Adult Sunday School: The Role of Elders

All right, so we are going to start our study on ecclesiology with the role of elders.

As Conley said, this week we're gonna do role of elders, next week we're gonna do role of the congregation, and then we have, yeah, a few other things that are planned that hopefully will be helpful and informative.

So I'm gonna start out our time here today by reading 2 Timothy 1 .14, and then we'll get started.

We'll talk about some features of the role of elders in general. As always, if you do have questions, feel free to go ahead and ask them.

This is, what we're gonna do today is a brief overview on the role of elders in the

Bible. I don't imagine that this is going to be comprehensive for sure.

I mean, I don't imagine it'll be exhaustive. It's approaching comprehensiveness, but then, you know, it may not be all that there is to say on this topic for sure, but it's something approaching comprehensiveness, so we'll treat it as that.

But 2 Timothy 1 .14, by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.

So you think about the role of elders in general, you're obviously thinking about this topic in a society that is deeply suspicious of authority in general.

And there's certainly something about this role that has certain responsibilities, certain authority that has been granted to elders, and so we're gonna talk about that.

But you are living in a society that's deeply troubled by these kinds of concepts for sure.

We are trained to talk about this subject, like any time you talk about authority in general, you're trained to basically spend the whole entire time apologizing for what you're saying, making endless kinds of qualifications.

I mean, we are kind of predisposed to talk about authority, particularly within the church in a way that doesn't sound very authoritative at all.

You know, I've been in denominational meetings with certain denominational leaders where they're asking about our doctrinal statements and things along these lines, and one of the things

I've found is if you just talk about authority as if you're not embarrassed by it, as if it's like a normal, natural thing to talk about, whether you're talking about it related to the home or whether you're talking about it related to the church,

I've found that, I mean, Christian denominational leaders, they get very, very uncomfortable with the way that you're talking about it.

So if you don't apologize for it and say, hey, God made the rules, I didn't make it, like if you just kind of talk about these things in a straightforward way, in the language of authority and responsibility, people will think that you're just a megalomaniac kind of tyrant who basically just barks orders at people and with no concern whatsoever for how they're going to be heard or perceived, and so this is kind of an unfortunate state of affairs.

But as I said, I mean, I have a lot of experience with people having those kinds of reactions to just talking about it in a plain sort of way.

And when you think about authority in general, the language of authority is the language of responsibilities, and God has given different kinds of responsibilities to different kinds of people, and that should not be something that Christians are afraid of.

It's not something that we're embarrassed about. It's not something that we should be ashamed of. There's obviously good ways to use authority.

There's bad ways to use authority, but then I know that in general as Christians, we're kind of predisposed to think that any use of authority at all is bad by definition, and I would say that's significantly misguided.

I guess it's significantly misguided understanding of what we're talking about.

So today, as I said, we're gonna be talking about the role of elders, and the first thing to say about it is,

I mean, it's obviously a serious role. So James 3, one says, not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

I mean, this is something I think about every time I open my mouth. If you read the book of James, you'll realize that James basically says that it's impossible to bridle the tongue and that we all fall short in many ways, and as you read through the book of Proverbs, you'll realize that when words are many, transgression is unavoidable, and I'm keenly aware of that every time

I speak, that the more I multiply words, the more opportunities I have to say things in a slightly distorted way, to accidentally say things that are wrong, or just to, in my ignorance, say things that are wrong that lead people in very different directions from what

I think I'm leading them. You know, as a teacher, it's been amazing to think about all the times over the years where I've said something from the pulpit and what people hear is remarkably different from it.

You know, so I mean, there's times where people are predisposed to hear negative things, like see negative things that you aren't necessarily saying, and that may not entirely be their fault.

It may just be because you're not as clear of a communicator as what you think you are. So there's that, but then on the other side, there's times where people are very excited about what you said, and they're taking it in directions you never imagined that they would possibly take it, and tributing all that to you, and so you think, man, how did that happen?

I don't know how we got here. But when you think about, in general, the role of elders, it's a very serious role, because primarily, it's a teaching role, among other things.

I mean, it's a teaching role, and we spend so much time with so many words that we're gonna give an account for.

So every word that we, every idle word that we utter in a sermon, every time we open our mouth, we're gonna give an account for all these words, and the things that we say have ramifications.

I mean, they have ramifications for people's lives in fairly significant ways.

So, I mean, when you think about the breadth of the subject matter that's in the

Bible, like all that God says in his word, God's word touches on every area of life, and when we're standing up here proclaiming this is the word of the

Lord to you, you have to understand that. I mean, that has significant ramifications for people's lives in very dramatic ways at times.

So, I mean, the things that we say touch on the basic understandings of how you're living your life, how you're arranging your time, what you're doing with your life, what the creator of the universe has said to you about his expectations for you, and there are significant entailments to these things in the lives of people.

