Sermon Tone Analysis

The local church needs leaders.

This is God’s design, and this likely isn’t something new to you.

Without people who are willing to lead and to serve, to volunteer, and to give; without people willing to step up and use their gifts, without people who are willing to minister to those whom the Lord has given us, without people who are willing to do what it takes to reach the lost, the local church will wither away into obscurity or possibly obsolescence.

The work the Lord has for us is too big, too important, too weighty for any one person to handle.

We all need each other.

And we need a plurality of men (a group of likeminded men) to lead us, to guide us as a shepherd guides and cares for his sheep.

We need men who will give oversight to the body, men who will give their attention to prayer and the ministry of the word (Acts 6:4).

As the leadership of the church goes, so goes the church.

Who will lead the church is not a matter of triviality.

It’s not merely an “Oh, they’ll do in a pinch” scenario.

It’s more than the church taking out a personal ad:

“Traditional, established, independent Christian church seeking faithful, spiritually mature men willing to give several hours a week to oversight, leadership, vision, teaching, preaching, praying.

All interested parties, inquire within.”

Who will lead the church is a matter of serious consideration—it’s not a free-for-all, open application kind of job.

This is something the church must take seriously.

And the Lord is gracious to raise up men of God, to unite them to our local church family, and call them to this role.

We are so blessed to have a number of men in this local body who are either ready to step into this role and lead or to join the elder team in the next few years.

And we have both men and women who are ready to step into the role of deacon (a role that we’ll discuss next week).

For this week, for our purposes here this morning, we’re going to look at the biblical office of elder/pastor/overseer.

These three words describe the same role using different titles:

Elder comes from the Jewish background; generally those with seniority would be the leaders and decision makers.

In the NT Church, elder doesn’t have anything to do with physical age or maturity but rather spiritual maturity.

Pastor is the Latin word for shepherd.

The visual of shepherd is all the image we need to describe the office of pastor—the one who loves and is concerned for those in his care.

Overseer, or your Bible might say bishop, is the one responsible for the spiritual oversight of a congregation.

These three describe the same role.

It’s like the transitive property of equality in mathematics.

My 9-year-old reminded me of this (I’ve long since forgotten most math I ever learned; Sorry, Mrs. MacDonald).

The transitive property: if A=B and B=C then A=C.

Elder and Overseer are used interchangeably.

A=B

Overseer and Shepherd are used interchangeably.

B=C

If elder and overseer are the same, and overseer and shepherd are the same, then it follows that elder and shepherd are one and the same.

Elder=Overseer.

Overseer=Shepherd.

Elder=Shepherd/Pastor

This is what we’re talking about.

I will read the word overseer (that’s the word used in 1 Timothy 3), but we need to understand that whichever of the words are used, we’re speaking about one office in the Church, one role: the role we call elder.

>If you have your Bible (and I hope you do), please turn with me to 1 Timothy 3. If you’re able and willing, please stand for the reading of God’s Holy Word:

May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Holy Word!

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As we seek elders, what is it we’re looking for?

Perfection?

No.

No one would verbally admit that perfection is what’s being called for here.

But in practice, it’s almost as if the church expects its elders/ pastors/ overseers to be functionally perfect.

He can’t mess up like the rest of us, he can’t really have any issues, none of those big sins (or little sins really).

He doesn’t get angry, he never struggles with pride (ever), he’s omnipresent (at every meeting, every gathering, every event), he only ever smiles, his breath never stinks, and he makes a really good cup of coffee.

“Now the overseer must be perfect.”

No.

No, what it says is: Now the overseer is to be above reproach...

This is, many think, a general heading to the qualifications for the overseer.

Above reproach does not mean “without sin”, which would disqualify everyone except Jesus; it means good report.

The elder’s public reputation, his observable conduct is clear of any issues.

Whatever we understand this phrase—above reproach—to mean, we cannot take it to mean ‘faultless’; no man alive today would make the cut.

Only one Man in all history has been faultless.

I’ve served with a lot of men in various churches and, whereas none of them are anywhere near perfect, the men who belong in the leadership of the church are above reproach.

That is, there are plenty of people—those from within the church and those outside the church—who have nothing bad to say about them, no charge leveled against them would stand up.

You can imagine how this plays out.

Say you’re out around town and someone says something about Don or Joe and you can say, without any hesitation, “Nah, that doesn’t sound like him.

He wouldn’t do that.”

And you don’t even have to check into it, because you know.

He is above reproach.

This above reproach is echoed in verse 7:

Have a good reputation with outsiders and above reproach form brackets around the requirements for elders in the church.

It’s not a matter of being perfect, but we must understand that the elder must meet high ideals.

The elder’s reputation must be able to withstand assaults when they come.

There is a high standard for elders, but that standard is not perfection.

If we’re not seeking perfection when we’re looking for elders, what are we seeking?

Super-Saints?

No.

We’re not seeking for perfection; it’s not even that we’re searching for super-saints or super-Christians.

The characteristics of the elder listed here in 1 Timothy 3 are all fairly common.

The list is remarkable for being unremarkable.

It’s unexceptional, really.

There is no mention here of the level of IQ or the necessity of being an extrovert.

There’s nothing about education or degrees.

With only two exceptions, everything in the list of characteristics is required of every Christian.

It’s not that elders/overseers/pastors are held to a ridiculous standard that no one else is.

In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

The elder is supposed to be faithful to his wife.

Does that mean the rest of the church can be unfaithful, or have a bunch of wives?

Of course not.

The elder should not be given to drunkenness.

Does that mean the rest of the church can “tie one on” and get plastered every weekend (not Sunday, of course, but any other day of the week)?

The elder must be hospitable.

Can the rest of the church be selfish with their time or their homes?

No, Hebrews 13 makes hospitality a requirement of all believers.

Here’s the truth: it’s not about evaluating elders/pastors/overseers with a strict code and then letting yourself slide with whatever sort of behavior you feel like.

What you expect from your elders, you should expect of yourself (with one exception).

These qualifications for elders have nothing to do with being super spiritual, super-Christians; they have everything to do with a mature faith and a calling to lead the members of the local church.

Among the list of qualifications are a mix of positive and negative attributes: he will do/be this, he won’t do/be this.

As I read through the list of qualifications, none of them make me think that Paul is going to launch into, “Oh yeah, he can do all these things AND he’s “faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!”

We’re not seeking Superman.

What we’re seeking is really a common committed Christ-follower.

It’s pretty basic stuff, really.

Faithful to his wife—there’s nothing in this that mentions divorce or remarriage, and nothing that rules out a single man (Paul and Barnabas and Jesus would be ruled out).

What’s called for is faithfulness.

Faithful to his wife really does capture the meaning here.

Where divorce is concerned, these cases should be evaluated on an individual basis.