Elders (Part 1 of 3)

We've often heard safety in number walking at night or were visiting unfamiliar territory today on trick for life.

Alastair beg explains why there's safety in numbers when it comes to church leadership as well. Our ongoing study of the book of Titus continues Titus chapter 1 verse five.

This is why I left you in so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you. If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery are insubordination for an overseer, as God's steward must be above reproach must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violence or greedy for gain, but hospitable lover of good self controlled upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. For there are many who are insubordinate empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they are not to teach one of the cretins a prophet of their own said Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.

This testimony is true, therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth to the pure all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure both their minds and their consciences are defiled, they profess to know God. They deny him by their works, their detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work on that ball has left Titus in position in the island of Crete, in order that as we saw last time, the churches there might be marked by tidiness and by healthiness and by attractiveness the tidiness that is represented in putting things in order. Verse five at the healthiness which is identified by the doctrine that is then being understood and believed and proclaimed in the attractiveness, which then emerges from the lives of those who are living in the light of the aforementioned, and it is obvious from the text that leadership is the absolute priority in seeking to establish each of these things because if the leadership is wrong, then everything else will be wrong with it. This is true within the home.

In terms of moms and dads who have jurisdiction over their children.

Despite the fact that our society suggests increasingly that that is not the case and ought not to be the case if we're going to accept what the Bible says that we recognize that God was established the nuclear family is not only put it in place but is also said how it works and there is an order of leadership in that home, which when neglected, brings with it all kinds of sori chaos when it is overstated may bring with it all kinds of unhappy authoritarianism and autocracy when it is applied by the power of the Holy Spirit concurrence with what the Scriptures teach, then it is a lovely thing to behold is an article you may have seen it about a lady who had taken her children on a trip or one of them and the child run and walk in the airport and it what it really was assessed sorry tale of woe and I think essentially the lady was saying. So you see that's what happens when you have children you there just completely out of control and an actual fact what it was. It was a story about a mother who's completely out of control and Ashley has no idea what you are to be doing with her little daughter and AIDS is representative increasingly of the world in which we live and what happens.

Of course, is that as the New Testament argues from the family. The nuclear family into the church family and vice versa when it breaks down in a culture in the family, you find that it spills over very quickly into the church so that the same resistance that you have two parental rule two parental responsibility to parental dictation. All the events you then find a translate itself into the local church. When you consider leadership and eldership in particular, families are very hard to say but I have a call my father by his first name. I am my mother is equal to me. I have no reason to submit to our authority. And so when you prove reproduce that in a local congregation and you realize just how vital it is that people understand that what we're doing is redoing what the Bible actually says most unsolved problems in a local church can be traced to defective leadership can be traced to defective leadership, almost without exception, so notice that there this is a priority and it is an absolute necessity that the elders would be appointed in every town as Paul had directed him. If you read through the acts of the apostles, you will see that very quickly elders were being put in place in the church. So at the end of acts chapter 11.

It is obvious to those that within 15 years from the time of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. There were there was already a leadership structure in place in the congregations in Jerusalem and as you read through Paul in his missionary journeys you find that he is not only going first of all to evangelize.

But in many cases he is coming back in order to make sure that those who have now profess faith in Jesus. These fledgling groups of individuals will then be galvanized and structured within the framework of leadership as God intends and you can read that for your benefit. All the way through one of the questions that always emerges when you address the issue of eldership is to end in terms of his terminology and are English translations of the Bible don't necessarily help us in this regard because they are the translate words variously and in a word that is actually translated here Elder in verse five is the Greek word press pewter office which gives us our English word presbyter and the word that is translated as an overseer in verse seven. The distinction is there in English between Elder and overseer that word. There is actually the word Episcopal us from which we get our English word Episcopal, and you might add to that, another now own and also of their what you find for example in first Peter five which addresses the function of these elders in terms of shepherding so that the shepherd is the point man and that the responsibility of leadership is to ensure that in overseeing the congregation and in guiding the congregation that they are expressions of care are directly tied aid to leading the congregation by the crew of God's word. This is absolutely foundational. He crucial to realize that leadership in the local church is a leadership by this book. That is why a congregation should always be happy when those who are teaching the Bible say to them, you better take your Bible and see what's being said is in their that a congregation always want to be happy when the person teaching them says you are sensible people. You can read this for yourselves. You can figure this out, as opposed to the person in the pool. Exercising some kind of magical capacity, whereby he seeks to bamboozle the minds of those are under his tutelage, who then simply Kong with a spoonful and seemed to get a little spoonful of something that will bless them or encourage them or enrich them and then try and get it as best they can out and into their car to go on with the week.

