Qualifications for Elders (Titus 1:5-9)

Introduction

If you have your Bible, please turn it to Titus 1:5-9.

Last week we continued our long-running series on the Pastoral Epistles with the final epistle named Titus. During last week’s message, which was primarily a teaching sermon, I pointed out two key details about Titus and Paul that led us to our application—the two details being that Paul knew who he was in and through Jesus Christ and that Paul was intentionally discipling Titus. My exhortation for you last week was that you live according to who Jesus has made you—as one who believes in Him; and my encouragement for you was to make sure that you have someone discipling you and that you are discipling someone else.

Now, as part of last week’s message, we emphasized understanding the overall structure and argument of Titus—there’s a push from Paul to Titus about dealing with issues of false teaching within the church on the island of Crete. So much so, that Paul tells Titus to select elders who can deal with the false teaching, preach right doctrine in contrast to false teaching, and to encourage good work as part of their true genuine faith.

This morning, we’re dealing with the first part of that—selecting elders that can actually lead the church in Crete. Let me point out that the standards are intentionally high because the the role of eldership within a local church involves tremendous amounts of teaching that can influence the local church’s direction. There are reasons as to why James says that not many should become teachers and one of those reasons is because of the large amounts of influence teachers within the local church have. As such, there must be qualifications to lead within the local church and these are those qualifications.

Let’s read Titus 1:5-9 together.

Titus 1:5–9 ESV

5 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— 6 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. 7 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, 8 but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. 9 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.

As we study this passage, we’re not going to break it into two parts (it’s much too short for that), however, I do want to spend a few minutes talking about the need for both the teaching of sound doctrine and its defense. So, what today’s sermon will look like is this: (1) The Requirements for Eldership (5-9), which will work through this text and the qualifications that are needed for those who lead churches and (2) Sound Doctrine, which will emphasis how important it is for those who serve as elders to teach and defend the truth according to God’s Word. The goal for today is for you to see the requirements for church elders, what we call pastors and for you to apply those requirements to our elders—both Josh and myself. In addition, it will encourage you to seek to be described in similar ways because the reality is that each of these qualifications for eldership are really attributes that all Christians ought to aim for even if they never plan to be an elder within a local church context.

Prayer for Illumination

The Requirements for Eldership (5-9)

As our text starts, Paul reminds Titus of his responsibility on the island of Crete, v. 5 says that he is to “put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.” So, he has two specific responsibilities on the island of Crete to accomplish before he leaves: he is to put what remained into order and to appoint elders.

The “put what remained into order” is typically assume to speak about the church as a whole on Crete. The idea is that Titus is to finish what they started—though, we aren’t entirely certain what needed to be accomplished in that mindset.

It could be that the church on Crete was still relatively new—and thus, they still needed to iron out the details of what it meant to be a local church on Crete.

That might include logistical considers (where they were going to meet), who would serve as deacons within the body (to care for the congregation), etc.

Or, it could include some sort of teaching consideration—since the church didn’t have elders yet, someone needed to teach them true and right doctrine.

It could be a combination of different things.

However, it’s clear that Paul had charged Titus to finish the work that they had started, which is his first responsibility.

The second is for him to put into place elders in every town. Now, there are a few clarifications to be made concerning this responsibility:

First, this does not necessarily mean that Titus ought to put one elder in every town—though that’s sometimes assumed, which is why may baptistic churches today have one pastor that leads rather than a plurality of pastors.

Second, this does not necessarily imply a hierarchy in which each town had an elder and then Titus was a bishop over them—we know this for a handful of reasons:

Titus doesn’t stay on Crete and thus, he doesn’t practice any sort of overseer role to these elders in their respective towns.

Paul doesn’t tell him to set up some sort of hierarchy like this whether it be called a presbytery or diocese or whatever you’d like to call it.

It’s not some sort of hierarchal system, but rather Titus is simply tasked with selecting people to lead the local church in their respective cities and towns.

Now, the next question could then be “who should Titus select to lead these churches?” and Paul answers that question with a list of requirements in vv. 6-9.

