we’re going to talk about the qualifications and it’s very important to understand that these qualifications are—we can be very thankful to God that he gives us a list of qualifications for church office. I mean these are very clear statements. Some things you must discern from the scriptures in more or less an inductive way and trying to discern from a variety of passages as we did with the office of deacon, for instance last week with the shofetim in the New, in the Old Testament but when it comes to qualifications we have some very explicit teaching from God and I think one reason for that is it’s so important that men see—men are put into office only as they’re seen to demonstrate the necessary qualifications for that office.

Chapter 6 tells us what kind of men had to be selected specifically. We’re told that the apostles said in verse 3, “Look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.”

And so they give qualifications here. And before we get into a discussion of those qualifications, I want to say first that these qualifications are very important. The context in the book of Acts is certainly the growth of the church. But remember, it’s also the growth of the persecution of the church. Both from within—you have Ananias and Sapphira difficulties within the church—and then externally of course the persecution is growing.

There is a war being waged in the book of Acts. And it’s a war that the church wins through the proclamation of the gospel, through the exertion of church discipline, and through the administration of service to the covenant community, and then to the waiting world, whom we feed with the word of God as well. There’s a war. That’s the context for these qualifications. And that’s not unique in scripture.

Remember, we said that if you look at the qualification statements in Numbers 11, that’s where the 70 are selected to assist Moses in the administration of the people. The context is war. Turn to Numbers 11. We’ll look at that again briefly this week. Numbers 11 in your scriptures, verses 1 and following. And what I—there are three passages in scripture that I call the selection passages of officers. Numbers 11 is one, Exodus 18 is another, and then Acts 6 is another. Now, Exodus 18 and Numbers 11, the 70 and then the heads of tens, 50s, hundreds, and thousands are brought together in Deuteronomy 1 where he brings both those accounts together. And in those passages, we read of qualifications as well.

But before we get to the qualifications, notice that Numbers 11 and we pointed this out last week is preceded by Numbers 10:35 and 36. And it says that when the ark was set out that Moses would say, “Rise up, O Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered. Let those who hate thee flee before thee.” And when thou come to rest, he said, “Return thou, O Lord, to the myriad thousands of Israel.”

The presence of God—remember we talked about the theme in the book of Joshua. What are the blessings that God gives us? It’s his presence. It’s land—land being God’s land, the presence of God at his people. “Return, O Lord, to the myriad thousands of Israel,” the presence of God. But what’s the other thing God gives us in the land is peace. Peace is defined in the scriptures, particularly in Joshua, as the defeat of our enemies because they’re God’s enemies. Okay? And that’s pointed out in verse 35: “Let thine enemies be scattered.” And so in the context for the selection of the 70 spirit-filled administrators to administer the people of God with Moses in the wilderness, the context again is warfare.

Just as it is in Acts chapter 6.

Now let’s also consider the context for the specific listing of qualifications. What we’re going to do is we’re going to look at the qualifications from Numbers 11, Deuteronomy 1, and Acts 6 and see how they correlate. And then we’re going to turn to the specific qualifications given in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus chapter 1. But before we get to those specific ones, let’s look at the context for those lists in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus chapter 1.

In 1 Timothy 3, you can turn to that portion of scripture. 1 Timothy 3 begins to list the qualifications. We’ll get to these in a couple of minutes. After the list of qualifications though in verse 14, I want to point out a couple of things here. Paul writes, “These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly. But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and ground of the truth.”

One of the reasons why it’s important to have qualified men is because God places such an importance upon the institutional church. Again, what Paul is telling Timothy is how to be good churchmen—how you can be a churchman, how you instruct your people to be good churchmen, how to live, behave yourself in the house of God. And the idea here is that if the house of God disintegrates, falls apart, is not followed, God’s law is not followed correctly there, then the house that you live in, your home, which is not, you know, removed from God, but it also then will not function correctly.

The point I’m trying to make here is that the church in terms of preeminence has a tremendous importance given to it by God because it provides the instruction and the model for the home. In fact, I’m diverting from what I was going to say here, but let me just say that in terms of the elders and deacons, you can see very easily very strong correlations between what happens in your home with the father and the mother or the husband and the wife.

The elder brings guardian and nourishing. That’s what the father does. He provides for his family in terms of sustenance. He guards the family. The elder devotes himself to the instruction of the word and also to discipline. And hopefully your families are characterized by men who bring the instruction of God’s word into the household and also are the terminal output, so that the final court of appeal for all disciplinary cases comes from the father and so the primary role for discipline, the primary role for instruction resides with the father as it does with the elders.