Now you will notice that in verse five the elder and in verse seven, the overseer is the one who in verse 19 is caring for the church by teaching the church by teaching the church so long time since I've said this to you but I said it sometime ago. If you want to know that I have stopped loving you are caring for you, then you will know when it becomes apparent that I've stopped studying my Bible when I have stopped teaching you from the Bible when I have started simply to tell you stories or tried to lure you with tales and notions and humor and so on.

And I said that in part because I think there was some question about whether I was just as lovable as my wife knows me to be whether the expression of care from the eldership would would be directly tied to hogs in the hallway. I'm not opposed to hogs in the hallway. I'm getting better as time goes on. Eventually Al be so doted it will match are one of them hung in any case, for the fact is I said then and it struck me again. This week is our study did that the ultimate expression of care on the part of the eldership is in being apt to teach the Bible so that the people might be fed. The word of God so that they might be growing in the word of God so that they might be able to stand against the attacks of the evil one, so that the intern might be able to teach their children the things that they are learning as they go. The shepherd of the sheep, the Lord Jesus is one who leads his people into the pastors into the paths of righteousness for his namesake and so it is that the essential qualifications directly related to the functioning of eldership within the local church is tied expressly to their ability not exclusively, but nevertheless expressly to their ability to teach the truth and to rebuke those who contradict the truth and of verse nine so that you will be able to teach the truth. He says and be able to refute those who deny the truth and clearly this is a men's size tax and it is not entrusted to an individual, but it is entrusted to a plurality of individuals when we read the New Testament not only here and elsewhere, we discover that there is safety in numbers and the New Testament guards against the proclivity of an individual to seek to exercise jurisdiction which is not theirs to exercise the person who wields the most of the Bible faces the challenge of this, the greatest of Lucian a moment or two. God is merciful to us at the moment. I think apartheid, although I never want to say too much and get it all blows up in my face but I am aware of churches in our immediate environment here that are completely bedeviled by all kinds of stuff and ultimately it may be traced to failure at the level of pastoral leadership.

The responsibility that is given is given in plurality the qualifications that are called for are called for in each of the individuals in the distinction of giftedness and the distinction the diversity of function does not negate that a tall. The thing we need to be sure of before we go to the characteristics is that there is no hierarchy imagined in the New Testament there very quickly became a hierarchy as people began to pay less attention to the Bible and more attention to their man-made notions of how it ought to be. Nothing much has changed throughout the years so you can find it.

Are there places all over the all over the globe where they of all humanity, all kinds of things that apparently had been built from secular models so you have the largest of the population who've come out of the manufacturing industry and of these men become the leaders in the church and they cannot break the church down into manufacturing units and they have the union leaders here. They have the presence and the vice president there and everyone looks in the Bible is in the world and get like this lengthy godliness because people start looking in the Bible and the worst of it is when the hierarchical notion leads to somebody in a position of almost unchallengeable authority and of course, if a church is led by the Scriptures, and it's almost inevitable that the individual who is most access to the Scriptures and most responsibility of teaching the Scriptures is one of faces the greatest challenge in this regard. And that's true no matter where the congregation is because Paul makes it clear that there is a respect and there is an honor which attaches to this task. If anyone regards the task of overseer they desire a noble task, but the respect and honor is directly related to the work, not to the personality of the individual. Such individuals are to be respected for their work not obeyed because of their zealousness or because of their coercive abilities at leadership, and that's why the plurality of leaders.