You’ll notice that what Paul emphasizes in these four verses are usually not the requirements that most churches have when they search for pastors today. Both large and small churches often fail at what they look for in a pastor because they don’t base their qualifications on what the Bible says. These are the requirements and what they mean according to Scripture:

Above reproach—the idea isn’t that they’re perfect because no human on this side of eternity can or will be perfect. The idea is that if someone were to come to you and say something like, “well, you heard about Daniel right? He stole a car from the dealership” you would think, “no, that doesn’t really sound like him.”

Of course, I’m using an extreme example, but that could be applied to any sin—if someone were to accuse an elder of lying, of cheating, or really any sin, the first response shouldn’t be “that sounds about right,” but rather, it should be, “no, I’m not really sure that’s true.”

Because elders ought to live in such a way that their lives are distinct enough that when accused of wrongdoing, it’s hard to believe.

The husband of one wife—this phrase has caused a lot of confusion for quite some time, but let me point out two details:

First, it implies that elders are men—despite what our current culture wants and despite what other church denominations and non-denominational churches state, both Titus, 1 Timothy, and 1 Corinthians assume that elders are men.

Second, it does not speak about divorce and remarriage despite what some churches claim. There are biblical reasons for divorce and so, it logically doesn’t make sense to say that an elder cannot be divorced. And, just to clarify, this isn’t speaking about marriage after the loss of a spouse.

What it actually speaks to is polygamy and personality. Meaning, an elder cannot have more than one spouse at a time, which was commonplace in their culture.

And, elders cannot be womanizers. If you look at this phrase in the Greek text, the word-for-word translation would be something along the lines of a one woman man.

Or, in other words, if the elder is married, he is devoted and absolutely faithful to his wife. If the elder isn’t married, he’s not trying to date every woman in his church or in the community at the same time—when he expresses interest, he’s only interested in one woman.

Children are believers/faithful and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination—again, another phrase that has caused quite a lot of confusion, but I think I can help you understand this better.

While the word translated as believers can be translated as believers, it doesn’t have to be. It can be translated as faithful and the meaning of the word translated as faithful depends on its context. In this case, many Bible translators assume that it means that an elder’s children must believe in Jesus Christ, but that causes a predicament:

What do you do in the case of Josh, who has multiple kids who are still at the age where they cannot choose to follow Jesus Christ—is Josh disqualified from ministry? I would say no, his kids aren’t old enough to profess belief yet.

Or, what do you do in the case of John Piper, who has a son who when he became an adult, decided to reject Christianity and really reject Jesus? Does that disqualify John Piper? I would say no, his children are older and are no longer dependent on Piper.

If you assume this means that an elder’s kids must believe in Jesus Christ, then yes, it provides a significant predicament, but that’s not actually what it refers to.

Rather, in this context, what this word means, that his children are to be faithful doesn’t concern belief in Jesus Christ, but faithfulness to their parents, which is why the idea of the children not being open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination is tied to this.

Or, in other words, the idea is that the elder has his children under control—that they obey him and they listen to him. The idea is that when people think of an elder’s children, the first word that comes to their mind shouldn’t be heathens.

Of course, there ought to be some grace in this qualification because sometimes kids are tough and no one is perfect, however, if an elder’s kids are known for their insubordination, that elder is no longer qualified to lead in a church.

The reason being, if his household isn’t under control, then how can he lead God’s household?

We see the idea of being above reproach again in v. 7, but this time it’s in conjunction with stewardship. It naturally connects with the previous statement concerning his children, but stewardship applies to more than just the family itself.

It applies to how this elder handles his time, his money, and his resources—the things which are gifts from God to be utilized in a God-honoring way.

It applies to how this elder spends his day and the idea is that when people think of the elder, the question shouldn’t be, “what does he do with his time because it doesn’t seem like he spends it on his sermons?” or “how does he manage his money because he’s driving around in a Ferrari” or, the opposite, “he’s driving around in a beat-up, rusted out car” or “his house is falling apart.”

The reason being, again, if his household isn’t under control concerning time, money, and resources, then how can he lead God’s household concerning time, money, and resources?

Not arrogant, and not quick-tempered, I’m going to talk about at the same time because they’re often seen at the same time.

Arrogance is a significant issue in church ministry—often, when the elder is younger, there’s an issue with arrogance; however, this isn’t limited to younger elders. I know plenty of older pastors who are arrogant and you can tell that they’re arrogant because they typically act as if they know everything and they cannot be wrong about anything.

