Book of Titus - Ch. 1, v. 5

Good morning. Hope everyone is doing good. Let me get a couple things opened here.

What is today's date? Is it the third? Fourth. That's nuts.

Okay, y 'all can go ahead and turn to Titus. We'll go ahead and re -read the main portion of Scripture that we're in right now and then just pick it up pretty much where we left off last time.

So starting in verse 5. Dad, for whatever reason, just so you know, we're getting one of those internet things.

So if it gets choppy or if someone puts something in the chat, you might just turn the camera off.

It's on right now, but if anyone mentions that it's laggy or something, you can just turn the camera off and that'll help with the audio at least.

All right, let's start at verse 5. For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee.

That's the main verse we're in that we left off last week. We'll finish that up momentarily, but let's finish the rest of this portion.

If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruling.

For a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God, not self -willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre, but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate, holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that they may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.

So, basically we're in a new section right now, which is all about the leadership qualifications of God's elders.

And we'll be getting into a lot of that. We kind of summarized this portion of Scripture last week a bit before jumping into the verse -by -verse study of it.

We're still in verse 5. Let's look at verse 5 one more time. For this cause left I thee, that's

Titus, in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee.

We talked a little bit about the island of Crete, the civilization, the advanced civilization that it was.

It was a very civilized society. But it had fallen into a pretty bad moral state.

We find out in verse 12 that the natives of Crete are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.

And Paul goes on to say that this witness is true. So, there were issues that this was a corrupt society.

The reality that it was a corrupt society at the time Paul was writing this, even though it was very ancient and very advanced by human standards.

We talked a little bit last week about we don't necessarily know who planted all these churches that Paul is talking about all of a sudden.

It could have been some of the converted Jews that were in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. They went merely to recognize that particular feast.

And then, lo and behold, you have Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost. And many of them believed. In fact, they heard

Peter and the other apostles preaching in their native Cretan tongue. And so, many of them were converted.

And then they go back to Crete. Perhaps it was some of these converted Jews that started planting some of these Christian churches that now needed elders to be appointed to.

And so, that's kind of where we left off last week. Now, the phrase that Paul uses in verse 5 where he says,

Thou shouldest set in order. Thou shouldest set in order.

That entire phrase, that entire sentence is all one Greek word. It's a single

Greek word. And it's pronounced epiti ortho.

And it means literally upon intensive straightening.

That's a very literal way you could translate that same Greek word. Upon intensive straightening.

You recognize the ending of that word there, ortho. It's where we get ortho, orthodontist, orthopedic surgeon, all of these things.

All orthodontists, they straighten teeth. You have certain orthopedic related surgeries to straighten bones or whatever it may be.

So, that's where we get the term ortho from. It means to straighten out. And so, again, it literally means an intensive straightening.

In other words, to straighten something out. Something that has fallen into disorder, something that has become crooked, it now needs to be straightened like a bone that needs to be reset.

That is the connotation that this word carries that Paul is conveying to Titus.

He's saying this is what these churches need. They need a straightening out in this manner.

So, as we will see when we cover these verses to come as we dig through this more and more, this straightening out would be a tall order for Titus.

It's going to be a big job. It's going to be a complicated job. You have the legalistic Jews that had already infiltrated these young churches.

All of the church members across the island needed very clear doctrinal instruction. And, not only all this, not only did

Titus have all of these enemies, these false teachers, these legalists that he had to deal with, not only did he have all of these churches, as Paul says, in every city, and there were many cities on this island, not only did he have to now appoint elders to all of these young churches that were just figuring stuff out and didn't really have any kind of shepherding or leadership, but he had to do all of that rather quickly.

He didn't have much time to do it. Well, how do we know that? If you skip over to chapter 3 for just a second, obviously we'll get here eventually, but if you look at chapter 3, as Paul is closing out the letter, in verse 12, look what

Paul says. He says, When I shall send Artemis unto thee, or Tychicus, that's another guy that we learned about in our

Philemon study, be diligent to come unto me, to Nicopolis, for I have determined there to winter.

So, Paul lets Titus know as he ends this letter, I'm going to be sending some other delegates, some other emissaries, on my behalf to Crete, and when they get there,

I want you to come back to me, but until then, you need to straighten this mess out.

