Listen now to God's holy word from 1 Timothy 5, beginning in verse 17. Let the elders who rue well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. For the scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain, and the laborer deserves his wages. Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all so that the rest may stand in fear. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels, I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging, doing nothing from partiality. Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands. Take part in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure. No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments. The sins of some people are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later. So also, good works are conspicuous, and even those that are not cannot remain hidden. Sin is our reading in God's word. Let's ask his blessing upon it in prayer. Our Lord, today we do come hearing your word. We pray that you would help us to receive it with sharp minds and hearts of faith, that we might understand, believe, receive, and act upon these teachings with fidelity, sincerity, and devotion to you. Grant your Holy Spirit that these ends might be accomplished. In Jesus' name we ask it. Amen. How should you treat your pastor? How should you treat your elders? Are they worthy of being treated well, or are they worthy of disregard, or maybe even disdain? Those are questions which have received widely divergent answers throughout history. due to variations in church tradition, Catholics revere the Pope, Quakers don't even have clergy, and personal experience. Some have had great pastors, some have had foolish pastors, some have had abusive pastors, all of these things can greatly shape the way that you treat those who serve you in this way. And so due to these variations, Some folks are inclined to be exceedingly generous towards the church's ordained leaders. They want them to be treated well, they want them to be paid well, and they may even come dangerously close to revering such individuals. Other folks are inclined to disregard the church's ordained leaders. They don't think that these people should receive any special treatment. They don't think that they're particularly worthy of respect. And they view those who would take up the ministry as suspicious or maybe even contemptible. There are many reasons why people tend towards one end of the spectrum or the other. Some of the reasons are good, some of the reasons are bad. But I can assure you that I have encountered individuals on both ends, even among professing Christians. However, the problem is that the church's treatment of its ordained officers is not something that can be dictated by mere feelings or reactions to past personal experiences. As usual, as with everything else, we must look to the scriptures to regulate our feelings and moderate our reactions. And so to 1 Timothy 5 we go. In our sermon text this morning, we find inspired apostolic guidance on the way in which the church's servants should be treated by the church's members. But why? Why does this subject arise in this book? That's always a question that's useful to ask. Well, first, Timothy, Paul has, as we've seen over several chapters now, labored long to provide Timothy with instruction on proper conduct within the household of God, how people ought to act if they're gonna be members of this church which Christ has built. And since the beginning of this chapter, chapter five, Paul has especially focused upon fostering appropriate relationships within the church. You can think back, he began by teaching Timothy how he was to treat others depending on their age and sex. And what we learned there was really he was to treat all of them as members of the body and thus as members of a family. Then in verse three, he narrowed his focus to give more specific guidance about certain groups within the church. Beginning first with widows in verses 3 through 16, Paul addressed their needs. And then now in verse 17, he moves to a second group within the church, which is elders. The ordained servants and overseers among the saints. Timothy and his flock needed not only to know how to treat one another, not only how to treat widows, but also how to treat these men. And as we read this morning, Paul's prescribed treatment of such men, we learn several things. Through this inspired counsel, we learn that God would have elders in the church honored. And yet at the same time, we learned that such honor does not exempt elders from discipline when they persist in sin. And therefore, in order that elders might be honored rather than disciplined, the church must ordain men with caution, choosing only men discernibly worthy of honor. And those lessons arise at different points in the text, and so this morning we're going to approach verses 17 through 25 under three distinct headings. Honoring elders is the subject of verses 17 and 18. Disciplining elders is the subject of 19 through 21, and ordaining elders is the subject of verses 20 through 25. So that's, those are our headings this morning, honoring elders, disciplining elders, and then ordaining elders. We began with Paul's instruction on honoring elders in verses 17 and 18. Back in chapter three, Paul outlined the need for and the qualifications of elders within the church. Those with keen memories this morning may recall that in that passage, the apostle actually spoke of such men as overseers rather than elders. But in our handling of that text, we demonstrated that the two terms overlap substantially in the New Testament. At times they are treated as interchangeable as we see Paul treats them in Acts chapter 20. And so this passage advances Paul's teaching on a group of people that have already been introduced in chapter three of the book. We're talking again here in chapter five about the ordained officers of the church who have been set apart to teach and to govern. But how does Paul advance his teaching on this matter? Well, the earlier instruction in chapter three focused on the conduct of the elder. Now, Paul is speaking about the conduct of the church in relation to the elder. And the main thrust of his argument is found in verse 17. Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. Here the apostle teaches that like widows, men serving in the office of elder were to be honored by the church. Now you can begin to understand why honor would be called for when you think back upon the exemplary piety which was to be possessed by those appointed to this office. Paul outlined that at length in chapter three. A person who truly fit the job description was worthy of dignity and respect rather than contempt. But now when Paul calls upon the church to honor such men, he's speaking of something more than just dignity and respect. For a certain subgroup of elders who were executing their ministry well, especially in regards to preaching and teaching, the church was to esteem them worthy of double honor. Now what does that mean? Does that mean simply that they were to be doubly respected? I don't think that's quite Paul's point, Because given the prior use of honor in relation to widows, as well as the rationale which Paul is going to provide in verse 18, it's apparent that Paul intends for the church to provide not just respect, but also remuneration, a payment for their service. Elders who were executing their mission well, especially in their preaching and teaching labors, were to receive this double honor. Now the apostle immediately grounds this on biblical precedent too, in fact. In verse 17 we read, for the scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain, and the laborer deserves his wages. The first citation, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain, that's a citation of Deuteronomy chapter 25, verse four. The statute there arises in a section within Deuteronomy addressing general matters of justice. And it speaks to the right of an animal to stop occasionally and to eat from the grain that's grinding under the threshing sled that it was pulling behind it. And as Jesus did earlier in the Gospels, Paul here, he argues from the lesser to the greater, And he asserts that if such a right belongs to an animal to get its food from its work, then it also belongs to people. More specifically, the general principle applies, he says here, to those laboring to preach the word. Their labor should put food on their table. The second citation, the laborer deserves his wages, is even more interesting because it's not from the Old Testament. At a time when the New Testament was not yet complete, when it had not been fully canonized, Paul was familiar enough with the teachings of Jesus to cite his words as scripture. When Jesus is preparing in the Gospels to send out 72 disciples on a mission of mercy and evangelism, he says to them, Luke 10, verse 7, remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. They did not go from house to house. In context there, in Luke chapter 10, Jesus speaks this phrase to his disciples in order to teach them the appropriateness of receiving provisions from those receiving their ministry. They were to be dependent upon those who received them as they traveled about from town to town. Paul takes up that principle and he asserts its ongoing applicability to elders presiding over the church, particularly as preachers. Now, despite the fact that Paul pinned the words we find in verses 17 and 18, some people will ironically point to Paul as the reason that churches shouldn't pay their pastors. They will say, Pastors today are too lazy. They only work one day a week anyways. And Paul, he was willing to work in the tent making business in order to put food on his table. He volunteered his ministry. And so pastors today, they're too lazy. They ought to do like him. They ought to go get another job. And this ought to be volunteer work. The problem with that argument is that Paul contradicts it at multiple points in his writings, not just here. And when you read what Paul wrote on the matter, he describes, explicitly, his willingness to forgo a wage as voluntary and strategic. In 1 Corinthians 9, this is where he speaks about this at length, in 1 Corinthians 9, 12, he admits that he and Barnabas had, they had forsaken this right. It's right to receive a wage for their labors, but they did so in order that the gospel ministry might be received more readily on the mission fields where they were traveling. But Paul, even in that context, depicts such a decision as a voluntary exception to the rule. What's the rule? Well again, 1 Corinthians chapter nine, the rule is first insinuated by Paul through some hypothetical questions in chapter nine, verse seven. He says this, who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk? And then later on in that chapter, the insinuated principle is made explicit. He says this, do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple? And those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings. In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. So it is true that Paul used his secular work to support his ministry. But he did so while defending the right of ministers to get their living through their gospel labors. And therefore, Paul's instruction to Timothy is meant to ensure that elders serving faithfully, especially in preaching and teaching, who have to give their time to the preparation of that preaching and teaching, they were to be esteemed worthy of double honor in the church, meaning that due to the work which they perform, they ought to receive respect and remuneration, payment. As a preacher myself, I have to admit this is somewhat awkward material to cover. But it would be a lot more awkward if this church was not already providing me and my family with sufficient financial support. So I'm thankful to serve a congregation, to serve a church that has not forsaken its duty to honor those laboring in the word. Thankful for that. I have, however, known churches where this council fell on deaf ears, where faithful and diligent ministers were given paltry support despite the church having more than enough money to pay them. They just didn't value it. They didn't prioritize that. They didn't think that was a worthy expenditure of their funds. And such congregations need to hear Paul's words here and elsewhere as he teaches