Well, today we continue our discussion about leadership in the church, and years ago, the
U.S. Army War College did a survey of soldiers coming back from the war in Iraq.
And in the survey, they asked the soldiers to anonymously rate the division commanders
that they served under.
And for the commanders that rated positively, the survey then followed up by asking those
same soldiers to describe the traits, the character traits, and the skills in those
commanders that they saw that made them easy to follow.
In other words, made them effective leaders.
And I want to share with you this morning the top eight reasons why these men were judged
to be effective leaders.
And as I do that, I want you to think not of the military context, although some of
you may be ex-military, but I want you to think in terms of church leadership because
there are some interesting crossover principles in this list.
The first one was this, he keeps his cool under pressure without panicking.
That's important in a leader, right?
Number two, he gets out of the headquarters and actually visits the troops.
What a shocking thing for a leader to do, right?
Number three, he clearly explains the mission and the standards and the priorities.
Major communication of what we're all about.
Number four, he's more interested in doing good than looking good.
How often do we see that in our world today, especially in politics and government?
More important to have a good press conference where we say all the nice things.
If we actually do it, doesn't matter, right?
We see it all the time.
Number five, he's positive, encouraging, and realistically optimistic.
Not foolishly, but realistically optimistic.
Number six, he easily adapts when conditions change.
That's necessary for a good leader.
Number seven, he sees the big picture and provides perspective to his troops.
He sees that big picture and says, join me in seeing this as well.
And then finally, he can make tough, sound decisions in a timely manner.
I find that very interesting as we talk about issues of leadership.
Now, one of the survey's authors, a retired general, said that after they got this huge
bank of information, that the number of division commanders who got a favorable rating was
lower than he had hoped for.
He had high hopes.
And this is his comment.
He said, one thing we learned is that it's still easier to teach someone technical skills
than it is to teach them how to lead effectively and to gain trust.
And isn't that an interesting thing?
Leadership is hard, folks, and good leaders are hard to find.
And that survey bears that out.
Almost everywhere you look in the world, whether it's business or the military, in sports,
in the home, or in the church, that seems to be true.
Leadership is hard and good leaders are hard to find.
That's sort of the theme for this morning.
Now, today we're in part two of our discussion about elders in the local church, and I have
some breaking news for you.
There will be a part three.
Moment of transparency.
Grant mentioned how difficult this week has been.
In my own wisdom and planning, I had every intention of getting us all the way through
verse nine in Titus chapter one today and just finishing this discussion about elders.
But then God in His mysterious providence threw a couple of curveballs at us.
Number one, there was the Hughes fire that broke out just across the freeway from my
home and put my family under the LA Fire Department's evacuation order.
And that sort of took my focus away for about a day and a half, wondering if I was going
to have a home and whether my family was safe.
So that took up a day and a half.
Then, of course, we had the Pena wedding, which is Friday the rehearsal and all that
goes with that, and then the celebration yesterday, which was amazing.
But to say the least, my week was full.
And I know I'm not alone.
Adam was the best man.
He was busy.
He had a grant in particular, hosting 130 people at his house for a wedding and for a
reception.
So it's funny, in light of the fact that we're all just a little bit worn out, I approached
some of my fellow elders at the wedding last night and I said, how do you guys feel about
me biting off a little less tomorrow than I probably want to and turning this whole
teaching on elders from two Sundays into three?
And I loved their responses.
They were like, you know what?
The Oak Hill people, they're gracious.
I'll let you do that.
So they said, just go preach what's reasonable, what you can get to, and so that's what we're
going to do this morning.
And as I started to develop the message after the wedding last night when I got home, I'm
like, actually, there's a whole lot that we need to talk about here.
So I'm excited about it.
So grab your Bibles and let's dig back in.
We're going to Titus chapter one and we are continuing to look at verses five through
nine.
Now if you're with us last Sunday, you know that we dug into this subject of what we call
biblical ecclesiology.
Big fancy word.
What does it mean?
The doctrine of the church and how the church should be structured.
And the primary thing that came out of last Sunday's study was that the writers of Scripture
actually only give us two offices that should be present in a New Testament local church,
elders and deacons, right?
Not popes and cardinals and bishops and reverends and all these other things we talked about,
but two offices, elders and deacons.
That's why you see in verse five of our text, Paul gives Titus this very clear instruction.
For this reason, I left you in Crete, Titus, that you would set in order what remains and
appoint elders in every city as I directed you.
