-Pre-marital counseling, part of the goal is to break down some bad ideas about what healthy marriage looks like

-Most of the time people either adopt the way their parents relationship worked, or react to that and refuse to do anything like their parents! But no 2 couples are the same! And all the best plans about splitting everything 50/50 get thrown out the window in about the first week of marriage when reality sets in. But it’s still important to talk about and ensure you’re on the same page: who cooks, who does the dishes, who cleans, who does the laundry, who balances the budget? 

-The reality is in marriage there’s no such thing as both person giving 50%, it takes both people in the marriage giving 100% every day, and the same is true in the church (of which the marriage and the family are supposed to serve as an example, a picture, as we’ll see later in this sermon). The church requires that you actually give something, it requires that you give of your time, talents, and treasures, and it requires all of us to do that so that we can be a healthy body. But when we think about the church, the way we structure and organize the church tends to be assumed instead of explicitly talked about (just as a husband and wife can begin to assume things about their spouse!) So today we’re going to explicitly talk about the roles in the church, the offices the Lord has given to us to function well, and the requirements of those offices in the life of our body.

READ/PRAY

1. What is Church Polity?

-Just a fancy word to say structure of the church. Taken from GRK polis (city) think of Minneapolis: water (Dakota word) + city

-Many different ways the church has been organized throughout history, and all of them appeal to the Bible (in some form) for their position! 3 primary positions (of which there are some subsets of positions)

-Episcopalian (Episcopal and RCC) argue more for a natural outgrowth from the Bible instead of explicit biblical texts. Make a big deal out of the “bishop” title and make it distinct from elder (I, and many other scholars, would argue they’re synonymous) 

-Presbyterian: church elects elders (called a session), those elders are part of a “Presbytery” (state, city) (taken from GRK), some of the elders from the Presbytery are a part of the General Assembly (nation)

-Congregational: congregation itself is the highest governing body of the church, from the doctrine of the priesthood of ALL believers, corresponds to the way the early church functions (things are presented to the whole church), but among congregational there is a WIDE variety of thoughts and opinions, here’s the list of examples from Grudem’s Systematic Theology.

-I would like to propose a slightly different approach than any of these, and if you have sermon notes, you’ll find some blanks to fill it: Christ ruled, Elder led, Deacon served, Congregationally governed. I’m sure I stole all those pieces from somewhere, but I’ve lost track of where I found it! 

-I tried to make it look like Grudem’s chart here:

-First and foremost: Christ ruled. Unlike the way we Americans tend to think, the church is not a democracy, the church is a theocracy with a King who rules over us. That means our job isn’t to vote people in and out of office, our job isn’t to try to find a constituency who represents us, our job is to submit to His will. 

-Story of person who voted no to everything because nothing should be unanimous. 

-If we’re working to submit all our decisions to the will of God, and we’re all keeping in step with the Spirit, there should be unanimous votes on a regular basis! And notice the arrows connecting God to each position below: since we’re a theocracy, God is the one who appoints, the church looks to affirm and follow where God has called.

-Congregationally Governed: this means the highest form of authority in the church is the congregation, but again, this is not a democracy. The congregation is charged with affirming leaders in the church, looking for ways to honor each other, working to keep the unity of the Spirit in our midst, but it’s not their job to make every decision in the church. Instead, the congregation is called to submit to the leaders of the church (I realize that’s a 4 letter word today, that’s a topic for a different time)

-Elder led: God raises up qualified men to serve in this office (listen to last week for why I said men), and I put them at the bottom because in God’s kingdom those who are called to leadership roles are called to be the servant and others oriented. The world views authority through solely through the lens of power, exploitation and selfishness, but that’s not the way God’s kingdom works.

-Finally, Deacon served: God also gifts certain people in His body to help in various service-oriented roles to help the congregation operate well. We’ll get to that one in a minute too.

-I don’t see these offices as optional in the church of Jesus Christ – if God has given us instructions for how best to operate and function as His bride, we should follow them! So what are each of these 2 offices, and how did we come to have only 2 instead of the many others something like the RCC has?

