Title: Examining Elders
Scripture: 1 Timothy 5:19-25
Speaker: Nate Pickowicz
Over the last several months in our study of 1 Timothy, we have spent a substantial amount of time talking about the topic of spiritual leadership in the church, namely the role in the ministry of church elders. We've seen that the office of elder is no different than that of a pastor and that they're called to shepherd the flock of God. And when we consider what that ministry is, we remember that Jesus Christ is the ultimate shepherd of the flock.
He guides and protects His people, but more than this, we know from John chapter 10, He declares the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. Well, how so? Well, all of us as sinful and flawed people have turned to our own way and we've wandered away from the Lord and in our wandering, we sin against Him. But the Lord Jesus Christ has come into the world to seek and save the lost.
Instead of leaving us to die, He rescues us. He gives His life for us on the cross and He pays for our sins and He earns eternal forgiveness and life and delivers us to His heavenly dwelling. Or as 1 Peter 2.25 says, for you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.
So, not only does the Lord call Himself the good shepherd, but He also appoints others to minister to His sheep on His behalf, and their job is to guide and direct the sheep back to the Lord. These earthly shepherds are pastors and elders of Christ's church, but we understand that there are biblical qualifications and standards for elders. We read about this quite a while ago here, but just to remind you in 1 Timothy 3.2, it says, an overseer, that's the same office as pastor, shepherd, bishop, an overseer then must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money.
He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity, but if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God? And not a new convert so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil, and he must have a good reputation with those outside the church so that he will not fall into reproach and snare of the devil. And so, again, the purpose of qualifications is to ensure that the church has men in leadership who are above reproach standing for Christ's truth and leading others to do the same. But the question arises, well, what happens when an elder's or a pastor's character is called into question? Or worse, what happens if an elder or a pastor disqualifies themselves through sinning? Because remember, the purity of Christ's church is of the utmost importance, and the Lord provides us with parameters for examining elders.
And so that's what we're going to talk about today. And if you haven't already turned in your copy of Scripture, please go to 1 Timothy chapter 5. We're going to wrap up the end of chapter 5 today, 1 Timothy 5. At the end of 5, chapter 5 here brings us sort of through this elongated discussion. We're kind of bouncing here and there.
Paul is at the point in his letter where he's covering quite a large number of topics, and even in chapter 6 we're going to bounce around a little bit and cover some more material. But at the end of the last section of Paul's discourse in chapter 5, he has a long discussion about what it means for the church to honor widows, to love and respect and care for widows. And so that discussion here is moving us into those who care for the widows or those who are in leadership to care for those.
And in chapter 5 verses 17 and 18, right after that, Paul instructs the church about the importance of not just honoring widows but honoring elders, those who serve not just the widows but those who serve the whole church. And he says in verse 17, the elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, you shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing, and the laborer is worthy of his wages.
And so we saw last time that there is an importance of honoring those who serve the body and serve the Lord well. But then we'd shift a little bit here to verse 19, and Paul then he kind of redirects his focus then to potential problems that might arise in light of all that. And so that's what we're going to talk about today, verses 19 to 25.
We're just going to read the passage, and then I'm going to work through it with you, and hopefully we'll come to understanding here. So 1 Timothy 5 19, the Apostle Paul writes, do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses. Those who continue in sin rebuke in the presence of all, so that the rest also will be fearful of sinning.
I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of His chosen angels to maintain these principles without bias, doing nothing in a spirit of partiality. Do not lay hands upon anyone too hastily, and thereby share responsibility for the sins of others. Keep yourself free from sin.
No longer drink water exclusively, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments. The sins of some men are quite evident, going before them to judgment. For others, their sins follow after.
Likewise also, deeds that are good are quite evident, and those which are otherwise cannot be concealed. Now, Bible scholars have outlined this passage in many different ways, and admittedly, if you just look at it at face value, it looks like just a series of maxims kind of strung together, but I tend to think, and I'm sure you would agree with me after we study this, that there's a lot more going on here. John Stott, one Bible scholar I like to reference, he takes verses 17 to 25 as a series of practical instructions for those responsible for the church's leaders, and he groups these verses into something of an outline here, just for the sake of your own understanding of it.
Verses 17 and 18, he calls that appreciation. Verses 19 and 20, he deals with that as fairness. Verse 21 is impartiality.
Caution, verses 22 to 23, and then discernment, 24 and 25. So he kind of just sees them as these general maxims for leadership, and I think that's certainly insightful. I've seen other outlines of the passage as well, but I tend to think that there's actually more of a logical flow of thought here.
There's cohesiveness in Paul's thinking. If you study the Apostle Paul enough, you start to realize that Paul, first of all, he's a brilliant scholar, but his mind works. I mean, he's like a lawyer.
He kind of works here and then makes this case and argues this way and has this evidence, and then he kind of forgets where he was going and goes back to it. And to follow his train of thought, he's a remarkable guy. And God uses his mind, he uses his personality, he uses his argumentation to convey the truth of God's Word, and it's helpful for us.