So you can picture Paul saying, look, Titus, leadership is hard and it's hard to find good
leaders, but as we discussed before I left you on the island, I need you to go through
the entire place and I need you to find all the churches that have sprung up and I need
you to start appointing leaders that the believers there can trust and follow.
And that's so key.
Establish elders, men that are qualified so that the believers there will say, I recognize
those men as my leaders, I can respect them and I can follow them.
That's so important.
And again, considering the culture there in Crete, this was a big ask on Paul's part of
this young man Titus, but Titus had come through before in Corinth and so Paul has great confidence
in him.
Now it's interesting, the Greek phrase that Paul uses here for set in order, this is the
only time that phrase is used in the entire New Testament, which means Paul chooses it.
It's an unusual choice, but he must have chosen it for a reason.
So what you have to do when you have only one use of a Greek term in Scripture is you
go outside of Scripture and see how that word might have been used in what we call extra
biblical sources, Greek literature of the day.
And what you find is the word he uses was a medical term describing the setting of a
crooked limb.
This is what he's after.
So literally verse five could read, Titus, I want you to straighten things out in these
churches, which of course implies that things were crooked in the churches in Crete, right?
And in order for them to be set straight, Paul says, look Titus, to set things straight
there, you've got to establish solid qualified elders so they can lead these churches towards
spiritual health.
Now that's a bit of a summary from last week.
I want to say this morning how proud I am of you as a congregation because you guys
are like Bereans.
You really, I know you're paying attention to the sermons.
I know you're studying the scriptures because I get these questions from you guys during
the week.
I love it by the way.
It's great.
I got a bunch of follow up questions from you guys saying, could you explain this more
or could you address this issue?
So that's what we're going to do kind of this morning is deal with some of those things
that popped up in your brains and then popped up in my brain.
And I saw them in the text and thought, let's talk about these things.
We're also, by the way, we are going to look at one verse today.
Woo.
Kind of.
No, we're going to look at one verse.
Verse six, I promise.
So I'm going to ask a series of questions here and we'll walk through.
The first one is this, somebody said, well then how do you choose these guys?
How are elders to be chosen and how do we do it here at Oak Hill?
That is a very important question to ask.
If you're a member here, you should know the answer to this question.
How do we choose elders?
And obviously that is the very issue that's in front of Titus in this moment, right?
When I come to these cities in Crete where there are churches that have popped up, how
am I going to find the right men to lead?
It's the very thing he was dealing with.
So first of all, I hope you picked up on one of the big themes from last Sunday.
The church is not a business, right?
The church is not a corporation and the church is not anything like the world's version of
government.
So in the church we have very specific standards about our leaders.
We do not vote men into the office of elder because they are attractive and well-liked.
And I don't know why I've got Gavin Newsom in my head.
You know, with the hair and the whole thing, right?
We don't put people in office because they look impressive or they like have this charisma
about them, right?
That's not what we do.
We don't vote them in because they have the appearance of being natural leaders.
We don't vote them in because, well, they built a successful career and they're well
off.
And we don't vote men into eldership because they give generously to the church.
And by the way, those are four reasons I have personally seen in other churches where men
were put into the office of elder because of one of those four things and in most cases
it ends disastrously because they're not qualified.
Let me give you a few more not good enough reasons to appoint a man to eldership.
Being a good communicator is not enough.
Just because you can communicate well does not mean that you should be put in a place
of spiritual leadership.
Having a natural talent for administration doesn't necessarily qualify somebody either.
And believe it or not, having a seminary degree is not enough.
That does not mean that a man is qualified to be an elder.
Those things can be helpful and they might be good signs that perhaps that man is qualified
for leadership, but according to scripture we need to look deeper.
An elder is qualified based on his character and his integrity.
And that's what Paul's going to get through to Titus here in this passage.
That is the basis by the way that Paul gives to both Timothy and Titus in the pastoral
letters.
Skills are great, practical giftedness is a huge bonus to the church, but at the end
of the day it comes down to those two things, a man's character and integrity.
By the way, that's what's going to get fleshed out in verses 6 through 9 when we eventually
get to it.
And those things are found in 1 Timothy 3.
We read the call to worship this morning, the same similar type of list that he gives
to Timothy.
We'll look at all those things in detail next Sunday.
Those are the things that Titus would have been looking for as he went through Crete
looking for leaders.
