Not every son will become an elder, but the requirements for this office (1 Tim. 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9) give a great benchmark for every father to strive for as they train their boys. Hosts Scott Brown and Jason Dohm discuss the essence of these qualities with Alexander Strauch. Their summary: All fall into three main categories: (1) evidence of mature Christian character; (2) the ability to manage a household well; (3) and aptness to teach—all targets which sons should be trained to hit as they enter manhood. These qualifications, along with the Book of Proverbs, form a tried-and-try manual for raising boys. 

Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Today I've got a list of child training objectives that actually come out of the qualifications for elders because it's really important that you raise your children with these qualifications. They may not be elders, but they are going to be people in the world that need these things. And we have Alexander Strauch to help us talk about it. I hope you enjoy the discussion.

Jason, we're always aware that the church needs more elders. So true. It's so true. For some reason, God doesn't print them. You can't send them to classes to make them.

You know, God makes them. I took all the passages of qualifications for elder, and I conflated them into a list. But we're talking about raising sons that could be qualified to be elders. And I think a father should be very intentional about that. He may be training a next church leader, and it's really important that he's careful about it.

And Scott, you've already made the critical point, which is that when we say raising sons for eldership, it's actually shorthand. We don't mean that literally. Listen to Acts chapter 20 verse 28, where Paul says, Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the Church of God which he purchased with his own blood. So we do get that it actually is the Holy Spirit that makes overseers. Furthermore, desire is an essential element for overseers.

1 Timothy 3.1, if a man desires the position of an overseer, he desires a good work. 1 Peter 5.2, shepherd the flock, which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain, but eagerly. So when we say raising sons to be elders, we're talking about raising the kind of men who in time would be qualified, and the Lord may be pleased to use among his people in that way. And as it turns out, this kind of man is the kind of man you want anywhere and everywhere in the world. So Alex, you've written quite a bit about the qualifications for biblical eldership.

What are your thoughts about raising sons to fulfill these qualifications? Well, the best discipleship is in the home. I have a child for 18 to 20 some years. They're gonna be under my leadership, under my words, under my attitudes and disposition. What better place to prepare and raise people than all those years you're raising them.

So in raising four daughters, you might think, well, he doesn't know about sons. I got a whole bunch of grandsons and I know how wild and crazy they are. With daughters, I raised them with the thought Good elders need good women. And let me see, two of my daughters, their husbands are elders and the others are very, very active in the church. So that was our intention to prepare these women.

They know about hospitality, they know how to serve the Lord. We all did this together in the church. But I like to go back to Ecclesiastes 12, 1, and 2. This is a very important verse. I talked about it at the conference this year.

Remember your creator in the days of your youth. In other words, youth is a special time to connect with the Lord. It's a small window called youth. We call it maybe adolescence today. And that is a time that God seems to touch many people.

If you look at the statistic, how few people are saved after 50. Look at most of the people saved. They were saved as children, teenagers, young adults. So it's a special time in life. And so I think every father should be a teaching father.

Let me repeat that again. Every father should be a teaching father. Deuteronomy chapter 6. In the daily flow of life, sleeping, eating, just the regular, regular things, you are talking about the Lord. You're living the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, the life.

So yes, youth is a special time to connect, to develop them, to teach them. There's no other time in life like it. And their brains are fresh. That's why you go to Europe and you'll sit at a home and those kids speak English to you in German in one other language. You go, how do they do that?

The power of the youthful brain. They're moldable. So what I did, I made a list of these qualities and after I made the list I thought this this should be on the roadmap of every father. You know, fathers should distinctively look at this list and say, how is my son doing? I'm gonna read the list, it'll take a minute, but the reason I want to read it is that I want fathers to just digest this and ask, how is my son doing?

