Restoring Biblical Eldership, Part 2
1 Timothy 5:19-21
Let's open our Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 5...1 Timothy chapter 5. I mentioned to you last week as we began a look at verses 17 to 25 that this was a hard passage to preach because it really speaks about the role of the pastor and the elder and I just wanted you to know that I don't give this message in any sense as self‑serving. My intent is not to gain anything, to receive anything. Your over‑abundance of generosity to me is deeply appreciated already. But it is a difficult passage to preach from the standpoint that basically I'm here telling you how you ought to treat me and others like me who pastor and lead in the church of Christ. And I refresh you again by saying I hope you understand my heart in this is to teach you the Word of God and to have you continue in the loving way in which you have expressed your response to me and to our pastors and elders here. And also beyond the walls of this church, to give instruction to other churches and other people as to this same issue of how we treat those that God has placed in leadership in the church.
Now today's message and the focus of what we look at today in another sense is also equally difficult to preach because while part of the text calls for honoring the one who is over you in the Lord, part of the text calls also for exposing the sinning pastor or the sinning elder. And so it's a two‑edged sword we look at in this text, and it equally brings a certain amount of anxiety to my own heart because what I'm in effect saying to you is that if I ever sin a sin and the category of sins is very large, if I ever continue in some sin, that I'm asking you to do to me exactly what this text says to be done, and that is public exposure. On the one hand, there is the call for honor to a faithful man. On the other hand, there is call for exposure to an unfaithful and sinning man. And so, both of them, in a sense, are difficult words and thoughts to be found in the mouth of the preacher himself, and yet very necessary.
Now as I mentioned to you last time, as we come to chapter 5 verses 17 to 25, we are reminded that Timothy is in Ephesus. And the Ephesian church has really declined greatly. It has found itself in behavioral inconsistency with the revealed Word of God. It has abandoned its great glorious and wonderful beginnings where Paul was the founding pastor. It has begun to sink into the morass of immorality and also false doctrine. That is primarily related to the decline in its leadership, for a people is always the product of leadership. And so in this particular epistle as Paul writes to Timothy, he is saying, "Timothy, I've left you Ephesus and these are the things you have to do. And one of them that is absolutely vital is to restore a biblical eldership. You've got to deal with leadership in that church and that is not an easy thing to do. You must attack at the most difficult point, the point of leadership."
Serious doctrinal problems, serious behavioral inconsistencies that plagued the church at Ephesus were related to a decline in the character and the teaching of their leadership. And even today, theological error, biblical misinterpretation, disregard for the high and narrow walls that bound biblical godly morality are directly the result of failure in leadership in the church of today. And whatever message Paul gave to Timothy for restoring a biblical pastorate or eldership then needs to be given today as well. Those godly men who lead and feed and protect and guide and set an example for the church are the key upon which humanly speaking that church develops. And Paul is very explicit in this passage. He calls for very specific attitudes toward the eldership, the pastorate.
Now as I said last week, the church's ability to reach the world, to be a channel of the grace of salvation, the church's ability to be a powerful pure Christ‑revealing organism is directly related to the character and the content of its leadership. It's essential.
This past week I had an occasion to preach down in Dallas. And as a follow up to that wonderful opportunity, I preached to thousands of pastors down there, a pastor was saved. He called me the next morning at 5:30 in the hotel and said, "You've got to help me, I'm lost." He was a pastor who was sitting in the section of pastors being honored for having the most baptisms, the most conversions, and the fastest growing church percentage wise. Saturday night he came to the conclusion that the real need of his life was salvation. He was going through the motions.
I suppose we could say that restoring a biblical pastor would certainly begin with the pastor getting saved if he hasn't been. But assuming that, for the sake of the text, assuming that the man is a man who knows Christ, that's not where it ends. There are many other things that need to be considered in the matter of biblical pastoring and biblical eldership. And Paul lays out the proper attitudes that the congregation is to have toward those who lead them.
Number one, and we saw this last time, verses 17 and 18, Paul calls for honoring elders. He says, "Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially the ones who work hard in preaching and teaching for the Scripture says, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain and the laborer is worthy of his wages." Now Paul begins by saying the church is to honor the elder/pastor...elder being a term referring to spiritual maturity, pastor simply pointing out his ministry of feeding the flock. The same word, or a different word, rather, overseer referring to the same man means his leadership. So he is a mature godly man who feeds and leads the people, as you know.