And, I mean, this is not just in the extreme situations. You understand, like, this isn't the extreme situations.

Even the throwaway things that we say that we at times don't really think have all that much significance, when people go to apply those things, you realize, man, like, that one word or that one phrase that you said that you weren't even thinking about totally affected the scope of their whole life because they took that and they ran with that and they implied that in a particular way.

And, you know, even when they're applying it correctly, I mean, it really does have remarkable entailments.

So, I mean, you think about the Bible's expectations for us. It really does affect the shape of our life and it really is a serious role and we should think about it as a very serious role.

And as Paul says, you know, obviously who's sufficient for these things? None of us are sufficient in ourself to step into these kind of roles, but God, obviously, if he's not at work behind the scenes then we can work all we want, nothing's gonna happen.

But certainly, elder role is a very serious role. And it's something that, you know, you look out around the church today related to this point, you know, you have

James basically saying not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

I mean, you're living in a church culture right now that obviously is not factoring this verse into their ecclesiology at all, almost, okay?

You know, so, I mean, in the broader church world, like we behave as though we don't think that this is true at all, right?

So, I mean, in your standard megachurch kind of church, what you're gonna see is that they're not saying not many of you should become teachers for we know that we who teach will be judged with greater standard.

There's almost this moral mandate responsibility to make as many teachers as you can possibly make.

For the, I mean, for the good goal of ministry, you know, for the good goal of ministry, but at a certain point you realize you're in a church culture that is not prioritizing this at all.

And they're not treating this with the seriousness that it deserves at all. So, I mean, that's something that we should obviously be aware of, that there are temptations along those lines that we could even fall into in certain ways, too.

But when you think about the role of elders, a serious role, it's a qualified role. So there's qualifications to being an elder.

First Timothy 3, two through seven says, "'Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach, "'the husband of one wife, sober -minded, "'self -controlled, respectable, hospitable, "'able to teach, not a drunkard, "'not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, "'not a lover of money.

"'He must manage his own household well "'with all dignity, keeping his children submissive, "'for if someone does not know "'how to manage his own household, "'how will he care for God's church?'

So notice that throwaway comment there. I mean, it's not a throwaway comment, but you understand what

I mean. Notice that comment that you may be tempted to skip over at that point, where obviously the elder role is a managing role, just as a father manages his own household in a certain way, an elder is managing church of God.

There's some expectation of management there that's happening, for sure. But verse six, he must not be a recent convert, or he may be puffed up with conceit and fall into this condemnation of the devil.

Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so he might not fall into disgrace, into the snare of the devil.

When you look at these qualifications, it's kind of amazing that there's one qualification in here that really distinguishes an elder from a deacon, in that,

I mean, a lot of these things are just general instruction.

You can go through the list, and I mean, these should be true of every Christian in a certain way, and if they're gonna be an office bearer within the church, we need to make sure that they're true, but then the one that isn't necessarily true of deacons, the one that stands out that distinguishes an elder from a deacon is the qualification able to teach, because fundamental to what an elder is, is it is a teaching role.

So when you think about the nature of this role, it's a serious role, it's a qualified role, and there is a qualification here that really distinguishes elders from deacons, and I would say that's the primary thing that distinguishes elders from deacons is that elders are able to teach, and there needs to be some kind of check on that, for sure, right?

So you're living in a church world that obviously is confused at that point. I mean, we create all kinds of pastors, don't we?

I'm not talking about our church. We don't, I don't see us doing these things, but I mean, if you look at a lot of the different kinds of churches within the broader evangelical church, and you'll realize that, yeah,

I mean, we've created weird kind of things, like youth pastors. Like, what in the world is a youth pastor, right?

I don't know. Is he an elder? Well, we don't know. Like, I don't know what a, I don't know what a, I mean, he's not, like, he's a person that we put over the youth.

We call him a pastor, but then we don't consider him an elder, so we consider him kind of qualified to teach children, but not necessarily qualified to teach adults.

So you kind of invent a whole new category of pastor that we don't know whether or not he fits any of these qualifications, right?

So if you think about the way that churches think about these things, here's the point. They're not necessarily thinking about them qualification first, right?

And thinking, well, what is an elder on the basis of these qualifications? What the church is predisposed to do at times is to think about needs first.

So they think, what are the needs? How can we put people into positions to fill those needs?

And then the qualifications get kind of lost in the process. Does that make sense? So we think needs first, not qualifications first.

But then, so yeah, take the youth pastor example. What is that, biblically?

Is there any kind of concept of a youth pastor in the Bible that doesn't meet, necessarily meet all these qualifications, but then he's qualified enough for children, not necessarily qualified enough for adults?

Then you're gonna put him over children, and then you're gonna say, hey, yeah, adults, you don't go to him for shepherding because he's kind of junior varsity

B team or something like that. So does he meet the qualifications or doesn't he? And these are just conversations that are not even entering into people's brains.