And often, what happens is that when someone struggles with arrogance, which by the way is a symptom of sinful pride, anytime someone questions them, they respond by being quick-tempered. They explode, they yell, they fight. They’re often not accused of being reasonable.

Again, this is often seen with younger elders, but it happens with older elders as well. It makes sense that these are qualifications in pastoral ministry because they’re issues that are easy to fall into without even realizing that you’ve fallen into them.

Not a drunkard—let me clarify that the Bible never outrightly teaches abstinence from alcohol. The idea is always that you ought not be drunk.

In particular, the idea is that you ought not be controlled by alcohol or really any other substance that can harm you.

It’s less about the alcohol issue as it is that issue of what’s controlling your mind and what’s controlling your heart.

In fact, Ephesians 5:18 “18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,” Again, the idea of not letting yourself be controlled by alcohol or a substance, but rather, be filled or be controlled by the Holy Spirit.

Not violent—goes hand in hand with the ideas of being quick-tempered and being a drunkard. When are people often most tempted to respond in sinful violence? When they’re not in control of their emotions and faculties.

Of course, the Bible assumes that when it comes to protecting your family or even if you’re deployed in a war that you would justly defend yourself.

The idea here is violence for the sake of violence rather than violence for defense.

Your pastors, your elders shouldn’t be taking people out back to show them a lesson. I’d go as far as to say that this ideology should be so far removed from their mind that they don’t even joke about it.

Now, some of the rest, I think are a little easier for us to understand.

Not greedy for gain—speaks of his desires. He ought not be the type of person who is always seeking to make more money just to have more money. He shouldn’t be just thinking about climbing up the ladder in the church—if all he thinks about is where he could make more money or where he could gain more, then he isn’t qualified to be a pastor.

Hospitable—being willing to share life with one another, to open up his home and to invite people in.

A lover of good—the good being not just moral good, but objectively good things—he has an appreciation for goodness.

Self-controlled—again, if he cannot control himself, then how can he control the household of God?

Upright—this refers to his own moral behavior—that he acts upright.

Holy—refers to his separation from sin

Disciplined—refers to the way that he lives his life.

Faithful to God’s Word able to instruct and rebuke—we’ll talk about that more in a few minutes.

Note that none of these requirements pertain to business acumen, charismatic personalities, eloquence, stage presence, number of followers on social media, or even formal education.

The qualifications that churches often impose on pastors aren’t the most important things.

Now, don’t get me wrong, some amount of business knowledge is important when dealing with a church. Being somewhat charismatic of a speaker can be important as a primary teacher in a church.

Being able to command attention while standing in front of a congregation is important.

You all know that I’m a huge proponent of formal, seminary training for particularly full-time pastors, but I think it to be wise even for part-time pastors.

However, there are too many churches willing to let slide the actual biblical requirements for church leadership because of our secular ideology.

For instance, they let men slide on character-related issues simply because he has a PhD or he can draw a crowd or he’s fun to listen to or whatever else they could say.

But the Bible doesn’t say “pay attention to these qualifications” unless the person has 50,000 followers on Twitter and it doesn’t say that an elder shouldn’t be a womanizer unless he speaks well.

And the fact that we’ve diminished these qualifications for pragmatic reasons shows how low a view most churches have of the Bible and God—if they thought as highly as they ought to have about God and the Bible, they would never dare to put someone into leadership that wasn’t biblically qualified just because that person could fill the seats—it’s disgusting and it’s sinful.

There are qualifications to be met for church leadership; and while in one sense we can’t say any one qualification is more important than another, I think in another sense, we can—and it deals with the issue of teaching. Titus 1:9 makes a firm statement about the qualification to be able to teach, instruct, and rebuke concerning the Word of God, “9 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.” And if we were to say any one qualification is more important than the others, it would be the ability to teach because the elders are the ones responsible for the teaching of the church. So, let’s spend a few minutes talking about sound doctrine.

Sound Doctrine

There are many today who negate the importance of sound doctrine in an effort to create “unity.”

The issue is that while the Bible speaks of the importance of unity, it is never in spite of doctrinal truth—meaning unity for the sake of unity is unbiblical and it is sinful.

