Dennis Tuuri

Those of you who are at family camp, I’m sure can understand and see that was upon us there has been upon us at many times in particularly strong ways in the context of Reformation Covenant Church and it is the future. What we just sang of that blessedness is the future not just of this church but of all true churches of the Lord Jesus Christ. You’ll notice by the way that we just sang the last few verses of that psalm.

That psalm began with difficulties and trials. That psalm began with description of ungodly families. Our subject today, our sermon text is from 1 Timothy 5:1 and 2 where the household of God and context of relationships is seen in terms of a family. The scriptures have much to say both affirming families as well as warning us of the sins of families.

So, please stand for the reading of God’s word. 1 Timothy 5:1 and 2. “Rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father, and the younger men as brethren, the elder women as mothers, the younger as sisters, with all purity.”

Let us pray. Father, we pray that you would help us to understand this text and that we might obey it, and more than that, that we might rejoice in what you’ve provided in the context of what this text teaches. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

You may be they had to cut the animals up. You know, it’s a part of me that would just as soon do away with microphones. We did that one Sunday, the providence of God. And I rather enjoyed it. Well, we have a text of scripture that has some rather obvious things that it speaks to us about, maybe some things that aren’t quite so obvious at the outset that we can go through.

We’ve reached a portion in the book of First Timothy where we have reached a section now that some people call practical considerations or pastoral recommendations to Timothy both for himself as pastoring men and women and also that he and the pastors under his charge or oversight would also be instructed in particular ways.

Chapters five and six deal with the faithful in general according to different age groups here in the verse we just read. We’ll have a section on widows particularly and that’ll be divided into with older widows being spoken of and what to do relative to them. What counseling and pastoral oversight to give to younger widows. Then there’ll be a section in chapter 5 on presbyters or elders and then slaves in the context of master servant relationships will be spoken on as chapter 6 begins.

And then there’ll also be a subsection dealing with false teachers again as the book comes to a close in chapter 6. So where we’re at here is we’ve come out of this section so far. We now get to a series of specific instructions to specific men or women in particular groups. And so that’s why some people see this as an instructional pastoral conclusion to the letter. And so that’s what we’ll do here is we’ll just move the next few weeks through these particular groups.

And today we are told how to treat men in the household of God and the providence of God. We’ve just come off of a week where a portion of what we did at family camp was to talk about koinonia or fellowship. I think I made it through almost all verses where the Greek words translated that are found in our meal times together. And here of course is that’s what we’re talking about, right? That’s what this says is how to treat old men, old women, younger men, younger women in the context of the visible church of Jesus Christ.

It’s talking about fellowship. You’ll notice that I just lapsed into an improper order. However, it goes from old men to young men and then it goes to old women to young women. So, it deals with the men first, old and young because men are covenantal heads in terms of the culture. So, the instruction goes to them first and secondarily to the women in the context of the flow of these verses.

Now, that’s important because one of the things I want to point out several things from this text today. And let me just—you can write this down if you want. There are five things that I want to kind of stress as we go first through this.

First, we should remember that what’s going on here is that Timothy is receiving instruction on how to reprove people. I mean, the immediate context is, you know, don’t beat up the old man with many words. That’s what the word means. The word translated in the King James version is “rebuke not.” That word rebuke comes from a word to mold or to pound flat. And so it means don’t pound somebody flat with your words. Don’t sharply criticize, yell at, harangue, use strong, powerful words when you’re dealing with an elder, an older person, an older man particularly. So it talks about the honor due to old men, but it doesn’t—all that happens here is in the context then of reproof. And the proper way to do that with old men, young men, old women, young women.

So first thing you want to recognize what this text is—it’s instructions on how to reprove. Now if we believe and we do that the New Testament teaches that we’re all to be reprovers in a sense—there’s a particular relevance of this to the minister obviously but if we’re all to encourage each other in the faith and to call each other to account when offenses are given, etc.—this is some very practical stuff in us to remind us how to do that.