You need to straighten this stuff out. So, Titus had a very tall order, a very large task ahead of him, with legalistic

Jews in his way to discredit all of his work, all of his words, all of his teachings, and he had to get all this done, and he had to do it rather quickly, because as soon as these guys get there,

Paul said, you need to make haste, you need to return to me. And so, again, this was no easy task that the young Titus had ahead of him.

One of the ways in which Titus would begin straightening things out was by ordaining elders in every city.

That's the next phrase. After Paul says, you need to set in order all these things, you need to straighten out all of the things that are wanting, what's one of the ways in which you'll do that?

By ordaining elders in every city. Now, all throughout the New Testament, this is very important.

This is a very slight diversion, but this is a great teaching example of interpreting

Scripture. And, more importantly, when you get into conversations with other people that want to try to force something into a particular passage to prove whatever it is that they're wanting to prove, this concept that I'm about to share with you guys, and this is a great example of it, is very important.

All throughout the New Testament, the term elder is primarily used in the context of simply talking about an older man.

Just an older guy. The large majority of the context that you find the word elder or presbyteros in the

Greek is in that context. That's what the word means in its simplest form.

When people would have been reading this in the ancient context it was being delivered in, reading the

Greek, in almost any work they would have read, they hear that word. That's what comes to mind.

Now, sometimes the term can also just be talking about the eldest of a group.

So, in other words, the term could be used like elder son. So it's not necessarily an old man yet, but it's referring to him as the oldest, the elder son.

There's even one place in 1 Timothy that uses this same Greek term that we get elder from in the context of elderly women.

Now, let me ask you guys, how do we know, given that, given the fact that this exact same word can be used in varying contexts, and the majority of the time it's used just simply to refer to an older man, how do we know that Paul isn't just referencing, when he says appoint elders, that he's not saying, just go find some wise older men and just set them in order because they're older and therefore they have more wisdom and that's what we need.

How do we know he's not just talking about wise older men here rather than referencing a specific office of the church, which, by the way,

Titus was not an old man, and yet we know that eventually he would fulfill this office. So, this is verse 5, very early on in the letter, not a whole lot of context just yet, as far as preceding context goes, and Paul just says, boom, appoint elders.

He just says, do this, appoint elders. So how do we know that he's talking about elders the way that we know it, now that we have all the context ourselves and know that this, of course, is a church office?

Go ahead, dad. I'm not sure it's a hard question, but one thing I can see is a couple verses down in verse 7 it talks about visions.

It gives the qualifications as if that's a synonym for whatever qualities that we're held to.

But I don't know who that is, I'm not sure. Well, no, that's a terrific answer, and that's part of what

I was going to get at, is, so you're reading this letter along for the first time ever, you're

Titus, or you're any Greek speaker at the time, and you're reading this letter and you see that pop up.

There's no preceding context that defines it necessarily. However, it doesn't take long for Paul to kind of clear it up when you skip down to verse 7.

And he inserts the term bishop, which is a totally different Greek term, but in the same context of laying out these qualifications.

It's right in the middle of it. So that's one way that we know. Another way, sorry, go ahead,

Dad. He's not.

But that is a valid point that you made, which is, you know, we talked about the elders at the gate and things like that.

But even in that context, you know, are we talking about pastors? Are we talking about wise older men?

And, oh, sorry, Ash, did you have a thought? I was just, oh, sorry, that was pretty much the end of it.

I was just going to say, again, we have this seemingly new use of the term.

Go ahead. This may be helpful, and it may not be, but just in general, throughout

Scripture, there's often, you know, references to children, fathers, young men, in terms of spirituality.

Not having to do with age. So that is a common thing already in Scripture.

So, based on this context, you can have older men that are not spiritually mature.

So I think that kind of tells you, just like in 1 John, when he's addressing those that are spiritual fathers and spiritual children, little children, spiritually little children, here's your instruction.

If the criteria there is addressing spiritual things, then

I think it's just kind of a logical conclusion that he's not just talking about older men, not all older men would fit this criteria.