And the wives can be seen somewhat in correlation to the deacons. They administer the food table, don’t they? They’re the ones who primarily provide for food for the home. Now, it’s not wrong for men to cook. It’s a good thing to cook. Most good chefs rather were men. The Levites who cooked at the temple were men, etc. But the point is that women do essentially provide for that table. Now, the husband may cook it, but the wife normally serves it the way the elders, the deacons rather, would serve a table.

And the wives frequently—I found in my experience, particularly with counseling couples—the wives usually are pretty good administrators of the finances. They can relieve the husband of that role, and usually they’re tighter than the husbands are actually, and so they’re a little better at administering the financial affairs and then freeing the husband for his duties in the home of instruction and discipline.

And so that same delineation of functions and the elders and deacons can be seen in the house, in the house roles of mother and father and husband and wife. The wife is an assistant, a helper meet for the husband and the deacon is an assistant, a helper that’s fitted by God to assist him in fulfilling his responsibilities in the institutional church, the house of God.

In any event, it is important to see the qualifications of office are necessary at the house of God might be properly applied in the context of the local church. It is the church which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. And the point there is that if the local churches fade away, the pillar and ground of the truth is faded away as well. The family is not the pillar and ground of the church or the truth rather. The church is—that’s what these scriptures tell us.

But anyway, let’s go on to continue to read. It says in 1 Timothy 4:1, “These qualifications of 1 Timothy 3 are immediately put in the context of problems. The spirit speaketh expressly in the later times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.”

So, right away he’s told in the context of these qualifications for office, it’s necessary to equip the house of God with these proper officers, properly qualified because people are going to fall away from the faith and the doctrines of devils will be taught in the context of the church itself.

Warfare will happen throughout the history of the church, I think, is what’s being said here. Again in Titus chapter 1, after we read the qualification list. In Titus chapter 1, those qualifications are read and then we go on to read in verse 10, “There are many, for there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, especially they of the circumcision whose mouths must be stopped who subvert whole houses.”

It goes on—the point is that the qualification passages are put in the immediate context of warfare again: false doctrine, doctrines of demons, context of subverting households, etc. And so the scriptures tell us that officers’ qualifications are quite important because the focal point of the great battle that goes on throughout history between the Lord Jesus Christ and all who oppose him (which he definitely wins, of course) that battle is seen primarily pitched in the context of the institutional church.

And is it any wonder that the culture in America is so apostate when the battle in the churches was lost, so to speak, years ago—most Bible believing churches rejecting the law of God, rejecting an optimistic eschatology that is necessary for courage and battle etc.? Is it any wonder then that since the institutional churches in America diverted far away from the path long ago that the culture now also follows it in rapid succession?

The key to turning all this around is to rebuild the foundation so to speak—to the officers of the church because that church is the house of the living God and it is the pillar and ground of the truth. So office bearers are very important and so these qualifications become very important.

You know we could go on and talk about this but the point is that if you got men who are put into office who do not meet these qualifications, great havoc will reign in that particular church. If people refuse to attend to the requirements of God then they end up frequently with tyrants who rule over them in a completely improper way or they’ll end up with men who don’t simply do the function of these particular offices—weak men and as a result ill-suited to fulfill the task given unto them. Men who are weighed down in many cases by a job that they really cannot perform because they’re not called by God to do it.

You know, I was there’s various discussions about ordination, which we’ll get into next week, and who makes an officer. You know, is it the congregation who chooses the man and is the congregation who empowers a man and gives him calling to office or is it the presbyters of the church that calls a man and gives him office? Who makes the man an officer?

You see, the question itself is improper. God makes men officers. All the church ever does through the selection process of the congregation or the sitting office holders is to recognize what God has done. And God gives us very clear signals. How we may recognize who is particularly fitted and qualified for office because and he gives us these clear signals because it is so important. And yet churches regularly, in the context of churches, reformed churches etc., regularly ordained men who do not meet these basic qualifications and as a result great havoc comes to the churches.

Well, let’s get to the specifics now. Let’s go to the well, actually to the general statements first. In Acts chapter 6 we have these general statements made which will be fleshed out as we move to 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. But in Acts chapter 6 the apostles say in verse 3 to bring out select men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom. So, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom. And then the fourth thing they say is that we may appoint over this business.

