Book of 1 Timothy - Ch. 5, Vs. 1-2 (05/12/2002)

1 Timothy chapter 5, would that be right, verse 1?

Good. It's always encouraging to have studied the right part to teach. I think you'll find this to be an interesting study.

I think it'll be different than what you thought previous to today, unless you've ever had a time when you went through and looked up all of these words, and if you have you'll understand, but if you're like me, you probably had not ever done it before, and it is quite revealing.

So we're going to study the word rebuke this afternoon. So it'll be the first time

I ever preach through one word. Actually we'll do a little more than that, but let's read, let's start with 1

Timothy chapter 5, and I want us to look at the first three verses.

Very interesting passage, controversial passage, not so much in our church, but in Christendom among different groups.

So let's follow along with me. Rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father, and the younger men as brethren, and the elder women as mothers, and the younger as sisters with all purity.

That's it. Have a nice day, that's the lesson, just go home and do this.

Okay, several different directions you can go with this, with just these three verses.

I'd like to cover it all, but we'll see how we do on it, but first thing

I want you to point out is that it says, rebuke not an elder, and then it comes right back and says, and the younger men as brethren.

At first sight, you see this phrase, rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father, and many would teach that the word elder there is pretty much a synonym with the word bishop.

Bishop is the common word used in the Bible to mean a pastor, or one of the pastors, one of the elders in a church.

In other words, the called men of God, the ones who are called to minister in the preaching of the word and the ruling of the church.

Now the word rule in our English may be a bit of a strong word for us in modern days.

It does not mean to rule as a dictator would rule. It means to rule by example.

It means to administrate, maybe a better modern word to use, to administrate the church. But it's really stronger than administrate because you have to understand it doesn't mean the church is a business.

It means the people. The people are the church. So it really means to watch over and guide and direct the people as an under shepherd would.

Does that make sense? So maybe administrate is not the best word now that I think about it either because that brings the connotation of business and it doesn't work like a business at all.

I wish it did sometimes, but really it absolutely does not. But the one who is the ruler of the church, and there can be more than one.

Some of the early churches had a plurality of elders and any church can have that. They don't always.

It's just whenever God brings a God called man and if there's another one that comes, then you have two.

Another one you would have three and then all of a sudden you have a plurality of elders. Some churches had that.

Some had one pastor. But the Baptists, I think, historically have believed you never have more than one and that's wrong.

That's incorrect. You will always have a senior elder, however, because you have to have a tiebreaker.

And you go into the early church where the apostles were the elders. If you can imagine that group of men that would take turns bringing messages,

I'm sure, in different places. But James was the one who would decide on an issue if they could not come to a consensus.

So there was a leader. There has to be among men because of our fall.

Now this starts out and says, rebuke not an elder. One thing we can say for sure that the passage is teaching is that it is never appropriate to rebuke a

God -called pastor or leader of a church. You don't rebuke him. What do you do? What if he does something wrong?

You entreat him as a father if he's older than you are. You entreat him as a brother if he's younger than you are.

What does the word entreat mean? Who can tell me? We don't use this every day, do we, in common language anymore.

Exactly. Probably the best definition is to beg. Now that's totally foreign from what we see in our churches.

What we see in our churches, and I don't mean this one, but I have experience in other churches before the year 1980, and I have seen this in action.

I've been to deacon meetings in big church before, and it was more the common

American way of doing it, not biblical. But I've seen the pastor do something wrong.

Well, I saw, oh, this was horrible, I saw, I went into, I was going around with the pastor of the church at Sunday school time, and he was trying to take photographs for a brochure they were going to do for the church that had the family's pictures in there.

I was going, I don't remember if I was taking the pictures, or he was, but I was going with him for some reason. We went door to door to the different Sunday school rooms, and we opened this one door and this particular woman was teaching her class, and it was a class of middle -aged women, had probably 20 of them in there, and they were sitting around in chairs, and she was sitting there, and we opened the door, and they all just turned, just glared at this pastor.

