God's House Rules #10 - Gospel Order in God's House #5: "Able to Teach" (1 Tim 3:2)

1 Timothy 3:1-7 and the Forgotten Qualification

So 1st Timothy chapter 3 and verses 1 to 7. If you have one of the red Bibles that we give away, that's on page 1052. Page 1052, 1st Timothy chapter 3, verses 1 to 7. 1st Timothy chapter 3 and verses 1 to 7.

If you're able to do so, can I invite you to stand with me out of respect for God's.

Word?

1st Timothy chapter 3, reading in verse 1 and reading through to verse 7. 1st Timothy 3, 1 through 7. Brothers and sisters, these are God's words to us this morning. This saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to be an overseer, he desires a noble work.

An overseer therefore must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, self-controlled, sensible, respectable, hospitable, able to teach. Not an excessive drinker, not a bully, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not greedy.

He must manage his own household competently and have his children under control with all dignity. If anyone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of God's.

Church?

He must not be a new convert or he might become conceited and incur the same condemnation as the devil. Furthermore, he must have a good reputation among outsiders so that he does not fall into disgrace and the devil's trap.

The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God will remain forever. Allow me to pray, ask for God's help, and we will get to work in his word this morning. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we ask that as we come to your word once again, that your spirit would use that word in all of our lives to glorify your son and our savior, Jesus.

As we think about the word of God this morning and the importance of its taught, pray that even as that happens now, your spirit would do a work of turning blind eyes into seeing eyes, turning deaf ears into ears that hear.

May your spirit be pleased to use the word to draw us closer to the living word, the Lord Jesus. Father, as we pray the fast, we pray for our friends at Community Bible Church here in Central Point, pray for Pastor Kevin and the elders there as they gather on this first Sunday of the year.

Be with them, encourage them in the ministry of the word, may your people be built up and may those who don't know you come to know you through the ministry of the word there. We pray that for CBC and we pray that for ourselves now, asking in Jesus' name and for his sake.

Amen.

Please be seated. Well, if you are joining us anew this morning, we are in the final week of a deep dive that we've been kind of doing, working our way through 1 Timothy 3 -1 -7. As you saw when you came in, this is part of a larger series that we've been in called God's House Rules.

God's House Rules is an exposition of 1 Timothy. We've just been working our way passage by passage through 1 Timothy. But when we got to chapter 3, I made the decision that I wanted to slow the pace down considerably.

Because as I studied this letter and prepared to preach it a few months ago, I became convinced that this might be the most misunderstood section in this whole letter. There are some complicated things in this letter, but none of them I think as misunderstood as what Paul says here in 1 Timothy 3 -1 -7.

And so I wanted to take the time and to look carefully at what Paul says, what he means, and why it matters for us as God's people. And so I won't re-preach all, what's now five of the messages I've preached, or four actually, in this section.

But by my count, we have looked at 13 different qualifications. I'll put them up on screen to look at again. So Paul says that, first and foremost, assuming that a man has a desire for the work, I called that, if you remember, those of you who were here, I called that the forgotten qualification.

It's assumed a man actually wants to do this. Well, if he does, what kind of man should he be? Well, firstly, he should be above reproach. And we saw that above reproach doesn't mean that he's perfect or that there's nothing you can say.

It's that there's nothing serious that you can say that sticks. And we said that that's something of a headline and everything else is indeed a detail of how he is above reproach. And so he's above reproach.

He's to be the husband of one wife, literally a one woman man, not just that he's married, but that he is committed to his marriage, that he's known as a man of single commitment. We saw that he's to be self-controlled, sensible, and respectable, and those three form something of a unit.

That he is to be somebody who's characterized by keeping his desires and passions in check. He's to be sensible, someone who thinks well, and as a result, respectable, somebody who acts well, who acts with excellence.

We also saw that he's to be hospitable, that he is to be somebody who has a love of strangers, that he opens not just his home, but his heart to those he's not immediately connected to. We also saw that he's not to be an excessive drinker.

He's not somebody who is characterized by a love of any substance that can dull his.

Thinking.

