WWUTT 860 Q&A Sermon Series, Interim Pastors, and God Told Me?

WWUTT Podcast Q&A on Sermon Recordings, Interim Pastors, and Hearing from God

What happened to the end of the second Corinthians sermon series? Is there a biblical argument for an interim pastor and how does God still speak to us today? The answers to these questions and others when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text teaching and admonishing one another through the word with thankfulness in our hearts to God. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com and once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky.

You're welcome. We are getting ready for G3 next week. I think we're ready to go for the most part. For the most part. I got my pins in. Yeah. So if you come by the what booth at G3, you get a pin. Yep.

I've got the banner. While supplies last. While supplies last. It's 500 pins, but of course, there's gonna be 4000 people there. Exactly. There is, let's see, the banner is in. T-shirts and sweatshirts are in.

Books. Do we have a tablecloth? Oh, yeah, I need to get a tablecloth. Yeah, that's easy to come by. But yeah, important. I think I've got, yeah, I've got a black cover from somewhere. And I think it was from back when I had, I was doing a band.

Oh, yeah. So I still have that black table cover, which you, she made a face at me. But really, it highlights everything on the table.

Yes, I mean, I get it. I'm just worried about it being in the sun. I don't know where it's been stored.

If it's dusty. Oh, yeah, it's, yeah, it's gonna have plenty of moths in it and everything, right? Yuck. Yeah, I'll just pull that puppy back out.

Yeah, we'll shake it out right there.

It's been in a big plastic container. They're not supposed to, nothing's supposed to be able to get into those. Supposed to. Yeah. Keyword. And then we're gonna have a TV set up out there. That's gonna have the what video is playing.

Yeah, it'll be so cool. So that nobody who's, or anybody, nobody, anybody who has never seen a what video, of what video before gets to, you know, learn something about the ministry I'm walking by. And I have little cards, but I mean, really, the cards just have WWTT .com on.

I just didn't see there was any need to make a brochure. When the whole ministry is kind of self-explanatory. Yeah. Just go to the website and use the videos. Right. What else do you, what else do you need?

Right. So it's just there to raise awareness about when we understand the text.

And then you can write your name and number on the back whenever you hand it to a friend and you can be like, here, call me.

Yeah. For those of you who I have no problem. Walk you through it. Right. For those of you, I have no problem with handing my number to, I'll write my number on the card. But for those of you, I don't really want to hear from every day.

I'm not going to put my information back there. I'm looking at my phone and I'm totally ignoring you. Yes. Yeah.

Well, I get that. But it's an opportunity. Yeah. It's been a busy week.

It has. Very, very busy week. Yeah. So prayers for our church greatly appreciated. This has been an interesting start to the year. We'll just put it that way. But anyway, so Becky and I are very much looking forward to hopping into the vehicle and driving, hopefully not through snow.

Oh, hopefully we miss all that. Between here and Atlanta. So we're looking at 10 inches of snow in St. Louis this weekend. And if they're not far anyway. If it's going to cause like a state of emergency, then we're going to have to avoid St. Louis.

Maybe have to take a Southern route to get down to Atlanta, which could take an hour or two longer. Right. But it's still doable. It would take an hour or two longer anyway, going through St. Louis. Yeah.

No joke. Plus the travel hazard with that possibility of snow. Yeah. With the snow that they're going to get. But once we get through like Nashville and Chattanooga, it's all just supposed to be rain.

Hopefully the temperatures won't drop far enough down and at least no snow in Atlanta. Like I'm good with driving through snow or having to beat snow to get there. Right. But it's the snow in Atlanta last year.

That was what was. Oh, that was so crazy.

In their sheet of ice. Yeah. They had like inch of ice or something.

You don't think about an inch to two inches of snow just crippling the daily procedures of everything. It was awful. But it did in Atlanta. Poor Atlanta. Last year. Sorry, guys. Sorry that happened to you.

We didn't bring it with us, though, because it was ahead of us. Yes. So you can't blame us for last year. And we prayed. We prayed for it not to hit. Yeah. That's all right. That was a rough trip. Yes, we are.

Give us something to talk about. We're getting far enough ahead here. I think that we're able to. We're able to compensate for any lost time in case we run into weather like that. Right. Anyway. Yeah.

