The Church (Part III)

Okay, let's pray. Father, we love you. We thank you. We ask now that you would quiet our hearts. Help us to focus on your word, to focus on the study of your sacred scriptures, to learn and to gain insight and understanding about the offices of your church.

Help me to love you. As I open up the word and teach from it, help all of us to love you well, to worship you well by hearing and committing to understanding and obeying what we hear. And Lord, I pray that you would accompany this time with a special unction, a special power by your Holy Spirit, or that it would be a time of blessing for all of us.

And Lord, a time in which you are glorified and honored and lifted up in our hearts. So we give you thanks for tonight. We give you thanks for your word and help us now to worship in it. We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Why Biblical Church Government Matters

So tonight we're looking at the third part of our study on the doctrine of the church, and that is the doctrine of biblical church leadership or the study of biblical church government. And even as we begin, so what I want to do with our format last time around, I said I wanted it to be interactive, and I was already on the rails of just teaching.

I prepared to teach, and then when we had a smaller group, I thought, well, we'll do interactive, but it didn't work out that well. Tonight I will try to stay on the more interactive route. So I've left, specifically left time for conversation and for dialogue, and so I'm hoping that when I do ask a question, it's not just rhetorical.

I am looking for a response, so feel free to respond. Feel free to bring scripture to support your answer if you have that, or to ask a question just in the middle. So we want it to be far more interactive than previously.

So in that spirit, I'm going to start with a question rather than with an introduction. And the question is this. Why is biblical church government important? So why is leadership in the church, faithful to the scriptures, important for the life of the church?

Is that rhetorical?

No, that's a real question.

Yeah, absolutely.

So God is God of order. To act outside of his word is a danger to the flock, if I were to summarize that. Any other thoughts as to why church leadership matters, why biblical church leadership matters?

Okay, if any other ideas come to you, just interrupt me. You're absolutely right, Steve. Biblical church leadership really does matter, and the reason why biblical church leadership really does matter is because the church of God matters.

The pillar and the buttress of the truth matters. Truth matters, and the Lord loves truth, and the Lord loves his church. And that's why we're devoting an entire evening to the study of biblical church leadership, is because it matters.

And I really want us to gain a good grasp of that, and in addition to gaining a good grasp of that, I want there to be that expectation amongst our people that we are looking for, we are expecting biblical church leadership.

I say here the value of biblical church leadership in the life of the local church cannot be overstated. Throughout the entirety of the Bible, we see God, who is always concerned for the character and conduct of his people, he has always placed a special emphasis on the character and the conduct of the leaders of his people.

And we see that in the laws that were given to Moses and the nation of Israel, laws concerning the prophets and the priests and the kings and the judges. We see that in the Gospels, even in our Lord Jesus' rebukes to the leaders of that day, and maybe most notably, I think we see that in the rebukes that God issues to those who are in leadership in the Old Testament.

I think my mind goes specifically to the prophets. So if you think about what God said to the prophets or through the prophets to the people of Israel, this is just a small sampling. So I just went in there and picked out a few.

A few of them are from Jeremiah. You can follow along or you can just listen as I read them. But Jeremiah 2, verse 8. So this is the Lord speaking through Jeremiah, says, The priests did not say, Where is the Lord?

And those who handle the law did not know me. The rulers also transgressed against me. And the prophets prophesied by bail and walked after things that did not profit. So you see the leaders, they did not ask, Where is the Lord?

They didn't even know the Lord. The rulers sinned against him. The prophets prophesied by false gods. And they walked after things that were worthless, ultimately. If you turn a couple chapters over to Jeremiah 5, in verse 31, it says, The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule at their direction, so according to their own authority.

The priests ruled according to their own authority. And this is, how condemning is this? He says, My people love to have it so. So not only did the prophets have false prophecy, not only did the leaders just do whatever was right in their own eyes, but the people loved to have it that way.

Jeremiah 10, it says this in verse 12,. For the shepherds are stupid and do not inquire of the Lord. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flock is scattered. So at this point, is he talking about literal shepherds with literal sheep?

The answer is no. He's talking about those who were tasked with the care of God's people, those who were to lead and to guide and to feed and to protect and to care for the people of God as faithful shepherds, as one might expect a faithful shepherd who would tend for their own sheep.

