Titus 1:6

Titus chapter 1, verses 4 to 9. Our focus tonight is going to be on verse 6. To Titus, my own son, after the common faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. For this cause, I left thee in Crete that thou should have said in order thee, things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee. Many be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly, where a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God, not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre, but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate, holding fast, the faith. word as he has been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. May God bless to us his holy and sacred word this evening. Paul has given Titus an explicit command to ordain elders in every city where there is a congregation or a gathering of those who have been converted to Jesus Christ on the island of Crete. Many people don’t realize the importance of this office that elders are called upon to watch for your souls. And certainly, they also are to feed the flock of God. They are to see to it that sound doctrine is taught and that Godly living is maintained in the church, and they are sort of a lifeline for the people of God under their care. Such an important task, however, cannot be just entrusted to anyone. Therefore, Paul gives here a list of qualifications for elders in verses 6 through 9. And so it behooves us to look at these verses and look at this first section, which I’ll call qualifications for elders part one, blameless in the family life is what we find here. Now, as a foundational principle, an elder’s life should be blameless. We’ll look at the term blameless. You’ll notice that it’s used twice. Verse 6 and verse 7, and an elder needs to be blameless in two areas, one in his family life and one with regard to his personal conduct. Verse 6 and then verse 7. In general, therefore, a candidate for an elder must be blameless. Now, it’s important that you understand that Paul doesn’t mean sinless here or without fault. For there is not a just man upon her. earth that doeth good and it sineth not. It is impossible for a man to be sinless in thought word indeed while in this life. Godly Paul himself confessed that he was the chief of sinners. In the Old Testament, the high priest, a special type of Christ, if you would, and chief minister of the people of God, is said to have first to offer for his own sins and then for the people of God. So that even the high priest, there was an acknowledgment of his own sinfulness. Christ taught his disciples, who were the chief ministers in the New Testament, in the Lord’s prayer, to teach, taught them to pray, forgive us our trespasses. So the best elders are not sinless people, but those. who prayerfully fight against their sins and their corrupt corruption and daily repent of those sins and thank God for his grace. So if you’re looking for the perfect pastor, there are none. There’s always some flaw in every pastor that there is. The Greek word blameless here signifies that which cannot be called to account. After there’s an investigation. No one can justly charge this person with wickedness or a disgraceful act. You’ll notice I said justly charge, for otherwise even the most godly men’s reputations may be unfairly smeared, and therefore they would be unfit for office if it was just a matter of whether somebody could smear you or not. The Old Testament prophets, the apostles, even Christ himself, had the most serious crimes alleged against them. But all were unjust accusations. The writer of this letter, Paul himself, was accused of a capital offense. The Jews sought death penalty against them. You remember one of the false accusations against Paul was that he had brought a Greek into the temple. when he visited Jerusalem, they had seen him with Trophemus in the city, and they accused him of bringing Trofamus into the temple. But, of course, he had not done so. Sadly, it’s often the lot of the godly to be blamed and condemned, when in fact, on many occasions they are completely innocent. So of merely being called in. into question prevented a man from serving in this office. State would make sure that all of us are called into question in some fashion so that we wouldn’t be able to serve. I read a story that we had to do with one of the annual Waterloo banquets, and the Duke of Wellington after dinner handed around an inspection to the guests, a very valuable presence of snuffbox with diamonds encrusted on. After a time, it disappeared and could nowhere be found. The Duke was much annoyed. The guest, since there were no servants present in the room at the time, all agreed to turn out their pockets, all except for one old officer who eminently objected. And so the Duke begged that nothing more be said. about the matter. Of course, everybody’s suspicion fell on the old soldier, who everybody thought, surely is to blame for the theft. But later, Wellington found the snuff-pox in his own pocket. He had just absolutely and he had stuffed it in his pocket, and he felt bad because he thought, well, you know, that old officer, everybody thought he did it. And so he decided that he would go, to visit the old officer’s home and express his regret. He had to go to a rundown section of the town, but once there, the Duke apologized, and then he said, well, why didn’t you simply turn out your pockets if you didn’t have the snuff box? You could have saved yourself from terrible suspicion. And the old officer said that he had stuffed his pockets with dinner meat, because his family was starving. They didn’t have any money. And he wanted to make sure he could bring something home for them to eat, and he didn’t want everybody to know he was taking meat out to his family. And Wellington, it said, sobbed like a child, and made provision for the old man’s family. Accusations are not always true, and even when it looks bad, it may not always be true. So an elder must be blameless in the sense that no one can point to any public, or