What's the most important criteria by which church leaders will be judged?
Here's Stephen Davey. Those, by the way, who lead the church will one day give an account for the souls entrusted to their church. And they're not going to be asked the question, you know, were you a good Baptist or Presbyterian or Episcopalian or Methodist or whatever leader? And did you follow the traditional expectations of your denomination?
No, they and we all will be asked as elders, were you faithful to your role as revealed in Holy Scripture? Denominational affiliations are important. They help us clarify and fine tune some of the doctrinal differences in the Christian church. But for church leaders, the primary allegiance lies in something far more significant than a denomination. In the days of the early church, Paul left a young man named Titus on the island of Crete and gave him some instructions on establishing a church. Part of those instructions involved developing godly leaders called elders. Today, we begin a series from Titus one called The Shepherd's Mantle.
We're looking at the qualifications for church leaders. This is Wisdom for the Heart. And here's Stephen Davey with today's lesson from God's word. If you ever had the idea that we live in a strange, confused culture where religious beliefs are more bizarre than believable, if you've come to the personal conclusion that the gospel is desperately needed to both liberate and redeem a culture that is decaying and depraved, then now is that time. In fact, it's always been time.
It's always been that time. You go back into Grecian history. You travel back 2,000 years ago. In fact, you travel to a flourishing civilization that once was on the island of Crete where the worship of Dionysios was prominent.
And you'll come to the same conclusion. Remains of a temple to that particular Greek god are still visible. His father was Zeus, the chief god of the Greeks. The birth of Dionysios was anything but normal. In fact, almost too bizarre to believe. While his mother was carrying him, Zeus decided to kill her, but first snatched from her womb the preborn body of Dionysios. And then before incinerating the mother with his glory, Zeus had the baby sewn into his own thigh. You can't make that up, can you?
You certainly wouldn't believe it. But that is strange enough. Just after the infant is born, he's kidnapped by the sons of the earth known as the Titans, who didn't want to be ruled by this god. So they cooked little Dionysios and ate him. However, his heart at just the last minute was rescued in time by Zeus, who swallowed Dionysios' heart and then reconstructed the body of Dionysios. And then Zeus blasted the Titans with lightning, and from their ashes, mankind evolved, which for centuries was the Greek theory of origins.
I can believe that, can't you? Dionysios grows up to create a religion of ecstasy and emotionalism, saturated with drunkenness and sexual immorality. In fact, wine was such a critical part of this religion that Dionysios became known as the god of wine. The Romans picked up on this religion, they kind of liked it, and so they came up with their own few versions or attachments, and they named him Bacchus, the Roman name. Same god, the Roman god of wine. People involved in the religion engaged in ecstatic orgies of demonic possession and sexual perversion, and all the while in this state of drunkenness.
They believed that religion was a transcendent experience, and that drunkenness allowed you to lose control of your mind and just sort of open you up and drop any and all inhibition and come in contact with the deity. And you think, that's really weird. That's strange. No, that really is not even new. Just read the personal testimony of Steve Jobs, whose biography I recently finished, his version of Buddhism, and his search for elevated spiritual conscious experiences involved dropping acid and other mind-altering drugs so that he could, he believed, enter a state of mind where he believed he engaged with the spirit world.
It's really not a new practice. For the followers of Dionysus and Bacchus, their drug was alcohol, and they sort of lost all forms of restraint in their so-called connection with deity. In fact, in one excavated temple, you can see in the main section of the temple, the remains of a well built a circular pit in the middle of the floor. There on the main section, the well is beautifully tiled.
You can still see in pictures grapevines and naked figures. It was located there for worshippers engaged in one of their drunken, sexually saturated orgies to literally go and vomit their food and drink into that well. They had been gorging themselves upon so they could simply go and do it again.
Literally throwing up was their view of offering a sacrifice to their God. Thirty years or so earlier before the gospel came to the island of Crete through Paul's ministry, several Jews had traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast of Pentecost. And while there on that day the church was created, they heard a message preached by a converted fisherman named Peter, and they were born again by faith in the Messiah, Jesus Christ. They returned to their island and began to spread this truly liberating gospel of Jesus Christ. Thirty years after Pentecost, the apostle Paul visits the island with a young pastor named Titus. More than likely, Paul was visiting Crete after being released from his first Roman imprisonment.
He was given parole for about two to three years. Visited Crete during this particular time before he was rearrested and ultimately executed at the command of Nero. We're not told how long Paul was on the island of Crete, but you can only imagine the mission field.