And I'm going to do a little bit of speculation here.
I can't prove this because it's not in the text, but I want you to think about this for
a second because I think this is logical.
There's no way that Titus could have truly known the men in those churches on Crete in
the short period of time that he was given.
To really know if a man is qualified for spiritual leadership would generally take months if
not years of really living life with those men.
And he's got numerous churches to look at.
And we know he didn't spend that much time on Crete, so the question is, how did this
go down?
Well, I think it's likely that Titus went to these churches on behalf of Paul, carrying
the full weight of Paul's apostolic authority, and he must have asked the members in those
churches, hey guys, who do you see in your church family that sort of rises to the top
in terms of spiritual maturity?
And then my guess is that once he got that sort of behind the scenes data, well here's
the five or six guys that might qualify.
I can picture Titus sitting down and interviewing these men, asking them lots of questions,
probing them for their maturity and for their character, and then through prayer and by
the Spirit's guidance, he must have discerned the truth about each one of these men and
appointed the ones that he saw that were qualified.
Now again, I can't prove that because it's not in the text, but does that not make sense?
In other words, he would have relied on the church members to have eyes on the situation,
to see which men were rising to the top.
By the way, there are some similarities in that process to the way we choose elders and
establish elders in our church.
The current elder team, you should know this by the way, the current elder team is older
than the current elder team.
They're always watching and assessing the character of the men in this church.
We discuss it all the time in our meetings.
We discuss which men are showing signs that they have a desire to lead and to care and
to teach.
And through prayer and by the Spirit's guidance, when we unanimously recognize that a particular
man is ready, we then have a formal process that we walk through with that man, and we've
done it a number of times here, and that includes multiple interviews where we grill him carefully,
where we talk about his character, where we talk about his private life, where he does
a personal assessment for us, where he gives us a actually written theological statement.
I think there's 16 theological questions on that form.
So we put him through the ringer because it's important.
Before we put him in leadership, and you guys have to say, I recognize him as a leader and
I'm willing to respect and follow him, we have got to put him through that test.
And we ask our members to affirm them.
Before they get put into office, and this is a critical step in the process, we want
to make sure the congregation recognizes that he is qualified, that he has risen above and
shown himself to be trustworthy.
Because you've got to trust your leaders, just as we saw in that survey, right, of commanders.
If you don't trust your leaders, it's a stumbling block to say, I've got to follow this man.
So these are very important things.
This is why it's so important for shepherds to live life among the sheep, so that you
can see those things.
And it's important that they know you and that you know them, right, that that relationship
is happening because, guys, that is how trust is built over time.
And how a church establishes a legacy of spiritual health, something that's high on our priority
list here at Oak Hill.
Does all that make sense?
Good.
That's how elders are chosen.
All right, here's another good question that came up from last Sunday's message, and this
one deserves some time as well.
In all the teaching that I've done on elders, you may have mentioned I only have mentioned
men.
Why are only men chosen for the office of elder?
So if you don't know, let's make it clear.
At Oak Hill, the office of elder is reserved for men only.
And guys, I know some of you are on the younger side, you're under 30.
Can I just tell you, that teaching has been the consistent theological position of the
church for almost 2,000 years.
It is only in your lifetimes that this has even been questioned because of the culture
that we live in today.
But we don't hold to the position that men should serve as elders because of just church
tradition or church history or because we have a patriarchal bias here.
I know that's sort of the talking points that are out there.
We hold to male only elders because that's what the Scriptures clearly teach.
And verse 6 in our text is just one example of this.
If you look at verse 6, it says if any man is above reproach, the husband of one wife.
Is that not clear?
That's what he needs to be.
The Greek nouns here are not an accident.
Paul uses two important words, aner, which refers to a man or a husband, and gunae, which
refers to a woman or a wife.
Those are not arbitrarily chosen.
Paul is being very clear here.
In the parallel passage in 1 Timothy 3, the same requirement is repeated.
The elder must be the male husband of a female wife.
So Paul hasn't stuttered on this issue and he's not just reflecting some patriarchal
bias.
And in 1 Timothy 3, he then adds this important qualifier using masculine pronouns.
It says if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of
the church of God?
Paul is very clear on this.
And again, this is just one place where we see this principle of male headship in the
church.
Now the penultimate statement, I believe, the most important statement in the New Testament
on this issue also comes from Paul, also is found in the pastoral epistles, which is where
you would expect to see it, right?
