In Jason Dohm's sermon on 'Biblical Church Government,' the focus is on the New Testament model of church governance, emphasizing a plurality of biblically qualified male elders who shepherd the church. This model is presented as a warmer, more personal form of leadership, contrasting with the perceived mechanical nature of the term 'government.' Elders are described as channels for God's goodness, intended to care for and nurture the church community. The sermon cites numerous scriptural passages to support this model, underscoring that it is a consistent New Testament pattern and not merely anecdotal. Eldership is defined by four elements: local church government, plurality, biblical qualification, and male leadership, as they symbolize the groom, Jesus Christ. The sermon critiques the single pastor model, suggesting it overburdens one individual, deprives others of leadership opportunities, and exposes the church to the weaknesses of one man. Instead, a plurality of elders ensures shared responsibility and complementing strengths and weaknesses. Elders are tasked with prayer, ministry of the word, and protection against false teachings, while deacons support by handling practical church matters. Training for eldership is seen as developing robust family leadership and Christian maturity, rather than a purely skills-based approach. The sermon concludes by affirming the sufficiency of Scripture in guiding church governance, urging adherence to a biblical model over modern business practices.

Isaiah chapter 40. Comfort, yes comfort my people says your God. Speak comfort to Jerusalem and cry out to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned. For She has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.

Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low. The crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord has spoken." The voice said, cry out! And he said, what shall I cry?

All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of the Lord blows upon it. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. O Zion, you who bring good tidings, get up into the high mountain.

O Jerusalem, you who bring good tidings, Lift up your voice with strength. Lift it up. Be not afraid. Say to the cities of Judah, Behold your God. Behold the Lord God shall come with a strong hand and his arms shall rule for him.

Behold his reward is with him and his work before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom and gently lead those who are with young." The title of the sermon this morning is biblical church government. It all sounds very mechanical and official, doesn't it? Biblical church government.

But As we saw last week, it's a much warmer topic than that. God has determined to put men into place to be a channel for his goodness and his blessing to his people, to be a conduit so that the goodness of God, the care of God would flow uninterrupted to his people. So it might sound like a very official mechanical thing, but there's a much warmer heart behind it. And last week we were in 1 Peter 5 verses 1 through 4, which is my favorite eldership text by Longshot. So my only sorrow in this is that we already covered that last week.

So, I'm not even going to touch on that this week. But we'll be in the many of the other eldership texts in the New Testament. Before I really get going, I want to commend Alexander Strauch's book, Biblical Eldership to you. This book is a careful, systematic, slow, comprehensive handling of the New Testament eldership text. So it's almost exclusively text focused.

That's what I love about the book. And I've met the author on a couple of occasions and spent a fair amount of time with them. He is the real deal and he's a good brother. He's a hilarious brother. He's a friendly brother and he's been serving on what's basically been the same eldership team for over 30 years.

So he's just a wealth, wealth of experience. He's a real gift to the larger body of Christ. Man, if you don't have this on your bookshelf, then you have a deficiency in your bookshelf. You really need to get it and read it. If you're never going to be an elder, you need to get it and read it because you'll always have elders.

And we all need to know what the New Testament says. So hopefully today will be a sound deposit, But it's just a summary. There's a lot more to know than will be said today for sure. First of all, New Testament eldership defined. It is local church government by a plurality of biblically qualified men.

That is a really dense definition. There's a lot packed in there. So I'll give it to you again. Local, church, government. By a plurality of biblically qualified men.

So one sentence, but a dense definition, lots packed into those phrases and there's really four parts to it. The first part is local church government. It's limited in scope. These men have real authority, but they have very limited authority. It's not ultimate authority, and it's not boundless authority.

It is authority within the local church. And I'm calling it government, but more often than not the New Testament writers call it shepherding. That's the whole nature of the government. It's not all about passing down decisions from on high, but it's government like shepherding is government. It has a lot to do with pastoral care.

Care, nurturing, protection, feeding. Number two, the second part of this definition, by a plurality. It has always been designed by God to be a shared leadership. So not one man at the top of the leadership pyramid, but shared leadership, more than one man. And as long as they're qualified, probably the more the better.

So you've got local church government, bio-plurality, and then third part of this is biblically qualified. The Bible says who is fit for this work and who is not fit for this work. So it will not do for the people of God to just say they think a man would be good in leadership in a local church and put him in. He must be held up against 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 and his life compared with those two texts, with those two lists of qualifications. And if he matches up, he's fit.

And if he doesn't match up, he's not fit. And it's sinful to put him into leadership in the local church. And then lastly, the fourth part of that definition is men. Eldership is restricted to men. Why?

They're standing in for the groom. They're standing in for the groom. They're standing in for the groom. The groom is Jesus Christ. And the men who stand in to be a channel for the goodness, the kindness, the care of the groom ought to be men like the groom is a man.

