Now if you would take your Bibles in hand and turn with me to the letter of Paul to Titus, chapter 1. Titus chapter 1, verses 5 through 9. We are working our way through the pastoral epistles. We began looking at the letter to Titus last week. We’ve come to verses 5 through 9 of chapter 1 this week. In these verses, Paul explains the task that he has entrusted to Titus whom he has left behind in Crete. He is, Paul is eager to ensure that all the churches planted in the towns across the island of Crete are well cared for, properly pastored and governed in good order now that Paul has left them. So he is talking, as you can see from our text, about the ministry of elders.
We are going to consider Paul’s teaching about elders under three headings. First, why we need elders. Here’s the special task entrusted to them and the benefits that their labors are designed to bring to us. Why we need elders. Secondly, how to find elders. Paul gives us a grid here, doesn’t he, a filter to use as we look for men to serve in the role and in this calling as elder. There are three categories of qualifications. We’re looking for faithfulness in family life, in personal character, and in public ministry. Why we need elders. How to find elders. And then in the third place, what we ought to learn from elders, at least from these qualifications. They’re meant to do more than merely tell us what elders should look like. They’re meant to call all of us to live up to the godliness that elders are to exemplify. And so there is our outline. I hope you can see it. Why we need elders. How to find elders. What we should learn from elders.
Before we look at each of those themes, let’s bow our heads and pray and ask for the Lord’s help and then we’ll read His Word together. Let us all pray.
Lord our God, we come to You with Your trustworthy Word spread before us. Help us to hold it fast now like our lives depend upon it. For Jesus’ sake, amen.
Titus 1 at verse 5. This is the Word of God:
“This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you – if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.”
Amen, and we praise God that He has spoken in His holy, inerrant Word.
I was a new pastor in my early 30s on a big adventure. I’d flown across the Atlantic from London where I was serving for my first ever visit, actually, to this church’s Twin Lakes Fellowship, our annual gathering for pastors. Before I flew south though, I was in Philadelphia attending a conference on Reformed theology and I was staying with a friend living on the outskirts of the city and I had to take a busy commuter train each morning into the center of the city for the conference. But for a foreign visitor, a young man unfamiliar with the system, the train system, unfamiliar with the route, which stop was which, unsure when I should get off, it was a nerve wracking experience each morning. And so you can imagine my relief when the guard came by to punch my ticket. Here at last was someone who’d take pity on me and make sure I knew which stop to get off and didn’t get lost.
So when he got to me, I handed him my ticket, but let’s just say that his weary expression did not encourage me. But I needed help, and so I asked him as politely and kindly as I could, you know, putting on my best pathetic expression in the hopes that he would take pity on me, “I need to get off here. How many stops is that?” And he fixed me with a baleful eye, snatched the ticket from my hand, punched it, thrust it back at me, and simply replied, “Not my job. Not my problem.” And he stomped off. If I’d been anxious about getting lost before, I was a basketcase now! As it turned out, you’ll be pleased to know I didn’t get lost. No one murdered me in a dark Philadelphia alley, but that encounter with a grumpy ticket collector on the train has sort of remained with me in my memory as a vivid picture of leadership avoided, of responsibility abdicated, of compassion rejected.
A major lesson of the letter to Titus has to do with the need for and the nature of good leadership. Without good leaders, the church is like a passenger train full of nervous travelers who are not quite sure about the journey. We need leaders to show us the way, to model confidence, to communicate reassurance, who will practice care for everyone making the trip.
And you’ll start to see that if you’ll look with me please at verse 5 first of all. Here is why we need elders. Paul writes to Titus, “This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.” Apparently, a remarkable work of God took place under the ministry of Paul and Titus, resulting in a whole presbytery of brand new churches, planted in towns all across the island of Crete. But in at least some of those assemblies, there were no elders to lead them. Appointing elders for the church was Paul’s typical missionary practice. For example, in Acts 14 at verse 21, we read of Paul and Barnabas returning to Lystra and Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, saying that, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God,” and “when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.” So he planted churches, he taught the churches, and before he left them, he appointed elders in every church to care and pastor the churches.
But in Crete, perhaps because of the rapid rate of growth and the short period of time available to the apostle, he was unable to appoint elders for the churches in every location as he ordinarily would have done. So he’s left Titus behind to take care of it. Titus is Paul’s delegate in this work. And as we look at the task entrusted to Titus, don’t miss he is to appoint elders, plural, in every town. So in each place where a congregation has begun to gather, Paul’s vision is for a group of elders, a college of elders, to serve together in the joint oversight and care of the flock of God. There’s no room for – in the New Testament understanding of leadership, there’s no room in the church for lone rangers and for one man bands. They serve jointly and together.
