1 Timothy 3:3 It is a true statement that anyone whose goal is to serve as an elder has his heart set on a good work. 2 An elder must be such a good man that no one can rightly criticize him.
He must be faithful to his wife.
He must have self-control and be wise.
He must be respected by others.
He must be ready to help people by welcoming them into his home.
He must be a good teacher.
He must be faithful to his wife.
He must have self-control and be wise.
He must be respected by others.
He must be ready to help people by welcoming them into his home.
He must be a good teacher.
He
must not drink too much wine
He must not be someone who likes to fight. He must be gentle and peaceful.
He must not be someone who loves money.
He must not be someone who likes to fight. He must be gentle and peaceful.
He must not be someone who loves money.
4 He must be a good leader of his own family. This means that his children honor him with dignity and respect. 5 If a man does not know how to lead his own family, he will not be able to take care of God’s church?
WOW! Those are high standards. Let's start with parenting our children with dignity. That term means to have a balanced life of relationships. In other places the Bible says to be able to "Speak the truth in love". Be balanced in truth telling and loving, merciful, relationships.
Dignity is the term Semnotes in Greek. That is a balance between Aggressiveness and Passivity. We would call it Assertiveness today.
A Pastor must have reared adult children to be Assertive. This means young people without a spouse and teenage children would not qualify for Pastoring. No wonder Pastors and their spouses have so many problems in Ministry. They have no experience with great parenting skills. That is where we learn to lead, not graduate school.
Truth separated from experience will always be in doubt.
See our materials on maturity.
2 comments:
Reading those criteria again just drives home that almost no one in a local church is fit for leadership.
Even if he or she might be close, someone will object and say that the potential leader fails based on interpretation of what those criteria mean. I mean, I know some people who are good administrative leaders, but they are lousy teachers.
Respected by others is an issue too. For instance, how many churches have elders who are not captains of industry or who are not successful in business? If I worked at a convenience store, but I was solid in all the other categories and manifested a series of useful spiritual gifts, would I still meet the "respected" criterium by American Success Story™ standards?
I'm not sure I can even name a family with three or more children who doesn't have at least one not living for the Lord or has something going on in their lives that might call us to question how they were raised.
Really, who is left standing?
An apt insight. I suppose the criteria here need to give us enough pause to ask the very questions you are asking. Let's say you were a mature business man with great success in the community. Then, at age 50 you were born again. Would the facts of your life seem to mean you were qualified to lead the church?
Reread the qualifications and see that they do not require perfection but Christian maturity and parental maturity. This is why Discipleship is so critically important so we can see and know people up close and observe their character. On a scale of 0 to 10 far too many Christian leaders have had terrible character problems like anger, greed, etc and rank under 5 let alone a ten. But it was hidden at home until he was elected to an office.
Thanks for the post. We need dialogue on these things.
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