Pray for us. Pray for safe travel. Safe travel for everybody heading to the G3 conference in Atlanta. I really loved seeing the stuff that came out of the Founders Conference in Florida, which was just last week.

Right. And I think they are putting up all their sermons and like panel discussions and things like that still going to be hitting the Founders Ministry website. Oh, wonderful. You can look up all of that there.

I did post one on Twitter, and it was the social justice discussion that they had, which is the guys from CrossPolitik, also Votie Bauckham, Josh Bice, Tom Askell. And some of those guys are even going to be at there.

There's a pre-conference that is being put on by Grace, Sovereign Grace Media. No, it's not Sovereign Grace. Ah, it's terrible that I can't remember who they are. Anyway. I'm rubbing off on you. There's right.

There's another ministry that's putting on like the pre-conference of G3, and they're going to be talking about the social justice, the statement on social justice that was put out in 2018. And guys that are going to be part of that panel include Phil Johnson, Tom Buck, who was part of drafting the Dallas statement, Josh Bice, who was also there, Votie Bauckham, Dr. James White.

So those guys that helped to draft the Dallas statement on social justice and the gospel are we're going to have kind of a pre-conference. I guess that's Wednesday night. Right. And I'm looking forward to that.

That one does cost though. It costs extra in addition to the conference. I think it was $19 a ticket. Something like that. Which may have gone up leading, you know, as we get closer and closer to the conference.

You just have to check out G3 to find out. G3conference .com. The letter G, the number three conference .com.

I know you second guess. I always, always do because it's another name.

Yeah, .org, .com.

Like, ah, I don't remember. Okay, here we go.

It's Friday. We're taking questions from listeners, and you can submit your questions to when we understand the text at gmail .com. First one comes from Keith in Nevada. Hey, Pastor Gabe, what happened to your sermons?

I haven't seen one among your podcast in a while, and I missed the end of second Corinthians. Uh-oh. Yeah, our recorder went out. Oh, right. I forgot about that. And the flash drive that I was using to capture the sermons on the recorder, I lost that.

Oh, no. I found it. Oh, okay, good. I've since recovered it. Making sure the recorder is going to work again. I've still got to test that. My sermon from this Sunday might get recorded, and it's just a Q &A.

So I'm not sure if I'm going to record that and include it on the podcast or not. I might just wait until we start Galatians, and then I'll start putting. Start fresh. Yeah. Yeah. I'll start putting the sermons up again.

But yeah, so what you missed, I think the last sermon that made it on the podcast was second Corinthians, chapter 12, verses 1 through 10. So then you missed the second half of chapter 12, and I think I did two sermons through chapter 13.

I actually did chapter 13 fairly quick. I was sick during most of that time. Yeah, that's true. You were. I remember that. So I don't remember anything. And then at Christmas, I did a sermon prior to Christmas out of Matthew 2, and then the Sunday between Christmas and New Year, I actually finished up that sermon in Matthew 2 because it was so long, I couldn't do it in one Sunday.

And then this past Sunday, I went through highlights of second Corinthians, which this actually started when we were in Romans, where it was just such information. And we did Romans for a year and a half.

So trying to capture all of that information in the most basic points, what we did was we split it into two Sundays where we highlighted the major sections of Romans chapters 1 through 11, and then there was another Sunday where we went chapters 12 through 16, and we underlined key passages and explained those key passages in context.

So it was kind of like a year and a half in Romans, and then we had two more Sundays where just went through all of it again to catch the summary of everything. And after I did that, and I went through passages saying, here, underline this, mark this in your margin, put a bracket around this part.

That was kind of how we went through that. That was so well-received that ever since then, then when I went to first...

It was kind of like a crash course after studying so much. Yeah.

So then after we did first Corinthians, then I had members of the congregation going, are we going to do like we did in Romans? We need to go back through and highlight all of this. And I said, okay, fine.

So we did it. I love it. Oh, good. I do. So we went back through and did that with first Corinthians. And then this past Sunday, I did it with second Corinthians. But again, the recorder was out.

So I didn't get any of that. So you're going to have to sit down with me and go through mine since I was in the nursery.

Yeah, you had nursery duty on Sunday. I was finally better though. Yay! Well, I could just hand you my Bible. It's got everything highlighted. There we go. I think there was of all that I told the congregation to highlight and underline though, I think it was only two thirds of what I actually had highlighted.

