Christian Ethics and the Old Testament - Lesson 45

This is lesson 45 in our series on Christian ethics. No sports related things today. Last time we finished a series on qualifications that wasn't intended to be a series, but it ended up taking a little bit longer. We looked at all the qualifications for the men who hold the office of elder. And today I want to look at the duties associated with the role itself. What are the duties of the elder? And then turn it around and look at what are the duties of the rest of us toward elders. So I'm kind of doing a little bit of a church ethics on a mini section under the justification, I guess, of the fifth commandment, which is about obedience to human authority. So this was our list of qualifications that we worked through. And just want to remind you a couple things about that that we ended with last week. First of all, these are qualifications. These aren't nice to haves. These aren't things that you look for in somebody. These are qualifications. If you don't have any one of these qualifications, you may not serve the church as an elder. These are not nice to haves. These are qualifications. And I think what's gotten the church into trouble is one of the things is not paying good enough attention to these qualifications, not really treating these qualifications seriously. Okay, we'll leave that there. The other thing, well, some of these disqualifications could be on account, if you were disqualified, it could be because of some sin on your part. We look at these qualifications, some of them are moral in their content, so some sin would disqualify. Others, not necessarily a sin, could disqualify you, somebody from eldership. Something could just happen in their lives that makes it impossible for them to teach or whatever, things like that. Some disqualifications could be temporary. It is possible that a man could be temporarily disqualified as he works through something and then be qualifiable later on, meet the qualifications. Others would be a permanent disqualification. There's some things that rise to a level where that's always going to be a reproach on the person. They're never going to be re-qualified. But when we think about qualifying elders, and we need to think about it, we'll see that's one of our duties later on. This is the point. It's always: are they qualified according to this set of biblical qualifications that we see in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1? That's the question. That's always the question. So, secondly, these qualifications are not all virtues that we should all cultivate, but most of them are. We looked at that. We go through these. These are, for the most part, virtues that we should all cultivate as Christians. Now, note something about this. What qualifications are missing? This is not a list of every one of the words for the qualifications, but this is kind of the general list of all the qualifications. Some of the ones in Titus are not relisted up here if they're really close to these. So I think of this as a comprehensive view of qualifications. What's missing then? Able to teach, I hope, is up there. Linda. So bloodline's missing. Well, that would have saved the church an Andy Stanley if we took that seriously, right? Maybe the fruit of spirit. The fruit of the Spirit. Some of the fruit of the Spirit are kind of in there, in one sense or another. But yeah. Is there anything that we commonly associate with someone who's qualified for the position that isn't up there? Charismatic? Charismatic? Yeah, that's not up there. A man? A man is up there. A one-woman man. Are you working with Linda on this? Man, A degree. Yeah, a degree. There's nothing here about seminary or Bible college degrees. Well, what do we make of that? Is it bad to have a