So first: how to reprove. Secondly, I believe that this verse teaches by implication reverence for God in the context of authorities, reverence for God’s representatives. He has a particular thing he says about old men because old men represent God in a particular way to the culture. So reverence for God is the second thing I want us to emphasize out of this text.

A third thing is that there is an assertion here of the family. He says in the context of relationships in the church, treat them as your family members. So that means the family is good and to treat the family members good. So there’s an assertion of the family in the context of this instruction on how to reprove people and this assertion of the family is in the context also of reverence for the god-given superiors that he places in the context of our lives.

So how do we reprove? Reverence for God. Assertion of the family. And the fourth point we can look at this text from is that there is a new family described and we’re going to talk about this in a little more detail. I alluded to it after the responsive reading but in the scriptures the family is not ultimate. The biological family—I talked about this at family camp—water or blood, continual battle in the history of man and the New Testament, the Old Testament share alike perspective that it’s really water is supposed to be stronger than blood. And we don’t see that usually, you know, and it’s a rare thing to see a family, a family, a household remain committed when one of them strays or particularly when the father strays.

Now, you can look at Old Testament examples or whatever, but there’s an assertion of the family, but there’s also the assertion of the new family of the church that’s alluded to here, and we’ll look at texts relative to that. God has some harsh things to say about families in a negative way as well as commending them. So, the family assertion is in the context of the new household of God, the new family of God.

That doesn’t get rid of the family because he brings over these things—treat them as these things—but it does assert the new household of God. So, how to reprove, reverence for God, the assertion of the family, a new family, and then fifth by way of implication from the text, familial love is supposed to govern everything that we do in the context of the church. I don’t know of many more commandments in the New Testament that are repeated as often as the requirement of familial love, brotherly love in the context of the church.

And I don’t know of anything else that’s based upon a par with doctrine and instruction of the word in terms of a demonstration that we are Christians. But that is they’ll know you’re Christians by your love for one another—by this exercise of familial love. So those are the five points.

Now if you want to reorder them a little bit for those of you who particularly like the five-part covenant model, you know, where God announces his hierarchy and then he announces to Israel, “I’ve saved you out of this because of the assertion of who I am”—God says in the Old Testament or in covenant relationship. Then he talks about how he’s brought Israel into covenant with them. He gives them a law relative to the covenant of grace that he’s made with them now. And then he gives them sanctions—what’s the blessings and cursings attached to that law? And then there’s a historical formula in terms of how this progresses into the future. Okay? You know that model, hopefully most of you. If you don’t, it’s an important thing to know. It’s found throughout the scriptures.

Well, we could rearrange these points and put reverence for God first. Not in terms of the chronology of the text, but in terms of this other order—a theological order that everything flows out of the reverence for God that is pictured in the reverence for older people as indicated by the elder situation here. And then second, we can say there’s an assertion of the family. That second part of the five-part covenant model talks about the hierarchy and the order in which God has placed covenant relationships—God and then Israel. So first God’s transcendence and then his immanence in a particular covenantal structure. Well, this we have reverence for God and in this text, but we also then have the hierarchy of the family asserted in the context of this as a second point perhaps.

And then third, we could put the commandments about how to reprove people. This is the law word of God. If you’re a theonomic, it doesn’t just mean you pay back restitution when you steal something from somebody or break something—depending on Exodus 21:1, 22:1. That’s a nice theonomic principle. We all know about the gate or the roof around the house when you’re entertaining. Sure. But how about this one? This is a commandment of God to those ministers, to Timothy and his ministers in his charge and by way of application to you as to how you go about reproving people. So that’s law. God’s preeminence pictured in the elderly, hierarchical structure pictured in the family, law pictured in the commandment of how not to do something and how to do something relative to reproving.

And then fourth, the new family is certainly a picture—the family of the household of God. The church is a picture of the blessings to those who remain in the context of that hierarchical covenantal arrangement by means of observance of his law. Sanctions, blessings and cursings. What are the blessings of reproving correctly, understanding this hierarchical structure and reverencing God? The blessing is the new family of God.

