Qualifications of a Pastor

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This means that a pastor must have a character that is self-disciplined. He needs to be one characterized by discipline in his priorities, in his use of time, in his duties for service. He is a person who is serious about spiritual things.

That does not mean that he's cold and humorless. But he views the world with an eternal perspective. He sees that which is more important, that which lasts for eternity.

Welcome to The Wrap Report with your host, Andrew Rapoport. Where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

Welcome to another edition of The Wrap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rapoport, the Executive Director of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. Of which this podcast is a proud member of the over 50 vetted podcasts.

This is a podcast where we give biblical interpretations and applications for all things of the Christian life. We are going through a series right now on what is a pastor. And so far in this series, we have looked at what a pastor is not.

And we said a pastor is not a woman, a pastor is not a street preacher. But a pastor is a shepherd, an elder, an overseer. And we kind of gave some definitions of those roles and functions of a pastor.

Today, we're continuing by looking at the last episode we had in the series. We were looking specifically at the qualifications or the functioning of a pastor. The characteristics of a pastor that we would see in 1st and 2nd Timothy.

Now what we're going to do is focus in on 1st Timothy and Titus. On the passages that we usually refer to as the qualifications of a pastor. This is 1st Timothy chapter 3 and Titus chapter 1 where it goes into the qualifications.

And that is what we're going to look at today. Looking at each one of those qualifications. I will say this, that if you listened to my Andrew Rappaport's daily rap report that I used to do, we did do a short episode with each one of these where we dealt with it in less than 2 minutes for each one.

So if you are looking for something that's more rapid fire, maybe go look for Andrew Rappaport's daily rap report and look for those episodes. They can all be found at thechristianpodcastcommunity .org.

Today, what I said, we're going to look at the qualifications. Where are we headed? Well, after this, the next episode we have, I'm going to talk about, as I mentioned, I will do an episode on why I think the way we hire pastors is not only unbiblical but causes us problems.

After that, we're going to do an episode where I have gotten a lot, a lot, a lot of feedback from you guys. I am so thankful for all the feedback that we got in asking how you can encourage your pastor.

And so we're going to do the final in this series will be an episode on praying for your pastor, how you can encourage your pastor. That is going to be an important one. That's actually what all this series is leading up to, to give us practical ways to value our pastors and show that to them.

So I hope this series has been helpful for you. I thank you for all those that have given feedback to let us know things you want us to cover. And as I said, we are going to cover many of those things.

We've covered most of them already. But as we go through, we're hoping to cover all the rest of them in a series. And if more things come in that we haven't covered, then what we will probably look to do is do an episode where we will just answer questions.

So I hope that so far this has been a very valuable and helpful for each of you in learning more about what a pastor is. Most people, unfortunately, think the pastor is a guy who prepares a sermon. Well, they think he prepares the sermon on Saturday nights to get ready for Sunday service.

And I hope that so far you're realizing that is far, far, far from the truth. That a pastor's role is a lot more, that he is much more active. There's a lot more that he does. And I'm really hoping that you see that he is someone that you are putting more value in for the Christian life when it comes to, if you have a godly pastor, what he is doing week in and week out for you, what his function is.

So with that, let us look at 1 Timothy 3 and also take a look at Titus 1. And if you want everything that I'm going to go over, we've made a simple chart at Striving for Eternity. And if you go to strivingforeternity .org, go to the store that is there, we have a one-page qualifications of church elders.

And it goes over the pastor's qualifications and the deacon's qualifications. That chart has been helpful for some. It's, I think, only $2 .50. So that's something we can mail out to you. And it just gives you all the characters with the scripture verses.

Why would you want that? Well, I'm going to say this, that these characters are not just for the pastor, but this is something that every one of us should be looking to have in our life. And so I hope that that is something that you will value.

All right, so with that, let's get started. I'm going to just go through each of these qualifications one by one and help to give you some of the definitions of what they mean. I'm going to focus only on those that are dealing with the pastor, though I do have that series that I mentioned where I go through the church leaders, and so I also cover the ones that are for deacons.

However, most of these or many of these are both for pastors and deacons, but our focus in this episode is for the pastor. The first one is the term blameless. And as you look at the passages of scripture, one of the things I want you to realize that is when it talks about pastors or deacons, it says that he must be blameless.

The thing with this idea of being blameless is, I think, an overarching quality that all of the others are defined by. In other words, as some will point out that when we talk of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, the fruit of the Spirit is love.

The singular fruit is love. And then all of the others are describing that love. I think that this is a similar thing when it comes to pastors and deacons. The overarching characteristic, especially for the pastor, is blameless.