Notice, too, that Paul says appointing these elders, look at what he says it will accomplish. Titus is to put what remained “into order” by appointing elders. The expression, “to put into order,” means to set straight what is crooked or out of place, like a dislocated joint snapped back into its socket in both doctrine and practice. The church was in need of good order. And that is the task of elders. The Greek word for “order” there uses a compound term built on the word “orthos” which means “straight.” It’s why we speak of orthopedists as doctors who deal with a dislocated joint. He sets it straight again. That’s what faithful elders are to do in the life of the local church. There is a straightening out of what is crooked and out of place and dislocated, not just in the organizational structures or the administrative processes but in the teaching and especially in the spiritual lives of the people of God. And to do that well, an elder can’t be a grumpy ticket collector who’s looking to do the bare minimum that he can get away with. “I just punch tickets. Helping you is not my job. Not my problem.” No, he’s charged to make straight what sin has broken and twisted and warped in the fellowship, in the hearts and lives of the congregation of God’s people. And that takes wisdom and understanding and interpersonal skill and patience and a pastoral heart.
And that point is reinforced in our passage, if you notice, the three titles that Paul uses for elders. Do you see the three titles? First, Titus is to appoint “elders,” verse 5. The word is “presbuteroi” from which we get the name “presbyterian” – a church governed by “presbyters, elders.” The word itself though, “elder,” both in English and in Greek, carries the connotation of maturity, of sound judgment, of experienced leadership. An elder is a respected senior statesman to whom God’s people may turn because of his steady hand, his proven track record of godly wisdom in all his dealings with his flock.
And then you’ll see the other title in verse 7. “Elders” first, and then another title – “overseer.” Notice carefully Paul is talking about the same group of people here. This is another title for the same office. Elders are overseers. The word this time is “episcopoi,” sometimes translated in older English versions as “bishop,” which is why this is the word from which “Episcopalianism” derives its name. An Episcopal church is organized under the governance of a hierarchy of bishops. The problem is that the New Testament knows nothing at all of the kind of tiered, monarchical episcopacy that developed in later centuries that came to reserve the title “bishop” only for a senior leader who stood at the top of a pyramid of subordinate clerics serving together in a diocese. That’s modern episcopacy. But it’s entirely foreign to the New Testament.
Rather, in the Scriptures, every elder is a bishop. Every bishop is an elder. So for example in Acts 12 at verse 17, Paul called for the elders of the church in Ephesus to come and meet him in Myletus. And in verse 28, having called them “elders,” Luke goes on to tell us what Paul told these elders. Paul says, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock of God in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers,” bishops. So elders and overseers refer to the same office, but it’s a different title, bringing out or emphasizing a slightly different nuance with respect to the task entrusted to them. If “elder” highlights the wise leadership and mature, sound judgment required, the term “overseer” is meant to highlight this man’s watchcare as he tends the flock of God with sympathy and compassion and diligence and love. Elder. Overseer.
The third term is also there in verse 7. Paul says an elder, overseer, is God’s “steward.” Now a steward was usually a slave in an ancient Greco-Roman household whose main function was to manage carefully all the resources and the personnel of his master in order to advance and preserve his master’s interests. And so the emphasis here falls on a man’s responsibility and his prudence. For example, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:2, “it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.” Faithfulness is their special, distinguishing characteristic. And so these three terms taken together – elder, overseer, steward – they give us a composite picture, don’t they, of a group of church leaders who care for our spiritual needs, who teach us the truth of the Scriptures, who direct the governance and discipline of the church, all in order to fulfill the mission that Christ has entrusted to the church.
Now we waded through all of that just to make this simple point – church government is not merely a pragmatic matter. It is not an indifferent thing to be drawn, perhaps, from the examples and models of corporate good governance in the business world or maybe from ecclesiastical tradition as seems best to us. Rather, the proper government of the church is ordained by Christ in His Word to ensure that every passenger on the train is well cared for. The office of elder, bishop, steward, rightly ordered, faithfully executed, promotes the spiritual health of the whole congregation and we should read over these instructions to Titus and praise God for the elders that the Lord Jesus has given to us. He has not left us without “presbuteroi” to offer us wisdom and to teach us God’s ways. He has given us “episcopoi” to keep watch over our souls as loving shepherds. He’s given us stewards who seek to marshal every resource and direct all our energies toward the fulfillment of the master’s business. How kind, how kind King Jesus has been to us to give us faithful elders.