In Ezekiel, this is the last example I'll give from the book of Ezekiel, in chapter 34, the word of the Lord came to me. He says, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, so against the leaders of Israel, prophesy and say to them, even to the shepherds,.

Thus says the Lord, Ah, shepherds of Israel, who have been feeding yourselves, should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep.

And then listen to this example, so this is in verse 4, Ezekiel 34, verse 4, The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them.

So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd. So there are shepherds, but there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. So this is just a sampling, there are many more passages in the Old Testament where we see this condemnation of the leaders of Israel, and the reason being is because God really does care about the leadership of His people.

He cares about the shepherds because He cares about the sheep. He cares about the flock, the Good Shepherd, the Good Shepherd who gave Himself for the sheep, cares about His people, and so therefore He cares about the leaders.

Christ said at one point to the scribes and Pharisees, He said, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

And so leaders do have an impact on their people. Biblical leadership matters because the quality of life and the quality of holiness of the leaders, or sorry, the quality of life and the quality of the holiness of God's people will never surpass that or rarely surpasses that of the leaders.

Like shepherds are like sheep for the most part. And so stupid shepherds make for scattered flocks, wicked clergy make for corrupt converts, false prophets foster false assurances. And so it's an important topic tonight.

Biblical Church Government and Local Church Autonomy

So we're going to get into the statement itself. So in your handout you'll see at the very top it says there, this is our statement on the church, part three. We believe that the church is to be shepherded, cared for, and protected by a plurality of qualified elders while deacons serve and care for the practical needs within the community of believers.

So that's our statement. And what I've done really cleanly is broken it up into three different sections. So we're going to look at biblical church government. That's our first point. What is biblical church government?

What does it look like? Who makes the decisions? What are the offices? We'll look at the office of the elder. So what is an elder? What are the functions of the elder? How are the elders qualified for that role?

And then we'll look at the office of the deacon. And again, who are they? What is their function? And who qualifies to be a deacon? So we'll look at first biblical church government. And so depending on traditions where you guys have come from, Nicole and I, we have a bit of a storied past, and so we've experienced some of these, but there are a variety of church governments, some of them more pure, some of them less pure.

And so what we'll do is we'll just do a survey, a 35 ,000-foot survey of some of those different government forms, and then I want to pose a question about which one of them is really biblical. So there's the Presbyterian form, if you're familiar with the Presbyterian form of government.

It starts with the congregation. You'd have a congregation who amongst themselves elect elders, and those elders would then be part of a session of elders, and that session of elders would be part of a presbytery, which would look after a number of other churches, and then elders from that would be part of the general assembly.

And so almost like a diocese or something like that, you'd have a group of churches that are overseen by a council of elders from within the congregation, so they move upward. So congregation, session of elders, presbytery.

If you want to look at it, it's an organizational chart, and then a general assembly, so kind of from the bottom up. Yeah, please. Not quite, because what would happen is members of the general assembly and members of the presbytery would have leadership over the churches below them, and so there would be several congregations under a presbytery, and then even more under a general assembly.

And so in some ways there is a congregational element because the leadership is coming from the congregations, but there are people from other churches making decisions for your church, if that makes sense.

The Anglicans, or the Episcopalian if you're in the United States, are very similar but almost upside down, and so at the very top they would have archbishops. So an archbishop would look after a few bishops, and then a few bishops would look after rectors, and then those rectors would look after congregations.

And so it's more of a top-down hierarchy. And so, same thing, your congregation isn't necessarily making decisions for your church. That would be made by a rector who is overseen by a bishop who is overseen by an archbishop.

The form that we're probably most familiar with, Steve, is the congregational form of government. So congregational form is where government happens within the congregation, but there are still several elements of congregational government.

So there's a single pastor rule, or a single pastor with a board of deacons as a rule. And I'm just naming a couple of the popular ones. There are other varieties. Or a congregational leadership by pure democracy, not dictatorship.

Pure democracy. There are some, I'm sure, by pure dictatorship as well. But pure democracy, where every decision is voted on by the church in a members' meeting or a business meeting. And there's congregational leadership by a plurality of elders.