If you’re trying to unify with organization, churches, or groups that are unclear about the Gospel, question the validity of Scripture, or denigrates God in an effort to be inclusive then you are acting in sin because the Bible specifically teaches us not to be united with those who teach false teachings and false doctrine.

In fact, the Bible teaches us that if someone is teaching false things or false doctrines, we ought to confront them for it in the hopes that they would repent, but if they refuse to repent and there is doctrinal error that leads to blasphemy or heresy, the only right response is to cut ties and leave them in their sins.

Unity is only biblical when the doctrine is correct and it is the role of the elders of a local church to be teaching correct doctrine and to defend the local congregation from false teaching.

Or, in other words, if a local church is off when it comes to their understanding of the Bible, of God, of the Gospel or what the purpose of the church is—it is the elders’ fault.

Now, it could be the current elders’ fault or it could be previous elders’ faults, but regardless, it is the job of the elders to actively preach and proclaim the truth and to defend against false teachings.

What that looks like in a real practical sense is two-fold:

First, of course, includes teaching and preaching. Everything that is taught and preached within the context of our local church is derived from Scripture or in the perspective of a biblical worldview. The moment we veer from this, there needs to be confrontation—for instance, if I teach heretical nonsense, it is part of Josh’s role to confront me for it. If we both start teaching heretical nonsense, it is part of your role as the congregation to confront us about it. And if, for whatever reason, we aren’t repentance, it is your job to either stop the heresy or leave and find somewhere else to worship.

In our teaching and our preaching, we need to be so firm on the Gospel that no one can walk in and out of our building without knowing what the Gospel is and how it influences every aspect of their lives.

In our teaching and our preaching, we need to be so clear on proclaiming the whole counsel of God that anyone who spends time in our church has no issue knowing what is true, what is false, and what sounds almost right, but isn’t.

Second, concerns how our church interacts with other churches and ministries. If we preach and teach all the right things, but then turn around and partner with churches who openly preaching and teach contrary things are we really defending the truth from error?

Or are we giving the impression that the truth doesn’t really matter?

While we ought to seek unity every time we can, at some point, we have to be firm concerning what we believe and separate from those who subvert the truth according to Scripture or deny the Gospel itself.

The truth is important—and being weak on the truth in hopes to project a view of unity is unbiblical and sinful.

And it is primarily the role of the elders of a church to be actively teaching truth and actively rejecting false things.

Because the local congregation relies on the elders to help them through determining right from wrong teachings.

Now, let’s spend our last few minutes applying this passage.

Application

There are really three different applications that I think is readily apparent in today’s text. These three applications are actually rather simple, but they’re vitally important within the life of the church as well as your life as a Christian. Let me list what the applications are and then I’ll expound on them a little bit—first, you need to know what the biblical qualifications for eldership are so that you don’t allow unqualified people to lead your church; second, you need to check your own heart with these attributes to see whether you’re living according to the Spirit or not; and third, you need to

You need to know what the biblical qualifications for eldership are so that you don’t allow unqualified people to lead your church.

Or, in other words, you need to hold me and Josh and whomever serves as an elder here accountable to this like of qualifications.

Obviously, we’re not going to be perfect in every way, we’re still human.

And any other person that we recommend into eldership at our church is also human and will struggle.

Thus, there ought to be a certain amount of grace in any given situation.

However, the idea is that for the most part, elders match these qualifications in such a way that you don’t doubt their capability in leading.

As a side-note, remember that these are the qualifications for eldership, not what we tend to make up as qualifications for eldership.

While it’s recommended to have formal training, it’s not a qualification biblically. While it would be nice for an elder to be a charismatic speaker, to be able to draw a crowd, or whatever else we want to say—they aren’t biblical qualifications.

And we should never degrade the biblical qualifications just because someone has a degree, or is charismatic, or can fill the seats—the moment that we succumb to pragmatism is the moment that our church is no longer a church, but rather just a business.

You need to know what the biblical qualifications for eldership are so that you don’t allow unqualified people to lead your church.

You need to be checking your own heart and life to see where you are concerning these attributes.

You may never be an elder, but these qualifications aren’t really unique to eldership (other than the ability to teach).

