WWUTT 617 A Pastor Must Not Be Quarrelsome?

When it comes to evaluating someone's qualifications for a particular task, it's easy to point at somebody and say, well, they're unqualified. But we must keep a watch on ourselves lest we become unqualified when we understand the text.

You're listening to When We Understand the Text, an online Bible ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty. Find videos and more at our website, www .tt .com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Paul’s Qualifications for Overseers in 1 Timothy 3

Thank you, Becky. So we continue with our study of qualifications for overseers in 1 Timothy 3, verses 1 -7. The apostle Paul writes, the saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.

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? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil.

Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil. Now here in verse 3, we get to the list of negatives. Not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

So everything else has been very much in the affirmative. He must be this, he must be this. And now in verse 3, he must not be this. Not a drunkard. He must have control over his impulses. He must be disciplined in his body.

This goes back to being self-controlled, as was talked about in verse 2. So there are things that we can enjoy to the glory of God in moderation, and then we can also enjoy those same things in excess and become a glutton.

And then our appetites, our physical appetites control us, rather than having control over our own desires. I mean, this can be with anything, with food. You can eat to the glory of God, and then you can also eat sinfully to the lust of your own flesh.

And in the Bible, wine is symbolic of two things. It can be symbolic of overabundance, or it can be symbolic of overindulgence. When it comes to an overabundance, you think of like Proverbs 3, 9, and 10.

This is kind of the most famous passage that refers to wine as a reward from God. So that's talking about God's overabundant provision. Even the wedding feast at Cana, where Jesus turned the water into wine, this miracle is not just some random miracle that John picked and put at the start of his gospel, but it is symbolic of a passage that would come up later on in John, John 10, 10, where it says that I have come to give life and give it more abundantly.

The fact that Jesus turned water into wine, and that was his first miracle, showed that he had not only come to give life, but to give it abundantly. That's symbolized in the very miracle that he performed there at the wedding feast at Cana.

So, wine in the Bible becomes symbolic of overabundance, but it can also become a symbol of overindulgence. Ephesians 5, verse 18, do not get drunk with wine for that is debauchery, but be filled with the spirit.

First Corinthians 15, 34, wake up from your drunken stupor as is right, and do not go on sinning. And Paul had also shared with the Thessalonians that we are not among those who get drunk at night, but we are among the children of the day, for we are looking forward to the day that Christ appears.

And so, wine, getting drunk with wine is symbolic of overindulgence, or drinking and enjoying wine in moderation can be symbolic of overabundance. So here, Paul is implying that, yes, a pastor can drink wine, but he doesn't drink it in excess, not to the point of losing self-control over his own body, but he is disciplined.

He is not a drunkard. He is not violent, that goes on to the next part of verse 3. He's not violent, but gentle. So it's not just the fact that he's not picking fights with other people, and he's not physically abusing other people, but he actually makes a concerted effort to show gentleness and kindness and love and charity to other people.

So he is mindful of the way that he would even physically interact with other people, and he is gentle in his interactions. Anybody can be not violent. You just make a concentrated effort to not hurt anybody.

But then you take that focus and instead apply it toward deliberately showing gentleness toward other people. And so that's the way that the mind of an overseer needs to be. And really, all of us, following along with that model, we need to not be violent with each other, but rather pursue gentleness, showing love and kindness.

And this flows out of hospitality, which we had read about earlier in verse 2. So where it says he must not be a drunkard, this goes along with he must be self-controlled. He must not be violent, but gentle.

This goes along with being hospitable. He must not be quarrelsome. This goes along with being respectable. So previously we've had the positive affirmations, and then we have the negatives. He must not be this, must not be that.

He must not be violent, but gentle. He must not be quarrelsome. So the previous one, he must not be violent, but gentle, means that he's not causing conflicts physically. And then not quarrelsome means he's not causing conflicts with words.

He's not out to cause controversy. He's not trying to stir up a rabble among people, whether that would be among believers or unbelievers. He's not trying to make people upset. Rather, he's making a specific effort to keep the peace with people.

So he's not trying to cause fights, but he is speaking peaceably. Now this doesn't mean that he's not causing controversy. Don't get confused there. The very fact that we carry the gospel and preach the gospel to a sinful, lost, dying world automatically implies that we're going to be causing controversy.

You're speaking the message of God that the world is in rebellion against to this rebellious world. They're going to rebel against it further. So there is going to be controversy there. Even when you hold to a godly outlook or you have a Christian worldview, people will hate you for that.

You may not even be sharing the gospel, but just the fact that you have godly values will make people hate you. As Paul will go on to share with Timothy in his next letter, those who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

Just living a godly life in Christ will cause you to be persecuted. So yeah, there's going to be controversy there, but it's not in the objective of this pastor to cause that controversy in the sense that he's trying to make people upset.