You can only imagine this island where its winemaking was world renowned, where drunkenness was an epidemic, where deception had become the reputation of Cretans throughout the civilized world. Their sexually driven religion would surely lure someone's interest and devotion far more than a gospel message that required repentance and self-restraint and holy living. But the gospel had taken root by the power of God's Spirit. The Spirit of God had transformed the lives of people who had seen enough of Dionysus to know that peace and satisfaction weren't found at the bottom of a bottle, so to speak. That sacrifices to him were nothing more than self-destructing acts, that one orgy after another had only left them more empty and more alone than ever before. Churches start springing up. Assemblies are devoted to the bits and pieces that they could recall, information, perhaps missionaries that had come along as well, and the church had begun to grow.
They were in serious jeopardy, however. Their spiritual health is hanging in the balance. False teachers had already begun to infiltrate the churches with their myths and speculations. They were pulling back in from the religions of Dionysus and others.
Leaderless congregations were open prey and unprotected. What the church on the island of Crete needed was spiritual leadership. So Paul tells Titus in chapter 1 and verse 5. So if you don't have your Bibles open yet, turn to Titus 1.5.
We'll cover this verse, I think, most of it. This is the reason I left you in Crete, Titus, that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you. Listen, the church in Crete needed the same thing the church needs today. Men, led by God's Spirit, committed to the Scriptures, uncompromising in their gospel, fearless in their doctrine, blameless in their patterns of living, and pure in their personal relationships.
What the church needed then and what she needs today is the same thing. The church needs shepherds. Men who will wear the mantle of leadership, understand the gravity of it all, accepting the responsibilities of it all.
Men who will feed the sheep and shepherd and protect and guard and nurture the flock of God. It's a call to men. I couldn't help but chuckle over the courage of a recent ad I read for Levi Strauss. I actually found it hard to imagine that a secular company would be so willing to be so politically incorrect, especially in our confused culture where sexual identity is blurred if not completely erased. And I'll read it to you.
You won't believe it. Once upon a time, men wore the pants and wore them well. Women rarely had to open doors and little old ladies never had to cross the street alone. Men took charge because that's what they did. But somewhere along the way, the world decided it no longer needed men.
Disco by disco, latte by nonfat latte. That's convicting. We'll forget that part. Men were stripped of their khakis and left stranded on the road between boyhood and androgyny, which means neither masculine nor feminine. They're not finished with the ad, but can you believe they're writing this? It continues. But today, there are questions our genderless society has no answers for. The world sits idly by as cities crumble, children misbehave, and those little old ladies remain on one side of the street.
For the first time since bad guys, we need heroes. We need grown-ups. We need men to put down the plastic fork, step away from the salad bar, and untie the world from the tracks of complacency. I mean, this is a commercial by guys that make pants, okay?
And then it finishes. It's time to get your hands dirty. It's time to answer the call of manhood. It's time to wear the pants. I'm surprised somebody didn't sue the pants off them for suggesting that men ought to lead and nurture and help and there's some kind of unique call to manhood?
My goodness. Paul is going to tell Titus to identify men in the assembly who are effectively willing and qualified to, as it were, wear the pants in the assembly, over whom God has granted authority and leadership and care. And so at the very outset of this letter, you've got to get ready for a politically incorrect message. In fact, today, ladies and gentlemen, if you want to talk about male headship, if you want to talk about male leadership, not only in the home but in the church, you are becoming by that even more politically incorrect not only in the world out there but inside the evangelical church in here. You're out of step. But if Paul could tell Titus to create this kind of culture inside the church of the redeemed located on the island of Crete, surrounded by sexual confusion, identity confusion, religious perversion, he certainly can expect that we can do the same thing today by the redeeming, life-transforming power of the Holy Spirit.
So you have to get ready for some politically incorrect messages. Now you might notice in this verse that all is not well among the Christians and the churches on the island of Crete. You might notice again in verse 5 that Paul tells Titus to set in order what remains. Set in order comes from the Greek verb, it's a compound word actually, part of it is ortho-o from which we use, we use that word often in the same idea for orthopedics, the straightening of bones. The word ortho-o is more predominantly understood in the use of the word orthodontics. My wife and I invested heavily in that practice. How many of you have had braces at some point in time?
