We come this evening to the third chapter
of First Timothy and just a quick reminder,
Paul is writing to Timothy and basically giving
him instruction on how the church is to
look, what the church is to be like,
and Timothy is implementing the things that Paul
is writing to him.
And so these are known as the pastoral
epistles, as we've made mention before, in as
much as they they give instruction basically to
church leaders about issues and things that pertain
to the subject of leadership.
And so when we come to this third
chapter, we come actually to the chapter that
deals specifically with those who lead the ministry
and what their qualifications are to be and
what they are referred to and what their
duties are and so forth.
And so we pick up in chapter three,
verse one, where Paul says, this is a
faithful saying, if a man desires the position
of a bishop, he desires a good work.
The word bishop for me conjures up images
in my mind of long flowing robes, ornate
headgear, the bishop's mitre, the pastoral staff, and
a big ring for the loyal subjects of
the church to kiss.
It was in the fourth century that the
single bishop in charge of a group of
churches actually emerged the fourth century, some 300
years after the apostolic period.
Now, that led ultimately.
To there being bishops among bishops, and thus
we have archbishops and we have metropolitans and
we have patriarchs, and ultimately there is the
bishop of all bishops, the pope, the biblical
picture of church leadership is much, much simpler
than that.
The word translated bishop.
Should be translated into English as overseer, because
that's really the meaning, the simple meaning of
the word.
The Greek word is Episcopalus.
And these are two words making up the
one word and the two words together literally
mean to have an eye upon to watch
over or, as we translated it, to oversee.
That's the meaning of the term.
So Paul is speaking here of those who
are the overseers of the church, and he's
going to go on and he's going to
talk about their qualifications.
He's talking basically about the pastors.
The pastor of the church.
Three terms that are synonymous that.
We need to consider for a moment, are
the terms overseer, pastor and elder.
All those terms are synonyms.
They all speak basically of the same person
or the same position within the church and
within the church.
There are these two primary offices that Paul
is going to talk about here in the
third chapter, that of pastors and deacons.
And then, of course, you have other areas
of ministry that are mentioned in the scriptures,
particularly in Ephesians four.
We have the reference to the apostles, the
prophets, the evangelist and all of these different
roles and positions all work together.
But over the local church situation, over the
local congregations, you had the overseers and then
you had the deacons and the overseers.
They were the ones that were responsible primarily
for the spiritual well-being of the church.
That was their primary task to take care
of people's spiritual needs.
The deacons, which we'll look at in depth
in our next study, the deacons were there
to give assistance to those who were giving
spiritual oversight, but they were to assist them
to a large degree by helping out in
the practical aspects of the ministry.
They were to sort of take the load
off of the spiritual overseers so they might
be able to tend to their business.
And it's in the sixth chapter of the
book of Acts that we see these different
positions begin to emerge.
There was that situation there where there was
a dispute between the Jews of the Hellenistic
culture and the Jews of the Hebraic culture
and the ones from the Hellenistic culture, they
felt like they were being slighted in the
distribution of the different foods and things.
And so they came and they were wanting
the apostles to do something about it.
And Peter spoke up and he said, you
know, it's not right for us to leave
the word of God and to wait on
tables.
So choose from among yourselves seven men.
Full of the Holy Spirit, of good reputation
and so forth, and put them in that
position and we will continually give ourselves to
the ministry of the word and prayer.
So really there, Peter sort of summarizes the
distinction between the two, the overseers, the pastors,
the elders are the ones who are to
give themselves to prayer and the ministry of
the word.
And the deacons or the or the servants,
they're there to undergird and to help out
in the practical aspects of ministry.
And so we'll look more specifically, as I
said, at the role of the deacons in
the future.
But let's talk specifically tonight about the position
of the overseer.
Now, the first thing that Paul says is
that.
If a man desires the position, he desires
a good work.
So it's a great desire, and I know
that some of you here tonight, you have
that desire, you desire to minister to God's
people, you you desire perhaps ultimately to be
the overseer of a fellowship.
That is a great desire and you're commended
for that.
Now, Paul gives us here a list of
qualifications.
And.
It's quite unfortunate that the list has not
been followed more closely historically.
If the list of qualifications had been enforced
more thoroughly in church history, we wouldn't have
nearly the blunders that we have, you know,
passed down to us through.