Seminary degree? It depends on from where it could be. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. A good seminary degree or a good Bible college education, those would be good things. They would be contributing to holding fast the faithful word. They could contribute to the ability to teach. You could see those as sort of certifications that a person has some of the qualifications. But it is important to remember that that is not a biblical qualification for a man to serve as an elder. Some others I thought about singing ability. You ever heard that? Yeah. That's in some circles that's an important aspect because very often, even here when I first started coming here, some of you, Jim did led the singing because who else is going to do it, right? There was not very many of us here. Yes, ma'am. My able to play the piano. Wife able to play the piano. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, kids. Yeah, right. Good. I had over the age of X. That's not a formal qualification. One of the terms and the term most often used is elder. But again, there's no formal age limit. Things like a track record of growth, church growth, people look for that, or credentials in their denomination. These things, some of these things could be good. They could be shortcuts, again, or evidence of qualification. But it's always important to remember: what does the Bible say about this question? And this is what the Bible says. These are the qualifications for elders. All right, now I started all this qualifications of elders thing with kind of started with a question about how does plurality work. And I stopped there and said, I can't tell you how plurality works until we go through qualification. So by how does plurality work? What I mean is the model for the church is that the church has a plurality of elders, more than one, and that group all has the same office. You don't find in the Bible assistant pastor, youth pastor, second visitation pastor to the elderly, you know, all of the things that we call, we refer to as pastors or elders. It doesn't have, we'll look at forms of church government next week. It doesn't have a board of elders that is different from the pastor, all of that stuff. It just has a group of elders who serve the church. So how does that work? Don't you need to have a CEO? Don't you need to have somebody who's in charge? I mean, you do this by committee. They have the Bible, right? That's the look. These are qualified men. These are these types of men. They have to be. And if they are, it works because they have the Bible. Now, good qualified men can disagree about something that the Bible says. So then what? What do you do? You pray. You study. You read the other guy's books, right? Like, hey, will you read this article? We'll get back in time. And then at some point, sometimes you get to the point where you say, look, we just, I think we've studied this out. We're just on a little bit different point of view on this. So you don't violate your conscience. I won't violate mine. We each teach our conscience. It's not a primary issue. We move forward. So I'm not an elder anymore. I was for 20-something years. We never voted. We never cast lots. We never flipped a coin. There were always chocolate chip cookies, yeah. I was gonna ask if there was fasting involved. No. No, not really. But we, and we had some hard issues where we did disagree on things, and that's okay, right? But we did it as Christians. We did it as Bible men. Like, what does the Bible say about this issue? And let's dig into that until we figure it out. So that's how plurality works. Now, it doesn't mean that even though everybody has the same position and the same level of authority, whatever, it doesn't mean that everybody has to be an equal on.

Every issue. There are some issues where one person might have more knowledge, more might be more involved. It might be like a youth ministry issue. Well, there may be somebody who has more experience and involvement in the youth ministry. So they would kind of take the lead. Now, we had one paid elder, which is Jim, and he did the lion's share of the work by far. And so it's easy to defer to him. And it would have been very easy for him to turn it into a CEO role. And he could have done that. He didn't. He never did that. He always recognized this body of elders as equal in authority, even when we disagreed. That's why qualification is so important. If you look at these, you can understand that men like this can serve together without a this is the final word we just never had that kind of an issue does that make sense okay let's move forward then I want to talk about what elders actually do what's their role what are their duties their responsibilities their ethical obligations and I broke this into four categories kind of following strach this is how he does it in his book protection teaching leading caring it doesn't mean this is the only way to think about this obviously this aren't these aren't biblical categories where the Bible says these are the things it's just a way to categorize all the duties all right so protection we'll start with that it's clear that one of the duties of the elder is to protect the church from false teaching you see that over and over again in scripture this is acts 20 verses 28 through 31 be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the holy spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the flock of god which he purchased with his own blood i know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock and from among your ownselves men will arise speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them therefore be watchful remembering that night and day for a period of three years i did not cease to admonish each one with tears that's a warning that paul was giving to the ephesian elders this is coming right you've got to protect the flock from it and then in titus 1 9 through 13 so this is right after the qualifications for elders holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to reprove those who contradict for there are many rebellious men empty talkers and deceivers especially those of the circumcision who must be silenced because they're upsetting whole families teaching things they should not teach for the sake of dishonest gain or to themselves a prophet of their own said cretons i always have to stop and think that is not cretins cretons are always liars evil beasts lazy gluttons this testimony is true for this reason reprove them severely so that they may be sound in the faith you see that there's an emphasis on false teaching as a duty of elders often in scripture the elders are to protect the flock from false teachers whether they come from within or from outside the church now today it's mostly i would say cornell i think it's mostly social media preachers that it used to be the tv preacher all right and that was easier because there weren't that there weren't there couldn't be as many and now it's just people popping up all the time social media preachers so elders really have a hard a harder job today protecting the flock against false doctrine it's hard for us to know what who you might be following so it's a it's become a harder job and i i'm sorry i will lapse into um referring to myself and the body of elders that's just a habit and i'm just to be clear i'm not an elder so that is clearly one of the roles of the elder to protect against false doctrine but it's not just that's not the only aspect of protection they also have to protect against sin the mischief of sin in the flock you see that in uh in titus there that they are to in verse 9 they're to exhort and to reprove so they're to both exhort and reprove and those are two different verbs exhort is the familiar uh paracaleo probably heard that meaning to come alongside literally to kind of encourage from next to being with and encouraging and and exhorting it's more comforting side-by-side assistance it's this is the attitude of the elder in dealing with the people in their flock reprove is a stronger word it means to to show someone their fault to convict them