Oh, yeah. Because there were some things that are like, that makes sense to me. And I understand why I highlighted that. But it may not have necessarily a key point to it that would be as connecting with somebody else trying to understand, okay, why did I underline that?

What's the point of that part?

More personal moments.

But then, so finishing up all of that, we're done with second Corinthians this Sunday when we do our final Q &A, and then I start Galatians when we get back from G3. And so it's after Galatians that I'll start back and recording sermons again.

But I'm glad you're interested, Keith. I appreciate your question. That's what happened to the sermons. Yeah. Recorder went on the fritz. One thing we're talking about doing, and I know this is going to sound controversial.

One thing we're talking about doing is streaming our services on Facebook. And it's because we've had some members of our congregation move to a place in California because they're military. And we've had a few families now that have gone from our church and cannot find a good church out there.

And I've done some research. If anybody knows of a good church, maybe on the Reformed Baptist leaning in around Fort Irwin, California, let me know. Right. Because I would love to pass this on. But if they can't find a good church out there, we're going to stream the services on Facebook for their benefit.

Now, some of you know my hesitancy to do anything satellite related. Right. But the purpose of this would be to provide them with a place that they can gather and get good teaching, and hopefully it will turn into a church.

Right. So it's certainly not for my ego. It's not for me to have my face beamed into another place, but at least to be able to provide some sound teaching from where folks from our church.

Well, formerly from our church. Well, there's still I mean, whenever they move out, we still consider them members until they've established themselves in another church. Yes. So we still look out for them because military they move all the time.

Yeah. I mean, if you know anybody military, you know, they haven't been in a place more than four years, Max. Like that's considered a long time for them to live anywhere.

So I even I even made contact with one of our former members this past week and said, hey, we have another former member where you are, who's having a medical problem. Yeah. So do you think you could go visit?

And it turned out I had the location wrong. See, I don't keep up with the military bases and I thought it was the same place and it was a bummer anyway. So the one of the guys that has left our church and is out in California now is one of our former deacons.

So you would even have a deacon there. Yeah. But but being able to welcome people to come and join and be a part of sound teaching and then training up some guys there that would be able to step into an eldership role and lead that church.

That would be awesome. That would be great. That could be kind of a church planting endeavor without us ever having to invest any money in that or of our own resources, except for putting the things together that we need to do in order to stream the services on Facebook.

Right. So that's one thing that we're looking into doing. And if you find our church on Facebook, facebook .com slash FSBCJC, that's where it's going to that's where the streaming will end up coming up.

And I'm hoping to get all that done before we start the Galatians series. So I can start those guys out there with us on Galatians since they're what, two hours behind us. Is that what you say? Not two hours ahead.

They're two hours behind us. Two hours behind. So we get done with service and then it uploads to Facebook and then it's there in time for them to get ready with their service.

Yep. Or you can record at the same time. But. What do you mean? Like streaming means that it's live.

Well, right. But that would be an early enough service. Yep. That they may not want to start service that early. I don't know. Our service starts at 1030. If they want to start out there at 830, more power to them.

They're military guys.

They're used to early up. It's just a matter of the wives and kids. They wake up with that. How is that again? That's my bugle. Anyway. Okay. Where are we going at here? That was Keith's question. Did I answer Keith's question?

Oh, hang on a second. I wanted to clarify that while we are gone, our church is still having service. Yeah. I just wanted to put that out there. Pastor Dwight. Yes.

Yep. Is going to be leading service in my absence. And let's see. Alistair is going to be doing the music. Awesome. While I'm gone. I don't think he knows that yet. Surprise. Fellow that used to be a deacon with us about a year ago.

And he went down to Texas to help his family. And now he's come back to Kansas. And I'm going to throw him into service right away. You're working, dude. He'll love it. Here's a pitchfork. He's so great.

Start shoveling. I'm so glad they're back. Yeah, it's wonderful. It's very rare for us to have somebody come back. I know. It just makes me all giddy. We're always praying for people to go out. Yes. Lord, if we don't see each other again this night of heaven.

You know, and tears flowing. But this time he came back. I didn't know if maybe after he got out of Fort Riley, you know, Junction City, he's going, I'm free. Nope. Came right back again. They actually like it here.