We grow in our brotherly love and we’re inserted into and don’t get kicked out of this new family of God. And then finally progression on into the historical future. How this proceeds optimism relative to the future is based upon the demonstration of this familial love one to the other. So we can reorder it and say the reverence for God, the assertion of the family, how to reprove, the new family and then familial love as the way the covenant is transmitted on into the future.

So they’ll know you’re Christians by your love for one another. Okay, that’s really all I have to say. And now I need to go back and demonstrate to you what I’ve asserted here by way of these five truths.

The text says, “Rebuke not an elder.” And as I said, rebuke means to treat somebody very harshly. Okay? Or to say things in a mean—maybe not mean, but a very strong manner. This text is given to ministers. And I think that what it tells us clearly is that ministering is difficult work at best. Ministers, according to Matthew Henry’s commentary on this text, are reprovers by office. It’s a part, though the least pleasing part of their office. They are to preach the word, to reprove and rebuke. 2 Timothy 4:2. And in the context then of Paul giving Timothy necessary instruction, he tells Timothy to treat older men differently than they can treat other people. They’re to be treated in a particular way because of their age. Their age indicates a responsibility on the part of the minister to reverence the old person.

Now, I believe that the old person here represents, as I’ve said, a picture of God. Elder here, by the way, is the word for officer, but it also means the aged ones. And here doesn’t refer to the special office—in other words, he’s not talking about pastors. He’s obviously talking about old men, younger men. And so, we know that from the context that this refers to older people in general, not just church officers. But it’s significant, isn’t it, that we have to make that determination. I mean, it’s significant that the same Greek word is used where they’re talking about an older person or the office of elder in the context of the church.

The office of elder is a representative, as it were, of the older people in the church. James B. Jordan’s synopsis of church government is a good one: “Let the old guys rule in the church.” And in fact, the old guys are going to rule whether you place them in office or not. They’re really the category of men from which officers must be taken. Okay? And the officers really just represent the direction of the older people.

So the old men rule and so the rulers in the church already, just by the name of being given the primary name of office of elder, is an assertion again of the family relationship in the context of the church of God. Now, later on in First Timothy, we’re going to read that you’re not to receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses. Now, we’ll get to a detailed exposition of what that means when we get there in the text.

Some people believe that it means that just as restating, the same thing is true for all of us. You cannot be convicted unless you have two or three witnesses. Now, I think that based on good Old Testament examples, we can see that one of those witnesses can be a line of evidence or circumstantial evidence as opposed to two or three eyewitnesses. But in any event, you have to have two or three witnesses to prove a matter to court of law.

Some people will say, “Well, all he’s doing here is repeating that in the case of the elder to make sure they really follow it.” Other people say what it means is you got to have two or three witnesses before you can even hear a charge against an elder. Either way, the point is the same. Either way, the elder is protected in a way that can is seen as similar to the protection of the old person in this text.

In this text, when you talk to your father, you’re supposed to treat him with reverence. And when you talk to your fathers in the church, that’s what the elders can be seen as well. Elders, fatherly types, supposed to treat him with reverence. So God has a special way of protecting the particular office bearers.

Remember when Paul was slapped by the high priest? Paul was before the council and the high priest had him be slapped. And Paul says, “Well, you’re going to get slapped. You know, you’re going to judge me apart from the law.” And they say, “Well, you know, what are you breaking the law?” And Paul says, “Well, I didn’t know he was the high priest, cuz the Old Testament does say you’re not to revile the ruler of the people.”

Rulers of the people in church and state are not to be reviled or spoken against harshly. Now, whether or not that guy was the real high priest, I don’t know. That’s a whole another go—back to my tape if you’re interested in that topic. But the point is the face of the elders are to be acknowledged. Lamentations says the face of the elders will be dishonored in a time of judgment. And it was the elder Paul whose face was dishonored in that encounter.

See, but the point is simply that whether it’s the family head, whether it’s the head of a business, whether it’s a ruler in the civil state, a king of the earth, whether it is a priestly ruler in the context of the church, all these men, as Calvin said, have titles on loan from God. There are titles that go back to God himself. He’s the father. Yes, Jesus is the son. He’s the father. He’s the king of kings, the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, kings derive that from him. He’s the great shepherd. Yes, we’re undershepherds. And you’re an undershepherd in terms of your family. He’s the elder, though. He’s the ancient of days. He’s the elder—capital E. And we’re elders under him. We represent him. And because of that representation, we must maintain honor and reverence for men with these titles in spite of how they act at times.