So that's, like I said, a 35 ,000-foot flyby. There's the Anglican, where it's an archbishop-bishop, Presbytery, where General Assembly, Presbytery, a session of elders, and then congregational in a variety of forms.

But never mind what other people do. In terms of the Bible, can you guys think of, what does biblical church leadership look like, biblical church government look like according to the Scriptures? That's a real question.

Okay, autonomy of the local church. So congregational, so the government happens within the congregation.

Okay, yeah.

Amy, can I put you on the spot? Do you have any thoughts there yet? If you don't, that's fine, too. Titus 2? Okay, yeah. Titus, in Titus chapter, well, I think it's Titus 1, verse 5, starts. We're going to go there again, but it's okay to go there now as well.

So, and I think this does give us, actually, a good hint into it. So Titus 1, 5, Paul writes to Titus, this is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order and appoint elders, plural, in every town.

So plurality of elders, excuse me, in each town as I directed you. And then he gives the qualifications. We'll get to the qualifications. We'll come back to that. But maybe I'll put your two answers together.

I think that a biblical church government, this is certainly what Grace Fellowship Church believes in and teaches, is that a biblical church government is a congregational government, meaning that it is autonomous, it stands alone, and so there is no bishop or archbishop or presbytery or assembly or any other synod or council that oversees us, but that each church is ultimately tasked with the care of their own flock, with the decisions, with the leadership, to use even the word, with the rule of the church.

And that's done not by one man. It's not done by one man surrounded by a board of deacons. It's not even a democracy within the congregation, but it's a shepherding, it's a leading, it's a ruling by a plurality of elders.

And there's biblical basis for it. And so we'll look at just a couple of those things. So if you want to turn to Acts chapter 14, Acts chapter 14 and verse 21. So there are mention of elders prior to this, but this is really the first major passage where we see the office of elders in the Bible, maybe detailed in more length.

And so Paul and Barnabas, if you remember, had gone on their first missionary journey. So they left Antioch. They had moved out. They had gone through places like Lystra and Iconium and Antioch. And through that area, they preached the gospel.

Believers or people came to faith and became believers in Christ. And then on their way back, as they were going back to Antioch, to their starting point, it says this in verse 21. And so when they had preached the gospel to that city that had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, to Iconium, and to Antioch.

And this is what they did. They strengthened the souls. So strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God.

This is just after Paul had been stoned. So through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God, verse 23. And when they had appointed elders for them in every church. So elders, plurality in every church, with prayer and fasting.

They committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed. And so elders were appointed in each church, a plurality of elders. And then they committed them to that church. They completed the task. Just like you had pointed out, Amy, in Titus 1, they put what remained into order.

As Paul said to Titus, and to put what remained into order, namely, the appointing of elders in every town. And then we see that worked out, too, even in Paul's letters. So I'm not sure if you guys have ever noticed, but in Paul's letter to the book, sorry, to the church at Philippi, to the Philippians, he wrote in Philippians 1 .1, he greets the saints that are in Philippi, and he says, with the overseers and deacons.

So he points out the leaders of that particular church, the overseers and the deacons. Or in 1 Timothy 4, verse 17, it's another one. Sorry, guys, if I'm moving too fast, just let me know. But Paul was writing to Timothy, and he uses a word here that I want to highlight.

So 4 .17, he says, Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor. And so there's a ruling element to the leadership of the elders in the church. And Paul used the Greek word proistemi, which means to preside, to superintend, or to act as the guardian of.

And so that is the role of the elders in the local church, is to care for, to preside, to superintend, to act as the guardians of the church. The elders are to rule well over the local church with great care, with diligence, and then they're going to be held to account for that leadership.

So just as those elders in the cities, in Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, were commended to that service, Hebrews 13 tells us that the church is to obey their leaders, to submit to them. And it says, For they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account.

So that's Hebrews 13 .17. So they will have to give an account for their leadership. And so the exhortation is obey, submit to those elders as ones who must give an account for your souls. And what a fearful thought that is.

For anyone who aspires to the office of an elder, to have to give an account for the souls of the people under your care is a fearful thing. Reminds me of the passage in James, Not many should aspire to be teachers, for they will be judged with greater strictness.

So with greater responsibility comes greater accountability. And this is something that John MacArthur said about this. So John MacArthur and the elders at Grace Community Church, they crafted a statement on this.

