WWUTT 145 Q&A What Are the Qualifications for a Pastor?

Qualifications for a Pastor from Scripture

A pastor is a shepherd, a priest, and as he's also described, a messenger of the Lord of hosts. The Bible offers a sound and detailed description of what such a man is supposed to look like, and we should settle for nothing less in our churches when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text, promote sound doctrine while exposing the faulty. Here's your host, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. I was so thoroughly convicted by last night's message with Dr. Albert Moeller at the Shepherds Conference. Dr. Moeller is the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he was last night's speaker at the Shepherds Conference, which is still going on today, by the way.

Paul Washer is one of the speakers tonight, and I'm expecting that one to beat me up as well. But anyway, you can find a full list of the speakers when you go to shepherdsconference .org and also watch them right there from the website.

All of these messages are going to be archived, and we'll be able to access them later. But anyway, Dr. Moeller's message I got the chance to watch live last night. He was preaching from Malachi 2, verses 4 -7.

After it was over, my wife came in and sat down with me and asked me what was so convicting about the message. I think one of the first things that I recalled from what Dr. Moeller shared was, he said,.

And what if in our job descriptions as pastors, it said wanted messenger of the Lord of hosts. Number one, he must fear the Lord and his name. Number two, he must walk with the Lord in peace and uprightness.

And my wife is gracious as she is. After I said that, she said to me, aren't you doing that? And I said, but I want to be doing it more. It's so good to test myself in these things and desire to know the Lord all the more so that I am the best servant that I can be to my congregation in this teaching as a messenger of the Lord of hosts.

Just drawing from the description as it is given there in Malachi chapter 2. So in the spirit of this, in thinking about qualifications of a pastor, I drew out this question that I received following one of our recent videos that was posted on correcting false teachers.

Correcting False Teachers in the Church

So I want to play that video first, and then I will come to the question that was asked of me by email. In Matthew 18, Jesus gave the church guidelines for correction. If a brother sins against you, first go and tell him his fault just between the two of you.

If he does not listen to you, take one or two others along. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen to the church, consider him faithless and crooked. So when someone is a false teacher, this is how we're to correct them, right?

We confront them one-on-one, then do an intervention, and then we take it before the church, yes? No, these are instructions on confronting sin between brothers and sisters in Christ who are part of the same gathering.

You can't take someone before a church you or they are not a part of. How did Jesus confront false teachers? Did he go to the Pharisees and correct each one privately? Did he take a few disciples along before taking it to the church?

No, he rebuked the false teachers of the temple in front of everyone. He called them serpents and vipers, sons of hell who produced more sons of hell. And get this, he did it in love. Eternal souls were at stake here.

The teachers needed to know their own souls were in danger. And Jesus warned the people to avoid such men. One of the qualifications of a pastor is to hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also rebuke those who contradicted.

And sometimes those false teachers need to be named. Examples include the seven sons of Sceva, Hymenaeus and Alexander, Simon the Magician, Demas, Diotrephes, the Nicolaitans. They must be silenced, the apostles tell us, for they upset entire church families teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach when we understand the text.

What a Pastor Must Be Like in 1 Timothy 3

And following that video, Janice from Colorado wrote in and said, Dear Watch, thank you for your recent video offering clarity on calling out false teachers. At the present, our church is looking for a new minister.

Would you happen to have a short video that might describe what we should be looking for in a sound teacher of the word? Appreciate what you do. Janice, thank you so much for your email. No, we don't have a short video.

I'm sure that's one we'll do at some point in the future. But let me tell you this, tell your pastor search committee or whoever it is that's going through the resumes and gathering them up to present them to the church.

In fact, tell your whole church to watch the sermon that Dr. Al Mohler delivered on March the 10th, 2016 at the Shepherds Conference. As soon as those videos are archived and you can watch them on YouTube, everybody should watch that sermon as to a sound minister of the word.

