Please turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 5, page 993 in the church Bibles. You may remember that Paul has begun a new section of this letter; we’re working our way through it together here on Sunday mornings. The section is held together by the key word “honor.” Paul instructs Timothy on how to honor different groups within the church family. Last week, we looked at his instructions on how the church is to honor true widows in verses 1 through 16. This week, he instructs Timothy and the church in Ephesus on how to honor elders, verses 17 through 25. At the church in Ephesus, you may recall, there were false teachers peddling endless myths and genealogies. Some were insisting on a kind of legalistic aestheticism, while others, as we will see, were likely overindulging. Men in the church were, in many cases, abdicating their responsibility to lead while some of the women were usurping roles to which God had not called them.
And so given that context, it’s hardly surprising that after dealing with the qualifications for the office of elder back in chapter 3, Paul now finds it necessary to return to the subject of elders with some additional instructions for the church at this point. After all, if Timothy is to have any hope of setting matters right in Ephesus and bringing the needed reformation to which Paul and the Lord Jesus has called Timothy, nothing will be more important to his success than to have faithful, godly elders working alongside him. Paul wants us to see in this section of the letter that a biblically-ordered, well-governed church is both a safe and a sacred place in which we all may grow and thrive and serve to the glory and praise of King Jesus. And so that makes the subject of our study this morning a very great blessing indeed for the whole people of God.
In our passage, 1 Timothy 5:17-25, Paul troubleshoots three issues in particular. First, he reminds Timothy and the Ephesian church about the necessity of making adequate provision for elders. That’s verses 17 and 18. Provision. Secondly, he outlines some important protections, first for the elders against false accusations from church members, and secondly also for the local church against rogue elders themselves; that’s verses 19 through 21. Provision. Protection. And then finally, Paul highlights and presses home the necessity of purity for Christian leaders, as indeed for all who follow the Lord Jesus, in verses 22 through 25. So provision, protection, purity. Before we look at each of those themes, let’s bow our heads and ask for the help of God and then we’ll read His Word together. Let us all pray.
O Lord God, this is Your Word. It is breathed out by You. Lord Jesus, You are the living Word and You speak in Your Word. O Holy Spirit, You are the breath of God, and in Your Word You work in the hearts of all Your people. And so, triune God, we cry to You to take Your Word now and accomplish Your work in our lives for Your glory. In Jesus’ name, amen.
First Timothy 5 at the seventeenth verse. This is the Word of God:
“Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,’ and, ‘The laborer deserves his wages.’ Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging, doing nothing from partiality. Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, nor take part in the sins of others; keep yourself pure. No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments. The sins of some people are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later. So also good works are conspicuous, and even those that are not cannot remain hidden.”
Amen.
“Poles show us a steady decline in the public trust of pastors,” writes one recent author. According to a 2023 Gallup poll, only 32% of Americans rate the honesty and ethical standards of clergy as high or very high. That’s down from 64% in 2001 and 67% in 1985; a record low in the history of the poll. Only 45% of respondents said that they believe pastors have an average honesty and ethical standards. A full 20% said that pastor standards are low or very low. Pastors are not the profession held in lowest esteem. Journalists and members of Congress rank lower. True? But pastors have taken a precipitous turn in downward opinion and there is no sign of recovery. These are difficult days in which to be ordained in the church of Jesus Christ.
Of course being a Gospel minister in the 1st century wasn’t exactly a walk in the park either. In verses 17 and 18, Paul has to write to Timothy to remind him that faithful pastors are worthy of double honor. That is an expression that refers not just to the attitude of respect that is due these men because of their office, but to the financial recompense they will need in order to live day to day while being given over full time to the work of preaching and teaching. Perhaps driven by factional division and strife in the congregations at Ephesus, sections of the church were becoming negligent or even malicious in refusing to provide their pastors the appropriate worldly maintenance they deserve. So here in the first place is the theme of provision.