That's great. That's a plus. And we do actually get quite a few people that will end up in Junction City that love it. Yeah. Especially if you love hunting. Yes. If you're somebody. That's a big draw.

And there's quite a few soldiers that do because it has to do with guns. So if you love hunting, you'll end up in Junction City. And just how low key everything is and not a lot of traffic. And yet so many amenities that are available.

So you get kind of a big town feel, but still small town Kansas. And the hunting, of course, is great hunting all year long. There's always something to hunt. There is. So there's guys. Yep. Guys that end up coming back to Kansas and retiring.

Yeah. Because they can. This is the best fishing in Kansas. Kansas is not really a fishing state. No. But because we've got Lake Milford right next to it. Which, by the way, when you look at me on Twitter, my Twitter page, twitter .com slash pastor underscore Gabe.

The banner that I have at the top of the page. That's Milford Lake. Yeah. Lake Milford. Yep. So pretty there. Best fishing in Kansas. But we've had some guys that have come here and their thing is fishing and they're just going.

Yeah. Well, you can call this fishing if you want. I mean, you can catch some big fish in that lake.

It's not like deep sea or deep sea fishing. But deep sea fishing. Isn't that what it's called? Well, yeah. If you've lived on the coast. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

Okay. It's not like that. It's not that eventful. But I mean, there's a big hunk of fish in there. I think of deep sea fishing as you're jumping in the water. Oh, no. Yeah. You're thinking like pier fishing or something like fishing off a pier.

No, off a boat. Off a boat. Yeah. When they go out. I don't know. Do they call that deep sea fishing? I thought so. I don't know. I don't know. They're trying to catch a marlin or a swordfish. I don't know.

Okay. Thank you, Keith. Yes. Thank you. More than you wanted to know. This next one is from Jeremy in Pennsylvania. Hello, Gabe and Becky. Thank you for your faithful ministry and rightly dividing the word of God in such an accessible and delightful way.

Jeremy, thank you for spelling my wife's name right. Yeah. You always make that thing. I don't know. I just I'm picking on you. If you can't spell Becky's name right. She chose the spelling of this name.

I did. I did. It was a nickname. So. Yeah. But I like it because then our names together are Becky. Yeah. First, a comment regarding a question asked on the podcast last week. Can you ask Alexa to play the what podcast?

Now, I've just said that and everybody's Alexas are going off again. Hey, Alexa, Becky mentioned being able to do it, but needing to pay a monthly fee for the service. Well, I received an Apple HomePod for Christmas from my wife, Becky, this year.

Oh, fun. She spells her Becky B-E-C-K-Y like normal Becky's.

Yeah, that's how I did it before seven or before eighth grade.

So, yeah, because she had a lot of Becky's in her class. I did. It was a lot of Becky's. That way she could get the right page, the right paper back. Right.

Yeah. And then I'd get the right grade for my paper. Always important.

I finally opened it up, finally opened up his Apple HomePod and set it up yesterday. And I decided to see if Siri could complete the task. Well, I said, hey, Siri, play the most recent episode of the podcast WWUTT.

And boom, it was like the two of you were with me in my kitchen. That's so cool. See, I'm telling you. Apple. Seriously, that thing sounds fantastic. No monthly fee required. That is amazing. The answer is no, we are not going to Apple.

I know.

He and I disagree on this, but it's okay.

I don't need to be paying twice as much as I'm already paying and then have to learn all the software all over again.

Well, it's because it doesn't think like how you think, but it thinks how I think because we think differently.

I know we go back and forth. So Jeremy continues here. Stop interrupting Jeremy. On the question front, I would love to hear you address the concept of interim pastors. Is the role of interim pastor biblical?

Before getting to his next question, because we were jumping around here and I forgot that he shifted subjects. So that's the instruction related to Apple HomePod. And then you've got Google. The Google, what do you call that?

Smart home? Home. Google Home. Yeah, I think it's the Google Home. But honestly, we figured out that Alexa is Bluetooth compatible. And once you can play them on your phone and connect with Bluetooth, it really doesn't matter.

You don't really have to ask Alexa to play it. You just play it on your phone and it's connected there through your Bluetooth. That's what I've been doing is I've been working downstairs on that shelf of yours that I'm building.

Yay. And it's kind of a birthday present. Even though I've been working on this for a year and a half. Yeah. This project has been a year and a half long. Not the shelf itself. It's everything else that's been going with the shelf.