And then all of these other things are going to define that. I should mention that I characterize these and break these down in three areas. There's the area of character, the area of ministry, and the area of the family.

And I'm going to look at these in that order. So we're going to start with the areas of character. Now, I think that the overarching one is to be blameless. But I put that under the character one and put that first for that reason.

A pastor must be blameless. Now, it literally means that cannot be laid hold of. That's the literal meaning. Some translations will put this as above reproach. This is a must for a pastor. It has the idea of unrebukable.

This does not mean perfect. It does not mean he's sinless, for no one would ever be qualified if that was the case. It has to do with the idea of not having anything that someone could nail to the person.

In other words, there's nothing that the pastor is covering up. That if he does sin, he repents or reconciles of those things quickly. Let me give you a little example. There was a pastor I knew who was arrested for drunk driving.

But when he resigned, he wrote a letter to the church resigning where he just mentioned that he was stepping down for personal sin. He didn't define what that sin was. Many years later, he wanted to come back into leadership.

And I would not allow him because he wouldn't name the sin that he did. And so the issue was that if any man or woman who was in the courtroom when he had a DUI remembered him and then came to church and he never mentioned what the sin was, anyone that would see that would say, hey, I saw you, you were a guy that had the DUI.

And suddenly they have something to nail to him. Now, what he did in this case was because his daughter had a child out of wedlock, a second reason I'll get to later with the family on why he was disqualified.

But many people thought it was just because of that that he was stepping down. See, he used that situation. He was disqualified in two ways, but he used that situation to cover up the drunk driving. And so this was a thing that when he wanted to come back in leadership, I explained that unless he came before the church and announced to the church the fact that he had a DUI, he would not be allowed to come back as a leader.

Now, I found out in previous churches he was in, he had a drinking issue and was allowed to cover it up. And because of that, nobody knew. And when his daughter was pregnant out of wedlock, he wanted to just not have her come to church for nine months and put the child up for adoption with the idea that since she had a really bad case of Lyme's disease, and it was a bad case and she would have to miss very often, people just would assume that.

You see, that's someone who's trying to cover up the sin. Go back to the last episode in this series and we talked about that. But a man who is blameless, and I'm spending more time with this one than any others because this is the one I said is, I think, overarching.

This is now described in all these other characteristics. This is a man who is not trying to cover up for his sin, but he is someone who when he sins, knowing he's going to sin, because we all will, he is quick to do something about it.

If he needs to reconcile with someone, he will. If he needs to repent, he will. But he's not someone that you could go and say, there's this that he's done. If he's done something, he's asked the forgiveness, and then it's a done issue.

It's not that it's something that you can nail to him. That's the overarching one. So let's go through the rest of these and look at what we have. 1 Timothy 3 .2 mentions temperate. The Greek word for temperate literally means wineless or unmixed with wine.

It has the idea of sober or temperate and is abstaining from wine, either entirely or at least from its immoderate use. In other words, he's not letting the wine control him. He's free from things of wine and addiction in that sense.

So this is a word that's often used to describe those who abstain from alcohol. Here, though, it is used as a metaphoric sense to describe a pastor as one who keeps a watch over his conduct and ministry.

He's not given to excesses in any way, whether it be alcohol, money, or even work. This word has the idea of self-controlled, level-headed, not someone who rushes into something without thinking. The third that we see in this list is sober-minded, and this one is required for pastors.

The Greek word has the meaning of a sound mind, someone who's sane in his senses, curbing his desires and impulses, someone who is self-controlled or temperate. This means that a pastor must have a character that is self-disciplined.

He needs to be one characterized by discipline in his priorities, in his use of time, in his duties for service. He is a person who is serious about spiritual things. That does not mean that he's cold and humorless, but he views the world with an eternal perspective.

He sees that which is more important, that which lasts for eternity. If one is temperate and sober-minded in their thinking, this will result in someone being self-disciplined. Number four is a good behavior.

The Greek word means well-arranged, seemingly, or modest. Its basic meaning is to be orderly. His well-disciplined mind leads to a well-disciplined life. We just saw the previous would be that his character is a well-disciplined mind.

Here now he talks about his behavior, and the pastor needs to be organized in nature. If a pastor cannot organize the many duties, how is he going to handle the duties of the church? If a pastor is not organized because there's so many things he must do in the church, the duties of his calling may be neglected.

If he is so undisciplined in his behavior, then he's going to have a problem where everything has got to be done, and he's getting nothing done. That will end up being a neglect of the duties and responsibilities he has to the church.

