The Ministry
"A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach."
1 Timothy 3:2
God wrote down the qualifications for the ministry. He did not leave them to be worked out by each generation, or adjusted for the culture, or inferred from what seems to be succeeding. He set them out twice, in plain lists, in language a farmer could follow — and then He inspired other passages that tell us exactly what happens to a church and to a man when the lists are ignored.
Almost nobody uses them.
Men are chosen today for the reasons men are chosen anywhere: because they speak well, because they have presence, because they built something, because they are the founder's son, because they were available, because the church was desperate. And once a man is in, the lists are treated as an ideal rather than a requirement — something to aim at rather than something to be measured by.
This article does nothing but take the lists seriously. It will be uncomfortable in places, and it should be. Where it stings, that is the passage stinging, not the writer. And every word of it applies first to whoever is writing it.
"This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work." (1 Timothy 3:1)
Notice what a man is said to desire. Not a good office — a good work.
Scripture is not disapproving of the desire. It is a good thing to want, and a man who wants it is not thereby ambitious in a wrong sense. But the word chosen tells us what the thing is. It is labour, and unglamorous labour: sitting with the dying, visiting the difficult, studying when nobody sees, being telephoned at eleven at night, carrying griefs you may never repeat to anyone, and being blamed for things you did not do.
A man who desires a position has already misunderstood the sentence. And here is the plain test, worth putting to any man who wants the ministry, including yourself: would you still want it if there were no platform, no title, no salary, and no one ever knew your name?
"Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee." (1 Timothy 4:16)
Because that is very nearly the job description. The public part of the work is perhaps five per cent of it. If a man is drawn by the five per cent, he has not desired a good work. He has desired an audience — and God has a word about men who wanted the chief seats.
Read the qualifications through once and something ought to arrest you.
"A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?) Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil." (1 Timothy 3:2-7)
Count the items. Sixteen or so, depending how you divide them. And of all of them, exactly one is a skill: apt to teach.
Everything else is character. Not gifting, not education, not results, not charisma, not vision, not administrative ability, not fundraising, not church growth. God's list is almost entirely a description of what a man is when nobody is watching.
Set that beside how ministers are actually assessed. We ask whether he can preach, whether the numbers rose, whether he is liked, whether he can lead. Every one of those questions is about output. God's list is about the man.
This is not an accident, and it is not old-fashioned. It is because a minister's chief instrument is himself. A dishonest man may still teach true doctrine, and the doctrine will still be true — and the people will still be poisoned, because they are learning from a life as much as from a lesson.
"For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate; Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers." (Titus 1:7-9)
Twice, in two letters, to two different men, the same list. God did not say it once and leave it to be remembered.
The word heads the list and governs everything after it. It does not mean sinless. If it did, the list would be empty and the ministry would be vacant.
It means not open to accusation — a man against whom no just and substantial charge can be laid. Not a man nobody dislikes, which is impossible and would itself be a disqualification. A man against whom nothing genuine sticks.
The test is simple and searching. Is there a matter in this man's life that, if it became public tomorrow, would shame the gospel and silence him? A debt he will not settle. A woman. A habit indulged in private. A cruelty at home that the congregation never sees. A record of leaving churches with wreckage behind him and a different explanation each time.
If such a thing exists, the man is not blameless, however gifted he is — and gifting is precisely what tempts a church to overlook it. That is the arrangement by which nearly every ministerial disaster of the last fifty years was made possible. Somebody knew, and the preaching was too good to lose.
"My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation." (James 3:1)
Godly men differ on the exact application, and this page will not pretend the question is simpler than it is. Some hold it excludes any divorced man from the office. Others hold it addresses polygamy, common in that world. Others hold it means a one-woman man — a husband whose eyes, affections and loyalty are fixed on his own wife and nowhere else.
What is beyond dispute is the standard it sets in the area where ministers most often fall. Whatever else the phrase covers, it certainly covers this: a man in the ministry must be beyond suspicion in his conduct with women, in his eye, in his conversation, and in what he does alone with a screen.
And it will not be met by rules alone, though rules are wise — the open door, the second person in the car, the account no one else controls. Those are guards, and every honest man should welcome them. But guards are not character. A man who resents the guards is telling you something about himself that the guards were designed to catch.
Three words that describe a temperament, and every one of them is unfashionable.
Vigilant — watchful, clear-headed, not easily carried away. The kind of man who is not the last to notice that something is wrong in his church.
Sober — not the opposite of joyful, but the opposite of frivolous. A man who knows the weight of what he handles. There is a species of ministerial jokiness that plays well and hollows a pulpit out over ten years, until the congregation can no longer distinguish the eternal from the entertaining, because the man in front of them never did.
Of good behaviour — orderly. His life is not chaos. His commitments are kept, his word means something, his appointments are honoured, and the people around him are not perpetually managing the disorder he creates.
None of these can be preached into existence on a Sunday. They are built over years, in private, and they are visible to a wife and to children long before they are visible to a pulpit committee.