Look at all of the money we've spent on that. Well, I had braces growing up too. And I'm going to date myself here, but back then when I was a boy, and I'm old enough to say that now, when I was a boy, way back then, none of it was flexible or plastic. You didn't choose colors for spacers. You had one color and it was shiny metal. Those were called metal mouth for a very good reason, right?
Uppers and lowers. I had a really pronounced overbite and by the time I was in middle school, one of my two front teeth stuck out so badly that I could hardly close my lips. My friends joked that I could eat watermelon through a picket fence. And those were my friends. In fact, I'll tell you this, several years later when I was in high school, my brothers used to love and go and get that one particular picture of my middle school book picture. And there I was, big ears, first thing to grow in my whole body.
Big ears, red hair, freckled face, and that one tooth sticking straight, and they'd laugh and they'd laugh and they'd laugh. I'm okay now. Ten years of counseling of health.
Let me tell you, this works. So I've got to tell you, I was really glad for braces, and I was very grateful that my parents sacrificed for them. If you've had braces, though, you know they were a pain. They hurt.
There's nothing quite like the smack of a basketball when you're wearing upper and lower braces in the face, right? But it was worth it all. That's the word Paul uses here.
In fact, it's found here in the New Testament only this one time. Titus, I want you to go and straighten out crooked things. There are things that need to be set in order. In fact, Paul adds the little phrase, they remain. They remain. In other words, he hadn't been able to finish the job.
It's never really finished. Setting into place proper leadership structures, organizing the assembly, relationships between the offices of deacon and elder and the congregation itself. There were broken things to mend.
Church had been around for 30 years. There were crooked things to straighten out. And by the way, it would be painful. It would require extra attention. It would be emotionally costly. And the problems, just like your braces, would not be fixed overnight. It's going to take a lot longer than you want.
But it would be worth it. But can you imagine Titus having this as his introduction? This is his job. Can you imagine him arriving in an established church and they're going to say to him, well, just what do you intend to do?
And what does he say? I intend to straighten you out. And it's going to hurt. Well, great, come on in. Let's get started. No, they're going to say it.
And why do you think you can do that? He'd have this letter giving him apostolic authority and he'd turn to about that verse we call verse number five and he'd say, well, look, Paul left me here in Crete to set in order what remains and to appoint elders in every city as I've been directed by him. Now the word Paul uses here in reference to these men who will serve in each church is this word elder. It may not be as familiar within the Baptist congregations as it ought to be. The term elder was adapted from the life of the synagogue. Elder can be translated bearded.
It refers to age. The elder was the common term for leadership and since the early church was primarily Jewish, they immediately understood this term and it was perfectly suitable. In fact, by the time you get to Acts chapter 14, Luke is writing that they are appointing elders in every church. These would be the leaders who would determine church policy, Acts chapter 15. They would oversee the church affairs, Acts chapter 20. They would rule and teach and preach, 1 Timothy 5. They would exhort and refute false teaching, Titus 1.9.
They would act as shepherds, setting an example for all the flock, 1 Peter 5. Now if we dig a little deeper, we'll find that there are actually three terms that appear in the New Testament for this one office. The term presbuteros is often translated elder and from the earliest beginnings of the church, it was clear then that these presbuteroi were spiritually minded elders who were identified as having responsibility and development and directional responsibilities in the church. The passages that use the term presbuteros seem to focus on the character of the office and the character of the man more than anything else.
In fact, if you ransack your New Testament, you'll find a lot less about what an elder does as you do about who an elder is. Another New Testament term for the office is episkopos, usually translated bishop. Episkopos was a term the Greeks would immediately understand where presbuteros would be a term that the Jewish converts would immediately understand. Bishops would have been immediately understood by the Gentile converts as someone who in their culture was given responsibility by the emperor to lead newly conquered city-states. The bishop was responsible not to the people conquered, but to the emperor who delegated to him the right to lead. In fact, that phrase, that term episkopos, is used of Jesus Christ in 1 Peter 2 where he is called the episkopos of our souls. It's a wonderful phrase. He has the right to rule over our newly conquered lives.
Wonderful nuance. So presbuteros and episkopos were two terms that emerged in the early New Testament church referring to the men who guarded and guided the church under their delegated authority and their accountability which was to the chief shepherd, Jesus Christ. Now you can easily see, by the way, just in these terms that I'm using, whether you've had Greek or not, how the Presbyterian and Episcopalian denominations created their names by simply transliterating these Greek terms.
