Titus lesson 2 start lesson 3
Titus · Courtney Hemenway · Jul 2, 2023
Titus, No. 07
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261931525147

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

All right, I wanted to touch back just real quick. Let me get this going here. My iPad. I just want to get back to question six. I kind of rushed through and wanted to touch base because there are a couple of other points that I wanted to get on. So again, this is Titus lesson two and question six.

And the question was, why do you think it's important to have qualified leaders over the affairs of the local church? We talked about what Titus's role was to appoint elders in the church. We got into also the importance of plurality. And again, I can't understate that, how important it is to have plurality, not just one leader, but a plurality of elders.

And we touched on that a lot and get back a little bit later on that too. But I also want to get on, well, we also touched on, you know, central authorities. Is there in Scripture where it says we're to have a central authority like the Catholic Church or Baptist Church or anything? We basically decided there wasn't in Scripture any place that said there should be one. And I think that's really important. We touched a little bit, I think Margaret touched on it.

You know, it's like the Methodist Church is kind of going off the rails. in many ways, but they're splitting, they're having issues, denominations, there's different Baptists that go, there's conservative ones, there's less conservative, there's all this, and having central authorities that confuse the issue, and it was never meant to be.

And so, when we see Titus coming and setting this up, Why was it important to have qualified leaders? I mean, it's semi-obvious with the, you know, being qualified. But why is that, to have qualified leaders? Because I'll touch back on that with, you know, centralized boards and things like that. So why is it important?

Qualified in the sense that, Qualified in the sense that they had to be doctrinally sound they had to They had to be they had to be a leader And I think all of that Ralph you okay? They had to be in order to and deal with the last issue, which was how do you deal with false doctrine? And so I think the number one thing is that you have to have a leader to have organization to have so that you don't have chaos. Right.

And again, the qualifications, it wasn't like, you know, casting lots or, you know, for the final apostle, we're going to cast lots and oh, you got it. It wasn't that way, or Titus just didn't go into town and say, well, I want that guy, this guy, you know, Bill, Fred, and Steve, we're going to pick those guys out, and you guys are going to be the leaders here. It was not that way, and again, and how that translates to today is another thing. So he didn't just arbitrarily go and pick them.

He looked for certain categories, and Mike, you're right in there, but there's also, Character. Character was an issue. You didn't want somebody who was a guy who had a known bad reputation or a guy who was always picking fights. You had to have a certain character.

We'll see that in the upcoming verses in 6-9. Also, they had to be convicted of the scriptures, what was taught, what was being taught. They had to have that. That's in Titus 1-9. which is kind of an interesting one. And we'll see this in other areas where Timothy were on qualifications for an elder.

They got to have family control. And you know, it's kind of an interesting, why would that be? Why would you need family control? It's kind of a simple thing. Ingrid and I were talking about that. Why would you have that? Why is that an important characteristic? Nobody knows.

Well, I think that, I mean, even in the first several verses, you know, we're getting that father-son relationship established in verses 1 through 4. The family is very much how God not only organizes us individually as His creatures, but also He operates as a family in the triunity as well. Order within the family is the basic construct for which to lead a church as well. So there's a connection with how God ordained the family and the church to function similarly with regards to order. And that's right.

I think it's kind of in simple basic terms. If you can't control your family, can you control the local body? I think in basic terms. You know, if you have an uncontrolled family that's crazy and doing this, can you then be put in charge of a local body?

I think it's hard, not impossible. When you look at all the qualifications of an elder, it's overwhelming. And I don't know if elders meet every single qualification, but I think one of the important ones, and JD, I think it's right. It's the structure of the local body is similar to the family.

And if you have control of the family and a well-functioning family, you'll have much more of a well-functioning body. And again, I think also goes back to what we were talking about last week was the plurality issue. I think you may not be all family men, you may be a single guy, you may be no kids, whatever. I think the plurality blends in that you have that kind of everybody has different family dynamics. But when you blend it all together, you put that organization back. And if you have men of character, I think that's key to blend it all together into a well-functioning body of elders.

