Book of Titus - Ch. 1, v. 6a

Park Meadows Church

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Well, let's take a look at Titus chapter 1, verse 6. We're going to be in this verse for quite a while, but I think it'll be great.

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I think we're going to cover some really important ground. We're going to be focusing on two particular phrases today.

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We'll probably continue talking about one of them next week. And then when we get to the third, we'll spend a couple of weeks on that.

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It's a very truncated verse. Paul has a way of doing that, where he can fit in a lot of very important things in a very small amount of words.

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He can also be very verbose as well when he wants to be. He was good at both. And we, of course, have other passages of scripture that shed light on this particular verse, which is how we can take this as far as we're going to take it.

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And I just want to say this really quick for those online, for those that will be listening to the recording later. You may be thinking, why spend so many weeks on a single verse when there's so many other verses we can get to?

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Well, there's a couple of reasons. Number one, as we go verse by verse through a particular book, Titus being the one we're in now, when you get to something that has a doctrinal theme to it, a theme that is pervasive throughout scripture, not just isolated in that particular place, which you'd be hard -pressed to find one that is isolated.

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Very few passages are somewhat unique to that context, and you can't find it elsewhere.

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But when you find one that is pervasive, then I think it's responsible to go out and find some other passages that support the way in which you interpret it.

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So that's one reason why we're going to take some time to do it. But there's a second reason as well. And that is, as you guys know, we're going to be going right into 1 and 2

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Timothy once we're done with Titus. We're going to do all the pastoral epistles. And there is a parallel passage with this spot here in Titus in 1

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Timothy. And so we're going to cover a lot of ground here while we're in Titus. And then when we get to 1

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Timothy later, we may go through that parallel passage a little bit quicker because we're going to cover so much ground here.

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So that's another reason why we're going to be so meticulous in this Titus passage. It'll save us a little bit of time later because when you get to 1

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Timothy, there's a whole lot of other stuff that we'll need to be covering. And so we're going to take the time now to cover these particular qualifications of an elder in rigorous detail.

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So let's take a look at verse 6 of chapter 1. It says, if any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly.

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Now, keep in mind, this is right on the other side of verse 5 where Paul is telling Titus, go appoint elders.

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So if any, the any here are the elders he is to appoint. If any be blameless, husband of one wife, having faithful children.

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We're going to break down this verse in all three of those categories, starting with the phrase, if any be blameless.

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So let's hone in on that first. We see our first qualification here for an elder, if any be blameless.

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Now, this is a very general qualification. When you think about, okay, what does it mean to be blameless?

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Well, that's a pretty broad qualification there, right? That's a pretty broad thing to start with that Paul starts with here.

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But I think he's being kind of general on purpose. It's a general qualification from which the rest of the ones we're going to look at in the following verses are based upon.

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So if any be blameless, and then he goes into more meticulous, intricate, particular qualifications, very specific stuff.

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They all kind of come back to this idea of being a blameless man, being a blameless elder.

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So Paul is going to define what it is to be blameless in verses six through nine, but he starts with just that general thought.

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The Greek term for blameless literally means to be without fault or to be unchargeable.

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So right off the top here, we see this qualification and we go, wow, that is a high standard, to be unchargeable, to be without fault.

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So it's a very strong Greek word behind that phrase or behind that word blameless here.

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This is a man that cannot be held in contempt for his sin because he doesn't have any grievous habitual sins or more specifically disqualifying sins, disqualifying sin habits in his life.

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Nobody, if he is blameless, nobody, even if they try, can bring a successful charge against this man.

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Now, the word to emphasize there is successful because anyone can have a charge brought against them.

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Sometimes it's from a scriptural, Holy Spirit -led person or maybe two or three witnesses that have a legitimate case to be brought.

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Sometimes though, you have the devil and his minions working through people that may or may not even be saved in a particular church that work through means of gossip and things like that to bring a false charge against an actually anointed man of God and just to bring some ruckus and maybe even bring schism in that particular local church.

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So you have, that can be a good thing. It can also be a dangerous thing.

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It all depends on the heart behind the charges. But again, the word to emphasize there is that if an elder is a truly blameless man, unchargeable, you can have all of the bad apples in a congregation you want bringing all kinds of charges against him and they'll fall flat.