us that the laborer deserves his wages. Elders are to be honored. in this way as they labor in the world. So that's the first subject in this text, honor your elders, particularly in this way. But Paul then moves to a second related subject in verses 19 through 21, which we might simply summarize by saying that he talks about disciplining elders. You see, the requirement of double honor might have appeared to place elders above the law in the life of the church. especially in an environment like Ephesus, where some elders had fallen prey to false teaching. Such counsel may have made Timothy and his flock feel defenseless against elders who had departed from the faith and plunged into sin. But Paul quickly clarifies that elders too are subject to the discipline of the church, provided they're afforded due process. He begins with this insistence on due process saying, do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. Initially, that might sound like a high bar, but this is really just the same standard required of accusations against anyone under the law of Moses. Deuteronomy chapter 19 verse 15 says this, A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be established. Jesus endorses this and he extends this concept into the New Covenant era in Matthew chapter 18 when he talks about dealing with sin in the life of the church. So why does Paul insist on this principle for elders as if it were unique, as if this were something new that the people weren't already familiar with? Well, we can't say for certainty, I don't think, why Paul pushes this point, but some have suggested that Paul emphasized the point because of the nature of the elders' office. Pastors and elders, due to the public post that they hold, are magnets for complaints. magnets for complaints. Did you know that? They tend to draw the ire of the discontented like moths to a flame. And thus Paul reminds Timothy here that not every complaint or accusation ought to be countenanced. A plurality of voices ought to support a charge against an elder if there is going to be a charge. Having at least two or three people willing to back the claims that are being made. And in this way, Paul is reminding the body that the church's elders, like others within the church, are to be given due process, like anybody else. Nevertheless, if two or three witnesses do come with evidence showing an elder to have fallen into serious and persistent sin, it ought to be heard, Paul says. Verse 20 says, as for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all so that the rest may stand in fear. Far from being above the law, ministers and elders who are found guilty of serious ongoing sin are to be rebuked publicly. Their sins to be laid bare. They're to be instructed in righteousness. They're to be called to repentance. And as we see in the text, the purpose of this is not merely to dress them down, to destroy them. Paul has warned against that sort of scathing, brash rebuke earlier in this chapter. This sort of rebuke has a more positive purpose. The purpose of this sort of discipline is to reclaim the offender from their sin and to cause others to fear lest they go astray as well. So you see, on the one hand, the rebuke glorifies the holiness of God while calling the offender back to holiness themselves. The offender is served in this way. On the other hand, The rebuke is meant to serve the other ministers and elders, and I think by extension all of God's people, by deterring them from sinning in the same manner. The primary reason that we ought to obey God is that it's right to obey God. He has authority. His authority is legitimate. It must be heeded. But fear of shame and punishment are, I think, legitimate secondary reasons to obey. And as sinful, prideful humans, those secondary reasons to obey often feel the most weighty. It's right to not want to be called out in front of other people. You ought to fear that, and that fear ought to not cause you to hide your sin, but to modify your behavior. That's what Paul's driving at here. And I've seen ministers charged and convicted with sin by the presbytery, and I have watched them receive public and pointed rebuke for their sins. And I can assure you, if you've never seen something like that, that will instill you with a holy fear. That is not a position that you want to be in. You do not want to hear the condemnation of God in this judicial way. issued to you through the voice of the church. And so Paul orders elders who persist in their sin to be rebuked in this way for the good of all God's people. The honorableness of their office does not trump the purity of the church. So congregation church discipline is an unenjoyable thing. If you enjoy it, there's a problem with you. It causes a lot of grief, it causes a lot of heartache, and far too often, it hardens the sinner's heart rather than softening it. But it must be done. It must be done. And as such, the apostle charges Timothy in verse 21, in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels, I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging, doing nothing from partiality. He's saying, Timothy, even if it's your brother elder, You've got to do what needs to be done. Elders, for all their worthiness of honor, are not to receive special treatment when charges are brought against them. They are to be presumed neither innocent nor guilty. Neither innocent nor guilty. Instead, the church is to judge all things by Scripture and evidence, acting in accordance with their findings. In Ephesus, Timothy would be, we can imagine, thoroughly involved in those judgments, especially in the case of elders. And thus Paul calls on all the witnesses of heaven as his audience when he solemnly requires Timothy to enter these processes without prejudging the matter, without sharing partiality. And so to track with Paul's logic up to this point then, we can say that elders are ordinarily to be honored, but the requirement of honor does not exempt them from discipline if such discipline is deemed necessary. Sure, it'd be better if all elders were always worthy of honor. Things don't always work out that way. Sin's a sneaky thing. And so the question then that might be raised