And so I do think that there is a logical flow of thought here for us to follow, and I think once we see it, you'll see that there's a lot more happening in this passage. And so I do think it's helpful to treat these verses individually and seeing them as instructions for varying situations, but we're going to begin here in verse 19, and it begins by just addressing a situation of someone in the church who brings a charge of sin against an elder. Okay, this is the backdrop of actually honoring elders in verses 17 and 18, but what if you get to a point where there is a charge to be made against an elder, what do you do? And by way of introduction, I would say that leadership is always the situation where there is vulnerability to charges and accusations and grievances and slander.
It's like as soon as you're called to leadership, you're just inviting scrutiny, you're inviting a critical spirit, you're inviting accusation. I think there's reasons for this. There's probably a lot more than I'm thinking of, but just the two that I thought of this week were, I think first of all that leaders are often seen as those whose job it is to deal with problems, and so when folks bring problems or concerns or scrutiny, you have to bring it somewhere.
To go and just talk about it with other people, that would be gossip and slander, and so I think that's part of the reason why people will bring these kinds of things, and if there is an issue of sin, you want to bring it to the person who's going to deal with it, so I think that's fair, but I think secondly, and I think more sinfully, there's always the reality that Satan works in spiritual ways against spiritual leaders, and he uses people in their sinful bents to attack and tear them down. One of the ways that the church comes under attack is by trying to tear down the leaders of the church. Frankly, if Satan can destroy the leadership of a church, he can destroy the church itself, and so there's always scrutiny, there's always attacks, there's always accusations.
Some are founded, some are unfounded, and I think we have to evaluate, but spiritual leaders, and I want to say this very clearly, spiritual leaders ought to be held to a higher standard of character. There's no denying that we are called to a higher standard, and some might look at the qualifications and look at the example and the situation and say, well, gee whiz, that's not fair, that you can't do this and can't do that, but the rest of us can. It's not about that.
It's about a standard of higher expectation for leaders, and so with higher standards comes the greater probability of a leader sinning or making a mistake. As soon as you have eyes on you, then you're going to see faults, you're going to see errors and mistakes. If I say things, my job is to speak publicly quite a bit here, there's a more probability.
The Bible says that where words are many, sin is not far behind, and if you know me, you know that there's always sin possibly far behind because I can't stop talking, but that's always the reality. You're inviting scrutiny, you're inviting examination, but there's some parameters for this. Look at verse 19 again.
He says, do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses, and so this is the occasion where someone brings an accusation of sin against an elder, but I want you to notice that immediately Paul is giving conditions where it could be heard. At the second half of the verse, look at the second half of verse 19, he states that this must be on the basis of two or three witnesses. This phrase, two or three witnesses, is taken directly from Deuteronomy 19.15, and it pertains to legal cases.
Moses writes in Deuteronomy 19, or excuse me, yeah, 19.15, he says, a single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which has been committed, but on the evidence of two or three witnesses, a matter shall be confirmed, and so when you read that in the context of Deuteronomy 19, this existed to give the accused a fair and just trial and to root out the possibility of empty slander or false accusations, and in an ideal situation in our modern court system, you would have the evidence of two or three or multiple witnesses. I mean, that is considered prudence in judicial law. It isn't always followed the way that we would like to see it followed, but that is the standard, none the same.
And so, any charge has to be confirmed, and Paul applies that principle to the elders here. He says, if a credible charge of sin is to be brought against an elder of the church, it must be confirmed by witnesses. In fact, Jesus is articulating the very same idea when He deals with issues of church discipline from Matthew 18.
We've been through this as a church before, a couple, I don't even think at this point, maybe over a year ago, more than that, from Matthew 18 dealing with church discipline, that there are essentially four steps of church discipline. The first is that you go to a brother or sister one-on-one privately, but if you can't really get anywhere with them at a certain point, you have to bring others along with you, and if you bring others along with you, He says in the verse one or two, which totals two or three by the time you're involved, what is the purpose of bringing others with you? Jesus says in Matthew 18 16, so that by the mouth of witnesses, every fact may be confirmed. The purpose is confirmation.
Did sin really take place? Because if an elder is accused of sin, there has to be a way to substantiate and confirm the accusation, but if not, if you can't confirm that sin has really taken place, Paul says, do not receive an accusation against an elder. This word receive is paradekomai in the Greek. It literally means to acknowledge or accept or even to entertain.
Paul essentially says, you are not to even entertain an accusation if it can't be proved, because think through this with me. If you can't prove it, someone says, oh, you're sinning, and there's no proof, then what is that called? That's called slander. That's called slander.
That's an attack on a person who's serving the Lord and serving the church. Furthermore, there's a world of difference, and I want you to pay attention to this. There's a world of difference between personal preference, which is I don't like what he did, versus an actual sinfulness, what he did was wrong, but we tend to conflate those two.
I don't like this decision. I don't like that behavior. I don't like that judgment.
That's not good for me and my preferences versus, no, there is something demonstrably wrong or faulty or unrighteous, sinful about what was done. Now, that's not to say that there isn't a place for questions, for respectful discussion. I think all of you, if you've been around for a while, know that we have a relatively open-door policy.
Talk. I'm happy to talk. All the elders are happy to talk, receive emails, to have discussions.
There's nothing wrong with that at all, but if a churchgoer makes an unfounded accusation against an elder, the Bible says that we are not even to entertain it. Don't even give it a hearing. Don't even listen to it.