But if that’s why we need elders, our next question should be, “How can we find elders like this?” A friend who worked for the United Kingdom police once described a training and selection course that he attended. They had way too many candidates for the positions available and so the instructors urgently needed to narrow the field. Candidates were being scrutinized round the clock, their every decision evaluated, and yet even so, winnowing out unsuitable candidates was proving difficult. On one occasion after a meal, the lead instructor called for silence in the dining hall and then he read out a list of names and asked each person to stand. When he’d finished reading out the names, there were various people standing throughout the dining hall. He told them to leave immediately; pack their bags. They were being summarily dismissed. Apparently, the increasingly desperate instructors looking for any criteria to reduce numbers had decided that anyone who put salt on their food without tasting it first was clearly irrational, driven by habit more than by empirical evidence, which are altogether unacceptable liabilities for a good criminal investigator.
Well Paul is neither desperate nor unreasonable in his criteria, but he does insist that elders meet some non-negotiable standards nevertheless, doesn’t he? And so verses 6 through 9, we have a list of qualifications for office intended to equip Titus, the congregation in Crete, all of us, in identifying and finding faithful elders. You’ll notice in verse 6 and again in verse 7 that Paul insists that elders must be “above reproach.” Do you see that phrase repeated twice? The idea has to do with an elder’s public witness. He must live in such a way that no one can find a reason to condemn his character or behavior. Reproach, like mud, will not stick to him. The two-fold repetition in 6 and 7 is designed to underscore the point, make it clear. The church in Crete is still pretty new, its leaders’ conduct in the public square therefore really mattered if it was going to survive and thrive.
And in verses 6 through 9, Paul really explains what it means to be “above reproach” in three categories – in his family life, verse 6, in his personal character, verse 7 and 8, and in his teaching ministry, verse 9. Look at an elder’s family first. Verse 6, an elder must be “the husband of one wife.” That is, if he is married, he must be sexually pure and consistently faithful to his wife from his heart, in his head, and in his behavior. The bonds of Christian marriage are inviolable to him. He is hers; she is his – “For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, in plenty and in want, till death parts us.”
And then look at verse 6 again. Not just his marriage, but also his parenting. “His children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.” The word for “believer” is likely better translated “faithful,” as I think the explanatory clause that follows that statement makes very clear. Paul isn’t saying unless a man’s children have made a personal profession of faith in Jesus Christ then the man isn’t qualified. That hardly seems reasonable since, after all, salvation, the generation of faith in the heart is not the product of good parenting technique; it is the gift of God alone. Not even the very best parent can save their children. Saving faith in a child’s heart, just like in our own, isn’t the product of parenting technique. Salvation belongs to the Lord. What a relief that is, parents. Right? Salvation belongs to the Lord. It means you can quit trying to find the secret formula of perfect parenting that will guarantee the spiritual outcomes that you want in your child’s life. You will never get the formula right enough for that, although I’m pretty sure you can ruin your relationship with your children that way. Your shoulders, my shoulders are not broad enough to bear the weight of your child’s salvation. Are they? You must entrust your children to Jesus. His are the only shoulders that can bear that burden.
So Paul isn’t saying if you are to be qualified as an elder your children must be believers in Jesus. I think what he’s really saying is that as long as a child lives under a father’s roof and may reasonably be considered under his direction and care, so long as that child remains respectful toward the faith in which he has been raised, attends church and participates appropriately in worship regularly and doesn’t live in scandalous, rebellious behavior – Paul’s words here are “debauchery” and “insubordination” – then his father may yet qualify as an elder. The test is not an impossible one – the salvation of our children as the product of our parenting. The test is faithful parenting resulting in respectful children. Pray for their salvation. Share the Gospel with them. Call them to decency and virtue. Instruct them in the way they should go. But leave the salvation that only Christ can give to the Christ who alone can give it. The family is the first area in which an elder candidate must be qualified.