For the simple respect and honor due to the authority that God has decided to mediate through giving men these titles and callings to represent his reign on the earth. If you rip down every authority that errs or sins and you rip down the reputation of men and you rip down the reverence due to fathers and grandfathers and rulers in the church and the state and business, you produce a culture of chaos and rebellion and revolution.

That’s what happened in France prior to the horrific, horrible, hellish French Revolution. Through periodicals and tabloids, the reputation of all rulers was ripped down. Rip down. Rip down. Look at the tendency in our country today with a president who makes himself—who hangs a big target on himself saying, “Rip me down.” But don’t participate in that. Yes, there’s things that ministers must be reproved of. Ministers in the state, in the home and church—this text obviously says that. He’s saying, “Don’t just let them get off. They sin. You got to go deal with them.” But the point I’m trying to make is they’re to be treated differently. They’re not to be used harsh words against. They’re supposed to be reproved. A much gentler term.

Now going back to 1 Timothy 5:19 “This against an elder received that accusation except in the mouth of two or three witnesses.” I want to read Calvin’s commentary on this particular verse. Calvin says:

“I reply that it is necessary to guard against the malice of men in this way for none are more exposed to slanders and insults than godly teachers. This comes not only from the difficulty of their duties which are so great that sometimes they sink under them—Amen. Or stagger or halt or take a false step—Amen. So that wicked men find many occasions of finding fault with them.

But added to that, even when they do all their duties correctly and commit not even the smallest error, they never avoid a thousand criticisms. It is indeed a trick of Satan to estrange men from their ministers so as gradually to bring their teaching into contempt. In this way, not only is wrong done to innocent people whose reputation is undeservedly injured, but the authority of God’s holy teaching is diminished.

And it is this that, as I have said, Satan is chiefly concerned to achieve. For not only does Plato’s saying apply here that the multitudes are malicious and envy those above them, but the more sincerely any pastor strives to further Christ’s kingdom, the more he is loaded with spite, the more fierce do the attacks upon him become. And not only so, but as soon as any charge is made against ministers of the word, it is believed as surely and firmly as if it had already been proved.

This happens not only because a higher standard of integrity is required from them, but because Satan makes most people, in fact, nearly everyone, overcredulous, so that without investigation they eagerly condemn their pastors whose good name they ought to be defending. Thus Paul has good reason for presenting such a great injustice. And he says that presbyters are not to be given over to the malice of evil men till they have been convicted by legal testimony.”

And indeed it is no wonder that they have so many enemies since it is their duty to reprove the faults of all men, to oppose all wicked desires, and to restrain by their severity all whom they see to be going astray.

Ministers, fathers in the home regularly receive a great deal of criticism and grumbling and disputing from those in their charge. This text teaches us respect the hoary head, bow down before the ancients. Years ago, there was a dispute between a couple of churches I know of. And in the context of this dispute, which got quite malicious and nationally spread, there was an appeal made to the presbyter of a particular church and the Presbyterian church—that means the men that govern that local church are governed by a presbyter of other pastors—and a letter to these pastors. I remember reading it and I probably shouldn’t have been given it but somehow everybody in the country seemed to be mailed it. I don’t know how it’s the way these things work but in any event it said “Dear ancient fathers” or something to that effect. And I remember thinking at the time why are they calling them fathers?

This was, you know, just as I was understanding more and more of the reformed teaching of the scriptures, they were applying this text. They were trying to appeal to these men as their fathers in the faith. Even though they’re in a different denomination, different church, they had reverence for them. And that’s what this text teaches. It says, “Change your actions toward old men when you reprove them.” And why? Because by implication, they represent God.

Hebrews 12:9 says, “We have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection of the fathers of spirits and live? For they, the fathers of the flesh, verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure. But for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.”