They're standing in for the chief shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, is New Testament eldership required? Is it required? In other words, is this just something we notice in certain places in the New Testament? Or is it something to which we are bound?

Those are very different things. And it's a legitimate question. Because narrative is not normative. In other words, not everything you see in the scripture we're bound to do. There are some things that we just notice in passing and sometimes those things that we notice in passing that come out of narratives in scripture, they're not even good.

We shouldn't do them. So to what extent is this thing that we're noticing in the New Testament incumbent upon us? To what extent are we bound to do it or is it just something that the New Testament Church did but we're not bound to do it. So my whole argument this morning is going to be that eldership, as we see it in the New Testament, is sufficiently, even lavishly, set forth in the New Testament. And that we are absolutely, local churches are absolutely bound to it, have no freedom in this matter.

But that it is the consistent pattern and teaching of scripture. There is more instruction on eldership in the New Testament that there is on the Lord's Supper by a long shot. Then baptism by a long shot. Then spiritual gifts by a long shot. So there are these things in the New Testament that we cling to and we ought to cling to.

And I just want you to know how far the teaching on eldership in the New Testament goes beyond even those things like the Lord's Supper, like baptism, like spiritual gifts, all important things, all things we should be clinging to. There's a lot more teaching about eldership than any of those things. There are 13 passages, 1.3, 13, a lot, which deal specifically with this topic using the word elder or overseer and often both. The word elder or overseer are terms that Paul and Peter use synonymously. In other words, you can go to text and find Peter using the word elder right alongside overseer talking about the same person and the context is completely clear, there's no room for misunderstanding.

Same for Peter. Paul does it, Peter does it. These terms are synonyms. They're not two offices in the local church in the New Testament. It's the same office.

So you have The Greek word presbyteros means elder. And you have the word episkopos, which means overseer. It does not mean Bishop. That is a horrible translation. We're going to see it in some of our texts today.

Cross it out. I recommend that you cross it out in your Bible because it is a bad rendering. A bishop is a man with a pointy hat, most often a Roman Catholic, and it has nothing to do with the New Testament office. It's a terrible rendering. It's an unfortunate rendering in the King James and in the New King James.

You know how I love the King James translation and the new King James translation. But in this word, the New American Standard and the English Standard and even the NIV are way better and way sounder in how they translate that. So wipe bishop from your vocabulary and put in overseer. Overseer is a very literal translation and it's so much more consistent. The word bishop has so many connotations that have nothing to do with what the Greek word really means.

You also see there's one more Greek word. So you have presbyteros, which means elders. That's so many places in the New Testament. Then you have the Greek word episkopos, which means overseer. And then the last word you need to know that's in a couple of different forms but the root's the same in Greek is poimino, shepherd.

Poimino is actually the verb form, So you shepherd, you poimino, you feed, you protect, you do the work of a shepherd. And then there's the noun form, the person who does the shepherding is actually called a shepherd, that is poimane, but it's the same Greek root to the word. So, and when you see the word pastor in the New Testament, it's better translated shepherd. So there's nothing illegitimate about the translation pastor but the Greek word underneath it is poimane and it's literally shepherd. So That's the words in the New Testament.

And I want you to think of these as completely interchangeable. It is one in the same office. Pastors are shepherds are overseers are elders. Okay, no distinction. Pastors are elders, are overseers, are shepherds.

Different words, one office in the local church. Now, the plurality of elders in a church is well established. I'm going to give you five examples. Just jot them down as I go. I'm probably going to go too fast for you to turn, but just jot down the references and you can check it later.

The first occurrence is in Acts 11 verse 30 where there's going to be a collection and the collection is going to be sent to the leaders of the church, one church in Jerusalem. Listen to Acts 11.30. This is number one. This they also did, Paul and Barnabas collecting. This they also did, and sent it to the elders, plural, by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.

So the context will make it plain when you go look at it later. It's one church and elders plural. And the significance of this is this is the first occurrence in the New Testament. This is where you see elders for the first time in the book of Acts is Acts 11 verse 30. Now Acts 14 verse 23.

Acts 14 verse 23 is at the very end of Paul and Barnabas' first missionary journey. And here's Acts 14, 23. So when they, Paul and Barnabas, had appointed elders, plural, in every church singular and prayed with fasting. They commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed." So Paul and Barnabas go on a missionary journey, their very first one. They're sent out of the church of Antioch.

They go to all these different places, people are being saved, groups of Christians are being formed, and at the end of that missionary journey, they double back to all of those groups and they appoint elders, plural, in every church, singular. Again and again and again, group after group, this is what they do. Number three, Acts 15 verse 4, Acts 15 verse 4. This is the Council of Jerusalem. You remember the Judaizers have come to Antioch and said, you have to be circumcised to be saved.