You just, you have a position you've sanctified that is nowhere in the Bible because what you're thinking about, the point is just to say that need, it's like, think about all the needs.

Then you're trying to think about creatively, how can we meet those needs? And we've lost sight of, well, what are the rules?

What are the rules behind this? What is a pastor? What is a pastor in general? What are elders in general?

And I mean, there's so many. You look at the broader church today, and there's so many ways in which we're bungling all this.

So like you have churches who basically have the single kind of pastor model, so you have pastor model churches where you have one guy, not multiple guys, as we're gonna say.

Next, you have one guy, not multiple guys, that you describe as like a real pastor, and then you have a bunch of other people who are kind of quasi -pastor pastors, but not the real pastor.

And so that's kind of how churches train us to think about it because we've lost sight of the qualifications that are there.

Does that make sense? So then you create youth pastors. You create women's pastors. Are they elders?

Well, no, they're just pastors over women. So you have, you create all the different kinds of pastors that are doing pastor roles, none of which meet the qualifications for what a pastor is.

And so in just returning to basic principles, there are qualifications for elders.

Yes, sir. Change to meet the needs.

Right. But it should be the other way around. Right. In Spain, because I don't speak

Spanish well. Right. Sure. I don't meet that qualification. So, and yeah,

I imagine culturally, like the level of holiness that is accessible to us, like in terms of having a supply of people, probably different than what it was during the

Puritan era. And so like some of those qualifications would change. Or some, maybe, and I don't know whether or not, maybe it would be the case in some church contexts it's more important for someone to meet certain qualifications than others.

How much should these qualifications be seen as relative or flexible depending on?

Yeah, I mean, I think in the first century church, obviously you have a bunch of young men who,

I mean, all the apostles are pretty, are on the young side, for sure, right?

So I think you're looking at what you have, like you imagine yourself going overseas and going in the mission field.

You have a certain standard. And I imagine it's a perfectly natural and normal thing to say, well, what are the bare minimum?

Yeah, what kind of standard would the apostles be held to? So what is an elder in this context?

And what an elder in this context might be different than an elder in a different kind of context. But then as the church matures over time, then you would raise the standard from that to what is normal.

So I mean, I think within the term elder itself, there is a, and the

Bible speaks this way of, elders should be most naturally synonymous with old, right?

I mean, that's kind of what the word means. But then if you're in a very young place with no qualified people, you don't just take, well, the oldest people that you have and say, all right, here you go.

So I mean, I certainly think that the standards grow over, I mean, as your church grows in maturity, you should probably be more careful with, or your standard of what is expected probably raises at that point too.

I think that's a natural thing. But then you should be thinking qualifications first is,

I mean, that would be my perspective. You should be thinking about the qualifications first. Who do we have that we can honestly look at these standards and say they meet them?

Now, I mean, obviously, there's some subjectivity in determining all of it, right?

Because you have a list of qualifications, and so sober -minded, how sober -minded?

Self -controlled, how self -controlled is self -control? I mean, certainly sanctification is progressive and it's a growth over time, right?

So how self -controlled does it need to be? Respectable, hospitable, how hospitable, how respectable, right?

So I think there's certainly some subjectivity in determining that, but the qualification should be governing your thought process.

Now, when I'm talking about you look needs first, implicit in that is the idea that not all needs are needs.

So we can come up with a great many things that we perceive as needs that aren't necessarily needs, that are based on certain expectations that we have, that are informed not necessarily by the scriptural priorities, but by our own priorities.

So for example, at a church I was at, there was a need, a perceived need, to have a

Sunday school class taught by a woman for divorced women.

So we had three divorced women in the church. So when you're thinking need first and not qualification first, then what ends up happening is, well, they had created this

Sunday school class for the divorced women, right? Because they thought of it as a need.

Well, what was driving the understanding of it as a need? Well, were the scriptures driving the understanding of that as a need?

No, like, well, what happened was the lady who was teaching it decided she didn't wanna teach it because she wanted to be part of the adult

Sunday school class. She felt like she was isolated within this Sunday school class and she probably shouldn't be in that role of doing what she's doing in that kind of way.

So she thought, well, I would like to step out of this role. We didn't really have anyone else that we wanted to put in the role and no one else wanted to be in the role, but then your three divorced women, you look at them and say, hey, would you just come to the adult

Sunday school class? And they basically responded to that by saying that they would feel awkward and uncomfortable being around married people, right?

And so they had an expectation in their mind that the only way they could learn the Bible was from, is surrounded by people just like them so that they didn't have to feel lonely or isolated or embarrassed or singled out or whatever so they could feel safe, right?

That was their safe space kind of thing for them. So then, you know, we didn't fulfill, we didn't fill the teacher position.