He's also not to be a bully, but gentle, not to be quarrelsome, that he's not characterized by the use of force to get his way. He's also to manage his own household competently, that he exercises authority in his home in the kind of way that it elicits respect and submission from those underneath him.

He's not to be a new convert. There's a maturity that's to be expected there. And finally, he's to have a good reputation among those who are outside, that he lives in the kind of way that even those who don't know Jesus can look at him and say, I might not believe his Jesus, but I know he does.

So that's what we've seen so far. But there's one of them that we have skipped.

We've looked at 13.

But jump back up to verse two, if you've got it open in front of you. See those three words at the end of verse two, able to teach, some of your Bibles might.

Say apt to teach.

That's the qualification I want to take some time and think about this morning as we come to the ministry of God's word. Like I said, I think all of these are very easy to misunderstand. And I especially think this one, being able to teach can be easily misunderstood.

The thing about this one qualification is it's very different from all the others. The 13 that we've looked at so far, and if you missed any of those or you want to catch up on that teaching, you can go to our website.

We're on YouTube as well. And we even have an app. You can find the teaching there in a number of ways. The thing about these qualifications we've looked at, the thing that links them all together so far is character.

This is who the man is. We've not spoken too much. We've kind of made some implications about what he does. But the focus so far has been, who is this person? Today however, and by the way, the character that's assumed here is not a superhuman, otherworldly.

Character.

This is past the character versus everyone else. The point I've made over the last few weeks is that this is a character of a Christian. He's just supposed to be an example of what a Christian looks like.

This is not superhuman, otherworldly character. It's spirit-empowered, grace-empowered, gospel-empowered character.

Like I said, most of this is character.

There is only one competency. There's only one skill. There's only one giftedness, if we can call it that, that an overseer, according to Paul, is supposed to have. Those three words at the end of verse two, he must be able to teach.

So this morning, I want us to think about just those three words. I think I joked with my wife the other day that this may be the only time in history I've preached a sermon on three words. But I want us to think about those three words, being able to teach.

I want to think about what that phrase means, what it looks like, and why it matters. For those of you who've been here through this series, I've kind of broken with my usual habit of having a big idea for every sermon.

I'm glad to announce the big idea is back. For this message, I do actually have a big idea statement. Here's the big thing I want you to leave here with this morning. It's very simple. The primary work of an elder is word work.

The primary work of an elder is word work. And to do that work, he must be able to teach. The primary work, and please note the use of words here, primary, not only work, but the primary work. The first work above everything else of an elder is word work.

And to do that work, he must be able to teach. One more time, the primary work of an elder is word work, and to do that work, to do word work, and I'll explain what that phrase word work means in a moment.

To do that work, he must be able to teach. What exactly does Paul mean when he uses this phrase, able to teach, and why does it matter? I'm convinced it does. And I hope maybe you're convinced, I mean, it's in God's words, it must be important.

But my hope is this morning to ask and answer that question of what is this qualification and why does it matter? To do that, for the rest of our time, I want to consider three questions. I want to consider three questions that will open up the meaning of this phrase, able to.

Teach.

I want to consider three questions, and my hope is that as we consider these three questions, we will be able to ask and answer the question, what does it mean to be able to teach? So three questions, question number one this morning, probably the most straightforward of the three I'm going to ask.

What does the phrase able to teach mean? It's probably a good place for us to start. Now, we start to hit a bit of an interesting situation with this question, because normally what you do is you go back in the original language and you, because again, the Bible wasn't written in English originally, it's been translated into English, it was written in Hebrew in the Old Testament, another language called Aramaic in a few places, but mostly Hebrew and Greek in the New.

Well, normally what you do when you want to find what phrases mean is you look in the original language and you find the meaning based on what it originally said. This phrase, however, is interesting because it's only one word, the word able to teach.

And in fact, Paul only uses it in two places, uses it in this passage and he'll use it in the next letter, second Timothy, second Timothy chapter two, but that's about it. In fact, in every resource I looked in, and there are some resources that Bible nerds like myself like to use to try and get answers to these questions, the most I could find in some was like three sentences because there's not much to say.

He only uses it twice. And the word is pretty simple. It just means able or skillful to teach. So, OK, well, that doesn't help too much. Is there a way that we can figure out what Paul means by this phrase?