Well, okay, so basically, you used another example to demonstrate exactly what we're talking about here, which is that you have

Paul, and other apostles would do this too, obviously, use familiar terms that mean a very obvious thing, such as children, but they're using it in a particular context to, they're using common language in a particular context to demonstrate something that was new.

It was brand new at the time they were doing it. This is the beginning of the church. Beginning of the church age.

And so they are inserting common language to describe how certain things work in a spiritual sense.

So what Ashen just talked about is another great demonstration, just like in the Titus context we're looking at, where Paul uses familiar terminology involving age, typically, little children, younger men, elder men, but it has nothing to do with age, because you could be 80 years old and be spiritually a child if you just got saved.

And you could be 23 years old, or 18 years old, or you could be 19 years old like Spurgeon and be a senior pastor.

He is vastly more mature, spiritually speaking, than at age of 19 than many people that are in their middle age or much later.

So that is what Paul is talking about, but he's using the language of little kids and different age groups to describe that.

Here's one more passage we'll look at. I was going to mention verse 7 like Dad did. Just for our purposes here, take a look at 1

Timothy 3 for just a second. And this just solidifies everything

Dad was pointing out earlier. In 1 Timothy 3, and I'll read a few verses here just to give you the context because I want you guys to see the similarities.

This is a true saying starting in verse 1. If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.

A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach, not given to wine, no striker, not greedy, a filthy lucre, but patient, not a brawler, not covetous, one that ruleth well in his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity.

For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?

Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil.

So you guys can see there, there's a couple of unique things in that Timothy passage that will eventually get to Titus, but basically the qualifications are exactly the same, but he uses a different term and it's that term bishop that Dad pointed out.

That's the Greek term episkopos, and it's also where we get the word overseer from.

So bishop, overseer, totally synonymous, exact same Greek word. So again, same context, but a different term used.

So now we realize, okay, so elder presbyteros, that's the Greek word, that to the

Greek mind, not just to the Greek mind, but to any Greek speaker at the time this is being written, typically speaking, would have just referenced an older man, now is being used in a new context in a new way to describe a person that is an elder, spiritually speaking, that meets all these qualifications and that can take that role, and it's synonymous with episkopos, bishop or overseer.

Paul is giving, again, the same list of qualifications for overseers. Over time, the term elder came to mean a spiritual elder synonymous with pastor, overseer, bishop, and we know that now, and we can use all of those terms interchangeably.

That's why Ms. Pam jokes with me about being Bishop Ben, or why

Dad could be Overseer David, or Elder David at any point, and it is why we refer to the elders in our church.

We have certain roles, pastor, associate pastor, school administrator, but we're all elders. They're all synonymous.

They all mean the same thing. Now, I alluded to this a minute ago. This example in Titus is a terrific interpretational lesson, and what is it?

It's that authorial intent is of utmost importance in determining what the author meant with the use of certain words.

Authorial intent, the author, what does the author that wrote this letter mean when he says what he just said?

Dad says this all the time. You can't read the Bible, wait, how does it go, Dad? You don't read it for what it says.

You read it for what it means. It's important what it means, and I don't remember who that came from, but it's not important what it says.

It's important what it means, and that sounds odd. The reason why it is very true, though, and this is true for any text that we have ever been given, whether it be ancient or present.

The reason that's true is because words can have multiple meanings.

They can have a wide domain of use. In some cases, they don't. In some cases, it's a very narrow use and very explicit, but in many cases, a wide range of use, and so how on earth can we determine what a particular author means when they use that word if another author over here can say the same word and mean something completely different, such as he's talking about some old guy versus Paul is talking about a pastor, essentially.

Regardless of their age, if they meet these qualifications, they're spiritually mature, they are an elder. The way you figure it out is by, well, looking at the context.

This is another way of looking at the context, but it's just a slight more specific thing to point out.

It's the intent of what the author means. What do they mean when they use certain words which can be derived from the context of their work?

Let me give you guys a few examples of other words that can mean all sorts of different things in the

Greek use of the term, but given the context, we know what the author is talking about. Lagos, when

John says the word was with God and the word was God, John took that term from the secular

Greek vocabulary. In the Greek vernacular, it's a very philosophical term that referred to the force of the universe, essentially.

And John takes that away from their vocabulary and he personalizes it.