They all left, right? They all left the church because they, I mean, so that would be an example of,

I think, thinking like need first in a way that's, and not qualification first, that's untethered from what are the real needs of the congregation here?

Is that a real need that needs to be fulfilled is to protect divorced women from their fellow church member for having to talk to their fellow church members.

Well, I don't think that's like a biblical need, you know? So, but I think a lot of the reason why churches are expanding more and more and more and more teachers is because there's a lot of needs put forward like that that aren't necessarily need needs.

But, you know, there is, I mean, you are living in a very individualistic kind of society that's very fragmented and segmented and people think that the way that they're gonna thrive is to surround themselves by people who are just like them and not have to be forced to have uncomfortable intergenerational conversations and to, so yeah.

So it's a serious role, it's a qualified role, it's a shared role. Here's some verses on this,

Acts 14, 23. And when they had appointed elders to them in every church with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the

Lord in whom they had believed. First Timothy 5, 17, let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the preaching and the teaching.

Titus 1, 5, this is why I left you in Crete that you may put what remained into order and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.

James 5, 14, if is any among you sick, let him call for the pastor of the church. Is that what it says?

Let him call for the elders of the church, let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. First Peter 5, 1, so I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the suffering of Christ as well as a partaker of the glory that is to be revealed.

So that was just a brief survey of verse, yes sir. Yes, I'm sorry, yes.

Is that one off? Yes sir, yes sir. So they're all, basically you have a bunch, you have a bunch of different, each one of those names are designed to tell you something about the role.

So you have like pastors, you have shepherds, teachers, you have elders, and then you have overseers at times.

All those are just different. They give you more insight into the nature of the multifaceted role, if that makes sense.

Yes sir, so every single elder, there's a Baptist Presbyterian kind of argument that happens here at this point where Presbyterians have the concept of a teaching elder and a ruling elder.

As Baptists, we believe that all elders need to be able to teach because that's a qualification given for elders is that they're able to teach.

Some elders might be given more responsibility more teaching responsibility than others as is natural within a church.

So the primary thrust of what some elders might be doing is teaching and then the primary thrust of what other elders might be doing is the overseeing kind of roles, the managing kind of roles.

So there's an elder is a teacher and an elder is an overseer and an elder is a manager.

Elder is a shepherd, right? So all those things are part of, like all the names are given you in different aspects of the role of an elder.

So if we can, in other words, if we conceive that all elders do is just teach, then that wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, would it?

Because there's other things they do, if that makes sense. So, but then

I do think sometimes we have a temptation to think about elders like that, that all they do is teach.

But, you know, and we'll talk about this later. When the other church was selling houses and lands and properties and everything else, they laid the money at the feet of the apostles, right?

So like you think about the elder's role was more broad than just stand up here on Sunday morning and proclaim the word of God and maybe in a few other areas too.

So, yeah. Any other thoughts about any of that? I have, yeah.

I'm sympathetic to that kind of thing. I think, you have a thought?

No, no, it's fine, go for it. So obviously there's,

I don't think the senior pastor kind of thing is an ideal, but if you think about, you know,

Paul's missionary strategy was basically to go into, the synagogue system that the

Jews had developed during the intertestamental period was like a wonderful thing that Paul used to great effect.

He'd basically go as an itinerant missionary preacher to all of these synagogues. He would preach Christ to them.

He would make half of them mad, right? And get beaten with rods and all that and kicked out of there.

But then he would take the half that believed, you know, so obviously these numbers are not exact, but then he would form a new church out of that.

And so there's some, you know, there's probably some training period, you know, where he was functioning as a single elder for a little bit.

And then he was handing them over to people and pointing elders. So yeah, churches can exist prior to that for sure.

But they should be doing everything they can to get to the safe position of having at least more than one, for sure.

Hopefully more than that. Now you're living in a time where you don't have many people who aspire to the office of elder too.

And they treat it as, yeah, because we've been given over to mysticism as churches, we think that in order to have, like to aspire to the office of elder, you need some subjective, personal, mystical kind of experience that's going to propel you into that, almost like a quasi, you know, voice from the

Lord telling you, I want you to be a pastor forever. You know, you have to have that feeling within your heart at some point before you ever even think about this.

And so I think there's a lot of people in the church that probably should consider taking on more responsibilities along these lines.

But then because they don't have the subjective, personal, mystical kind of experience, they think, well, that's not for them or something like that in a way that, yeah, they should be aspiring towards these things as well.

But that, you know, when I say that, then you shouldn't think that, there's like the

Catholic distortion and there's the Protestant distortion related to this topic of ministry.

So with the Catholic distortion, the Catholic distortion is to say that, like only the clergy are important, you know, the path, the real spirituality is to be clergy, and so there's a harsh clergy -laity distinction.

The Protestant distortion on the other end of things is just to almost despise the office and basically say, yeah, well, there's nothing special about it whatsoever.