But the room we added. That's okay. I'm willing to wait it out. It's gonna be awesome. Added an extra wall, tiled a floor, put in plumbing. All kinds of stuff is added to it. Anyway, so while I've been working downstairs, I listen to RefNet and then I'll just connect Bluetooth to Alexa.

So once you can figure that out, just connecting with Bluetooth, there's really not a point to have to have it play for you, the podcast. Though it would be nice to be able to just say, hey, Alexa, play for me WWTT.

I will say this about Apple. They figured out the podcast market better than anything Google or Android related. Yeah. Everything else, Google or Android. It always seems like you have to pay for an extra service in order to get that to go.

But yeah. Yeah. Apple kind of includes all of that together.

But you also pay for it anyway. What do you mean? Like one way or another, you're paying for it because Apple costs more. Well, yeah.

You put it that way. Okay, now here's the next part of Jeremy's email. On the question front, I would love to hear you address the concept of interim pastors. Is the role of interim pastor biblical? Does that role have a place in a plurality of elders?

Or is it a relic of the CEO pastor model that was and still is in many circles prevalent for so long and is now simply a concept that is taken for granted? To be clear, what I'm referring to here is bringing in someone from outside the body to serve as the interim pastor, as opposed to simply giving that title to someone, someone already within the body.

In a sense, it kind of seems like it's contracting out the shepherding of the body. And that doesn't seem right on the surface. And yet it seems that this is what most churches default to doing. And I haven't seen it being questioned anywhere.

For context on that question, I'm currently serving in a small reformed Baptist body without a vocational pastor. We subscribe to the belief that all elders are pastors, as we feel that is the biblical model for shepherding the body as well as expressed well in Timothy Whitmer's book, The Shepherd Leader.

We are convicted that it is our responsibility as elders to lead and care for the church during this transitional period. And that is not a responsibility that we can farm out. While this time has stretched us in many ways, even as God has chosen in his good and perfect will to make us wait longer than we would like to find the right vocational elder to join our body, it has also grown us both as elders and as a body as a whole.

We have seen that his grace is sufficient for us, for his power is made perfect in weakness. Second Corinthians chapter 12. I have to wonder if some churches are missing out on experiencing some of that grace by using an interim pastor.

Thanks for everything that you both do to serve the kingdom in Christ, Jeremy in Pennsylvania. I wasn't going to interrupt.

Well, thank you. So now you have a thought? Because I was, no, you just said second Corinthians. So I think he didn't write that.

Oh, you wanted to chime in with that. Okay. Yes, but I refrained. I thought you were patiently waiting to add something to the end of that.

Well, I was honestly, as you were reading this, I was thinking that interim, I mean, you were positioned as interim pastor from within the church. But I was there already.

Right. So I served as interim before they made me senior pastor, but I had been there for two years already serving in the associate pastor position. Right. And yeah, as the associate pastor, why would you need to have another pastor coming to serve as interim.

If you already have a pastor installed? And so I'm glad he clarified that because that I wouldn't have thought of that being the norm of people bringing in someone new. Yeah. I guess it is.

I just never thought about it. So anyway. Now our church in the past has had interim pastors. Yes. And it was before I got there. But I think Jeremy is touching on a very good point there related to if you have the people that are within the body that can do it, why would you contract somebody out?

Especially when you already have a plurality of elders installed, the requirement for eldership is that you must be able to teach. Yeah. So you've got guys who are proven teachers. Right. Among you who are elected to those positions that have, that are just as faithful to the teaching of the word as the pastor.

And maybe a guy who's devoted his life and his livelihood to pastoring is certainly more knowledgeable than maybe the rest of the elders are because he's invested his whole life into this, is likely even educated in it.

This was his degree. He went to seminary. He came out with the equipment needed in order to lead and shepherd a church in a knowledge of the word of God. Right. But nonetheless, those men who have been selected for eldership, whether they're lay elders or they likewise have an education to be able to serve in that particular position, you have elected men who fit the qualifications that are listed in 1 Timothy 3 and in Titus 1 and even in 2 Timothy 2 and other places where qualifications for eldership are named and they are someone who is able to teach.

So if they have met that qualification, I would expect their teaching because that's one of the requirements of an eldership. Yeah, definitely. If that person is not teaching somewhere in the church, why is he an elder?