And they said, Because of its heritage of democratic values and its long history of congregational church government, modern American evangelicalism, and we could say Canadian evangelicalism in there, often views the concept of elder rule with suspicion.

The clear teaching of the Scripture, however, demonstrates that the biblical norm for church leadership is a plurality of God-ordained elders. And only by following this biblical pattern will the church maximize its fruitfulness to the glory of God.

So the church is to be ruled by elders and assisted by deacons. And we'll hear more about that. So now let's talk about the office of an elder. And again, I want to open this up and ask, What is an elder?

So in the church, what is an elder? What does an elder do? Who is an elder? And I'll just leave that open if you guys want to tell me what you think or what you know. Undershepherds. Undershepherds caring for God's flock, not their own.

Stewards, in a sense.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Any other thoughts as to what elders are? Teachers. Yeah, that's a function of the elders.

Yeah.

Well, you guys have, it's interesting, you guys have kind of said something that complements each other. So we'll go there. So the Bible uses three terms primarily to describe elders. And in some traditions, people view those three different terms as three different offices.

And you'll see why that is as we go through. But the three different terms that we typically see or that we always see, I guess, in terms of the scriptural usage is the term, if we're going to use the English terms for now, the term elder, the term overseer, and the term shepherd or pastor.

And so those are the three main titles that are given to elders. And I'm going to submit and argue and hopefully back up that all three of those terms describe one office. So three different vantage points of the same office rather than three terms for three different offices.

The Three Titles of Elder, Overseer, and Shepherd

So the very first term that we see used in scripture referring to this office is the term elder. And that word elder appears in scripture referring to the office at least 20 times. And then I think I did count well over 40 times, I think throughout the New Testament, but at least over 20 times referring to the office itself.

And in the biblical and the cultural... Oh, you want to ask a question there, Steve? Okay, I was going to say in the biblical and cultural usage of the term elder, it really denotes someone who is older, an elder man, a senior, someone who is experienced, a wise old man, or maybe in a Jewish context, someone who is a member of the great council, the Sanhedrin.

But you go ahead and ask your question and I'll... We're going to get there, yeah. That'll be the next one. Overseer or bishop, depending on your translation. But so the office of elder, though, if you were to look at it scripturally, it implies, or the term elder implies maturity, it implies experience, it implies wisdom, something that ought to come.

It doesn't always come, but something that ought to come with old age. And so we won't go there again, but we saw that in Acts 14 .23, when Paul and Barnabas appointed elders. And the Greek word that's used there is the word presbyteros.

So much like Presbytery or Presbyterian, presbyteros is the Greek word for elder. So we see it in Acts 14 .23. We see it in 1 Timothy 5. So in verse 17, for instance, let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor.

So those are the presbyteros. In verse 19 of the same chapter, so 5 .19, do not admit a charge against an elder, presbyteros, except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. There's some accountability, like what we were talking about before we started the study.

Or in James 5 .14, where James says, is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders. Let him call for the presbyteros, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. So here we see in that, like I said, used 40 times or over 40 times, sometimes simply referring to older men, simply referring to someone who is older than a younger person, but at least 20 times used in the New Testament to describe the actual office of an elder.

So Steve, the next word that you were asking about, the next title, is the title overseer. Like I said, if you're reading the King James, the title bishop, which can be confusing, right? That's where you see some of the, what I would say, the less pure versions of church government come from, where there's a bishop or even an archbishop that oversees the churches.

But I'll show you in a little bit why I think that refers to elders as well. So in this term, the idea of an overseer, it was used culturally as someone who was a caretaker or a manager or a superintendent, someone that had oversight over something.

And I like the Strong's Bible Dictionary definition. They said an overseer culturally was charged with the duty of seeing that things be done by others, so something that's done by others and done rightly.

And so it was an overseer's task, what you'd think of of a manager, someone that has oversight. I think about a project manager at a construction site or something like that. There are people under them, and they are providing direction to make sure that the bridge is built, that it's built on time, and that it's built safely so that when the first truck comes across, it doesn't collapse.

And so that is an overseer. We see that in Acts 20. So when Paul is meeting with the elders at Miletus, so the Ephesian elders in Miletus, it uses that term episkopos, so overseers. So you have elders are the presbyteros, overseers are the episkopos.