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They won't be successful charges. So remember, these things flow directly from the fact that his job description, who are we talking about here?

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We're talking about elders, pastors. The job description is to be pastor or shepherd.

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It's to be a shepherd. The job description of the flock, if the pastor is the shepherd by implication, the congregation is his flock.

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The job description of the pastor is to be that, is to be the shepherd. The job description of his flock is to follow the shepherd.

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Now, if he's not living the type of exemplary life that would lead the sheep to follow, he's simply not qualified to be a shepherd.

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If you can't be a leader that is worthy of being followed, you're not qualified to be a shepherd because that's the job of a shepherd.

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You're leading a flock, you're protecting a flock, so on and so forth. In Philippians 3 .17,

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Paul says, brethren, be followers together of me, of him, and mark them which walk so, as ye have us for an ensample.

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It's a little bit of an awkward way of wording it, at least in the old English, but what Paul is saying is that not only do

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I want you guys to follow me, talking to the congregation at Philippi, not only do

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I want you to be followers of me, but I want you to mark those that you see walking around that are also followers in like manner because he goes on to say in the following verses, it's very rare to find true followers of a worthy man, a blameless man like Paul.

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Obviously, we have passages to imitate Christ as well, but it's interesting because in many places, we are just simply given the instruction to follow one of God's men like Paul, like some of the other apostles.

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Titus would have been a worthy shepherd, Timothy, and many others.

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Now, last week, Ashton brought this particular passage up in our final kind of closing thoughts and comments as we were rounding out the idea of being elders and bishops and all of those types of things.

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If you wanna go to 1 Thessalonians for just a second, we were talking about the fact that elders aren't appointed just by, because they're a likable guy.

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They're appointed because another elder discerns that they are a good man. They're appointed because they receive a calling from the

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Holy Ghost. We learned about that in Acts chapter 20. And then all of that is confirmed by the congregation that sees their spiritual gifts.

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And so we were talking about this idea of when a man is put in that place, he is to be obeyed, but he's also to be worthy of obedience as well.

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In other words, God tells the congregation to obey them that have a rule over you, but all of the passages that have to do with an elder, a pastor, a man that's been put in that particular spiritual leadership position, they are to be worthy of that obedience.

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They are to Lord over their flock, in other words. If we look at 1 Thessalonians chapter five, and if you start in verse 12, we learned something interesting here.

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Again, kind of going back to the idea of what is the job description of the flock? It is to follow the shepherd.

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That is job description is to be a shepherd, to be a leader. The flock is to follow that shepherd that God appointed over them.

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And it says in verse 12, and we beseech you brethren to know them which labor among you and are over you in the

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Lord and admonish you. So that is a man that is in charge. He is admonishing them.

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He is over them in the Lord, but, and I'm going backwards here. I'm going in reverse of how the verse lays it out.

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But Paul makes, he points out here the fact that they are laboring among you.

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They are doing a good work. And so you need to know them. That is the charge there for the congregation to know your pastor.

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And then in verse 13, it takes it further. Don't just know them, but esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake.

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So we covered this last week. I don't want to rehash too much, but essentially the responsibility of the congregation of the flock is to highly esteem their shepherd.

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But here's the catch. That is a command. That is a charge to the congregation, regardless of whether or not their shepherd is being obedient in his position.

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He's called to be obedient. He is held responsible for it. The congregation is held responsible for their job, which is to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake and be at peace among yourselves.

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So you may have a bum pastor that's just doing a bad job. He's not fulfilling the requirements of the role.

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I say, I'm generalizing here, mainly for those that may listen to this recording that go somewhere else, because I don't think we have that issue here.

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But in general, the job description again for the flock is to esteem them highly because they are responsible and they carry a high burden and a high responsibility.

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They obviously need to be doing a good job and you need to be praying that the Lord opens their eyes if they're not to start doing that.

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And I've heard of stories before of, I listened to a lot of pastors, whether they have their own show or their own podcast or radio show or things like that.

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Sometimes they'll do like a Q and A and inevitably you have people asking them, I'm going to a church right now, but there's leadership issues and they'll lay all this kind of stuff out and they ask for advice.