But what if the accusation is true? What if this elder has sinned and done something wrong? Well, I think there's an assumption that's being made between verses 19 and 20 here, and I think that that assumption that Paul is operating under is that the elder has been confronted with the charge that he has repented and the matter is being dealt with correctly, and I'm going to tell you why I see that in the middle between verse 19 and verse 20. Let me back up to be clear. If a sin can be forgiven, if it's easily forgivable, then it is to be forgiven.
Let me give you an example. You're talking to someone in leadership, and they say something that is offensive to you, and it is a sinful offense, and you go to them and say, brother, you know, with all due respect, I mean, you said something that was offensive to me, and it bothered me, and I'm really hurt by it. Give them an opportunity to go back and say, you know what? I didn't realize I said it that way.
I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. And you say, I do forgive you, and the matter can be dealt with.
That's not something you bring to church discipline and bring the guy before the, you know, the whole church, and if it can be forgiven, then they're not to be forgiven. But if the sin is of a disqualifying nature, then more must be done. And I think that brings us to verse 20 here.
Look at verse 20. Those who continue in sin. That's why I'm saying that there's something in between the verses here, because this is a situation where this elder who is committed to sin is continuing in that sin.
Those who continue in sin, he says, rebuke in the presence of all, so that the rest also will be fearful of sinning. And so now we have a situation where the elder is guilty of sinning, but not only guilty of sinning, that they're also continuing in that sin. There's a present participle here in the Greek grammar, those who are sinning.
It's not that there is a sinful event that took place and it's been dealt with. This is an ongoing matter. This is a pervasive sin.
This is a besetting sin. It's ongoing. Maybe there's a character issue.
Maybe the man is abrasive. Maybe he's pugnacious. Maybe you find out that he's a drunkard.
Maybe there's a secret disqualifying sin, something going on, or worse. Those who continue in sin, something has to be done. And I think this is where some churches go wrong.
The wrong thing to do would be not to address that sinning elder, or even worse, to cover it up. And the question is, well, why would any church do that? And you hear stories about it all the time, don't you? I see it. It seems like I feel like every week I'm seeing some news story about some cover-up in a church somewhere.
And I try to read that with discernment because what the media calls cover-up and all kinds of other things. I mean, sometimes there are situations where there's confidentiality and legal things going on and there's more behind the scenes and all of that. So don't believe everything that you read.
But I think that there are credible issues in some churches where they do cover up for sinning elders. Lots of reasons. Maybe they do it to save face.
They don't want to deal with it. Or maybe they want to preserve the guy's legacy. Maybe he's been a pastor for 40 years and finally he does something wrong and they just don't want to ruin his legacy.
Maybe it's to mitigate the damage done, the image in the church. Whatever the situation may be, I don't know. But the Bible's very clear.
The Bible's crystal clear here. That if there is an elder who is in unrepentant sin and will not be corrected away from it and continues, he is to be rebuked in the presence of all. This word rebuke is elenko in the Greek.
It refers to correction, reproof. But more than that, it's a public reproof, a public rebuke. Now, some commentators have sort of waffled a little bit back and forth about what this verse might mean.
Well, there's one interpretation that this rebuke means that you're correcting them in front of the other elders, rebuke in the presence of all the elders. I don't tend to think that that's what this is talking about because, again, that does not… If someone in the church is bringing an accusation against an elder and you only rebuke the elder in front of the other elders and never before the church, you're missing the whole point. You're missing the justification of why this actually happened.
But I think it does refer to the public congregation. Anybody that is involved in this situation. But I think there's multiple purposes for doing it this way.
First is to drive home the seriousness of the sin of the elder. It's not to be taken lightly. Ultimately, if he won't repent, he needs to be brought back from his error.
Rebuking an elder in the presence of the whole church for a sin that they won't repent of is actually the most loving and kind thing a church could do. It's the worst thing to say, you know what, pastor? You know what, brother? It's fine. Just don't talk to us about it anymore.
And leaving the guy to his own devices. That's hatred. That means that I don't care what happens to you eternally because you're going to go die in your sins.
It is the most loving thing to bring a man before the congregation and rebuke him so he has the opportunity to repent and be restored. It's kindness actually. As difficult as it is, it is kindness.
But there's another aspect of this as well. There's the effect of a public rebuke. It serves as a warning to the congregation.
And Paul even says that you do this so that the rest of the church, I think that's what's implied here, the rest of the congregation also will be fearful of sinning. Because here's how it goes. If sin by a leader is tolerated, if it's tolerated, then it loosens the consciences of the rest of the congregation, and then they are then freed up to begin to sin in the same way.
I remember hearing about a situation where there was an elder. It wasn't the senior pastor of the church, but it was a man on the elder board of a church, and he'd committed adultery. And the church was very sluggish to deal with this man and his adultery.
The elder was sluggish in dealing with the situation. And he was brought right back in. He was sitting right in the congregation.
The woman he had been having the affair with was on the other side of the room, and it was like nobody was talking about it. And it was very slow. Eventually, it got dealt with on some level, but the slowness of dealing with it, I remember thinking to myself, that's insane.
Because then all of a sudden now, the congregation is going, well, if it's okay for one of our pastors to be cheating on his wife with this woman sitting right over there, and we're not talking about it, well, maybe I guess sexual sin isn't that big of a deal. And sadly, this happens all the time. And so, if sin is tolerated, it loosens the consciences of those others.