The mistakes that have been made, but so
often they've been made simply because the qualifications
were disregarded and the wrong people got into
the position of being the overseers.
So Paul lays down a pretty strict guideline
here, and we want to look at each
one of these qualifications that he lays out
here.
And so let's read.
First of all, just read on through verse
seven, then we'll come back and look at
each qualification specifically.
And so he says in verse two, an
overseer.
I'm just going to drop the word bishop
because I don't think it's a it's a
good word.
As a matter of fact, it it was
retained, I think, primarily because the King James
version of the Bible was really put together
by the bishops of the Church of England.
And the whole position came into being, as
I mentioned, in the fourth century.
So there were many, many, many centuries of
this, you know, idea of a bishop being
something more than the New Testament declared it
him to be.
And and yet it sort of stuck.
But yet again, the the word is more
properly translated overseer.
So an overseer then must be blameless.
The husband of one wife, temperate, sober minded,
of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach, not
given to wine, not violent, not greedy for
money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous.
One who rules his own house well, having
his children in submission with all reverence.
For if a man does not know how
to rule his own house, how will he
take care of the Church of God?
Not a novice, less being puffed up with
pride, he fall into the same condemnation as
the devil.
Moreover, he must have a good testimony among
those who are outside, lest he fall into
reproach and the snare of the devil.
And so the first thing Paul says regarding
the overseer is that he is to be
blameless, blameless, faultless, above reproach, a
man who is noted for integrity through and
through.
That's the first qualification, a man against whom
no criticism can be made.
Affording nothing of which an adversary can take
hold.
No criticism now, of course, anybody can level
any sort of criticism at somebody, but the
idea is that there would be nothing to
support it in the man, that there would
be nothing to it, nothing that somebody could
get a hold of and say, this guy's
unfit for the job because of this.
And we know that that this occurred.
And here's the evidence right here.
So a man who's blameless, a man who
is above reproach, and secondly, he says that.
The overseer is to be the husband of
one wife.
Now, the question has been asked.
What does Paul mean by the husband of
one wife, is he speaking in regard to
polygamy?
That the pastors were not to have several
wives and some have actually thought that that's
what Paul was speaking of.
But I highly doubt that because a polygamy
was never a part of the church's experience.
It was never a period in the history
of the church where anyone practiced that.
And although back in the Old Testament period,
there were certain men who had more than
one wife by the time that the New
Testament was written, that practice was largely discarded
even among the Jews.
So I think we can safely conclude that
when Paul says the husband of one wife,
he's actually stating that the overseer is not
to be a man who is divorced and
remarried.
Not to be a man divorced and remarried.
Just like today, divorce was rampant in the
Roman world.
You know, the.
It's amazing when you kind of go back
and do a bit of a historical survey
and look more specifically at the world that
the apostles went into.
It really bears a lot of similarity to
the world that we're living in today.
It's amazing the parallels that we see.
And so regarding the whole issue of divorce,
it was just something that was as common
among the Romans at that period as it
is among people today.
To give you just a few examples, some
of the key historical figures in the Roman
period were married numerous times, just like some
of the key historical figures in our current
period of time have been married several times.
Ovid and Pliny, they were both married three
times.
Caesar, as well as Antony, were married four
times.
Pompeii was married five times.
Herod, I think he won the award.
He was married nine times.
Nero, he was the fifth husband of his
wife, Statilia.
Yeah.
So, you know, sounds like Hollywood, doesn't it?
I mean, you know, you look at a
lot of these people and you find that
they're on their fifth, sixth, seventh marriage.
And of course, they want to tell us
how we ought to live, but they haven't
figured it out themselves.
But Paul says that the the overseer is
to be the husband of one wife.
Divorce is something that.
Has been.
Tolerated in the church in a way that
it never, ever should have been.
And it should not be allowed to go
on being tolerated the way it is tolerated
so often.
The scriptures are very clear on the subject,
so what Paul is basically saying is Christian
men who divorce their wives without biblical justification
cannot hold the position of pastor.
Now, let me just state this for clarification,
we're talking strictly in the context of Christians,
we're not talking about what happened in your
life before you knew Christ.
Whether it's you or anybody else for that
matter, there are men in ministry today who
are blessed and used powerfully by God.
And yet in their past life, they might
have been married two or three or four
times, but they were lost.
They were in sin.
