House Rule #7 Select Qualified Elders (1 Timothy 3:1-7) | Adult Sunday School

Good morning, everyone. Good to see each one today. We're glad you're here. Welcome to Kootenai Community Church adult Sunday school class. There are outlines for today, as usual. If you need one, Rick will hand that to you.

Women as Learners and the Creation Order

This morning, we're back in 1 Timothy, this morning moving into chapter 3, house rules for God's church. This is rule number 7, select qualified elders. Before we begin our study, let's commit our time to our Lord and ask his blessing.

Our Father, we do thank you that we have the privilege of being able to gather together in the name of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, to fellowship with one another, to sing praises to you, and to now study your word.

We pray that you would be our teacher this morning, that you would be with us as we move through this passage, that you would teach us what you would have us learn, and that you would help us to be obedient to all that we learn.

And we just ask it in Jesus' mighty name, amen. Well, this morning, before we move into chapter 3, just a brief review of what we looked at last time in chapter 2, verses 11 through 15. We saw last time, starting in verse 11, that Paul commands women to learn.

And really, as we move through this part of the text, we see that, you know, we're moving into chapter 3, so there's a great big 3 there in your Bible. But remember that Paul is probably, he's setting up chapter 3 by what he talks about all the way through from chapter 2 down through 11 through 15, what we saw last time.

And so, by commanding women to be learners in the church, he really is doing a couple of things. One is, he's dealing with what could have been a pretty prominent teaching by the unregenerate rabbis of the day, that because Eve sinned in the garden, women were somehow lesser people than the men were.

And in many circumstances, women were not allowed to be part of the teaching ministry of the church. They weren't allowed to be learners. And we know that this even extended well into the church age, and some churches even divided the churches up into men and women.

But Paul just takes care of that right out of the starting blocks in verse 11 and commands that a woman learn. She is to learn quietly with all submissiveness, but she is to be part of the teaching ministry of the church.

She is to learn. And we know later on, he talks about that she is to also be a teacher in the church, as we know throughout the rest of the pastoral letters. And then he makes this statement in verse 12, I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, rather she is to remain quiet.

Paul clearly prohibits a woman from serving as an elder or a pastor teacher, as we call it in the church. And he gives the reason why in verse 13, probably the focal point of this little passage.

Why?

It's not about her value. It's not about her ability even. She is created in the image of God, just like men are. It's not about what is fair in the culture she lives in. It's not about rights, as we hear so much about.

He goes right straight back to creation, and he just anchors that truth in God's created order, as we saw. It's about God's created order, for, he says, or because Adam was formed first, then Eve. Very simple, very concise.

He doesn't elaborate on it, but then he doesn't have to. When he just goes back to creation, he says, this is the way God created things. That's the end of the argument. Try that argument out today with people, and you'll see how that goes over.

Right?

Well, that tells you something. That tells you that the world and the spirit of the age is way far removed from God's created order and what that means. And then the illustration of what happens when God's created order is violated is in verse 14.

Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. And then he says, yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control.

We saw verse 15, a little bit difficult to discern what that means there, but when you take it in its context and you see what his argument is, yes, she did sin, but she will be saved. And so when Paul anchors this truth in creation, he doesn't let Adam off the hook by any means.

If you turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter five real quick, we can see what Paul does. And then this well-known passage in Romans chapter five, Paul is arguing, of course, that he begins this by talking about what it means to be justified.

We have peace with God, he says. But then as he gets to verse 12, he says, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, that would be Adam, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.

Adam is the head of the race. And so when Adam did not exercise his headship over Eve and in his presence, because it says in Genesis he was there with her, he allowed her to sin, allowed her to be deceived, and then he then becomes responsible for her sin, as we saw.

And this is Paul's argument here. And once again, Paul is anchoring his truth in history, okay? This is a principle that's just critical to see throughout Scripture, that all true doctrine, all biblical truth is anchored in history.