Look closely with me please at verses 17 and 18 because we are taught here a number of important things from these verses about elders that I want us to be sure not to miss. You’ll see that within the one class of church officers called elders – presbuteros, presbyters – within that one class of elders there are two orders. Do you see that in verse 17? All the elders are involved in the business of rule or governance in the local church. “Let the elders who rule well be considered of double honor.” They all rule, they all govern, but additionally some of those elders are set apart to labor especially in preaching and teaching. This is why in the Presbyterian Church in America, the denomination of which we are a part, you’ll hear us talking about ruling elders and teaching elders. In the PCA, there are only two offices. There are elders and there are deacons. But precisely because of 1 Timothy 5:17, within the office of elder there are these two orders – teaching elders, commonly called ministers or pastors, and ruling elders, who serve alongside the pastors on the elderboard, which in presbyterian churches is called the session. And we get those distinctions from this passage right here. That’s the first thing to see.
Next, I want you to notice the work to which the teaching elders are devoted. Verse 17, “they labor in preaching and teaching.” That word “labor” has the sense of hard graft, of diligent, strenuous effort. These are men whose life work is the exposition of the Bible. They toil over the Scriptures. They labor in them. More literally, Paul says they labor in the Word and the teaching. Their great business and preoccupation, the all-consuming sphere of their life’s vocation is the Word and the teaching. Picture them like farmhands. It’s their job to go out into the fields of the human heart and sow the seed of the Word of God and cultivate that seed and bring in the harvest of the Word as it ripens in our lives. That’s their great work. And such men, Paul says, are worthy of double honor. Put bluntly, “Ephesians, as God enables you, be generous to provide for these men who devote themselves to preaching and teaching.”
And then there’s one more thing I want you to be sure not to miss here. Look at the Scriptural warrant to which Paul makes his appeal in verse 18. To back up this charge to provide for elders, he appeals to Scripture. First, he quotes Deuteronomy 25 verse 4, “You shall not muscle an ox while it treads out the grain.” So get your scene in your mind. The ox is treading on the ears of grain, round and round and round it goes, and it’s separating out the kernel from the husks. And along the way, Deuteronomy says it’s only right that the farmer allow the ox to eat its fill. And just in case you miss the point that Paul is making here, he cites this same text again in 1 Corinthians 9:9 and his conclusion is unambiguous. He says, quote, “Those who proclaim the Gospel should get their living by the Gospel.”
But then notice along with the Deuteronomy citation – isn’t this striking – the other supporting quotation that Paul says comes from Scripture isn’t from the Old Testament at all. He’s actually citing the words of the Lord Jesus recorded for us in Luke 10 at verse 7. “The laborer deserves his wages.” And Paul puts these two sources – one from Moses in the Old Testament and the other from Jesus in Luke’s gospel in the New Testament – he puts them on equal footing, carrying the same conscience-binding, life-regulating authority. For Paul, they are both holy Scripture. And just as an aside – I can’t resist making this little tangential point – don’t let anyone ever tell you that the gospels weren’t really regarded as part of the Bible until some late date when a shadowy church council, driven by dark and chauvinistic ideals, sought to marginalize the people they disagreed with by rejecting from the canon of acceptable Bible books their favored volumes, and including others that they preferred.
You’ve heard that kind of reconstruction of how we got our Bibles, I’m sure, usually offered by non-Christian objectors. It’s not at all uncommon. It is total, historical nonsense of course. Right here in our text is a quote from the gospel of Luke cited by the apostle Paul in the New Testament itself, and Paul already considers it as having equal, canonical authority as the law of Moses. Now the canonicity and the authority of Luke’s gospel is not the primary focus of Paul’s teaching. That was just an aside; that was extra. Paul’s focus is the care and provision of pastors.
And returning to that point, I have to say that I love that he supports his challenge to the church to care for pastors by appealing to these two texts from Deuteronomy and from the lips of Jesus Christ. Think about it. No sooner has Paul called the Ephesians to show pastors double honor that he turns right around and likens them to oxen treading grain and menial laborers working in the fields, as if to say, “When I call you to show them double honor, please don’t think that I am putting them on a pedestal. I’m not elevating teaching elders to some lofty position of untouchable prestige. No. What is a pastor? He’s an old cow pushing a millstone round and round and round!” He’s a sunburned working man, a mere farmhand picking sheaves of grain out in the fields. He’s nothing special. That’s the point. He’s certainly not six feet above contradiction. Support pastors generously as a matter of basic justice, yes, you’ve called them to do this work fulltime after all so provide from him appropriately, but don’t let anyone think – especially not the pastors themselves – that they get to lord it over you. They are oxen treading out the grain. They are laborers working the fields. They are ordinary servants with a unique and glorious calling. Isn’t that a helpful balance to strike? Do you see it in the passage? So provision, first of all. The church is to provide for pastors.