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Should I leave and all this and that. And regardless of who the guy is, who the pastor is that I've listened to, and I've heard this, but at least half a dozen different men have the same question brought forth and the common denominator in all of their answers is, don't act hastily, pray about it for a good while.

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Bathe it in prayer is the phrase that I've heard before. Because there are so many dynamics in a church family in a local church body, outside of the fact of whether or not you are pleased with the way everything is, or of course leadership position is a serious issue, but even still there are things that need to be considered and therefore pray about it.

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Let the Holy Spirit lead your decision rather than emotions is kind of the idea they were getting at. And in some of those cases, the people would start praying about it and may spend a number of weeks in prayer before trying to figure out where the

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Lord is leading them. Maybe the Lord would lead them and their family out, or maybe not. They're waiting for the

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Lord to give them clarity. And after a few weeks, maybe after a couple of months even, lo and behold, the

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Lord moves out the bum pastor that was not fulfilling his role, that may not have even met the qualifications anymore, that was lording over his flock.

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Maybe he was a legalist, maybe he was liberal. There are any number of issues you can bring. The Lord moves him out and brings a godly shepherd in.

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And so they didn't have to leave their church home. They didn't have to leave their church family. That is why you pray about it. That's why you sleep on it.

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You don't act hastily. You don't act on your emotions. Even if you have a bad pastor, you still need to be praying for him and asking the

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Lord to work on his heart if he's a bad one. And the Lord will do one of two things.

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He'll work on his heart, or he'll do one of three things. He'll work on his heart. He will move that guy out of there and bring in a godly leader.

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Or, because this happens sometimes too, is the Lord will give you that conviction and the clarity to, yes, it's time for my family and I to move on.

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I've heard testimonies of that as well. That certainly plays out. But regardless of how it plays out,

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Paul is telling us, while you are in that particular church under that particular leader, esteem them very highly and love for their work's sake.

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That's the job description of the flock. So Paul is telling us in this passage, we're not only to esteem their word, but also their work.

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They labor among us. They're doing a good work, or at least they're called to do a good work. We are to know them for who they are as a person and what they do in labor for the sake of their flock.

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But let's go back to the idea of the Titus passage. We're in here. How can we esteem them in their work unless, and I mean that like a genuine esteem, a genuine love for their word, for their work, for them as a person.

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How can we do that unless they're blameless, which is what we're talking about in Titus here.

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That is one of the qualifications of being an elder, to be blameless, to be guiltless. If they're not one of those two things, it will be very hard to keep this charge from Paul, which is when the prayer needs to begin, which is when you need to start asking the

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Lord for guidance and maybe he'll move the man out, maybe he won't, maybe he'll convict you and your family to go somewhere else.

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The elder needs to be blameless. He needs to be guiltless so that he is worthy of the esteem that Paul is talking about in 1

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Thessalonians 5. So that he is worthy of the love that he gets from the flock.

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There are at least half a dozen passages, probably many more than that, that discuss the idea of an elder or pastor being an example for his flock.

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But this can only be true. He can only be a genuine godly example if the pastor lives a blameless, guiltless life where he cannot be charged.

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No successful charge can be brought against him. This is the kind of man that can be a pastor.

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His life is a model. It is a pattern. It's a pattern without indictment of egregious, habitual, disqualifying sins.

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It is without accusation. It's without guilt or of any form of severe moral failure.

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Remember, we're not talking about perfect people here. The Lord uses earthen vessels across the board.

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Spurgeon was a sinful man. He had sin that he would need to confess as much as his congregation would have needed to.

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Any guy we can think of, Jonathan Edwards, Spurgeon, Whitefield, Wesley, these guys that were just absolutely immersed in the word of God and in a particularly spiritual mind all the time, because number one, they didn't live in our modern day secular culture.

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Number two, they didn't have nearly the distractions we have. And number three, they were just that much in love with their

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Lord. And of course, we can use them as examples. We can live up to that ourselves.

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But the point is, even those guys, they weren't perfect. They had sin issues too. It's really fascinating to read their biographies because in their biographies, you learn a little bit about the things they struggled with.