I felt so sorry for them, they looked like they were angry with him. He was so sweet, this man, he wasn't just a great puppeteer, but he had a sweet smile, and he was the kind that was really, his strength was in visiting people in the hospital, and he was just excellent at that sort of thing.

Sweet smile, and he walks in, he had that sweet smile going, and he looked in the door, and they were just glaring at him, and one of them, and the sad thing was, one of them was the teacher, the other one was the song director's wife, who was like the right -hand woman in the class, and they looked at each other and said, what do you want, kind of like that, and he smiled, and he said, well, ladies, we'd like to just interrupt your class for a moment and get a photograph.

You know, that sweet smile he had, I can't even fake that, but sweet smile that he had, and the band director, the music director's wife looked at the other one, he was the band director, by the way, at the time, junior high band director, he's also the music director, and he smoked and everything, but anyway, he was a real good model for the children, and his wife looked at the leader of the class and says, next thing you want to know, they'll be wanting to crucify us, and I went, out of her, it was bad.

I felt so sorry for this pastor, but a lot of things happened, like, now that was calm compared to a deacon's meeting, and so like the pastor does something that anybody perceived as wrong, they'd just jump right on him, you know, just like, just lay it out in front of everybody, embarrass him in front of everybody, and rebuke him.

Now, let me give you the Greek definition for this word, rebuke, before we go any further.

Epitomeo, it means to tax upon, and that gives the literal meaning, to censure or admonish by implication, to forbid, to charge, and it's a very, very strong, it's the strongest word in the

Bible for to correct, to censure, admonish, correct, admonish is not the right word, because it's a, admonish is one thing, to rebuke is maybe to give the same information with a very, just a slap in the face, or a punch in the nose, or just, bam, you did that wrong, a cutting, a very cutting way of saying it to the person, okay, you never do that to the pastor.

For one thing, the pastor won't handle that, he'll come right back at you and zap you with some scripture if he knows any, he just, he will not, you will not correct whatever problem you're trying to correct if you do it that way to him, because he has a calling from God to be the leader, it'll work just about as well, ladies, if you try to do that to your husband, if you tried that before, how well does that work?

Come on, raise your hand if it works really well, if that's the best approach for, like you, if your goal really is to get something changed in his life, is that how you approach it?

You did that wrong, you can't do that anymore, does that work? Yeah, he'll be doing that the rest of his life then,

I guarantee you, he's like, you know, I won't give you a family example, never mind, but we don't have any anyway, she's never had to correct me, never.

Now, why is it the case in the home? Because you have an authority issue, the Bible teaches and the man knows in his heart that he's the authority in the home and you can't rebuke the authority, it's just, you don't do that, it's not the way that you correct, there is a way, but that's not the way, same way with a pastor.

Now most that would teach on this passage will leave this exclusively as a verse that says it's teaching that you don't rebuke pastors.

I think we have a bit of an immediate context problem if that's what it's teaching because if that's what it's teaching, then all of a sudden we have female pastors, read it carefully, rebuke not an elder but entreat him as a father and the younger man as a brother, well, if we could stop right there, we'd be safe, but there's another verse, the elder women as mothers, in other words, don't rebuke the elder women but entreat them as mothers, and the younger sisters,

I mean the younger, younger sisters as sisters, don't rebuke them but admonish them as a younger sister if they are pure, that's what it means, if they are pure young men, you don't rebuke them, you admonish them as a younger sister.

Now if we're going to say this is a teaching for pastors, now we have old men pastors and we have young men pastors and we have old women pastors and we have young women pastors.

We know that that's not consistent with the scriptures and it cannot be the case because in our same passage, if we just go back one page to chapter 2, it says, let the women learn in silence with all subjection but allow not a woman to teach or usurp authority over the man.

This whole concept of the elder is that he rules, let me give you a couple of verses about elders and then

I'm going to come back and discuss what might this mean if it's not talking about women preachers, but let's go and let's talk about this rulership or the authority issue for a moment.