And I guess the last one, and Mike, kind of what you're talking about, I think you also need to have good communication skills. apt to teach is I think in Timothy that they're apt to teach. And that again comes back to knowing the scriptures and being able to convey those to the body. So I think those are some of the some of the keys of why or what's in a qualified leader.

He also gets in verse 5, it says, for this reason I left you in Crete, that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you. So, I guess, you know, he's set there, he's supposed to put up the organization, he's appointing elders of these qualified men.

But what does it mean by what remains? That kind of was a confusing statement. What do the other scriptures say? Or translations? Does anybody have anything else? To set in order what remains? Mine says the things that are wanting. Things that are wanting? Yeah. Interesting. Okay, wanting. So it's that... What is wanting? I guess that would fit, too. The New King James says, set in order the things that are lacking. Lacking. Yeah. Wanting, lacking. Yeah.

The New American Standard and what remains, which is kind of different than those translations. I think those translations are a little bit better, actually, as far as what I think Paul is writing here. See, the Holman Christian standard says, what is left undone? Yeah, good. Lacking, wanting, left undone, what remains. I guess they're all kind of in the same vein. I think, yeah, lacking, wanting. The term what remains in the notes, yeah, lack of efficiency, and this was, there were three things that the churches in Crete needed.

They needed leaders, and you see that in Titus 1.5.

They also, there was false teaching going on that was going unchecked. They had teaching, and it was incorrect teaching that they needed to address. And you see that in Titus 1, 10-11, and also chapter 3, verses 10-11. And the third, their conduct was not appropriate for good doctrine. And that's Titus 2, 1. and 3, 1, and 2. So they had issues.

What's remaining or lacking is that they're having false teaching going on that nobody was correcting them for. And they also just didn't have leaders in the local church. So all these things is what Paul told Titus. You need to be in Crete and you need to address these issues.

Is there something? Hey, Courtney, I just have, you know, when I was reading this question, qualified leaders, I was thinking how important it is that the elder have a relationship with the Lord Jesus. Oh, absolutely. Good point. I think without that, the qualified, you're not qualified. If you don't have a relationship with the Lord, how can you lead a local body? You're not going to lead them to the Lord if you don't have a relationship with the Lord yourself. Well, and if you're picked based on your qualifications of, say, organization or bus ministry or, you know, whatever, there's a bump right there. Yeah, and, you know, I'll touch on that because I want to get back to what we were talking about last week, too. So, what's that? No, that's good. Do you have something, Mike? No, not right now. So basically, you can understand why Paul's direction was to appoint leaders. It's because they had a whole bunch of stuff going on and they needed leaders.

So he also says, and Don, I'll get back to your point too, is that he said in every city, So the words in every city point to autonomy of the local church. This is what we talked about last week, is should there be central authorities. And there to be autonomous, meaning self-directing, each city was to have its own elder or elders. There is no central authority. So we touched on that and you don't have a central authority. So to every city and to have an autonomous leadership, it's critical that they have that qualified leaders.

Otherwise, if you don't, if they don't have a relationship with the Lord and they're leading the body, how well is that going to go for the local autonomous body? It's not going to go well. So that's why you have to have qualified leaders autonomously leading individual bodies. If you don't, you don't have the direction for that local body, It's going to be wavering all over.

It's the same as if you have a central authority that has no touch or no ability to know the local body. How well are they going to lead if they don't know that? And to Donna's point, if they're not a relationship with the Lord, then how are they going to be leaders? And I want to get back to a point that we were talking about last week that I didn't touch on.

I know a lot of churches now, from friends and others, they have a central board that governs the church. Is that the same thing as elders? No. No. So is there a qualifications for a board laid out in scripture? Well, Courtney, I think there's a couple of things going on. One is, I don't think Paul envisioned megachurches with what we call or what they call, well, I'm in a small group, which means there's four to a dozen or maybe 20 people that get together once a week for a Bible study.

Well, that's really the core of what they're about in terms of Christianity. Who leads? Who makes decisions in that group? Do they go to the elders of a 2,000-person church? It's been my understanding from people I've talked to that once you form a small group, they leave you alone.

