Biblical Elders

Have you ever read the biblical qualifications for church leadership? The list is not lightweight.

¹ The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. ² Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, ³ not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. ⁴ He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, ⁵ for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? ⁶ He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. ⁷ Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil (1 Tim 3:1-7).

⁵ This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you -- ⁶ if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. ⁷ For an overseer, as God's steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, ⁸ but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. ⁹ He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it (Titus 1:5-9).

I am not alone in my concern today that church leadership is not lining up very well with biblical requirements. As a prime example, just about everyone knows about the concept of the "PK" -- the pastor's kid. The children of the pastor in many churches will often be the most disruptive kids around because, as we all know, a pastor's job is tough and time consuming and he doesn't get much opportunity to deal with his kids. But there is no question that a leader in the church must "know how to manage his own household" specifically in terms of well-behaved children.

But I'm not writing this to complain about pastor's kids. I'm writing this about the listing of requirements. First, it should be noted that these lists are not intended as qualifications for Christians. Just like a "computer programmer" needs to have a special skill set that not everyone requires, "elders" need to have special qualifications. Still, these qualifications leave me with questions.

There are peripheral questions for me. How would you define "self-controlled"? Is a pastor who eats too much lacking in self-control? (It's an easy question since I know of so many overweight pastors.) How would you quantify "arrogant"? That's tougher, since simply holding a view of Scripture can be classified as "arrogant".

From there, it only gets tougher. What, for instance, are we to make of "the husband of one wife"? Some have argued that it is "one wife at a time" (as opposed to polygamy). That would qualify most anyone. But clearly the Bible is talking about managing households and such, so that seems unlikely. The more conservative side says it means "one wife ever". That would automatically exclude a divorced person from being in church leadership. But what if that divorce took place in his youth, before he knew Christ? Would this preclude him from serving in that capacity? And, of course, it would seem to clearly exclude single men from being church leaders. Aren't many youth pastors single? And if "the husband of one wife" is the standard, what about widowers? Or widowers that remarried? It all seems very convoluted. Now, I know that the original text can be read "one woman man", and that would seem to resolve a lot of these questions, but then we're back to the "How would you quantify 'arrogant'?" kind of question. Is he a one-woman kind of man?

What do we conclude about "his children are believers"? One view argues that all of the children of any given leader must be faithful believers in Christ. Another perspective holds that they need to be well-behaved. The term doesn't necessarily have to read "believers", but can be read as "faithful". So which is it? And how do you know? For instance, as a silly question, how many infants are "believers"? Wouldn't that disqualify any man with an infant? And, really, can a father -- any father -- be responsible to raise believers? That is, can a father make his children believers, or is that God's work in their hearts and their subsequent decision?

Imagine a pastor that had two sons. One was "the good son", going to church and leading Bible studies and doing all the good things expected of him and the other was "the renegade son", running off with wild women and mimicking the prodigal son in a marvelous way. As it turned out, decades later, the good son announced that he was an atheist and the renegade son became a pastor. So, here they are. Is the pastor-son now disqualified by the divorce he had in that wild time? Is the father of the two sons disqualified because of the renegade son who repented or is he disqualified by the good son, still well-behaved but just not a believer?

Tough questions. Sometimes I ask myself tough questions. Easy answers aren't always forthcoming. So here's the final question. Should we, then, just decide to ignore these qualifications like some seem to be doing these days?