gross sin in his life, he must have a good reputation, is the idea. He has to be morally upright. After all, the elder is called upon to be an example to the flock. And it’s true that all believers should be blameless, but the elder is to set the example. And so he especially should be blameless. The congregation has certainly placed no one in the office that does not have a good reputation. I’m reminded of the prophet Samuel as he gets older and he’s going to fade into oblivion so to speak because the Israelites have craved a king and they have anointed a king for themselves and he’s sort of going to pass off the scene as the major leader of the nation. And here’s what he said. He said to the nation had gathered. He said, Behold, here I am. Witness against me before the Lord and before his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Or whose ass have I taken? Or whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed? Or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind my eyes therewith, and I will restore it. If you’ve got any charges against me, bring it out. And of course all the people said, no, you’ve treated us fairly. And you have not defrauded us. So no one could accuse of him anything. He was blameless. And that’s the way here we’re to have a good reputation. Now let me make this observation. A scandalous life is a hindrance to the people of God and the kingdom of God and it makes you unfit for an elder. The apostle insists here. Twice he mentions it that the elder must be blindless. A man may be very eloquent. He may even be a skillful teacher. And yet a scandalous blemish keeps him from this office. You know, none of Aaron’s sons who had any blemish in him might serve before the Lord. And I’m talking about physical blemish in this particular case. You remember the wickedness of Eli’s sons and what they did. They made the people abhor the offerings of the Lord because of their wicked behavior. They were unfit to serve as priests. This is why in a similar charge to Timothy, Paul tells him, don’t lay hands suddenly on any man. Make sure you check out the person who’s going to enter into this office and be an elder in the church. He immediately adds that some men’s sins go beforehand. And you know some men’s follow after to the final judgment. Some men, you can tell from this life, you know, they have blemishes that would keep them from office. Some people are more careful. Maybe they’re hypocritical, and you can’t see any outward signs of wrongdoing. But inwardly, they are not godly, and they are profane. And they are profane. And therefore, because they’re not openly blameworthy, they may get into the office, and they may obviously disgrace the office. The difficulty the church faces is the elder who is blameworthy cast dispersions on all the people of God. It gives the church a black eye, if that is the case. You know, when a pastor falls into sexual sin of adultery, you know, the world writes off the God, of Jesus Christ as being a phony and untrue. If an elder ends up being found out as a wife be a crooked businessman, it’s a detriment to the cause of Christ. So the church has to look for those blameless to enter into the office. In particular, we’re dealing with the family life, but he has to be blameless in his personal conduct, as the next verse indicates to us. So as a foundational principle, we find an elder life should be blameless. Now, secondly, an elders should be blameless in regard to marriage. The husband of one wife. Literally, one wife’s husband. Basically, the elder must be above reproach in his marital and sexual wife. We’ll consider some areas for, there is a lot of confusion, I think, on this particular area. I’ll begin by saying this. It’s obvious here that an elder may be lawfully married. Paul writes to Timothy about those who departed from the faith and they were promoting what he calls doctrine of devils. And what does he say? One of the things that they were promoting was forbidding people to marry. You know, in our day, you find this doctrine is promoted by the Roman Catholic Church. And they’re, you know, priests have to take vows of celibacy. The Roman Catholic Church forbids priests to marry. Your argument is, of course, that the priests are married to the church, and therefore they don’t need to take a wife. But the whole argument collapses when we look at the scriptures. It’s interesting that Peter himself, whom they claim is the first pope, had a mother-in-law. So he must have had a wife. In fact, 1 Corinthians 9-5 tells us, have we, meaning Paul and Barnabas, not the power to lead about a sister and the Lord as a wife, as well as other apostles as the brethren of the Lord and Seifis, and Peter. So Peter was married. Marriage is a holy ordinance of God. There’s nothing defiling or evil about marriage. And the Bible says it’s good for a man not to be alone. The Roman Catholic position, therefore, is unbiblical. It’s a sheer hypocrisy on their part to forbid marriage in priests, or elders, as we would call them here, as a show of greater holiness or chastity. It’s presumptuous pride on their part. It’s a carnal policy that has come back to haunt them, and you see all the explosion of charges against priests, and sexual misconduct that they’ve engaged in. So we see first that an elder may be lawfully married. Now, an elder may have been married more than once. There are those who have tried, I think, to make this verse teach that an elder can only be married once in their whole lifetime. An attempt has been made to make remarriage sinful or nearly so, and thus an elder can’t have more than one wife for his entire life. One can’t excuse such an attempt, I think, to exploit this text, because that’s not what it says in the original. It says one wife’s husband in the original. And this is kind of a foolish argument. The man who marries a second wife after the deceased of the first is still but the husband of one wife, isn’t he? Romans 7 teaches when your mate dies, you’re free to marry, to