Oh, you mean the big church? Yeah. Which is wrong. The ideal size of a church is a debatable subject, but I don't think a church more than a couple of hundred people is focused here. I think they're at 200 or smaller. I guess I'll step back a little bit. Scripturally, we can prove that there is anything that says there can't be a megachurch. I think the thing is the difficulty of applying these principles gets more difficult as the numbers increase.

What that number is, if you have an elder board or an elder group that is scripturally sound, who is focused on the Lord, has a relationship with the Lord, meets the qualifications, I don't think there's a limitation because remember, why do we have deacons?

So that the elders can study and work on what their job is. Right, but what was happening? The needs were getting so great that they needed to have deacons. So the local group or body was starting to get so much that the deacons were starting to handle the logistics of the group, but the elders were there for teaching.

So again, I think as a group, there isn't a set number. So if the group, the local body grows, I think you appoint deacons to handle the logistics and the kind of the mechanics of that, but the elders then are left to teach. And if they're left to teach that you don't have the small group off by itself, not being led by the elders or verified or checked or making sure that they're doctrinally sound, then you have problems. But again, I think there is no set perfect church number. I think it's really predicated on the leadership and the structure with deacons and elders. So I think that's more the issue.

You take an island like Crete, the instructions are to establish a church in every town. So there wasn't what we called church plants around us. Every little church was autonomous and God would make sure that he raised up elders and deacons in each one of those groups. to lead it like it should be and so I think that it doesn't say you shouldn't have megachurches but I think the structure shows that churches were local and small. Yeah, I mean, but we're, you know, in the city of Denver, because you have a large church, because if we're in every city, I agree with you, Mike, I just think I don't know what the perfect number is, you could have a group of 500 people, if you had a really sound elders group, deacons, good teaching, teaching that was led by the elders.

So I don't know what that number is. Let me disagree with you. One of the things that we have at Holly Hills is pretty sound teaching. How come they're not lined up out the block? They want to hear sound teaching. Well, I think that's the problem. There are too many other megachurches that have great music or charismatic leaders that are drawn not to the scriptures. I think that's a problem, and we've talked about that before. Why isn't this Omega Church of identification and that, why isn't it?

Well, God has chosen it this way, to have Holly Hills as a small body. I know there are some others that are teaching scripturally sound, and they're larger than us. So, again, it kind of goes back to what we were talking about too. Paul planted, Apollos watered, and God is the one who causes growth. And so I think that's where, you know, God in the individual cities will, you know, bring the growth and the size to individual bodies. If you have the structure, I think you can be a larger one, you know. And again, I think it's also up to us to be able to, you know, get the word out and bring people in to this teaching. So let me get this. You know, it's debatable. I guess my point is there isn't a scripture that says there shouldn't be large or small. If you look at the Acts 242, these were small home bodies. You know, this is where they continually broke bread, teaching, and that was in a home. That was the quote local church or local kind of body.

But then they also, you know, became larger when the groups of those got together. And that's when he said, let's appoint elders. So I think that was kind of where, uh, things, things got to a leadership is when it broke away from the early church, which met in the home to where they're meeting, you know, in larger groups and they needed, they needed leadership in every city. So we'll get into this a little bit, too, in question seven. Describe what is meant by the term elder or bishop.

Does it seem like the churches in Crete needed organization? Well, we touched on that. They needed organization for sure. They needed leadership. They needed elders or that. in every city there. So, I guess looking at the term or elder or bishop. So, in the New American Standard, bishop is translated as overseer rather than bishop. So, are they the same elder and bishop or elder and overseer?

Is that the same person or different? silence. There are two different words for it, but is it the same person? According to what I studied, they are the same person. Yeah, same person, just different characteristics. The first, you know, is elder and bishop, or elder and overseer. The first one is Presbyterios, and the second is Episcopos. And they're not two separate offices, but applied to the same person.