However, if a leader is publicly rebuked, what does it do? Literally in the Greek, it says, so that the rest will stand in fear. There's a shock to the system that happens, where we see the rebuke of a leader publicly, and all of a sudden, the rest of us sit up a little straighter, don't we? It shocks you, it scares you into saying, well, if that guy is being corrected that way, I don't want to have to go through that. And it's a check to the conscience, not just for the purpose of public rebuke, but it does make you examine yourself.
Whenever a pastor or a spiritual leader abroad publicly falls in sin, every single time, doesn't matter if I know the guy, I don't know the guy, I don't know the situation, but every single time, it makes me reexamine my own life. And it ought to. There's a corrective fruit of this, if you will.
But we see this is actually the example of the ministry of the Apostle Paul. Paul isn't just talking theoretically here. And actually, in Galatians chapter 2, Paul is forced to confront none other than the Apostle Peter for a very public sin in Antioch.
And if you want to go there with me, you can. Galatians chapter 2, verses 11 through 16. Maybe some of you are familiar with this.
I know that we covered Galatians many years ago at this point. But the situation here is that they're in Antioch, and Peter is leading others to sin. He's sinning himself.
And Paul hears about this. And so he says in Galatians 2.11, but when Cephas, that's another name for Peter, when Cephas came to Antioch, look at this. Paul says, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.
For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision. The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy.
But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas, Peter, in the presence of all, if you, being a Jew, live like Gentiles and not like Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews? We are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles. Nevertheless, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, since by the works of the law no flesh will be justified. And so here's the situation with Peter.
He was correcting him, and he says this very specifically, I said to Peter, in the presence of all, in other words, the whole church, the whole congregation, anybody around him, he rebukes him. Again, this is the apostle Peter. You've got to think that Paul was in deep prayer and meditation the night before he went to go talk to him about this.
It was not a... I mean, Peter was the one walking with Jesus. He's an apostle. He's called as an ambassador for Christ.
And Paul has to go correct him. But what Peter is doing is wrong because he's going to a Gentile church, people who don't have the law in their background, and he's trying to get them to live like Jews in terms of following customs and laws, even though they're free not to have to do so. And then when they don't do that, he withholds fellowship and he starts to treat them like second-class believers and favors the Jewish believers because he's afraid of people who are coming to visit.
And he even says it gets so bad that even Barnabas gets caught up in this stuff. This has the potential to destroy the entire church. And so Paul, seeing that Peter's in sin, he's leading the church against the truth of the gospel, he sees that he's in sin, and he corrects him.
He stands against him publicly and calls him out for his error. Again, we don't know. The Bible doesn't tell us what the outcome is, but we know from the rest of biblical history and church history that certainly Peter repents of this, and he's restored, and they move on.
Why do we believe that? Well, we have 1 and 2 Peter to prove it, right? So, Peter does repent, he does, he is restored, the error is dealt with, and that's partially why Paul even wrote Galatians to nail down the truth of the gospel. We're justified, we're declared righteous before God, not based on the works that we do but based on faith in Christ, apart from those works, so important. And so again, we see that Paul, he's not just preaching, he's doing.
A public leader committing a public sin warrants a public rebuke. That's the principle. After all, James 3.1 says that teachers and leaders are to be held to a stricter judgment, a stricter judgment.
As soon as you get up in front of other people and say, I'm going to teach the Bible, whether it's in the pulpit, in a small group ministry, in a personal Bible study, whatever the situation, as soon as you say, I'm going to teach the Word of God, you are putting yourself in a place where you're under a stricter judgment of God because there's a risk that you can misrepresent Him or lie or lead someone in the way that's false. And there's a stricter judgment, and there ought to be. Now, brothers and sisters, this is hard.
This stuff is really, really hard. After all, don't we love those who lead us? I have affinity for the ones, the pastors, the elders, the leaders who've led me. I have a love for the men who I serve with here.
It would break my heart to have to bring anyone to a public rebuke for sin. We love these leaders. They're otherwise, oftentimes, godly men.
And so because of that, because we love them and we know them personally, we say, well, maybe in light of their fruitfulness of their ministry, we could go a little easier on them. I mean, maybe he didn't mean to be as sinful as he is, and we've got to weigh everything out. But Paul deals with this kind of thinking.
Go back to 1 Timothy. He deals with this kind of thinking in verse 21. Look at verse 21, because again, the implication here is that, well, maybe we can deal differently with our guy.
Verse 21, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of His chosen angels to maintain these principles without bias, doing nothing in a spirit of partiality. Well, there settles that. At this point, there's a threefold charge.
And he employs the use of heavenly witnesses. Three heavenly witnesses. First, he says, in the presence of God.
God is witness to everything we do here as a church, including how we discipline leaders. I think we tend, and I don't think that we tend to do this in a sinful way, or I don't think we're actually trying to do this, but I think it's very easy for churches, our church included, to kind of just go about our business and just think that we're sort of governing ourselves and doing the things that we think is best. I think sometimes, practically, functionally, we forget that God is actually over this congregation.
This congregation belongs to Him. Everything we have, everything we are, everything we do is ultimately up to Him. He has a way He wants us to operate.