Acts 20:28–31

To refute them. It's the first step in church discipline where it says, show him his fault. That's the word here. In verse 13, there, you see, Titus is to reprove severely, to reprove false teachers severely. That's tougher. So the role of the elder is to protect the church from both false doctrine, from false teachers, and also from each of the members of the congregation from sin. I have to do both of those things. Keep going. Teaching. It's primarily the way that they do that. The listing of officers in Ephesians 4:11 includes shepherds and teachers. You can get maybe too far into the Greek construction here. I'm just going to say that that group that's mentioned as pastors and teachers is, there is at least, the construction implies that there is at least some overlap between those two groups. It doesn't mean that they're necessarily all the same, but that there are some pastors who are teachers, and maybe some that he could be saying that all pastors are teachers and some teachers are not pastors. The construction fits that. And if you see the sum, the word sum up there, that article is there for the apostles, it's there for prophets, it's there for evangelists, and it's there for pastors and teachers. So it seems as if that is considered in Paul's mind to be more or less one group. So all that is just to say that pastors have to be able to teach. And we've seen that before in the qualifications. Skip all this stuff. Right there you see in, we saw it in the qualification, but you see it here in 1 Timothy 5:17 as well. The elders who lead well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor at preaching the word and teaching. And this is how Strzok puts it: The Christian community is created by the Spirit's use of God's Word. That's a great sentence. The Christian community is created by the Spirit's use of God's Word. The community also matures, grows, and is protected by the Word. Therefore, it is a scriptural requirement that an elder be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. The elders protect, guide, lead, nourish, comfort, educate, and heal the flock by teaching and preaching the word. Indeed, many pastoral needs of the people are met through teaching of the word. So I think if you wanted to describe the role of the elder and you wanted to keep it in your head, what is the role of the elder? That one sentence: the elders protect, guide, lead, nourish, comfort, educate, and heal the flock by teaching and preaching the word. That is all that the elders have. That's all they need, is the word of God. That's their role, is to apply the word of God to the situation in front of them. That's all they have. I have the role of leading. That's inherent in the words for the office, elder, overseer, and shepherd. It is the responsibility of the elder to lead the flock. You saw it in 1 Timothy 5:17 again, the elders who lead it well. You saw it in the qualifications, the management or leadership of one's own household. You see it in 1 Thessalonians 5 there, 12 through 13. But we ask of you, brothers, that you know those who labor among you and lead you in the Lord and admonish you, and that you regard them very highly in love because of their work. Live in peace with one another. And then the writer of Hebrews refers to shepherds as leaders. You see it there, Hebrews 13:17. Obey your leaders and submit to them. For they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account so that they will do this with joy and not with groaning, for this would be unprofitable for you. So leading is a responsibility of these elders. That's going to lead to a responsibility on the part of the congregation, we'll get to. Another is caring. And caring is, I'm kind of using that as a catch-all for all the other activities that the elder does to care for the flock. So prayer, visiting sick people, counseling, officiating, weddings and funerals, the administrative work, like what color of carpet squares should we have, those sorts of things. Really shouldn't be, that really shouldn't be the work of the elder, let's be honest. There's nothing. If his role is to bring the Bible to bear on decisions, there isn't one. There's nothing. So anybody can make that decision. So that was a bad example. But the elders are to care for the flock. And it doesn't mean only the elders can care for the flock. Too often, people will come to the elders with some issue that somebody needs help with, that it doesn't have to be their role. Why don't you take care of it? Why don't you help them?