So we should look for a man who is of good behavior. In other words, he is well-disciplined in his living. Number five in the category of character is one of hospitality. The Greek word here that is translated hospitable is philosinus.

It's a compound word, philo for love, a brotherly love, and xenos being for strangers. So this literally has the meaning of a love for strangers. It's the idea of hospitable or generous to guests. It does not refer to entertaining friends, but showing hospitality to strangers.

I'm just going to give an example of this in my own church. When I first attended the church that I now attend, the first week I attended, the second week, my pastor took me out and my bride out for lunch to get to know us.

We were strangers. Just this week, we had someone who attended the church for the very first time, and he was invited over to my pastor's house to have a meal because he has a love for strangers, not just those within the church, but even those he doesn't know outside the church.

Okay, number six is not given to wine. Now, this one is quite interesting because when we see this referring to deacons, it says not given to much wine, where for the pastors, it says not given to wine.

Some people try to make big differences with that, arguing that, well, and I heard this in a church where someone was a deacon, and he didn't want to be a pastor because he would have a glass of wine every once in a while.

And so he argued that a pastor can't have any wine, but a deacon couldn't have much wine. So he could have a little. So is that what this is actually saying? Well, when we see it referring to the pastors, it is not given to wine.

This is a single word that literally means not a slave to alcohol. Now, if you happen to have a New King James Bible, that version has a footnote here that states that this is meaning that it should be translated not addicted.

Now, for the deacons, it's not given to much wine. This is not the same word that we'd see for the pastor. And so this is several Greek words that come up with the meaning that we'd have of not addicted to or given over to wine.

This does not mean that a pastor can't have any wine, but the deacons can. It talks more about the issue of addiction, not wine. The focus here is on that. It's that you're not a slave to or addicted to, and that's going to be broader, I would argue, than just wine.

Now, why would I say it can't mean that a pastor can't have any wine? Well, Paul encouraged Timothy to have a little wine because his stomach was giving him problems with dysentery because he was drinking just water.

This is 2 Timothy 5 .23. So Paul, a pastor, is encouraging Timothy, another pastor, to drink wine because the water was making him sick. The purpose of the wine back then was to kill the bacteria. Now, we don't need that today in America, at least.

We have filtered water. However, the issue is that of addiction, an issue that many for today is much broader than just alcohol. It can include drugs, gambling, pornography, computer. Yeah, how much time are you on a computer?

Even work. Maybe gossip, and gossip finds its way in many forms. Think about social media. Much of that is gossip. And there are many men who just want to be, they're almost addicted to finding out what is going on with all these other people.

A pastor could be addicted, or a person could be addicted to food. And so a pastor must be one that is not addicted in these many areas. He should not be a man known by addiction. Number seven is not violent.

The Greek word here literally means not a striker. A pastor cannot be one who expresses himself by acts of violence in connection with anger. A man who thinks all his problems can be solved with his fists cannot solve problems in the church.

A pastor must be a peacemaker, not a problem creator. A pastor must not be one who reacts to difficulty with physical violence. He must not settle disputes with blows. He must react to situations calmly, coolly, gently.

If you want, you can cross-reference 2 Timothy 2, 24 and 25. Number eight in our characteristics here is one that is not greedy for money. Now, the Greek word has the meaning of not being eager or greedy for money.

It has the idea of someone who is a lover of money. Not money itself, but what money can obtain for them. This is what Paul means in 1 Timothy 6, 10, when Paul says the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

It's not the money itself, but this is a person who would have a sinful desire for what money can do for them. And a pastor must not be that way. So the pastor must not be a person who has a desire for money, for the use of money, for what it can do for them.

And especially a pastor should not be one that is seeking to use the church for deceitful gain. This includes the popular television preachers who prey on the poor and take advantage of the poor and the weak and the illnesses that they may have to obtain money for themselves.

These men are not qualified for ministry according to God. They have a love for money, which is the sign of a false teacher. So a pastor must be one that is not greedy for the things that money could give him or looking for how he could obtain more for himself.

And especially not one that is going to use deceitful or unbiblical ways of obtaining money. Number nine in our list is gentle. The Greek word means seemingly, suitable, fair, mild, gentle, or moderation.

It describes a person who is considerate, gentle, forbearing, gracious, who easily pardons other human failures. Such a person remembers the good of another and not the evil. He doesn't keep a list of all the wrongs done to him or hold a grudge.

Many men leave ministry because they cannot handle the criticism and any pastor that is a godly pastor knows there is much criticism in the ministry. But a pastor, when wronged, must have no thought of retaliation.