And I think that there are three qualifications given. Then a fourth one that’s kind of implied, three explicitly though. The first one is they are men of honest report. This means attested to, known so to speak. Men who have been tested, who are of honest report in the sight of their fellow men. Secondly, there’ll be men who are full of the Holy Ghost. And third, and connected to that, full of wisdom as well.

The spirit is linked to wisdom. Throughout the scriptures, that link goes on and the spilling of the Holy Spirit is what brings wisdom. Wisdom is the ability to take what God teaches. The Holy Spirit writes the law upon our hearts. Wisdom takes that law and applies it to a particular context.

The fourth requirement, by the way, and one which is not frequently spoken to, but he does say that we may appoint, the apostles do, over this business. So while you’re selecting men and they have to have these three characteristics—having been tested or known or attested to of a good report, filled with the Holy Ghost and filled with the spirit who gives wisdom—you were also supposed to be looking at them in terms of the particular task that they’re being called to perform.

And the task they were being called to perform was of course the administration of tables. And so you could say that a fourth characteristic or qualification is the specific qualifications that job itself requires. Now this case it’s administration. So when you pick a deacon, yes, he has to be known. He has to be full of the spirit and wisdom, but it’s not enough. He must also have the special qualifications for the task of administration because that’s what the office of deacon is.

In the case of the elder, he must have those special qualifications that the elders may appoint over this particular task: teaching the people, leading in public worship, guarding the church, feeding the church. And while he may be a man who is hopefully all of us can be said as we grow in our Christian faith to be men who are tested and of honest report, full of the spirit and wisdom relative to your particular calling and station in life—that’s true of all of us—but the fourth thing is not true of all of us because all of us are not called to fill particular special office in the church and so that fourth thing, that we may appoint over this particular business, is a very important qualification.

But I want to talk just real briefly again—one of the wonderful things in the last 10 years in my life is seeing the unity of the word of God and how the whole thing is one big word from God as James B. Jordan says, one long score, you know, not a whole bunch of separate songs—one long piece of very involved music, but has a unity to it in the context of the diversity. It has unity to it as well.

Well, I want to in Deuteronomy 1, and you may want to look at verse 13. In Deuteronomy 1, Moses says, the kind of men that he had appointed over them. Deuteronomy 1:13, “Take you wise men in understanding and known among your tribes and I will make them rulers over you.” So Moses says they have to be wise men with understanding and known among your tribes and I’ll make them rulers over you. By the way, he tells there that he took their leaders and he made them leaders over the people. The same Hebrew term is used. And the point there is that again all Moses does really is recognize whom God has already equipped, fitted, and frequently who are already functioning in a way that is very involved, very almost identical to the office they will fill.

And the context for that is clear too. In other words, what I’m saying is again it’s this point that God makes officers and the church simply approves or not—doesn’t approve it. It recognizes what God has done. And so another thing that you will see in the selection of officers is you’ll pick deacons who are already serving in the context of the local church and already administering people successfully. And you’ll end up hopefully, if you understand the unity of God’s word, you’ll also end up picking elders who already are really instructing people in the faith and already have an interest in the public worship of the church and already are leading in prayer, public worship within their own personal prayer life and prayer in the context of the church as well.

So we have this application of men to these particular tasks that is recognized then.

But in any event, the qualifications that Moses says that he looked for then were people who were wise men of good understanding and known among your tribes.

In Exodus 18, we won’t turn there, but there the qualifications were they had to be able men who fear God, men of truth who hate dishonest gain. And these three—there are three qualifications in each of these three passages. Then in Acts chapter 6, they’re men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and of wisdom. In Deuteronomy 1, it’s wise men, understanding, known among your tribes. In Exodus 18, it is able men who fear God, men of truth, and again, they’re it’s men who are tested.

So in each of those three occurrences, you have the necessity that people know the men they’re selecting. In Acts chapter 6, of honest report, attested or witnessed to by the congregation. “You know these men.” In Deuteronomy 1, the people who are known among your tribes. See, they have to be well understood in the context of the people with they live, in the context of Exodus 18, men of truth. Same idea. Honest report, attested by the people around them to be men of truth.

So in each of these things there’s a requirement that men be known in the context of the covenant community.

