“The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,” (1 Timothy 3:1–2 (ESV)
The following excerpt is by Rev. E.J. Alexander of an address given at a Rutherford House conference in 2009. The entire essay is available at monergism.com under the topic of Leaders and Elders.
The clear implication (from I Timothy 3) is that elders are called to take care of the church of God. Not, you will notice, their church but God’s church. They are to be caretakers. We use the word of someone who is taking care of another’s property and in that sense the caretaker is self-evidently not the owner; the place he is looking after doesn’t belong to him. It is God’s church in that he has a particular love for it having purchased it with the blood of His Son.
We are to understand that he has ordained and appointed elders in order to express through them the profound care he has for the church. It is as though God is taking this extraordinarily precious possession of his and saying, “Care for this for me.” Can you imagine the Crown Jewels being entrusted to you and some high officer of state saying, “Will you look after these for me?” Imagine it – you would drop everything you were doing and you would do all you possibly could in order to discharge such a commission faithfully. Do we not realise that the living God has presented to us what are going to be the jewels in his crown on the Last Day? For the church of his only begotten Son is nothing less than his “crown jewels”. And he says to you and me, “Care for that for me!”
We should not therefore be surprised that God gives to us extraordinary qualifications for the eldership. We would expect him to be exceedingly careful about this when he has bought this church with the blood of Christ. He is continuing to build his church through the work of Christ in our generation and he is beautifying it by the work of the Holy Spirit so that one day it may appear in all its glory. Can you understand why the qualifications of the church’s “caretakers” are of such a profoundly challenging nature? Qualifications I want to consider these qualifications under six areas of living. Please don’t think I am trying to compartmentalize them; simply identifying them under six headings for the sake of clarity
The Elder’s Personal Life
Paul comes to the elder’s personal life as the first priority in v 2 where he says, “Now the overseer must be above reproach”. That simply means that the primary qualification for Christian leadership in the church is not that we are greatly gifted or well educated but that we have a consistent personal character. That is the first and the last thing that Paul writes about. Notice in v 7, “He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap”. So the primary emphasis is on the elder’s personal life, “above reproach” amongst those who are around him within the fellowship and of “good reputation” amongst those who are outside the church of Christ, that is in the world.
Paul spells that out in a little more detail in v 2, for example, where he speaks about the need to be “temperate, self-controlled, respectable” or (orderly) and so on. And one of the places where that self-control will reveal itself, says Paul (v 3), is in the use of alcohol – “…not given to drunkenness”. (Cf v 8 where the same standard is set forth for deacons).
The whole of this interest in the Christian character is quite fundamental. It is for this reason that the general testimony of Scripture is that my usefulness in the service of God is closely tied with my personal character, so that what I am matters more to God than what I do. Inner consistency in my own life is therefore going to be the crucial thing in my usefulness.
That is why when Peter is speaking about the task of the shepherd, he says elders must be examples to the flock of God (1 Peter 5.3). That is why when writing to young Timothy, Paul tells him not to mind about his age but to be an example: “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity” (1 Tim. 4.12). The point is that men and women are going to be far more impressed by what we are than by what we say or do. That is why the primary area in this study must be our personal lives.
The Elder’s Domestic World
“The overseer must be … the husband of but one wife” (v 2). Much discussion has arisen about what is intended by this requirement. However, I think the most obvious meaning is likely to be the most accurate, namely, that the one who is being called to the eldership will need to be an example in the realm of the biblical norm of absolute faithfulness within the marriage bond. I believe that is what Paul has in mind here. He is referring to an exclusive, permanent, loving relationship between one man and one woman.
Paul goes on to elaborate on this domestic issue. A leader in the church of God must first prove himself to be a leader in his home who has gained the respect of his own family. “He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?” (vv 4-5).
Quite simply, Paul is saying that our family life ought to be a microcosm of the church of Jesus Christ. The children of such an elder should obey him because they respect his wisdom, his selfless care for his family and the quality of leadership and example which he is providing. This is a qualification for the eldership because that ought to be how he will act within the church of God. Paul’s point is that if he is not living like that within his own home there is very little likelihood that he will suddenly start to live like that within the church.
May the Lord’s Truth and grace be found here. Have a blessed day in the Lord.
Soli deo Gloria!
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