He for our profit. What’s it saying? Well, it’s saying that, you know, kids, yeah, your parents are going to spank you, but it’s not your time to get a spanking, but you’re never going to get so many spankings as you deserve based on your sin. You deserve hell for your sin and you’re not going to get that. And your parents will try hard. When it says the parents do this, chastise you for their own pleasure, doesn’t mean that they like doing it. It means that as they understand it best for you.

So we all have parents, rulers of the job place, the church and the state who are attempting to correct us as best they know how. And this verse says that the normal reaction even in the fallen world—that these fathers who correct us, we give them reverence, worship the men who correct us. God has not caused the fall to extend so far as to get rid of the so-called natural reverential response of children to their parents.

It’s a picture the parents. Why? Because God wants order maintained in this fallen world. And he has his representatives to get reverence that he ultimately is pointed then by those authorities to him in heaven. Okay.

1 Peter 5:5. “Ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder.” You see, we must submit ourselves unto the elder. Leviticus 19:32, “Thou shalt rise up before the hoary and honor the face of the old man, and fear thy God. I am the Lord.”

Reverence for the ancients is part of God’s system of maintaining reverence for him. To fear God. So first that this text teaches us by implication reverence for the ancients. Secondly though, those ancients are called to account. I mean it’s doing this in the context of you don’t let the old men just get away with things. You got to deal with their sin. You got to deal with the sin of the young men and the old women and the young women, but you do it in a particular way.

You do it not harshly, but you do it rather by entreating him. And that word means to call out or call alongside of someone—Paraclete. So to call with someone, to call to somebody. And in terms of the context, it can mean different things—to beseech, entreat, reprove, rebuke. There are strengthened forms that would probably normally be translated rebuke. It could be like admonish. You know, in many church discipline books, you begin by admonishing somebody and then you move to a stronger form of censure or rebuke.

And that’s based upon trying to figure out these terms mean in the New Testament. Well, so the old man here is being held accountable by God. If he has increased dignity offered by virtue of his office, he has increased responsibility offered by virtue of the title on loan to him from God as well. And so in Timothy after it says in chapter five later on when it says that you know don’t hear a charge against the elders except in the voice of two or three witnesses.

So it’s protecting the office. But he goes on immediately to say that those that do sin rebuke in the presence of many. You—if you sin, the elders will meet with you and what we hope to accomplish is to rebuke you in the context of a private meeting so that you’ll repent of your sin and come to correction and nobody will know. Not so with elders, not so with church officers. I think by way of extension deacons, we had a deacon in the past in this church who was deposed from office and that was announced publicly because we believe this text says that with the increased reverence due your church officials they have increased responsibility and culpability should they sin and so when they sin there’s a public affirmation of the sin.

Now this is again when we get there we’ll talk about it some people think it means in the presence of all the presbyters others in the presence of all the body but in any event there’s increased responsibility taught in the text okay. So we have all of that. It’s a difficult thing, you know, it’s a difficult saying—reproving people.

As Matthew Henry said, this is the least pleasant portion of the job of the pastor or minister or elders in the local church to reprove people. And yet they must. All these things in terms of the familial relationships in the church are in the context of holding people accountable for their actions and for their sins.

Now, I want to talk now then—so we’ve talked about reverence for the ancients here. And I want to talk now about the assertion of the family in the context of this.

They’re not supposed to beat him down with words. You’re supposed to intreat him or come alongside him and call to him to correct. And you’re supposed to do this as a father. So Timothy, when he’s going to go reprove people or whatever—older men—he’s got to treat them as his father. And he has to treat the older women the way he would treat his own mother. Remember Eunice who had him grow up in the faith. Mother and grandmother, great godly women—and it’s that respect that he’s supposed to show to the older women in the church that he needed to come alongside of relative to some sinful action in their life. And the same with the younger men as brothers and the younger women as sisters.

So the text is an assertion of familial responsibilities. It reminds Timothy of the way he is to properly treat in the first instance his own family members. Okay? And then only secondarily then if he’s got that squared away—he’s got that in his head—then he applies that to people in the context of the church. So there is here an assertion of the family into this subject of how to reprove people.