And that was just one of the aspects
of their sinful lifestyle.
And yet when they came to Christ, as
the Bible reminds us.
If anyone is in Christ, they are a
new creation, old things have passed away, behold,
everything becomes new.
So they've got a new life, a new
start, and God's blessed them in that.
But we're talking specifically about those who are
Christians.
And so, again, let me repeat Christian men
who divorce their wives without biblical justification cannot
hold the position of pastor.
Pastors who divorce their wives without biblical justification
are to be removed from their position and
forbidden reentry.
Now, this is where the.
The discipline in the church has really broken
down so many times because there are, unfortunately,
I hate to say it, but it's a
fact there are many in ministry today who
did do that very thing.
As pastors, they left their wives, divorced them,
married, sometimes their secretary, sometimes the worship leader,
sometimes a Sunday school teacher, some other woman
within the church, and then have carried on
in the ministry without any consequence or discipline.
This is tragic.
This is pathetic.
And and this, of course, is one of
the reasons why the church is weak in
these days.
But Paul is very clear about this.
The overseer is to be the husband of
one wife.
And then he goes on and he says
that the overseer is to be temperate.
Temperate, another way to translate the word is
moderate or balanced.
It's speaking of a person who's not given
to extremes.
A person who does not overindulge themselves.
And then he says sober minded.
Another way to translate that word is prudent
or discreet or chaste or self-controlled.
The idea is a person who is in
entire command over the passions and the desires.
So a person who's sober minded, a person
who's got their spiritual act together, that's really
what the apostle is describing here, he then
goes on and he says that he is
to be a man of good behavior.
A man whose life is ordered well, the
man whose life is beautiful and in whose
character all things are harmoniously integrated.
That's the way one person defined the particular
word that's used here.
And then the overseer is to be hospitable.
In the early days of the church.
There were things that were written, just like,
you know, we write books and things today
commenting on the scriptures and so forth.
They had things like that back in the
early days.
And one such piece of literature was known
as excuse me, was known as the Shepherd
of Hermas.
And in this piece of literature, it spoke
directly to the overseer in regard to this
whole issue of hospitality.
And this is what it said.
This is what it said.
The overseer is to be a man who
at all times welcomes into his house the
servants of God.
When we talk through Titus, we talked about
this whole thing of hospitality.
And, you know, we we pointed out that
basically another way to look at it, a
simpler way to look at it really is
just that the the overseer is to be
a people person, a person who likes people,
a person who cares about people, a person
who is anxious to help people and welcome
people and things of that nature.
It is sort of an irony, but it
is a reality that there are people who
sometimes end up in ministry who just flat
do not care for other people.
They don't like them.
They don't like to be around them.
And you've heard before, you know, perhaps the
sort of tongue in cheek thing that people
will say that the ministry would be great
if it weren't for the people.
Some people genuinely feel that way about it.
And that's, you know, really a sad thing.
There have been some interesting characters in in
church history who have made it.
Excuse me, my goodness, who have made, you
know, some interesting contributions on one hand, but
yet on another hand, they were very, very
unsociable and not really likable people.
A.W. Tozer, you might have heard that
name.
He has made a great contribution in many
ways to the church through the books that
he wrote.
But he was one of the most cantankerous
and unsociable guys that anybody ever met.
He just was a person who didn't really
care to be with people.
He said he'd like to he preferred to
spend his time with God.
Now, I would agree that spending your time
with God is probably better than spending your
time with people.
But I would think that if you spent
a whole lot of time with God, it
would probably do something regarding your attitude toward
people, because God certainly loves people.
So, you know, if you spend a whole
lot of time with him, it seems like
that would rub off on you.
But, you know, there have been these interesting
characters in in the history of the church.
But but the overseer is to be a
hospitable person in as much as they are
to have just a benevolent attitude toward people.
And then he goes on and he says,
able to teach.
Able to teach, and this is obviously self
-explanatory, but I want you to notice.
And again, I think I might have pointed
this out when we were going through Titus,
but I do find it interesting that this
is the seventh thing in the list of
qualifications rather than the first or the second
or the third.
And the reason I bring that up is
because I think there have been many times
when a mistake has been made rushing to
put somebody into the ministry because they are
good communicators.
They don't stand up in front of people
and cough and stammer and stutter and do
things like I'm doing tonight.
I know, but you know, there are those
people who are, you know, they're just good
at speaking.
