Looking after our leaders

Recently, I’ve been watching the newly released documentary by John Dickson’s Center For Public Christianity called “For better or worse - how the church is better and worse than you ever imagined”.

Essentially it’s a warts and all exploration of the history of the church. The documentary doesn’t gloss over the bad parts, like the crusades and the inquisitions, as if they somehow don’t really matter, rather explores why they happened the way they did.

What becomes really clear in the documentary is that when the church is operating the way God intended it to, there is nothing finer. When the church loses it’s way, it can become one of the most horrible, distasteful places.

The truth is, as we fast forward to today, the same is very true. I’m sure you don’t need me to remind you of the recent Royal Commission in child sexual abuse. Now the reality is, they aren’t acting as God would want, but however they got there, they are in the church and we have to deal with that fact.

But even if we put aside these gross abuses, church can be both an amazing place as well as a horrible place.

I’m sure if we all shared our stories together we would hear of both the absolute beauty of the church, as well as the horrors that it contains.

Finding answers in 1 Timothy

Now there is a lot of reasons that a church can be both really good or really bad. As we’ve gone through the book of 1 Timothy, I want to suggest one main idea that stands out however - that is, a really good church is one that holds to the wonderful truths of Jesus Christ.

As we’ve gone through this book, I’ve described how this is a letter from Paul writing to the relatively young, and perhaps even a bit timid Timothy, whom God has placed in a position to look after the church in the city of Ephesus.

And right from the start what we saw was the insistence that Timothy stamps out those that have polluted the gospel.

You see, the truth is beautiful. The church is at it’s finest when we hold this beautiful thing up for all to see.

Conversely, any alteration of the truth is a blemish - a stain that puts an ugly scar on its beauty. We perversely think we can improve the church by our own additions, but it just becomes ugly.

Well, as Paul writes to Timothy, he gives lots of practical advice of how to put this into practice. In chapter 2 he put it into practice in a worship setting. Chapter 3 brings leadership into the equation, and then in chapter 5, which we started before the school holidays, he brings various relationships into the mix.

Relating to leaders

Well, as we get to verse 17, which is where our passage for today starts, we move to another type of relationship, but this time the relationship we have with our leaders.

Now I want to make the argument this morning, that if we’re going to hold this idea that the church is most beautiful when we hold to the truth, it is the leadership that are going to put us in the right direction.

In fact we see this time and time again throughout the bible. You see it in the Old Testament. Under bad leaders, wickedness flourished. Under good leaders, righteousness flourished.

In the church today, good or bad leadership can make or break a church.

Now we already know what a good leader looks like - that’s because we covered that when we looked at chapter 3. If you weren’t here, then you can read chapter 3 for yourself, but basically, it sets out the moral requirements for church leaders.

Well, for those of you listening now that aren’t in leadership, you’re probably thinking - well this is good, it’s out of my hands whether the church is good or bad. But this is where my point for today comes in - you see, though you might not be in leadership, we all need to relate to our leaders, and how we do this will have an impact on the church.

Note 1 - different to Timothy

But before I continue, a word of note - this passage is actually addressed to Timothy who is placed in a position above these leaders. While the nature of how you relate with our leaders will differ in nature to how Timothy dealt with the Ephesian leadership, I’ll argue that the principles that I’m going to draw out will be the same.

Note 2 - who are our leaders?

And also, just for clarity, when I talk about leadership in our church context, the term can be used on a few levels. At one level I’m talking about myself as Pastor, and the elected deacons. But on a broader level, there are also those who have leadership responsibilities for various ministries.

If I just briefly look at the word Paul uses of leaders, its the word “elder”, which in Greek is Presbyteros, which you might notice, is the origin for the name of the church denomination “Presbyterians” comes from. Although that Greek word can refer to age, when Paul uses it both here and elsewhere, he is referring to someone who has been given authority.

And so as I continue, I’m going to apply this passage to church leaders generally.

Five Principles

So what I’m going to do as we work through this passage is find five principles of how we should treat leaders. I believe that when the church operates with these principles, we’ll be in a much better position to see the church at it’s most beautiful. Now of course, this only really works if the leaders are acting in a godly way, but in fact, you’ll find that this will actually address itself when we get to it.

Appreciation

I’m going to take the first principle from verses 17 and 18, and that is the principle of appreciation.

In verse 17 it talks about the elders being worthy of double honour. But what does that mean. Well, interestingly, the word translated as honour actually carries the connotation of compensation. In fact, as we’ll see in verse 18, it seems quite clear that Paul is talking about a monetary payment.