And is this his roadmap for his son? Above reproach, you know, husband of one wife, faithful, not accused of dissipation or insubordination, now ruling his own household well, I think that that could just be self-government. Not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not violent, not given to wine, not greedy for money, hospitable lover of what is good, sober-minded, just, holy, self-controlled, of good behavior, gentle, not quarrelsome, able to teach, able to exhort, not a novice – now this is referring to not a new convert, having a good testimony with those outside, serving willingly, not under compulsion, eager in service, not for dishonest gain, not domineering or lording it over, an example to the flock, labors in the word and doctrine is worthy of double honor and is accountable and open to rebuke if he's sinning. I mean, What a fantastic checklist for a father to pray for his son, and also for his son to say, this is the kind of man I ought to be becoming. Absolutely, yes.

So that's a compilation of the list that you found in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. It helps me just sort of bucketize that. So here, let me give you my three buckets. Bucket number one, which is most of the things on the list, is simply mature Christian character. Not being a super Christian, just being a mature Christian.

Bucket number two, household care and management. So relationship with a wife, relationship with your children, having people into your home. And bucket number three, able to teach, which is really the only characteristic that has to do with, has a bearing on natural gifts. So how much of that is under the purview of parents as they're training children and raising them and the training and admonition of the Lord? A lot.

Mature Christian character, which is most of the items on that list, is what you're aiming for in your children. And then also teaching them how to be married in time and how to raise children in time. So, so much of this is under the purview of parents as they're bringing up sons. So, let's talk about home life that creates this kind of a young man. I wanna add one more thing to what I said to you earlier, and that is the wonderful book of Proverbs.

I want to remind you that right at the beginning, when he gives you the purpose of Proverbs, part of it is for knowledge and discretion to the youth. Bruce Walkie, who's probably written the best two volume commentaries on Proverbs, says, this is the king writing to the court and to the future leaders in the leadership of Israel, future kings, princess, important people. And he's instructing the youth. And I just think a wonderful thing to do with a son, we did it with all our four daughters. We went through the Book of Proverbs at the supper table.

Took quite a while, but it's okay. And some we had to skip, you know, you can't do them all. But the key ones, and I had to memorize certain ones, like Proverbs 15.1, which I'm sure you know right away, a soft answer turns away wrath, a harsh word stirs up anger. Oh, that verse has saved me. Who knows?

Well, it saved me Sunday morning when this guy started yelling in my face. I just think I knew if I yelled back or pushed back, it would cause a bigger fight. So stay calm. There is so much – this is divine wisdom. This is God's wisdom book.

So I noticed at the conference, and I bought this book on parenting from Proverbs. Who did that book? I've got it upstairs. I don't remember. Sounds like Kevin Swanson, but I wouldn't swear to it.

Could have been. I bought that book and I want to look through it because I think that's what Proverbs is about. And you know, isn't it interesting in those first 10 chapters, how much he says about a young man and sex and about women. And he's blunt. Oh, he is blunt and he uses powerful words.

And so the very things of a young man with all that energy and testosterone and vision and all that, this book will guide him. So be a Proverbs father, be a teaching father. Amen. I heard someone say a long time ago, Proverbs was written to fathers by a father for their sons. So I came prepared to tell you a funny story about my son Jake.

I have five daughters and one son. Jake's my son. When he was three years old, I was an elder and I was wanting to awaken in him a desire to serve, you know, the Lord's people in time. He's three years old, it's bedtime, I'm by the bedside. And so I said, Jake, do you think you'd like to be an elder one day?

And he said, yeah. I said, why? He said, because you get to hold the microphone. And so I said, oh, son, there's so much, so much more than just the microphone. So I just started to describe the work to him, you know, some of the challenges, some of the discouragements, and at that point he cuts me off and says, I think I'll be a fireman.

So it's a funny story, but the point of that story is our sons really, we have an opportunity to show them the work as it is, with all of its warts and beauty marks, so that they enter life and service in the local church really with their eyes wide open and understanding that it's a lot more than just getting to hold the microphone, but that there are a lot of challenges and discouragements that they would need to be prepared for. Yeah, and that means that, you know, an elder needs to be very careful with what he says in his home. He doesn't want to embitter his family against the imperfections that he sees all the time. And the attacks and things like that. You don't want your kids growing up thinking that the church is this really bad place.

