elder          When Paul was writing, there were no church buildings, only home churches.  Let’s all meet at my house next Sunday!  Well, we’d be squeezed in, but our seventy-five-pound dog won’t mind: he’s quite friendly.  In those days, there were no priests, a term which seems to come from that Greek word presbuteros: presbyter, elder.  There were deacons from early on: the title is a Greek word for one who serves.  Action to address special needs inside and outside the church has always been a hallmark of Christianity.  Until the end of 1971, Bethel had deacons.  Some of you remember Andy Shock, Clarence Crocker, and Jim Woodard—all served as deacons here.  Our Care and Share Team fills that role, now.

Paul also writes of overseers.  That sounds like plantation work.  The word he uses is episcopos, which we hear in episcopal; by early medieval times, episcopos had become bishop.  What Paul has to say about “bishops” doesn’t much resemble what we think of when we visualize a bishop.  Over two thousand years, the Word of God and the ways of men have not always traveled together.  Imagine that.

When Paul says episcopos, what we’re meant to hear is elder, a leader in the local church.  This is who Paul means.  He switches back and forth between episcopos and presbuteros.  Paul is talking about qualifying characteristics for leadership in the local church.  Such leadership, he writes, is “a noble task” (3:1).  Does anybody aspire to do something noble, anymore?  I’m not sure that’s a direction in which we think about encouraging our kids.  Noble.  Do something noble.  No, we don’t really talk or think that way, anymore.  Maybe we should.  I don’t suppose there are many who dream, hope, and pray about serving as an elder in the church.  It is a task, requiring attention, dedication, perseverance, and prayer.  It is noble: a high and holy calling.  Being an elder is much more than coming to a monthly meeting; it is guarding sound doctrine and nurturing the family of God.

Up until 1956, to be elected an elder in our churches was election for life: no absolute requirement to go off session after two consecutive three-year terms!  There is wisdom in our current arrangement.  It also presents particular challenges to smaller congregations.  My first church had a session of six.  A church further south had a session of three and a constant struggle finding people willing and able to serve.  Still and always, we look to the Spirit.

Paul outlines qualifications and disqualifications for the office of elder.  It’s worth bearing these in mind, whether you are currently serving as an elder, have served, or have ever been asked to serve.  These qualifications are likewise well worth bearing in mind when the nominating process comes ‘round once more.  “[T]he elder is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money” (3:2-3).  Sterling character.  A person of integrity.  Honorable.  Exemplary.  A family man.  I wonder if we’ve lost touch with that term.  Many men have families; some are family men.  When we speak of the church as the family of God, we begin to see the importance of family men in positions of leadership within it.

“Temperate”—Paul means a man not given to excess: the overseer doesn’t overindulge; he isn’t overbearing; he isn’t an overlord.  A temperate man doesn’t fly off the handle; he’s calm, has control of his temper and his appetites.  Thus, the next quality: “self-controlled.”  There are many ways of being out of control; none of them are good.  An elder is to be “hospitable.”  There’s nothing quite like being made to feel welcome: warmth, kindness, concern, consideration.  There’s nothing quite like the feeling that someone is genuinely glad you’re here.  There’s also nothing quite like being made to feel your presence is unwelcome, or just being told to go away.  A hospitable man extends hospitality from his nature, from his God-reformed heart.

Paul expects that an elder will be “able to teach.”  That doesn’t necessarily mean being able to fill the pulpit in the absence of the pastor, though it sometimes has meant that.  I understand that Scott McCaskill preached a time or two.  Paul doesn’t expect every elder to be leading a Bible study or other study group; though for my part I wouldn’t be against it.  Paul wants elders to teach and guard the faith, to know and defend sound doctrine: people who live Christ’s teaching.  You don’t need a degree in theology for that, just be reading your Bible carefully, prayerfully, and often.  Be pursuing godliness and holiness: a God-ward life.  We teach best when we teach by example.  “The finest and the most effective teaching,” writes our old friend William Barclay, “is done not by speaking but by being.”[1]  “Do as I say not as I do” is an inevitable lesson, given our weakness, but the elder is conscientious about making that excuse rarely.

A gentle man, not given to quarreling.  Gentle doesn’t mean weak, doesn’t mean passive.  That’s a mistake our culture likes to make about Christian men, those milquetoasts.  Theodore Roosevelt spoke of speaking softly and carrying a big stick.  There are guys out there just itching for a fight or at least an argument: it seems like you can’t speak two sentences without them getting riled up.  Maybe we’d all like to give a somebody or three a piece of our mind.  Only, I’m losing so much of my mind as it is that I just can’t afford to be giving it away anymore!  Barclay helpfully reminds us here “that blustering, bullying, irritable, bad-tempered speech or action is forbidden to the Christian.”[2]  I still need to hear that.