Paul and Barnabas said, nuh-uh. And there's a sharp dispute. And the church sends Paul and Barnabas to a church in Jerusalem where the apostles are and here's what we read in Acts 15 verse 4. And when they had come to Jerusalem, they were received by the church singular and the apostles and the elders plural. Church singular, elders plural.

And you see the same thing about the church in Jerusalem again in Acts 15-22 and again in Acts 21 verse 18. All about this same church in Jerusalem. Church, singular, elders, plural. Number four, Acts 20 verse 17. In Acts 20, Paul is in Miletus and he sends to Ephesus for the elders.

Listen, Acts 20 verse 17, from Miletus he, Paul, sent to Ephesus and called for the elders, plural, of the church singular. Finally, James, this is number five, James chapter five verse fourteen. James chapter five verse fourteen. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders, plural, of the church singular.

There's more. I could beat the dead horse, but trust me that the New Testament continues to bear this out. Anywhere where it's conclusive, it's definitive. Anywhere where you can tell for sure what the leadership structure looks like. You can tell for sure it's definitive and it's only one thing and it's elders plural and church singular.

The other places you can't tell like 1 Timothy 3, he who desires the work of an overseer. You can't tell whether that's one overseer or many. It's just saying if you want to be one, you have to be like this. So it doesn't have a bearing on whether it's one or multiple. So there are places where you can't tell.

But any place where you can tell, It's definitive and it only says one thing, elders plural, church singular. In the New Testament we see this form of local church government across a wide geographical area so it's not geographical. And across diverse cultures, so it's not cultural. You see plurality of elders in Jerusalem, in Rome, in Greek cities. Why geography, diverse cultures, one practice?

Did you get that? Why the geographical area, Diverse cultures, one practice. Elders, plural, church, singular. A plurality of qualified elders governing the local church is the normative New Testament pattern. As Alexander Strout says, you can look for the senior pastor in the New Testament until your eyes bleed.

You will not find him there. The single pastor at the top of the organizational chart, at the top of the leadership pyramid is not a New Testament practice. And it is a triple whammy. Okay, I'm going to say three reasons why It's a horrible idea pragmatically along with being unbiblical. Here's three just significant downsides to that leadership model having a senior pastor who's at the top of the leadership pyramid.

Number one, it consumes one man beyond his means. One man is not designed to bear that load alone. He's not, he's not, he's not. A thousand times, he's not. How many men have been crushed by this leadership structure that looks like a pyramid with one man at the top.

A man is not designed to bear that load by himself. Gary read from Exodus last week And Moses' father-in-law came and rebuked him for this kind of leadership structure. The people who advocate for the senior pastor model say, Moses is the type. It should be like Moses. And they use that language.

He's the man of God. And the man of God leads. No, Moses is not the type of the pastor. Moses is the type of who? Christ.

Moses is the type of the chief shepherd. Another prophet like me, that is Jesus, not the senior pastor. So number one, it consumes one man beyond his means. One man beyond his means. Number two, it deprives other men whom God has prepared and called of the opportunity to participate in the shepherding of the local church.

God has raised up men, He's brought them to maturity, He's made them ready to be a channel, a conduit for blessing and care from God to people. And they're ready. And then you make them idle. This is not good. Churches need more of everything that eldership is said to be about.

More prayer, more ministry of the word, more shepherding, you're making it less. When you have a leadership structure that looks like a pyramid with one man at the top. So it consumes one man beyond his means. It deprives other men that God has raised up to maturity and made ready for prayer, ministry of the word, and shepherding. Third, it exposes a local church to the weaknesses of one man.

This is probably, if there is a fatal flaw, the fatal flaw, this is it. Every man has his strength and every man has his weaknesses. And this is the brilliance of plurality. This is the wisdom of God in plurality. That a man with brothers alongside him who are also qualified can operate in his areas of strength and not expose the local church to his areas of weakness.

Now think about Scott Brown and Dan Horn and Jason Dome. And if you had to make a list of strengths of each one of those three men and weaknesses of each one of those three men, it wouldn't take you long. And you'd have a list on both sides of the ledger. But if you look across those three men, you see a breadth of gifts. We are not the same.

We are not just reproductions of one man at all. We're different men. And we have different strengths. And we have different weaknesses. And there's a chance that the church can be blessed by our strengths and shielded, buffered against our weaknesses.

This is the wisdom of God in plurality. Paul actually argues that a local church without elders is deficient. A local church without a plurality of elders is deficient. Listen to Paul writing to Titus in Titus 1 verse 5. Titus 1 verse 5, Paul writes to Titus, for this reason I left you in Crete that you should set in order things that are lacking.

