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Politically Incorrect Part 2

Wisdom for the Heart / Dr. Stephen Davey
The Truth Network Radio
January 14, 2025 12:00 am

Politically Incorrect Part 2

Wisdom for the Heart / Dr. Stephen Davey

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January 14, 2025 12:00 am

In a world as confusing as Crete was 2,000 years ago, what does it take to build a church that thrives? In this episode, Stephen Davey looks at Paul’s instructions to Titus—a mission to establish spiritual leadership on the Island of Crete, a place filled with strange religious beliefs, rampant deception, and broken lives. The Cretans needed something different: not more gods and more empty rituals, but true hope and leadership rooted in Jesus Christ. Stephen challenges us to consider what it means to be biblically faithful leaders today, even when the culture wants to erase distinctions, roles, and the call to godliness. The message Titus received is just as necessary for us now as it was then: the church needs men willing to step up, to lead, to be shepherds and guides, even if it’s counter to what society wants. Join us as we explore the kind of spiritual leadership that God desires and that the world desperately needs. You’ll be challenged, inspired, and perhaps even a bit uncomfortable—but that’s exactly where growth happens.

Listen to the full-length version of this sermon: https://www.wisdomonline.org/teachings/titus-lesson-04

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Church leaders should be learning and growing, but they also need to keep in mind the priority of God's Word. In our generation, ladies and gentlemen, the average church leader can quote with ease Peter Drucker, but not the Apostle Peter. They can easily bring out insights from John Maxwell for leadership, but not the Apostle John.

Now, there's nothing wrong with Maxwell or Drucker, but what you learn and what you graze upon as a leader is what you will feed the flock. God has blessed the church with many gifted and talented people from whom we can learn and be challenged. However, church leaders need to always remember that God's Word is the authority, and it's God's Word we need to focus on above all else. In addition, it's important for church leaders who are selecting leaders to remember that while skill and knowledge in leadership tactics is helpful, it's not the most important qualification for those who lead the Church of Jesus Christ. Today on Wisdom for the Heart, Stephen Davey concludes a lesson he began yesterday.

It's called Politically Incorrect. We're looking at the Biblical qualifications for elders, and here's Stephen with today's message. Now, the term poimane 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 poimaneos in its 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 shared with our guests at the Wisdom Banquet this past week around 650 friends who showed up, many who are part of this church, that God is now beginning to use this ministry of the word to spread. It's almost as if he's been waiting, and I view myself as a part of it, not really the one leading it, but as I step back and look at it, it's amazing to me. It's almost as if God has said, I've been waiting and watching to see if you'd qualify the message, if you'd negotiate on the terms of clear doctrine, if you'd fudge on the truth of the word, and it's almost as if he said in the last 12, 24 months, okay.

Now we're going to let the word run to and fro from this place. I shared with our guests what you'd be equally interested in hearing in the last four months. Wisdom for the Heart has revamped its website, which now makes available every sermon in transcript form and audio form free of charge to anybody who can download it or read it or print it. It's all being given away for free. In these last four months, we have had sermons downloaded 264,000 times. And it wasn't just my mother.

I know she likes getting it, but she doesn't have an iPod, so I know it didn't hurt. We don't know who really they are. We do know the countries they're logging in from. And I'll quickly, very quickly read you the list just in the last four months. The USA, of course.

Canada, India, Romania, England, Wales, Scotland, Puerto Rico, Nigeria, Belgium, Bolivia, Jamaica, New Zealand, Norway, Honduras, Japan, Mexico, Paraguay, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Philippines, Germany, Guam, Spain, France, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Zambia, Australia, Ireland, Barbados, Ghana, Kenya, South Korea, Sudan, Ukraine, Uganda, Egypt, Guatemala, Croatia, Netherlands, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Qatar, Slovakia, Venezuela, Argentina, Aruba, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Chile, Denmark, Ecuador, Italy, Kuwait, Latvia, Tanzania, Uruguay, Russia, Singapore, and Taiwan. Amen? It's amazing, isn't it? I don't know about you, but that just tells me people are hungry.

And I can't tell you how surprised I am. All we're doing is what everybody ought to be doing. But maybe the fact that it's beginning to pick up so much speed is simply to our shame.