All these qualifications are really character attributes that ought to be apparent in every Christian’s life.

So, think through this list—for those who are married, you should be completely faithful to your spouse (even if you’re not an elder), ideally, if you have children, you’ve taught them to be obedient. You ought not be arrogant, quick-tempered, a drunk, violent, or greedy (yes, even if you’re not an elder), you ought to hold fast to the Word of God (even if you’re not an elder).

We know this not just from Titus or 1 Timothy, all of these qualifications are the fruits of righteous living or living by the Spirit—in fact, many of them are listed as the fruits of the Spirit.

Thus, even though elders ought to exemplify these attributes, you as a believer ought to live in a way that you also exemplify these attributes.

None of these attributes (with the exception of being apt to teach, which Paul writes to Timothy) are unique to elders alone.

Which means, you can’t read this list and be like, “welp, I’m not an elder, guess I can be unfaithful to my spouse, a terrible parent, or arrogant, quick-tempered, a drunk, violent, or greedy.”

Rather, you need to take a look at this list and see where you are—and when you find yourself falling short, you need to repent and ask God to help you live better in light of the Gospel.

You need to check your heart and life with this list—repent if necessary and keep seeking to live according to the Spirit.

And finally, concerning the issue of sound doctrine—you need to learn what accords with sound doctrine and reject anything that doesn’t.

Yes, that’s primarily the role of the elders to help you in that, but elders can err.

Thus, you have a bit of a responsibility to also double check everything that I say or Josh says or anyone else who claims to be an expert in theology or the Bible or anything pertaining to what we believe.

And let me clarify, anyone who stands behind a podium or pulpit and preaches is claiming that he’s the expert at that moment and that you should listen to him because he knows what he’s talking about.

But you’ll never know if that person is erring if you don’t know what sound doctrine is to begin with.

Again, you need to learn what accords with sound doctrine and reject anything that doesn’t. Now, you might ask, how? How do I learn sound doctrine? Let me give you a handful of suggestions:

First, study Scripture intently and intentionally—our first priority is always the Word of God. If anything is contrary to the Word of God, you need to remove it immediately.

That’s actually part of the reason why when we introduced Grace Classes on Thursday evenings, we started with biblical interpretation—you need to be able to read the Bible accurately and faithfully if you ever intend to be able to determine right from wrong and really right from almost right.

And then you need to be regularly and intentionally reading the Scriptures as often as you can for you to continue to grow in the truths of Scripture.

Second, because I realize that reading and re-reading Scripture multiple times can be time consuming, you may want to take an in-depth look at statements of faith of churches that represent biblical Christianity.

You can take a look at ours, which is readily available on our church’s website.

We’re also a Southern Baptist church, so you can take a look at the Baptist Faith & Message, which is also on our church’s website.

We’re also a Reformed Baptist church, so you can take a look at the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, which is also on our church’s website.

In addition, there’s no harm in taking a look at the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is the confession that conservative Presbyterian churches adhere to or the Heidelberg Confession or any number of historic reformed confessions of faith.

Again, these aren’t inspired by the Holy Spirit, but they do a tremendous job at explaining biblical truth in an easy-to-understand method.

Third, because I know that statements of faith aren’t that in-depth, you might want to check out a systematic theology, which is essentially a more comprehensive statement of faith.

You can get a copy of Christian Theology by Millard Erickson or the Moody Handbook of Theology, which are both single volume books that are pretty accessible to the average person.

Or, if you want to dig really deep, pick up a copy of Joel Beeke’s 4-volume Reformed Systematic Theology, which will give you a very comprehensive look at Christian teaching.

The point being, that the only way you’ll be able to rightfully deal with false teaching is if you know what right teaching is—the Bible is actually pretty clear on this fact, we are to be firm when dealing with false teaching because it leads people astray and potentially clouds the Gospel.

You need to “study to show yourself approved” by making the effort to study Scripture, learn what true Christianity is, and shape your life around sound doctrine.

Really, Titus 1:5-9 shows us the importance of choosing qualified elders—Paul literally gives us what exactly we ought to look for. Make sure to keep your elders accountable, be sure that you’re seeking to live in such a way as well, and make the effort to learn true, sound doctrine.

Pastoral Prayer