That's what he does with his argument in 1 Timothy about the woman cannot be an elder or a teacher.

Why?

God created it that way. The greatest historical event, of course, is creation. And so all theology, all Scripture, all the Bible, all of God's program stands on creation. It is historic fact. And you're going to see this all through Scripture.

Here's an example right here. Death spread to all men.

Why?

Historic fact. All sinned.

Okay?

Show me a man that's never sinned, right? You can't do it. There's a one-to-one correspondence between every single human being and sin and death,.

Okay?

I mean, unless there's somebody out there that's outside that framework, but I haven't found it. Scripture says they're not there, so we have to understand that. So all biblical truth is built on history, okay?

This is why the genealogies are so important. I know when we come across those, sometimes we think, oh, man, you know, the beget and the beget and the beget and the beget and you sort of flip past that, but they didn't have chromosomal blood work.

They just had genealogies. This anchors that person and that event in history. One more just brief example of that, again from Romans, Paul's salutation in Romans. He says, Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised, an event in history, beforehand through his prophets, real men in history, in the Holy Scriptures, objectively they exist, concerning his son who was descended from David, historic fact, historic person, according to the flesh, and was declared to be the son of God in power, according to the spirit of holiness, by what?

By his resurrection, an event in history. All theology is grounded in actual historic events. And by the way, back to chapter 5, verse 8, but God shows his love for us, in that while we were still sinners, God just felt so good about us.

Does he give some kind of an emotional, psychological argument there?

No.

How do you know that God loves you? Christ died for the ungodly, right? He shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. It's an historic event. So sometimes you might just kind of roll across these statements, but remember, your theology, everything you believe is anchored in historic fact, and the ultimate historic fact, of course, is creation.

This is why creation is so important, and this is why it's such a tragedy and a travesty if contemporary professing Christian theologians somehow compromise on the creation story, because it's not sophisticated and it gives them a little more, you know, credibility in the academic community.

They give up an awful lot. In fact, they give up the rest of the Bible. That's what it amounts to. You give up Genesis 1 and 2 in the creation story, and the rest of the Bible is up for.

Grabs.

That's what it amounts to. That's what's at stake here. So women are not to serve as preaching elders, as pastor teachers in God's church, and it's not about her ability. There are a lot of highly qualified women out there, some brilliant women scholars out.

There.

They teach.

They teach at the graduate level, really smart, and academically qualified, the whole thing. I have read their articles. I've read some of their commentaries. Not one of them is qualified to be an elder in God's church, simply because that's how God made it to be.

And by the way, those who are conservative Bible-believing, highly qualified women theologians out there would agree with that, and they do in their commentaries, okay? So that's real important, just as foundational truth from the Word of God and from what we saw last time.

And therefore, when you see a woman in a preaching position in a church, teaching men, okay, know this. Something has gone wrong behind the scenes, and it's with the men, okay? Yes, she shouldn't be there.

That is sin that she's doing that, but she's just like with Adam and Eve. She sinned, but Adam was in headship over her, and he's held accountable. The men are not exercising headship in those situations, in those churches or denominations or whatever it is.

It's probably also in the home, that sphere of influence, okay? So as we move into 1 Timothy chapter 3, that's the foundation for it. Paul has already dealt with the issue of women in the position of elder within the church, and now he's going to move right into the issue of what does qualify men to be elders, pastor-teachers within the church.

The Office of Overseer as a Noble Task

And on your outline there, so this is Roman numeral one, we have the office. He talks about the office. And we should remember that each one of these issues is here because Paul is making some very necessary corrections to the church situation there in Ephesus, and he's commissioned Timothy to be there, to stay there and do that while Paul's someplace else up in Macedonia.

He's urging Timothy to work out these issues, some very serious problems in Ephesus. And Paul had worked to establish this church. He had spent a lot of time there, a lot of effort. He had trained these elders that were there.