Ephesians 4:11 1 Timothy 5:17 1 Timothy 5:17 Hebrews 13:17

And our church has been really good at that over the years. It's why we've gotten away with, for many years, having one paid pastoral staff member because a lot of people did take care of each other's needs and the other ministries of the local church. We all use our gifts in the church. Deacons in particular, which we'll talk about deacons probably next week, they're especially enabled to kind of care for the physical needs of the people in the church. But it is still a responsibility and accountability for elders to care for the flock. It's given in the qualifications. How will he take care of the church of God? I'm adjusting a little bit. So that word take care of, that's also used of what the Samaritan, the Good Samaritan does. He takes care of the traveler. So it really is, and I'm going to make this point over and over for a few weeks, probably. It's about love. Elders have to love the flock. They have to love them. And they do that through the use of their gifts, which include teaching gifts, through the application of the Word of God. But they have to be willing to sacrifice themselves in order to care for the flock. And the reason that's going to come up again and again is because it's true of every leader. If you are a leader in whatever role you're in, your job is to love the people you lead. If you do that, you're a good leader. If you don't do that, you're not. It's that simple. And you'll see how that we're going to talk about employers and employees and other leadership roles, and we'll see how that plays out. Especially within the church, we are to be characterized by love. So you can't lead unlovingly as a leader in the church. But for anybody who leads, if you have any aspiration to lead, leadership always has a cost. You have to put yourself back. You have to put your own needs and desires underneath those of other people. You have to make those sacrifices. And those sacrifices don't just necessarily fall to you. They can fall to your family. So you've got to be prepared for that. If you seek a leadership role, it has a cost. You have to love the people that you lead. So we've looked at the qualifications of elders. We've looked at their duties broadly. I want to turn that around and look at our duties towards elders. What are the responsibilities of church members toward their elders? And I put it this into six categories: development and support, assessment and reassessment, honor and support, protection, reproof and discipline, and submission. So we'll start with development, a development of elders. We've got to provide the means and opportunity for young men to develop into elders. So if someone is teaching or preaching for the first time, or the second time, or the fourth time, it may be a little rough, right? It may be less polished. A lot of nerves might show out. And so we have to be patient with that, right? We have to be gracious and kind and patient and help them in their development. And someone may need financial assistance. They may not be able to afford books or formal training if that's the route that they're determined to take. And so it would be good for us as a church to be able to support someone like that. And the reason I bring this up really is because I want to show or have you think about we too often we think of the role of the elder in a professional model. So what do they do? They go to a school, they get their certification that says they're qualified, even though we have no idea if they meet the qualifications actually, because we haven't observed their lives at all. But it says they're qualified. And so then they apply for jobs, open jobs that churches have posted, just as would an accountant or an English teacher. And they go and they have an interview. And they may even preach a sermon. And you can bet that that is the best sermon they've ever copied from the internet in their lives. We used to call it your candy stick, your best, sweetest, finest sermon. And they preach that.