Set in order things that are lacking and do what? And appoint elders in every city as I commanded you. Titus, go put those things in order. Things are out of order. Put the things that are in order that are lacking.

Things are deficient in those churches. Now what does he tell them to do? Appoint elders in every city as I commanded to you. We're deficient. Hope and sovereign redeem are currently deficient and we knew we were going to be deficient.

In other words, we don't have enough elders currently, men who have gone through the qualification process for two churches. And so we knew there was going to be a lack and a deficiency and we made the decision based on this, seeing that Paul was willing to have the leadership structure catch up. But man, the soonest day it catches up, the happier all of us will be. Not just Scott, Dan, and I, but all of us will be. May God speed the day.

And so, I don't think we should necessarily wait for a mature leadership structure on a day one to church plant, but man you want to close that deficiency, that lack and put things in order just as fast as you can. All of the essentials are clearly outlined in the New Testament regarding eldership and what it means. And so this is building doctrine on an abundance of clear and consistent scripture passages. A multitude of clear and consistent scripture passages. When you derive a leadership theology out of the New Testament, you're not making it up as you go and you're not relying on a text or two.

There's a bunch of text to pull from and they say the same thing. You just get the breadth across all of the passages. We have texts that tell us what elders should do. It gives the roles of elders with such clarity. Acts 6, Acts 20, 1 Timothy 5, Titus 1, James 5, 1 Peter 5, all have to do with what the role of an elder is.

By the way, you're welcome to my notes afterwards. I'm going to go faster than you can notetake in this particular section, but I'm not saying it fast because I'm not confident in the material and I want to pull it faster and you can have the notes afterwards if you want them. The New Testament says, who can be an elder? We have two lists of qualifications, 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. The New Testament says how the church should relate with an elder.

First Peter 5, First Thessalonians 5, First Timothy 5, Hebrews 13. The New Testament says how to handle an accusation against an elder and how to discipline that elder if he's found to be sinning, 1 Timothy 5. Everything you need to know about how to operate in this leadership structure is given across a plurality of texts of Scripture. You're not relying on one or two texts. There's a wealth to draw on.

Now what does the Bible tell us about eldership? We're going to spend the bulk of the rest of our time in five flagship passages. Five flagship passages. That means we're not getting to all the ones that are helpful. But anyway, we'll do what we can in the time that's allotted.

And next week, we'll double back on and just bear down on qualifications. So the first text, turn to Acts chapter 6. Turn to Acts chapter 6. Acts chapter 6, I'll read verse 1 through 7. Acts chapter 6 verse 1, now in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution.

Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But We will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. In the saying, please the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Tymon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch, whom they set before the apostles, and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them. Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith." In Acts chapter 6, you have a pretty explosive situation.

You have money and widows and unequal care among the flock. So you really have the makings for an eruption in this fledgling church. You will not see the word Elder, you will not see the word deacon in this passage, but I believe that you have in Acts chapter 6 the prototype, the early example for both eldership and the deaconate deacons in Acts chapter 6. But they're not being called, the function is not being called by the name yet. You don't have the first occurrence yet.

The first occurrence of elder as a word used for the office is in Acts chapter 11. But everything that you see about the leaders of this church is consistent with everything else the New Testament will say about elders. Functions, role in the church, behavior matches up completely with the other texts. So it's not a stretch to say these men are leading this local church, that's what eldership is about. Everything that you see about these men who are chosen to super intend to watch over these sensitive matters in the local church is consistent with what the New Testament says about deacons.

And in fact, when you have the text talking about the serving of tables in verse 2, you have the same Greek root word that deacon comes out of. Deacon literally means servant. So the serving of tables has the same root word that the word deacon comes from. So I do think it's very legitimate to go to Act 6 and to say this is a prototype for elders, this is a prototype for deacons. The local church must have a group of men who can give themselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the Word.

That's the whole reason that the apostles Ask the congregation to bring forward these men who are full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, who have a good reputation, to handle this potentially explosive matter so that they can be continually given to prayer and the ministry of the word. Every local church needs that, not just the church in Jerusalem. Every local church needs a group of men who can give themselves and give themselves and give themselves to these two things, prayer and the ministry of the word. Here's something about prayer and the ministry of the word. It can always wait till tomorrow.

It's the most important thing, the most important things in the life of a local church, but it can wait until tomorrow. I can pray tomorrow. I can do sermon prep tomorrow. But the problem is there's a whole other set of sensitive matters that will come up tomorrow. And I'll push prayer and the ministry of the word to the next day.

But the problem is the next day will have its own set of sensitive matters that need attention and if you don't dedicate other Qualified men, men full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, men with a good reputation, to handle those things that keep coming up day after day after day that are sensitive and need to be entrusted with qualified men. But if you leave that to your elders, it will gobble up their time day after day and they'll find themselves never praying or praying very little. Never studying or studying very little. And so, in order to multiply prayer, devotion to prayer, and devotion to the ministry of the Word, you set aside the second group of men. You cannot have a robust elder ministry without a robust deacon ministry.