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John Bunyan, the guy that wrote The Pilgrim's Progress, one of the great masterworks of all of human history, absolutely beautiful allegory, scripturally airtight all throughout.

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He wrote it in prison and he was put in prison for not following in line with the

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Church of England. He writes this book, the things that he struggled with are amazing.

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The way that the enemy attacked him, and we know this was the case for Paul too in Romans 7.

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And we're gonna look at a passage in a little bit regarding how Paul handled sin, trying to keep his body under subjection from falling into sinful habits.

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So again, we're not talking about perfect guys here. We're talking about guys that can live up to these higher standards.

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These higher standards don't require sinless life. What they require is to be blameless from extreme moral failure.

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And we're gonna be talking about some of those shortly, so I won't get ahead of myself, but I just wanna kind of clear that up as well, make sure we set the tone correctly there.

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The Lord has set a standard for those who represent him. He is the great shepherd, and these pastors are his under shepherds, if you wanna put it that way.

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These are meant to be a type. One pastor over a local congregation is a type of Christ, the great shepherd over his flock, all of his people.

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And so if the pastor, the elder, is to represent Christ, they need to be blameless in these very important areas.

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Even in the Old Testament, David only wanted a blameless minister to be in his presence.

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Even David had a high standard for those that were in his court ministering to him. In fact, let's take a look at an example of that, because I think it's pretty interesting in this context.

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Look at Psalm 101, Psalm 101. We're talking, now,

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I want you to keep something in mind. The context in Titus here, we're talking about pastors. However, just as a general, and so obviously the office, the role of pastor was not in existence yet at the time of this psalm being written, but there were ministers in the sense of men that were in close relationship with the

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Lord, worshiping him, obviously he had the prophets. But listen to what David has to say with regard to the kind of minister he wanted in his court to be comforting him and to be edifying him.

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How many verses do we have in this psalm here? It's a pretty short one. I'll just read through it. I will sing of mercy and judgment unto thee,

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O Lord, will I sing. I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. Oh, when will thou come unto me?

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I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes.

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I hate the work of them that turn aside. It shall not cleave to me. A froward heart shall depart from me.

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I will not know a wicked person. So already you're starting to get the idea of the kind of people

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David doesn't wanna be around. Let's keep reading and we'll find out the kind of people he does want around. Whoso privily slandereth his neighbor, him will

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I cut off. Him that hath a high look and a proud heart will

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I not suffer. Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land. Here we go, look at verse six.

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Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land that they may dwell with me. So these are guys that he has close relationship with, close communion with.

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He that walketh in a perfect way. That Hebrew word for a perfect way there, same idea that Paul is trying to get across when he uses the term for blameless in Titus 1 .6.

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He that walketh in a perfect way or a blameless way, he shall serve me.

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Those are the kind of ministers that David wanted in his court. He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house.

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He that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight. I will early destroy all of the wicked of the land that I may cut off all the wicked doers from the city of the

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Lord. So some pretty striking polemics there from David, but right in the center of that passage of talking about the types of guys he has nothing to do with, he wants men that are blameless to be there worshiping with him, to be an example for him.

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This is King David we're talking about. And to basically give

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David the refreshing that he needed as king. So I thought that was a pretty interesting concept there.

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Even though the context is different, the blamelessness, that perfect way are the kind of guys that David wanted in his presence.

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The pastor is to be without charge of immorality because that's what best represents the type of Christ as the ultimate shepherd.

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They are to be blameless. Okay, we have a little bit of time left. So let's go ahead and move on to the next phrase in verse six.

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So we've covered blameless. Let's look at verse six one more time back in Titus.

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If any man be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of right or unruly.

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So now let's hone in on this idea, the husband of one wife. And this begins that first category. If you guys recall about two weeks ago or so,

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I broke down this section of scripture that we're in, verses five through nine, in four basic categories of themes or whole categories that Paul covers.

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Number one is the personal and sexual morality of these elders. What does that look like? And then there's family leadership, general character, teaching skill.

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This is category number one, the personal and sexual morality of an elder. Now the first, okay, so the first qualification we got was that general qualification of just being blameless.

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Okay, but now Paul is gonna get into the details. What does it look like to be, how does Paul define being blameless?