Everybody isn't doing it. Our country may very well, and I believe it probably is, be deserving of the condemnation of God delivered to the shepherds of Israel when he said they were feeding themselves instead of feeding the flock. But this is our commission, to preach and teach the truth, to lead the flock, to guide and guard and all those other derivatives of forms and functions. And so to summarize these three terms, the term elder refers to the character of the office, the term bishop refers to the authority of the office, and the term pastor refers to the passion of the office. And from these three terms, along with all the passages where these leaders appear, what emerges then is the role of the spiritual leader. Now by way of very quick overview, let me give you four principle characteristics of this role. First, the elders are plural.

There's a lot of healthy debate out there on this subject and I don't want to bring all of it in here. But I will say that in our effort to follow the New Testament, it is interesting that there is not one explicit reference to a one pastor single elder ruled church. In fact, every place where the term elder is used, it's plural, except when John and Peter use the word to refer to themselves, which then of course would be singular. Now this doesn't mean that there weren't congregations ruled by one pastor or elder.

It's just that none are mentioned. Proponents of a one elder rule say that there were elders in a city church that was composed of individual churches, house churches where single elders had oversight. But then all those house churches would get together in a city periodically and then you had plurality of elders and that's why you had plurality. But the fact remains, the church was seen as one church in that city. Decisions were made by collective processes of elders in reference to the whole church and not the individual parts.

So even in that argument, you still have a plurality involved in decision making. Still others refer to the letters sent by Christ to individual churches in Revelation 2 and 3. They argue that since the letters to the churches were delivered to a singular angel, angelos, you could translate it messenger, that then this was a reference to that church having only one pastor or one elder.

The problem with that view is we're guessing. In fact, if the angel was indeed a pastor in Revelation 2 and 3, it would just as easily reinforce the concept of a leader among leaders. A first among equals since we're not told that this elder didn't represent a group of elders.

We aren't told he was the only one. In fact, we know that one of the churches that received the letter did indeed have more than one elder of the church at Ephesus. And it was to the elders that Paul challenged them to be on the alert.

The principle of a leader among leaders is illustrated in the church of Jerusalem with the prominence of James, the pastor teacher, who was the leader among the other leaders directing the church toward a final decision regarding Gentile converts. We're also told more specifically that some elders are deserving of greater honor than others in the same church. Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 5, 17, and 18 that those elders who work hard at preaching and teaching are worthy of double honor, a word that more than likely refers to remuneration, certainly respect. Which, by the way, also informs us that all the elders in a church body aren't necessarily preaching or teaching, though they must be able to handle the word.

That's one of the qualifications of being an elder. And it also implies that ruling authority was given to some elders in a greater form or fashion than other elders in the same church body. What's important to understand, and you're going to forget all of this, I imagine some of it perhaps, but I want you to know this, there's not one passage that explicitly says that one elder has all of the authority in the church. In fact, that would be a characteristic of a cult, not a church. When taken to face value, if you set aside your denominational biases and prejudices and you come to the scriptures and the New Testament epistles and you try to figure out, okay, how exactly does this work, you find the scriptures clearly indicating that elders are plural even in and appointed in singular churches. And the sharing of responsibility and authority was the sign of a healthy church. Titus, here's what the churches need on the island of Crete.

Elders in every city have these men lead. We had a woman visit our church for several weeks before deciding to leave. I know that happens a lot and I'll never know about it. But she wrote me an email telling me why she had visited and why she was leaving. She wrote a number of things I can't repeat, but one of the things that she wrote was, and I quote, the problem I have with your church is that there are just too many men in leadership. I didn't know whether to write or thank you for making that observation or what.

What a blessing. The elders are plural. Secondly, the elders are providers. I've already touched on the subject of teaching and feeding, but let me just say a few more things about it here. There are elders in churches that love the idea of ruling and power and authority and prominence.

In fact, the early church had to deal with one of them named diatrophes. But shepherding and feeding is somewhere lower down on the list. I mean, that takes work. That takes private obscurity in study.

We'd rather do everything in public. Walter Kaiser points out the anemic state of affairs in the American church because of this issue and he placed the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of elders and pastors who were doing everything but studying and preaching and teaching the Word of God. He says, and I quote him, It is no secret that Christ's church is not at all in good health. She has been languishing because she's been fed junk food.

All kinds of artificial preservatives and all sorts of unnatural substitutes have been served up to her. And as a result, biblical malnutrition has afflicted the same generation that is taking such giant steps to make sure its physical health is never damaged by using food that is harmful to their bodies. At the same time, a spiritual famine is resulting from the absence of any genuine preaching of the Word of God. And I would add my amen to that in my own observation that church leaders in America now are becoming experts at dissecting life and the human experience rather than simply treating the word of life as if it had meaning for today. In our generation, ladies and gentlemen, the average church leader can quote with ease Peter Drucker, but not the apostle Peter. They can easily bring out insights from John Maxwell for leadership, but not the apostle John.