Because he can't just have three words. That was my sneaking suspicion. And as I thought about it, I realized, ah, he does explain this somewhere. Take your Bible, turn with me two books over to the book of Titus.

Titus chapter one. So we're in first Timothy. You want to skip over second Timothy and you'll land at the letter of Titus. Titus is actually very similar to first Timothy in a lot of ways. Titus has been sent by Paul to deal with the church situation in a particular area.

The area is known as the island of Crete is a particularly challenging place. And part of why he's there. So look at Titus chapter one, look at verse five, Titus one, five forces. The reason I left you, Titus, in Crete was to set right what was left undone as I directed you.

And excuse me, as I directed you to appoint elders in every town.

Okay.

So Titus's job is there's some stuff that Paul didn't quite get to finish before he left Crete. And so he says, Titus, I didn't quite get to finish. So I need you to clean this up for me and get this stuff done before we leave, before you leave.

And one of the things he's to do is to appoint elders. And so in Titus one, five through nine, you have a very similar passage to the one that we are in. In fact, very similar. He uses pretty much the same words.

And lays out qualifications for elders. For our time, I want us to focus in on verse nine. So look at verse nine. So verse nine, he says, an elder must be one who is, this is how he says it, holding to the faithful message or the faithful word as taught, so that he will be able both to encourage with sound teaching and to refute those who contradict it.

Can I put it to you though, I think in Titus one, nine, Paul gives us an expanded version of what he gives us in first Timothy three. What does it mean to be able to teach? It means this. Now we'll get to the practice of this in just a moment.

But now I want to break down this one verse a little bit and show us three different facets of what it means to be able to teach. Because again, I'm convinced that Paul is saying the same thing here that he said in first Timothy three, two.

So what does it mean to be able to teach? First of all, it means that being able to teach means having devotion to the word of God. Notice what he says beginning of the verse, holding to the faithful message as taught, holding present tense, that he has a living, active grasp of what Paul describes as the faithful message or literally the faithful word.

That he is characterized by a devotion to the word of God, the faithful message would be the message that had been preached by the apostles. That was the word of God at that point. Scripture is still being written at that stage.

And he says that a elder holds to the message as he has been taught that message. He's characterized by a devotion to the word of God. There's one right to put it in a pastor. There is demanded not only learning, but such zeal for pure doctrine as never to depart from it.

So he says that an elder, a man who would be a leader in God's church or to use the language of our series, a leader in God's house, he is to be one who has a devotion to the word of God. He has heard the word.

He has not just heard the word. He has taken personal ownership of that word. And as a result, he's able to minister it. Well, why does he need to have a devotion to the word of God? Did you notice those two words in the next part of the sentence?

He says, holding to the faithful messages taught so that. OK, what's the purpose of him having a devotion to the word of God? Actually, there are two purposes, one of them positive, one of them negative.

So being able to teach means having a devotion to the word of God, but it's not just having a devotion to the word of God. Secondly, it means declaring the word of God. So not only is he to have a devotion to the word of God, he also needs to declare that word.

So again, look at our verse, Titus 1 -9, holding to the faithful message as taught so that he will be able both to encourage with sound teaching. I'm going to stop there. The faithful leader knows the word of God and holds to it so that he can encourage with sound, healthy, wholesome, life-giving.

Actually, the word that's used here is where we got word hygiene from. That which is clean, teaching, encourages an interesting translation. I don't think it's personally the best one. It doesn't carry the sense of coming along.

Someone say, hey, you're doing a good job. It's OK. That's not the word here. There is a word for that. It's just not this one. It can mean that in some context. I think a better way to translate this in the ESV translation, I think does a good job here.

It translates it as instructing that he knows the word, but he doesn't just know the word. He knows the word for the purpose of being able to declare that word, to be able to instruct God's people in that word.

He knows the word, and so he can communicate it to God's people for their growth and for their obedience to Jesus. Everyone still following me so far? So being able to teach means he has a devotion to the word of God.

Being able to teach means declaring the word of God. That's the positive side of word ministry, of word work, if you will. But there's a negative. He needs to know the word. He needs to be able to encourage or to instruct in the word.