Look just in the same chapter here in 1 Timothy chapter 5, go down to verse 17 and we begin to see that the elder is a person who rules.

Now one thing you have to be understanding of in the New Testament, the very word that's used to mean an old person, an elderly person, is the same word that's translated into elder if you mean a pastor.

So the only way you can tell which it is is by the context and sometimes that's even difficult. It's the same way with the word deacon by the way, there are those who teach that there are deaconesses in the early church, that's not true at all because the deacons were all men, but the word deacon is the word diakonos which means servant and there were women servants.

There were women and even the word minister comes from the Greek word servant. There were women ministers if what you mean by that is they were serving in the church.

They were not ministers by our modern word which means a pastor. There were deaconesses if what you mean is female servants in the church, but not if what you mean is a deacon like the men who were deacons that the church elected as deacons.

It doesn't mean that. So there was never any such thing as a female deacon. Now look at this in verse 17, let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor especially they who labor in the word and doctrine.

Now that in the context, the word elder is being used of a pastor, what we in the modern language would call a pastor.

In the Bible, in the King James Bible we call it a bishop, elder, we call it a pastor today.

This is a person who rules the church. Now we have an authority issue here all of a sudden and this is the reason behind why we don't rebuke an elder if what we mean by elder is the pastor.

Let's look at a few more of these. Look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 12, and we beseech you brethren to know them which labor among you and are over you, there's the authority issue, rule over you in the

Lord and those who admonish you and esteem them very highly in love for their works sake and be at peace among yourselves.

You can never bring peace in a church by rebuking an elder. And the whole exhortation here is to know who these people are, to honor them, to esteem them highly because of the work that they do and then to be at peace with one another.

Look at Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 7. Hebrews 13, 7, remember them which have the rule over you who have spoken unto you the word of God, spoken unto you the word of God whose faith follow considering the end of their lifestyle,

Jesus Christ, same yesterday, et cetera. Now drop down to verse 17, obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves because they watch for your soul as they must give account that they may do it with joy and not with grief for that would be unprofitable for you.

This is an amazing verse. It takes you all the way forward in future to the heavenlies, to the judgment seat of Christ and you find yourself there and you find that there's one person that you answer for and that's yourself.

And Jesus will judge each of us according to the works that we did, whether they in this body, whether they be good or evil, the

Bible says. And then I step before the Lord and I answer for myself and I turn to walk away and he says, one moment, come back.

And I said, yes, Lord. And he says, now, I need to talk to you about Russell. I need to talk to you about Anne.

And he goes down and he names every one of you sitting in this church. Every one of the failures you had, the successes, the spiritual growth you had, the carnality you went through, how you came through it.

And he makes me answer for you. Now, would that be fair if he did that, but at the same time did not give me authority to rule over you?

Wouldn't be fair, would it? And that's where we see the biblical rulership of the pastor, whereas in the modern church and especially the

Baptist churches, they rule by committee and vote. And the Bible doesn't teach that because that committee does not have to answer for your soul.

Only one man, and that's the man that God calls to be the pastor, if he brings two pastors or three, they all answer depending on what their particular role in the church under the elder pastor is, or the senior pastor.

So there we see the teaching on it from the scriptures. He says, they watch over your souls. They must give account for how well you do.

And make it be where when they give that account to Jesus, they do it with joy. So all of you, as long as you feel it's the

Lord's will for me to be your pastor, and as long as we feel it's his will for me to be the pastor, view it this way.

You view it as what it would be like today if the rapture occurred today, and we went before the

Lord, and I'm standing there discussing you, what would I be saying?

As he asks me questions, what would your pastor feel about you? It's important that you think about that.

It's part of the reality of our life together. That's one of the reasons you don't rebuke an elder.

Now, there are a few other places in the Bible where it talks about an elder.