He had been instrumental in their selection, of course, and in educating them, training them in pure doctrine and how to lead the church. And back in Acts chapter 20, verses 28 and 29, he calls the elders of Ephesus to meet.

Him.

He's on his way back down to Jerusalem. And we've looked at this passage several times, but it really is foundational because these are the elders in the churches that Timothy is going to be trying to minister to.

And several years before, Paul had said this to them as he met with them, "'Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.'". Now that word, he's going to use it again here in chapter three.

"'To care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.'". There it tells you the gravity of the responsibility there. "'I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.'".

There's a lot here in this little passage, but one thing we can see here is the responsibility of the elders in the church. They're overseers, and we're going to talk about that word here. What Paul had prophesied that day, that from outside are going to come fierce wolves, but from inside there's going to be perversion and corruption, had come to pass.

Not only had false teachers come into that church to lead people away, but some of those elders had probably perverted the gospel, were teaching false doctrine, false gospel, and so on. And at the top of Timothy's list, the things that he needs to deal with are the false teachers and their false teachings.

Now we looked at that in chapter one. It's right at the top of the list. Probably two of those are named in verse 20 of chapter one, Hymenaeus and Alexander. So Paul was willing to name names. It's kind of considered a little out of fashion nowadays, there's a false teacher, to name a name.

But Paul did, perfectly comfortable with doing that, and he should, and we should as well. And so we move into chapter three now, and he wants to work his way through these issues, plaguing the churches at Ephesus.

Remember, these are probably house churches. And it only makes sense that he's going to deal with the situation of elders, those who.

Lead.

Probably the most critical area of correction that Timothy has to deal with. This may be the most important thing he has to focus on here. As the elders go, as the leaders go, so goes the flock, right?

The sheep tend to follow the shepherds. That's why it's so critical. The false teachers of Ephesus that he talked about, they lead people astray. They're not content with just coming into a church and teaching false doctrine.

They want to gather a following. You see this all the time, right? Some guy who's a false, or gal, got to include, who's a false teacher who is put out of their church because of some heresy or something that they've done wrong or teaching wrong.

They don't just disappear. They just don't go off over the horizon and they're gone forever. They're only gone for a little while. Pretty soon they'll pop up someplace else, right? Because Jesus told them to plant a new church, and there they are.

They have to have influence. They have to have a following, and this is what happens. So selecting qualified elders is critical to dealing with them in the church and for making sure the church is trained to recognize them and so on.

But what we see here, first of all, in verse one, he talks about the office, the office. The office is to be desired, it is a good work, and it is God's design. He says in verse one of chapter three, the saying is trustworthy.

If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. This is one of the five trustworthy statements that we find in the pastoral letters. We saw the first one in 115, the saying is trustworthy.

And there's, if you're taking notes, this one here in 3 .1, he says it again in chapter 4, verse 9. He says it again in 2 Timothy 2 .11 and then in Titus 3 .8. So five times in the pastoral letters, he says this is a trustworthy saying.

Probably a saying that was well known among the churches, had been taught and repeated over and over again to the point that people understood it. It's kind of an axiomatic truth. And what is that? If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.

So the first thing he says is, it's to be desired. It's a work that is to be desired. The person should want to do that. If you remember back in Acts 20, what does he say? The Holy Spirit has made you overseers.

So it has to be a man who is led by the Spirit to want to desire to do the work of an elder. Of course, it comes internally. I know it's historically in the church, it's popular to talk about a call. I got called.

You know, I answered the call to preach or something. But in my opinion, that's a really tough thing to document, to show in Scripture. What I see is that a man has an internal compulsion to serve the Lord or to preach.

It comes from within. So in other words, it's a work of the Spirit. And so this is what he says. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. When he says anyone there, someone might say, oh, see, there you go, women, because it's anyone, right?

Well, no, Paul's already dealt with that up in verse 11 through 15. And anyone then has to include just men. And I think what he's doing here, he's going back and he's referencing what he said back in verse 7.