Now, teaching is an interesting thing, there is
definitely a gift of teaching, a supernatural gift,
a gift of the Holy Spirit.
But, you know, you obviously don't have to
be gifted by the Holy Spirit to teach.
We have schools, classrooms, universities and all kinds
of different arenas where people teach.
And some people do a very good job
at teaching.
I personally think it's possible to even teach
the Bible in a fairly decent manner without
necessarily being gifted by God to do it.
If you have a sharp mind and a
good vocabulary and the ability to study and
learn things and you have a gift to
communicate, well, you can get up and even
teach the Bible.
You know, I don't know if you remember
this or not, but a few weeks back
in the presidential debates, Senator John Kerry, he
gave a little Bible study and, you know,
it wasn't bad.
And I would imagine he probably could have
gone on a bit further.
He gave a little exhortation from James.
He shared a verse from Matthew.
And, you know, he probably he's an articulate
guy.
He's obviously intelligent to some degree.
And so, you know, I said he's intelligent.
Thursday night, I was teaching the men's study
and we were talking about the distinction between
wisdom and knowledge.
And there's a world of difference.
There's some really smart people out there, but
they don't have any wisdom.
And so even though they're smart on paper,
they're stupid in life.
And that's what you see with some politicians,
actually.
But anyway, so the thing is, we have
to be careful because, you know, you can
get a person who's charismatic and a person
who is articulate and all of these things
and you want to usher them right up
front because, boy, this guy can speak.
But Paul, he says, of course, the overseer
must be able to teach, but but that's
not Paul's primary concern.
Paul's first concern is that he's a man
of character, that he's a godly man.
That he has a right relationship with God,
then able to teach, of course, that that's
that's an important part.
But it must be that gift must be
used from the foundation of a life of
integrity, a life of righteousness.
And so.
The overseer is to be able to teach,
because that, of course, is one of the
primary tasks of the overseer.
The primary responsibility of the pastor, as I
mentioned earlier, is spiritual.
But let me just sort of define that
a little bit, break it down a bit.
The pastor has basically a threefold responsibility.
The responsibility of the pastor is to, number
one, feed God's people the word of God.
That's the primary responsibility of the pastor, to
give the word of God to people, to
teach them collectively like we're doing tonight, but
to teach them also on an individual level
as the opportunity arises and as the situation
calls for.
So that's the first responsibility.
The second, because the word pastor, as you
might know, means to shepherd.
The second responsibility of the pastor is to
tend the flock of God.
And to tend the flock of God means
to personally care for them, to pray for
them, to counsel them, to encourage them and
to bless them on a personal level, on
sort of a one to one sort of
a basis.
Pastoral ministry is not simply about getting up
in a pulpit and speaking to large groups
of people.
It is about getting behind a pulpit or
however else you go about teaching the word,
it's certainly about that, as I said, but
it's also about getting involved with people on
a personal level and tending to them as
a shepherd would tend to the sheep.
And then thirdly.
The pastor is to lead the people.
The pastor is to be in tune with
the Lord and know what God is desiring
for a particular fellowship and then be able
to lead people in the direction individually and
collectively the direction that God would have them
to go.
And so the pastor is to be one
who is able to teach, and then he
says that the overseer is not to be
given to wine.
And that, of course, would include other alcoholic
beverages, but the idea here is that the
pastor is not to be addicted to wine.
The literal rendering is one who does not
linger long at wine.
And so it is not an absolute prohibition
against ever having a glass of wine.
But it is an absolute prohibition against drunkenness,
overindulgence, being addicted to wine.
And so the overseer is not to be
given over to wine.
Now, there are some who would say that.
For those in ministry, they shouldn't have be
involved in drinking any alcoholic beverage whatsoever.
And others would say, well, you know, I
don't see that as being a big problem.
And sometimes it kind of is really based
on culture.
You know, having lived in Europe for a
while, the Europeans don't think much about this
particular prohibition.
They recognize the the warnings against drunkenness and
so forth, but they don't think too much
about it in the sense of, you know,
a Christian should never have a glass of
wine or, you know, should never drop into
a pub and maybe have a beer or
something like that.
In our evangelical culture here in the United
States, you find some different perspectives on it.
Those coming from more of a fundamentalist kind
of a background would be a bit more
dogmatic about this and a bit more serious
that, you know, those in ministry especially should
not should not have any contact with alcoholic
beverages.