Now, let's go back into 1 Timothy, and let's back up to chapter 3 for a moment, and let's discuss the issue of whether it could be a woman or not.

I'll tell you now it could not be, but let's look and see the scriptures that lead us to know this.

Just a few of them. I mean, one of the main ones is found, of course, in 1 Timothy chapter 2, verses 11 through 14, which we already read.

It would be a broach of God's law with respect to authority.

It would be a broach of God's law with respect to the fact that the woman is more easily deceived. It would not be right for her to be in control of the doctrinal issues of the whole church.

The elders should be the leaders in that area, and those reasons are all given right there at the end of chapter 2.

But now, let's go into chapter 3 and discuss this issue of whether or not there could be a female elder in the sense of the word elder meaning a pastor.

First Timothy chapter 3, start with verse 1. This is a true saying.

Now, you have to understand, Timothy is called one of the pastoral epistles, which is where Paul is teaching young Timothy, who is a young elder, teaching him how a church should be ruled.

He's teaching him how to put the church in proper order. That's what this whole book is about. And so he begins to tell him, well, how do you know who can be a bishop or an elder in the church?

And this is a true saying. If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.

A bishop, then, must be blameless, the husband of one wife. Now, if this bishop is married, he is to be married to only one wife, and of course in our church, we tend to believe the historical

Baptist position that that means one wife for life unless the original wife passed away and went on to be of the

Lord, and then he could remarry and still be a pastor. But as far as divorce, that would disqualify, let me put it this way, divorce, remarriage would disqualify him to be a pastor.

That's what we believe. I believe that is the most conservative position. There are those who believe it only means that it's a law against polygamy.

I don't really believe that's what it means, but I believe it means, here, the husband of one wife.

But the key is this. A husband can't be a woman. Well, today they can be, can't they, in America?

But do you see my point? It refers to a man. Then it goes on and says that this person must be vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, able to teach the word, not given to whine.

Now look at this, ladies and gentlemen, I want you to think in verse three and tell me if this could possibly picture a woman.

Some of you may laugh and say, well, yeah, I've known a few, but look what it says. No striker, not greedy, a filthy looter, but patient, now look at this phrase, not a brawler.

How many of you have known brawling women? Well, there may be a few. Ann says,

I've worked with a few down there. But you don't commonly think of a woman as a striker, in other words, someone who likes to get in fist fights, is what this means.

So if you think a woman can be a preacher, you have to accept the premise that God is saying that you can have a woman preacher as long as she doesn't get in fist fights a lot.

Now, how many of you went to elementary school, raise your hand, okay, very good, most of you passed. The common denominator of elementary school is this, the girls, they get mad at each other, they just hate the person for a year, and the next year they're best friends.

The guys, they get mad at each other, they go out on the playground, they bloody each other's nose for probably less than 30 seconds, they get up, hug each other, and they're friends today or maybe tomorrow.

The men are the strikers and the brawlers, not the women. So this is not, this would make no sense if it could leave way for a woman to be a bishop or a pastor or an elder in the sense of a preacher, elder.

Verse 4, one that ruleth well, look at the word his, now let me ask you this, could a woman rule the house under God, now listen to me, be careful, don't just shout out answers unless you're listening.

Can a woman, under God's law, be the ruler of the household? Well she's right if the man's dead, but if you've got a living husband, can that be true?

Who is the ruler? Dad, tell me who the ruler is,

I mean my dad back there, he's not listening to me. Who was the ruler in our house when

I grew up? That's right, that's exactly right. So this could not possibly leave room for a woman to be an elder bishop pastor because it has to be one who rules their own house well, having his children and subjection with all gravity.

Now look at verse 5, if a man, the

Bible is so clear and yet America is so confused about whether women can be preachers or not. In fact, one of the most popular female preachers today,

I don't remember her name but she's on the radio and I've heard a lot of guys tell me they like to listen to her, but the

Bible says at the end of chapter 2, I permit not a woman to teach men. So you gentlemen, just change the channel when she comes on because if you sit under the teaching of a female preacher, you're disobeying

God Almighty and you will have a problem in your life, doctrinally, somewhere down the line if you keep submitting to female teachers and preachers.