Because Paul is saying to Timothy and Titus, this is how you structure the church.
It comes from 1 Timothy 2.
And it's a very simple statement, I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority
over a man.
And that is the exact role that elders are called to, to govern the church with authority
as under shepherds, under the chief shepherd, and to teach the congregation.
Paul says I don't allow a woman to do it.
So women should not be put in this role.
And it's interesting that Paul grounds that teaching, not in first century culture.
He doesn't ground it in the Greek world.
He doesn't ground it in tradition.
What does he ground this teaching in?
Creation itself.
So when you hear people say, oh, well, this teaching is just, it's just some cultural
thing from, you know, from, you know, Corinth and that, that area in the first century.
No, he says, for it was Adam who was first created and then Eve.
And this is what we refer to as the divine order.
This is God's perfect plan for leadership.
And it starts with men.
Whether we like it or not, this is what God has declared from the very moment of creation
that it begins with men.
Now this is not because God thinks less of women, right?
This is another one of the talking points that follows the others.
All that means God, that women are second class citizens.
That is not true.
It doesn't mean that women are less capable.
It's simply God's ordained plan for leadership.
And because God is a God of consistency and order, he has established male headship across
every sector of spiritual life.
Think about the, the priesthood in Israel.
All men.
Think about the 12 apostles.
All men.
Think about the leadership of a husband in marriage.
Think about the leadership of a father in the home and male elders who govern and lead
the church.
God has been consistent in this principle.
And the sooner we grasp that, even if it's hard and look, I know it's hard for a guy
for me to say that I can, I know how you ladies feel about this, but you've got to get a hold
of this and, and receive it as from the Lord himself.
I know it's not easy, but let me make this clear.
Ontologically, women are 100% equal to men in God's eyes.
100% equal.
All are loved and valued and women have the freedom to do many things in the local church.
Even teaching by the way, because they can use their teaching gift in teaching other
women and children.
So they're not even being barred from the teaching authority, just not authority over
men in their teaching.
They could do many things in the local church.
In fact, I will say the talents and gifts and service of women are essential for a healthy
body life.
But in this one area, authority vested in elders, God has clearly restricted it to men.
Amen.
If you have questions about that, come talk to me.
We can talk about it.
I know it's not easy, but it's clear.
Okay, one last really important question that came up from you guys.
How old must an elder be to serve in this role?
So this is interesting.
We talked last week about this Greek word presbyteros, right?
And that, and that is the word for elder or bishop.
It is a word that literally is associated with older age.
That's the term elder, right?
But still the New Testament does not give us a minimum age for elders.
It'd be really easy if it did make sure it's this age.
But I think in God's wisdom, he said, look, that, that number is flexible based on culture,
right?
So we don't have a number given to us.
And we know that Timothy was a younger man by Jewish standards and likely Titus as well.
Some scholars would say probably early thirties.
So very young by Jewish standards.
That both are chosen as apostolic representatives.
Both are sent to provide pastoral oversight to churches in the first century.
And not only that, we have this really interesting bit of information in first Timothy four where
Paul gives Timothy some, I would call it forceful encouragement.
Here's what he writes to Timothy.
He says, hey, command and teach these things.
Don't let anyone look down on your youthfulness, but set an example for the believers in speech,
in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.
In other words, and you get a sense that Timothy needed some like some, some building up from
this older guy, Paul, like Timothy stiffen your spine just a bit and teach these things
with authority.
He needed that encouragement.
And I know you're young, Timothy, but if you set the example for the body in these areas,
they will respect you and they will follow you.
That's sort of the encouragement that Paul gives to him.
So in terms of an elder, it's less about the physical number of years that he's lived on
the earth.
And it's more about his spiritual maturity.
Now I have an interesting story about this topic, a story from the very early days of
Oak Hill.
I'm going to embarrass Adam here for a second, because look, Adam's still a young guy.
He said, he said, I'll take it.
And Ken as well, right?
We have some younger guys.
And Grant.
And okay, Grant too, in spite of the gray hair.
But this was years ago.
And there was a family who had come to Oak Hill and attended for a number of months.
And we thought that they were, they were fitting in well.
And this was going to be a really, a really wonderful family at our church.
And then one day I got an email from them that said, we're leaving Oak Hill because
you've appointed Adam as an elder.
And the reality was this family was stuck in a particular understanding of, in their
mind of what an elder should be, what an elder should look like.