It also means he has to defend the word of God. Being able to teach means defending the word of God. So notice again how Paul ends this. So he says, holding to the faithful messages taught, devotion, that he will be able to be able both to encourage a sound teaching.

That's the declaration part. And to refute those who contradict it. I'm sure I don't need to say this, but allow me to remind you of something that might be obvious to you. There are lots of people who claim to speak for Jesus.

There are lots of people who claim to be teaching and proclaiming the word of God. There are lots of people who claim that they are speaking for God. But just because somebody says they're speaking for God, doesn't mean that they actually are speaking for God.

Just because somebody says they are proclaiming the truth, doesn't mean they actually are proclaiming the truth. And the reality is when people who say that they are, by the things that they say and the things they do, when they start to demonstrate that they aren't a faithful shepherd, a faithful overseer, a faithful elder has to catch this, deploy the word of God against that error.

The faithful leader doesn't have the luxury of saying, well, I just want to focus on the truth. I don't need to worry about that. I just want to be positive, encouraging. I was going to say Caleb, but never mind.

He doesn't have that luxury. He has to know the word well enough, not just to be able to teach it positively, but that when somebody says something that, my historical hero, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, he had a quote about this.

He said, discernment is not the difference between right and wrong. He said, discernment is the difference between right and almost right. A faithful communicator of God's word doesn't just know the truth on a positive level.

He also knows that when you're saying something that's even a degree off, he can say, wait a minute. No, that's not what it says. He has to know the word well enough to be able to know when someone is speaking against that word.

I've never worked in banking. I know some of you have. I am reliably told by people who have worked in banking. And I don't know if this is still the case today. I know at one point when they wanted to teach people, dad, help me out here if I'm right.

My father-in-law was in banking for years, so he can back me up if I'm right on this. I'm made to understand that when they teach tellers to know the difference between a fake note and a real note, they don't give them a bunch of fake notes.

They give them a real one and tell them to learn that.

Does that sound about right?

Okay, so I'm right on that. He needs to know the original well enough. I don't know. Have you ever been burned by a fake note before?

I have.

Will never forget because it annoyed the life out of me for months. I was, I had a laptop. I was selling it. I sold it to somebody online. First mistake.

Used eBay.

But anyway, I saw it somewhere online. The person came by the house, sold it for a certain amount. They gave me the money in cash. So I count the thing. I'm kind of in a hurry because the person was late and I had somewhere to go.

So they hand me the money. I count it. All looks fine. I go about my business. I get back home like, okay, let me count this thing properly.

Okay, okay.

What is this? One of these 20 pound notes was clearly fake. It was not like the others. Now I'm looking at all the other ones. I'm like, no, this pulled the actual 20.

I had them all. Nope.

I just got burned. Do I know if the person did that on purpose? I hope not. But how could I know that this thing I'm holding wasn't the real deal? Because I've held enough of the real deal to know. This isn't it.

A faithful elder is the same. He's been around this book long enough. He knows the truth well enough that when someone comes along and they say something that's not quite what this book says. They wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

This isn't what I heard. This isn't what I've been taught. This ain't it. That's what Paul means by being able to teach, I think. I think Titus 1 .9 gives us the full version of what he summarizes in 1st Timothy 3.

That he must know the word of God and have a devotion to it. That he should declare that word. And that he can refute those who contradict the word. That's what it means to be able to teach. So for a moment, let's just ask, let's just clarify what Paul does not mean by this.

Paul does not say that the man has to have natural speaking ability. He doesn't say the man even has to be brilliant at it. He doesn't say you have to like his style on a subjective level. Different people have different personalities.

One of my favorite quotes on preaching by Phillips Brooks. He said that preaching is truth mediated through personality. That means some people will have a personality and a style that doesn't appeal to you.

That doesn't mean he can't teach. Just means you don't particularly like the way he teaches. I think you can personally, for what it's worth, as somebody who's preached a while, I want to stick up for other preachers and say sometimes we could all stand to be a little less subjective about our views on preaching.

If he's faithfully preaching the word, you don't have to like his style. Just be thankful he's faithfully preaching the word. So Paul doesn't say you have to like his style on a subjective level. He doesn't say the man has to be confident in his ability to teach.