Now of course, I recognise that I just said that I’m going to apply this passage generally to all leaders, but of course, as our deacons and other ministry leaders know, they don’t actually get paid.

I do recognise that I’m speaking here of course as the only person being paid for ministry by this church, but it does show that there is biblical justification for paying people who dedicate themselves to ministry.

Now for obvious reasons, I’m not going to harp on about that idea, but instead bring it back to the general idea of showing appreciation to leaders.

You see, while this passage might contain the notion of providing payment, I believe we can do it more generally to our leaders by showing our appreciation by other means.

Now I

Maybe it’s a card or gift. More often it’s probably going to be words of appreciation. Those words might be done publicly or privately. Of course, the appropriate show of appreciation will depend on the circumstances.

Now something I’ve noticed over the years, while some people are really good are showing their thanks to others, for others, it doesn’t come so naturally. Sometimes this is because we just don’t think about it.

But sometimes I’ve noticed that it is the receiver of thanks who struggles with it. I think sometimes this can happen with a distorted view of humility.

You see, our motivation for doing ministry should not be the reward. We do it because Jesus showed us the meaning of serving, and we need to do it with great humility.

But while all praise should be directed to God above, it is okay to accept thanks for leading well, after all, as Paul quotes Jesus in verse 18, the worker deserves his wages.

Certainly we need to keep this balanced with the knowledge that it is God working through us, but I suggest that this passage here gives us the imperative, that when someone leads the affairs of the church well, they should be given the thanks due to them. Whether this is monetary or otherwise isn’t the point, rather we should thank those who lead well.

Fairness

The second principle that I find comes from verses 19 and 20, and that is the principle of fairness.

There are two concepts that Paul gives us within this principle of fairness. Firstly, verse 19 is a protection against false accusations. And then verse 20 talks about what to do if the leader is found sinning.

Avoid false accusations

The idea in verse 19 is a fairly well known idea, but one that needs some balance.

You see, Paul says that no accusation should ever be entertained against an elder (or in our case a leader), unless it is brought by two or three witnesses.

The idea is quite simple - leaders are vulnerable to false accusations, and they should be protected.

Unfortunately, there are countless stories of church leaders who have been accused, essentially had their ministries completely ruined, only to be found innocent, but with the damage already done.

But the tricky part in all of this is: how do you know if the person is actually guilty or not. Well, Paul gives us a tip, but I believe it should be seen as a tip illustrating the principle of fairness. The tip is: if only one person is making the accusation, then there is a good chance that nothing is wrong.

We can take this too far however, and certainly in the past it has.

For example, a church leader abuses someone in private, that person comes forward, but the church fails to listen, because there is only one accusation.

This is where we are called to be wise and discerning. While we don’t want to unnecessarily drag the leader through the mud, but we do need to be wise with the evidence before us. And if it involves a minor, we need to follow the laws of the land as well.

The key principle however is fairness. Our leaders have important tasks and we need to treat them with a level of fairness, not allowing false accusations to be thrown around and affecting their ministry.

Reprove the sinner

The very sad reality is that as much as we need to protect our leaders, unfortunately they aren’t perfect. And so while fairness means protecting them against false accusations, if the evidence is there that they are in fact sinning, then fairness also means dealing with their sin in an appropriate manner.

In the NIV, we’re told that we are to reprove them before everyone. The Greek word used here to say “reprove” is not just to admonish, but to sternly admonish.

Now this idea of public admonition is a tricky one and one that doesn’t sit well with the way we do things. But Paul spells out his reason why he asks for this. As it says at the end of verse 20 - “so that the others may take warning”.

The point is, when a leader sins, it can have further affect than just the sin itself. It sends a message to others, whether consciously or not, that this level of behaviour is acceptable.

Therefore, I would suggest that the level of which the admonition should be done publicly, depends on how well the sin was known.

For example, if the leader gets angry with his wife in private and treats her poorly, if this is found out they should be told that it is unacceptable, but it should not be broadcast beyond those who already know about it.

If on the other hand, a leader behaves badly in a way that affects many people and is known by many, this should be dealt with on a more public level.

Like I said with the false accusation though, this requires great discernment. If handled poorly, it can cause more damage than it fixes.

The end product is that we want to be creating an environment that reflects God. This is after all the way we are going to make the church the beautiful place that it can be.

Impartiality

So the first two principles are appreciation and fairness. The third principle comes from verse 21, where we are given the principle of impartiality.