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Again, pretty broad term. No man is sinless. So what exactly does Paul mean by being without charge, being unchargeable, being blameless?

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The first detail that he gives is to be the husband of one wife. This is the first specific qualification that Paul gives is the husband of one wife, but it's very important here to look at the

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Greek because there have been a lot of misinterpretations of this phrase. Dad has even had to give counseling to some men in our church in times past because of a misunderstanding of this phrase who we thought had the spiritual gifts to serve, whether it be as deacon or elder, and I'll talk about that in a second.

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But we're afraid they didn't meet this qualification, and I'll get into that in a second. But the husband of one wife isn't necessarily the best translation, even though it's pretty much used across the board, and I'm not quite sure why,

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Dad. Maybe it's just the best, you know, a good translation isn't always necessarily literal.

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It's what flows the best, so that may be the rationale there. But the Greek, when you look at this, is literally one woman, man.

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And that changes, that gives a much more specific idea of what

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Paul is talking about here. Again, because of the way it's translated, and it's not just the KJV, I'm pretty sure almost every translation translates it as husband of one wife.

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Because of the way it's translated, it gives the impression that Paul is talking about, well, let me cover a couple of things.

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First of all, a lot of people assume he's just talking about polygamy, that you're to be a man without multiple wives.

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Now, that, for starters, that is certainly true, okay?

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I'll just say that right off the top. That is absolutely baked into Paul's qualifications here.

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Polygamy was a sin and always was one. I believe it was even one for the kings of the Old Testament.

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I don't think they were blessed for engaging in that. In fact, I know they weren't blessed for engaging in that. We have example after example of it.

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God set the stage in the garden for what marriage should look like. So yeah, polygamy is out the window, obviously.

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But the thing is, even in the pagan culture, at the time Paul is writing this letter, polygamy was not the norm anymore.

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In fact, it was frowned upon even by the more pagan or secular cultures as well.

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So it's absolutely true that Paul would at least, you can infer that Paul is including polygamy here.

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I'll say it that way. But the thing is, once again, it's already assumed at this point in history that you're not gonna be in a polygamous relationship.

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That's already assumed. It was frowned upon or even outright forbidden even in the pagan cultures of that time, certainly in the culture that Titus was living within in Crete.

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So he's not necessarily trying to hit on polygamy per se. He's getting at something a little bit more than that, a little bit more of a higher standard because it's not all that hard for even a secular man to be somewhat, at least from the world's perspective, faithful to one wife.

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So there's something more here that Paul wants us, that wants Titus and his elders to get. Now, let me give you a couple of other kind of misinterpretations of this really quick.

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Some people think that it means that if the guy was widowed and he remarried, that he's disqualified because he had a second wife.

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He wasn't still the husband of that one wife. Well, this can't be true because even in Romans 7, in Romans 7,

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Paul talks about a number of things, but it's very clear. The Lord is very clear that if your partner dies, you are completely free from that covenant.

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So that should be like a no -brainer. That one is not a tough one to refute. If someone is concerned, let's say a man is widowed, he remarries later, and then he's called upon by his church maybe to serve as a deacon, or maybe someone like another elder, like dad or brother

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Paul says, you have the spiritual gifts to be an elder. I think you should pray about serving in that capacity.

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He says, I can't, I'm not qualified. I had to remarry. That one's not a hard one to refute because if your spouse dies, you are free from that covenant.

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God makes that perfectly clear. But here's another very popular one. Another popular conclusion drawn here is that, and this is the one that dad had to work through, and I'll give you the exact example in a minute, that you have to, in order to be an elder, you have to be a husband, like at all.

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In other words, you can't be a bachelor. You can't be an unmarried man and serve as an elder. In other words, an elder can't be single ever.

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The problem with this is that number one, it would make Paul, the apostle

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Paul, a bad example for all of his successors and every elder that would come later because the apostle

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Paul never married. Now, let me quickly say this. The apostle

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Paul never married because he had the spiritual gift of celibacy, and that is a spiritual gift. There are a lot of guys out there that want to live up to that standard, but don't necessarily have that spiritual gift, and then they get themselves into a lot of trouble.

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And that's why I think the idea of the monk and the way the

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Catholic church approaches the priests and things like that is as dangerous as it is and why they have all kinds of terribly bad sin problems in the priesthood.