Now if he does it well and if he works hard in preaching and teaching, he's worthy of double honor. After all, he says, "Doesn't Deuteronomy 25 teach us that an ox who treads out grain is to be rewarded by being allowed to eat? And doesn't the New Testament, Luke 10:7, tell us that a man who works is worthy of his pay? And if you feed an ox that crushes the grain, and you feed a servant that does his work, then the one who preaches and teaches the Word of God with excellence and great effort ought to be honored as well. And honor then implies not just respect but remuneration.
So, the first principle of a biblical eldership is you have a plurality of godly men who are honored by the congregation in terms of respect and in terms of needed remuneration. That's the basic thought of that first point in verses 17 and 18...honoring pastors, honoring elders is very basic and a man's respect and a man's remuneration is tied to the excellence of his work and the effort in the toil that he makes. That's what the text is saying. And so we begin then by honoring elders.
A second point comes in verse 19. Let's call this protecting elders, or protecting pastors. And it's certainly an extension of the idea of honoring them. Part of honoring your pastors and elders is this whole matter of protecting them, insuring their safe and proper treatment. After all, to put it in a proverbial sense, pastors are forever and always on the hot seat, right? And there are always people who would line up to falsely accuse a man of God. And they will be falsely accused for many reasons. Some people will resent their calling. There are people who just carry around a lot of resentment, it may be personal, it may be general. But because of that resentment they may desire and design to falsely accuse a man of God. Sometimes it's due to people rejecting their teaching. Someone doesn't like what someone teaches, they take a different view, they react negatively against it and perhaps in their anger, in their hostility they begin some kind of campaign to falsely accuse and discredit the man of God. Sometimes it's because people resist biblical authority. They resist biblical teaching and they strike out for revenge to one who has called them to accountability before God or who has brought them feelings and real feelings of guilt. Sometimes it's nothing more than envy and jealousy because a ministry is being blessed. Sometimes it's because a person, and maybe all the time in one way or another, it's because a person becomes a pawn of Satan and his emissaries to discredit and tear down what God wants to do.
So, one way or another, and perhaps often a combination of motives that we've talked about put together, might result in men being falsely accused. And it's a sacred trust to be in the ministry. And the effectiveness of that trust and the effectiveness of that ministry is largely dependent upon a man's integrity, upon his believability, upon his consistency, upon his purity and holiness and virtue of life. And if he can be attacked at that point and discredited, if he can be shredded so that people don't trust him anymore, the net effect may be to totally end his ministry.
I think about, for example, the most devastating things that came against Jesus were not physical things, but accusations that He spent all of His time with drunks, prostitutes, and wicked people. That was an attempt to accuse Him of those same things. They said He was a glutton and a wine‑bibber and they said He was possessed with a demon. All of that in an effort to discredit Him falsely.
Now because this is a very real issue and because the enemy comes against any faithful servant of God, Paul gives Timothy instruction in verse 19 in this regard...let's look at it. Verse 19, "Against an elder, or pastor, do not receive an accusation, except when on the authority of or by the force of two or three witnesses." Now, first of all, please notice it says against an elder, that's what we're talking about here. When someone sets out to accuse an elder or a pastor, he says do not receive that. The word receive means to entertain, to consider in your mind. And what he is saying is just flatly reject it, don't even investigate an unsubstantiated accusation made against a pastor/elder. It ought to be ignored.
To put it simply, one of the best ways you can protect your pastors and elders is with a deaf ear to accusation. It's that simple. When a man is placed into spiritual leadership, he has to anticipate that hateful, jealous, sinful people will falsely accuse him to try to ruin his ministry. And people can and often will say anything and everything. This is standard behavior with reference to spiritual leaders. I went back in the Old Testament this week, just kind of tracking through some of the leaders of the Old Testament period and found that one after another of the great heroes of the faith in the Old Testament were beset by false accusation. It was standard fare. I think particularly of Joseph, Moses, David, Jeremiah, Nehemiah and many others as well. You come in to the New Testament, Christ was crucified under false accusation, Paul under false accusation, defending himself again and again and again in his epistles.