That's why the safety is found in numbers because zealous leadership, persuasive leadership is nevertheless leadership, which remains subject to all the other leaders makes sense doesn't because what we discover is that all of us are responsible to the leadership of Jesus all is a responsible leadership genes brought into the family of God were brothers and sisters how to brothers and sister teach each other while they elbow one another in the ribs.

They pull one another on they cajole one another. The rebuke one another there brothers and sisters all of us are subject to the leadership of Jesus who is the chief Shepherd but the New Testament also makes clear that some of us are responsible for the leadership of others. That's eldership in the church in the same way that as your children grow in the nuclear family.

There are there are changes in your leadership by his parents, is not the same as it was when they were in their infancy when parameters had to be established, and so on. The transitions that develop in life where the khakis Kong where their own passport is available to them where they are now traveling I would and beyond, and so on where they are now actually correcting the highest where they're calling us to accountant. That is all a necessary element of the but it doesn't over the five that I'm still there. That way I want to be or not you're still there. Mom you're still responsible for not to the degree that you once where and when that breaks down than the demise is significant. We don't want to overstay that, but it is important we understand it and that is why at the end of Hebrews, the writer to the Hebrews says the people he says no I want you to obey your leadership obey the leadership they keep watch over you says is men who must give an account not give an account to you. Although, as we've already said were accountable to one another in Christ. But as those who will give an account to God in the same way that moms and dads will give account for the way we raise our children and says that there there writer to the Hebrews obey them as men, and was given.

Accountant so that their work will be a joy and not a burden because I would be no advantage to you as a mother sale at time hope don't make this difficult for me please would you just do as I asked you if I asked you to do something that was wrong. I'm not dumb.

Let's make this hard. So it is a very happy thing when a church understands a biblical structure button will move on from this, it is also vitally important that we recognize that structure alone is not the issue.

You can of perfect structure and a dead body in the vital thing is that it is the spirit of God filling out the framework that God has determined is to be the framework as he gives it to us in his word wise enough concerning the function itself.

You can come back to that on your own. Let's go immediately to the way in which he addresses the characteristics of these individuals. If anyone is above reproach. Have it in verse six and then verse seven again for is a no for an overseer is called Stewart must be above reproach.

So we could use the word unimpeachable.

Blameless above reproach.

But we dare not use the word faultless or flawless. Because if that was what it meant. Then there wouldn't be any elders or tall. If the chief characteristic of the elder is that he is absolutely flawless without fault in any shape of form then of course were only ever going to have had one elder, the elder would be the Lord Jesus Christ himself know we have to understand what the Bible is saying and why it's seeing what it's saying what I mean by that is this if you theory down on. For example, this notion of the husband of one wife, and you approach that in a wooden way. Say it categorically means the husband of one wife. Now you have to say. While no single person can ever be an elder because he doesn't have one wife.

No man whose wife has died, leaving him a widower and who is remarried can ever possibly be an elder in a local church because he has more than one wife. When you start on that line you very quickly, save yourself. I wonder if that is what Paul is on about here is that what he's actually guarding against is he simply addressing the issue of divorce and remarriage as being a double standard and therefore it is reasonable for somebody not to be put in that position possibly. But if you think about creaked for a moment if you think about the contemporary world that at the most basic level, what was he said no polygamists must serve as elders in the church. Polygamy was part and parcel of the social structure and he says now when you put your leadership together make sure that we get this absolutely clear in our minds with the person that is serving this way must not be guilty of that. So if you stand far enough back from you soon actually saying needs to be true of leadership in the church in terms of marriage. He's to be a one woman man is to be a man who in the area in the area of marriage and in sexuality is unimpeachable and to violate that obvious application brings with it all kinds of ramifications not only we understand buying from it one iota. Very challenging is supposed to be listing to Truth for Life. That's Alister Bragg examining the essential qualifications for elders explaining the priority of establishing a leadership team in every local church. Now it may be that your listing to this message from Alister today on radio or maybe your listing on your smart phone or tablet work on YouTube or your smart speaker. However, your listing is a vital group of fellow blisters who are making all of this possible for us.

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