And so Acts 20, Paul's talking to the overseers of the church in Ephesus. In Philippians 1 -1, when he greets the saints and the overseers and deacons, again, he's greeting the episkopos, so the overseers or the bishops.

And then 1 Timothy 3, which is probably the first text that we think about when we think about elders, because it lays out the qualifications of elders. 1 Timothy 3 -1, if anyone aspires to the office of overseer, to the office of episkopos, he desires a noble task.

So we have the elders, the presbyteros, the overseers, which are the episkopos, and then lastly, the third image that we see or the third term that we see is the term shepherd or pastor, depending on your translation in the scriptures.

And that comes from the Greek word poimen, so P-O-I-M-E-N, poimen. And if we refer back to our Part 1 on our study, referring to the metaphors of the church, we remember that one of the agricultural metaphors of the church was the flock, right?

The church is the flock of God. It is God's flock of sheep. And so we see this pointed out in a number of different texts. This is one that is probably more argued than the other two. There are some that think that elders or overseers should never be called pastors.

While I prefer the term elder, I think that we can make a case that to call someone a pastor isn't patently wrong. So a good text to see that in is Ephesians 4, verse 11. You guys will see there's a lot of crossovers, so we've looked at some of these now a couple weeks in a row.

But Ephesians 4, verse 11 says,. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry. And so many would argue that these are gifts.

I would agree. Others have argued through church history that these are also offices. There certainly was the office of an apostle. There certainly were at times in redemptive history the office of a prophet, perhaps even an evangelist.

Some would argue that Timothy had the office of an evangelist. And then shepherds and teachers, because of the Greek word usage, many people put those together, and so they would say that there are apostles, there are prophets, there are evangelists, and there are shepherd teachers.

And the Greek word that's used there for shepherds is that word poimen, where we get the term either shepherd or pastor. Again, I'm always bringing up the Ephesian elders in Miletus, but again, it's like we're bouncing back and forth.

Acts 20, verse 28, Paul says, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock. Hey, kids, who cares for a flock, a flock of sheep? What would they be called? A shepherd. They'd be called a shepherd.

And so it makes sense for Paul to say to the elders, to the overseers there, to pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock because they are fulfilling the function of a shepherd to the church.

And then perhaps most clearly we see it in 1 Peter 5. In 1 Peter 5, in chapter, sorry, 1 Peter 5, in verse 1, Paul says to the elders there, so I exhort the elders among you, so I exhort the presbyteros among you as a fellow presbyteros, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed, shepherd the flock.

And that term is poimeno, which is the verb form of poimen. So essentially saying pastor the flock, shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.

And then in verse 4, and when the chief shepherd, that's the word archipoimen, so when the archshepherd, if there's room for one archpastor in the scriptures, I would say it is Jesus Christ because he is the archipoimen.

When the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. So three terms, one office. There's the elders, there's the overseers, and there's the pastors and shepherds. Now, Steve, I'm going to pose this question to you, just because you're in these situations sometimes.

What if someone were to come to you and say, no, no, no, no, these are different offices. How can you say that this is only one office? There's three different terms used. Do you think you'd have a response?

And sorry if I put you on the spot. Three separate offices.

Yeah, there you go.

I was going to let you get there. Yeah, so one is given to the practical needs. Others give themselves to the word and prayer, right? And then you see it again, like again when Paul writes to the Philippians, he doesn't address the elders and the overseers and the bishops, or sorry, the elders, the bishops, and the shepherds, and the deacons, but the overseers and the deacons.

A really good one, I think, that clears it up really quite nicely is in Titus chapter one. Amy, you had pointed us there earlier. And in Titus chapter one, you see that Paul actually uses the terms interchangeably.

And you see it, so if you have an ESV, for instance. I have an ESV. You can see it very clearly in the ESV. He says, this is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order and appoint elders.

So that presbyteros word, appoint elders in every town as I directed you. And then if we fast forward to verse seven. So he's talking about, he's talking about the qualifications of an elder. And then he says in verse seven, for an overseer, so for an overseer, as God's steward, must be above reproach.