And in their minds, he had to be older than them.
And in that case, Adam was slightly younger than them.
And they said, can't do it.
Cannot respect somebody younger than me.
And they refused to even look at scripture.
So they just sent me an email.
So I called them and I said, look, can we talk about this?
Because I'm not sure you're being fully informed on this issue.
And I said, have you looked at Timothy?
Have you looked at that example?
Have you looked at how it's more about character and spiritual maturity than it is age?
And then I said, and they were like, yeah, but he's so, I'm like, let me ask you a question.
Have you actually met Adam?
Have you actually, have you gone out of your way to show hospitality to him, to ask him
some questions about his character?
Have you taken him to lunch?
Have you had him to your house?
It got really quiet.
Because they hadn't made the effort to really see if he had the spiritual maturity to serve
in that role.
And it's so interesting, not going to listen to me as an older man, not going to look at
the scriptures.
They just had it in their mind.
This is what we believe.
And friends, that is a dangerous place to be.
To say, I'm not going to pay attention to what God says because I have an opinion.
Make sense?
Okay, so we are going to look at a whole new verse this morning.
So look at verse six.
We're just going to dip our toe into it because it is chock full of important stuff.
All right, beginning at verse six, we have this critically important list of character
qualifications for elders.
It runs all the way through verse nine.
And what we're going to see now and next week is this.
First of all, there is one overarching character trait that Paul lists.
And then there are two requirements beneath it.
And both of those requirements speak to the man's home life.
After that comes five things that an elder cannot be and then seven things that he must
be.
And the seventh of those, which we'll get to next week is important, is a description
of his knowledge and handling of God's Word.
So there's a ton of stuff here that we need to unpack.
But let's look again.
Verse five says, for this reason I left you in Crete that you would set in order what
remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you, namely if any man is, underline
it, above reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, not accused of
dissipation or rebellion.
So there's the overarching requirement there, to be above reproach.
It's the same requirement that shows up again in the first, it's the very first thing in
the list that Paul gives to Timothy about as an elder as well, above reproach.
So Paul's making this his top priority.
You see there, it's a single word in the original Greek, a negkletos, and sometimes you find
it translated as blameless.
But here's what I think is the best way for you to understand what Paul is getting at
here.
When it comes to an elder, there should be no glaring violation in his character.
No point upon which a person might stand up and make an accusation, a valid accusation
against his character or integrity.
In fact, the Greek word that you see on the screen is a compound word.
Its root is the word egkaleo, which literally means to make an accusation.
And so when you put the negative particle in front of it, it negates it, which says you're
not able to make an accusation.
So that's really what Paul's getting at.
There's no valid reason for a person to stand up and say, that guy is disqualified.
So the elder's life has to be seen in order for this to apply.
He's got to be known as a man of unimpeachable character and integrity.
And that trait is essential for leadership because again, I'm going to say it over and
over again because that is how trust is built.
I read a story, and this is for you old timers, Jeff Steele, you'll like this story.
Former president and general Dwight Eisenhower.
Anybody?
Dwight Eisenhower?
Yeah, good.
In his autobiography, he tells a really interesting story.
He actually at one point in his career forced an officer, a high ranking officer under him
to resign from the army for this reason.
He had cheated in a poker game.
He had cheated his friends in a poker game.
Now, we look at that and go, ah, you know, eh, what's the big deal?
He's probably just messing with his friends.
But this is literally what Eisenhower wrote in his autobiography.
If a man cheats at cards, he is not trustworthy.
And if he's not trustworthy, he's not qualified to lead other men into combat.
And it dawned on me as I read that, when it comes to character, little things indicate
the presence of larger things.
Let me say that again, little things indicate the presence of larger things.
So if a man will cut corners in something as simple as a card game, there's a good
chance that he's grown comfortable with cutting corners in more important things.
And I think this is part of what Paul is speaking to here.
If an elder is to be trusted by the congregation, he has to be a man of integrity.
He can't live one way at church and a different way in other settings.
He can't show up on Sunday and smile and say all the right things, but then have a private
life that is inconsistent with what he's giving off as his public image.
That would disqualify him.
Now, a caution with this, we always have to be careful when we interpret words in Scripture
that sound really, really forceful, like above reproach or blameless, we have to maintain
our theological foundations and let Scripture interpret Scripture.
So the truth is theologically that not one man who serves as an elder here at Oak Hill
can ever claim to be 100% pure or 100% blameless.