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Y 'all know what I'm talking about. It's because they forbid them to marry and the devil takes hold of that and he gets a stronghold and he exploits their temptations.

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He exploits all of it. We don't need to get into all of that, but y 'all know what I'm talking about. However, there are very rare cases in which a man is gifted the gift of celibacy like the apostle

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Paul. And we had an example of that in our very church, our dear late brother

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Bill. Never married, he put himself in a terrific situation to be a fatherly figure and to be held accountable as a bachelor by living with his brother, his wife, and his niece.

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And so he was able to be a fatherly figure to his niece throughout his entire life, which was a wonderful thing.

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He was a fatherly figure to all of his students as well because he was a teacher. And he lived with his brother and sister -in -law.

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And dad and brother Paul approached him many years ago, letting him know, brother

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Bill, you have the gift of teaching. You meet all the qualifications. We think you should pray and ask the

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Lord if you should serve in the capacity of elder. And he first relented because of this thing, the husband of one wife.

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Well, he wasn't the husband, but here's the thing. Well, we're gonna get to this in a little bit.

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I'll kind of cut to the chase. It's not about being married. It's about being a faithful man.

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The apostle Paul is the one giving this qualification. He was an elder, but he wasn't married himself.

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And so you can't bring, let's just call it kind of a legalistic wooden interpretation of this, which is, oh,

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I have to be married now even if I feel a call from the Holy Spirit, even if my congregation and the other elders are telling me

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I would serve well here, I was never married, and so I can't do it.

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Well, you have to use discernment as a church. It goes back to what we talked about in verse five.

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Titus needed that same discernment. If brother Bill were a bachelor, I don't even wanna use him in this example.

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Brother Bill, so that's his story. I'll set that aside now. He did end up being ordained as an elder.

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He served faithfully, wonderfully. He met all the qualifications. It was fantastic. Let's say you have another bachelor in your church that now hears this, and he's like, well, you know what?

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I think, yeah, I think I might see if I could do this. The elders have to use discernment to ensure that he is a bachelor that does in fact have the gift of celibacy, because what you don't wanna do is you don't wanna ordain a bachelor that does not have that gift, because like the things

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I was saying earlier, look at the Catholic church, look at their priests. That's what it looks like when you start ordaining bachelors that don't have the gift of celibacy.

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So I won't spend any more time on that, but that's another misinterpretation of this passage, yes. What about a young man that says,

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I definitely don't have the gift, but I haven't met the right woman yet? Oh, that's a - Is he, should he not take on the role until he's found the woman, or what should he do?

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Well, I can tell you what, I can tell you what I know kind of goes down in many of these cases.

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In any case that I know about where you have a young bachelor, to Ashton's point, for those who didn't hear, what if you have a young man who knows he doesn't have the gift of celibacy, he's looking for a wife, but he hasn't found her yet, but he's a called, he's a called man.

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Well, all of the ones, all of those cases that I know about are guys that are usually going to seminary, and there are actually groups, like accountability groups in those cases of men that it's the

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Otis effect. It is very important for men in that situation to be steeped in accountability with their fellow, with their fellow men.

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In other words, spending a lot of time in conversation about the word, not spending a lot of idle time. And I mean, the

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Bible talks about that being an issue, even if you're not in that position, idleness being basically a breeding ground for particular sin.

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And so there are accountability groups for young men in that situation that are still looking for their wife.

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And the point of the accountability is simply just to be together, talk about God's word. And when you put yourself in that situation, you have the desire to sin less, as dad has told us, which was the case for him with brother

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Otis anytime they got together. So that's number one. And then number two, they do,

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Ash, in the cases that I'm aware of, they are actively looking for the right girl and the older men are helping them with that.

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You know, it's so weird. You think about dating culture in the United States, it has totally wrecked every bit of biblical input that we get when it comes to, for the lack of a better term,

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I'm gonna call it courting. Not, I know when you think that, you think Amish. That's not what

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I'm talking about. But in all of the biblical cases that we have, you have the father helping, you know, make this happen.

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Whether it's a father with his daughter protecting her and keeping her safe until the right man who has already set up his own house comes along.