Now the scriptures have a lot to say about family members and the family can be seen as a very good thing or the family can be seen as a very bad thing. And I want to go through a few scriptures relative to that.

First, by way of strengthening families, I know it’s a small thing, but as I was going over the hundreds of verses on this subject this week, Mark 5:40. Jesus is going to raise up or resurrect a girl. And it’s interesting that he puts them all out of the house and he takes the father and the mother of the damsel and them that were with him and entered in where the damsel was lying and then does his healing work.

I think it’s maybe a small point, but it’s rather poignant, I think, that here our savior thinks so highly of the mother and father to usher them into the presence of where he will perform this miracle for their child. And so I think that is a picture again of the savior’s honor of parents, biological parents. The family is given to us in the scriptures and by way of marriage, leaving and cleaving.

Now also in Mark 7:1 you know he’s reproving the Pharisees and he says well if a man shall say to his father or mother “it’s corban,” that is to say a gift—by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me he shall be free he suffered him no more to do ought for his father or his mother making the word of God of none effect through your tradition. I know it’s a tough translation but you know the point is rather than they’re saying well we don’t have to help our mother or father this money is dedicated to God and used for his purposes so we’re released then from any financial obligations we have to our parents. And Jesus says that’s wrong—that you do have obligations to your mother or father.

Old men now he’s talking to these Pharisees were not young dudes all of them. So there’s an honor to your mother and father obviously taught in the fifth commandment that plays itself out in the context of the family. And notice this. This is why I chose you know that much. But listen to the importance of this. He says that you suffer him no more to do ought for his father or mother making the word of God of none effect through your tradition.

He puts on an equal par the release from responsibilities to parents. He says what that is in effect is making void the entire word of God. He wraps up the whole keeping of God’s word in terms of honoring these authorities. You see that? You make the word of God of none effect because you let men despise their parents and not have honor and reverence for them as demonstrated by financial help for them. You make the word of God of no effect.

And I believe that if we trash authorities and we allow ourselves and teach an attitude to our children of trashing authorities, the best of catechism we can do with them will fall on deaf ears. Apart from the grace of God, he can call these things back. But in terms of what we do, if we do not teach our children to honor their mother and our children to honor their father and right down the line in the church, the state, the workplace, and the family, then we tear down the word of God. We tear it down.

So Jesus asserts the importance of the family. Indeed, Luke 1:17, you know this verse well from Malachi. What does John the Baptist do? He comes to prepare a people by turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers.

Ephesians 6:2 repeats the honoring of your father and the mother as the way to achieve long life. It’s not through vitamins. It’s through reverence of authorities. All encapsulated in the fifth commandment. So certainly that is true and it’s true because the ultimate family is the family in heaven. The son came as the only begotten of the father to reveal the father. Sometimes I wonder if our Christianity doesn’t leave the father out more often than it should in terms of the trinity. We talked about Jesus and that’s obviously—I’m not speaking against that. But remember that Jesus said he came to reveal the father.

Jesus said all he did was what the father told him to do. He came as a representative, the only begotten son of God from the father to reveal the father to us. And so that honor and reverence for fathers is based upon the father in heaven.

But the scriptures also teach there is this assertion of the family. But the scriptures teach that family is in a sense cut off and that what God really focuses on is the new family of the church.

Now this is I know this can be quite troubling. But listen to these verses. First in Matthew 4:21, Jesus, he sees James, son of Zebedee, and John his brother, and they’re in a ship with Zebedee, their father. And Jesus calls to them. And very significantly, the text tells us Matthew 4:22, “And they immediately left the ship and their father and followed him.”

New household. Now, I know it’s just they got on the boat, they walked away from the dad. That doesn’t mean the dad is never in their life again. But the point is the text record of them leaving your father.

Matthew 10:35, “I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man’s fellows shall be those of his own household. He that loveth his father and mother more than me is not worthy of me.”