The fact that he is a preacher and an apostle, a teacher of Gentiles in faith and truth. The early church was Jewish, right? Day of Pentecost, and the church probably grew among Jews, but very soon it moved out into the Gentile word and began to include Gentiles.

And I think he's talking about here anyone, Jew or Gentile. The man does not have to be Jewish to be an elder in the church. He should also, it could also be a Gentile as well. And the office of overseer, the word office doesn't actually occur there.

It's actually if anyone desires oversight of the church. He says that it is to be desired and it is also a good work. The word good there is a word that appears over 20 times in 1 Timothy. It means excellent in nature and its characteristic, intrinsically or inherently good.

He says that about the law back in 1 Timothy 8. We know that the law is good. And so to serve as in the office of an elder is a good work and it's also work. Don't miss that, okay? To do that is work and it's hard work.

Ask the elders if you don't think that's true. It requires a lot of time spent, a lot of effort, and it's also highly stressful. When you realize the responsibility that you're over people to care for them that Christ purchased with his own blood, that's a tremendous responsibility.

So it's a work, but it's a good work. It's inherently good. Well suited for its ends is another way to look at that. And Paul says it's a trustworthy saying. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble or good work.

And then we move into Roman numeral 2. Well before we do that, let's look at this little issue of a plurality of godly men because that's important as well. It's God's design. And if you want just a good working definition, I think, now you could probably come up with another one.

This may not be the only one. I think a good working definition to the question, who is to lead the church or the churches? I think a good working definition is just a plurality of godly men. A plurality of godly men.

It looks like there's more than one. Back to Acts chapter 20, prior to when he gave that little address, it says in Acts 20 verse 17 that he called the elders of the church, plural. Elders of the church of Ephesus.

In 1 Timothy 5 .17, which is another passage in 1 Timothy that deals with elders from the perspective of how the church is to treat them, it says, let the elders, plural, who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and.

Teaching.

This is in the context of remuneration for their work. Double honor is in the context of money, what they're paid. But notice, it's plural. The elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.

So there's multiple elders, but there's also multiple roles, even within an elder board. Not every, there's not a cookie cutter type of situation. So you have more than one, and it's also more than one, sort of a division of labor, you might say, even in a given church, in a given elder board.

Titus 1 .5, again, Titus is where Paul has left Titus on Crete. Very important because you can sort of compare the two requirements there. And in Titus 1 .5, Paul tells Titus, appoint elders in every town.

So plural, it seems to be plural. Multiple references also to leadership in Acts chapter 11. They're called apostles and elders. And even when Paul writes to the Philippian Christians in his salutation to them in Philippians 1 .1, he says, Paul and Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi with the overseers and deacons, plural.

And he uses the word, the same word that Paul uses here in 1 Timothy, apeskapas, who is an overseer, and diakonos, or deacons. So even there, you can see there's elders, plural, and deacons, plural, in Philippi when Paul writes them.

It's just the way it was. And he uses the exact same word here. But what we're going to see is there's other words that are used to describe this office that are basically used synonymously with what he says here.

So there's a plurality of godly men. He's going to deal with the godly issue in the rest of this passage, but it's men. Already dealt with that in 11 through 15 of chapter 2. The negative command that a woman is not to teach or exercise authority over a man.

And teaching the word of God is the exercise of authority in a church. Doesn't matter who is doing it. The authority is not with the individual. The authority is with Scripture. This is why we are commanded to pass the Scripture down.

We're not passing down an office. We're passing down the authoritative word of God within the church. And so a plurality of godly men. I think that's a good working definition of who is to lead the church.

All of the requirements are directed to men. The original disciples were all men. The original apostles and all of the apostles were all men. And here the elders are all men. Everything in all of these requirements in 1 Timothy and also in Titus and elsewhere in Scripture is all directed to men.