Okay, do you get that? You cannot have a robust elder ministry because it requires a devotion to prayer and the ministry of the word without a robust deacon ministry. Because otherwise, all those sensitive matters will fall to the elders and fall to the elders and fall to the elders and fall to the elders and they'll never get around to praying and studying as they ought. They won't be able to be continually giving themselves to those two critical functions. So Deacons are not church janitors.

They're not the facilities team. They are other qualified men who handle vital and sensitive things related to the work of the church, and they mobilize the church to do the rest. I think you as a church get so much more out of your elders because you have great deacons. You get so much more prayer out of Scott, Dan, and I. You get so much more study out of Scott, Dan, and I, because there are three solid as a rock deacons over at Hope, and there are three solid as a rock deacons here.

Look at the fruit. Look at the outcome. The unity of the church is preserved. That was not a given at the beginning of the story, was there? You have Greek widows and the Greeks are mad because they're not getting their fair share.

That's not a foregone conclusion. But the unity of the church is preserved and the number of disciples is multiplied. There are many, many benefits to a well-ordered church, to paying attention to New Testament church government, biblical church government. Now turn to Acts 20. Acts 20.

Acts 20, Paul is coming near Ephesus, but he does not intend to go all the way to Ephesus but he is not going to get to Ephesus again and he knows it. So he sends and calls for the elders of the church, elders plural church singular, to come to him and meet him on the beach of Miletus. This is what we see in verse 17. Look, Acts 20 verse 17, from Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus and called for the elders of the church. Then in 18 through 27, I wish we had time for it but we don't, but in 18-27, Paul says, I lived among you for two years, here was my pattern of life among you.

What's his point? Do the same. Elders, I lived among you like an elder ought to live among the people of a church. Imitate me as I imitate Christ. Now we pick it up in verse 28.

Acts 20 verse 28 I'll read through verse 32. Therefore take heed to yourselves, elders, 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. For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also, from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore watch and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.

So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified." Paul begins by telling these elders to take heed to who? All the flock? No, he gets there but he doesn't start there. Take heed to themselves. For an elder, self-examination is ongoing.

Why? Because he must be qualified. Once? No. Ongoing.

When a man goes from not being an elder to being an elder, he goes through a qualification process. But guess what? That's just a snapshot in time. Because you're qualified at one point in time, doesn't mean you can't lose that qualification. So elders had better be examining their lives, their thoughts, their affections all the time.

They better be taking heed to themselves. The work of an elder starts with the examination of his own heart to make sure that he maintains a state of being qualified for the work. Then Paul says, elders must take heed to all the flock. This is the central nature of eldership, taking heed to all the flock. That's what the prayer and the ministry of the word is about.

It's about caring for the flock. Prayer is about caring for the flock. The ministry of the word is about caring for the flock. These are shepherding functions. And Paul says, you must take heed to all the flock.

All. A-L-L, the flock. Knowing all the flock is a key duty of the shepherding ministry. And so Richard Baxter in commenting on church size says, whatever size you think you ought to be, this should govern your thinking. When the elders can't take heed to all the flock, your church is too big.

That's how Richard Baxter argues. It's hard to argue against that line of reasoning, isn't it? That's very logical. If Paul requires that elders take heed to all the flock, you can't have a church that the elders in the church is just too many to take heed to. Then you have a church that is lacking and deficient.

Those things need to be set in order. Paul says that the Holy Spirit appoints elders as overseer. It is the Holy Spirit who appoints elders as overseers to shepherd the church. Does that mean that elders, you can't have ungodly elders? No.

Not any more than God appoints all civil government and you can still have ungodly, but it is the Holy Spirit who appoints elders as overseers. And we're going to talk about that next week. We're really going to just put a place marker there and we'll come back to it when we talk about qualifications next week. But Paul says that this is God's church. Local churches are God's churches.

Why? Because He purchased them with His own blood. Could you ever have more claim to local churches than having purchased them with your own blood? Never. So they're God's local churches.

Paul says that elders are to protect the flock from savage wolves, from without and from within. Most young Christians assume that the attacks come from the outside, from pagans. The worst attacks are not that. The worst attacks are from men who profess the name of Christ, but are always trying to lure the disciples away after themselves. This is the exact word of the text.

From among yourselves. To draw the disciples away after themselves. This is always happening among the people of God. Elders always have to be on guard for this. Okay, 1 Timothy 3.

Let's go to 1 Timothy 3 and see what Paul says about eldership in 1 Timothy 3. We're going to spend a little time here today and a lot of time coming back to it next week when we talk about qualifications. 1 Timothy 3, I'll read verses 1 through 7. This is a faithful saying, if a man desires the position of a bishop strike through overseer, he desires a good work. A bishop strike through overseer, then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous.