So if we look in Titus 1, 5, and 7, and then Acts 20, 17, and 18, you can show that two words are used interchangeably. We'll see in Titus 1, 5 through 7, it says, For this reason I left you in Crete, that you would set in order what remains, and appoint elders in every city as I directed you. Namely, if any man is above reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion, for the overseer must be above reproach as God's steward." There are two different words that were used in Titus, the Presbyterios and Episcopos.

So there are two different ones. And so the elder or the Presbyterios is about talking about elder or age, maturity, that you don't want to have somebody who is very young in this position. They want somebody who has maturity, who has age, I guess. And then the other one is the episkopos, which is the overseer or the bishop. And that emphasizes supervision or authority. So an elder should be somebody who is not young. And again, when you look at the qualifications of it in Timothy, it'll say don't lay hands on anyone too early, somebody who is very young. You want somebody who has maturity when you get to an elder, and the actual term elder.

And then you want somebody who has the leadership or the authority, the ability to teach. Those are more on the overseer or the bishop side of things. Alex Stroud, in his book, Eldership, he has a quote, while the New Testament speaks of appointment to specific tasks or positions, the original Greek words, pēo, tefēmi, all those Greek words, do not express or imply a modern organization, rite, or special ceremony.

In fact, as difficult as it may be to accept, there's simply no way to use the word ordination without inferring ideas that are contrary to the New Testament teaching and language. So again, this position of elder or overseer, it was not an ordination where You go and you get ordained by a central authority. Titus didn't come around and ordain these people. He recognized them and appointed them, but it wasn't an ordination. So again, it's kind of an interesting fact, too, that when we see a lot of bishops, Baptists, Catholics, all that, they're ordained. And you don't see that in scripture.

They had to be qualified, they had to be elder, they had to have certain characteristics, which we went through, all those different things. And then it was, you know, for the local church now and what we talked about, it's a calling, not an organization. And the body recognizes it, not a group, not a central authority that says we're going to have Mike be the elder at Holly Hills. Basically he has a calling, he has a heart for the body, and then the body recognizes him as an elder. That's how the local church is set up.

And we talked about that a little bit. If you want the position and you just want it for the authority, you'll never survive as an elder, nor will you be a good elder. You have to have those characteristics and you have to have just a heart for those qualifications that Timothy and Titus lay out. And then you'll be a good elder. And the body will flourish under an elder who has those characteristics.

So, again, any other thoughts on that? I got one quick one on question 8, which is, what do the word in every city tell us about the church organization and authority? We've kind of touched on that. Kona Bear says, we do not know how many churches there were on Crete, but Homer, who lived in the 9th century BC, referred to the island of Crete as Crete of a hundred cities. It's heavily populated, neither do we know exactly who first took root in Crete. Though at least one church existed there before Paul and Titus visited, which is kind of interesting. And then from Towner, it is impossible to determine how many elders would have been selected in every town, meaning in a house church at each town.

But the general rule would probably have been a plurality of leaders. Again, not a question. As we talked about, it's never singular about being an elder who leads. It's elders who lead the local body. So again, the plurality aspect, again, in the brethren church, that's very important. There's never a brethren church who had a single elder or a single pastor who led.

It was plurality. And there's such a benefit in balance is made. Weaknesses are overcome by the strength of the others in the group. And so plurality, and again, not just a single elder in a church. Okay. There are no questions, Mike. You can take over. Do I need to stand up there so you can see me? No, I'm good. I think everybody should be good. Okay. I can hear you well, too. You hear me okay? Yep. Okay.

So, the next section, verses 6 through 9, are really the beginning of understanding what the qualification of elders are. So somebody read 6, 7, 8, and 9. And when we're done, those who don't qualify can turn off their computers. 6, 7, 8, and 9. Somebody read it. Namely, if any man is above reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion, for the overseer must be above reproach as God's steward, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of sordid game, but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, just, devout, self-controlled, holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will not be able, will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict him. So when I read that I thought, I looked around the room and I said, nobody qualifies. Who possibly fits that parameter.