What is greed? It’s wanting the gold instead of what the gold represents. What is sexual lust? It’s not governing our passions by an ultimate passion for God. It’s putting things the importance and the representative nature of things. What is gluttony? God gives us food as a picture of his word, his son rejoicing in the Holy Spirit, doing the will of the father, and we just want the food. We don’t want all the rest of that stuff.

And what are our parents? Our parents are seen as representatives of God. And if we don’t teach our children from the earliest years to train that reverence for us properly, to leave it in place, but then to point it to God, we’ve missed the whole point. And we can become idols to our children. And that’s what Jesus is saying here. He that loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.

God brooks no rivals. And that includes the rival of the biological family or even the adopted family. Any father or mother you place before Christ, you’ve created an idol there in your head. You’re not a worshipper of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the word of our savior.

He goes on to say, “This is hard. I’m seeing things that are hard here, right? If you have a parent or know somebody who has a parent who’s not a Christian and how the relationship has changed since your conversion, the conversion of people, you know, you know this is a hard truth.

But he goes on to say in the very next verse, “He that taketh not his cross and followeth me is not worthy of me.” Our savior knows it’s a cross. It’s supposed to be hard because the family is a good thing. And when the family must be broken apart because of sin in the context of the family, it’s hard. But it’s a cross that we must bear.

Matthew 10:39, “He that findeth his life shall lose it. He that loseth his life for my sake, he shall find it.”

Finally, I read in that same text. If you put your family in front of—you don’t want to lose your family. So, you don’t obey God in a particular matter because you don’t want to alienate the family. I believe that God and his grace will break that family apart. I believe that. But if we die to that, he restores us to a correct relationship to our family.

The family as the family of God in the living in the house of God in our text, our sermon text must involve reproofs and corrections. Sin cannot be allowed to continue.

Matthew 19:29, “Everyone that hath forsaken houses or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my name’s sake shall receive it an hundredfold.”

There will have to be forsaking, but there’ll be a restoration. Hundredfold.

Mark 13:12, “Now the brother shall betray the brother to death and the father the son. The children shall rise up against their parents and shall cause them to be put to death.”

Context of judgment in the context of wicked families.

Luke 2:48 and following. “And when they saw him they were amazed. And his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought sorrowing.”

There’s Jesus in the temple. And they’ve lost him. Don’t know where he is. And they’re all upset. Well, your father and I, your mother, have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, “How is it that you sought me? Was it not that I must be about my father’s business?”

He wasn’t making wooden objects. He was talking about the father in heaven as having preeminence over his father on earth.

Luke 9:59 and follow me. “He said unto another, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.’ And Jesus said unto him, ‘Let the dead bury their dead. But go thou and preach the kingdom of God.’”

Todd must come first. He brooks no rivals and that includes the natural family.

In Matthew 12:46 and following, “He was talking to people and behold his mother and his brethren stood without desiring to speak with him. Then one said unto him, Behold thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to speak with thee. But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? And who are my brethren. And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples and said, Behold my father or my mother rather and my brethren.

For whosoever shall do the will of the father which is in heaven the same is my brother and sister and mother.”

Do you know why the Levites got the preeminent place as being the household servants of God in the Old Testament? Do you know why? Some of you do. They had a great place. They were right there. They had the king’s ear. They got to cook meals for the king, dish stuff up on the altar there, you know, making meals for the king of kings.

They got to—we were listening to James B. Jordan’s tape on Revelation earlier today. They got to set the papyri going, you know, in the house to make it smell nice, the incense. They were the household servants. And they then had the responsibility of God from God to take that message out and to teach the tribes of Israel. Tremendous position of blessing—the Levites.

How’d they get there? Well, they got there first. They had to be recovered from sin. Levi was one of the ones that cut up those Shechemites and deceived them about bringing them into the covenant. Instead, killed them. Instead of giving them life, he ministered death. And God said, “You can’t live in the land. Then you have to live with your other tribes. You don’t get your own part of land.” But then in the wilderness at Sinai, the Levites were tested.

And the Levites are given preeminence by God because they understood what I’ve just read. They understood that to put father or mother before God is idolatry. Listen from Deuteronomy 33:8 and following “Of Levi he said let thy Thummim and thy Urim be with thy holy one whom thou didst prove it Massah.”