Secondly, there’s a requirement that they have wisdom. In Acts chapter 6, men who are full of wisdom. Deuteronomy 1:13 says, “Wise men of understanding,” essentially just repeating the phrase, “wise men of understanding, knowing how to take the law of God, apply it in a judicial sense or an administrative sense, either way.” In Exodus 18, able men who fear God. Able, in other words, able to take that word of God and apply it to a specific task, who fear God. And the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Men who are…

Now in the New Testament we have an explicit statement being full of the Holy Ghost and that is explicit in the qualifications of the Old Testament but it’s implicit. I mean the Holy Ghost is the one who brings wisdom. The Holy Ghost is the one who brings empowering to service. In the Old Testament we see the Holy Ghost coming upon the men who would create or make particular things to go in the tabernacle or the temple. Their hands would be skilled for the craft, craftsmanship that was required to do the work required for the construction of the tabernacle and temple.

What I’m trying to say here is that wisdom is not some sort of abstract thing out there. Wisdom is the ability—in the case of the people that worked in the tabernacle and temple furniture—to actually work with wood and work with gold. That was the spirit of God that empowered them to do that very concrete task.

And so in the case of the selection of church officers, you have the concrete task of administration of the temporal affairs of the church. You have the concrete task of being able to study God’s word and understand what it says and the concrete task of leading in formal worship and these things are things that only are really accomplished in the power of God when the Holy Spirit is the one who is empowering people to do these things.

So these qualifications tell us it’s very important that we understand these qualifications and it tells us that the essential qualification out of which all these special ones in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 really kind of flow—the general statement: men who have wisdom and understanding, who are able, who are of honest report, known in the context of the church—these things are manifestations of the spirit of God filling them and filling their lives with obedience to God’s word.

So really there’s only one qualification of office, and it is that they be men who exhibit the fruit of the spirit and that in a particular way for the particular task that God calls them to do in the context of the local church.

Now this is real important. I think it’s important because officers are so important in the cultural war that we fight today. It’s important because the scriptures give us extremely detailed listing of what these qualifications are. But it’s also important because we live in the context of a particular time in which I think some of the main things being talked about here have been ignored. And I mean even in the context of reformed churches and maybe even particularly in the context of reformed churches.

Let me explain what I mean. In a recent article in James B. Jordan deals with the book on how we worship and he talks about a section in it on the elements of worship. And you know I’m writing these little brochures and I’ve written two on worship. One just generally what the pattern of worship is here at RCC and the other dealing with the component elements of our worship, the call to worship, the you know the confession of sin, the absolute statement of absolution, the assurance of forgiveness, etc. And what Reverend Jordan points out is that in most reformed works dealing with worship, you have sections dealing with the specific elements of worship, but you don’t have sections dealing with the overall flow or pattern of worship, how those elements are tied together.

Why is that? Well, he said it’s because that’s the way our culture works today. Our culture deals in itty bitty little. We break everything down to its component elements and think we understand a thing on the basis of that. And so, for instance, disease is not the result of living in disobedience to God’s law, living in the context of covenantal responsibilities of a nation that’s rejected God’s law. Disease is seen as the intrusion of little tiny bacteria or viral infections in your body. Little bitty building blocks.

There was a program on PBS this last week, fascinating, with genetic engineering etc. But everything is broken down to these little tiny elements in the double helix strand that makes up our DNA fabric, and that’s the way reality is understood. It’s all broken down to its component elements. And Reverend Jordan points out this is all true to a sense. There is this diversity, but there’s also unity. There’s also the big picture here.

And God doesn’t say that to live a long life, you should figure out all those little tiny things that are getting in your way, those little bacteria, little viruses, etc. He says the key to a long life is honoring your parents, honoring the authorities that God places in your life. That’s what the fifth commandment clearly says, “First commandment with the promise.” That promise is long life. And the condition is not understanding all these itty bitty little components. It’s understanding the big picture that you’re to be submissive to God. He’s your father. He’s your mother, so to speak. And your parents are simply a picture of that as all church authorities, state authorities, family authorities are.

The key to long life is not these itty bitty little elements.

Well, the same thing is true of the qualifications that are generally listed in reformed churches have been since the Westminster Catechism or earlier. It’s been broken down to these little tiny elements. Reverend Jordan talks about how the Westminster Catechism essentially is a series of definitions of terms. What is justification? What is sanctification? Doug H. and I witnessed an ordination examination for teaching and ruling elders in Chicago. We were there and I don’t mean to, you know, imply that was bad. But it was essentially just a whole string of definitions.

And so what kind of men then end up being qualified for the ministry of the elder? Well, they’re men who and able to memorize real good is what it comes down to. You know, I mean, it’s not men who necessarily—and I’m not saying they ignore these qualifications, but the big qualification, these formal examinations that take place have to do with these series of definitions of terms. And so you end up with pastors in churches, and these are you know, teaching elders who get these exams. Ruling elders get a less strenuous exam, but still it’s definitional in terms.