Just ask our wives.
We can never be 100% free from the possibility that somebody in the church is going to nitpick
our lives.
I've seen that happen.
If we claimed we could actually be 100% blameless, we'd be violating the principle that we all
know that we all sin and that we all fall short of the glory of God.
So no elder should be expected to live under the weight of being judged by the standard
of sinlessness or perfection.
That's not possible, but in a general sense, his character and his life have to reflect
spiritual maturity and well-earned trustworthiness among those that he leads.
Does that make sense?
Good.
So after Paul lays out this one overarching trait, he then turns to the question of an
elder being above reproach in a very foundational part of his life in the home.
In the home.
Now you might expect Paul to say in the church first, but he starts in the home.
And that's very, very interesting.
Look at the end of verse 6.
First he goes to the marriage relationship and then to parenting.
Above reproach, he writes, the husband of one wife having children who believed not
accused of dissipation or rebellion.
In other words, Paul's trying to say here, look, if elders are going to be effective
at fostering godliness in the church, let them show it that they're fostering godliness
in the home.
Both in the way they love their wives and parent their children.
Now I find this a fascinating aspect of modern church life.
Serious question here.
If you belong or if someone belongs to a church of thousands of people, think about this.
And they don't even know the names of their elders, let alone their wives and their kids.
How are Christians today supposed to assess whether their elders are trustworthy to follow?
I don't even know their names.
I probably couldn't pick them out of a lineup.
So I certainly don't know about their marriages or their children.
This is one of the great flaws in the modern day church in America.
We've gotten so big that nobody knows anybody anymore.
And this is really important.
What this requirement of verse six tells me is that an elder's family life has to be,
to some degree, has to be visible to the congregation.
Elders cannot hide their lives from the flock and then expect to be followed and obeyed.
That's actually not healthy.
You don't know me, you don't know anything about my private life, you don't know anything
about who I really am, but by the way, I want you to obey me and follow me.
That is not a healthy thing, and we should recognize that.
So elders need to be with the sheep, known by the sheep, and yes, their wives need to
be known by the sheep, and their children, to some extent, need to be known by the sheep.
And yes, I acknowledge that's really, really hard.
That's really hard on a man to be under a microscope like that.
And it's hard on their family too.
So there is a healthy balance that we need to strike, and we need to teach on this more
often that there needs to be visibility, but also not invasive inspection.
There is a healthy balance to be found there.
And yes, the congregation needs to abound in grace toward an elder and toward an elder's
family, but we need to be visible.
We need to be examples to the flock.
That's one of the high callings of eldership, is to be an example to the flock, and if nobody
is able to see our lives, how can we be examples?
So this is a tough thing.
No man should pursue the office of elder unless his wife and children are prepared for all
that comes with it.
It's not an easy thing, but it is our calling.
And that's by the way why in 1st Timothy 3, which we read earlier, Paul says right out
of the gate that a man has to aspire to this office.
He has to want it, because it does come with sacrifices.
And one of those sacrifices is, yeah, my life becomes open to inspection, and to some extent
my wife and my kids as well.
So it's not easy.
Okay.
Poor Eden, she's up here.
Hi.
All right, so let's talk about this phrase, husband of one wife.
This is really important.
What does it actually mean?
As long as I'm not a polygamist, I'm good to go.
I mean, is that what Paul's really getting at here?
No, it's not.
And it's an interesting fact that in the Greco-Roman world of the 1st century, polygamy was looked
down upon.
That might shock you, but it was.
Now, having mistresses, that's fine.
Mistresses are fine, but multiple wives, multiple marriages was frowned upon in the Greco-Roman
world.
So Paul's not getting at that.
There's something else he's talking about here.
And what I would say he means is simply this, that an elder must be absolutely committed
to his wife.
Whereas sometimes we say he has to be a one-woman man.
So he has to be devoted to his wife.
He has to cherish his wife.
He has to build her up in the faith.
And in all those things, what he's doing as he does those things is he's serving an example
to the younger men in the church to say, this is how you should treat your wives.
And so again, it's visible.
We say, look, we're one-woman men.
This is what we do.
Now, an adjacent question that often gets raised here is, does this verse mean that
an elder must be married?
I've heard that said before, but guys, we have to be careful on our exit Jesus here.
Paul does not command that an elder be married.
Right?
To say that is extrapolating from the text.