That is the idea of being gentle. Number ten in our list is not quarrelsome. The Greek word here is sometimes translated as not a brawler or uncontentious. It means not to be withstood, not contentious, abstaining from fighting.

It refers not so much to the physical violence that we saw in the previous, but as a quarrelsome person. To have a contentious person in leadership will result in disunity and disharmony, seriously hindering the effectiveness of any leadership team.

And so a pastor must not be one who is contentious. A contentious person is one who loves the non-physical aggression, one who is contentious and displays, through anger, angry words aimed at people.

It is important for a pastor not to carry this quality into the ministry because a pastor will have many opportunities to abuse the privilege of the pulpit in order to be contentious with someone that they disagree.

And this would be a sin against God. No, a pastor is one who is not contentious, not violent or angry, not just as physical, but in this way, in his demeanor. He's not looking for a fight. Number 11 that we have is not covetous.

And we've kind of seen a little bit of this already, but the Greek word carries the meaning of someone who is free from the love of money, not greedy. So it's very similar to something we've seen, but it is the idea that you're not having a love for the things of this world.

You're not wishing to have this or that. Now, is that a sin to want nicer things? It may not be. Is it a sin for a pastor to want to have a car that doesn't break down all the time? I would say no. It's perfectly okay for a pastor to want some things that would be good, that just as you would want some of those things.

But when a person is just meditating on what he doesn't have, making plans and trying to find ways that he could get those things, that is where it becomes a problem. He should not be covetous. Number 12 in this list that we see is a good testimony or reputation.

Now, the Greek word here means a report, a record, a testimony or witness. The Greek words for the idea of testimony and reputation are based on the same words that we have in our English from the word martyr.

It's the idea of being a witness. A pastor's character should be certified by the testimony of those outside the church, not just inside the church. A man chosen to lead the church must maintain a good reputation in the community for righteousness, moral character, love, kindness, generosity, goodness.

They must be men of integrity and above reproach in their community. Does this mean that everyone loves them in the community? Not necessarily. Many pastors say the truth in this generation we live in where because of the way the world is, they hate the truth.

They hate the man not for his character, but by what he says. In America right now, if you have a man that stands up and says that homosexuality is a sin, the culture around him will come up against him.

Well, they're not coming up against him for his character, but because he's declaring what the Bible says. And therefore, we can't say that a man who is not loved by community, so this is not saying he has to be popular with community, because popular with the unsaved world is going to be a man who probably is disqualified in other areas because he's probably not being biblical.

We shouldn't expect the world to love us. But it does mean that in his dealings, he has a reputation. In other words, when he's at work, he is someone who people have respect for his character. They know he's standing up and doing what's right, even if they disagree with that.

Number eight here that we have is the idea here of not self-willed. The Greek word here is meaning not self-pleasing, not self-willed, not arrogant. The word refers to someone who is pleased with himself and despises others, maybe insolent or surly.

This is in contrast to the way we should be behaving. A pastor should be courteous. But this is the idea of someone who is not self-willed, a person who abstains from maintaining his own opinion and asserting that at all times.

A self-willed person is going to be someone who, when he has a thought of the way things should be done, it's his rights that have to be viewed and his opinions that must be. And a pastor is going to be someone who doesn't assert his rights over others, who's not reckless with his rights or his feelings or the interests of others.

He regulates his life with the respect of other people. The world usually looks to aggressive, self-assertive persons for leadership. And many of those people find their ways in the church because many churches function like a business.

And those self-assertive type of aggressive people are the characteristics that we see in the world as qualities for leadership. However, those characteristics disqualify a man for leadership in the church.

Where a self-willed man has no place, every believer and certainly every church leader must continuously fight the battle against fleshly self-will, self-fulfillment, and self-glory. But a pastor is required to do that.

Now, I think I messed up on the numbering. This is number 14. I think I said eight on the last one. So, number 14 is not quick-tempered. The Greek word here means not prone to anger, not quarrelsome, quiet, peaceable, tranquil.

Are we seeing a pattern here, by the way? Hmm. This refers to a person that is not easily provoked to anger. The qualified pastor must carefully guard against a spirit of hostility, resentment, anger.

Even when everything in the church seems to be going the wrong way and people are being critical or indifferent, he is a man who can delegate responsibility to others, who may not fulfill a task the exact way others would, but is still not tempered, not angry or quarrelsome when someone else does it differently.

So, even if people are being critical, he's going to be temperate. He can work with others in kindness and patience and gratitude. He can allow dedicated but inexperienced people around him to fail until they learn to succeed.