-Other passages: Phil. 1:1, Titus 1:5, 

-Church history: Didache (GRK Teaching) (“The Lord’s Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations”)

-Definition of the officer, PUBLICLY RECOGNIZED. That means a pastor can’t be a pastor in his own mind, it requires the affirmation of a church, which means someday when I retire, I lose the title of “Pastor” and just become “Mike.” 

-1 office that no longer exists today is that of Apostle, because it requires 2 things: being an eyewitness of the resurrected Jesus (Acts 1:22) and being specifically called by Jesus to be His Apostle. The Bible doesn’t have any other leadership offices described in the Bible.

• What is an Elder?

-First up the name. Throughout the NT these 4 words are used to refer to the same office (pastor is the word for shepherd, think of pasture)

-What you should immediately think of when you think of this office is a shepherd, which is connected to the word “Pastor.” These words have become incredibly convoluted today, with people using all sorts of different words (clergy, minister, teacher). My personal preference is: pastor to refer to those who are paid elders, elders to refer to unpaid (lay) elders. Same office, different time commitment and time expectations. But the primary focus is shepherd:

-Peter, in his First Epistle writes to the elders of the church:

-Notice a few things here, after the shepherd. First is whose flock is it? God’s! We’re only here for a season, Jesus oversees His flock forever. 

-Willingly: called by God and affirmed by the congregation (Hold onto that, we’ll come back to it)

-Eagerly serving, hence the elders being on the bottom of my chart

-Being examples: do you ever tell someone to be like you? Seems prideful at first glance, doesn’t it? But the Bible tells us to! Paul even says to imitate him just like he imitates Christ. And the reality is we’re all copying someone, the question is does the person we’re copying make us more or less like Jesus? This is why voting to affirm elders is such a weighty issue that should not be taken lightly! It’s not a popularity contest, not looking for representation of your pet project, we’re looking to affirm the men God has appointed to serve as the examples of this body. 

-Which gets me to another passage (briefly, then we’ll go to the main one!) Paul commands Timothy to not be quick in appointing elders, and that’s because of what I just said: we’re going to become like them, so be careful as you affirm elders in the church! Since we’re now in 1 Timothy, we’ll go back a couple chapters to the section we read at the beginning:

-There’s a similar list in Titus 1 that adds a few pieces, and putting it all together in a running list you get this (broken down into do and don’ts)

-There are 2 big things I want you to notice about this list, first is what in this list is unique to an elder that’s not the call of every Christian? 

-Carson quote

-Able to teach! Maybe “not be a new convert” because that would leave some believers out, but the rest of the pieces in here are what every Christian should be striving for, there are other passages that explicitly command these other pieces of all Christians. Let’s think of just a couple:

-Hospitable: 1 Pet. 4:9 “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.” That’s for everyone! 

-Not be an excessive drinker. Do you think this means that because this is on the list for elders the rest of you can go get rip roaring drunk all the time? No! Eph. 5:18 “Don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit.” 

-One more: self-controlled. Gal. 5:23, if you are Spirit filled (all Christians) then self-control should be evident in your life. Do you get the point? The 1 exception is “able to teach” because eventually everyone will stop being a new convert.

-The second thing I want you to note is how many of these are character traits, and how many of them are gifts/skills? Once again, the 1 gifting or skill required is “able to teach.” That’s it! The rest is character traits that should be the markers of any Christian who is growing in Christlikeness, as Carson said the list is fairly unremarkable, isn’t it?

-Now, one piece connected to last week: because the skill is teaching, that limits this office to qualified men, which is why our elders are only men here. That’s not a way of looking to denigrate or demean women, it’s a way of following God’s good design for His church.

-Where I would argue the church has run into problems is by NOT using this list and instead adopting other expectations for what should mark leaders, and in many cases the other list is worldly.