It's really not in there.
So what do we do?
How do we answer that question?
Can we have single elders?
Well, again, we look to scripture to shed light on this subject and to help us answer
the question.
So first of all, let me just be really practical.
Paul wasn't married.
And I don't think there's anybody here would say, therefore, he's somehow not qualified
to be an elder.
Right?
Now, we don't know for sure.
We're not given a lot of information about Paul's background.
It's possible he was never married.
It's also possible that he was widowed.
But it's clear in 1 Corinthians 7 when he speaks to this issue, he is writing as an
unmarried man.
In fact, he commends a man who is like himself, able to remain single and not struggle with
sexual immorality.
So it would not make sense for Paul to say on the one hand, well, I commend singleness
if you're gifted in celibacy, but then say, yeah, but he's not qualified to be an elder.
That doesn't make any sense.
But we should also make note of this truth.
Being a single or unmarried elder in the church does have its share of unique challenges.
For such a man has a greater struggle to remain morally pure than a married man, especially
in his physical and thought life.
So the unmarried elder has to be very, very cautious to guard his heart well.
So yes, a single or unmarried man can serve as an elder with those unique challenges in
mind.
Good?
Now, I could say more about that, but I'm not going to stretch this into four sermons.
All right?
I'm not going to do that.
I want to move on to the parenting piece because there's a lot of controversy here.
Let's look at it.
Paul says, having children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion.
Again, Paul is not commanding that an elder have children.
Again, that's an extrapolation that is not in the text.
What he's saying is I'm talking to elders who do have children.
This is one of those places, by the way, and you guys know I love my new American standard,
but this is one of the places in the NASB where I think they get the translation very,
very wrong.
What you see on the screen there is the phrase children who believe in the original Greek.
And the first word that you see there is correct.
It's universally translated as children or offspring.
That's fine.
The third word you see there, pista, can mean several things.
In fact, if you look at the root word pistas, you will find that it's used 67 times in the
New Testament, and here's the breakdown.
Seven times is translated as trustworthy, 11 times is translated as believing as it
is in the NAS, 49 times.
It's called faithful, and I believe that is the correct translation.
That's what it should say.
Children who are faithful, not children who believe.
Now why am I so sure about that?
Well, again, we have to let Scripture interpret Scripture.
So take the general thrust of salvation theology into account and ask yourself this question.
Should a father who's being considered as an elder have to show that his children are
true believers in Christ?
More importantly, does that father control the saving faith of his child?
And the answer is no.
None of us control that.
That's not something we can work harder to make sure it happens.
Why?
Because salvation is a gift of God alone.
Salvation is a regenerative work that God does by himself.
Yes, the training and discipline of a father in the home, it matters, and it often leads
to a good outcome, but God alone saves.
And so to say that you've got to make sure every elder, their children believe, I mean,
even at a young age, right, that's an impossible standard for an elder to live under.
So what does he actually mean?
Well, I think the second half of the verse actually helps us understand what he means.
What does it say?
An elder's children cannot be living in a way that is described as out of control or
rebellious against his father's authority, right?
Because if so, if a child is rebellious and out of control and wild, there's probably
something going on in the home that requires some effort on the part of that debt.
And if you want a more descriptive way of what this looks like practically, the Greek
word for dissipation, I think it's debauchery in the ESV, it is the same word that you would
use in Luke 15 to describe how the prodigal son lived when he walked away from his family
and squandered his life away.
That's what Paul is referring to, how the prodigal walked away from the authority of
his father and squandered his life in foolish living.
That's what he's talking about here.
So just to be clear, just to be clear, an elder's children don't have to be perfect.
Can I get an amen?
They're not going to be free from sin.
And you know what?
On occasion, you're going to find them running around the NPR after the service making kid
noises.
It's not disqualifying.
Right?
An elder's children need to be faithful.
In what sense?
In the sense of responding well to the training and discipline of their parents.
That they're not living as prodigals.
Now let me bring up something that's uncomfortable.
Another adjacent question that comes up.
Is it possible that a father and his wife are doing everything right in the home to
love and discipline their kids and they still be out of control and rebellious?
Absolutely.
I've seen it.
I've seen it happen.
Not in this church, but in other churches.
Just to make that clear.
Yeah.
So while we would applaud the efforts of that father and pray for the child to see the value
in obeying his or her parents, that man would not be qualified to serve as an elder during
that season of his life until that situation got rectified.