Episkopos equals Episcopalian. Presbuteros gives us the term Presbyterian, which is probably why Baptists have been so reluctant to use perfectly biblical titles for the offense. Let me just say it's a lot more important for us to be biblical than Presbyterian or Episcopalian or Baptist, right? After all, we ought to be committed to the words of Scripture rather than and above anything else. I've had people say, well, I'm in a Baptist church.
How do you have elders? You're not a Presbyterian church. I thought you were a Baptist church. No, we hope to be a biblical church because those terms are biblical. Those, by the way, who lead the church will one day give an account for the souls entrusted to their church, and they're not going to be asked the question, you know, were you a good Baptist or Presbyterian or Episcopalian or Methodist or whatever leader, and did you follow the traditional expectations of your denomination?
No, they and we all will be asked as elders, were you faithful to your role to yield in holy Scripture? Did you do in the 21st century what I, the Spirit of God, commanded the shepherds to do in the first century? You see, the cultures changed, but the role didn't. The cultures shifted, but the objectives didn't.
The goal never moved. Did you wear the mantle of a shepherd well? There's one more term, the third one, that clearly defines this office. It's used less often. It's translated pastor or shepherd.
It's the term poimen in its plural form, poimenos. It's also used of Christ by Peter who calls Jesus the shepherd of our souls, 1 Peter 2.25. The Apostle Peter also used the term again when he referred to Jesus Christ as our chief shepherd, 1 Peter 5.4. All the undershepherds, elders, bishops, pastors are underneath the authority of the chief shepherd. We, as leaders, are accountable not to the flock, but to him. We don't speak for the flock. We speak for Christ to the flock. And that, of course, can be distorted and misused and misapplied. Therein lies the protection of a group of men committed to the Scriptures and to the Spirit of God holding one another accountable and to the authority of Jesus Christ.
Little wonder that such care then would be given. In fact, the solution for the churches on the island of Crete would be found in these men so burdened and qualified for such a task as this. Now the term poimen speaks to the feeding of the flock. Feeder, pastor, means pasture.
He's a feeder. And it's interesting to me when Paul categorically speaks of men given to the church as gifts. He could have chosen any one of these three titles, but he chose the term poimenos in his plural form almost as if to say, look, of all the things that you can do, make sure you feed the flock. Feed the flock of God which is among you. 1 Peter 5.2. Peter, do you love me? I do. Then feed my sheep. Peter, do you love me? I do. Then tend to my lambs. Peter, do you love me?
I do. Shepherd my sheep. Lead them into green pastures well fed and taken care of. That's why it isn't optional for elders to deliver the Word to the flock and expound on it and teach it and apply it and exhort obedience to it because everything else is barren ground.
This is the fertile field of green pastures for the souls of the flock. I remember a woman meeting with a pastor in town. She eventually came into town and was concerned about the church she would attend. She had her list of questions to ask the head pastor.
Made an appointment with him and she began immediately down her list. Did he hold to the scriptures? What doctrine did they believe? Did he teach the scriptures verse by verse? After a couple of minutes he actually interrupted her and said, I know what kind of church you're looking for and let me tell you we're not into that but I recommend you visit Colonial.
I hear they do that over there. That was the end of the appointment and she came here. Now that isn't a compliment necessarily to me alone. It's a commendation of this entire body of elders that we have here whose passion is to deliver the word of God to our culture in this generation. I can't begin to tell you how incredibly blessed I've been over the last 25 years to serve with men that have stayed the course, that have remained committed to holy living, that have met the qualifications of Titus 1, that have held to sound doctrine and a biblical philosophy of ministry and with humility and graciousness have given their lives over to serve the flock of God.
We have been blessed by God as a church. There's much more for us to learn regarding the Office of Elder but we need to stop here. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. This was the beginning of a series called The Shepherd's Mantle.
Today's message is called Politically Incorrect and we'll bring you the conclusion to this message next time. We're actually gonna spend the next few weeks studying the role and the qualifications of church elders because it's so important. If you're a leader in your church or someone who aspires to leadership, I encourage you to take a look at the book Stephen's written called Titus.
As Paul invested in a young leader named Titus, he gave tremendous insight for our church leaders today. It will help you. Call us today at 866-48-BIBLE. That's 866-482-4253. You'll also find it on our website which is wisdomonline.org. Thanks for joining us today. Please come back next time for the conclusion to this message here on Wisdom for the Heart. . .
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