So it's interesting. There are 17 qualifications for an elder or bishop. First Timothy 3 contains 15. There's 17 here. And they're very similar. In some cases, they're identical. The office, as we've just talked about, of bishop is one of authority and power. The vices named are those to which persons of such position are tempted. Isn't that interesting? They're tempted to that. So let's revisit question two.

What position did Titus and Timothy have in order to select elders in every church? This is really interesting because you don't have a centralized authority like Courtney has been talking about but you have these two guys Timothy and Titus and they have the authority to go around to churches especially in Crete and appoint elders in the churches so they were not apostles And they were not necessarily, at least at this point in time, elders in another church. So where do they fit?

One of the guys that I read said that there's a position somewhere between apostle and elder, whatever that means. They were below Paul because they carried out his instructions. He gave them instructions and things to do. But they weren't apostles in the strict sense of the word. And they were over elders in that they appointed them. So you're saying that they were stewards recognized by Paul in the Bolawood tradition? Yeah, stewards recognized by Paul. Yeah, I think they certainly were that. And they had authority to do this.

So, um, Mike, didn't we use the term apostolic agent, Joanne? I think you came, you mentioned that a couple of weeks ago, maybe. Uh, but yeah, just this idea of being able to act on behalf of Paul in his absence to do these things creates that intermediary that we're having a hard time maybe naming, but I did like the apostolic agent. Um, yeah, which is fine.

The only problem I have, it's not a problem, but I can see how big denominations would build a clergy based on this information. My background is Catholicism. Who decides who's going to be a priest? Well, they go to seminary, and they go through, and if they make it to the end, then they give them the whatever. And then who appoints them in the next level, the next level, the next level, the next level, and then they get to go to Rome and be the guy with the fishy hat, the Pope. Who decides about that, you know?

I guess the question we could ask ourself is, is that role still functioning today at all? And I want to get back a little bit on that one too, Mike, when you said about church You know not about church planting. I think I think that's how a new body or a new Group would either function or start up or or Yeah, I don't know how to say I mean It's kind of like miles if miles shows up and and you know I gets into this body and functions. That's one way. Another is that, you know, I know like in Littleton had several, they were growing so much and just the issue that we talked about earlier, they had grown so much that they had so many services and all that that they said, okay, we're going to take some of the elders and we're going to move over here and we're going to start a new local assembly over here with these elders who are qualified and we're going to split off and grow over here. And I think that's kind of how I think the local church maybe functions now autonomously. But you need to have men who are qualified to start that. So if unless you're going to already established church, you got to have maybe do a church plant in some area and grow. believers in that area, so. Yeah. And I think that really clarifies what Titus and Timothy were doing. You know, establishing a church in every town would kind of be okay because there were so many little towns in Crete. And so, and that's what Paul was doing.

He was going from town to town and establishing a church like we're studying. on Wednesday night, First Thessalonians, he went to Thessalonica and he left after four weeks because they ran him out of town, but a church had been established in four weeks, which meant the elders were in place, people were attending, there was a leadership kind of organization there, and I really think that The real answer to this question is, who runs the local church? Who runs Holly Hills? Who really is the guy who runs it? No, it's not. It's the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit raises up men to fill these positions, but He's the one that runs the body.

And you have to recognize that because if you're in a body of believers, you will see him raise somebody up and you won't have to, you know, have an election to see who's going to be the elder. They'll be acting as an elder before they're appointed one. You see that? They'll have some of these qualifications.

Now, the other thing I want to point out, too, is that these qualifications for an elder are not super Christian. Elders are not people that have passed the test with 17 qualifications and they're superior to everybody else in the church. That's not what this is saying. Because an elder has exactly the same sinful temptations that anybody has. When you get to be an elder, you don't get rid of your sin nature. You don't see Donna just looked at me like you don't. So anyway, I think I probably ought to stop there.

And we'll we'll pick up question two and three. We're in there right next week. So let's close your father how we thank you for your grace. Thank you for this body of believers that you've raised up and that we all, because of what you've done, we are edified and we grow in the knowledge and grace of our dear Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And we pray in his name. Amen.