You could look at other passages and I mentioned Titus 1 -5. Listen to Titus 1 -5. Now remember, Titus is left on Crete. So Crete's the island that's southeast of Italy out there in the Mediterranean.

But Ephesus is up in western, what is now Turkey. So it's really important to see. You've got two different geographic positions and two different cultures. But listen to how similar this is here. This is why I left you in Crete.

This is Titus. So that you might put what remained in order and appoint elders in every town as I directed.

You.

Requirements. If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife and his children are believers. That could also be translated faithful. 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.

So in both Titus 1, 5 here through 11, and as we're going to see in chapter 3 of 1 Timothy, he uses the word above reproach two times. This is a very important characteristic of the elder. And it's the first thing we're gonna see in the qualifications.

His reputation in the church is to be above reproach. And what you see is he uses this here. He used it twice in 1 Timothy. And he uses it here twice in verses 2 through 7. First thing, above reproach.

And then he ends this in verse 7, above reproach. That's a different word, but it's essentially the same thing. Many of the English translations translate it the same way. But that sort of, they sort of serves as bookends in his description of what an elder is supposed to be.

It's a description of his reputation in the church. And you can take all of these things and sort of categorize them, you know, into categories, which I've done here. His reputation in the church, his marriage as a measure.

You can sort of bring them all under this single concept of being above reproach. It's the overarching qualification for an elder in God's church. It is observable, it's objective, and it gathers up all of these other qualities.

And what we see here, it's kind of interesting, there's only three verses here in this passage. Verse 1 is a sentence, I mean three sentences. In our translations, you know, seven verses, but there's really three sentences.

Verse 1 is a sentence, verse 7 is a sentence, and 2 through 6 is a single sentence. So this is sort of a list, okay? Bible teachers and expositors like lists, okay? Compared to the exegetical and interpretive difficulties of this last passage, lists kind of a refreshing thing.

But even though they're not without their interpretive issues, it's a little easier when you have a list, you know? And so this is the list. It starts and ends with above reproach, so that kind of gathers everything up.

But we can walk through these and see. But you can sort of categorize them in certain categories here. His reputation in the church above reproach. Notice that it does not mean without reproach, okay?

Very important. He's not talking about a man who is sinless. That's impossible, right? It's possible for elders or deacons, and it's possible for all the rest of us as well. Absolutely impossible. He has to be above reproach.

The Apostle Paul was reproached all over the place, was he not? He was accused of all kinds of things. And the only thing he was guilty of that he was accused of was preaching the Word of God. Preaching and teaching, right?

But he was accused of being an apostate. He was accused of preaching for money. He was accused of all manner of things, because the people that he encountered hated the Word of God. But he was above that reproach.

And of course, the supreme example, of course, would be Jesus Christ, right? He was not without reproach. People hated him. They slandered him. They accused him of doing miracles by the power of the devil.

All kinds of things, even all the way to up through and to including his crucifixion. You remember, the people were just slandering him and cursing him as he hung on the cross, and even both of the thieves, it says, were reproaching him.

There's a lot said in Scripture about the reproach of Christ and what that is. He had a lot of reproach, and he still does today. Always above it. Above it every single time. The word actually means, and it's kind of a negative frame here, above reproach, unable to grab a hold of him, unable to grab him.

So it's like all of the accusations and the slander for being a preacher or a teacher of God's Word can't grab a hold of him. He's above it. If a man stands for the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and desires to live for Christ and his church, he will have reproach.

He'll be slandered. He'll be accused of all kinds of things. Remember in John 15, I think we looked at this passage a few weeks ago. In John chapter 15, Jesus is in the upper room. He's preparing his disciples for his departure the next day, and he's beginning to sort of prepare them and warn them.

And he says this, John 15, 18, and 19. If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

So we can come back around and apply this again. When you see professing teachers, pastors, Christians who want to be accepted by the world, they want to be intellectually approved by the world, this verse has application to.

Them.