They answer questions, and then some committee decides to make them an offer. And that's not the biblical model. You don't find that. When Titus was told to appoint elders, he didn't say, Paul didn't tell him, get all the resumes from the prospects there in Crete and see which ones are good, and then have them come out and give a practice preaching and talk to them. It's from within your own congregation. That's the only way that you can assess the qualifications. So there's some young men in this room. If they were, they express an aspiration to be an elder. In some cases, but we could. I've known Shepley since you were two, three. We know these people, so we can assess their qualifications. That's the model. So if that's the model, if that's the biblical model, men rise up within the congregation, they demonstrate their qualifications and their giftedness, which is a qualification, and they begin serving. They begin teaching. We note that they're able to do this and we recognize that they're serving in the role. That's the biblical model. They're brought forward to the congregation for the church to assess formally. We usually ask for at least a year of that. And we won't even nominate a man to be an elder unless they've been here for some years. So then there's that assessment period where we all participate. We get to know the man. We talk about things if there's any disqualifications. So that becomes an important duty of ours, is the development and support of potential elders. But I'm leading into the next one there, assessment and reassessment. 1 Timothy 3:10 says, And these men must also first be tested, then let them serve as deacons if they're beyond reproach. Clearly, this is in the narrow context of testing deacons, but there's a word there also. And this follows right after the qualifications from elders, and then some on deacons, and then this. These men, the deacons, must also first be tested. Well, that also has to mean something, and it can mean different things. But what I take it logically to mean in the flow of that passage is as we test the elders, so also we test the deacons. It's implied in qualifications. You can't qualify somebody that's not tested. So I think both elders and deacons are to be tested. So when that period of testing is in front of us all, we have to participate in it. That's our duty. That's our duty. We can't stand back and say, look, I know that guy's got problems, but I'm not going to say anything. I don't want to cause trouble. You've sinned. You're not doing your duty to help with the qualification of elders. And it's not just the initial qualification, but also reassessment, constant assessment. If you hear something about an elder that would imply that they're not qualified, then that's something that needs to be discussed. But we also have to honor elders. They're to be generally honored, to be held in appropriate esteem. 1 Thessalonians 5, 12-13, but we ask you, brothers, again, we saw this before, but we ask of you, brothers, that you know those who labor among you and lead you in the Lord and admonish you, and that you regard them very highly in love because of their work. Live in peace with one another. Regard them very highly in love because of their work. And then in the long section on the church's duty toward elders, Paul writes this in 1 Timothy 5. The elders who lead well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor at preaching the word and teaching. For the scripture says, you shall not muzzle the ox while it's threshing, and the laborer is worthy of his wages. So this honor, this particular passage, honor mostly refers to wages, to pay. It's clear that it's clear from the Bible that elders, and it's remarkable to have to say this, but you do have to say this. Elders can exercise their moral right to be compensated for their work. That's not wrong. That's something that the church owes to those who labor in that way. They have the right to be paid. And since they have the right to be paid, we have the responsibility to pay them. Now there's the whole question about how much should they be paid. Very tough question. It depends.

1 Timothy 3:10

On the size of the church, the ability of the church to pay all of that stuff. But if the church is able to pay, they ought to be paid well. They ought to be paid according to how well they preach. How well they teach, how well they serve, how well they lead. So, how do you think Jim does in those areas? So, his compensation should reflect that. If he's worthy of double honor, then he's worthy of double honor. So, elders can exercise their right to be paid, and the church has a responsibility to pay it. Just to be clear, this is a long passage from 1 Corinthians 9: Who at any time serves as a soldier at his own expense? Great question: Who plants a vineyard and does not consume the fruit of it? Or who shepherds a flock and does not consume the milk of the flock? Am I speaking these things according to human judgment? Or does not the law also say these things? For it is written in the law of Moses, you shall not muzzle the ox while it is threshing. Is God merely concerned about oxen? Or is he speaking altogether for our sake? Yes, for our sake it was written, because the plowman ought to plow in hope and the thresher to thresh in hope of sharing the crops. If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share this authority over you, do we not more? Nevertheless, we did not use this authority, but we endure all things so that we will cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ. Do you not know that those who perform sacred services eat the food of the temple and those who attend regularly to the altar have their share from the altar? So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel. So that's our duty. I'm not doing the ethics of giving. It's implied here somewhat. But because he has the right to be paid, we have the responsibility to give so that he can be paid. And other staff members as well. But in particular, this is about elders. Now, elders can also choose, they can exercise their right not to be paid. That's also a right that they have. This is 1 Corinthians, just continuing on, chapter 9. But I've used none of these things. This is Paul saying, look, I have the right to be paid. But I'm not. I'm not writing these things so that it will be done so in my case. For it would be better for me to die than to have anyone make my boast an empty one. For if I proclaim the gospel, I have nothing to boast, for I'm under compulsion. For woe is me if I do not proclaim the gospel. For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward, but if against my will I have a stewardship entrusted to me. What then is my reward? That when I proclaim the gospel, I may offer the gospel without charge so as not to make full use of my authority on the gospel. So you get that. Elders have the right to be paid. People who preach the gospel to you, they have the right to be paid. However, they also have the right to choose not to exercise that. And that is what Paul did. So either one of those models then is okay. It works. So just a quick side note: I have had the church try to pay me on multiple occasions when I would preach. And I didn't want that. So you don't. You see how it works? So the people in the church are like, well, we should pay. I mean, the person has done all this work. We should pay them. But they may not want it. So can I share this, Cornell? Cornell and I, when Cornell got on to the elders, we just said, stop, let's stop doing that for elders, please. Because we were the two that would be impacted by that. So we wanted to exercise that right. That's okay. What's that? I'm preaching today, Cornell, so you know. All right. So keep moving. I'm going to run out of time, of course, but that's okay. Another is protection. Another duty of the church towards elders is protection. Elders are often accused of things. Surprise. Often accused of things. And so the direction there is to not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses. And I can't tell you how many times I've seen this violated. But we're told not to accept or receive an accusation, pursue any discipline against an elder unless the accusation has been clearly established. Not just by one accuser, but has been confirmed by at least one other witness, one other person that knows what really happened. It doesn't mean if someone comes to you with an accusation, you can now publish it in the Daily Bee because there's the accuser and there's you, that makes two. And so that's plenty. You're not a witness. If someone just comes to you with an accusation, it doesn't make you a witness.