It is standard approach of the enemy to discredit. You see, men's ministries can be brought to a halt due to no fault of their own, but due to the fault of people who will listen to a false accusation. And so that discrediting of that man comes totally unrelated to reality in his own life. The word accusation, by the way, kategoria sounds like category, it comes from two words, agora which...it's the word for Agoura, down the road here, the town, it means a meeting place, a public place, a marketplace, and kate is against, so it is to say something against a person in a public meeting place. That is to bring a formal accusation. And when someone comes to bring a formal public accusation against an elder or a pastor, we are not to listen to that. We are not to entertain that. We are not to investigate that. Trapp, that Puritan writer who has so many good things to say, has a little statement that I think is just right to the point, he said this, "Truth has always a scratched face." Truth has always a scratched face...what does it mean? It means that people react against truth. And when a man is a truth teacher that does not mean that he is going to have an absolutely impeccable reputation among all people all the time because truth always has a scratched face. And the difficulty in ministry is being able to distinguish between...between gossip and false accusation and lies and reality. If Satan can't cause a man to fall into sin, if Satan can't cause a man to stumble into evil, then Satan may cause some who more willingly will stumble into evil to become a coterie of false accusers, the net effect of which is to discredit the man as if he himself had sinned. You understand that? And so the insulation of the man of God against that is a deaf congregation in the sense of hearing accusation. Very important.
Notice back in verse 19 again...against the elder or pastor you are not to entertain any kind of formal public accusation. The word "but" should be translated "except when," and the word "before" has the force of "by the authority of two or three witnesses." The only time you ever even entertain it doesn't mean it's true, but the only time you would ever even entertain it would be when it comes to you with a force of two or three confirming witnesses.
In other words, it isn't one person who has some kind of act of aggression against man of God. I can only tell you personally because this is of such tremendous concern to me and because people can and do say anything and everything that if a person comes to me with some kind of accusation against a man of God, my first reaction is always to deny that. I will not accept that. I'm sorry, I cannot believe that, I cannot accept that. Until it would be confirmed significantly by two or three whose confidence I would trust and then properly investigated, a deaf ear is the best thing you can turn to someone who falsely accuses.
Now the intent of two or three witnesses is simply confirmation. It goes all the way back to Deuteronomy 19:15 where no accusation against a person is to be upheld apart from two or three confirming credible witnesses. Matthew chapter 18, you remember when we have an outline of how to discipline a fellow Christian, if you find one in sin you go to him, if he doesn't hear and repent then you take two or three witnesses in order that they might confirm that sin and confirm either his repentant or failure to repentant...to be repentant attitude. So two or three witnesses involved in an accusation situation is an old approach. It's simply the confirmation of viable witnesses. And so we are never to receive any accusation against a pastor, we're not even to entertain it or to investigate it or to look into it, we are to shun it, to shut it off, to end it unless it has been confirmed by two or three significant and credible witnesses.
Pastor/elders are never to be at the mercy of frivolous evil accusers. And they're not to be having to go around to their people justifying themselves to people who are eager or willing to believe such lies.
Now I'm not saying that we are to be beyond accusation, if accusation is legitimate. I am saying we are to be beyond successful accusation if accusation is illegitimate...if it is false. And the danger of this is tremendous. I personally believe in my own heart that one of the greatest benefits of this church to me is the fact that through the years you have been so protective of me and you have honored me so faithfully. In other words, I know...I know it and you know it, too...that I have been under attack and continue to be under attack and have been falsely accused and continue to be falsely accused rather regularly, almost weekly. But the one thing that sticks in people's craw is that people outside find it very hard for people inside to agree with that. And I think it's been your confidence and your prayers and your support that has been such a tremendous encouragement to me. And furthermore, I want you to know that this is something that any man who is in the ministry constantly prays about because you know you're tremendously vulnerable to false accusation. So I thank you for your goodness in that area and I thank God for His Holy Spirit putting a stop to things before they can get started.
But in spite of false accusation I want you to know the ministry is a joy. And being falsely accused puts you in good company because the Lord was falsely accused also. And as Hebrews 12 says, if I can put it in the first person, "I have not yet suffered unto blood," like He did. But in protecting leadership in the church, the first line of protection is a deaf ear to accusation. Don't even think about it.
And let me say a word to those who might accuse. You must be very careful when you accuse someone who is in the ministry. You must be very cautious to speak against a godly leader. Let me give you just a little insight into this matter of caution. Turn in your Bible to chapter 24 of 1 Samuel...1 Samuel chapter 24. The background of the story is that Saul is king but a rejected king, rejected by God, he'll never be a part of the kingly line, he'll never produce the Messiah from his loins. Saul is a rejected sinful king. The anointed king who is God's choice is a young man by the name of David. And, of course, Saul and David are adversaries in the very real sense...both really in a role of king, Saul the present but rejected king, David the future but anointed king. And Saul is very much hostile toward David and wants to take his life.