Paul gives Timothy two instructions in this verse. Firstly to keep the instructions without partiality, and secondly to do nothing out of favouritism.

The word partiality in the Greek, has the meaning of prejudgment, in other words, we shouldn’t be jumping to conclusion. In many ways, this principle of impartiality fits with the previous principle of fairness.

If we are to be fair, then we won’t presuppose whether someone is guilty or innocent. And also, as Paul continues in verse 21, we won’t have favouritism as well.

The reality is, when we show partiality and favouritism, what we are really doing is taking God out of our view of the world. It’s essentially saying, I know best and I won’t listen to anyone else.

In about a month, we will have our annual general meeting, and the members will be given the opportunity to vote for who is to be the deacons for the next twelve months. It’s easy to vote for people that we like, but what we need to be doing is being discerning - do we think this person has the characteristics of what a leader should be. This needs to be done prayerfully. Now it very well may be that everyone on the list is suitable, after all, people only tend to be nominated if they are first considered suitable, but the concept still remains. We need to go in without prejudgment, rather allowing the Spirit to guide the way we engage with the process.

Caution

The fourth principle I’m going to take from verses 22 to 23, and that is the principle of caution.

In verse 22, Paul warns Timothy about not being hasty in the laying on of hands.

Now scholars have actually argued about what Paul is specifically talking about when he talks about the laying on of hands. In the context it seems to be more than just laying hands on someone when they need prayer - after all, we should be quick to pray, not cautious.

In the context, I would suggest that Paul is actually talking about commissioning people for ministry. In which case, it is clear why the call for caution is there.

There is a lot of responsibility for our leaders. Ultimately they are the ones who are either going to set the right direction or otherwise. It is so very important that we get that right.

But after verse 22 we get quite a strange verse with a number of commentators noting that it seems out of place. You see, in the middle of these instruction about how to deal with the leaders, suddenly Paul stops to make mention that he should not only drink water but a little wine as well.

However, I think we can look at this verse with the same principle of caution that we were just looking at.

You see, while this might be a favourite verse for those of you who enjoy a nice bottle of wine, the concept behind it is bigger than whether alcohol is acceptable or not.

You see, in those days, a little wine was sometimes prescribed for illnesses. But for Christians who know the problems of drunkenness, it could be argued that even if the doctor orders some wine, they are going to stay away from it. I believe, on this occasion, Paul saying: actually, that’s not the cautious approach, rather the cautious approach is to listen to your doctor.

Like all of the principles I’ve laid out, discernment is the key here. I am not saying to just blindly do whatever the doctor tells you to do. But rather, with wisdom, do what is needed.

Although it might not seem to have anything to do with leadership, the principle can still be applied. You see, just as you should be cautious when you appoint someone into a leadership role, so too, should you be cautious (or wise) when dealing with them once they are in the role.

Discernment

Finally I come to the principle that in many ways under girds the previous four principles, and that is, the principle of discernment.

In verses 24 and 25, Paul says it plainly, sins are obvious and good deeds are also obvious.

I suggest Paul is trying to just be clear with his advice. You see, he’s given advice about how to avoid false accusations. He’s given advice about how to commission the right people for ministry.

But in all of the advice, he doesn’t want Timothy just operating blindly.

It like the case I highlighted before - you see you could think that you shouldn’t investigate someone because there is only one accusation. But if there sin is obvious, don’t just dismiss it based on some misread of the Bible, rather deal with it. There is no place for sin in God’s church.

Conclusion

There is a lot in ask if this. As we really begin to engage with it we can start to see all sorts of applications for how we should deal with our leaders.

No leader is perfect, but if we have been discerning, then we can be sure that they have been places there by God. In which case, we need to treat them as such. Not blindly going along with them, but rather flowing these principles that I have just laid out.

So as we think about our leaders, ask yourself :

Have I shown them my appreciation for what they’ve done?

Have I agreed fairly in the way I’ve treated them?

Have I been impartial with them? Avoiding any prejudgement?

Have I been cautious with them by allowing time for the holy spirit to intervene?

And have I been discerning in my approach to them?

As we allow our leaders to flourish in such a God honouring way, and as our leaders start to stand up and act in a godly way, that is when we will see the church become the beautiful and bright spark that this world so desperately needs.

I know that the church will continue to stumble from time to time, but the church is so much more than that. The church is something that God has placed on this earth to be the main vessel of his word – the wonderful truth of Jesus Christ. We need to protect this, and we are gong to be best placed to do this when we get the leadership right.