He says, no, this is a person. It's not some ethereal force out in the universe that is pushing in on everything to give us meaning that we have to kind of figure it out and you have all these philosophical ideas that can flow from that.

No, lagos is a person. The word is a person and he is the person

Jesus. So lagos is an example where authorial intent is very important.

Cosmos, the way that John uses cosmos, which is where we get cosmos, very important in understanding what he's talking, or understanding what that word means in its context is how is the author using it?

Here's a good one, diakonos, where we get the word deacon. This was another, just like presbyteros, which is where we get elder from, diakonos was a very common word used, usually for slaves or just for people serving in whatever capacity.

And you know, dad, you remember that lengthy study that you spent, which is very important in this day and age as we are just immersed in what would be referred to as egalitarianism, the equality of men and women in every sense.

Remember Phoebe in Romans 16, the Greek term is diakonos, where we get deacon.

Well, it's very important to mention that the office of deacon had not been established at the time

Paul used that word in Romans. Deacon was not an official church office until you get to the pastoral epistles, which were some of the last things

Paul wrote. But what does he do? He takes that very common

Greek word that's just referring to a servant, which is what Phoebe was. She was serving in various capacities and many people did at that time.

And he now says, in the context of Titus, and later when we get to Timothy, it'll be fleshed out even more.

This is an official church office, which is now where we refer to as deacon. And it does these things and here are the qualifications for fitting that criteria.

Y 'all get what I'm saying? So authorial intent, what is it they're trying to tell us by using these words?

Ekklesia, just means an assembly. It's where we get the translation church.

What is it that the author means when he uses that particular word in the particular context?

Most of the time it's talking about a local assembly, but there are a number of places in Colossians chapter one that dad is currently in on Sunday, very specifically talking about a singular thing that Christ is the head of.

So there's another example. Tartarus. That is the

Greek mythological term for what we would call hell, except of course, they viewed it as the underworld where these gods resided and where people would go.

Peter uses that Greek term, that pagan secular Greek term, to describe in the context of,

I think, first or second Peter, the true hell, the lake of fire, not Hades, but the final destination of the devil, his angels, and those that rebel against God.

So there's another example. What does the author mean when he's using this term?

And then of course, back to our word here in Titus, presbyteros. Is Paul just talking about wise old guys?

Bring them in from the gates, fill the churches with them? Well, in context and in parallel passages, we can determine, no, he's talking about spiritual elders.

He's talking about men, regardless of age, and we know this because Titus was a young man that fulfills these qualifications that fit into this position as elder to rule and to lead the church.

Does all that make sense? Y 'all get what I'm trying to pull from that? So it all comes back to the 10 rules of Bible interpretation.

It all comes back to context, but it's just another way of putting it.

Knowing what does the author intend in the use of particular words, and their intention is more important than any sort of framework or box that you want to put the text in or God in, and then say, well, it can't mean that because this is what that word means.

So I thought this was a good demonstration of that reality and that very important interpretational tool.

Now, we're going to learn in later studies that elders are to be highly regarded by their congregation.

Moving on from that, again, that was a bit of a diversion back on track with our passage here. Elders are to be highly regarded individuals by their congregation, but why are they to be highly regarded?

Why do you just, not very difficult question to answer there, but just off the top, why are elders meant to be highly regarded by their people?

Yeah, that's pretty much it. They are to be highly regarded because regardless, and this is important, all of us, whether you're a layman or a deacon or a subordinate elder, whatever it may be, it is very important to remember this.

Regardless of how well they do their job, we are commanded to highly regard our elders.

Why? Well, it's what Matt just said. It's because of a higher calling. It's because they have been given high responsibility that the rest of us have not been given.

High responsibility to shepherd God's people and to absorb the stresses and the, well, again, responsibilities and all of the things, the anxieties even, that come with shepherding a flock of any size, but the bigger it gets, the more stress that comes with it.

Elders are to be highly regarded because of the responsibility that they carry, which we can simply figure that out just by looking at the list of these qualifications alone.

You go through all these qualifications, this is hard work. It is not easy to be blameless, and we're going to look at this when we get to verse six.

It's not easy to be above reproach in all places. It's not easy, especially in this day and age, to be the husband of one wife, which we'll get to that one woman man, to be faithful.