Then notice the second theme which focuses on protection. Provision, not protection. Not only were elders being underpaid in Ephesus, it seems they were being openly slandered as well. Verse 19, “Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses.” These are so often the devil’s tactics in the church, even today, aren’t they? I imagine some senior devil, like C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape, writing with advice to Wormwood, his subordinate. You remember The Screwtape Letters? Well here’s Screwtape advising some other junior devil whose work, this time, is to ruin the testimony of the Ephesian church. “Get them all fighting about how much to pay the man. If you can discourage the pastor enough, you know, really leave him feeling undervalued, then his ministry will certainly suffer and the church will decline. He might even leave, and then you can really go to town on the people. But if withholding his pay won’t move him on, I’ve always had good success with a well-timed smear campaign. No due process. No standards of evidence. Just drip-feed some juicy gossip – it doesn’t have to be true – just make it plausible. And if you can’t make it plausible, at least make it salacious. If you do your job well enough, then the people will already be sufficiently stirred up and impatient with him so that when your rumors and lies hit their ears, they will be well-inclined to believe every word, no questions asked. They will eat it up.”
And that’s not fantasy really, is it? This stuff is going on right now, all the time. In this age of social media and instant digital information, a rumor can spread globally in seconds and people act online as judges, juries and executioners, and men’s lives and ministries are irreparably damaged as a result, even if the rumors prove to be entirely baseless in the end. It has never been more important to hear and take to heart the instruction of 1 Timothy 5 verse 19, “Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses.”
Now in putting it this way, citing the standard of two or three witnesses, Paul is simply reiterating the universal, biblical standard of evidence used everywhere whenever accusations of sin are made against God’s people. You find this standard used, for example, in Deuteronomy 19:15. You find it again on the lips of Jesus in Matthew 18:16 and again in Paul in 2 Corinthians 13:1. Two or three corroborating witnesses are required to establish the validity of a charge. Without that, no matter how plausible an accusation might seem, no matter your private suspicions on the issue, no charge may be considered admissible against an elder.
But what we mustn’t overlook here is that this standard is not extraordinary. So Paul doesn’t insist – do you see this now – he doesn’t insist on special protections for those he says who are worthy of double honor. No, it’s the same standard for everyone, elders and church members alike. This is the normal protocol whenever charges are being made. Paul’s point in especially emphasizing this standard of evidence here is not to suggest that we should ringfence pastors and make them untouchable or elders and make them untouchable, but it is rather to make sure, doubly sure, when accusations are brought against our leaders we do everything by the book and do not rush to summary judgment or trial by social media. Simply being cancelled can never have a place in the church of Jesus Christ.
But what about when the standards of evidence have been met and two or three witnesses do corroborate the sin? What should happen if the elder in question persists in his sin? Under these circumstances, verse 20, under these circumstances, verse 20, Timothy is to “rebuke him in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.” This is the most basic step in church discipline. It is solemn indeed. In the face of the rest of the elders, the offending brother is to be rebuked. The goal in doing so, Paul says, is to sober, indeed to shake, the whole body of elders as they take in the ruinous horror of sin that has gotten hold of one of their number, and make them hate sin and fear sin and flee sin even as they find it in their own believing hearts as well.
Now of course the New Testament elsewhere goes on to describe what should happen if the offender won’t repent even after being rebuked. In that case, the elders may find themselves having to remove this man from office or even from membership in the visible church in an act of solemn excommunication. But as heavy as all of that is, please don’t miss the point. The objective is for Timothy and the elders in Ephesus to take the process seriously so that it will protect them against malicious, unfounded slander on the one hand, and protect the church against unrepentant, rogue elders who think they can sin with impunity on the other hand.
And so here, do you see it now, is the true beauty of biblical, presbyterian government as Christ has instituted it for His church in holy Scripture. It calls for due process. It demands accountability for pastors and elders on exactly the same basis as it does for ordinary church members. To be sure, the church is administered by sinners, and so these steps sometimes go ignored or misused. Not infrequently our best efforts, our best intentions backfire, but the goal in all of this, nevertheless, is the protection, both of the elder and of the church family. Your protection, my protection against sin, against the slanders of the devil, against the disruption of the peace and purity of the church.