And not only that, He sees everything. He hears everything. When we have a meeting and make a decision, it isn't like we're secluded somewhere making our own decisions over here.
No, God is superintending everything we do, hopefully. It's in the presence of God that everything is done. Then he adds, in the presence of Christ Jesus.
Again, Christ Jesus possesses this church because He's redeemed this church. He's bought and paid for every single believer. You all, including myself, all of us, are His property in the best spiritual way possible.
We've been redeemed. Our lives are redeemed in Him. We belong to Him.
He's watching. He cares deeply about how we operate. Furthermore, 2 Timothy 4, 1 asserts that Christ Jesus is the judge of the living and the dead.
He's the judge. He's the arbiter. And He Himself is presiding over the discipline of the church's leaders.
When you bring a man in front of a church who's stuck in sin, who's caught in sin, it's not the church that's ultimately disciplining him. It is Christ Jesus. Christ is the one disciplining.
And then third, it's in the presence of His chosen angels. Now, what is this talking about here? Well, I believe it's the way that we conduct ourselves. It isn't just about a testimony to the unbelieving world.
I think there's also a testimony before the angelic world. How many times have you considered the fact that there is a whole angelic realm watching what we do? Not to make you paranoid or anything, but there's probably millions of angels watching what Harvest Bible Church is doing. Now, that could be hyperbole, right? But you get the idea.
This is not just about us here. There's a larger witness at stake, including heaven, the heavenly realm. And so this is a threefold charge.
It conveys a sense of gravity that we are to maintain these principles without bias, doing nothing from a spirit of partiality. Notice that He's not saying that we treat leaders unfairly or without grace. We don't want to just lambast people and be nasty to them just because they've done something wrong.
We want to treat believers with a sense of mercy and grace and kindness, even in the sternness of a rebuke. But rather, we are not to shrink from our responsibility simply because we have an affinity for them. And so when a matter of sin comes to the church, it must be dealt with first without bias.
The Greek word here is a procrema. It's pre-judgment, or in other words, any preconceived ideas. Where does this play into it? I've known so-and-so for 20 years, and he's a great guy.
There's no way he could have done this sinful thing. We have to be careful. Now, as a person's character, does that say something about them? It certainly does, but you can't bring that to bear because they might have done something wrong, and we can't exercise this sort of preconceived notion, this pre-judgment.
We have to look at everything as it is. Secondly, he says, doing nothing in a spirit of partiality. Prosklysis is the Greek word.
It's favoritism, and James 2.1 says something about that as well, not showing favoritism inside the church. We don't have any right to be favoritistic toward any one person over another to their harm, but he says here, if we handle things fairly, objectively, honestly, then the matter can be effectively dealt with, and our testimony can be upheld, and God can be honored. Now again, this is all really difficult stuff, isn't it? But what if there was a way to avoid these problems from the start? Like, what if we could just skip over some of this and not have to ever deal with it? Is that possible? Because in some cases, I think leaders fall into sin and damage the church, but it could have been avoided if they had been thoroughly examined.
There are some leaders that get into ministry, and they never should have been there to begin with. Again, that's part of the reason for character qualifications in chapter 3 verses 1 through 7. We read those earlier. That's part of how you do it.
Part of examining someone for leadership is that you hold them against that standard. Do they uphold? Do they have the character qualifications required for eldership? That's one standard, but there's another tool at the church's disposal. You know what that tool is? Time.
Time. Because again, a man might look like he's qualified today, but is he still going to be qualified in the same way six months from now, or a year from now? Has he maintained that qualification? Look at verse 22. Paul says, "...do not lay hands upon anyone too hastily, and thereby share responsibility for the sins of others.
Keep yourself free from sin." Now, it's all too tempting, and I'll be honest with you, it's tempting even in our situation now. It's tempting to see a man who shows great promise. You're excited about him.
He wants to be in leadership, and the temptation is, this guy's ready to go. Let's install him right away. That's a mistake.
That's a huge mistake, especially if the church is desperate for elders. That's always the temptation, isn't it? We need more men. We need more leaders.
We need more help. Well, this guy wants to help. Let's get him in there.
However, rushing the process can actually prove to be more disastrous. And I've said this before, and I'll say it again. Frankly, I'd rather have fewer elders than the wrong elders.
Fewer elders just means that we're tired. The wrong elders can mean disaster for the church. And so, Paul commends both examination and patience.
He commends patience here. He says, "...do not lay hands upon anyone too hastily. Don't rush the process.
Don't skip over things." Again, that's a temptation. But the notion here of laying hands, it refers to ordaining or installing a leader into ministry. It's a sign of affirmation.
It's a sign of approval. We see this phrase tied to Timothy's own ordination in 1 Timothy 4.14, 2 Timothy 1.6. But once a church has laid hands and affirmed a leader, they're declaring publicly that they believe that this man is both qualified and called to serve in that ministry. Again, not a perfect man, but a qualified man, a godly man, an upright man.
And so, if it comes out later that his character was not above board, or that he's prone to besetting sins, the church is put in a position where they thereby share the responsibility for his sins. Well, how do we do that? Again, Scripture teaches in places like Ezekiel 18.20 that God does not hold individuals responsible for others' sins. So you can't be found guilty for someone else's sin, or your parents' sin, or your children's sin.
