Godly Pastors and Healthy Churches

Godly Pastors and Healthy Churches

Welcome to Three Minutes in Theology, I'm Pastor Alan Nelson, pastor of Perryville Second Baptist Church in Central Arkansas. Today I want to talk about the connection between godly pastors and healthy churches.

In 1 Timothy chapter 4, verse 16, Paul tells Timothy, keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. Now, Timothy was probably not what we would know as a pastor, more of a missionary assistant to the apostle Paul, but the point is, Paul tells Timothy, it's not just about right doctrine.

Now we don't minimize that at all. We love sound doctrine. Sound doctrine is non-negotiable. We cannot compromise on sound doctrine in any way. But Paul elevates in 1 Timothy 4, verse 16, something right alongside sound doctrine.

And that is, he tells Timothy to keep watch on yourself and on the teaching. So a pastor's godly life and a pastor's godly teaching go hand in hand for the health of the church. Paul says, persist in this, keep going in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

That is, a pastor who is a godly man and teaches godly provides Christ's vision for the church and in the office of pastor. And so when a pastor is doing these things, the church is healthy. It doesn't mean that the church won't have struggles.

The church is always going to face struggles or persecutions or trials or temptations. We're always to be reforming according to the word of God. But when you have ungodly pastors, lazy pastors, divisive pastors, pastors not fit for the office who, they may be teaching the right things.

They may have scribed to the 1689 London Baptist Confession, but they don't pay careful attention to their lives. Well, then you have great harm to the church. Essentially you're riding over the church door, you're inviting the world into the church and you're saying, come, pillage her, plunder her, steal from her, make her to look like you, make her to treat her shamefully.

And this is what is happening in many churches today because pastors are not careful over their life and prayer and Bible reading and personal evangelism and seeking to be a man of godly character. And so Christ calls his pastors not only to teach rightly, but also to live holy lives before their congregation and before a watching world.

This is a great problem today. My suspicion is, the reason this is so is because there's a great crisis of unconverted pastors in our world today. That even in evangelical conservative circles, they can check off all the right doctrine, they can teach rightly, but their lives are in shambles.

Even harboring secret sin, lazy, and not diligent over their lives. Paul tells Timothy that we have to watch both of these things, both our lives and our doctrine, for the glory of Christ and for the good of the church.

For by so doing, you will save both yourself and your neighbors.