And so he's using that term episkopos and that term presbyteros interchangeably. And then again, we won't go there, but first Peter five, again, you see that the elders are to do the work of a shepherd, that they're to, the elders, the presbyteros are to poimeno, they're to shepherd the flock of God that is among.

And so you see these terms used interchangeably. And I think very clearly in the biblical church government form, you see that there are two offices, elder and deacon, overseer and deacon. And so we've already started to edge into that.

But day to day, as a member of the flock, as a member of Christ's church, what should we be looking for from the overseers in terms of their day-to-day function? What does an elder do from day to day in their service to God and to the sheep?

They read their Bible and yeah, I think about Acts six, committed to the word of God and prayer.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Any other thoughts as to what the elders should be doing? Visit people, yeah.

Pastoral care, shepherd.

Yep, he defeated lions and bears.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, that's right. Protection of the flock. You guys are doing great. This is good.

Yeah.

Any other thoughts? So we have really what I would call a vital spiritual life, like a man of actual substance spiritually that's committed to the word and prayer. I'll include that. Someone that protects the flock.

Any other? We're using some shepherding language here. I'll propose a few different functions that an elder has. So an elder is tasked with leading the flock. We've already talked about that in terms of church government.

They have oversight. They have leadership over the church. And so this includes decision-making. It includes guidance. It includes correction. It includes, I like the term that's used by the Grace Church, John MacArthur's congregation, direction over church policy.

It's pretty specific, but really the administration and the oversight of the church. And we see that again, 1 Peter 5, Hebrews 13. They're exercising oversight, not domineering. That implies that when someone is not domineering, it means that they're not abusing their powers of oversight.

The church is to obey and to submit. So they lead the flock. They feed the flock. And so, hey kids, do you know the answer to this question? When Jesus was tempted by the devil, and the devil was tempting him with, he said, you can turn that rock into a loaf of bread.

Qualifications and Duties of Elders

Do you guys remember what Jesus said? He said, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. That's right. And so you'll remember at the end of the Gospel of John, the Lord Jesus, when he was talking to Peter, who had ultimately, he had not rejected him, but, oh, I'm searching for the word.

Essentially, he had denied. He denied Christ, and he was asking Peter, do you love me? Do you love me? And you'll remember he gave him three exhortations. He said, feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.

And so how does a shepherd do that? How does he tend? How does he feed the sheep? He feeds them with what they primarily need spiritually, which is not bread, but by the word of God. And so those who are tasked with shepherding, with overseeing, with caring for the flock are those who give themselves to the ministry of teaching, to the ministry of the word, to the ministry of prayer.

Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy 5, 17, let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. And I love word studies. If you haven't already noticed that from my teaching, that I love to look at the biblical word usage.

But in chapter 5, verse 17 of 1 Timothy, when he says those who labor, he uses the word kapiea, kapieo, that's what it is, which is to grow weary, to be tired, to become exhausted, to bear the burden of toil or grief.

So to really dig in deep, kind of like, you know, I think about someone that's digging a ditch, right? When I think about the word toil, it's probably someone that's doing that. And not that the ministry of the word should be toilsome or grievous, but it is really hard work.

And anyone that's ever taught really begins to understand that to stand up and to say anything that is of value, anything that's going to edify the people, actually comes by much work, much study alone, much, Nicole and I were talking about it last night, sometimes the hardest part about preparing to teach is just the loneliness of study, just being alone and preparing.

And that's what an elder is to do, is to pour themselves out in their service to the church by teaching the flock. To do like Paul in Colossians 1, he said that he, one of his main ministries was to make the word of God fully known.

And he wrote to Timothy, you'll remember from last week, that he says, until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. And in verse 15, if we go down a couple of verses, he says, practice these things, immerse yourself in them.

Deacons as Servants of the Church

And so an elder is really to do that. That's one of the functions of the deacons that we'll get to, is to free up the elder that they can immerse themselves into the ministry of God's word. We heard it from you there, Steve, they're to protect the sheep.

They're to protect the sheep from wolves. Wolves are going to come in, wolves in sheep's clothing, like David, lions and bears. I had that example in scriptures here. Paul writes to Titus in Titus 1, 9, he says, he must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction, sound doctrine, and here, the protecting element, and also to rebuke those who contradict it.