Levi is the holy one of God here—position of blessing—”with whom thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah who said unto his father and to his mother I have not seen him. Neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor know his own children. For they have observed thy word, and kept thy covenant. They shall keep Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law. They shall put incense before thee.”

They didn’t see. He says of his father’s mother, “I’ve not seen him.” Neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor know his own children. What’s this talking about? This is talking about the great sin of people of Israel, idolatry, worm and squirming with ungodly seed. And Levi says, “We must kill these idolaters.” And when it got around to throwing the spears, if it was their father or mother or their cousins or brothers or their own children, they put God first. They didn’t see father or mother. They saw idolater bringing sin to the people and disgust to God in his holiness and they killed him.

The Levites were proved by certainly having reverence for the family—certainly understanding that the representatives in the family, the fathers and mothers stand in the place of God to the children. But they because of that increased reverence due them to God have increased culpability for sin. And the Levites knew that. And we’re called to be Levites. All of us. We’re called to be ministers of God.

Now, a wonderful picture of all this coming together. You know, I’ve talked about the assertion of the family. The family’s important. If the family is not of importance anymore, then why does he tell Timothy, treat the older men as your father or the older women as your mother? Family is still important, but ultimately it’s the new family of God and it’s water must be thicker than blood. It doesn’t get rid of this. It redefines it in the context of the new creation.

And this is brought wonderfully together in John 19. When Jesus on the cross, we read this in verse 26 of John 19. “When Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciples standing by whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, ‘Woman, behold thy son.’ Then saith he to the disciple, ‘Behold thy mother.’ And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.”

One of the last acts of our savior on this earth—well, prior to his 40 days of resurrection before ascension, one of his last acts before he dies is to care for his mother, biological mother. But in the context of the household of faith, taking the old family and linking it to the new family and turning her to someone who is not her biological seed but was now to be her son and her to be his mother by covenant.

See what a beautiful blend of the truths taught to us here in 1 Timothy 5:1 and 2. We don’t get rid of the family. We reassert the need for the family today. But we don’t reassert the old Adamic family. We reassert that family refined, resurrected in the new race of men called Christians. And so that family becomes a family of covenant as well as a family of blood.

What a wonderful picture of what these verses teach us. God says that’s the family we live in. That’s the family we live in. That family is to be marked by family love. That family to be marked by reverence.

You know this last word in the text says rebuke not an elder would treat him as a father. Younger men as brethren, the elder women as mothers, the younger as sisters with all purity. We could talk on courtship there, couldn’t we? That last text, men who are interested in young women, treat them as sisters with all purity.

There’s differences of opinion on what purity modifies there. Does it modify just the way Timothy is to treat the sisters? Maybe. Calvin thought so. Hendrickson thinks so. Good commentators think so. But of application, at least it’s a reminder to minister is to be very careful to avoid even the discussion. There might be something improper when counseling with young women.

You know, this text—that’s what it’s all about. You know, this stuff doesn’t happen publicly. It’s talking about Timothy going and working with people and pastors going and working with people and counseling over their sin. And it says that in every family, you’re going to have sin that has to be dealt with at some time or another. And the context that you got to be careful with young women. People are going to think improperly. You may have unpure thoughts.

So, keep yourself taste or pure. But other commentators think the word needs a little broader definition than that because the word for purity here can be seen well for instance in 1 Timothy 5:22 in this same epistle. Later on we’re going to read “lay hands on no man neither be partaker of other man’s sins keep thyself pure.” Same word family as this word here for purity.

Well obviously so you’re talking about laying on hands of officers. Purity can’t refer to moral purity relative to women there. The word for purity here, and I could use other illustrations as well, but the word for purity here means total conformity to the moral commandments of God. But Hendrickson says in complete conformity in thought and word with God’s moral law.

And really ultimately, it shouldn’t just be restricted to sexual purity. The point is this. The point is that in the very difficult task that pastors have or that other family members have of bringing correction to the family of God we’re to approach these tasks with all purity.