And the truth there is that, yeah, I know this is a noble calling, it's a good task. You know, obviously, it's a good thing to aspire towards that, and there's certain qualifications for that as well.

And certainly, yeah, there's many, many different ways that church can function.

You know, if all are heads, then you have no, like if all are in the overseer role, then there's no one to oversee, right?

So there's something good that the Protestant Reformation recovered there, too, about the priesthood of all believers and the nobility of vocation beyond the formal church vocation kind of role.

But, so serious role, qualified role, shared role. It's an authoritative role, and I don't know that that's,

I mean, when I word it that way, you understand that then you're predisposed to get your hackles up because we view the word authoritative as bad.

And, I mean, you can just forgive me because, like, look at the outline. It feels like it nice to say authoritative right there because we said a serious role, a qualified role, a shared role, an authoritative role.

I mean, that feels very nice, doesn't it? And it matches, it matches. There's symmetry in our outline, and we all feel good about that.

But you should, you should not overly invest in this authoritative role negative connotations.

I mean, I don't think the word authoritative really is a bad word. I don't even know why we're treating it as a bad word.

Like, we think about authoritative as bad, right? I mean, when you hear that, you think bad, bad, right?

Like, that's a tyrant, that's a dictator, that's, you know, that's a guy who doesn't listen to anyone.

You know, that's bad, but then, like, that's actually, I mean, when Jesus came teaching, what did they say about Jesus?

What did they say about him? He taught authoritatively, not like the scribes and the Pharisees, right? That wasn't criticism on his part.

No one thought that was bad. I mean, there should be an authority that comes with preaching the words of God, shouldn't there?

So, this is an authoritative role. So, Hebrews 13, 17, obey your leaders, submit to them. They are keeping watch over your souls as those who have to give an account.

And then it says, let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

I mean, it is sad. I mean, there's some church members who think it's their job to make the elders which, well, one of groaning, right?

They don't have any category for submitting to the elders and obeying the elders in anything, right? They think it's their job to basically communicate their disagreement with every decision that an elder kind will make.

And I mean, in the church, in the home, if that's your posture, like, you know, if you're a wife and your posture towards your husband, every time he's trying to make an act of leadership, it's just to basically note your significant disagreement with every decision that he makes.

I mean, what you're doing is, it says, let them do this with joy and not with groaning.

What you're doing is you're making their job like a nightmare and a headache, right? But notice what it says.

It says, let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be no advantage to them.

No, it says, let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be no advantage to you.

Why do you think it says you there and not them? Do you understand what

I mean? Like, if you step into the wife situation, if you're a wife who is making your husband's, like, every time he's trying to lead you, you're turning it into a fight, you're turning it into a nightmare, you're turning it into a source of groaning, if that's what you're doing, right?

You're basically saying, I disagree with everything you think, you know? I want you to know that.

I'm gonna resist this. I'm gonna manfully resist this with everything I have. If you do that, it would seem natural that that would be no advantage to them because you're making it miserable for them.

Does that make sense? Why do you think it's saying it's no advantage to you? Any thoughts? So, yeah,

I mean, it would seem like if God put an authority figure over your life and you're making it hard, then you're not getting what you need.

Do you see what I mean? Like, you're not getting what you need. So, a lot of us don't look at authority figures as something we need.

So, if you're constantly undercutting your authority figure, you're constantly communicating to them,

I don't need you. I don't need you. I don't need you. Well, the problem is, God thinks you need them.

And if you're to be successful in getting them to stop, then you don't reap any of the blessings that comes from what

God has given to you. Do you see what I mean? So, I mean, it is kind of a profound thought, but then it's a very foreign thought to us because we're trained to think we don't need anything, right?

I don't need anything from the outside. You think about the role of an elder.

Like, I don't know, like, if that's your mentality, I don't need anything from you.

I don't need any leadership from you. I don't need any direction from you. I don't need, and I wanna communicate that to you with as much, like, every time you make a decision,

I wanna communicate to you, I don't need anything from you. I don't want anything from you. I'm competent myself to make these decisions.

I don't need your help. If that's what you're doing, like, I don't know why this role has any qualifications to it whatsoever at that point, right?

You see what I mean? Like, why is, what is the role doing at that point? Well, it's not, like, why do we need qualifications at that point?

Does that make sense? So, but notice what it says. Obey your leaders, submit to them for they keep and watch over your souls. As those who give an account, let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be no advantage to you because if you are successful in killing all the initiative then what you've done is you've, you've become successful in removing yourself from all the blessings

God's designed that authority to give to you. First Timothy 5, 17, let the elders who rule well, right, and so who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the preaching and teaching.

Whatever your, you know, whatever your form of church government, you do have to take that language seriously, right,

I mean, so there's a major discussion to be had between elder -led congregational elder and elder -ruled congregational.