This is talking about multiple people that can corroborate the accusation itself. Now, it's not much different from Matthew 18. If your brother sins, go and show him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you've won your brother. If he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. If he refuses to listen, even to the church, let him be to you as the Gentile and the tax collector. And the small caps are to tell you it's an Old Testament quotation. So there is the Old Testament quotation from Deuteronomy 19. It's a long-standing way of dealing with accusations, not from one witness, but from two or three witnesses. The point is that elders aren't to be treated with less protection than other people in the church. They should be treated just as well when it comes to an accusation. So if someone comes to you with an accusation, you're not to accept it immediately as true. You should maybe be part of helping get it figured out, trying to gain reconciliation, but don't assume the worst about one another. So if someone comes to you and says, hey, I saw Cornell, he was running outside of the Walmart, or probably the yokes, probably be the yokes, and he had a frozen turkey under his coat, but I could kind of see the butterball thing flapping out. And the security team was chasing him. I don't know what was going on, but we got a problem. Running would be out. He'd be like, running? So you wouldn't immediately assume that to be true, right? You'd say, well, let's figure this out. Was this really Cornell? Was it really a turkey? Was it really the security team that was chasing him? Let's figure out what is the reality of the situation. Let's figure that out. Do we have any other people who saw this? And we'd try to figure it out. Elders are prone to be targets of false and unreasonable accusations. Why? They're like the police officer that has to respond to a domestic violence case often. Elders get into the middle of domestic disputes. And very often, this may seem strange, but very often the two that are disputing end up pointing their guns toward the person who is trying to help them. It's just how it happens. You get in the middle of these emotional disputes, and so you're trying to figure things out, and it ends up the target. We also teach things people don't agree with, and that can upset people or it can make them accuse you of something. It can happen. So the direction is there to protect your elders, to be careful about accusations. But I need to point out, it's not blanket protection against real sin or real disqualification. There is another duty that we're assigned, and that's the duty to rebuke and remove a sinning elder. Now that falls mostly to the other elders, but we would have to be in support of that. There's an assumption that an accusation may be established by two or three witnesses. A real problem, some actual sin. Now think about Timothy for a minute and 1 Timothy. He was a young man assigned to go into Ephesus where they had a bunch apparently of disqualified men or unqualified men. And he had to clear things up and get some qualified men. So that's why he probably had to take a little wine for his stomach. Okay, so there is assumed, though, to be some actual sin, and he's got to deal with it. 1 Timothy 5:20, those who continue in sin, reprove in the presence of all, so the rest also will be fearful. Those who continue in sin, that's present, active participle, ongoing, current, active sin. If you have an elder who is in active sin, they need to be confronted with that sin. They need to be publicly rebuked and removed. So the sin is assumed to be disqualifying here. Almost any sin that could be corroborated by multiple witnesses would be a disqualifying sin. And if they have sinned, especially as related qualifications, they have to be removed and publicly. That's what the Bible says. You don't let them fade away quietly. We can't do that. This is a big problem. It's a teaching moment for the church, and it's something that we've got to be clear about. Bring it up. Notice there's no ground here given for repentance or sorrow or restitution in the case of a disqualifying sin.