One who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence. For if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God. Not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride, he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. Moreover, he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. We see here that eldership is for men if a man desires the position of an overseer.

This is right on the heels of 1 Timothy 2 where Paul forbids women to exercise leadership over men in the local church. Eldership is reserved to men. Eldership is a good work. It ought to be aspired to. Men ought to think well of this work, even though it is a lot of work.

It is something to be aspired to. I remember when Jake was three years old. I was at his bedside one night and I was trying to awaken in him an appetite at three years old for down the line eldership, teaching him that it's a good work and that he should aspire to it. Not every man will be called to eldership, but I wanted to teach him to aspire to it. And so I was talking to him and I asked Jake if one day he thought he wanted to be an elder and he assured me that he did.

And I said why? Because I wanted to know the motivations. He says because you get to speak in the microphone. And so I wanted to disavow him of that being the motive. So I said, well, that's only one hour a week.

If a man, if a man, in all seriousness, if a man wants to be an elder because you get to speak in, in the microphone, he hasn't, he hasn't assessed the job properly. Okay. It's an hour in front of the microphone and it's a lot of hours down in the trenches, right, with dirt under the fingernails. Okay. So if you want to do it to be in front of the microphone, find something else.

It'll be more glamorous, I assure you. So I talked to him about the hard work of an elder and the things that were involved, the labor, the pouring out that was required. And I said, so, you know, knowing that, you want to be an elder? And he said, no, I want to be a fireman. Okay.

So once you understand the job, you might prefer being a fireman to being an elder. But it is good work and little boys should be taught to aspire, aspire to it. Not that every one of them will be an elder, but they need to know that it's a good work to serve the Lord in this way. Then we have the elder qualifications. We're going to talk about them one by one next week.

But for this week, I want to summarize these into three categories to just help you think about the qualifications. The first category is an elder must have mature Christian character period. It's that simple. The overwhelming number of qualifications are just verifying that a man is a mature Christian, period. He's not a superhuman, doesn't wear a spandex suit.

We can all be thankful for that. He's simply a verifiable Christian over a period of time, over a long period of time. You can look and say that's a Christian man. It's the fruits of the spirit on display in his life. So you should never think of elders as a separate category, as if they were called to something that every Christian isn't called to.

That's not true. They're called to exactly what every Christian is called to. And the point of the character qualifications is you should just be able to verify it in a man's life that he's the real deal, He's a real Christian. The fruit of the Spirit is in abundance in his life before you lay hands on him and tell him to do this work. So number one, an elder must have mature Christian character period.

That's all there is to it on the character qualifications. The bar doesn't get raised over what's required of Christians, all Christians. You just have to verify it in this man's life. Number two, an elder must manage his household well. Here's what you're trying to find out.

Do people flourish under this man's leadership? Do they flourish under this man's leadership? Because The church life isn't going to be like a business. You have men who are wonderful in business, who can turn a profit like nobody's business, who can manage cash, who are horrible elders. Because the church job isn't to make money and have positive cash flow, it's to care for one another and reach out to the world.

So it's going to look a lot more like a family than a business. So he must manage his household well. Paul says here in 1st Timothy 3, because if he can't manage his house, how will he manage the church? Because the church is a family. So here's what you want to know, do people flourish under your leadership?

If a man's wife is not flourishing, he can't be an elder. If a man's children aren't flourishing, he can't be an elder. He doesn't have to have a perfect wife, doesn't have to have perfect children, but they need to be doing well. They need to be growing. We'll talk about that more in detail next week.

Thirdly, last category, an elder must be able to teach. Not like Paul Washer every week. He needs to be sound in his doctrine, able to teach. Some translations render it apt to teach. In other words, disposed to teach, looking for opportunities to teach, not just from a pulpit but in his friendships.

Well, how do you know if a man is above the bar? It all seems so subjective. Well, we're given a master qualification, blameless. Some translations render it above reproach. So when you want to know in any one of these individual qualifications, is he over the bar or not over the bar, you ask yourself, is he blameless, is he above reproach?

That doesn't mean perfect. That means if there were a significant charge against a man in any one of these individual qualifications, could it stick? Could you get it to stick? Could you substantiate it? If you could substantiate it, he's not above reproach, he's not blameless, and he can't be an elder.

If in spite of his imperfections you'd say, you know what, a significant charge wouldn't stick. You might be able to point to some individual failures but a significant charge wouldn't stick then he's qualified. Not on the list of qualifications. This is very important too. What's not on the list?

Seminary training. Seminary training is a blessing. I'm not proud that I am not seminary trained nor am I ashamed. Okay. Not proud and not ashamed.