We are not here to please the world. The world is the enemy of God and the enemy of the church. And an absolutely blistering statement by James in James 4 .4, James just really hammers this concept of trying to please the world, trying to make the world like you, and maybe if the world likes me, the world will like Jesus.

That's not going to happen. Listen to what James says. He writes this to professing Christians. You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Pretty plain, pretty stark. Don't do it. Don't try it. Elder is to be without reproach, above reproach, but not without reproach. He's going to have reproach. He's going to be slandered. He's going to be ridiculed.

He's going to be laughed at and mocked. In 2 Timothy 3, Paul's recounting his persecutions and his sufferings to Timothy. And he says in verse 12, indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

That's not just true for elders and leaders in the church. That's true for every professing believer in Jesus Christ, okay? And so an elder in God's church must be above reproach. He may have all kinds of slander and lies and all that.

But he's going to. If he's a man of God, if he's standing for the truth, preaching and teaching the Word of God, he's going to have all kinds of ridicule. And you know as well as I do nowadays, I mean with social media and everything, you take a stand for Christ and there's going to be all kinds of opposition to it and everything.

And so, but he has to be above that. He cannot be guilty of it. And in 2 Timothy 5, the way, 1 Timothy 5, he is to be considered above reproach or accusation. Back to that passage again in 1 Timothy 5, do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses.

And he basically goes back to Deuteronomy 19, which required that if you're going to accuse somebody of something, there has to be two or three witnesses. That's a biblical standard for accusations. So if somebody you hear is accusing an elder of something, you could just say, wait, time.

Out.

Do you have two or three witnesses? And if they don't, say, then we're done talking, okay? Don't listen to an accusation against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. That's the biblical standard.

They are also held to a very high account, by the way, as for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all so that the rest may stand in fear. And he says, in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, do this without any kind of partiality.

So elders are held to a very high standard, but they're also held above reproach. They're supposed to be above reproach. They're not, you're not to entertain accusations or gossip or things about them except on the evidence of two or three witnesses, but they are held accountable in scripture.

That's a great balance of the word of God. They don't get to just sin with impunity, right? Not one of us does or should. So his reputation in the church, the overarching requirement is that he be above reproach.

And then B, his marriage. His marriage. That's really important. It is not required that an elder be married, but if he is married, Paul says, you can look at his marriage as a measure of his ability to lead the church.

This is probably the major interpretive focal point of argument concerning this issue. Often people want to wrangle, well, is it about the number of marriages or is it about the quality of his marriage?

The issue of divorce, of course, comes up in this. And then when you want to talk about divorce, you have to talk about, does the Bible allow for divorce or does it not? Does it, and if so, when did that divorce take place?

Was it before he was saved? After he was saved? And all of those issues need to be worked through. And very often, since these questions often do come up, elder boards will get together and they'll work through these things and they'll create a statement or a position paper and that kind of thing to be able to hand to people and say, here's what the board of this church has decided about these issues.

And that's a good thing to do because these questions do come up and that way you can have a unified response to this by the board. But really, the key here, I think, is that it says he is to be a one woman man.

This is very same construction here is used in Titus 1 .6. It's also a requirement for deacons in the rest of chapter three. It is also a requirement, not that she be a husband of one man, but that she be a wife of one man.

Same construction is used in chapter five, verse 10, because it's talking about widows who are to be put on the roll of the church to receive financial help from the church. It says she is to have a good reputation if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of saints, has cared for the afflicted, has devoted herself to every.

Good work.

Oh, verse nine, that a widow be enrolled if she is not less than 60 years of age, having been the wife of one husband. Virtually the identical construct there, a one man woman, but the elder is to be a one woman man.

He is to be totally committed to his wife. He is to be faithful to his wedding vows and faithful to her. He cannot be distracted by other women, and he's also careful about how he relates to other women.

And, of course, all these other considerations have to be brought into the picture as well, even whether or not he is a widower. I've only known of one elder who took this idea that he is to be a one woman man.