remarry, and you’re not committing adultery. A widower may remarry as an elder. Paul isn’t forbidding them from holding office if that occurs in their life. It should be noted that the great reformer, from what I understand, John Kelvin, remarried after his first wife died. He continued to pastor the church. In fact, the church urged him to remarry so that someone would take care of his domestic burdens so that he could focus on the study of the Word of God. So an elder may have been married more than once. Now, an elder may not be guilty of polygamy. Polygamy was quite popular in Paul’s day. It wasn’t not surprising to find people who have married two, three, four wives or more, depending how rich they were and how much they could provide for their wives. Now suppose such a man came to faith in Christ. He still has a responsibility to provide for those wives. I don’t know that he has a biblical reason to divorce all of them. The law of God, when it talks about a man having more than one wife, never says you have to divorce one of them. God hates divorce also, so that’s a problem. However, an elder must be a man who’s content with one wife and is not engaged in a polygamous marriage. Polygamy shows excess unrestraint and covetousness, and such a man is prohibited from being an elder. It would not be a good example for the people of God. Originally, God instituted marriage between one man and one woman. That is the pattern that we are to follow. And he said, the two. Not the three or the four. The two would be one flush. The law of Moses does deal with polygamy. It considers it. It regulates it. But it was an already existing problem. It doesn’t condone it. It is true that Abraham and Jacob both engaged in polygamy. But the Bible carefully records the tremorably. end to sorrows and problems associated with it. We should never let the examples of men dictate to us how we are to live. Otherwise, we are going to prejudice the truth of God. Good men, as good as they are in many areas of life, may set a bad example in another area. We should always follow the example of God. One man, Adam, one woman, Eve, for marriage. and I think that is clear in scripture. It’s interesting. If you read anything about the early Mormon religion, their early leaders actually demanded practically polygamy in marriage. And while the Mormon Church presently condemns polygamy, those who are more fanatical about their Mormonism are still engaged in polygamy. It still exists. today. In the original Doctrine and Covenants volume, Section 132, there is a famous section on plural marriage. A specific word is addressed to Joseph Smith’s wife, who is the founder of the Mormon religion, telling her that she must stand ready to receive the additional wives that have been given to her husband on the pain of everlasting destruction. How do you like that? Orson Hyde, one of the members of the First Council of Twelve Apostles, blasphemously taught that Jesus married Mary, Martha, and the other Mary at the wedding of Cana in Galilee. An extreme example trying to justify their polygamy when we know that certainly was not true. An example, an elder may not be guilty of polygamy. Now, let me say that. this, and this is a more difficult area, an elder is not required to be married. I don’t think we should understand this passage as demanding that he be married, that he may not be single. Remember the point here is that he be blameless in the marriage relationship and devoted only to one wife. It is assumed, though, that the man taking the office will be married, and that is a common case. Paul, who was an apostle, and certainly an elder, was unmarried. If you look at 1 Peter, 2nd Peter, Chapter 5, verse 1, you’ll see that the apostles were also classified as elders. Did I say 2nd Peter? It has to be 1st Peter. Sorry, my eyes are not so great tonight. 2 Peter 5 and verse 1 1. The elders which are among you, I exhort who am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ and also partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. Peter says he is an elder, in the fellow elder, along with the elders that he is addressing here. And so Paul would be an elder. I say to the unmarried and widows, it’s good for them if they abide even as I, Paul says, in 1 Corinthians 7, 8. God gives some the gift of singleness. Although all cannot receive the words of Christ concerning singleness, there are some who do. And Christ talks about this in Matthew 19, where some make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of God’s sake in that passage of Scripture. Paul writes, he that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord, 1 Corinthians 732. If being an elder demands marriage, then we have to ask what happens to an elder or pastor if his wife dies? Must he immediately then resign from the office? The great reformer John Kelvin lost his wife. He continued to serve in the church. as a single man in Switzerland for many years and later he remarried. John Patton’s wife died. Adonairm. Jutson’s wife died. I will say this much. I don’t want to be hard and fast on this particular thing and I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise, but I will say this. There are advantages for an elder to be married. It is the best circumstance for an elder to be married. Because how are you going to counsel married people if you’re not married yourself? It makes it very difficult. And you wouldn’t want a group of single men as elders. And a single man, if he’s going to be an elder, must be mature and settled in this area, not young and impulsive. And so this area here, there are those who differ on this particular subject, but I would say this much. that we’d have to weigh this carefully in this situation. All the virtues which are required of the common Christian must be required more in a minister. And all the virtues required in a minister must be imitated by the common Christian because he is the example of the flock. One other requirement in the practice. passage of scripture here, we have to