Sometimes that can actually be more of a danger than a help, depending on the person. Now, to be fair, I'm not going to say that being confident in what you do doesn't help. I'm not going to say that fine tuning your style and defining your own voice isn't a good thing.

I'm not going to say that natural speaking ability is bad. We praise God for those who are eloquent. I know I'm not, but I'm thankful for those who are. All of those things are good to work on. In fact, I would argue that a good preacher can grow in those things.

In fact, he should.

He should make progress that is evident to all. And on the style part, like I said, styles can actually grow on people. If you give it enough time and you seek to be gracious, somebody's style with all of his differences might actually grow on you.

But none of those things, style, natural speaking ability, confidence, none of those things are essential. What is essential is that he knows the word, that he can communicate that word, and that when someone is out of line with that word, he can point it out.

So again, what does it mean to be able to teach? Having a devotion to the word, declaring that word, and when necessary, defending it. If that's what Paul means, and I hope you're convinced that it is, if that's what Paul means, then well, why is it important?

Why would we want to take time to think about this? Thankfully for you, that's my second question this morning. So question number one, what does the phrase able to teach mean? Question number two, why does this qualification matter?

Why is it that both, come back to 1 Timothy 3, that both in Titus and in Timothy, the only competence that Paul lists is this one. Why is this the one skill Paul expects from every leader in God's house?

I think to answer that question, you need to kind of zoom out a little bit and think about God's grand purposes in general. Allow me to put a few pieces in place that might help us with this. Why does this qualification matter?

Well, first of all, consider would be the fact that God works in the world through his word, that God works in the world through his word. You see this pattern right at the beginning of the Bible. When God creates, how does God create?

Well, that's a trick question.

Seriously, how does God create? He speaks, his word goes forth and things are created. So the Psalmist can say in Psalm, I believe it's 33 verse nine, that let all the earth stand in awe of Jehovah.

Why?

Because he spoke and it came to be. And all throughout the Bible, when God wants to do something before he does anything, he speaks first. That's a principle you see all through the Bible. God speaks and then things happen.

I think probably my favorite picture of this is in Ezekiel 37. In fact, let's turn there real quick. Ezekiel 37, all the way back in the Old Testament. Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel.

Ezekiel in chapter 37. One of the things about Ezekiel that makes it a very challenging book at times is that the majority of this book is basically one vision after another. And they're very picture driven visions.

So much so you have to really pay attention because every detail matters. Pick it up with me in chapter 37 verse one. Ezekiel 37 one, the hand of Yahweh, the hand of the covenant God was on me and he brought me out by his spirit and set me down in the middle of the valley.

And it was full of bones. He led me all around them. There were a great many of them on the surface of the valley and they were very dry. Then he said to me, son of man, which is a term that he uses a lot for Ezekiel in this letter.

Son of man, can these bones live? I replied, Lord Yahweh, only you know. Know what God says, three, four. He said to me, prophesy concerning these bones and say to them, dry bones. Hear the word of Yahweh.

This is what the Lord Yahweh says to these bones. I will cause breath to enter you. I will put tendons on you, make flesh grow on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath in you so that you come to life.

Then you will know that I am Yahweh. God simply says to Ezekiel, speak my word to this valley full of dead bones. In fact, they're dry bones. All the connective tissue and all the muscle in them has completely gone away.

It will be like me walking into my doctor. My doctor's office has a skeleton in it. I'm not sure why he needs one, but there's one in there. It'll be like me walking up to that thing and say, hey, bones, wake up.

It's not going to happen. But look at verse seven. The prophet is obedient. It says, so I prophesied. I spoke as I had been commanded. While I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound. And the bones came together, bone to bone.

The bones start to come together and they start to form. Jump down to verse 10. It says, so I prophesied as he commanded me. The breath entered them and they came to life and stood on their feet.

A vast army.

God tells the prophet to speak his word. He speaks his word and dead things come to life. Funny, Jesus is the same thing. You're taking those John 5, 25. Jesus has an hour is coming and is now here. He's not talking about the resurrection when he says this.