An elder must not be “a lover of money.”  Some people love to spend the money, spend it just as quickly as they get it, more quickly.  That’s not wise, but Paul isn’t warning against that.  Paul is warning against someone whose influence and vote can be had for the right price.  I also hear him warning against those who love to get money and never let go.  Avarice, hoarding, tearing down the old barns to build bigger.  Now, in the church, we give.  The church has money in the bank—not often as much as Denise might like, come bill-paying day.  The church almost always operates with a fiscal deficit—let’s call it a faith surplus.  We know we are to be wise stewards of gifts of money.  Money isn’t to be wasted, but neither is it to be buried away: consider the reward of the servant who hid away the one gold talent the master gave (Mt 25:30).  It was given to be used, to be put to work, prayerfully, faithfully—nothing ventured, nothing gained.  There is no Christianity without leaps of faith.

The elder must be a family man.  Paul comes back to this; this is very important for him, very important for the church.  There’s a problem with the American family.  Maybe the church can help—the church can also aggravate the problem; we must be wise, prayerful, and faithful to the sound doctrine we have been given.  Here, English evangelical John Stott takes the position that, in selecting elders, it’s important to find out about “their home and family life.”[3]  He’s probably right, but who wants to intrude?  The elder, Paul writes, “must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect” (3:4).  Some children are obedient out of fear; Paul would have children obedient through love and devotion, kindness and patience.  We respect, we admire such fathers: they’re like the best of the dads on those TV shows from the fifties.  Clearly, fatherhood, being a fatherly sort of man, is hugely important for Paul; more, he regards fathering as holy, a gift from God, the way of God, our Father in heaven.

What does it mean to manage a family?  It doesn’t mean being a tyrant.  It doesn’t mean a habit of making unilateral decisions.  It means to support the family, guide and direct the family, nurture the family, upbuild it.  It means caring about the family, being fully invested in the family.  It means listening.  It means praying.  The father leads the family in the way of faith: a way of joy and celebration.  There is an indispensable, God-given, holy place for men in the family.  There is an indispensable, God-given, holy place for men in the church.

We know that life throws obstacles in our way; there are seasons of difficulty, discord, division.  To manage a family well also means to manage conflict, disagreement, hurt feelings.  This is hugely important, and there just isn’t enough education out there about managing conflict.  Some try to ignore it: “maybe it will go away if I act like it isn’t there.  I’m fine.  It’s fine.  Everything’s fine.”  Others try to avoid conflict by giving in right away: “have your way; whatever, do what you want—just let me have some peace!”  That’s a hands-off style, for sure.  Then, there are those who refuse to budge: “my way or no way; my way or the highway!  All or nothing at all.”  There are some political dictatorships more flexible than that.  There’s the way of compromise.  That’s not a bad way, but it can tend to leave a sour aftertaste.  I’ll give up this if you’ll give up that—I lose, you lose, and that means we win, right?

It seems as if the ideal way to manage conflict, whether in families, in the church, or in still larger groups, is collaboration: working together.  Collaboration also requires the largest investment in genuine communication, not to mention individual responsibility.  The secret of collaboration is relationship: viable, vital relationships are built upon communication and responsibility.  Paul wants the church to have elders whose sense of call is to relationship building, with one another and with God.  Not quite rhetorically, Paul asks, “If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?” (2:5).  If someone does not know how to foster healthy, fruitful relationships, how can he or she “take care of God’s church?”

Writing in regard to deacons—he surely also had elders in mind—Paul tells Timothy that “They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience” (3:9).  “[T]he deep truths of the faith”: the vital heart of the message.  Sound teaching.  Elders should continue to apply themselves to learning and living these deep truths, as should we all.  A shallow theology is as destructive as a shallow faith.  Belief is indispensable; it matters what you believe.  Theology and belief come by reading the Bible; otherwise, they come from elsewhere.  This is why Paul tells Timothy that those coming forward to serve “must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve” (3:10).  Serve always with a clear conscience, a good conscience: putting Christ’s principles, his teaching, into action, not living your way away from those principles.

While the situation in Ephesus seems to have required Paul to emphasize leadership for men and submission of women to that leadership (oh, those uppity, unmanageable women!), we know that many women, all over, had important roles in the early church: Lydia, Priscilla, Eudoia and Syntyche, Lois, Eunice, and Phoebe, are some whom Paul names and clearly loves, honors, and respects.  Paul writes a bit more about women in the church, especially in relation to serving the people of the church: “the women are to be worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything” (3:11).  Not gossips.  A sacred trust.  “Temperate and trustworthy”: words of high praise for anyone.  Steady, calm, honest, reliable—“in everything.”  Someone to whom you can unburden your heart, who will follow through, who will always be there for you.  Someone who works, who serves, for your blessing.

Sounds like someone we know, someone we claim to know.  No wonder Paul concludes this part of his letter by writing, “Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus” (3:13).  Great assurance because they’ve seen Jesus, seen him at work and worked alongside him as they served, as they lived into their calling to serve.  Let us each and all together strive to serve well: we see, hear, and touch Christ best, this way.

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

               [1] William Barclay.  Letters to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon.  Daily Study Bible.  Philadelphia: Westminster P, 1975.  83.

               [2] Barclay, 83.

               [3] John Stott.  Guard the Truth: The Message of 1 Timothy and Titus.  Downer’s Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity P, 1996.  98.