Now they can teach women, nothing wrong with that at all, we'll get into that in a moment, but it is impossible for this to be a woman, for if a man know how to rule his own house, this could not possibly be a woman.

How shall he take care of the church of God? If a man can't rule his own house well, how can he possibly take care of the church of God?

Take care of the church of God is the perfect definition for what it means when it says rule. It's in a sense to administrate but it's not really to administrate because it's not a thing, it's not a business, it's people.

If you can't rule your wife and your children and still make a living and still make everything else happen, you don't have your act together well enough to ever rule a church, that's for sure.

So it couldn't possibly be a woman. Verse 6 says, not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride, he fall into condemnation of the devil.

Now let me throw this at you as a proof that elder in the context can be the same as the bishop.

This is obviously talking about a bishop, we see verse 2 says a bishop, etc. He can't be a novice.

As we go into our 1 Timothy chapter 5 section that we're studying today, look down here at verse 22.

Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men's sins, keep thyself pure.

Lay hands suddenly on no man with reference to the elders is identical to chapter 3 where it says let him not be a novice, talking to the bishop.

So it proves that the word elder, the word bishop are sometimes used as synonyms. All right, let's see, we're going down through here, there are several proofs as we've seen that this is certainly not a female.

Now let's see, look at verse 11. This begins to talk about deacons in verse 10 and it says, even so, must their wives be grave, not slanderous, sober, faithful in all things, and it says likewise, where it starts talking about the deacons like the elders, in other words, same kind of rules, similar rules.

So another reason we know this can't be a woman is because it talks about their wives. So they would literally have to be women married to women if a woman can be a preacher.

Even so, must the wives be grave, that means the wives of the elders and the wives of the deacons.

Proves a deacon can't be a woman, by the way. Must the wives be grave, not slanderous, in other words, they don't go around talking about people behind their backs, not gossips, sober, and I hate to say this because it's not true that men don't gossip as well.

But just as you look at, the world looks at things, who do they think of when they talk about a gossip? Do they think of men or women?

As the world thinks of it, they think of women. They picture women in a beauty shop, that's because they've never been in the barber shop, but anyway, men gossip too.

But the world thinks of the woman as a slanderer and the deacon's wife and the pastor's wife,

One point is, if he has such a wife, he's not qualified to be a pastor or deacon.

It cannot be gossips who slander people behind their backs. These wives must be sober, faithful, and all things.

Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, etc., ruling the children well, etc., goes into the deacons.

So there we have proofs that it cannot be a female preacher. Now, let's go back now, let's go back to chapter 5, and you say, well, but the context we're in introduces a problem, because in chapter 5, it says,

Rebuke not an elder, but then it comes back and says, Treat him as a father, and the younger men as brethren, and if we stop there, we could say, well, that elder, the word elder means you have an older preacher, and then you have a case like Timothy that's a younger preacher.

In fact, it's like Paul, never mind, he's laughing, so he had to leave, I'll find out about that later.

I found out about Clarence and him last week, laughing during the service, and I can't believe

Bill still sits in front of him, something happened back there with Paul, you didn't pluck his ear, did you,

Brother Clarence? Okay, alright, just wanted to make sure, yes, that's good.

You say, well, Rebuke not an elder, but then treat him as a father, and the younger men as brethren.

One thing we see here is that Timothy is a younger elder, and so it proves that the word elder is sometimes used to mean pastor, because you can have a young pastor, but you can't have a young old person, so the word elder in the

Bible doesn't always mean an elderly person, however, sometimes it does, because there's only one word for both.

So we come here and we say, okay, this sort of makes sense, we're not supposed to rebuke a man who happens to have the office of the pastor, whether he's an old pastor or a young pastor, we're not to rebuke him, now it's very tempting to rebuke a young pastor.