And you know what?
There's practical reasons for that.
Number one, if that were the situation and this dad is doing everything he can.
He's doing everything right.
Everything you would prescribe to be a good father and yet the child is rebellious.
We would simply say, don't serve as an elder right now.
Focus all your time and energy on the home.
Not in the church right now, but on the home.
Maybe later, but right now your son or your daughter needs you.
That would be number one.
And secondly, we have to remember that if unbelievers see that a man is an elder in
the church and yet they witness this rebellion and out of control nature of their child,
that threatens to shed a negative light on the gospel.
And that is very serious.
So we would just say to that man, go spend your time and energy with your kids and make
sure that home life is in place.
Does that make sense?
So this text in Titus 1 requires that we look carefully at an elder's relationship with
his kids.
Does he strive to model godly behavior in the home?
Is he conscientiously training up his children in the ways of the Lord?
And then each situation needs to be prayerfully considered.
It's not always cut and dried in the world of qualifications, is it?
Every situation needs to be looked at and prayerfully considered.
Okay.
So the overall point here in verse 6 is obvious.
An elder has to be a godly husband.
An elder has to be a godly father.
If his home life is not in order, we should not expand his responsibilities by putting
him in a position of leadership over the family of God.
Amen?
Good.
Now, if you come up with any more questions, please send them to me.
It's great.
We'll address them.
And if it's not here in a sermon, I'll try to do a podcast on it.
Because I know this text brings up a lot of questions.
They're good questions.
They're questions that we should know, that every person out there should know about.
So let me wrap up with this.
Again, leadership is hard, and good leaders are hard to find.
Here's what studying this passage over the last couple of weeks has sort of put on my
heart.
And my prayer all this morning has been that these two things will land on your heart as
well.
Number one is just acknowledging the amazing group of elders we have at this church.
And not taking them for granted, because it's hard to find good leaders.
Good qualified leaders.
We are a fairly small church.
We have seven incredibly godly men who lead this church.
Skilled, gifted, but most of all, their integrity is in place.
They're willing and eager to serve and to shepherd this flock.
And so God has gifted us with this amazing gift.
And so I don't want you to take them for granted.
In fact, bless them.
Bless them.
Get to know them.
We do.
But we're really, really blessed.
Second thing that I've taken to heart from this passage is that our elders need prayer.
Lots and lots of prayer from you guys, from our sheep.
Because being an elder is a great sacrifice.
And it's difficult work.
And it requires a lot of time and energy.
All of these guys, and you know what?
Let's just acknowledge the wives of the elders who give up their husbands.
Because of all the time and energy it requires to be an elder.
Our wives, I mean, we talk about it at our meetings all the time.
But we are, we all married up.
We are so blessed by our wives.
But it takes a lot of time and a lot of sacrifice.
And the weight of being an elder does weigh on us at times.
And so the enemy would love nothing more than to take down one of our leaders in this church.
And so if you don't have us on your prayer list yet, would you consider adding all seven
of us by name and asking the Lord to protect us?
Asking the Lord to encourage us?
Ask the Lord to give us strength to keep doing the very thing that we love to do.
And that's to love you guys and to shepherd you guys.
Amen?
Let's bow our heads and pray together.
Father, the more, the more we dig into these two passages in Titus and 1st Timothy, Lord,
it's so encouraging to see how you have practically provided standards and qualifications for
the men that lead your church.
How much we need those things, Lord, to know who to put in positions of leadership, who
will be trustworthy, who can be followed.
And so, Lord, we're grateful for your word as always, but specifically for the practicality
of this passage.
Father, we are grateful this morning for the men that you have called into this position
at Oak Hill.
I'm personally so blessed by each one of them, by their fellowship that we enjoy, by the
way our families are in fellowship with each other.
It is a special and rich situation that we live in.
So thank you for them, Lord.
Thank you for each one of them.
Bless their homes, bless their wives for their sacrifices, and Lord, continue to watch over
us.
Come back to Oak Hill from the attacks of the enemy, Lord.
Keep us men of purity.
Keep us focused on you with our eyes fixed upon you and nothing else.
Lord, we know that this is what you desire for your church, and so we ask for it.
And we thank you, God, that you are faithful to respond to our requests.
You are faithful in your promises, and so we call on those this morning, Lord.
Thank you for this time we've had.
We love you.
We praise you in the name of Jesus.
Amen.