We've got some great scriptures that give us very detailed instructions on what that man should look like. And I know that the search committee, your church is going to be judging those resumes based on what we have in the scriptures.

First, Timothy, Chapter three, the saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, which is a pastor, shepherd, elder, etc., he must be above reproach. Oh, by the way, he also must be a man.

That's totally in the context of what we read at the end of Chapter two right before that. So you can go back and look at that. He must be above reproach. In other words, there's no wrongdoing that you know of that can be brought against this man.

He must be blameless in his present state. He must be the husband of one wife. I know that phrase gets interpreted a lot of different ways. I'm of the camp that believes that a person can have previously been divorced and still be qualified to be a pastor.

There was a man that I was counseling who was divorced before he got saved. And I told him, I don't even think that should be considered. You were dead in your sins, in your trespasses, then what should more be considered is who you were or who you are as a Christian, not what you did before you came to Christ.

I've heard Dr. Moller say that the husband of one wife specifically means that a minister of the word, a pastor has to be married. And I kind of agree with Dr. Moller on that. Now, somebody might argue and say, well, what about Paul?

He wasn't married. Right. But Paul was an apostle. That's totally different. Most of the apostles were married. I think that Paul and John were the only two that were not. But there's a certain accountability that a minister has if he is married, that a single minister does not.

And especially in today's world, I think that it is critically important that a pastor is married. I could spend some time on this. In fact, we could do a whole episode on this subject because there was a church nearby to mine just last year that had a minister that wasn't married and he got into some serious trouble.

But anyway, I won't go into all of that. But let me just say there's a lot of different discussions that could go about even just that one qualification right there of a pastor. Anyway, he must be sober minded.

In other words, he's not given over to just wild thoughts and fantasies and and imposing things upon the word that aren't there. But he holds steadfast to the true word as given. He must be self-controlled, pretty self-explanatory.

He must be respectable. He must be hospitable. He must have his home open. You know, you can come into his home and see the way that he lives with his wife and with his children, welcomes people in. He must be able to teach.

Now, this is the one qualification that separates a pastor from a deacon. He must be able to teach. He must not be a drunkard now and self-explanatory, must not be violent, but gentle, must not be quarrelsome.

He must not be a lover of money, because if he's a lover of money, he will be willing to compromise the word of God to make a buck. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity, keeping his children submissive.

For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into condemnation of the devil.

Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders as well, so that he may not fall into disgrace into a snare of the devil. You know, Paul actually gives this instruction to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2, starting in verse 23, where he says, have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies.

You know that they breed quarrels, and the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they must come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.

So Paul gives this instruction to Timothy here that a minister of the word cannot be quarrelsome with those who are even outside the church. So well thought of by outsiders. That is indeed a qualification of a pastor.

Elder Qualifications in Titus 1

We see qualifications of ministers given also in Titus chapter 1, where Paul says to Titus, this is why I left you in Crete, so you might put what remained into order and appoint elder in every town as I directed you, and then gives a description of what an elder, an overseer of the church is supposed to look like.

If anyone is above reproach, once again, you have that listed first. He is blameless in all of his conduct, in his present position as a man of God before the Lord, he is above reproach. He is the husband of one wife, and his children are believers, and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.

For an overseer as God's steward must be above reproach. So important that it's stated there twice. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.

He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give sound instruction in sound doctrine, and also rebuke those who contradict it. As was stated in the video also, Titus 1 .9.

So there you go, Janice. There's the guidelines that we have given for us in scripture as to what a minister of the word is supposed to look like. I encourage you in those things again. I'm sure I didn't tell you anything that you haven't heard before, but it is always nice to be reminded of those things, as I was reminded of what is expected of a minister of the word, listening to Dr. Albert Moeller preach at the Shepherds Conference last night.

God bless you all. We continue our study of Romans next week. We'll jump into Romans chapter seven. If you would like to submit a question or even a suggestion for a future video, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

This is a protection of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Find us on the web at www .utt .com.