If we had a young man come in and become, say, an associate pastor, and he's fresh out of Bible school, he's twenty -five, y 'all, imagine, twenty -five, and he gets up behind this pulpit and begins to preach, he's got some things to learn, but we still would have to honor it if it's the word, if it's the word of God, and if he is in God's will and he's walking with the

Lord, we'd have to honor his preaching. If you saw some little things that were missing in his character because of his youth, you're still not supposed to rebuke him, you're supposed to do what?

And treat him, what does it mean again, Bill, you beg him like a little brother, you would go to him with the attitude in your heart, in your mind, you're thinking,

I've just got to plead with him to change this habit because it's hurting him, it's hurting his testimony, it may be hurting the church in some way, how am

I going to get him to change, I can't just go up and say, man, you've got to quit doing that, that's not right, that would be a rebuke.

You have to find a way and a time, and only through prayer and waiting for God to open the door, and if he doesn't, it's not up to you to fix the problem, you know, it's just not up to you, but if God did open the door and this young man's mind was open and you could sense it was and the

Holy Spirit let you know it was, you could plead with him, although you won't use the word, oh, I'll plead with you, you know, it's an attitude, it's just the way you say it, doesn't that make sense?

It's like in your heart, you're begging him and hoping so much he'll listen to you because it's going to help him if he does, that's the attitude you have to have.

Now, let's go into verse 2, if elder always means the pastor, then now we have a problem because the

Bible is now contradicting itself, which means God made a mistake, which is impossible, so we know it can't mean that, so what can it mean?

It would have to contradict at least, oh, 6, 7, 8, or 9, or 10 verses we've already read just today without trying to go through the whole

Bible and show this, it would at least contradict 7, or 8, or 9, or 10 verses, so we know it doesn't mean that this elder woman is a pastor, and it certainly doesn't mean that the younger woman is a young female pastor.

In fact, what you'll be surprised to learn is what God is saying, and I'm not going to have time to prove this for you today, so maybe

Brother Otis will move on down through, and when I get my turn again, I'll come back, and I want to give you these scriptures because I have them here.

It gives a teaching on rebuke that you've probably never seen before, and that is this, let me read it to you, let me paraphrase the passage, and I'm going to paraphrase it in such a way that it fits every other scripture in the

Bible, it doesn't contradict any other Bible verses. Rebuke not an older pastor, or a younger pastor, or for that matter, a younger man, and for that matter, don't rebuke an older woman in the church, and while we're having this study as God speaks and says,

I'm teaching you this, let me say this, don't rebuke any of the younger women if they're pure young women.

So what is it saying? It's saying, don't use the rebuke, hardly ever.

Let me show you where you do use it, go all the way to verse 17, no, let's, for the sake of time, go right to verse 19, against an elder, now this, in my view, when it says the word, and, before the word elder, virtually every time it means the pastor, not all the time.

You have to use something in the context to try to know what it means, but for the sake of argument, let's say this is the pastor, now look what it says, against an elder received not an accusation unless it's before two or three witnesses.

Somebody comes to you and says, I heard that the pastor was doing this, you shouldn't even receive it.

The only way you receive an accusation against a pastor is if there are two or three reputable witnesses that saw it or that know it to be true.

I understand you can't always see something, but you can know, if you have two or three reputable people in the church who come and they know something about the pastor, then you can listen.

If it's one person coming and saying, I heard this, you just don't even listen to it, you just say it's probably from the devil, it's probably not even true, it's the devil attacking our pastor.

That's how you take it, you have two or three reputable people that are witnesses and know this to be true, then you can listen, because you might be able to help.

So look what it says, against an elder received not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses, now you have the two or three witnesses and you've established a fact, though it may be a sad fact, look what it says, them that sin, who's it talking about?

The elder, a pastor that sins, rebuked before the whole church, that others also, that other who?