It's not easy, because of our flesh, to have faithful children not accused of riot and unruly.

And you can go on, you can go on. These are hard tasks that are mandates for these men.

All right, so, we are to hold in high regard our elders, because they have been given these responsibilities.

Their responsibility is to feed and to lead the flock, and they are to be honored for this role, constantly lifted up by their people, appreciated, followed, and get this, and this is one that will send a cringe into the large majority of Christians wherever, to this day, in the present age, and that is they are meant to be obeyed.

They are put in a position to be obeyed. And we learn that from Hebrews, I think it's chapter 13.

I can just read it really quick so that y 'all don't think I'm making up stuff. So I can start bossing y 'all around or something.

Of course, that would totally defy the role as well. You're not to lord over your flock.

But in Hebrews chapter 13, verse 17, it says, Obey them that have rule over you and submit yourselves for they watch for your souls as they that must give account.

See, you quickly, you hear the whole obey them and you think, ooh, that sounds, I don't need to obey anybody.

But if you keep reading a little bit and you understand what they are held accountable for, then you see why the members of a church are given this particular instruction.

Submit yourselves for they watch for your souls as they that must give account. There will come a day, and remember what

I said, it is important to fulfill these things as church members, even if your pastor's doing a bad job.

And I'm speaking very generally here. Obviously, I hope that's, I feel confident that's not the case for y 'all.

But for someone listening to this recording that goes to a different church or maybe 30 years from now, it's very important that regardless of whether or not your pastor's doing a perfect job in your mind or not, you are to fulfill this, you are to obey, you are to honor, hold them in high regard.

Why is that? It's because there will come a day where you will be held accountable as an individual for how well you have obeyed

God and fulfilled His requirements. And right next to you, standing right next to you will be that man who will be held accountable for how well he did.

So if he did a poor job and he was lording over his flock and exploiting some of these things, saying you have to obey me because it says so, he's gonna be held accountable for that and it says they will give account for what they do.

So appointing men that fit the following criteria that we're about to dig into verse by verse, verses six through nine, they have to be worthy of obedience.

Appointing men that fit all of the qualifications, being worthy of being obeyed by their flock is

Titus's primary role here. They have to be worthy of it.

It's not just a matter of God saying, you know, these guys are in a position you have to obey them now.

They have to be worthy of that obedience. They have to follow God's lead and obey him in order to be worthy of being obeyed by their flock.

This is Titus's main role. He has to go find guys that are worthy of fitting all these qualifications and are worthy of being obeyed.

Once again, that's no easy task. That's a pretty tall order. And I wanna end with this and then we'll close it out for today and we still didn't get to verse six, so we'll get to that next week.

But go to Acts chapter 20 for a second. Remember, we barely touched on this last week, but it's obviously

Titus's role because it was given to him to find and to appoint elders as Paul appointed him.

So who's doing the work there? Who is the one appointing? Is it a group of people? Is it a council? Is it a congregation?

The answer is no, it's Titus. And before Titus, it was Paul. So the burden is on other elders to find and have the discernment to appoint the right men to be the next elder.

All right? So that is true, 100 % what

Paul means in verse five. And there are other areas, by the way, that affirm that. But check this out.

In Acts chapter 20, and I said this at the end of last week, verse 28, there is one additional component to appointing an elder, appointing a pastor.

And Acts chapter 20, verse 28, tells us what that other component is. It says,

Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves and to all the flock, over the which the

Holy Ghost hath made you overseers. So who did the work there?

It was the Spirit, the Spirit of God, made overseers. The Spirit of God appointed elders, overseers, all of these things.

And for what purpose? To feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

So elders aren't appointed on a whim. It's a process that begins with the calling in the work of the

Spirit. So that's what Acts is talking about right there. The elder should feel a calling, a drawing from the

Holy Spirit to have a desire to even take on the burden that is there for elders, for overseers, for pastors to take on.

Now, it's not enough that they feel, and Dad, you know, in his testimony of being called, and even in my own, he felt the calling, but he gave it a year before fully submitting to it because, and this is fully legitimate, it's to ensure that it wasn't based on anything emotional.