And yet again, the text itself states that
there is not to be an addiction to
wine.
Now, it's interesting because when you get down
to the deacon here, as you're looking at
the the qualifications for the overseer, we read
here not given to wine.
If you go down just a bit further
and looking at the deacons in verse eight,
it says regarding the deacons not given to
much wine.
But the funny thing about it is in
the Greek, there really isn't any distinction.
There's a there's a distinction in the English,
but there isn't really a distinction in the
Greek.
I have I have researched this over and
over again, and, you know, because you look
at it and think, OK, well, you know,
in the English, there certainly seems to be
a distinction.
But having done the research, just looking in
the resources that I personally have at my
disposal, as well as talking to others who
have more knowledge of the Greek.
I sat down with Carl Westerlund one day
who has a master's degree in Greek, and
I asked him about the difference.
And he just as we looked at the
Greek text, he said there really isn't any
difference in the Greek text.
So, again, the point is that the overseer
remember he's to be an orderly man, he's
to be a man who's moderate, temperate balance.
So obviously being addicted to wine or lingering
long at wine is inconsistent with that.
And then he goes on and he says
that he is not to be a violent
man.
And I think we can all accept that
just at face value.
Don't want the pastor beating up any of
the congregants.
You know, years ago, I have to tell
the story.
There was a guy and he was teaching
a Bible study here.
He's a friend of mine.
And there was one of the guys in
the fellowship that was he was really blowing
it.
He was it was at the time it
was a group of a lot of younger
people and a lot of young guys and
a lot of young girls.
And occasionally you'd find some guys that were
there with less than proper motives.
They were there to pick up on the
girls and things of that nature.
And so there was an incident where this
guy, you know, had done something like that.
And the guy who was overseeing the ministry,
he took him out and he worked him
over.
And I found out about it and I
said, hey, what what are you doing?
I mean, you can't do that.
And he said, what are you talking about?
Haven't you haven't you read Nehemiah?
Don't you remember when Nehemiah grabbed him and
they plucked out their beards and, you know.
I said, well, yeah, he did do that,
didn't he?
But so Nehemiah did it.
But the pastors of the churches aren't to
do it.
Not violent.
And then he says, not greedy for money.
And a little bit further down, he also
adds not covetous.
So we'll look at them both together because
they're similar things, but not greedy for money.
Oh, boy, you think of church history.
And again, as I was saying earlier, if
if this standard would have been upheld, how
much different church history would look than it
does.
But it's it's an ugly, ugly picture.
It's a deplorable picture in so many ways.
And one of the things that has made
it so ugly is the greed for money
that has been been seen historically in church
leaders.
You think of the medieval period and all
of the shenanigans that would go on back
then.
You know, we we see stuff today and
we you know, you might turn on a
certain Christian channel on your television and, you
know, you find them begging for money.
Every conceivable scam employed to get a buck
out of you.
And, you know, you might think that it's
just, well, that's, you know, just what happens
now with that group of people.
Hey, this stuff has been going on for
all of church history.
And back in the medieval period, boy, that
the church in Europe, the Roman church, they
would just, you know, steal people blind.
It was at that time that.
The Reformation occurred, the thing that really sparked
the Reformation, there were a number of things,
but one of the things that just sent
Luther over the top was the sale of
indulgences.
And this man was sent out by the
pope to sell indulgences to the people and
indulgence was basically get out of purgatory early
certificate.
That's actually what it was, and so he
would go around the country and he would
sell these indulgences to people because they had
loved ones that had died.
And the church had taught them that their
loved ones were in purgatory and purgatory could
last a long, long, long, long time.
And so this guy would come through town
and he would say, you can get your
loved one out of purgatory.
And of course, he would say, don't you
want to get your loved one out of
purgatory?
You mean you're going to leave them there
to suffer for tens of thousands of more
years?
And who could resist that?
And the people would cough up whatever they
possibly could.
To buy that indulgence, it was all an
indulgence was also somewhat of a get out
of jail free card so you could actually
pay for some sins in advance.
This stuff, this is what the church was
doing back in that period of time.
And this is the thing that finally sent
Luther over the top, and this is the
thing that caused him to write out his
what's called the ninety five thesis, ninety five
points that he tacked up on the church
door in.