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But think about it from the perspective of older men, pastors, elders, trying to help younger men who have not yet found their wife.

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Well, by the standards of US or secular dating culture, it would be inappropriate for them to give any kind of input, wisdom, or guidance.

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You know, who are they to say you should, I strongly suggest that you spend some time with this young lady in these particular contexts and that could be your wife, you know?

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All of that is considered weird and taboo when it's infinitely more scriptural than what we think of as dating in this particular day and age.

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And so, Ash, that's a big question, it's an important question. The ideal scenario is that they are married sooner than later because as Paul says, it's better to marry than to burn.

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And by burning, he means burning with passion. He's not necessarily talking about hell. It's better to marry than it is to burn with passion.

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And so if you're a young man who is working toward a pastorate, working toward becoming a pastor, then it's important that you put yourself in a position of being held accountable by other brothers, by older pastors and elders that can give you guidance and maybe actually help you find the right girl to marry and things like that.

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And so, yeah, that's a great thought and it certainly plays into this idea of, and actually, let me say this really quick before I leave off that thought,

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Ash. This is another great example of you can't interpret this passage with the way that some legalists want to, which is you can't be a pastor unless you're married.

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It could be one of two things. Either you have the gift of celibacy like Brother Bill or in the Apostle Paul, or you are a young man that is still in seminary or Bible college already serving a very small faithful congregation because that happens sometimes and I personally think that's really cool, a way for them to be serving their calling while also still learning and becoming more equipped.

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Based on a misinterpretation of Titus 1 -6 here, they would not be qualified to be serving that little faithful congregation until they found their wife and that's just not right.

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They need accountability, they need the guidance of other older men, other elders, but that doesn't mean they can't serve.

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Yes, sir? I was checking a couple of other translations and there are other translations that translate that differently.

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A couple of them translated faithful to their wives. Yes. And some of them translated husband of only one wife, which is a little different if you think about it.

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And so the grief, as you said earlier, starting your lesson is a one woman man, which is the best translation because it's literal.

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I mean, literal is not always the best, but in this case it helps. So I think if you understand the grief of a one woman man or a faithful to his wife, that doesn't have anything to say about a person who's a bachelor.

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It just means if you are married, then you're not looking at other women in the wrong way, you're not eyes that wander, and boy,

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I've seen some bachelors that do. Well, we were just talking about an example last night. But what you just said right there regarding faithfulness, eyes that don't wander, all those, this is exactly what

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Paul is wanting to get to come across here. And it's much more clear in the Greek. I do like that one translation about being faithful to your wife because you have to have the wife to be that, to have the kind of faithfulness.

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But it doesn't mean that you have to have her either. Again, one woman man, it's all there.

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And so I like that a lot. Technically, I would stop around this time, but we have a small group today.

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So I wanna get just a little bit further because we're, again, we're, oh, yeah, sorry. I mean, our family likes to read

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Charles Burton stuff. Have you ever read anywhere, I know he started preaching at 19, is he married yet?

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Okay, he didn't. And a wonderful work to read is actually the biography of his wife because she tells the story of their courting.

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And he was already a pastor. He was her pastor. Before now they were courting.

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And it was, again, very different from the Americanized dating culture that we know of now. It was beautiful.

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It's one of the greatest love stories you'd ever read. If you wanna read it for any reason, read it for the love story. Her biography, it's really short.

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It's only about 115 pages or something like that. But man, the love they had for each other was just absolutely beautiful.

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And it started during their courting. And so that's a great example of that, dad.

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I'm glad you mentioned that. Let me go just a little bit further because we're gonna be in verse six for a few weeks here.

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So I want to kind of cover just a bit more ground before we call it quits. Another objection is that, and sorry, guys, y 'all came in, we're in Titus 1 -6 and we're specifically looking at the phrase husband of one wife as a qualification for elder.

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So this is a qualification. He has to be the husband of one wife. A more literal look at that in the

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Greek would be a one woman man. And we're talking about how that translation of husband of one wife can bring some issues sometimes.

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People misinterpret it. And we're kind of talking about what those misinterpretations look like and why.

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And so another objection, another misinterpretation of let's say a bachelor serving as an elder rather than a married man is that, well, it has to do with the next qualification in the verse, talking about kids.