Now there's nothing wrong with Maxwell or Drucker. But what you learn and what you graze upon as a leader is what you will feed the flock. And the Bible is being relegated down there to some kind of proof texting concordance that we'll pull out every once in a while as we talk about the human condition and maybe say something about a Bible verse. And all of the sweep of modern church leadership and manuals on how to pastor have affected the philosophy of ministry now to where pastors even in the evangelical church refuse to take a stand on anything controversial.

They are refusing, ladies and gentlemen, frankly, to wear the pants. My father and I were talking on one occasion recently about how pastors are influenced by the material they're reading through the week. And I'm so blessed by this church, by the way, in giving me a library allowance that I've been able to build up over the years, good books, solid commentaries, good resources, history, culture. We were talking about how pastors are reading all this leadership stuff and new ways of doing things and not that we're against new ways of doing things. We do things new ways all the time.

But sort of relegating the philosophy of the church and ministry to maybe the latest fad. We're being influenced by all this stuff. And I said, Dad, do you think that these men are being influenced by the writings of popular men in more ways than they know it? And my father, who's now been serving 54 years as a missionary, said to me something I never forgot simply because it was so simple and yet so profound. He said, you know, see, when I was a boy growing up on the farm, you could always tell when our cow, Bessie, got into the onions.

You could taste it in the milk. We as leaders feed others what we are grazing upon ourselves. Titus is going to call these men to an undiluted, unmixed, unsoured truth, which is the role of the elder to see that the flock has fed the meat and the milk of the word, cared for and directed and guided biblically. And you know what the greatest joy of any elder is? Any genuine elder, the greatest joy is verbalized so well by the Apostle John who said it this way. I have no greater joy than to know that my children, my spiritual children, are walking in what? The truth. That's the greatest joy that those under my care know and live and walk in the truth. The elders are plural. They are providers. Thirdly, they are protective. We'll actually get into this point later on in chapter 1 as Titus informs the elders that they are to refute those who contradict doctrine.

And that'll be interesting. Our job is to warn and protect the flock just as fathers do in the home. So men do in the church who lead. Fathers in individual homes warn their sons of many things, right?

Fathers in the home warn their daughters of young men, right? I can appreciate the answer of Charles Barkley, that eminent theologian. Basketball Hall of Famer who gave to a reporter who once asked him, here's his answer. The reporter asked him, how is he going to handle his young daughter's future boyfriends? He said, well, I figure if I kill the first guy, word will spread.

I love that. I never stopped warning you, Paul said. Be on guard, he says to the Ephesian elders, for yourselves and for all the flock over whom or among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd, there's the word poimane, to feed the church of God which he purchased with his own blood.

For I know, listen, for I know that after my departure, after I sail away, savage wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock. That is, they don't care about the flock. They don't. They want their own following. Or they want money. Or they want position or prominence.

They really don't care about the flock. The wolves are coming. Get ready, he said, therefore be on the alert. Philip Keller, in his wonderful book taken from his many years raising and tending Sheep Road, and I quote, this warning reminds me of the behavior of sheep when under attack from dogs, cougars, bears, and wolves. He had seen it all. Often in blind fear, they will stand rooted to the spot, watching their companions being cut to shreds. The predator then will easily pounce from one to another, raking and tearing them with tooth and claw. Meanwhile, the other sheep may even act as if they do not hear or recognize the carnage going on around them.

It's as though they were totally oblivious to the peril of their own position. An elder carries that as a burden on his heart. Charles Jefferson, who pastored in the late 1800s, and I'm going to tell, and in fact I'm telling pastors, if you want to read stuff worthy of reading, you've got to go back to the 1800s and everything in between, just throw away.

Most of it. He wrote this, the journey from the cradle to the grave is hazardous. If every man is surrounded by perils, if the universe is indeed alive with forces hostile to the soul, then watchfulness becomes one of the most critical of all the elder pastor's responsibilities. Elders are to be protectors, watchmen, defenders, and guardians of God's people. Perhaps that's why one national Christian leader answered a reporter this way when he was asked, what is the most important quality for a leader, a Christian leader in a church to possess?