We're an elder -led congregational church, but we don't just look at that word and, like, take whatever elders do and remove all concept of ruling out of it, right?

So, I mean, there's, like, clear ecclesiological differences between those two positions, but then that's a phrase that we have to do justice to and it points to some kind of authority that we're gonna be talking about.

First Peter 5, likewise you who are younger, and this is one of the verses I was talking about kindly earlier, likewise you who are younger be subject to the elders, call yourself all of you with humility towards one another for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

So, obviously elder is meant to be elder. And then, you know,

Jesus started out his role of formal ministry when he was 30. High priests, or the priests in the old covenant, they had to be 30,

I think 30 is a good lower limit to these things, but then older is typically good.

Two, so there's a generality discussion that needs to be had there that may take up more time than we are able to take up, but yeah, elders have been given real responsibility, they've been given real authority, that requires real initiative, that requires real qualifications, and so there's some things, like within the congregation, that have been delegated to the elders in terms of their responsibilities, and there's an authority there to make decisions related to those kind of things.

So, for example, I mean, one of the things that's been delegated to me as an elder is the responsibility to teach the whole counsel of God to you.

So because it's, I've been given authority to teach the whole counsel of God, as a board of elders, we're responsible to figure out how to get the whole counsel of God to you.

That's what we're responsible to do. We wanna present you complete in Christ. Just like Paul says, right, that's what we're trying to do.

So, night and day for a period of three years, I labored to present to you the whole counsel of God, but that's what we're trying to do.

Now, like there's a lot of decisions that happen, and there's thousands of decisions that pastors make along those lines that are well within their prerogative and purview to make.

So, for example, right now, we're doing a study. Yeah, all right.

Sorry. No, well, it's fine, I can remember. Yes. Yeah.

No qualifications. Zero. Just run with that thought.

I mean, don't run with it anywhere, but yes, just go with it, yeah. I mean, yeah,

Paul says that man was not made for a woman, but woman's made for a man. We'll talk about it later. All right, so sure, yeah, absolutely.

I'd be happy to elaborate on that at length. Yes, yeah,

I mean, yeah. In the first instance, obey your leaders and submit to them for they keep a watch over your souls.

I understand that to be an argument in favor of church membership due to the nature of the problem that you're presenting there.

I mean, if you're to obey and submit to every person in the church who claims to be an elder, then you're just gonna be going in different directions and obeying and submitting to a bunch of different things, you know?

So I think that one argument in favor of the concept of something like the concept of church membership in the

Bible is the idea that God does hold you accountable to obey your leaders and submit to them because they are keeping watch over your souls.

So who is keeping watch over your souls as those who are going to give an account? You know, that TV preacher doesn't even know your name.

He's not keeping watch over your soul as those who are gonna give an account. So who is it, right? So you better have an answer to that question.

That's why just like indefinite non -church membership is not biblical, right?

Because who's giving an account for your soul, right? And even in big churches, like think about churches that are like thousands and thousands of people and the elders don't even know you.

How are they keeping watch over your souls as those who are gonna give an account? They don't even know who you are, right? You can't even talk to them.

You can't even schedule a meeting with them because they're totally unavailable to you. Yes, sir? Yes. Sure.

Yep. Yeah, sure,

I mean, I think that there is such a thing as a universal church and, you know, people can be profoundly disrespectful of individuals that God has appointed to these roles and so I think that there's some difference between the whole like touch not the

Lord's anointed kind of thing, like don't offer any criticism whatsoever. But I mean, it does give me pause when

I think about criticizing. You know, don't sharply rebuke an older man.

And then, you know, Michael the archangel when contending over the body of Moses dared not to bring a reviling accusation against Satan but said the

Lord rebuke you. I do think like recognizing that there are true authorities that God has appointed beyond just one authority and treating them with respect would be very appropriate for sure.

All right, so what I was saying here real quick is an authoritative role. There's thousands of decisions elders make that are within their authority to make.

Oh, go ahead. Yes, so we're gonna talk about the authority of deacons.

Without, we will talk about, I think we're gonna do a Sunday school lesson on the authority of deacons and so without getting into the specifics here and now,

I do think that there are areas of responsibility that are given to elders which should be respected and then there are elders, there are areas of responsibility given to the deacons as well.

So I don't think that you have to understand these as fortresses with no overlap or something like that.

Like distinct kind of areas. So like for instance, in the home, just to answer the question in a general way, like in the home, you have a husband who is in authority over the family but then there are certain responsibilities that are given to the wife too.

That doesn't mean that those responsibilities that are being carried out have no oversight to them whatsoever. So, okay, so yeah, relate.

You wanna say? I would say it's actually. Just, yeah,

I'll, let's see, I have a few more points here to get and I'll relate to the authoritative role.

I just, I'm trying to make a minimal point here that is just, this is a principle that will establish that you could use to establish a certain pattern, okay?