The city of Wittenberg, Germany, ninety five points
against the papacy and particularly in regard to
the indulgences, but they were collecting money to
build St. Peter's Basilica.
That was the purpose.
I've been to St. Peter's.
It is probably.
Well, from my perspective, it is the most
phenomenal.
Building I have ever seen, nothing like it.
And it has got to be worth.
Trillions of dollars, it's unbelievable the magnificence of
the building.
But it was built through people being cheated
and ripped off by the church, and so
not greedy for money, not covetous, the indulgences
back in that period of time, the covetousness,
the pope would covet lands and goods and
basically send out armies to ransack places and
take over different areas.
Regions, you know, when you understand some of
this stuff, you understand a little bit better.
Some of the other history that followed it
and, you know, it's just such a tragic
thing.
So so we've got that looking back in
history, but like I said, we've certainly got
the same problem today.
Not that long ago.
I heard with my own ears, this isn't
secondhand information, I heard a certain so-called
TV evangelist say this, he said he didn't
want to hear any more about the golden
streets in heaven.
He wanted to hear about the gold that
he could get his hands on right here
and now.
Basically, the gold in your pockets, that's what
he want to hear.
But he said, don't don't tell me about
the goal.
I don't care about the golden.
I want to go.
I couldn't believe I couldn't believe he said
it.
You know, it was like one of those
moments where I'm sure as he went back
and reviewed the tape, he probably thought, you
know, oh, boy, we better delete that.
Because all of that covetousness, all of that
love of money was just flowing right out
of his heart right there, right on the
big screen, not greedy for money, not covetous.
And then he says the overseer is to
be gentle, peaceable is another way to translate
the word disinclined to fight, disinclined to fight,
not always looking for a fight.
Not quarrelsome, he goes on to say, not
a hothead or a contentious person.
Now, you can't be like that in the
ministry because you're always going to come up
against people who disagree with you or want
to argue or something like that.
And if you have that sort of quarrelsome
nature, you're going to spend all of your
time just in conflict with people.
When I was younger, I was, I think,
to some degree, I was a bit contentious,
I was.
I couldn't walk away from a fight spiritually.
You know, I just OK, you know, you
said that, well, come on, let's go.
I want to I want to fight with
you about that.
I want to argue with you.
I want to show you that you're wrong.
And, you know, I think that's part of
being young.
At least it was for me, I I
outgrew that, I think for the most part,
you know, now sometimes people say things and
it's, you know, I can tell it's sort
of like picking a fight and you just
say, well, you know, OK, I got to
go.
I'll see you later.
It's not worth it, really, in so many
cases.
But, you know, there are some that haven't.
Uh.
In embrace that I know I know some
guys in ministry now, as I think about
it, they're not in pastoral ministry in the
sense of pastoring a church there, they're recognized
in a position of leadership and kind of,
you know, maybe as even spokespersons to the
larger body of Christ, you know, just a
bit contentious, just sort of always.
Ready for an argument, can never let anything
slide by, always got to make sure that
you get your point of view out there
and that people know that, oh, no, that's
wrong, what you thought about that, you know,
there's a place, I think, where you just
in things that don't really matter, except it's
just a difference of opinion, you just let
it go.
You don't have to.
You know, try to convince everybody of your
position and so not quarrelsome, not hotheaded or
contentious, and then he says.
One who rules his own house well.
One who rules his own house, well, having
his children in submission with all reverence for
if a man does not know how to
rule his own house, how will he take
care of the Church of God?
Paul is real practical, isn't he?
He says, if you can't take care of
things at home, how could you possibly think
you could manage?
God's church.
And so the overseer is to be a
man whose house is in order.
And that doesn't mean that your kids never
do anything wrong or that they don't occasionally
rebel or that sort of thing.
It just means that when those things do
happen, you deal with it.
You are the spiritual leader in your home
and you you take charge of the situation.
You know, you probably heard the term PK,
preacher's kid, pastor's kid, in some circles, PKs
are notoriously problematic.
To put it more bluntly, the biggest brats
in the church.
And a lot of times it's simply because
there isn't that kind of leadership in the
home that ought to be there.
Sometimes, of course, it's possible for a person
who's in a position in ministry to sort
of neglect the home for the sake of
the ministry and not to put the investment
into the home that that needs to be
put into the home because, oh, well, I've
got to take care of the Church of
God.
