Accusing Elders
I Timothy 5 – 19 Do not receive an accusation against an elder except from two or three witnesses. 20 Those who are sinning rebuke in the presence of all, that the rest also may fear.
In Founding Brothers, historian Joseph Ellis points out an adolescent tendency. He says in that state we either tend to revere our leaders unreasonably, or we castigate them unmercifully if they fail to meet our lofty expectations.
So it is that he approaches his subjects in America's revolutionary era as real humans subject to both inspiration and weakness. And so it is, perhaps, that Paul warns Timothy about handling accusations against spiritual leaders. Surely if we can tend to mythologize political demigods, those from whom we receive instruction and example related to the ideals of God's Word are subject to the same treatment.
They can sin, and Paul says the sin of biblical elders is to be taken seriously. Knowing our hearts, we can also be aware of the Ellis sort of sin toward them. We can be grateful for the proactive cautions the Bible has in place. Short of actual chapter-and-verse accusations of sin to which Paul logically and objectively moves under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, we can coddle a critical spirit toward those God has commissioned to lead us. Sin, confronts the standard of 1 Timothy 5:19-20? No, but well before we get there what leaders have violated much to our irritation are our sacrosanct preferences.
Strangely, this inflamed critical spirit can be more pronounced as we mature in other ways. As we learn to feed ourselves with God's Word directly in communion with the Holy Spirit as He directly speaks the language for which our hearts were made and remade, we can hold Congregational teachers to that standard.
When elders and pastors don't speak to our particular issue in our particular way as can often happen in our individual time in prayer and in the Word, we slide back a few verses and start critiquing character and assigning motive. Somebody who doesn't speak to our issues, suture our particular wounds, they must not be laboring in Word and doctrine. They must not be worthy of double honor.
There are multiple aspects of God's glory we can miss in such a grousing state. Ralph Waldo Emerson points to one of them when he admits, "I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I've eaten; even so, they have made me."
That is, as we progress in the individual study of God's Word, perhaps more than we can expect from communal teaching of a flock at varying levels of maturity, we forget those God has used to give us the tools for such study. How many elders, teachers, disciplers taught us how to exposit and apply in ways we take for granted now? We are much quicker, I think, with our disillusionment than our widespread thanks.
In Founding Brothers, historian Joseph Ellis points out an adolescent tendency. He says in that state we either tend to revere our leaders unreasonably, or we castigate them unmercifully if they fail to meet our lofty expectations.
So it is that he approaches his subjects in America's revolutionary era as real humans subject to both inspiration and weakness. And so it is, perhaps, that Paul warns Timothy about handling accusations against spiritual leaders. Surely if we can tend to mythologize political demigods, those from whom we receive instruction and example related to the ideals of God's Word are subject to the same treatment.
They can sin, and Paul says the sin of biblical elders is to be taken seriously. Knowing our hearts, we can also be aware of the Ellis sort of sin toward them. We can be grateful for the proactive cautions the Bible has in place. Short of actual chapter-and-verse accusations of sin to which Paul logically and objectively moves under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, we can coddle a critical spirit toward those God has commissioned to lead us. Sin, confronts the standard of 1 Timothy 5:19-20? No, but well before we get there what leaders have violated much to our irritation are our sacrosanct preferences.
Strangely, this inflamed critical spirit can be more pronounced as we mature in other ways. As we learn to feed ourselves with God's Word directly in communion with the Holy Spirit as He directly speaks the language for which our hearts were made and remade, we can hold Congregational teachers to that standard.
When elders and pastors don't speak to our particular issue in our particular way as can often happen in our individual time in prayer and in the Word, we slide back a few verses and start critiquing character and assigning motive. Somebody who doesn't speak to our issues, suture our particular wounds, they must not be laboring in Word and doctrine. They must not be worthy of double honor.
There are multiple aspects of God's glory we can miss in such a grousing state. Ralph Waldo Emerson points to one of them when he admits, "I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I've eaten; even so, they have made me."
That is, as we progress in the individual study of God's Word, perhaps more than we can expect from communal teaching of a flock at varying levels of maturity, we forget those God has used to give us the tools for such study. How many elders, teachers, disciplers taught us how to exposit and apply in ways we take for granted now? We are much quicker, I think, with our disillusionment than our widespread thanks.
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