So like meaning, I'm not trying to say that this principle gives elders a limited authority or something like that.

I'm trying to establish a kind of authority that they have and how they would exercise it. So for example, like we're teaching this morning, this morning we're gonna be teaching a sermon series on basic truths because it's our job to teach the whole counsel of God to people.

That's a responsibility that's given to us. We have authority. So like we've decided right now to do shift roles from communication to talk about the church so that we can maybe gain some more unity as a church.

I don't think these are things that we should be asking permission for. I don't think these are things that we should be voting on.

I don't think that these are things that we should be presenting to the congregation for approval.

These are within our authority as elders to decide what is the pressing need of the congregation right now to teach about, right?

So if we were to do that, if we were to basically approach it like that and say, hey, what do you guys think we should teach next?

And then everyone votes on it. And then everyone, like you'd have, you know, one fourth of the congregation who gets their heart set on one thing and a fourth of the congregation gets their heart set on another thing and a fourth of the congregation gets their, and really,

I mean, you're not leading at that point. Like there's no leadership. That's not leading. That's just, hey, what do you guys wanna do?

Kind of leadership, which is not assuming responsibility for anything, you know?

So as a husband in my home, I have a responsibility to provide for my family. Certainly, that means

I need to find a job that's going to provide for us. So I'm gonna have to weigh all the priorities that we have as a family, and I'm going to, like so I'm gonna have to weigh all those priorities, put them in a blender.

I'm assuming responsibility. I need to come up with a plan that's gonna provide for this family to keep us from ending up in a van down by the river.

You know, that's my job. So like I have to think about all that, and then I'm gonna have to come up with some kind of plan.

People can have input in that plan. It might, at certain times, it might be appropriate to invite feedback on that plan.

You know, how's it going? How's the plan going or whatever? It's like, well, your plan of provision right now, honey, is basically making me a single mom.

You know, that's an important conversation. Can you consider a different plan of provision? You know, all those things are right, but at the end of the day, you have to figure out, you have to make a decision what job are you gonna do because it's your responsibility because you've been given authority.

You have authority slash responsibility. Same way we have to present the whole counsel of God to you.

We have to figure out how to do it. We have to figure out how to structure the church in such a way to get the whole counsel of God to you.

We have to figure out a way to present you all complete in Christ. That's a job that's been given to us. So decisions like that, like what are we gonna teach next?

You know, I even say, like, who's teaching? Like, who is going to teach? That's part of it as well.

We'll talk about that in a minute, but like a lot of these decisions are decisions that are firmly in the elder's territory of, like, this is the nature of what our job is.

The nature of our job is to try to figure out how to present you complete in Christ, to give you the whole counsel of God, to not withhold anything that's lacking in you.

And so you think about that. That's a real kind of authority. That's a real kind of responsibility over what

I would describe as teaching ministries of the church. So point number five is shepherding role.

1 Peter 5, one through four says, I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ as well as a partaker in the glory that's to be revealed.

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 who are in your charge, but being examples.

And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive an unfading crown of glory. So as a shepherding role,

I mean, yeah, I have very harsh words for the kind of churches who refuse to counsel their members, who think that their only job is just to publicly teach in a formal setting.

I think those pastors are not pastors, honestly. If you're a pastor who refuses to shepherd your flock, you need to get into a different business.

You need to get into a different line of work if you allow me to use crass metaphors like that.

You've abdicated your role as a shepherd. And so many pastors in America are doing that because they've been deceived by this idea that they have nothing to say to all the problems that their church members face.

They need to hand them over to unbelieving experts, mental health experts, who are going to do their shepherding job for them or hand them over to other churches.

And I think, well, you've abdicated your role. At a certain point, if your church is so big that you have no ability to really take care of the shepherding needs of the congregation, you need to think about planting a new church.

This is a primary aspect of what this role is. It's not just a you teach, teach role.

You teach as a public orator who is not in the lives of your people and has no idea what's going on with them.

This is a very, there's a lot more to it than that. So it's a shepherding role.

It's a teaching role, as we've been saying. So let the elders who will well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.

Colossians 124, now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my flesh. I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's affliction for the sake of his body.

That is the church of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me to you to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed in his saints.

There's a responsibility there, a stewardship that is from God given to pastors to make the word of God fully known to a congregation.

Acts 6, two through four. I don't know that we all often think through some of the entailments of this like we should, but Acts 6, two through four, the 12th, summon the full number of the disciples that says it's not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.

Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men full of good repute, full of the spirit and wisdom, who we will appoint to this duty, but we will devote ourself to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

Elder's role is a teaching role. It's a shepherding role. It's an overseeing role.

If you'll allow that awkward turn of phrase, it's an overseeing role. Philippians 1, 1, Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in philophy with the overseers and the deacons.

So this is what I'm talking about. Notice how elders are often called elders and they're called overseers. So you have elder, this is the bishop language, right?