And his answer struck me as interesting. He said in a word, courage, courage. It may be true more than ever to discipline sin in the church, to confront internal strife and division in the church, to name sin in the face of growing cultural approval, to stand against doctrinal error, to refute false teaching and challenge false teachers, to literally lay down your life for the sake of the flock, for the benefit of the flock, for the protection of the flock, demands among other qualities, no doubt, courage.

I think that's something you can pray for, for us. Fourthly, the elders have priority. They are plural, they are providers, they are protective, and they have priority. In other words, they rule the flock, they are to be obeyed. The church, ladies and gentlemen, as counterculture as this is going to sound, especially to American ears, the church, according to the New Testament, is not a democracy.

It's not even a republic. Elders are not elected officials so that they might represent their various constituencies that put them into office. The elders are not representatives of the people to bring the opinions of people into a boardroom.

In fact, they are not accountable to the people. They are accountable to God who has set them over in leading the people. So the Apostle Peter would charge the elders to shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion. In other words, if they're making you do it, don't do it. There are a lot of things you can do in the church, don't do that.

But voluntarily, according to the will of God. 1 Peter 5, 2. Elders do not speak for the people. They speak to the people on behalf of Jesus Christ, who has given them a message that in any culture and in every generation never changes. Peter goes on to warn every elder, at the same time encourage them, and when the chief shepherd appears, you, he's speaking to elders, you will receive this unique crown of glory. In other words, the elders are going to one day give an account to him and he's going to reward them accordingly.

The writer of Hebrews says that same line of thinking. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls. That tells us, ladies and gentlemen, that none of you will ever give an account for my soul, but I will give an account for yours. Our elders will give an account for yours. Jonathan Edwards, the father of the Great Awakening, believed that at the Bema that he would be standing there next to Christ as everyone in his flock over whom he had been given authority and leadership responsibilities, as they were reviewed and his ministry would be reviewed to them. The writer of Hebrews says obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who give an account. And then he adds this to the congregation.

Let them do this with joy and not with grief. Let me tell you something, beloved, after 25 years of ministry here at this church, I want you to know you have brought me great joy, great joy. I speak on behalf of our elder team and our deacons, nearly 80 of us. Isn't that wonderful? Eighty men committed to the Word of God, the Spirit of God, who are giving their lives for your benefit and your growth and your protection and your care.

I know I speak for them too. You have brought us great joy. I think we ought to covenant together anew that we all may together bring our Chief Shepherd great joy.

Not only a little grief, but great joy, as we love Him and serve Him together. That was important wisdom from God's Word today. In the days ahead, we'll continue looking at the role and qualifications of church leaders, particularly the Office of Elder. This is Wisdom for the Heart, and Stephen Davey is in a series entitled The Shepherd's Mantle.

I hope you're with us for the entire series. If you're a church leader, or if you think you'd like to be a leader in your church someday, Stephen's written a book that will help you. It dives deep into this letter from Paul to Titus. Stephen's book is entitled Titus, and it's part of our Wisdom Commentary series. This book is available on our website, which is wisdomonline.org. Once again, that's wisdomonline.org. If you prefer to call us, our number here in the office is 866-48-BIBLE.

Numerically, that's 866-482-4253. We can give you information over the phone on this or any of our other resources. If you haven't already, I encourage you to sign up for Friends of Wisdom, a free membership designed to help you grow in your faith. Each week on Tuesday, Stephen sends out an email packed with biblical insights, encouragement, and answers to questions he's received from others.

Many of these questions are likely the same ones you've been wondering about. Stephen's answers are practical and always rooted in Scripture, offering you guidance and wisdom for everyday life. As a member, you'll also receive free resources each month.

These are carefully selected to help you walk wisely. They'll aid your spiritual journey. It's a wonderful way to stay connected and keep growing. Joining Friends of Wisdom is completely free and very simple. All you need to do is visit wisdomonline.org forward slash friends. Fill out a brief form and you'll start receiving these valuable resources. As a special gift for signing up, you'll get two of Stephen's most popular booklets, The Blessed Assurance, which helps believers find confidence in their salvation, and The Coming Tribulation, which answers some common questions about the end times. Signing up is quick and easy. Just visit wisdomonline.org forward slash friends. We're glad to have you with us today. Join us again next time right here on Wisdom for the Heart. you
Whisper: medium.en / 2025-01-14 00:53:46 / 2025-01-14 01:03:28 / 10

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