It doesn't work that way. And so, we're not accountable to God for the sins of others. The church is not morally culpable.
However, if they give approval to a man without doing their due diligence in examining him, and he begins to sin in a way that they should have seen ahead of time, they do share in some level of responsibility, because they've affirmed him. They've said, in our judgment, this man is upright. When he then proves to be not upright at all, there is a sense in which we do share some responsibility.
And so, Paul's issuing a warning here, a caution. He tells the church, keep yourself free from sin. It's better to wait.
It's better to take our time to look at a man, to get to know him. No, we don't want to wait forever. I think sometimes you can go the other way.
I know other situations. I've talked to pastors who wrestle with the same things, and they have zero elders, zero leaders, because they've set the standard so high, no human man could ever attain it. And they make these guys walk through, I mean, just the gauntlet ad nauseum, where they never, ever call them or affirm them.
You're going to have to accept the fact that God uses broken, flawed people to do ministry. That's all of us, right? But again, the question is, is this person, is this man, is he above reproach? Does he have character? Have we examined him to the point where we can affirm that he's running well? Just autobiographically, when I began to express interest in ministry at our previous church, the church that planted us, it was about three years. I mean, my pastor did not say, hey, Nate loves reading the Bible.
Let's just start in. It was a long process. It was three years, and I think years is the right way to think about this.
And even at that, it was conversations, and it was very small steps. Can you lead a Bible study? Can you work one-on-one? Can you do this? Can you do, and it was very, very small, small steps. I didn't preach a sermon right out the gate.
It was a long time. And even then, going into church planting, I mean, there's trepidation there. I'm thankful that in those earlier years, we did not have a congregation of 300 people out the gate.
It was very small, and I'm thankful for that, because again, you're accountable to God for the souls of other people. And so again, I do think, and this is not a rule, but I do think the word years is applicable when we're talking about examining here. Not 20 years necessarily, but time, time.
The church ought to be committed to purity, purity in speech, purity in doctrine, purity in behavior, purity in judgment. And as we know, Timothy took this seriously. He was the pastor in Ephesus here.
He took it seriously, but some have even believed that maybe he took it a little bit too seriously. Bible scholars have questioned the placement of verse 23. Maybe you've read your Bible, and you've seen this verse, and you've scratched your head, and so have I. Why is verse 23 here in the middle of a passage about eldership? At face value, it does not seem to fit, but let's read it.
Let's look at this together. Verse 23, no longer drink water exclusively, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments. A verse about wine or drinking in the middle of a passage on elders.
Well, let's back up just a little bit and give some context here. One thing you have to remember about the ancient world, and even parts of the world today, is that the water was oftentimes undrinkable. I mean, if you go over to a pond and you have settled water, you're insane if you drink that water, right? We all know that principle.
But water is oftentimes a carrier of disease, and so in the ancient world, to combat that problem, oftentimes they would use wine as an acceptable substitute because the fermentation process would kill off much of the bad bacteria. And so in many cases, and even in the world today, parts of Europe even right now, they will tend to favor alcoholic beverages, not heavy, heavy alcoholic beverages, but some alcoholic beverages because it's safer in some cases than the water that's provided. Now, all wine is not the same, and much of what was commonly consumed in these earlier days in Paul's time was really nothing more than fermented grape juice.
It was not the wine that we think about today, even though they did have more potent wine that they would reserve for festivals, but still wine all the same. And so based on what Paul is writing here in verse 23, it seems as though, it seems as though Timothy had either taken the Nazarite vow and taken an oath actually never to drink any kind of alcoholic beverage, or he simply refused to drink anything other than water so as to avoid the potential charge of drunkenness. After all, elders must not be addicted to wine, but they must be sober-minded.
And even lots of elders, lots of pastors around the world today have just simply made a rule, I'm just not going to drink any kind of alcoholic beverage whatsoever. I don't even want to try it. I don't even want to be, I don't want anyone to even see me with something in my hand.
Regardless of the situation, regardless if I'm not a drunkard, I just don't want to touch the stuff. It's easier for everybody if you don't. And I'll tell you, there's some wisdom in that.
There's wisdom in elders and leaders never ever touching it. But here we see Timothy is frequently sick. Paul says he's got stomach problems.
He has ailments. Now, scholars have debated and talked about this. It's possible he had dysentery.
It's possible that he had some kind of an exacerbated stomach problem that was wreaking havoc, and it could have been because of bad water. And so to combat those with health problems, Paul says he encourages him to use a little wine, use a little wine for medicinal purposes. Why does Paul commend this? Why does he say this to him? Well, my hunch, my hunch is that he wanted to free his conscience up a little bit.
Now again, he's not giving him license to go and get drunk, far from it, but he is encouraging here some level of moderation and discernment. See, in chapter 4 verse 3, we saw that there were false teachers in Ephesus that were engaged in extreme abstinence, and they were telling the congregation that they were not allowed to eat certain foods and presumably drink certain things for the purpose of supposedly spiritual betterment. It's asceticism, that they were supposed to deprive themselves and damage themselves for the sake of spiritual gain.
That's asceticism. And so Paul fights against that. But here, Timothy is literally getting sick from the water.