You get men who are seen as qualified for office because they have good memory or they’ve been through the seminary instruction program and they know the answers to all these questions. You know, one of the questions was, you know, the various theories on when the soul enters the body, where does that soul come from? The source of the soul that enters a body at birth or conception rather. You know, what—there’s different theories about where that soul comes from. And of course, you know, there are many good men who disagree on those theories yet who believe the Bible from cover to cover.

So, you wonder what’s the point of that in an ordination exam. Well, the point is that these qualifications that we read of here—wisdom, understanding, filled with the spirit, and then the list in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1—these are qualifications that do not speak to intellectual attainment. But because the culture in which we live is—essential many of its roots in Greek thinking, in abstract thinking, and then in breaking things down to their little tiny component elements—we don’t have the holistic understanding of the qualifications for office that God gives us.

I’m saying this because we want to look at these specific elements here in a couple of minutes in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. But please understand that these are not a series of really individual elements. They characterize a person’s life as his life is filled and manifest the fruit of the spirit in it. Okay.

Now, one of the reasons we have these formal examinations for office, of course, is that people don’t know the men that they call to minister over them. The model seems to me to be in Acts chapter 6—discipleship, or what you might call, as Reverend Jordan does, the apprentice model of leadership training of deacons and elders.

But you see, if you ship your young men off to Bible school and off to seminary, and then they’re going to go find a church someplace, then you need some sort of formal exam because you got to make sure they understood everything they were trained to do in seminary and so the examination requirements for ordination, particularly of elders—I’m speaking now but if you see deacons really as servants to elders, much the same thing should properly be applied to them—then the qualification examinations become these sets of definitions of specific terms, these little bitty component elements and I think the scriptures teach a far different model.

You cannot know the things that Acts chapter 6 and 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 insist you know about officers if you’re calling a man from afar and he comes and preaches in your church a couple of weeks. You cannot know these things. I don’t care if you think you can, you can’t. Men can be filled with the spirit and manifest self-control etc. for a short period of time. All of us can do that right? You know that—you come to church and you may have big problems going on at home, you might be quite angry, you might have problems going on, whatever they are, but you can come here and put on the face for a while. You can come and you know, kind of relate to people for a while and then go home and go back to your misery.

We have that capability and a pastor can certainly come and exhibit all the fruits of the spirit over a particular period of time. But to live with a man for a couple of years, that’s a whole different thing.

Now, we have entered into formal examinations at our church for the last two elder ordinations with Reverend Meyer and Reverend Hayes. But don’t think we did that because we think that’s the way it should be done. Reverend Hayes, Reverend Meyer, long before we had any formal examination of them were known by this congregation relative to these particular qualifications of 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. And of course, you also knew their comprehension of doctrine, which is quite important. But I’m just trying to point out here that these qualifications as listed in Acts chapter 6 and then enunciated in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 and also seen as the same qualifications that existed in Exodus 18, Deuteronomy 1, Numbers 11.

One word relative to qualifications. They are qualifications of character. They are not qualifications of intellect.

Now, in order to do a particular job of teaching, you must know certain things. But even those things—to turn to abstract them from a from the living out of justification or sanctification, for instance—to abstract them and make technical terms out of them is somewhat useful, but it can be somewhat dangerous as well.

I was thinking of this earlier when we were lifting our hands for the praise God, the “Censer” quarter and the praise God from all blessings flow. See, that’s not done in most reformed churches because what you want to do at church is you come together and it’s an intellectual exercise. Your mind is engaged with what I have to say. Your mind is engaged with what the songs might have to say, what the scripture readings are, but your body isn’t engaged.

And the scriptures—I guess I’m making this point over and over, but hopefully you’ll remember this—the scriptures say, “No, no, these qualifications have to do with what we do with all of our lives and all of the manifestation of who we are, all of our bodies, so to speak, as well as our heads. And it’s not primarily head knowledge. It’s heart knowledge that’s being tested here and people have to be qualified for.

And so it helps us to learn that next week when you feel uncomfortable raising your hands or wondering why we’re popping up and down so much like you know Jack in the boxes here. Get up for the song. Get up—all this stuff. What we’re trying to do, what Richard and I are trying to do is involve us all with all of our bodies to remind us that worship is training us for what we do with our bodies throughout the entire week.