Then the second category is found in verses 7 and 8 and has to do with personal character. And Paul starts this part of his list of qualifications, you’ll notice, with some negative characteristics. Do you see that? They all have to do in one way or another with a man’s self management. Look at the text. “He must not be arrogant.” That is, he mustn’t believe himself worth more than other people. The Greek means literally “self willed.” He’s not someone who always thinks his way is the best way. And then Paul adds an elder must not be “quick-tempered.” He’s not a hot-head. He doesn’t fly off the handle. He’s temperate, even-keeled. Next, he must not be “a drunkard.” He resists the temptation, sometimes very real in these very stressful days in which we live, to self medicate in order to cope with life’s demands. He looks to the Lord Jesus Christ and not to the bottle or to the medicine cabinet for the grace he needs, the strength he needs to bring him through. Neither is he “violent.” He doesn’t use force to achieve his own agenda. Some translate this as he must not be a “bully.” He doesn’t throw his weight around, intimidating people into doing what he wants. And lately, he must not be “greedy for gain.” He doesn’t live for the accumulation of stuff. He doesn’t locate his personal worth in his material possessions or find his identity in his affluence. These are the negative characteristics.
The positive characteristics are there in verse 8. They have three emphases. They are about how he deals with himself. He is to be “self-controlled” and “disciplined.” Do you see those words? That is to say, a good elder self-regulates, engages in effective self-talk. He preaches the Gospel to himself and pushes himself to grow in consistency and fidelity to everything that God requires of him. He’s self-controlled and disciplined.
And then these positive characteristics also deal with his relationship to others. How he deals with himself. How he deals with others. Look again at verse 8. The first two characteristics in the list are Greek words compounded with the word “phileo” – “to love.” So “hospitality” is “philozenon.” Literally, “the love of strangers.” And he is also, notice, to be “a lover of good” – “philagathon.” That is, he is a man who has a welcoming home and a welcoming heart towards other people. He is not hiding behind walls, keeping folks at arm’s length. And he’s marked by a basic delight in the promotion of whatever is virtuous and right and good in their lives.
And then the remaining characteristics focus on the elder’s stance under the gaze of God. How he manages himself. How he deals with other people. How he lives under the gaze of God. He is “upright.” The word means “righteous.” He lives God’s way more and more. His head and heart and hands are increasingly and manifestly directed and governed by the Word of God. He wants to be, and we can see he is becoming more and more like Jesus. And finally, he is “holy.” The word here means “inwardly devout.” Godly, pious. He’s not playing at religion when other people are looking. He’s the real thing all the time.
Wasn’t it Robert Murray McCheyne who said, “What a man is on his knees before God, that he is and nothing more”? Look for elders, Paul is saying to Titus, who feel the weight of that, the gravity of that, and who seek God diligently in order to live up to that. And so the first set of characteristics here have to do with a man’s family life. The second set have to do with a man’s personal character.
The third set has to do with his Word ministry. Look at verse 9 please. And I want you to be sure you do not miss the brilliant pastoral theology of the apostle Paul here in verse 9. We are being taught a simple, vital maxim that fruitful ministry output is directly correlated to faithful, Scriptural intake. Fruitful ministry output is directly correlated with faithful, Scriptural intake. You see that in verse 9? If you want to serve the Lord Jesus in whatever capacity He may have called you, you need to get this principle bolted down firmly in your heart and life and thinking. Fruitful ministry output is correlated directly with faithful, Scriptural intake. Verse 9, an elder must “hold fast to the trustworthy word, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and rebuke those who contradict it.” You can’t give people what you don’t possess. To give them the Word in a manner that brings blessing to their hearts, you must be drinking it in yourself. “Hold firm the trustworthy word.”
Now it occurs to me that there are a couple of different ways we might think about this business of holding firm to the Word. You could hold it – let me give you a couple of illustrations, see if these help you. You could hold it firm like a limpet, you know, stuck to a rock on the seashore. You know what I’m talking about? You’re all looking at me blankly. Do you call them limpets in America? They are these little mollusks with a sort of domed, ridged shell and they stick to the side of rocks. You see them on the seashore. And you can pound on a limpet and it’s almost impossible to shift them. Well that’s one way to hold fast to the trustworthy Word. It’s about commitment, and it’s static, fixed, determined, immovable. You’re not going to shift from it. That’s good.
But I don’t think that’s the best way to think about the kind of hold on the Word that Paul envisages here. Instead of limpets on a rock, let’s try a different edge. Imagine yourself shipwrecked in the middle of a dark, menacing ocean. The ship’s gone down; you’re all alone. You have a lifepreserver, or maybe you find a few broken boards floating past from the wreckage, and you cling to that lifepreserver. You grab onto those floating boards and you never let go because they are the only security in the vast, turbulent sea. That is the trustworthy Word, right? A lifepreserver in a storm-tossed ocean. Cling to it, not just like a limpet sticking resolutely to the truth – that’s good, but cling to it more like a shipwrecked sailor holding fast to a lifepreserver because it is the only hope. It is life for you. His grip is every bit as strong in its own way, but he clings on because everything, everything depends upon it. His life depends on holding fast to the Word.