He says an hour is coming and is now here. When the dead will hear the voice of the son of God and those who hear will live. Our God is to quote a title of a book that actually recommended in this week's digging deeper page.

God is a God of word. He speaks so that things happen. The God who speaks speaks so that things happen and that God uses people to speak so that.

Things happen.

That's actually the second reason why this matters. Not only is it important because God works in the world through his word, it's important because God's word comes to people through people. We're reading a letter from Paul in first Timothy.

When you read Paul, Paul is very clear. That he viewed at the heart of his ministry, the proclamation of the truth. So Romans chapter 10 verse 17. So faith comes by what is heard and what is heard comes through the message about Christ.

One of the passages that we often use as a benediction here at Redeemer Romans 16, 25. Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation about Jesus.

Christ.

One Corinthians 121. It says. For since in God's wisdom, the world did not know God through wisdom. God was pleased to save those who believe how what's the means through the foolishness of what is preached.

I put it to you that Paul has that priority. Paul viewed the proclamation of the truth as central.

Why?

Because he got that from Jesus. Mark 138 says that Jesus said to his disciples, let's go on to the neighboring villages so that I may preach there too. This is the part that this week, I had to pause when I read this.

He says, let's go on to the neighbor, which is what I may preach there too. This is why I have come. Let's pause for a moment. I have two questions. One's not that important. The second one is very important.

My not important question is this. If any pastor came out and said, I'm here to preach, this is why I'm here. What kind of response would he get in modern American evangelical? That's just an intellectual curiosity.

That's not an important question. This is the important question. Did you notice that Jesus says I came to preach? Here's my question. How often do we think about the fact that Jesus came as a preacher?

Think about it. We often, we just have Christmas. So typically during Christmas, we think about Jesus, the man. Rightfully so. In terms of our salvation, we typically think of Jesus, the Messiah. And rightfully so.

But here's my question. How much thought do we give to Jesus, the messenger? Let me zoom out a little more for just a moment. When you read your Bible, your Bible describes Jesus as having three offices.

There are three functions that he performs on behalf of his people. He's a priest because he offered himself as a sacrifice for sin, and he represents us before the father. He's a king because he conquers our rebellion and guides and directs all things for our good as his people.

And the Bible also says, in addition to being a prophet, excuse me, a priest and a king, he's also a prophet. So I won't read it because of time, but Deuteronomy 18. Moses is speaking to the nation of Israel, and he says, Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers.

You must listen to him. Verse 18. I will put my words in his mouth and he will tell you everything I command him. Well, when you read the book of Acts, you know what the book of Acts says that was talking about?

Acts 3, 21. Heaven must receive him, Jesus, until the time of the restoration of all things, which God spoke about through his holy prophets from the beginning. Moses said, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.

You must listen to everything he tells you. The apostles understood that when Moses spoke about this prophet to come, that the prophet he was talking about is a prophet with a capital P. He was talking about the Lord Jesus.

That Jesus is God's great prophet. Here's how our fathers in the faith put it. Westminster larger characters in question 43. Christ carries out the office of a prophet in revealing to his church in all ages by his spirit and his word and in many ways of administration, the whole will of God in all things concerning their edification and salvation.

The Jesus that you and I worship is not just one who died and represents us before the father glorious as that is. He is not just the one who conquers sinners hearts and makes them willingly obedient to him.

And who right now is ordering everything in the universe for the good of his people. True as that is, the Jesus that you worship is also the one who reveals, who declares the truth about God.

Okay, coffee.

What does this have to do with being able to teach everything? Because here's what's happening when the word of God is being preached. That prophetic work of Jesus. I don't believe preachers are prophets in the same sense as they were in the Bible.

But I do believe this, that all faithful preachers are standing in the line of the great prophet who declared the truth about God. And so God's word comes to people through people. And why does that matter?

Because God's people thirdly receive blessing through God's word. As God's people proclaim the word of God's great prophet. Here's what the Bible tells us. Wonderful and amazing things happen. We've already seen that people are saved because that word is preached.

But here's some other things that happen. Acts 26, 17 and 18 tell us that blind eyes are open, that those who are in spiritual darkness now encounter spiritual light. If you've been a redeemer, you know that I love Acts 20 verse 32.