That window is probably closed for me, but it's not on the list. You shouldn't make that a non-negotiable for a man who's being considered for eldership. Mystical calling, not on the list. We're going to talk about calling next week. This mystical calling, like where you have to have a Pauline experience, knocked down by a voice and a bright light from heaven, or you can't go into the ministry, that is hogwash.

That is nowhere to be found attached to eldership in the New Testament. Show me. I double dog dare you. Personal charisma, not on the list. Church is getting so much trouble because there is a charismatic personality.

I'm not talking about Pentecostalism here. I'm talking about a vibrant personality that just draws people and lets have him be our leader. Probably the plain guy. Probably the plain guy is who you want. Who lives a solid, godly life.

That's who you want to be your elder. IQ, not on the list. Giftedness, not on the list, but he's so gifted, You have to make him part of the leadership team. Yeah, if you want to blow up your church, you do. Oftentimes, very gifted people are very full of themselves.

Oftentimes, very gifted people are very full of themselves. And you'd be well served to go for a guy who's less gifted but humble because this is family life. Before serving, an elder must be tested to verify that he's qualified against these different individual qualifications. You must test him. That's verse 10.

But let these also first be tested. All right, Titus 1. I'm racing the clock and losing. Go to Titus 1. There's so much to say.

In Titus 1 we have the other list of qualifications. We'll come back here next week, so I'm going to go fast in Titus 1, beginning in verse 5, reading through verse 9. Titus 1 verse 5, Paul writes to Titus, for this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you. If a man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of dissipation or insubordination. For a bishop, strikethrough, overseer, must be blameless as a steward of God, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but hospitable, a lover of what is good, sober-minded, just, holy, self-controlled, holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and convict those who contradict." Paul says that things are lacking in a church without elders.

I've already said that. Paul says an elder must be qualified. I've already said that. Paul says that one of the jobs of an elder is to use sound doctrine to exhort and convict those who contradict. An elder has to have a mastery, a certain level of mastery of sound doctrine so that he can recognize unsound doctrine and push against it.

Listen to verse 9 again, holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and convict those who contradict. There will be those who are contradicting sound doctrine and an elder must be able to bring sound doctrine to bear to push against false teaching, to exhort and to convict those who are contradicting sound doctrine. This is an important part of the ministry of the Word. Remember back to Acts chapter 6, the apostles say, we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. If you thought of the ministry of the Word as pulpit ministry, that's a sliver of the ministry of the Word in a local church.

What gets said out of the pulpit is only a part of the ministry of the word in a local church. What gets said out of the pulpit is only a part of the ministry of the word in a local church. A big part of it is house to house teaching. In Acts 20, if we go back to the part of Acts 20 that I said I wish we had time to read but we didn't read, we'd find Paul saying that he taught publicly and from house to house, so should elders. I'm teaching publicly now.

I do a lot of teaching at the breakfast table, at the lunch table, in people's houses. And elders should do this. They should be apt to teach, meaning disposed, looking for opportunities to bring the Word of God to bear on any number of situations. So the ministry of the Word is not reserved to the pulpit. That's only a small part of it.

Okay. James 5, this is our last text that we'll be in. James 5. James chapter 5 verses 13 through 15, calling the elders to pray. James chapter 5 verse 13, is anyone among you suffering?

Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing Psalms. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

And The prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up and if he has committed sins he will be forgiven. The elders are always on call for prayer. Like the Apostles said in Acts 6 again, we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. The elders are always on call for prayer. They're not the administrative board of a church who just deliberate over what color the carpet ought to be and then decide.

They're praying men. They're teaching men. Here's something you might not have noticed in this text which is really important. The sick should call the elders to pray. Most sick people wait around for the elders to notice that they're sick.

They're mad when the elders don't pick up on it very fast. I rebuke you if you've ever had that thought. Based on James 5 that tells the sick that they ought to call on the elders to come and pray. You realize how encouraging this is for any elder to get a call to say, we have sickness, would you please come, bring the oil. Will you get, you know, will you, will you come and pray?

Why is that so encouraging? Because the people have paid attention to what the text actually says and they're not waiting for the elders to say, hey, could we come bring the oil and pray for you. There's nothing wrong with elders doing that. If they notice that there's significant sickness, elders can do that, but this isn't what James is talking about. This is talking about people who are sick calling on them out of obedience and then elders out of obedience anointing with oil.

Why do we do it? Because the text says to do it. It's probably a theology of that that could be developed about what the oil signifies and the value of it, but at the end of the day we do it because the text says to do it. So your elders do that. When we're called on to pray for someone, we bring the oil and we physically anoint with oil and we pray because the text says to do that.

Okay. Training elders. How do you train elders? Brothers and sisters, elders are a byproduct. They're a result of God bringing a man to Christian maturity and giving him certain gifts.