But if your home is falling apart sooner
or later, the church is going to fall
apart, too.
It shows that you're not able to take
care of business.
So it's important that we, if we're in
leadership, that we make sure that that things
are right in our own personal lives as
well.
You know, in looking at my own situation
with my family, one of the things that
stuck with me over the years is the
fact that there are lots of people who
can teach the Bible and preach and do
all different kinds of ministry.
But I'm the only person that can be
a husband to my wife and a father
to my children.
I can't delegate that to anybody else.
I don't want to.
I can delegate other things.
I don't have to go on every, you
know, ministry opportunity that comes my way.
I don't have to spend my whole life
down at the church.
I can trust God to take care of
his church.
I can trust God to gift and raise
up other people to help out.
But, you know, there have been many who
have sort of, you know, neglected the home.
And I think that's a huge mistake.
It certainly is a bad witness in a
lot of ways, and it brings difficulty and
trouble upon the church.
Because, as I mentioned earlier, the pastor's kid
is out of control, causing trouble at the
church.
Oh, that's that that story has been told
over and over and over again throughout the
years.
And so he then goes on and he
says in verse six, not a novice, not
a novice.
Why the danger of pride?
A novice is a new believer.
That's what he's referring to here now.
Now, what is a new believer?
You know, sometimes I meet people and they
say, hey, I'm a new Christian.
I've only been a Christian five years.
You're not a new Christian if you've been
a Christian five years.
If you've been a Christian five weeks, you're
a new Christian.
I've even met people who I'm serious.
I've met people who told me they're new
Christians only been a Christian 10 years.
Hey, come on, if you've been a Christian
10 years, you ought to be a mature
Christian.
And 10 years is a long time to
be in the Lord, there ought to be
a ton of growth in 10 years.
So a novice is a person who's just
a brand new Christian.
And Paul says, now, don't put a brand
new believer in this position because there's always
that danger.
A brand new Christian is not going to
understand a lot of things.
God starts using them in a significant way.
They're going to think that it's because they're
so great or something like that.
And they're they're prone.
They're vulnerable to become lifted up with pride.
And then they fall right into the trap
of the devil.
And so he he tells him not to
put a novice in the position.
But like I said, he's he's talking about
a brand new believer.
I think that after a year in the
Lord, if you're faithful, growing steadily.
I think after a year in the Lord,
you're you're ready to start getting involved in
serving the Lord in some capacity, three years
in the Lord.
And if God's calling you, you're ready to
go out and minister in a church.
The apostles, how long did they spend with
Jesus?
They were with him for three years.
He trained him for three years and then
he sent them out, empowered them with the
Holy Spirit.
Paul, the apostle, he had his three year
period of preparation.
I think three years of serious study and
commitment and devotion.
That's that's plenty of time for God to
do a work.
I was pastoring my own church.
After I had been a Christian for just
about four years, I think Greg Laurie was
pastoring his church or kind of, you know,
what became ultimately Harvest Christian Fellowship.
I think it was after only a couple
of years of being a Christian.
And if you look at the different, you
know, guys around that have this long history
with Calvary Chapel, if you look at Mike
down in San Diego or Raul out in
wherever Raul's at nowadays, you know, just the
different guys, you know who I'm talking about.
You know, I don't think anybody had probably
any more than five years in the Lord
before they were out actually doing ministry.
I would I would guess that with all
of them, it was probably considerably less, probably
two to three years.
And so, again, a novice doesn't mean somebody
who's only been in the Lord a couple
of years.
It means literally a brand new believer.
And so, of course, we want to give
people time to grow.
And then the final thing that he says
is that.
He must have a good testimony among those
who are outside, he must have a good
testimony among those who are outside now.
Now.
Some have said that this disqualifies any person
from the ministry who lived a reckless, wild,
sinful life before they got into the ministry,
even though they were unbelievers.
And there's a particular man, I won't name
him just.
In order not to stir up strife, but
he wrote a book on the subject of
preaching and in addressing this verse.
He basically disqualified the vast majority of Calvary
Chapel pastors from being pastors.
Because according to his interpretation of it, we
don't have a good testimony.
Because of our the past, you know, sinful
lifestyles that many of us lived.
But that certainly can't be what Paul is
talking about, because he tells his own testimony.
That he was a murderous beast, basically, and
he was set on killing Christians.