Right. And we're kind of in need of elders. You know, we had that company of elders that we had over our church. But even that number of elders, we decided wasn't enough. Yeah. And we really could use one or two more.

I can't remember who this was. I think it was Jared C. Wilson. He was talking about the church that he pastored up in Vermont and they had something like six or seven elders. I thought it was seven. I think that church was smaller than ours.

If I remember the story right. But you've got guys that are able to teach and oversee the administration of the doctrine and the sound teaching of the word of God in your church, then they should be in those capacities teaching, whether it's a Bible study or a Sunday school class or you're alternating teachers in the pulpit so that you've got every elder.

You know, if you have seven elders, every elder at some point during the year has a chance to do a sermon. The pastor, of course, is going to handle the bulk of the teaching. Right. I think it was Mark Dever that I heard say his responsibility that's upon him is something like 40 to 45 sermons a year.

And then he's got guys that are handling the other 12 weeks that are teaching sermons. But then he's also got Sunday evening services, which Mark Dever doesn't teach at all. And it's always other elders that are leading those particular services.

And I'm saying that kind of off the top of my head. I know that the structure of the church is built that way somehow. So he is primarily responsible for leading the teaching that comes on Sunday morning.

And he does the majority of that. But then other services are handled by other elders in the church. So there should be a responsibility upon those guys who are supposed to have an ability to teach that there will be opportunities and occasions where they are exercising that particular gift.

So in Titus chapter one, verse five, Paul says to Titus, this is why I left you in Crete so that you might put what remained into order and appoint elders in every town as I directed you. If anyone is above reproach, 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. 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 instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. In verse five, when Paul started this particular instruction of Titus, he said, this is why I left you in Crete so that you might put what remained into order.

And the picture that we have of those churches that Paul started on the island of Crete is that they were churches. They were established believers who were there desiring to worship God and had been converted by the gospel of Christ.

And so they're there to worship Christ in a common heart in a desire to hear his word and learn from his word and sing praises, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody in their hearts to God.

They exercise the Lord's supper, they practice baptism, everything that a church should be doing except they did not have plurality elders that were over the church. Maybe there was one guy that was there that could teach and lead perhaps in the synagogues with the Old Testament scriptures that would have been gathered there, but there was not the plurality eldership which was part of Titus's role.

That was part of his responsibility was to establish plurality eldership in those churches. Right. And part of me has to wonder how much of that did not also involve Titus teaching himself. Yeah. So in that sense, he may have served

That's why I put enough pause in there.

Okay, I was just clarifying because my mind puts it together, but I'm almost positive that you meant to put it separate. Not teaching himself. Yes.

But he himself taught. What's supposed to be a teacher, right? So in that sense, he may have served as kind of an interim. Okay, yeah. But you're talking about a church that does not have plurality eldership.

Right, they're not understanding that part.

Right, in which a person would be serving as the interim role. And there's in some sense, I mean, some people could probably argue that Timothy was that way. So let me go back to 1 Timothy 1 here, but his installment in the church in Ephesus was definitely more long-term than Titus's would have been in any of those churches in Crete.

Yeah. And Paul then in his second letter to Timothy, in 2 Timothy is calling Timothy from the church that he's pastoring to come visit him while he's in prison in Rome. And in which case, one of the other elders at the church in Ephesus would probably be stepping up.

But let me read this, 2 Timothy 4, 12. Well, let me start in verse nine. I kind of keep all this in context. Verse nine, do your best to come to me soon. For Demas in love with this present world has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.

Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia, Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you for he is very useful to me for ministry. Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. When you come bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books and above all the parchments.

And then he goes on from there. So you have that mention of Tychicus there in verse 12. And he says, Tychicus I've sent to Ephesus. Well, that's where Timothy's at. Right. And he's pastoring there along with a plurality of eldership.

We see in Acts chapter 20 that there was a plurality of eldership installed there in the church in Ephesus. Titus, or I'm sorry, Timothy is sent there to be the senior pastor, so to speak, or the head elder.

And when Paul is beckoning Timothy to come to him in Rome, he sends Tychicus. Now we don't know what Tychicus's role was, but it does seem to be that Tychicus is going to take over the teaching while Timothy is leaving to go see Paul in Rome.