He's literally getting sick, and Paul is essentially telling him, yes, Timothy, keep yourself free from sin. Keep yourself pure, but don't resort to extremism to do it. Sure, don't be a drunkard.
No elder should be a drunkard at all ever, not even a charge of it. But don't hurt your body out of fear of being perceived negatively. I believe that's Paul's point.
Again, being cautious, being careful. We have freedom in Christ. We don't have freedom to sin, but we do have freedom to follow God with a clear conscience.
That applies to all people, including leaders. And so a lesson for us from this verse might be to be discerning on our spiritual pursuit of holiness and don't over correct to legalism. See it clearly, which then brings us to his closing remarks in verses 24 and 25, going back to this issue of potential sin here.
He says, "...the sins of some men are quite evident, going before them to judgment. For others, their sins follow after. Likewise, also deeds that are good are quite evident, and those which are otherwise cannot be concealed." And so there's a principle here.
There's the perception of holiness, and the perception of holiness is not always real. Again, just because a man looks like he's holy, looks like he's pious, looks like he's above board, doesn't always necessarily mean that he is. This is why we have to evaluate.
We have to examine leaders. And he says here, "...for some, their sins are quite evident, going before them to judgment." And in some cases, just a little bit of examination will reveal their sins. A person comes along, a man comes along and says, I want to be a leader in the church.
I want to be a teacher. I want to be an elder. I want to be a pastor.
And you begin to examine him, and very quickly you realize this man is probably not called to the ministry. One example from Scripture might be Simon Magus. You know the story of Simon Magus from Acts chapter 8. His name is, again, his name is Simon.
He encounters the disciples. At first, he's very excited to engage in the level of ministry that the apostles are doing. He sees them healing people and preaching and doing all these amazing things.
And he seems at the first glance as a great man. He fashioned himself to be a great man, and that was the esteem of other people around him. Oh, this guy's a great man.
He's doing amazing things. He's powerful. But after only a little bit of examination, it becomes clear to the apostles that Simon only wanted to do ministry because he wanted to be famous and powerful.
He wanted all the prestige. He wanted the greatness of being able to do this kind of ministry. He was a magician, and he saw the apostles doing real what he perceived to be magic, healing people, performing signs, and he wanted to do the same thing.
He actually got to the point where he went to the apostles and offered them money. I'll pay you guys to teach me how to do what you're doing. But Peter responds in Acts 8 20 to Simon, may your silver perish with you because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money.
You have no part or portion in this matter for your heart is not right before God. His sins were evident. Now, I'll tell you, it makes me tremble because in many sectors of the modern evangelical movement, they would have seen a guy like Simon Magus and say, that guy is great.
We want him. Everybody thinks he's amazing, and they bring him in. And I'll tell you, there's a danger, beloved.
You see some notable or famous person who seems to show a little bit of inkling of interest in spiritual things, and we immediately baptize them in our minds as being Christians and even Christian leaders. I'm timid to say this, but I think I need to because of the popularity. Some of you know who Jordan Peterson is.
Jordan Peterson is a brilliant scholar. He's a psychologist or a psychiatrist. I can't actually remember the difference between the two there, but he's very prominent.
He's very influential, and lately he's taken a likening to Christianity. He's even hosted and taught courses on the Bible. But when you listen to his testimony, I don't think he's a Christian.
Now, maybe he's coming to Christ. I hope he does. I really do hope he does.
But I've seen swaths of people sort of come around him and embrace him as a Christian leader. From my estimation, just looking at the testimony of what he's saying, his life, his faith in Christ, I don't think he's even saved. But we can do this with people.
Because they have an affinity toward Christianity, we make them into King David. And I'll even go a step farther. You're going to shoot me for this.
The President of the United States, we are to respect him. We are to honor him as leader. He has an affinity toward things of Christianity.
Is he a Christian? By the testimony that I see, I don't know, but I don't think so quite yet. I hope he comes to Christ. I hope there are those around him who are leading him toward faith.
But his spiritual advisor is Paula White, who is a huckster. She's a false teacher, and he's leaning on her for guidance. Now, I am not looking to stir the hornet's nest this morning, but I'll tell you these verses have application for us.
We are to be very cautious and careful when we go and embrace someone as a spiritual leader. We have to be careful, beloved. I'm not denigrating anyone who's leaning toward Christianity, potentially coming to faith in Christ.
We want all people everywhere to come to Christ. And if they're running well and doing well, then yes, maybe they have a point where they can be a leader in the church. But the sins of some are evident.
Others, Paul says, their sins follow after. It's only in time that some men are found out to be frauds. They look really good at the beginning.
They're running well for maybe years at some points, but then later on their sins come after. An example of that from Scripture is Demas. Demas, he shows up in a list of faithful disciples in several different places.
Paul does ministry with him. He travels around. He's doing gospel ministry with Demas.
He loves him as a brother. And then by the end in 2 Timothy 4.10, Paul says that Demas had deserted him and went to Thessalonica. Well, why? Well, Paul says because he loved this present world.
Demas, in the final analysis, proves himself to be not forget a spiritual leader. He's not even a Christian. He loves the world too much.
But it wasn't until later that that came out. Only after several years does it become evident that his heart doesn't belong to God. It belongs to the world.