Now, this is opposite to the way business works. See, in business, people are expected to be experts in something, and if they fail, they get fired. But in the church, we expect people to grow and to learn and to mature, just like we expect that of children.

But spiritually, we expect people to get out of their comfort zone and try new things, and they're going to be inexperienced, and a godly pastor is going to allow people to fail, to come alongside them and disciple them to succeed in the end.

His own ego is not tied up in everything that's done in the church. Like, the church must be perfect and be seen as successful so that his reputation, maybe to other pastors, is intact. He's going to be one who is quick to share in others' failures and their successes.

He is joyfully submits to God and serves others. That's what it means to be not quick-tempered. Number 15 in our list here is a lover of what is good. Now, the Greek word here means loving goodness and carries the idea of having a strong affection for that which is intrinsically good.

And a pastor should love the things and those people who are genuinely good. Another one is just. And the Greek word is a common word in the New Testament. It has the idea of something that is just or right.

And it denotes that which is proper or right or fitting and frequently rendered righteous. And a pastor must be seen as someone who is just. He's going to do that which is right. Even if it's something that may be hard for him personally, there may be times he must confront sin.

And he's going to do that because he is just, not because, well, that person is the biggest donor in the church and he may stop giving. No, he's going to do what is right and proper. Sometimes that might mean calling out other elders when they're in sin and they continue in sin.

As we see in 1 Timothy 5, Paul is going to tell Timothy that if you have a pastor that's continuing in sin, you must call it out publicly so that all will fear. Well, that's a hard thing to do for a pastor.

And when a pastor does that, it's because he's acting out of justice, we hope. If he's doing it sinfully because he's trying to be seen as right and get rid of a problem person, you know, sometimes the problem person may be the one that's right.

But the idea of justice is that they do what is right and just and proper. The next in our list is holy. The Greek word means undefiled by sin, free from wickedness, religiously observing every moral obligation, pure, holy, pious.

This is the ideas behind this word. This refers to a person who separates himself from sin and the world, not perfectly, but as a pattern of life. None of us will perfectly free ourselves from sin, but it is the pattern of life that he's not entangled with sin.

The last that we have for the pastor in this category of character qualifications is self-controlled. The Greek word has the meaning of mastery, control, curbing or restraining oneself, controlling oneself, temperate or disciplined.

He lives an exemplary life on the outside because he submits to the Holy Spirit's control on the inside. A pastor who is not self-controlled, who does not continually monitor his own life or submits to his sin is one that is going to be disqualified for ministry.

If he's not submitting to the Lord's cleansing process of correcting sin and able to keep a clear conscience because he's blameless, then he's going to have problems and be disqualified for ministry. He is not fit to lead God's people, no matter how outwardly righteous his life may appear.

If he acts right only when others are looking or when he's at church, then he's not just, he's just acting. The self-controlled pastor walks with God in integrity in his heart. He has the continual grace of God working in his life to the degree that he is spiritually mature and morally pure.

Now, these are the characteristics that we have that I put in the area of character. Now, before we get to those that are the characteristics, the qualifications that I put in ministry and family, let me put a word for our sponsor.

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So I encourage you to go out to Squirrelly Joe's. Just go to strivingforeternity .org. Wake yourself up with a good cup of Reformed coffee. As we get back to the qualifications of a pastor, we have two categories left.

The category of ministry and the category of family. Now, we only have six characteristics left in two categories, three for ministry, three for family. And that may surprise you because we had so many other characteristics for character.

That's important because what I think Paul is trying to make really clear to Timothy and Titus is character matters. In fact, I'm going to argue that when we look at the areas of ministry and family, there's still character issues as well.

They talk about the character of the man. I'm going to get into this later in a future episode in the series when we talk about the fact that the pastor and how we hire a pastor is not biblical.

Why?

Because most churches only know their pastor for maybe a week. Maybe the committee that is looking to interview the pastors got a little extra time with them. But the church, maybe they get one or two weeks and they're going to vote whether he's qualified to be the pastor of their church.

How well do they know his character? Honestly, not at all. And that's why there's so many problems with the church because what ends up happening is these pastors come in and no one really knows their character.

And then they find out, oh, this guy is not what we thought he was. And so out the door they put him. And so this is why character matters. It is the very thing that we see. And I will share this again in that later episode.

But in the three churches where I was the preaching pastor or ones where I was a pastor in the church, I was always in the church beforehand. Now, I make that distinction because many times you have someone who's a member of the church as I've been and then made a pastor, but I wasn't the preaching pastor.