in your mind and might have been raised in Timothy's mind is, is there a way to guarantee that at least the majority of the church's ordained servants are worthy of honor rather than contempt? I think there might be, and that's why Paul comes to verses 22 through 25 when he talks about ordaining elders, gives instruction on that subject. With the aim of ordaining honorable rather than contemptible men, Paul says to Timothy, do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, nor take part in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure. The reference here to laying on hands is a reference to that outward sign of ordination when men are set apart for service to the church. And the apostle says that Timothy and the church are not to be hasty in their laying on of hands. They're not to immediately lay their hands on any old fellow who seems halfway fit for service. To hastily and carelessly ordain a man who goes on to become a scoundrel is to be involved in his sins. Reckless ordination provides an open door for wickedness. Woe to the one who opens it. And so Paul urges caution and holy slowness so that those involved in the ordination process, like Timothy, might keep themselves pure, morally speaking. What Paul says next is really surprising, because it seems to have absolutely nothing to do with anything he's been talking about. He says in something of a pastoral aside to Timothy, no, longer drink only water, Use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments. I don't know about you, but sometimes I interrupt myself too. Thought comes in, throw it in right here, doesn't really have anything to do with the rest. There have been lots of speculation about why Paul inserted this comment in this context, and I really don't think we have enough information to be dogmatic. But I do think that some commentators have made some helpful suggestions that might help us to follow Paul's mind here. Think about it this way. Noting the stress that Timothy was under due to his involvement in dealing with false teachers and thus in the discipline of wayward elders in the Ephesian church, some have suggested that he was probably beginning to feel the physical effects of his psychological duress. And in an attempt to guard his purity amid the heat of that battle, and that purity's just been mentioned, Perhaps he had been abstaining from wine, he was only drinking water. But Paul here, thinking of Timothy and his personal situation, he interrupts himself to encourage Timothy to no longer restrict himself to water only. He's to drink a moderate amount of wine, not become a drunk, but drink a moderate amount of wine for the sake of his upset stomach in order to offset the weakness and the digestive ailments that the unpurified water may have been contributing to. Now admittedly, this explanation requires us to fill in some gaps, that are not actually filled in by the scriptures, but I think that sort of explanation at least begins to clarify the purpose and timing of Paul's aside. Timothy was not to continue his life as a teetotaler. He was to drink some wine for the sake of his health as he served the church. That would not compromise his purity. Now, with that personal pastoral aside issued, Paul returns to the matter at hand, which was ordaining amend to the eldership cautiously. In these final two verses, he outlines the advantage, actually, of taking time, which is twofold, both negative and positive. First, sort of the more negative side, avoiding hasty ordination helps the church to avoid bad dudes who are just good at hiding their badness. He says, the sins of some people are conspicuous, obvious or plain. They go before them to judgment. but the sins of others appear later. In other words, there's some guys that you just don't, you just know some people won't make ministers or elders. You just know it right away. Their moral and their spiritual shortcomings are obvious, and their deficiencies go before them, and even before they come to the church to be judged in their fitness, their sins have preceded them. It's obvious with some people. However, there are men who seem pretty good on the outside for a season. They seem to say the right things, they seem to do the right things, but their sins become more apparent over time. You get to know them a little better because you see them in different environments, different settings. And Timothy is, excuse me, Paul is saying to Timothy here that avoiding hastiness and ordination allows you to spot men in both categories, the obviously unfit and the, Sneakily unfit. And that doesn't mean that you're gonna uncover them all before they proceed to office. We don't live in a utopia. But the hope is that a sufficient waiting period will allow serious sins to surface. So that's the first thing that avoiding hasty ordination helps with. Avoiding bad news. We're good at hiding their badness. But in the second place, on a more positive note, Paul says that it should not be feared that avoiding hasty ordination will cause a man's good gifts to go unnoticed and remain suppressed. He says, so also good works are conspicuous, and even those that are not cannot remain hidden. Here he argues that just as some sins are obvious, so also some good works are obvious. Some men show themselves to be unmistakably holy, learned, and qualified for service in Christ's church. But moreover, Paul assures Timothy here, that even those good works which aren't conspicuous, which aren't immediately clear when you examine a man, those things, if they are truly good works, if they're truly done in faith, they will grow more and more visible over the long run. Those things will not be suppressed by being careful in the way that you proceed towards bringing a man into the ministry. So the point here of these final verses is that there is much to be gained by proceeding carefully and judiciously towards the laying on of hands, and there's little that's lost by not rushing. And I hope it's the case that the ordination requirements in our own church are attempts to embody this apostolic council. Holy slowness is baked into the system. Doesn't always work perfectly, but it helps. I'll give you a couple of