Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Introduction
To illustrate that church leadership is a thankless task with unreasonable demands but insubordinate people, use two illustrations.
Read “The Perfect Pastor” to illustrate the unreasonable expectations of congregants.
Show “Herding Cats” video as a symbol of the nature of leading volunteers.
Use some humour to show that Jesus compared spiritual leaders to shepherds leading sheep, but most congregations are not composed of sheep, but of cats.
Transition to as the text that gives the qualities and requirements for church leaders.
It speaks about two categories of ministers:
Overseers
Deacons
We do not really know what deacons did, but these seem to suggest two categories of ministers in a congregation: those with governmental authority and responsibility and those without it.
The nature of the lists: The items on the list are transferable, meaning that what is said of one group mostly applies to the other too.
Overseers
Overseers are cat herders with governmental authority.
That means the cats follow their instructions.
(Roll eyes and shake head to show sarcasm.)
The noble task
What is an overseer?
The NT uses three terms to refer to the same office: (a) overseer, (b) elder, and (c) shepherd [pastor].
(Hint: Pastor is the Latin word for shepherd.)
The three terms depict difference facets of the person’s role.
Overseer: the person is responsible for giving oversight to a congregation.
Elder: the person is a senior, wise, mature member of the community.
Shepherd: the person is to lead, feed, and care for “the cats” (I mean “sheep”).
Essentially, then, an overseer is an elder and a shepherd.
He carries the God-given responsibility to govern the church wisely and lovingly.
Why is it good to desire to be an overseer?
Sarcasm: Everyone in the church will love you and look up to you.
(Roll eyes and shake head.)
The passage gives two reasons; it gives them as boundaries around the qualifications for elders and deacons.
They perform a noble task (v. 1).
The Greek literally says, “good work.”
In other words, serving as an elder (or a deacon) is an opportunity to do good, to serve, to protect, and to nurture the flock of God.
They please a noble taskmaster (v.
13).
Serving faithfully gains us excellent standing and great assurance in our faith in Christ Jesus.
In other words, it pleases the Lord and builds our own relationship with him.
The noble elder
In verses 2–7, Paul lays down a variety of qualities that should characterise overseers.
The first one functions as an umbrella term: The overseer must be above reproach.
What are the character requirements?
Five Virtues
faithful to his wife
temperate
self-controlled
respectable
hospitable
Four Vices
not a lover of wine
not violent but gentle
not quarrelsome
not a lover of money
What are the competence requirements?
1.
He must be able to teach.
I had a pastor who explained this to me.
This is what he said, “It does not say that he must be able to teach well, just that he must be able to teach.”
(Roll eyes and look heavenward.)
Surely Paul did not mean, “He must be able to teach badly!”
Any clown can teach badly.
If you advertise for a worship leader and state the competency as “must be able to sing,” you don’t mean “out of tune.”
Even I can do that.
From the parallel account in Titus, we learn the point of this “able to teach.”
Elders must be sufficiently studied to recognise and refute error.
2.
He must be able to parent.
The key word here is manage (προιστημι).
.....................
The key word here is προιστημι,
What are the community requirements?
There are two requirements that speak to the overseer’s position in the community.
They both point in the same direction: an overseer must have a proven track record that commands respect.
He must not be a recent convert.
He must have a good reputation.
Deacons
Do you notice the phrase Paul used to switch from one group to another?
It is “in the same way.”
The Greek word is ὡσαυτως.
He used the same phrase in chapter 2. In verse 8, he speaks to the men.
“I want the men to lift up holy hands in prayer,” he said.
Then he switches to the women by saying, “in the same way, I want the women to ...”
What are deacons?
There NT never tells us clearly what deacons are or what they do.
The word simply means “someone who serves.”
.
The service can be anything, from practical tasks like distributing food to widows to powerful proclamation of the gospel.
Perhaps the best clue comes from contrasting deacons with elders.
Elders govern the church; deacons lead and serve, but they do not carry the governmental responsibility.
What are the qualifications of deacons?
The passage lays out four qualifications for being a deacon.
1. Godly character
2. Depth
3. Probation
4. Family
What about verse 11?
You may have noticed that I skipped verse 11.
This is how it reads in the NIV.
The problem is that we do not know which women are being addressed here.
There are two possibilities: (a) the deacons’ wives or (b) the deaconesses.
I find the evidence for deaconesses more persuasive.
“In the same way” is Paul’s way of introducing the next group.
There is a resumptive point of departure at the start of verse 12 that suggests a return to “deacons.”
What is the reward for serving as a deacon?
We might wonder, “Why bother?”
I need to best scrutinised and then serve in a role that has no power.
“Why bother?”
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