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The objection is that you can't be an elder if you don't have kids because otherwise you can't fulfill the qualification of having faithful children.

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However, again, I said this earlier, I'll say it one more time. If you apply what we might call kind of a wooden or legalistic interpretation here, it would disqualify an otherwise godly man who's been a faithful husband of 30 years, but due to maybe some infertility issues or something is he and his wife couldn't have kids.

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So does that mean that he couldn't serve as an elder if he was called by God, if his spiritual gifts were recognized by his elders in congregation, he was faithful to his wife, they've been married for three decades, he met every qualification, but just because the

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Lord for whatever reason didn't bless them with children, he can't serve. So that is what you get when you approach this, let's say, let's call it hyper literally, okay?

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We are interpreting these things literally, but if you take it too far, you'll come up with something like that.

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Well, they weren't blessed with children, but because of that, he can't have faithful kids, therefore he doesn't meet that qualification, therefore he can't serve as an elder.

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You get what I'm going at with that? Yes, sir. Well, that principle followed, is that faithfulness that you see in the father of John and the husband of Elizabeth?

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Sure, absolutely. More than had children. That's right. As well as the principle of the experience

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Abraham who was a faithful man. Sure. Had a wife, no children.

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Yeah, so the, is it Zacharias and Elizabeth? Is that his name? John the

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Baptist's parents. That is a great example. Obviously he was serving in the priesthood, slightly different, but still high standards.

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But I agree, the logic is exactly the same. If you want a slightly more apples to apples comparison with elders as far as the

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New Testament idea of them, in that same concept, again, you have the Apostle Paul who was a celibate bachelor.

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He not only did he not have kids, he didn't even have a wife, but he still met the qualifications. So you can't be too, you can't be a stickler or a legalist when it comes to interpreting these things or you're going to disqualify otherwise very qualified men that may even have a call from God.

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And yet you thwart that because you want to read things into it that aren't necessarily there.

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And so I do like those examples there for sure, Jared. And it comes back to this, discernment is everything.

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Discernment must be used here in conjunction with the text of scripture. So Paul is giving us very practical, very basic instructions and so, okay, how do you apply that?

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You apply it with taking Paul's word for what it says in conjunction with discernment, which only true discernment only comes with a relationship with the

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Holy Spirit, obviously. So in addition to these things, the use of the word one, when it says one woman, man in the

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Greek, where you get that idea, it argues against this idea as well because Paul could have used, well, let me look at the verse in English one more time.

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The husband of one wife. So Paul there could have used the article, a, rather than the adjective one.

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So if he had said the husband of a wife, then all of a sudden you're thinking, okay, maybe they have to be married, but he didn't use the article.

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He used an adjective, which is a number one. The husband of one wife.

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And so from that, even using that grammatical structure that Paul chose, you can deduce that he's talking about faithfulness.

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He's not talking about a mandate to be married prior to being able to serve in your

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God called position as an elder. So hopefully that made a little bit of sense.

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I kind of sped up the pace there a little bit because I see people coming in. We can rehash some of this next week because we're not quite done, but I'll leave it there for today.

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Really interesting stuff. Again, I'll say this for everyone and even dad, if anyone that wasn't in here when

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I first started, I think even Ash, we are going extra meticulous here in these verses of qualifications in Titus because later when we segue right into 1

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Timothy, we have a parallel passage with not all of the exact same qualifications, but almost.

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And when we get there, we won't have to go through it as strenuously as we are here. So kind of just saving some time because when we get to 1

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Timothy later, we got a lot of stuff to cover and we won't go through these qualifications in quite as much detail as we are about to here in Titus.

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So I'll just throw that out there. Let me pray and dismiss and we will go into our next service.

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Heavenly Father, thank you for this wonderful day. Thank you for bringing us all together, for blessing this time, giving us an opportunity to be in your word and to be edified by it and to be refreshed going into yet another week of just living.

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And we ask that we leave here refreshed to the point where we want to live with you by our side throughout the entire week, not just today.

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Lord, we thank you for our time together once more. We ask you to continue to bless and protect our loved ones, our church family that are all traveling, bring them back home safely to us if it be your will.