And actually, to drive that point home even further, the gravity and the importance of doing it right, look at verse 21 where Paul says, “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels, I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging, doing nothing from partiality.” You notice there, I’m sure, Paul uses the same standard that he’s just insisted on in dealing with charges against elders, only here Paul invokes three witnesses against Timothy himself should he fail to do his duty. He calls on God, on Christ Jesus, on the elect angels. “Timothy, God the Father is watching and He will certainly bring us all to account. Timothy, Christ Jesus is watching. How in light of the trumped up charges and the false accusations of the mob against Jesus, how in light of Pilate’s kangaroo court and the Roman death squad carrying out a political murder at the cross, how, given that this same Christ, unjustly condemned for our pardon, was raised from the dead and now sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty and will come again to judge the quick and the dead, how shall we face Him when He comes to bring justice? Are we going to look Him in the eye and admit when judgment lay in our own hands we considered it a matter of mere pragmatism and expediency, something we could ignore or selectively apply? And the elect angels, Timothy, the elect angels are watching, whose devotion to God, whose purity of character are unimpeachable. They will bear witness against us on the final day. At the last great assize, Christ will call us into the dock and He will call the angels to the witness stand, and they will enter their evidence concerning our carelessness and our indifference in these important matters, and no one will be able to deny the integrity of their testimony.”
It’s a solemn picture, isn’t it? You see and feel the gravity and the weight of it? And that is as it should be. It is appropriate and fitting because church discipline is hard. We are dealing with people’s sin, and it can be ugly and awkward and unpleasant and heartbreaking and terribly sad, which is why, by the way, so many churches, including this one, find it difficult to do well. It is difficult, but Paul invokes all the residents of heaven against us, including the Lord Jesus Himself on His throne, if we refuse to obey Him in this important area. Provision. Protection.
And now finally, verses 22 through 25 – purity. Provision. Protection. Purity. Precisely because of the dangers of scandalous sin in the life of an elder, sin that can destroy the peace and purity of the church, verse 22, Paul calls on Timothy to exercise great patience and caution in ordaining anyone to sacred office in the first place. “Do not be hasty in laying on of hands, nor take part in the sins of others, but keep yourself pure.” You might remember back in chapter 4 at verse 14, Paul has reminded Timothy of his own ordination to the Gospel ministry when the presbytery, the council of elders, laid their hands on him and set him apart for his work. And now Timothy and the elders in Ephesus have the responsibility in turn of ordaining, laying hands, on still others to sacred office. But don’t do it prematurely. Don’t be hasty in it. Go slow. Examine candidates carefully. Use the list of qualifications from chapter 3, 1 through 7. Screen potential elders with all wisdom and prayer. Because if you don’t, you might find yourself in the scenario described here in verse 20. You might have an elder ordained before he was ready who persists in some secret sin that you missed completely in your rush to get him ordained only for it to blow up in your faces later. “In that case, Timothy, you and the others who ordained the man will have some share of the blame to bear.” “Do not be hasty in laying on of hands nor take part in the sins of others, but keep yourself pure.”
You don’t want to take part in the sins of others, do you? That’s what we are doing if we simply look the other way and hope that a candidate will, “grow out of it” in time. Holiness, let’s be clear, is a group project, isn’t it? It takes the whole community of the church living together, challenging one another, encouraging each other to grow in godliness. Holiness is something we do together. We work at this stuff together. And when we forget that, or resist it, when we privatize and individualize our sanctification, imagining that it’s all nobody’s business but my own, we’re going to find it very easy to be indifferent good order in the church, due process, godly governance, and this sort of plain dealing with one another. We’ll become mere pragmatists ready to take shortcuts whenever we deem it expedient in order to minimize fuss and sweep uncomfortable business under the rug. But Paul wants us to see that prematurely ordaining a man that isn’t ready will leave us bearing some of the blame for his eventual fall. And that warning is meant to sober us and slow us down. Biblical presbyterianism ought not to be nimble. It ought to be slow and steady, like the progress of sanctification in your own heart.