Think about the way the devil can work. I think we could find a lot of examples of people getting riled up, emotional, this emotional sense of a higher calling, and then they start pastoring the church or something.

And perhaps they don't, perhaps it wasn't a legitimate calling of the Spirit. Here's one way that you can test the spirits.

One way that you can know that this is a legitimate calling from the Holy Spirit and not from something else to fool someone into thinking they are capable of leading a congregation, of leading the house of God.

That calling will be in conjunction, in parallel, with the qualifications.

So, it's not a matter of just, oh, I feel called now. No, the Holy Spirit is going to call a man that meets the qualifications that the

Holy Spirit also gives by mandate for fulfilling in order to fill the role.

So, you have basically a three -pronged approach here. Talk about checks and balances. And it's not that the

Lord deeds them, but He did this on purpose. And the reason, as we have mentioned numerous times throughout this study, is because He ordains the means as well as the ends.

He works with His people in time. And in order to work with us, He gives us perfect clarity in all these areas.

He gives us these checks and balances. Not that He needs them, but because we need them. Number one, is you have a calling of the

Spirit. Number two, that calling will be in conjunction with you living out an exemplary life to meet these qualifications, these moral qualifications that we're about to get into in the coming weeks, verses six through nine.

And the third prong is that you have a discerning called man, such as Titus or Paul, that comes in and He tells you you need to fill this role.

So, you have all three of these things happening in parallel. Elders aren't appointed on a whim.

It's a process that begins with the calling of the Holy Spirit. It is then discerned by other called men of God, other elders like Titus.

And this is cool too. It can be solidified by the approval of the congregation.

That doesn't mean the congregation picked them or appointed them. It's that they are affirming, yes, we see that this man is gifted in these areas.

And in Acts 6, you see that. You see the congregation coming together and saying, and affirming the appointing of elders.

But it didn't start with them. It ended with them. And it's a solidification. It's a way to kind of edify the elder, the man, and to get excited about the fact that his congregation believes in him and that they see his spiritual gifts and that they are ready to be led by him.

Does that all make sense? So this is the task that Titus has before him. He is to set in order things that are wanting.

He is to straighten things out. He is to ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee,

Paul says. So that's the end of verse five. And then next week, we'll jump into verse six, which is where the qualifications themselves start to just unfold.

And we see what does the Christian character of a man like this look like? So we'll end there today.

Do y 'all have any thoughts or anything that y 'all would like to share before we close out? I wanted to share another verse that was talking about when you asked the question, why do we esteem highly our elders?

And 1 Thessalonians 5, 12 and 13 say, And 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.

There's just a few extra added elements there of the same thing. And one of them is to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake and be at peace among yourselves.

If we're all esteeming our elders highly in love for their work's sake, we are more likely and able to have peace among ourselves if we all have that.

We're all fulfilling that duty of a congregation. Absolutely. I actually have that passage in my lesson for next week.

No need to apologize because the reason I included it is because of that sermon, of course, and that study that you did.

I didn't do a sermon. No, she listened to a sermon and she put a study together. But that passage in Thessalonians that Ashton just read,

I'll read it really quick in case those online didn't hear it. We beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you and are over you in the

Lord and admonish you. So this is your elder. This is the guy that you are meant to obey but also has to be worthy of that obedience as well.

And to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake and to be at peace among yourselves. Paul is telling us that we're to esteem not only their word, so yes, when they say something, we need to regard that, perhaps even obey it depending on what the word is, but we also have to establish,

I'm sorry, esteem their work. Now that is them practicing what they preach.

That is them living out what they say and that's how you know a man is worthy of the obedience he has been called to receive is he might be saying this but he's also living it out too.

Plenty of examples where you don't have that. You have the word but you don't have the work that follows.

And so we're to know them for who they are as a person and what they do in labor for the sake of their flock.

And all of this will come back to a phrase that we'll read at the beginning of verse six next week which is they are to be blameless.

Well, how are they worthy of our esteem? How, just more questions you can ask.

What is it that makes us want and desire to esteem their word and their work? Well, if they're a blameless person and they're fulfilling these qualifications, we will want to do that.

We will want to cast our esteem on everything that they do because they're blameless. And again, we'll dive into that more next week but all of that ties in together.