examples. Pertaining to elders, a form of government, 25.3, says this. This is in regards to ruling elders. in order that these sacred offices not be committed to weak or unworthy men, and that the congregation shall have an opportunity to form a better judgment respecting the gifts of those by whom they are to be governed and served. No one shall normally be eligible for election to office until he has been a communicant member in good standing for at least one year, shall have received appropriate training under the direction of or with approval of the session, and shall have served the church in functions requiring responsible leadership. Men of ability and piety in the congregation shall be encouraged by their session to prepare themselves for the offices of ruling elder or deacon so that their study and opportunities for service may be provided for in a systematic and orderly way." So you see what it says there? A man can't walk in off the street and become an elder. We want to see you in action. We want to see you in the life of the church for at least a year. We want to see you training. We want to see you preparing. We want you to be involved in the life of the body. We want you to show your gifts, show your graces, and thus avoid committing the sacred offices, as the former government says, to weak and unworthy men. Similar things are said in regards to the preparation of ministers. Form of government, the Book of Church Order, Chapter 21, it outlines a lengthy process which must be followed prior to the ordination of a minister. This is a brief review of what that entails. Men must first be taken under care of the presbytery, at which point they are examined in regards to their faith and their life, their conduct, and they're only brought under the care of the presbytery at the request of their church, who knows them well. To be licensed to preach, such men must subsequently be examined in several biblical and theological disciplines, showing their learning, their ability to communicate their learning. Only then, at the approval of the presbytery, may they be licensed to preach in the churches. And once they're licensed, potential ministers enter what we call a probationary period so that their gifts and their graces can be discerned by the church. And during this time, many complete their seminary degree, they begin preparing for ordination exams while they look for a church to serve. And like we're gonna have a licentiate in a couple of weeks, they go out, they preach in the churches so people can sort of discern, is this man gifted? Can he really do it? And it provides him an opportunity to develop his gifts as well. And then when they've received a call from a church which finds them satisfactory, they're evaluated at the Presbytery again regarding their faith, their life, their conduct, and their theology. And only when all that's completed, or nearly over the course of a few years, is a man ordained to gospel ministry in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. It's not a perfect system. We do miss things. We do make mistakes. But in the spirit of 1 Timothy 5, men are weeded out along the way. And so what we try to do in this Presbyterian system that we inhabit is to apply the lessons of 1 Timothy 5, both with ministers and ruling elders, proceeding with care and caution prior to the laying on of hands. Ordaining men discerningly and with care, avoiding hastiness is the best way, according to the Apostle Paul, to ensure that more elders are worthy of honor than deserving of discipline. In conclusion, 1 Timothy chapter five, verses 17 through 25, it teaches us that men are set apart to govern and instruct the church. They're ordinarily to be honored. This honor does not exempt them from discipline if they persist in sin. But exhibiting great discretion and care in the ordination of men to office will go a long way towards promoting the honorable while weeding out the ungodly. Now folks, I know that at this point in 1 Timothy, we're somewhat in the weeds. We've been in the weeds for a while. We're gonna stay in the weeds a little bit longer in this book. Paul is dealing at this juncture with the nitty gritty details of life in the church. But, As we close, let's step back for a moment and reflect on the fact that is reflected here, okay? Reflect on the fact that Jesus Christ, the head of the church, has gifted his people with godly men who preach and teach the word soundly. He gifts the church this thing. Jesus died for the church. He was raised for the church, he gives salvation to the church for as many as who will receive it by faith, and he sustains the church's spiritual health and well-being through the gospel ministry, which regularly offers the means of grace presenting Christ to the congregation. And so, these rules and regulations ought to remind us of that fact, and therefore, we ought to give thanks to Christ for faithful ministers and elders. We ought to give honor where honor is due, allowing our disposition not to be so much shaped by our own personal experiences, but by scripture. We ought to pray for the holiness of the men who serve the church. We ought to ask the Lord to protect the church from unholy men. We should all, when we think of the fact that there could be unholy men serving the church, we ought to all be instilled with the fear of God, When we hear of the church's shepherds falling into sin, we ought to tremble and repent ourselves. We ought to be left standing in fear, pray for their restoration, the healing of the church. We ought to pray for men pursuing ordination, as well as those examining, that they might not miss these things. And we ought, with all of this in mind, to receive eagerly the ministry of the word, which the Lord gives us through these ordinary human means. perfect though they are, which he has ordained for the good of the church. And so let this instruction shape the way that we think about the ordained servants of the church. God instituted them, he wants them. Our sin often mars our efforts, but the Lord would direct us in receiving their ministry, because through that ministry we receive the word of Christ and the good news of the gospel. Let's pray.