If I do things controversial, then I'll stay relevant. I'll stay on the forefront. People will remember my name. Well, then he's just out to do things for himself. But if he is doing all things to the glory of God and the proclamation of his gospel and obeying what God has said about how we are to share his gospel, then he's not going to be a person who is attempting to start quarrels with other people.

I mean, this may need to go as far as when a pastor is out there sharing the gospel with some people and he can tell that people are starting to get really hostile toward it. He's able to take a step back and go, hey, look, I can tell this is making you mad.

Why don't we cool off? Cooler heads will prevail. You know, I'll come back and talk to you about this later or something to that degree. And I've had to do that before. I've even witnessed Ray Comfort do that before.

I think he was kind of a model in that for me when I was watching some of his videos online. I noticed that there were some people that he would be evangelizing with there on the beachfront in California, where he would often go to do his evangelism, his on the box evangelism.

And sometimes there were people who get so angry that he wouldn't even get to the gospel because he knew that if he threw the gospel out there, they were just going to blaspheme God more than they were already doing.

So he would just kindly step away, go to somebody else who would probably be more receptive to the gospel that they were sharing out there on the coast, out there in a busy area. So he's he's genuinely or deliberately making an effort to keep the peace with people, not trying to stir up conflict.

And then finally, this next one that we have here in verse three is that he must not be a lover of money. And I hope that you can see, just as with being quarrelsome, that that if this pastor loves money, that will compromise the message that he is sharing.

If he loves controversy and he's just trying to keep his name out there that people will remember it well, then he's doing things for himself and he's not doing it for God. Likewise, if he's trying to make a profit off of this message that he's sharing, then he would be willing to compromise the message for the sake of being able to make money off of it.

And so that is going to affect his witness as somebody who is to be preaching the gospel of Christ. Therefore, he must not be a lover of money. And oftentimes when we read that, we think of a person who is just really wealth, wealthy, like you might think of one of these mega church pastors who lives in a multimillion dollar mansion, Stephen Furtick.

This is somebody who's caused controversy in this when he built that, you know, one point seven million dollar home out there in Charlotte, North Carolina. And there was a big to do about that a few years ago.

But he's not the only one. I mean, Joel Osteen lives in a great big mansion. Joyce Meyer lives on a huge piece of property. In fact, she owns several homes and a private jet. You've got Ken Copeland and all the fleet of planes that he has, no doubt several mansions of his own.

I've seen Jesse Duplantis his house. That's a big piece of property, too. So anyway, that's typically what we think of when we see he must not be a lover of money. Our minds might go straight to those prosperity preachers in the great big mansions that they live in.

But this could be a small time pastor. It could be a guy who has a church of 100 people or something, and he may be a full time minister and he just does the work that he does to get a paycheck. It's kind of like I don't have a skill to do anything else, but I can be a pastor and I can make my living that way.

Well, is his motivation to actually be a servant for the gospel of Jesus Christ or is his motivation to just make a living, to get a paycheck, to be able to provide for his family? Even in that circumstance, he's a lover of money.

And so he must be someone that Paul had referenced at the start of this letter that is out for the stewardship of God that is by faith. He says in 1 Timothy 1 5, the aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

When somebody swerves from that, they wander away into vain discussion. If a person desires money above advancing the gospel of Jesus Christ, then they desire something in vanity. But rather, once again, this elder, this overseer must not be a drunkard, must not be violent.

Instead, he must be gentle. He must not be quarrelsome. He must not be a lover of money. And it's on those last two must not be quarrelsome, must not be a lover of money. I want to use an example again regarding Stephen Furtick.

But first, I have to set this clip up. So a few years ago, Phil Johnson and Dr. John MacArthur were doing a Q &A. I believe this was at a Shepherd's Conference and they were running out of time in their Q &A.

And so Phil started doing kind of a lightning round. He would mention a word or a name or a topic. And then Dr. MacArthur was supposed to respond with one word answers or short answers. And Stephen Furtick was one of those names that came up.

So here is Phil Johnson and John MacArthur. We're out.

We're running out of time very quickly. And I haven't even asked you one tenth of the questions I had brought. So let me do what Todd Freel did with you once. Word association. I'll just throw some words at you and you give me your quick response.

And mainly these are going to be issues people want to ask you about because they've been recent controversial issues that you really haven't said anything publicly about people want your opinion on and so on.

So we'll do word association. Elephant room.

That is, let's see a word. Self-destruction. It was its own destruction.

Yeah, Robert Shuler. Spiritual tragedy. Yeah, you saw the news on that yesterday. Yeah, he's suing the Crystal Cathedral. Stephen Furtick. Unqualified.

Church planting. I'm for it. What else would we plant? Yeah, that's right. That's good. So I played that clip without any editing and in context. So you would be able to hear how Phil Johnson had said the name Stephen Furtick and how Dr. MacArthur had responded to it and then even how they went on from that.