But sadly, beloved, this is hard stuff. It's hard to know sometimes. Will the leader be faithful to the Lord or is he secretly a wolf in sheep's clothing? In many cases, only the Lord knows.
We don't know what's going on inside the hearts and minds of people. We don't know all the time. We can base it on what we see in fruit.
We can base it on what they say. We can look at the effect of their life. But the truth is, even the man I already mentioned here this morning, I honestly don't know what's happening inside their heart and neither do you.
Only the Lord does. The Lord sees it. On the other hand, verse 25, likewise also, deeds that are good are quite evident, and those which are otherwise cannot be concealed.
If you're doing well, if you're engaging in good deeds for the Lord, it becomes evident, and those which are otherwise cannot be concealed. In other words, good or bad, whether you're doing well, whether you're doing poorly, all of it will ultimately be revealed in time. It's not going to stay concealed forever, because there's a temptation to worry about both extremes.
When someone is doing something wrong, if they're not who they appear to be, if they're not who they say they are, our fear is that it's going to go unchecked and they're going to get away with it. That's why discernment ministries online exist. They're always looking for the false teacher, and sometimes they go too far, I think.
But that's the fear. We don't want this to get away with it, and we worry about that. But remember, God sees all.
God isn't mocked if someone isn't who they say they are. But what about if you're doing right? There's also the other concern that if I'm doing well, it's going to get overlooked. I'm trying to be faithful to God, and no one sees.
No one's affirming that. That's our temptation as well, that our deeds are going to go unsung. But remember, God sees all.
If you're doing well, the Lord will see it. Example, Matthew 6.4, when you give to the poor, to be sure to do so in secret. Don't blow a trumpet.
Now, I'm thankful that none of you, when you go to the offering box in the morning, say, all right guys, I'm giving. Nobody's done that, to my knowledge. Do so in secret.
But what's the result here? Jesus says, if you do so in secret, your heavenly Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. The Father sees, beloved. If you're doing well, and it's private, and no one around you notices that you're running well, doing well, serving a lot, you can be encouraged that God sees.
This applies to leadership as well. Men who are aspiring to leadership, maybe they're working hard in trying to aspire, and they're getting frustrated because no one sees. I'm leading well, I'm doing things well, I'm running well.
But no one's acknowledging me. Don't worry, God sees all. If you're serving the Lord, don't worry about the recognition.
And if He's called you to ministry, you'll get into ministry at some point, I'm sure of it. God will reward you in His time, in His way. Therefore, Galatians 6.9 says, let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.
In other words, if you're doing well, beloved, keep doing well. Keep serving God. Keep growing in your faith.
Keep loving others. Keep praying for those who are in need. Keep doing well because God sees what's going on.
He's not mocked. He's not duped. And again, those who are in leadership, if they're doing the wrong thing, eventually it will come out.
God will deal with it. And He will bring everything to light in time. But in terms of faithfulness, let us pursue being faithful to God, to Him in all that we do.
Let's not lose heart in doing good. That means that we hold leadership to a high standard. We strive to that.
We don't gossip or slander. We don't try to tear everything down. But we trust the Lord that He is growing and purifying this church.
Let's seek to honor Him in every way possible. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You.
Lord, these verses are, they're difficult because they're so, they're right on the bone, Lord. They cut us deeply. They deal with exposing sins.
And Lord, even the comments that I've made from my own mind this morning, Lord, I pray that You would examine those and prove them to be true, Lord. But I believe that You call us to examine and see everything without a spirit of partiality, without bias, to see things rightly, to be discerning, to be clear, to Lord, to hold everything to Your standard, not to ours. And Lord, that comes when we talk about spiritual leadership as well.
Lord, You demand that leaders to be above reproach. And Lord, I even pray here for this church that You would have mercy. Have mercy on us, Lord, those of us who do lead in this ministry.
Have mercy. Help us to run well, Lord. Help us not to be puffed up and become prideful.
Help us not to be fallen and fleshly, Lord. Help us to hold the line and to keep on doing well. And Lord, I pray for Your people here that they would also continue to grow, that they would seek You to become more like You, that we would become more pure and holy and discerning as a church.
But Lord, in all of these things, in all these examples that we've talked about today, Lord, we need Your grace. We need Your wisdom. We need Your help.
By ourselves, we can't do this. But Lord, with You, we can do all things. So Lord, help this church to do well, to run well.
Lord, we will not be perfect this side of heaven, but let us be sanctified, holy, pure unto You. And have mercy on us, O Lord. And Lord, if there are people even here this morning who maybe they don't know You, maybe this is brand new for them.
Maybe they have never heard the gospel or never believed the gospel. Lord, I pray that this would be the day of their salvation, that they would see their need for saving, that their sins are egregious or terrible in Your eyes. And maybe their sins are terrible in their own eyes, as they ought to be.
And they want to be free from that. Lord, would You do a work in their heart even now that they would see their need, that they would turn away from their sins, confess their sins, and believe in Jesus Christ. Lord, You gave Your life on the cross to pay for them.
And then You rose again the third day to give them new life. Lord, would You give salvation to someone today? Lord, thank You for the blessing of ministering to Your people. Lord, thank You for helping us to understand how we are to do ministry here.
Have mercy and help us, O Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.