What Paul is obviously talking about is that
we have a good testimony, literally a testimony
that, man, that guy was wicked, that guy
was horrible.
But my goodness, look at him now.
What happened to him, he's changed, he's transformed,
he's a different person.
That's a good testimony that Paul's talking about.
The people from the outside would look on
and they would see that, yeah, there is
a distinct difference in that person's life, there's
a change that's taken place.
That the outside world would not look at
us and say, well, what's he doing being
a Christian, because he's still a thief, he's
still ripping people off, he's still a liar,
he's still a cheat, he's still a fornicator,
he's still a drunk, he's still whatever.
That's what he's talking about, not that he
used to be, but boy, what a what
a change.
So having a good testimony.
That's the final thing there, and so really
here, Paul list 15 different things as qualifications.
For pastoral leadership, Charles Spurgeon, the great Victorian
era preacher.
He said this in his book, Lectures to
My Students regarding the pastor, he said his
pulse of vital godliness must be strongly and
regularly, his eye of faith must be bright,
his foot of resolution must be firm, his
hand of activity must be quick, his whole
inner man must be in the highest degree
of sanity.
We required to have God's ministers, the pick
of all the Christian host, such men indeed
that if the nation wanted kings, they could
not do better than elevate them to the
throne.
It's a high calling.
It's a glorious privilege.
And there are some stiff qualifications.
And I think it's a mistake to look
at this and say, well, you know, that
was Paul's standard.
It's probably unrealistic.
Nobody's ever going to live up to that.
That's not what these things are written for,
they're written so that we would look at
these things and see, yes, this person is
qualified or no, I'm sorry, this person isn't
qualified, that I would continue to measure my
life against these things and make the adjustments
that need to be made and say, Lord,
help me to be more like the picture
that you give of your servants here.
But in closing, I want to say this.
Paul said this is a great thing to
aspire to.
If any man desires the office of overseer,
he desires a good thing.
It's a great thing to aspire to.
And men, we need more men aspiring to
this position.
We need more churches planted.
We need people to take steps of faith
and to go out and do God's work.
And you know what?
You might very well be a candidate.
God might very well be calling you.
You might say, well, wait a second, I'm
just sitting here at the Saturday Night Study.
What do you mean God could be calling
me?
Well, I'll tell you what, 25 years ago,
I was just sitting here at whatever study
and God was calling me.
And 25 or 30 years ago, everybody that
you listen to on the radio and ministers
to you and blesses you, they were doing
the same thing.
And God was calling them and God is
still calling people and he's still calling men
and there's plenty of work to be done.
Where do you go?
Well, I'll tell you, I was looking at
that electoral college map.
The blue places.
That's where you go.
That's where they need the gospel.
Los Angeles.
San Francisco.
Go.
You know, the largest evangelical church in San
Francisco is twelve hundred people.
It's the largest.
Boy, the place is lost, hugely lost.
Go right up the coast.
You saw the map, the West Coast, the
left coast, as they call it, right up
Portland, Seattle, right up there.
Go over Detroit, Madison, Chicago, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Boston,
all these places.
You know, I was looking at the map
tonight.
There's no Calvary Chapel in Pittsburgh.
There's no Calvary Chapel in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
And, you know, as I was looking over
the map and looking at Iowa in different
places, you know, some of these states, you
get two or three churches with maybe, you
know, the largest church being two or three
hundred people.
Now, I know there are other churches out
there and I'm not saying that nobody is
out there doing anything, but there's plenty of
room for more.
And so it's a good thing, it's a
noble aspiration.
And of course, ultimately, it's about God calling,
but you never know, he might be calling
you.
And when we consider the role of the
deacon next week, we'll kind of wrap everything
together by looking at some of the ways
that you can sort of get a feel
for whether or not God might be calling
you.
But.
Again, in closing.
It's a great thing to serve the Lord
in whatever capacity we talked about the ladies
last week and all that they can do,
and it's great to serve the Lord as
an overseer.
It's great to be a deacon, a servant
in the church.
It's great to be a person who, you
know, goes out into the world and sees
their job as a mission field, but comes
back in and builds and strengthens the church
in that area that God gets them to
do it.
And let's not be dysfunctional Christians.
Let's be functioning, a fully functioning body, every.
Part.
Making its contribution and doing what it was
created to do.