Other pastors, may also fear. So there is a time to rebuke an elder, there is an exception to the rule, and someone tell me what the exception is, when he is in what, sin, and there are two or three reputable witnesses who have observed it and know it to be a fact.

Now in that case, and I will say that most of the time, this is talking about the kinds of sins that we would consider the biggies, adultery, lying, cheating the church, stealing money, those are what we would think of to start with.

You go down into some of the other things, such as bitterness, if you had, now how would you know?

See that would be a more difficult area, because how can you prove that, you can only sense it. So you would not rebuke before the whole church for something like that, you might just go and talk to the pastor, and entreat him as a brother about things like that.

When it is something that can affect the whole church in an outward way, where his sin is going to affect the testimony of the church and the town, or his ability to minister, and you have two or three witnesses, then you rebuke him, and it says, if that is the case, you do it publicly.

That is hard, isn't it? I know a church in Waco that had a homosexual for a pastor for several years, and it was the first Southern Baptist church that I ever heard of that went charismatic, so he was a charismatic pastor, and he was a homosexual, and they found out about it, and they did not rebuke him publicly, they just let him continue, they talked to him privately, and he said, well,

I won't do that anymore, and they let him continue to be the pastor for another several years, and then he was found out again, and then many of them stood up and said, well, we can forgive him, we want him to continue to be the pastor, and some of them said, no, that is enough, and they got rid of him, and it kind of split the church.

Truth is, he should have been rebuked publicly the first time that it was proven by two or three reputable witnesses, so that other pastors in the whole country could hear about it and fear.

Well, we don't go by the Bible too much anymore. Now, what I want to do, we are out of time, what I want to do with my next time is

I am going to go through and we are going to read every verse, you can go ahead of me if you want to, and look them up, every verse in the New Testament that has the word rebuke in it, and we are going to look at what the circumstances are when the

Bible says you can rebuke, and you are going to be amazed, because it is hardly ever. I mean, when it is, it is certain specific circumstances, like we just read about, where you have a pastor that is found out doing some horrible thing, and it has got to be corrected, you can rebuke him publicly.

There are other examples, but what you are going to find out, in the general life of the church, it is not up to, if there is a time, usually it is the pastor who does the rebuking, but generally, just as Christians, brothers and sisters, we are not to rebuke one another.

Don't rebuke an elder, whether that means a pastor or an old man, don't rebuke a young man, don't rebuke an older lady, don't rebuke a young lady, that is everybody, except the children.

It is an amazing teaching, because in most churches, there are always a few people that are the rebukers, they go around and they will straighten people out, the

Bible says be very careful, if you are going to do that, and treat them, don't rebuke them, see the difference?

It brings peace in the church, and also, listen, if you know anything about human psychology, the human mind, the mind is not open to a rebuke.

So the only time you use a rebuke, is when you are not trying to open their mind, you are exposing them before the whole church, you are correcting, perhaps, a false teacher, and we will look at the specific time, but in general, the teaching is, don't rebuke each other, just don't rebuke each other, and treat one another, in love and in kindness, and with a begging attitude, like,

Lord, I am just praying that they will listen, because it will help them, it will help the church, it will help their testimony, if they will listen.

That attitude, it is all about attitude, when we study these things. So we will get into some specific verses next time, let's pray,

Father, we thank you for your word, and the clarity of it, Lord, help us to be diligent, to bear it out, every verse we need to, when we do studies like this, to study them all in context, to study them all in light of the whole scriptures, letting the

Bible interpret the Bible, and then in the tutorage of the Holy Spirit, and Lord, we thank you that you can give us clarity, and help us not to be confused, as some others are on these issues, and Lord, we pray that you would use us as a testimony, and everybody in the room that would have these scriptures, and know how to use them, should they be called by you, to speak a word to others who don't see things this way, help us to do it in love and in meekness, if we are called to do so.

Lord, go with us now to our own ways, our own homes, protect each family, and we ask you in Jesus' name, amen.