Quarrelsomeness, Money-Loving, and the Need for Humility

So Stephen Furtick happened to hear that. And here was how he responded to it.

It was a theologian. This theologian is very well-known very well-respected and he was doing like a pastor's conference and he was doing some question and answer. So I put it on the theologian and I kind of walked out of the room and then I heard him call my name.

They were doing a lightning round where the interviewer was asking the theologian. Now this guy is famous. I didn't know he knew who I was when they said my name and asked him what he thought about me.

I thought he would say who that's what I was expecting because I read this guy's book or I should say I was assigned this guy's book to read in seminary and I told you I wouldn't qualify come take the mic anybody.

Well, they said Stephen Furtick. They were going through names. What do you think about this? And what do you think about that? Stephen Furtick. You know how kind of when you hear some over here somebody talking about you makes you feel important, you know, so I ran back in and said my name said my name.

I made it now. And he says Stephen Furtick. Well the theologian I should show you the clip, but I don't want you to see who he is because some of you when you hear what he said about me if I told you who he was you're not saved enough.

I'm serious. What my mom has thought about cutting his brake cables in his car, but I told her not to do that. She's not as Christian as me. They said Stephen Furtick and he goes his body language said it all.

He goes he drops his head slumps his shoulder and he exhales as if the mere consideration of my name was so wearisome to the great man's theological brain that he could not bear the burden. It was like he was flushing out the toxins of hearing my name just and the crowd chuckled and he summarized my whole ministry which is interesting because I never met him.

But you are judging by appearances summarize my whole ministry with one word. And I guess by now I don't need to tell you what that word was because it became the title of my book Stephen Furtick Stephen Furtick and he said it's so serious to he said it's so serious.

He said unqualified sound like a gavel in Texas death penalty case unqualified. Now there would have been a time where that word would have triggered some words in my mind that would make unqualified sound like a Valentine's Day card rise my reaction.

I started laughing. If you only knew you doctor thank you sir for I thought thank you. Oh by the way you know what I did this week y 'all I signed him a copy of the book and send it to him with a skinny red tie for saying what and that's quarrelsome putting someone.

Else down to make yourself look good and Furtick completely missed the point of what it was that Dr. MacArthur was saying. He wasn't saying Furtick was unqualified as a human being. He was saying that based on the biblical qualifications for a pastor Furtick is unqualified and we can absolutely make that determination about Furtick based on the way that he preaches and I pointed that out yesterday.

Furtick tried to make it into this thing of he's judging me without ever meeting me. I don't have to meet Stephen Furtick to know that as a pastor he is unqualified. And instead Furtick made Dr. MacArthur look like a fool to his congregation so that he could make himself look like the hero.

But lest we get into a place of pointing the finger at Furtick and saying yeah yeah look he's unqualified. Let's be sure that we test ourselves according to what the scriptures say and not render ourselves unqualified.

You may not have a gift of teaching and you may not be called to be an overseer or a pastor but you must hold fast to the trustworthy word as taught. You also must not go beyond what is written. You also must not devote yourself to myths and speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.

You must not swerve and wander away into vain discussion without understanding either what you're saying or the things about which you make your confident assertions. You also must know the Word of Christ and hold fast to it and apply it to your life so that what it produces in you is godliness godly living.

And then you also are aspiring to these mature qualities of a person of faith as we have described here for us in 1st Timothy 3 1 through 7 that you would be a person who is sober minded self-controlled respectable hospitable not a drunkard not violent but gentle not quarrelsome not a lover of money Lord Jesus.

Humility Before God and the Tax Collector’s Prayer

We pray that you would forgive us of our sins and keep us humble that we would not become too proud or boastful or thump our chest or say look at me look at how good of a person I can be. Look at how better I am than this other person for Jesus gave the parable in the book of Luke of the of the Pharisee who says thank God that I'm not like all these other people.

And yet the tax collector came in beating his chest saying Lord have mercy on me a sinner and Jesus saying this man will go up to his house justified and not the Pharisee. And so may we be like that tax collector who came humbly before God saying have mercy on me a sinner produce in us righteousness godly living Christ likeness for your name's sake.

That we would give glory to your great name for the salvation that we have received and yet do not deserve. We are all indeed unqualified unqualified to walk into the throne room of grace and call upon God.

And yet you have given us access to your very presence through Jesus Christ our Lord his sacrifice on the cross and resurrection from the grave. So may we live as children of God Most High as worthy sons and daughters of the King whose name we bear and we.

Pray and ask these things in Jesus name Amen. Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog sharing personal thoughts alerting readers to false teachers and offering commentary on the church and social issues. You can find a link to the blog through our website www .t .com.

Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's Word when we understand the text.