recognize from the book of Titus here that the idea of he must be blameless, the idea that the husband of one wife, that he’s looking at it as a man being in this office. Look with me at 1 Timothy 2 and verse 11. It says here, let us the woman learn in silence with all subjection. Though I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. And then you’ll notice chapter 3, verse 1. This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of bishop, he desire a good work. One of the main jobs of the elder is to teach. And if a woman is not to teach in the public setting here, and have authority over the man, then obviously she cannot fulfill the office. It seems clear, I think, from scripture that that is the case. So an elder must be blameless in regard to marriage. My third point is this. An elder should be blameless in regard to his children. And here we find the second part of verse 6, having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly. Now there are some who have argued that an elder must have believing children from this passage of scripture. They take faith in the sense of believing. There are insurmountable difficulties, of course, with such an approach to the word faithful. Certainly it’s not in the power of any elder to cause his children to be converted. Nor can a mere profession of faith. guarantee and elders’ children are converted. What if a young pastor has a child while in office? Must he resign because the child is not converted? That seems like an absurd position to be taking here. What if an adult child living on his own now renounces the faith? Does that mean the elder must give up the office that he’s disqualified? I think the word faithful here is used in the sense of being obedient or submissive. This is what Paul actually states in the parallel passage in 1 Timothy 3, 4. One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity. So an elder must be a father who provokes not his children to wrath, but brings them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. He must teach his children to fear God by word and by example. He must be blameless in this regard. If a man knows not how to rule his own house, how can he take care of the church of God? And so here’s an advantage. If you can look at a man and see how he handles his own household, it makes a difference in seeing whether he could rule in the church. The idea of in his own house here implies living under his roof under his authority, those children are to be submissive to him. Now it should be noted that even the best of men have had graceless children. We look at Abraham and he is even one who commanded his children and is commended by God for commanding his children to follow the ways of the Lord, but he had a reparate son in Ishmael. we have Jacob who had the ungodly Esau who despised the spiritual benefits of the birthright and is called a profane man in the book of Hebrews. The godly prophet Samuel had two sons that we find did not follow in the ways of the Lord but perverted justice by taking bribes. David, the man after God’s own heart, had a wicked and rebellious son in Absalom. Again, I don’t see that this passage requires an elder to have children. The question would be if he does have children, he must be blameless in this regard. Can a married man who doesn’t have children be an elder in the church? I think he can’t. But a family life does provide a means, as I said, of evaluating an elder, and certainly you wouldn’t want to have an eldership that was entirely child. Notice it’s dangerous for one who is unreformed in himself and his family to take upon himself the public reformation of others. It’s interesting that Moses, who you recall, was called by God to lead the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage. When he is called from the backside of the desert and he’s on his way to Egypt, the Lord threatens to kill him because he had not circumcised his son. You remember his wife, Sappora, had to take a sharp knife or a rock of some sort, I believe, some sharp instrument and cut off the foreskin, the spirit. Why was that? Well, how are you going to teach the principle of circumcision that from, that Abraham was told to have all his offspring circumcised. How are you going to teach that to Israel if your son isn’t circumcised? So you see the implications in that story. So faithful children, and then not accused of riot or unruly. Riot here is to be intemperate, wasteful, some type of prodigal life. Originally the word was used of people spent their whole day stuffing themselves with food. You remember the story, the stuff. of the prodigal son? What was it called? King James says that he engaged in riotous living and spent the father’s fortune that was given to him. Things like drinking, gambling, harlots, things of that nature. All that could be classified as riotous living. We have the sons of Eli who stole God’s portion from the people’s sacrifices, had elicit sexual relations, with the women who gathered at the door of the tabernacle. So, I mean, they had all kinds of pollution upon them. Unruly here is, carries the idea of being like an untamed beast, not under control. And it implies headstrong, wild, rebellious, undisciplined children, not showing respect for their parents. Obviously, all children disobey at times. But Paul was speaking. speaking here of a set pattern of behavior that demonstrates a lack of discipline by the parents. And so, of course, if the elder is to have submissive children, we find out that all children are supposed to be submissive, but they’re supposed to set example in this regard. So an elder must be blameless in regard to his children. So here are the areas, first, in the family life, that are mentioned with regard to the elder. When it comes to the church leadership, it matters who is ordained as an elder. God would not have given us all this information and all these qualifications if it weren’t necessary for us to use this to evaluate men who would enter into the office. Let’s close with a word.