-I think back to some of my experiences with elders in previous churches. One church I served at was in an area with an Air Force Base nearby, and the military’s idea of leadership is a little different than Jesus’s idea of leadership! One of the elders decided he needed to teach a Sunday school class on leadership because the church just didn’t understand it. He said leadership was about taking charge and telling people what to do (not a bully?), when I asked about Jesus’s example about washing the disciple’s feet I was told that was for a different context. 

-Friends, this list that God has given us isn’t an optional add on. And how often do our expectations for leaders adopt worldly models instead of biblical models? We look for a CEO or someone with business experience instead of someone who’s faithfully following after God, and what we read in Scripture is God chooses what the world thinks is foolish. 

-But as you remember, this isn’t the only office listed in 1 Timothy 3! Paul goes on to 1 other:

• What is a Deacon?

-Once again, we start with the name. Deacon is used all over the NT, but most of the time it’s translated as “servant,” and once Latin became the common language, it got translated into “minister” (do you see why I think everyone’s confused about terms today!) Here’s a couple verses that you may recognize where the word is used:

-So in one sense, every one of us is called to “deacon” each other, we’re all supposed to look for opportunities to serve each other. But there’s a difference between a general gift and being called to a church office, and this is also true of the elder/shepherd role. I know some women who are MUCH more gifted than I am pastorally (as shepherds), but that doesn’t mean they should be serving in the OFFICE of pastor/elder. Same here, just because all of us are called to serve each other doesn’t mean everyone is called to serve in the OFFICE of deacon, offices are recognized by the church to help serve in some specific way.

-Not mentioned a lot in the NT (unless you count all the times “servant” is used), but notice that Paul specifically says “likewise” in 1 Tim. Connecting it to the office of elder, and I would argue that we see it develop in 1 other place that we’ll get to after we look at the qualifications of a Deacon.

-First, do you see all the similarities between the 2 lists? Again, nothing extraordinary about this list, someone who is living a faithful Christian life.

-Now, one thought that may be slightly contentious, but I would argue that the flow of this section matters greatly, because I would argue that this office is open to women. See, God’s design for the church doesn’t prohibit women from all leadership in the church, women are VITAL to God’s good plans, but the office that is also open to women is Deacons. Why do I think that?

-Vs. 11, I would argue should instead be translated at “Women” referring to women deacons, so then the flow of this passage is:

-If this office is only mentioned once, what should deacons do?

–Acts 6, while it doesn’t list the office of Deacon, most people believe this is the origination of the office, where we see what Deacons are called to do, as well as a glimpse of what Elders are to focus on. Remember, not better/less than, both are essential for a healthy church to flourish, and both are appointed by God and recognized by the congregation.

-Unity was being threatened, so a group was set apart from the congregation to work towards building the harmony that only comes about through the gospel.

-In our Western ears this sounds like it’s creating a class system: Twelve are too good to wait on tables, but that’s not what’s happening, it’s splitting the needs up so everyone can better serve in their giftings and callings. If the elders were busy dealing with the daily food distribution it would take time away from them focusing on prayer and the ministry of the word (their primary task), doesn’t mean they’d never wait on tables, it means that’s not their primary focus.

-I’ll tell a personal anecdote from my ministry. In my first role, I was tasked with leading a children’s VBS. Can I do it? Sure! But I absolutely despised every piece of it! I wasn’t particularly good at planning it out, wasn’t good at coming up with a theme, wasn’t good at engaging the kids, I’ll be honest this was not in my top 5 skill set (probably not top 500 skill set)! But it succeeded when I recruited someone who was both passionate and gifted at it! It wasn’t below me at all, but it wasn’t the best use of my time. Similarly here: elders are primarily called to Word based ministry (of which I’d say prayer is a piece) and deacons are primarily called to service based ministry, and look at the outcome of this:

-“The Word of God spread.” Because the church was following God’s design and plan.

-So my proposal: Christ ruled, Elder led, Deacon served, and congregationally governed so that the Word of God may continue to spread, that the church may be built, that the saints can use their gifts, and that most importantly God would be honored and glorified in us and through us.