So beautiful passage there. And we'll revisit that again later too. Any other thoughts y 'all may have?

I know if those people aren't living the way that they were supposed to.

Yeah, like if they're not having a double life. Right. That's a fantastic question,

Emily. And I'll say this, as we go verse by verse through these qualifications point for point,

I think that will be answered in many different ways. But I'll give you the brief answer.

The first one is that we have to remember that these men are just as accountable as any of the rest of us with having a close relationship with the

Lord. Now, there are plenty of... Why do I say that? It's because there are plenty of examples where a church is totally blindsided by the man that they loved and that has been teaching them by perhaps a double life or maybe even just a fall into egregious sins.

We talked about this a lot last week and even the week before that. And you have to rest upon to some degree as a congregation, you have to...

Here's what you're called to do. You are called to observe that your elder is meeting the qualifications that Paul gives.

You observe it. So you see, okay, his kids are doing pretty great. They're faithful kids.

He appears to be very loyal to his wife. He's blameless. There isn't anything

I can think of that I could bring an accusation against him with. So these are all things that you as people can observe and you are responsible if he starts swaying away from those criteria where two or three witnesses may be brought before him.

We're going to be getting into all of this in this study as we keep going, but I'm just kind of getting ahead of it a little bit.

There are checks and balances again that the Lord gives us for figuring it out if you determine that all of a sudden they are not meeting the qualifications.

But let's say that you observe that they are, but then they are just a very sneaky person and living a totally double life.

I don't think that would be the case in most cases unless the congregation just were not involved, which would be in disobedience of the passage

Ashton just read. If you are not knowing them, remember it says you need to know them. The members are called to be intimately involved with their pastor's life.

A lot of people assume the pastor needs to be reaching out and visiting and doing all those things, and he is supposed to do that.

Absolutely. But guess what? It's supposed to go the other way too. You are to know them so that you can esteem their work and their word.

And so if you don't know them, if you are breaking that rule, that imperative that Paul gives us in 1

Thessalonians, then your pastor could easily be living a double life and you have no idea because you don't know him.

You're not reaching out. You're not doing those things. And in those cases, here's the answer to your question, Emily.

If you were doing what you were responsible to do, which is not only to observe that he's meeting these qualifications, but also trying to know him, trying to get to know him, being friends, all these types of things, and he's still living a double life, he's held accountable for that by the

Lord himself, which is what that passage in Hebrews comes back to. They will have to give an account for that.

You're not going to be held responsible for that as a member. He will be held responsible for it as an elder that is living a life of rebellion in that particular way.

And so as members, we are given specific instructions of things to watch for and things to look for to ensure that they are living the life they're meant to.

And if they don't, we will talk about what to do about that. But if they are just that sneaky and you just have no idea, the

Lord will take care of it. And there are warning passages in Hebrews as to how the

Lord will take care of it. And again, it's scary. It's just a reminder for every pastor out there, this is not something that you take lightly.

And so that's a terrific question. Hopefully, I'll be able to give a more robust answer as we move through the verses, but hopefully that was helpful for now.

Anything else? We are out of time, I think, so we'll go ahead and dismiss.

Matt, will you dismiss for us in prayer? Lord Jesus, thank you for bringing us here together this

Sunday morning. Thank you for your word and for giving us all of the electricity that we need to properly interpret your scripture and knowing that there are ways that you laid out for us to find out what it means, what it says.

And that's an amazing thing, let alone that we have the word from you, but that we can read it and understand it on such a different plane that you are on from us.

We thank you for our congregation that we get to fellowship with and learn alongside.

We thank you for our elders, our overseers who meet us in our call, and that are upheld to that account.

And that we can rely on your word and have peace at heart that you handle a lot of the things, you handle everything at the end of the day.

And where we do stumble or we do go wrong, you know all about that and you keep the churches in order.

Even the ones that have seemed to fall away from you, you will hold them accountable. And thank you for the things you put in place to keep strong churches going and with strong leaders because of these qualifications you laid out.

And again, given the congregation of peace, knowing that that is in your hands ultimately. Thank you for everything you do for us.

Keep us safe. Thank you for keeping us safe coming here and keeping us safe going home. We love you. We have faith in you.