And in the midst of that hostility a very very interesting situation happens in 1 Samuel 24, verse 1, "It came to pass when Saul was returned from following the Philistines, it was told him, Behold, David is in the wilderness of Engedi." So Saul wanted to go get David, eliminating his enemy. Took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel. This would be the finest of soldiers. "And went to seek David and his men on the rocks of the Wildgoats." Engedi is a desert place, jagged mountains. "And he came to the sheepcotes by the way where was a cave." Now here's Saul, he's going down toward Engedi, he's got three thousand crack soldiers with him to attack David. "He comes to a cave and Saul went in to cover his feet." Now that little phrase is an Old Testament euphemism for a visit to the men's room. Now I don't want to get too deeply into this discussion, but in those days what happened was you took your robe and just kind of threw it out as you crouched down. And that's what was known as covering your feet, and we'll leave it at that. And it says in verse 3, this is Saul, this is the king who goes into the cave to be indisposed for a few moments. "And David and his men were staying in the sides of the cave." So this men's room is occupied and it's occupied with David and his men.
Well, the men of David standing around the sides of the dark cave knowing the king is there in that incredibly vulnerable position, they could pounce on him and kill him in an instant. And the coup would be over and David would be king. They said to him, "Behold, the day of which the Lord said unto thee," this is it, "Behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thy hand that thou mayest do to him as it shall seem good unto thee." This is it, they said, this is unbelievable. Here he is, in incredible vulnerability and all alone. "Then David arose and cut off Saul's head." Is that what it says? "Cut off his skirt of his robe." He snipped off a little piece of the fringe of his robe. "It came to pass afterward that David's heart smote him because he had cut off Saul's skirt." Now there you have a very conscientious guy. He's feel guilty because he cut his robe. His heart smote him because he cut off a piece of his robe. "And he said to his men, The Lord forbid..." You know what he did? He snuck up on this guy and he just cut his robe and then snuck back and Saul didn't even know it. "But he says, The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the Lord's anointed, to stretch forth mine hand against him seeing he is the anointed of the Lord."
That's amazing sensitivity, isn't it? I mean, that's like saying don't even step on the pastor's toe. Incredible. But it symbolized something to David, in his heart there was a hostility toward Saul and he could have taken his life but he backed off, even cutting his robe, that small act of hostility seemed to him to be sinful because this was, after all, the man who was king because the Lord anointed the man, the Lord did make him king. "So David restrained his servants with these words." He wouldn't let them kill Saul. "And permitted them not to rise against Saul. Saul rose up out of the cave, went his way." This is really amazing. "David followed him, went out of the cave and when he got a little ways away he said, Saul, my lord the king, and when Saul looked behind him, David stooped with his face to the earth and bowed himself."
Can you imagine that? He wanted...he had done a disservice to the king by cutting his robe, he wanted to do what was right, he wanted to bow in the presence of the king, so he waited till he got out of the cave, turned and bowed to him to show him the proper respect that was due to a man anointed by God to be the king of Israel. Incredible. "And David said to Saul, Why do you listen to men's words saying, Behold, David seeks your harm?" Why do you believe those lies? "Behold, this day your eyes have seen how the Lord had delivered you today into my hand in the cave and some bade me to kill you but my eyes spared you and I said I will not put forth my hand against my lord for he is the Lord's anointed. Moreover my father...see the skirt of thy robe in thy hand, for in that I cut off the skirt of thy robe and killed thee not, know thou and see that there is neither evil nor transgression in my hand, and I have not sinned against thee, yet thou huntest my soul to take it. The Lord judge between me and you and the Lord avenge me of you, but my hand shall not be on you."
Now this is an attitude that says, "I don't touch the Lord's anointed." You know what happened a little later in the story. Saul got in the middle of a losing battle and decided that he wanted to take his life. And so, he got the assistance of a an Amalekite to help him in his suicide and he leaned on his spear and died.