1 Timothy 5:20

There's no ground given for that. If a thing happens, if repentance happens and a man is eventually restored, fine. But for now and for the sin, he has to be publicly rebuked and removed so we all sin. We sin every day. Wouldn't that mean we don't have any elders? Again, full context here. This is a sin of such a type that is corroborated by multiple witnesses. It's a public known sin. So somebody getting angry, you know, hits themselves with a hammer, says a word they shouldn't. They have an impure thought. They drive over the speed limit, a few miles over the speed limit. I don't think those are the kinds of things we're talking about. These wouldn't rise to the level of rebuke and removal. But if you have a sin that is corroborated by multiple witnesses, is disqualifying, or if a person is disqualified, well, if they're disqualified for sin, they're to be rebuked and reproved in the presence of all. And why is that? Look at the charge that Timothy's given. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of his elect angels to observe these instructions without bias, doing nothing in partiality. Timothy, you've got to do this. You've got to do this. This is your duty. You have to remove and publicly rebuke these men. It's a solemn charge. Tough thing on Timothy, but it's important. God hates sin. And if the leaders of the church are allowed to participate in known sin, the church is doomed. It kind of ceases to be a church. So that sin has to be excised. It has to be removed. God hates it. So it's hard. So Paul tells Timothy, don't lay hands upon anyone hastily and thereby share responsibility for the sins of others. Keep yourself pure. The best way to prevent a problem is to not have it in the first place. So as you are qualifying men, Timothy, don't be hasty. Make sure that you get this right at the front end. And then he actually gives later on in the chapter some encouragement to Timothy. It's not that hard to do. The sins can sins are found out just as good conduct is found out. All right, so I think next time we will look at the last of the duties towards elders. It's the one that most clearly connects to the fifth commandment. That is submission. And then we'll go into deacons. And I promise unless I die or something, we will talk about the women of 1 Timothy 3:11 and who they are. And I know that's a curiosity. All right. What'd you learn today? It's terrifying to be an elder. You did learn that today. Some elders don't what? Don't run. If you don't want to do it, that's the first qualification. Peter? How important a congregation's role is? Yeah. The importance of a congregation's role. Thank you, because that's what I'm hoping most that we understand. It doesn't work unless we do our duties, our responsibilities. We'll talk more a little bit more about that next time. Anything else? Okay, before Luke says anything, I'll pray and we'll be done. Father, we are grateful for your word again. I am grateful for Jim and Cornell and Jess and Simon and men who are willing to do this. I'm not, and I am, I just have great respect for their courage and their strength. I think of Rob as well. That is such a hard thing. So I hope that we'll all pray for them. Lord, I pray that we would that I would remember them more and really try to encourage them. This is the month to do that. I pray that we would all be a great encouragement to make their work easy. Make it a joy for them and not a hard task, Lord. Again, thank you for your word. And as we go, I pray that I would preach your word faithfully. We would sing it. We would sing from our hearts to you. We'd sing with great sincerity. We would pray to you. And we would love you and not be distracted by things that could easily distract. Lord, praise things in Christ's name. Amen.

1 Timothy 3:11