Because actually, it isn't. It's kind of normal in a way. I mean, there are problems everywhere in the world. And you want your kids to be able to really squeeze the greatest amount of good out of that experience instead of always just thinking about the problems and the difficulties and the weird people and things like that that come into your church. Yeah, I think the Christian life is a positive life.

Think of how many times the apostle says, be thankful. We're to be a thankful people, not a grouchy people, always breathing over problems, the weather, you know, every day, the weather's horrible. It's too hot. It's too cold. No, we should be thankful to the lord.

We've got a glorious future And the Lord is going to straighten a lot of this stuff out. He's going to present us to Himself a spotless bride. Only the blood of Christ could do that. We can't do that. But when He presents the church to Himself, it will be in a perfect state, cleansed by the blood of Christ, dwelt by the Holy Spirit of God.

So I think when we're going around and we're always negative, we're sending a wrong message of what the Christian life is. So I think that means that your son needs to be mature as he looks at people. He's got to understand his own responsibilities toward people. And those are his responsibilities. He can't fix everybody, but he has duties toward himself.

And I think some of these qualifications really focus in on that, that, you know, he's self-controlled. He, you know, he's sober-minded about things, and he's not jerked around by every problem and every person, you know, that comes to him. Well, you know, in many churches, there's a number of books that go through the qualifications in the Bible study where you can focus each week on one qualification. Remember, they're divinely given by God. This is what the Lord says, not what we say, you know.

We would say, you know, you have to be to college, have a PhD, and there's churches that really want pastors who have all this high-powered European education or something. Well, that's not what God says. He says something different. I want a mature, stable man who knows the word and can lead my people by the scriptures. You know I thought about this as kind of a child raising list.

You know, you want to teach your children not to be self-willed. You want to teach them to be self-controlled. You don't want them... You've got to walk them through when they're having outbursts of anger and bring them back to a better place. You don't want them to be quick tempered.

You don't want them to be violent. There are just so many things I felt like you could put this in a child raising book and say, train your children along these lines. You're always going to be trying to bring your children back to these things right here. In the things that we've been talking about, there's an underlying assumption, but it's so far from a given in our modern world and in our modern church culture that we should say, we need to be teaching our sons about the value of the local church and the worthiness of devoting yourself to the local church. Especially if you're a pastor, your children might have this sense that you're devoted to the local church because you're the pastor.

And it's actually, for us, it's exactly the opposite. We're a pastor because we're devoted to the local church, not the other way around. And we think everyone else, pastor or no, should be devoted to the local church as well. The local church is worthy of the investment of your lifetime. So here's, let me read from 2 Timothy chapter 2, 15, where Paul exhorts Timothy with these words, be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

I know the thing we do with all of our children, but in this category, it would be especially important for sons, is teach them how to handle the Word of God. And to rightly divide, to never need to be ashamed of how you handle this book, but handle it with such reverence and carefulness. You're preparing potentially a future teacher as you do that, teach them to just handle the Bible in the right way. And again, Alex, to your point, you get 18, 20, maybe 25 years to teach them just how carefully a man of God handles the Word of God. But it comes back to what you brothers said earlier.

The father must have that mentality. His mental mentality is, I'm a teacher, I'm a trainer of my children. I must be deliberate about this and not passive. So many men are passive in their families and then they wonder why they've got their kids going off in different directions. Well, they've been too passive.

Yeah, and I think that's what really struck me about this list, particularly when it comes to raising children. You know, passivity in these areas is not really helpful to anybody, not your family, not the future marriages of these people and if they become elders, it's very very unhelpful To violate the things that are here in this this section. Well, Alex, thank you so much for joining us. What a blessing We're so grateful for all the work you've done I pray that the qualifications of elders really are embedded into the hearts of men and the hearts of their sons and daughters that they would use this really as a child training tool. So thank you, man.

Well, Let's talk again. All right, dear brothers, nice to be with you. And thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. Hope you can be with us next time. And we're gonna have a really neat conference next year in May, Manhood and Womanhood, the glory of God in the creation order.

Hope to see you there. To check out ChurchandFamilyLife.com