In 2 Samuel chapter 1, notice this, David interviews this man that did that. And he says in verse 11, "David took hold of his clothes and tore them and likewise all the men who were with him and they mourned and wept and fasted till evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son and for the people of the Lord and for the house of Israel because they were fallen by the sword." So David is weeping even at the death of Saul. "And David said to him...this is the servant who had assisted Saul in taking his life...How were you not afraid to stretch forth your hand to destroy the Lord's anointed?" How could you do that? "David called one of the young men, said, Go near, fall on him...that means attack him...he smote him so that he died. And David said to him, Your blood be on your head for your mouth has testified against you saying I have slain the Lord's anointed." While the guy is there and the blood is coming out of his body and he's dying, David says you're getting this because you touched the Lord's anointed. Even though Saul was a sinful man there was a tremendous sense of the sacredness of the Lord's anointed. Great seriousness must be considered in attacking any faithful servant of the Lord. So when you set out to falsely accuse God's servant, you're walking on treacherous ground..."Touch not Mine anointed," Psalm 105:15 says. Zechariah 2:8 basically refers to touching God's anointed being equal to sticking your finger in God's eye. It irritates it.
So, that is a perspective that helps us understand that we are not to falsely accuse. And when someone does falsely accuse, we are not to listen to that and be party to one who wants to touch the Lord's anointed. The parallel isn't exact because Saul was a sinful man who was rejected by God but still if David's spirit was a spirit of kindness toward a sinful rejected king, what should be the spirit of the church toward a faithful honored servant of God? To bring a false accusation is to put yourself in a very serious situation. Even a genuine sin on the part of Saul, a genuinely sinful life did not warrant someone taking that man's life. And so where you have righteousness you have protection doubly so.
Let's go back to 1 Timothy then. And we want to be cautious then before we would ever speak against the Lord's anointed. And secondly, we want to be very very reluctant to listen when someone does speak in such a way.
So, the first point then is elders are to be honored and pastors ought to be honored. The second point, they are to be protected. And I want you to know, beloved, that the great burden in my heart, the great desire of my heart is to raise up a generation of godly men who are worthy to be honored and worthy to be protected. That's really the ultimate objective in the Master's Seminary, to produce those kinds of men who are worthy of honor and worthy of protection.
But now we come to the double‑edged sword. What about the man who sins? What about the pastor/elder who sins? And the accusation is not false, it is true. It is in the mouth of two or three witnesses and when investigated found to be true. What about that? That takes us to point three, rebuking elders. And again this is a very strong word...an exceedingly strong word. What it basically says is there's absolutely no immunity for sin. Protection up to a point and the point is sin. When it gets to the point of sin, there's no protection. There is tremendous vulnerability. Notice verse 20, "Them that sin," and them refers to the elder in verse 19, the elders, the pastors, "the ones that sin," and it's a present participle, "the sinning ones," and let me say that the sins are not categorized here. We could say that the most devastating public sin is sin of immorality and there are myriad illustrations of that. But it could be a myriad of other sins as well. In fact, if you want to know the category of sins, all you have to do is go back to 1 Timothy chapter 3 and reverse everything. You could start out in verse 2 by saying he's not a one‑woman man. He doesn't exercise self‑control, a lack of self‑control is a sin. He's not moderate. He is not good in his behavior. He's not committed to the love of strangers. He drinks too much. He's impatient. He's a fighter. He's covetous. He doesn't handle his home well.
It could be any of these things. What a man does with his children. what he does with his wife, what he does with his home, what he does with his money. How his reputation exists in every dimension of life is at stake in this matter, any kind of sin. And I want to make that clear because there's just no way that you could be partial for one sin as over against another. Anything that is a sin which that man continues to practice and continues to do is reason for him to be included in "them" that sin.
Now what do we do with them that sin? Here's the two‑edged sword. "Rebuke before all." Would you please notice here that we don't have a lot of steps of discipline. It just says rebuke before all. When an accusation has been made, it's been confirmed in the mouth of two or three witnesses and investigated, if it indeed is proven to be true he is to be publicly rebuked. The word rebuke, elencho means to expose, to bring to open conviction, to correct, to reprove. And the idea is public, before all. There's no exegetical base for limiting the all to just the elders, the other elders. There's no contextual base for limiting it to just the elders. If it says all it means all. If it was intended to be kept from the congregation it would have said be sure the congregation doesn't find out. But when it says rebuke before all it means exactly that. And there is no either exegetical or contextual reason to limit the all in any way. It simply means one who is found to be sinning is to be exposed before everyone. There's no where to hide.
Once a pastor/elder's guilt is established, he is to be publicly exposed. The sin of one in that position is more serious and to be punished more severely because its implications are greater. If you're the model of spiritual life, if you're the model of godliness, if you're supposed to be the example and you do not live the example that pleases