The Office of Pastor (part 1)

I Timothy 3:1-7

I'm going to begin this with a rather blunt statement; your opinion of what a pastor should be does not matter, and neither does mine. What does matter is what God's Word says. That is what we will consider today. Don't think that this does not apply to you though. As church members, we should all know the qualifications of a pastor. We should let God's standard guide our expectations. For those of us who are pastors, we must give all diligence to live up to these standards.

I want to also say, there are a lot of men who do not meet the requirements of this text. I'm not going to point fingers, and I am not going to harp on any one standard. The fact is that we all fail from time to time. However, there are two ordained offices in a church (pastor and deacon), and God set very high standards for those men. Yes, I said men. We will see why in a moment.

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“This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?); not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. Moreover he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.”

I Timothy 3:1-7

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Verse one could be rephased to say, "If one desires the office of overseer, he sets his heart on a good work.” I am going to take a little liberty here and say that I do not believe the man "sets his heart" on the good work, bur rather that God sets his heart. I will not rehash my testimony, but just say that I never wanted to be a pastor. I have heard many men who said the same thing. God called them, often they ran, but when they surrendered to His will, He set their heart on the office. Now, though it is often a difficult and lonely road, they would not go back.

Verse two is where many people overlook the text. The text begins by saying, "The bishop must be blameless...". The word blameless means "one that cannot be laid hold upon". In other words, he must be unchargable like Christ, of whom they could find no fault (Luke 23:4). This is the achilles heel of every pastor. Even if no one else can find a fault with him, the pastor can think of every reason why he is unworthy to be in the position. Satan uses this knowledge to try to convince us to quit. We must always be on our guard against these attacks. Also, we must be diligent to not give legitimacy to his charges.

The next part of verse two is one of the most attacked scriptures of our day. People, seeking gender equality, try to modernize this text, or explain it away. Paul writes, "The bishop must be...the husband of one wife". The Greek word translated man ("aner"), when speaking of gender always means a "male or husband". It is a masculine pronoun, period. The word translated wife ("gyne") is the same word from which we get our word "gynecology". The pastor is to be a "one woman man", or "the husband of one wife" There is no linguistic acrobatics that can explain this away short of denying the Word of God. When we consider that God made man the head of the home, the spiritual leader of the home, and the one to whom He looks to when the home is out of order, how could a woman be the pastor of a man? Paul explicitly stated that a woman was not to teach a man or have authority over a man in chapter two (I Timothy 2:12). This verse also makes it impossible for a woman to pastor a church.

I am going to cover two more characteristics before I leave off. The next two go together. "A bishop must be...temperate, sober-minded...". Temperate means not given to alcohol. In our day, that would also mean given to drugs. We must a have clear mind that seeks God. We must also be "sober-minded" or "of a sound mind, sane, possessing self-control". Again, we must be in control of our minds. We cannot allow other things or even personal impulses to control us. Most pastors I know do not struggle with alcohol (though I have known some), but we do struggle with controlling impulses. It is the same struggle that every other church member has, but Satan can use the impulses of a pastor to tear a church to shreds.

I am going to hold off here, but I do want to encourage you to pray for pastors. We are human just like anyone else. We are not super human. We learn to trust God in the same ways that every Christian should learn. The difference is that we have a calling on our lives from God. We must therefore be diligent to "walk in the Spirit, so that we do not fulfil the lusts of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16). We must pray, and we desire the prayers of others.

Father, I thank You for the calling on my life. I resisted for so long, trying to pursue my own plans. However, You did not change Your mind. Help me, and my brothers in the ministry to diligently seek You. Help us to be obedient to the calling on our lives and to not bring shame on the office. I pray that church members would know the qualifications of a pastor, not for the purpose of holding it over their heads, but rather for the purpose of lifting them up in prayer.