It’s not just training our heads. It’s got to get into our hearts. It’s got to result in specific physical action. The raising of hands to praise God, for instance, and then the demonstration of the fruits of the spirit in all of our lives.

So, these are the qualifications the scriptures give us. Let’s go ahead and turn then to the specific manifestation of these spirit-filled walks in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. And actually, if you want to, you can turn there or you can just take out the handout that hopefully you picked up on your way in that deals with the qualifications of officers. We’ll just go through some of these. We won’t have time to go through them all, but I think it is important that we go through some of them.

Let me just rearrange my notes here for a minute. Okay.

Now, I said that the purpose of these talks today and last week and the week before and next week is primarily how to train you to be good churchmen, so to speak. But it also, of course, if the church is indeed an institution that leads us in worship and instructs us and guides us, then how to live our entire lives, then it should go without saying that these same things also produce implications for your life. And that’s true of these particular lists we have here as well.

These lists have been used. If you’ve been here a while at this church, you’ll probably have done this exercise before. But these qualifications for office are essentially a compilation of 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. And then we took and defined these things. A group of men did a number of years ago. We put two lists together, came up with these number of character qualities that are required and then gave you specific questions by which you could evaluate yourself on the basis of these qualifications for office.

And the whole purpose of this is that you might say, “Well, why do I got to evaluate myself? I’m not going to be an officer.” But if you’ve understood what I’ve said—that essentially there’s one qualification for office: manifestation of the fruit of the spirit. And then I guess the second functional qualification for office is the ability to do the particular task: administering in the case of deacons or teaching and leading in worship and ruling and guarding in the case of elders—then you understand that these qualifications which manifest show the manifestation of the spirit of God, they’re things that you can be, should be attaining to as well. In other words, it’s not okay for you to be the husband of many wives even though you’re not going to be an officer, for instance. The same qualification applies to you.

And so this should be helpful to you in evaluating yourself. Let me give you another use for this list as well. I would encourage each of you to take this list home, use it, go over it with you and your wife. And also another use for this particular list and these qualifications for office the scriptures give us is to train your children.

You know, a lot of us now are having, starting begin to have older children in the context of our homes now and it would be good to go through these lists with them. If the biggest thing we’re trying to do with homeschooling, for instance, is not the intellectual attainment although that’s important, but to build in the Christian character and worldview into our children, then these characteristics are quite important to see somehow connected to our homeschooling or if your children are in private school—for the manifestation of these characters, in the, in their, in their character, these character qualities rather, in their character as they grow to maturity.

So another use for this is to use it in the context of your home.

Well, let’s just go through a few of these. The first qualification we list here is being blameless and above reproach. And as the sheet says, basically this means that you can’t be laid hold of in the context of a charge. This is really a summary qualification I believe of both lists—blameless in the sense of 1 Timothy 3 or above reproach and Titus 1. And the idea is that the ways you will be found blameable is through violation of the rest of the elements of this list.

And we—and I’ll just read here while reading through and thinking upon these requirements a profitable question one might periodically ask himself is this: “Is there anyone that can bring a legitimate charge against me in any of these things and if so how do the scriptures direct me to go about rectifying the situation?”

It’s so important because this very first one—if you understand the implications of this question, if you are blameable by somebody in the context of your church, in the context of your family, in the context of the extended community, you don’t want to just ignore that. You want to try to go to that person, understand what they have to say and then rectify the situation in a biblical manner. And so it really is—it’s really a statement that it exhorts us to faithfulness in terms of the rest of these qualifications as well.

The second qualification is a husband of one wife. And the idea here is, and you’ve probably heard this before in some other setting, that this phrase could be read, a one-woman sort of man. I do not believe that this simply is a prohibition against polygamy. The scriptures don’t need that. The scriptures prohibit polygamy in lots of places. I don’t think that’s what it’s talking about here. It means, I think, primarily that you should be a man who is character—Christ is really devoted and consecrated to particular one mate, one wife.

In other words, a man without a roving eye may be another way to think of it. And so you might ask yourself some of the questions we have listed here. Do you guard your thoughts about and actions toward the wives and daughters of other men as you would have them do in regard to your own wife or your own daughter? Ask yourself that. And if not, then try to repent of that and move on to faithfulness.

And secondly, and more importantly perhaps, does your devotion to your wife lead to specific and consistent actions to guard and nurture her? If you’re consecrated to one woman, devoted to her, then you will do those things that God requires of you relative to her. And if a person doesn’t do that, then he’s really not fit for…