Now in verse 23, you’ll notice that Paul inserts a little aside. Do you see that in verse 23? “No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.” It’s a moment of personal care, pastoral kindness between Paul and his protege, Timothy. But it’s in parentheses in our text, but I think it’s important to understand that this is almost certainly not off topic. Paul isn’t diverting from his main theme here. It might look that way at first, but I think likely the specific sins that Timothy is to have in mind that Paul is thinking about here in Ephesus among some of the elders involve the misuse of alcohol. After all, an elder – remember from chapter 3 verse 3 – is not to be a drunkard. And I wonder if, perhaps, in light of that Timothy had resolved actually to be a strict teetotaler, out of an abundance of caution and godly desire to appear above reproach himself – especially important in a context where accusations and slanders against elders were flying all over the place.
But whatever the scenario exactly, Paul knows Timothy is not a healthy young man and so he urges the modest use of wine for the sake of his stomach. “Don’t swing all the way to aestheticism and excessive self denial out of a fear of even the appearance of evil, Timothy. Neither legalism in this area nor lawless self indulgence have any warrant. But keep yourself pure. That is the goal. Purity. Holiness. That’s the goal.” And so Paul has to urge Timothy not to overdo it in his abstinence thus endangering his health.
Regrettably, I have to say that is not the prevailing culture among Christians in the context in which we live, is it? Perhaps this text is actually calling more than one or two of us to repentance, not for being overly restrictive in our self discipline to our own harm, but actually for being overindulgent in our misuse of lawful things like alcohol. Is God putting His finger on your heart and saying to you this morning, “Thou art the man! I’m talking to you. Keep yourself pure. Repent and turn back before some of the warnings of this weighty passage befall you.”
And verses 24 and 25 give us the general principle on which all of Paul’s warnings and encouragements here are based. Look at 24 and 25. “The sins of some people are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later. So also good works are conspicuous, and even those that are not cannot remain hidden.” So some sins go before us. They’re like one former staff member here who was such a big personality, always greeting everyone, laughing at the top of his voice, you could hear him coming down the corridor about 30 seconds before he arrived. Some sins are like that. They’re open, public. They go ahead of us. They become part of our reputation. They precede us. Everybody knows about them.
But other sins, Paul says, are more like the wake of a speedboat on the water. Right? The boat zooms past and eventually the waves from the boat begin to hit on the shore where you are sitting. Some sins are hidden. The waves from the boat don’t land until much later. Some sins are only exposed later. But either way, do not think your sin will remain hidden forever. That’s the point. The waves always reach the shore. Numbers 32:32, “Be sure, your sins will find you out.” You cannot hide from the gaze of the living God.
The converse is also true. Good works, real godliness, marking us with the attractiveness, the likeness, the beauty of Jesus Christ, that’s hard to miss when you see it. Have you known people like this? There’s just something that almost seems to shine from their faces, a beauty that is compelling; the loveliness of Christ that radiates from them. You want to be with people like that. Of course there are some good works we do that no one ever sees but God alone. But even they won’t stay hidden forever, Paul says.
Here’s the point, I think. Even if human judgment fails in the church, sin goes unaddressed in an imperfect church on earth, even if all your quiet labors for Jesus’ sake go unrecognized and unrewarded in this life, be sure the great day is coming when the books will be opened and all accounts will be settled. Justice so often fails here, doesn’t it? Sound judgment is not always easy to maintain or implement here, is it? But when the Lord Jesus comes to judge the quick and the dead, then at last perfect, true, just judgment will be rendered, rewards will be given, secret sin will be exposed, righteousness will prevail. It matters, in other words. It really matters how you live in the church of Jesus Christ, how you live before the watching world, how you live under the gaze of God.
Provision. The laborer deserves his wages. Protection. Protection for elders against malicious slander and gossip. And protection for the church against rogue elders who think they can sin with impunity. Provision. Protection. And purity. Holiness is the universal call of Jesus Christ that falls upon us all – a call to purity. Jesus died so that you might be clean, pure, holy and acceptable before God.
It may be this morning that the Lord has put His finger on some area of sin in your life. You know, you know you’re not walking with God as you ought to be; you’ve wandered off and strayed far. Before you come to the Lord’s Table, there is a moment here now where you must do business with your Savior. Purity is His call, and who among us would say we’ve attained, we’ve arrived? Instead, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us humble ourselves before the Lord and run back to Christ in whom there is full mercy, free forgiveness, whose blood is able to make the foulest clean. Come back to Jesus, get right and eat and drink to the nourishment of your souls. Let us pray.
Our God and Father, how we praise You for Your Word. We ask that You would write its truth on all our hearts, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.