How do you hold onto the Word of God? How do you hold onto the Word of God? Is it simply a static, resolute, faith commitment to a series of propositions? Or is it life without which you are sunk forever? Hold it fast because it is life! Ministry fruitfulness is directly correlated, do you see, to Scriptural intake, faithful, Scriptural intake – holding it fast, clinging on, drinking it in. That’s how you hold fast the Word. Not just affirming it, but by resting on it, by saturating yourself in it, by meditating upon it, memorizing it, proclaiming it, living it. And Titus is really saying, “I want you to pray for men like this. I want you to rejoice when God gives you men like this. And I want you all to become people like this.”
Why we need elders. How to find elders. And then very briefly – how should we learn from elders? There is so much wisdom in all of this, isn’t there? And as I just said, it applies not just to candidates for the eldership but to every Christian. This is a picture of a faithful, healthy, fruitful Christian life. Think about these positive-negative characteristics again in verses 7 and 8 that had to do with self management and public witness and Godward devotion. That’s just a penned portrait of a faithful believer in Jesus, isn’t it? Paul’s point here isn’t that elders are to be and do something we are not all called to be and to do. His point is that elders are meant to embody and exemplify these things so that looking at elders we see what the Lord Jesus wants for all of us and we want to be like that. This isn’t meant to make us judges, right, this list, at a beauty pageant sitting on the sidelines, evaluating other people and giving them marks out of ten according to our criteria. That is to misread this passage entirely. No, this is meant to help us identify what the Lord is calling people to, what they should exemplify and embody, so that when we look at ourselves we are brought to a place of renewed repentance in every area where we find ourselves falling short.
So I wonder as we worked through these qualifications for office if you did not feel at some point or another the finger, as it were, of the Holy Spirit, pointing to some area of your life – whether you are an elder or otherwise. Your lack of purity and loyalty in your marriage. Your attempts to play God in your parenting. Your resolute, unwillingness to admit your lack of self-management. Your proud, dismissive attitude to other people. Your hypocritical Sunday religion. Your failure to hold fast the Word like it was life in a dark and fearful ocean, even when you open your mouth to share it with other people. Has the Holy Spirit been saying to you like Nathan to David – do you remember long ago when David thought the Word of the Lord was about somebody else? “No, David, thou art the man. I’m talking about you.”
So listen, if the Lord has been dealing with you, I want you to deal with Him now. You need to confess your sin. Don’t justify it. Don’t minimize it. Don’t excuse it. Own it and cry to the Lord Jesus for pardon and forgiveness. Go back, would you, to the cross, where forgiveness was secured for all of this – all your sin, all my sin. The Holy Spirit will take what Jesus accomplished and He will wash you clean. And He will give you the grace to become this man. This picture here that is really ultimately only an echo of the character of Jesus Christ after all, isn’t just God’s call – “This is what I want you to be and do” – it is also His promise – “This is what I will make you by My grace. So come to Me. Cry out to Me. Turn to Me. And I will make you not just like this; I will make you like Jesus” – to whom of course every faithful elder should point us. So, may the Lord help us, help me, to deal with Him as He deals with us by His Word and Spirit. Let us pray.
Lord our God, we bow before You now and the truth is, as we’ve read through these qualifications, which are in many ways just a transcript of Your moral will, of Your holy Law, and our, in a different way but an echo and a portrait of the character of Jesus Christ, as we’ve read through this list we find, every one of us, that we all fall short, that our heart motives, that our words, that the things on which our eyes linger, the ways that we self medicate instead of running to Christ, the ways that we speak the Word and take Your name on our lips while our hearts have been cold and flat and hard all the week long. We’ve not held fast to the Word like a lifepreserver in the ocean. We’ve ignored it, neglected it, misused it. And in so many countless ways in our home life, in our public testimony, in our dealings with others, and under your gaze and scrutiny, we have fallen short of Your glory. O God, for Jesus’ sake, forgive our sin and grant to each of us grace, resting upon Christ, to walk in growing conformity to His likeness and image. Make us men and women of God so that we might be useful in advancing the cause and kingdom of the Lord Jesus that we so love. For we ask it all in His name, amen.