And so, eldership is simply the church recognizing the work that God has already done. And if a man hasn't brought a man, if God hasn't, if God hasn't brought a man to that point yet, there's no problem. There's a thousand things he can do to be a blessing in the church. So it's not as if it's eldership or nothing for a man. Nothing could be further from the truth.

If you're a man and you think you have the gifts but you're not qualified yet, there's a thousand things you can do to be a blessing in the church. It's not eldership or nothing. Or if you're a man who says, I just don't have those gifts. I'm not apt to teach. I'm not looking for opportunities to bring the word of God to bear.

I love the word of God, but I'm not a teacher. That's actually very consistent with James 1, which says, let not many of you be teachers. So we can't have an eldership or bust mentality. An eldership or no value mentality. That's not right.

Every joint in the body supplies. All the gifts are to be put in play. It's not just elders that have gifts. Heaven help us if all the gifts are consolidated in just a few men. That's not true.

We have to recognize that this is not skills-based. Okay, so when you talk about an eldership training program, that's a challenge when you look at the qualifications Because most of them are character qualifications. It's not skills based. If it was skills based, we could just train the skills. We could drill.

We could have repetition. We could have a conveyor belt and pluck elders off the end of the line of the conveyor belt, but it's not like that. So what do we do? We develop robust heads of households. If you've got a church full of well-functioning Deuteronomy 6 heads of households, you're going to have a subset of men who are ready to be elders, guaranteed.

So men, I would say go home, go to work. Go to work with the flock that God has given you. Pour yourself out so that they'll flourish under your leadership, and then the church will recognize. People flourish under this man's leadership. He should be leading us so we'd flourish more.

When Deuteronomy 6 is functioning properly and a man is working And a man is working on love for God. And then out of that love for God is teaching the word of God diligently to his children. Two things are happening. He's increasing in his competency as a teacher. Isn't that true?

When Deuteronomy 6 is working at home, The man is becoming a better and better, more competent teacher. And his sons, if he has any, are being trained to shepherd the church in the next generation. Because they're getting a dose every day of the Word of God. They're getting the whole council of God when Deuteronomy 6. And so the next generation will have less problems than we're having, than we will have.

I was in Romania. We went over to teach on eldership. The men have either left for European countries that pay better than Romania and they come back every six to nine months, they send money or they're alcoholics. Overwhelmingly in Romania, this is what the church is. You go to church and you go to preach and you're preaching to ladies, mostly old ladies.

So we went over to teach on eldership and we had to say there's no quick fix. You've got to take those little boys on your knee and teach them the Bible. This is a 20 year dig out. This hole didn't get dug overnight and you're not going to dig out of this hole overnight. You've got to take those little boys on your knee, teach them the Bible, teach them to love the Lord with all their heart, teach them the importance of family, teach them how to handle the scriptures and your elders will come but it's going to take a while.

We want a workbook study that will get men ready for eldership in a semester. But no, The family is the training grounds and we need to focus our efforts there to produce leadership for the local church in this generation and the next. We've had eldership training programs and we were reading books, okay? That's just the smallest sliver of what it means to be an elder is to read those books. Overwhelmingly, it's about what is the character of man?

Does he have godly Christian maturity in his life? Has God made him competent to teach the Scriptures. Okay, the conclusion. The issue on the table is the sufficiency of Scripture. God has spoken about how his local churches ought to be governed.

God has said. It's not for us to take the best business practices in the world and then adapt the Lord Jesus' church to that. That is a wicked proposition. We should do what God has said in His Word and He has spoken with such breadth and clarity in His Word. We should simply embrace it and do it.

The normative New Testament pattern for local church government is a plurality of shepherd elders, shepherd overseers who are qualified, who have been compared to the lists and found to match up with the lists, who can then devote themselves continually, give themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word, to shepherd the Lord's people. Now here's the question. What if our church had 50% more of prayer in the ministry of the word? What would it mean to us to have 100% more, 200% more prayer in the ministry of the word than we have today? Would that have an impact on our life together?

You bet it would. How about 50% less? How about 100% less? These things matter. When you can set aside a plurality of biblically qualified men to go pray, to go study, and then bring the richness of the word of God to bear, it's a blessing for His people.

This is how God desires to have men be a conduit and a channel for his blessing and his goodness. Let's give thanks. Father, I thank you for the rich, comprehensive teaching in your word about this topic. I pray that you would press these things on us. God, I pray that through the decades you would raise up many men here among us.

Men who are young men now or not so young men now or little boys now. God, that you would raise them up to pour themselves out for your church to be a channel for the blessing of the chief shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ, and care for your people. Flesh and blood, care for your people. Oh Lord, care for your people so richly as you've designed it by raising up men to do this work. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.