For Titus 1, 7, for an overseer as God's steward must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick -tempered or drunkard or violent or greedy for gain.

Acts 20, 28, pay careful attention to yourself, to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God which he's obtained with his blood.

You know, what is an overseer? In Greek, that's episkopos, if you wanna know.

Episkopos has the primary sense of one who has responsibility of safeguarding or seeing to it that something is done in the correct way, a guardian.

This is from the BDAG. In the Greek Roman world, episkopos frequently refers to one who has a definite function or a fixed office of guardianship in related activity within a group.

The term was taken over by Christian communities in reference to one who served as an overseer or a supervisor with special interest in guarding the apostolic tradition, right?

So you think about the nature of this overseeing role. There's a special interest in guarding the apostolic tradition which shows up in different verses in the

New Testament. So 1 Timothy 6, 20 says, "'O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you.'"

What does that mean? What does entrusted to them mean, right? Like there's something special that's entrusted to them that should be guarded.

I would submit that that would be the teaching ministries of the church, whatever that means, right? That's, "'O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you.

"'Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions "'of what's falsely called knowledge.'" 2

Timothy 1, 14, "'By the Holy Spirit who dwells within you, "'guard the good deposit entrusted to you.'"

So you look at all this language, you think about the nature of this role, right? I think nature of the elder role.

There is something that's been entrusted to the elders that is their responsibility to guard, to safeguard.

So elders have responsibility to, yes sir. Yes, so if, yeah, look at the definitions there.

There is like the idea of an overseer is a guardian, if that makes sense. So think, like if you're thinking about overseeing, you're thinking about this safeguarding, guarding kind of concept, okay?

You think about a shepherd, like a shepherd with his sheep. One, like shepherd is kind of a very broad term, right?

It's a broad term that can include a lot of these things. So these are not like absolute, I guess on the

Venn diagram. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

That's fair, you know, that's fair, yeah. So I'm trying to give the metaphors that they're given, but there is some kind of overlap.

So one of the job of a shepherd would be to guard the sheep, you know, and certainly one of the job is to kind of train sheep, you know, sure.

But the primary sense of shepherding is to kind of care for the sheep, right? So if that makes sense.

So when I think about shepherding, I'm thinking of personal one -on -one, in the primary sense, care, but then, so when

I'm thinking about shepherding as distinct from the other things, I'm thinking about that, right? But then obviously it's broader, semantically.

Okay, so there is this notion of guarding, there is this, which, I mean, it makes sense because there's qualifications.

So there's qualification, is a serious role, there's qualifications given the role, there's something that you're supposed to guard. What is it that you're supposed to guard?

I would think the teaching ministries of the church would go into that, which is why, yeah, I mean, we feel like it's our responsibility as shepherds, pastors, to present you the whole counsel of God.

And I do think, yeah, we're gonna be held accountable for how well we do. So I mean, if you're at this church for 10, 20 years, whatever, the buck stops here, right?

God's gonna look at a church and say, well, how well did you teach them? Pastors, right, he's not gonna look at the congregation and say, how well did you, meaning like there's a stewardship, there's something that's been entrusted to us in this language over and over again that we're gonna be held accountable to, and there's safety in that.

So we're gonna be held accountable for how well we present you complete in Christ, how well we fulfilled our responsibility to guard the good deposit that's entrusted to us, to teach you the whole counsel of God.

We're gonna stand before the Lord, and we're gonna give an account for that. You're not gonna stand before the Lord and give an account for that in the same kind of way, right, do you understand?

So lastly, it's a respectable role. First Thessalonians 5, 12 through 13. We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and who are over you in the

Lord, over you in the

Lord. In pure congregationalism, you might wanna figure out what that means, because it's not intuitively clear to me what that means if every single thing that the elders do has to be voted on.

I have no idea what that means. We ask, unless there's some kind of responsibilities that are delegated to them, we ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you or who are over you in the

Lord, and admonish you and esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace amongst yourselves.

So this is a serious job, a serious role, and we need your prayers as elders.

We need your prayers for sure, because it's a sobering thing to stand before the

Lord one day and give an account for the state of your souls, and I know that that keeps me up at night.

Yes, sir. We're gonna talk about that next week.

So next week, that question will be answered in its entirety. Right, Conley?

So basically, everything becomes outside of it. But yeah, we will talk about it.

All right, I've gone over a few. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity to think about the church and think about your word and think about how you've instructed us to relate to each other as a body.

I pray that you use this Sunday School lesson to be helpful in the lives of people, to bring clarity.

If it has brought up more questions than answers, then

I do pray that people would come and ask those questions and know that we are men who are committed to shepherding and willing to answer those questions and set aside whatever time it takes in order to gain clarity and to be unified with that.

We thank you for the congregation. Thank you for the privilege it is to be able to serve this congregation.