This one is quietly dropped almost everywhere, and it may be the most diagnostic of the lot.
The requirement is that a man's home be open. Not that he be sociable, not that he attend functions — that people come into his house, sit at his table, and eat his food.
Why would God make this an office requirement? Because it is nearly impossible to fake, and because it costs. It costs money, and time, and privacy, and it exposes a man's household to view. A man who preaches love and keeps his door shut has been found out by his own front step.
The professionalised ministry has largely abolished this. The pastor is met by appointment, in an office, in a building, for a fixed period. Much of that is unavoidable and some of it is wise. But something real was lost when the man of God stopped feeding people in his own kitchen, and no committee ever voted for the loss.
The one skill on the list — and it is worth defining, because it is routinely confused with something else.
Apt to teach does not mean able to hold a crowd. It does not mean eloquent, funny, or moving. It means able to take the Word of God and make it plain to ordinary people, so that they understand what was not understood before.
Those are different abilities, and they can exist apart. There are men who can hold two thousand people rapt and leave them knowing nothing. There are men who stumble over their words and send a congregation home able to explain a chapter they had never grasped. The second man is apt to teach. The first may be merely apt to speak.
And note that it presupposes labour. A man cannot make plain what he has not understood, and he cannot understand without study. A minister who does not study is stealing — taking a living for work he has not done.
Two prohibitions, and the second is worse than it looks.
The first is plain enough, and the principle behind it is wider than one substance: a man ruled by any appetite is not fit to lead, because the office will apply pressures that appetite will exploit.
But no striker deserves a long look. It means, literally, not a man who hits. And while few pastors strike anyone with a fist, the disposition finds other outlets, and the pulpit is a convenient one.
There is a kind of preaching that is not preaching but assault — the sermon aimed at a person, the public humiliation of someone who cannot answer back, the withering aside about a family everyone can identify. There is bullying by committee, and there is the cold shoulder used as a weapon. There is the man who is charming in the foyer and terrifying at home.
A striker is a man who uses his position to hurt people because it is safe for him to do so. God says he is not to hold the office. And the flock should understand: severity is not the same as faithfulness. A man may be perfectly orthodox and utterly disqualified by his manner.
"For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers." (Matthew 23:4)
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness." (Matthew 23:27)
Now the requirement that Scripture repeats more than almost any other, and which our generation has quietly relaxed.
Mark first how often it appears. It is in the bishop's list. It is repeated in the deacons' list. It appears again in Titus, where an elder must not be given to filthy lucre. And when Peter charges the elders, it is there again — that they feed the flock of God, taking the oversight not by constraint but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind.
Four times, in the space of a few chapters, God warns about the same thing. That is not the emphasis of a book worried about a rare problem.
"Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock." (1 Peter 5:2-3)
And notice the adjective. Not lucre. Filthy lucre — money taken in a way that dirties the one who takes it. God is not condemning money. He is condemning a certain relation to it in a man who handles holy things.
Here is why it is placed in these lists in particular. Ministry offers a man access — to trust, to grief, to fear, to the wallets of the elderly, to families at their most pliable. A dishonest man in almost any other trade must work for his opportunity. A dishonest man in the ministry is handed it, wrapped in the confidence of people who believe he speaks for God.
Filthy lucre in the twenty-first century rarely looks like theft. It looks like this:
Scripture names the practice with a phrase that ought to stop us. The apostle Peter, warning of false teachers, says that through covetousness they will with feigned words make merchandise of you. Merchandise. The people as inventory. The flock as a revenue base. It is one of the ugliest sentences in the Bible, and it was written about ministers.
"But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction." (2 Peter 2:1)
"And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not." (2 Peter 2:3)
Against all of this stands the plainest example in the New Testament, and it is worth reading slowly because it demolishes every excuse.
Taking his leave of the Ephesian elders, the apostle Paul told them he had coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel — and then he held up his hands and said that these hands had ministered to his necessities and to those with him. He had supported himself, making tents, so that nobody could say he had preached for profit. And he closed by reminding them of the words of the Lord Jesus, that it is more blessed to give than to receive.
"Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." (Acts 20:28)
"I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel. Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me. I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive." (Acts 20:33-35)
He says the same to the Thessalonians: that he never used flattering words, nor a cloke of covetousness — God is witness — nor sought glory of men. A cloke of covetousness: religion worn over greed like a coat over a stain.
"For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloke of covetousness; God is witness: Nor of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor yet of others, when we might have been burdensome, as the apostles of Christ." (1 Thessalonians 2:5-6)
And elsewhere he distinguishes himself from those who corrupt the word of God — the word means to peddle, to hawk, to adulterate goods for sale, the exact term for a merchant watering the wine. There were men doing that with Scripture in the first century. There are more of them now, and better equipped.
"For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ." (2 Corinthians 2:17)
The apostle's example is not a rule that every minister must refuse support. He argues elsewhere, at length, that the labourer is worthy of his hire. It is something more searching than a rule: it is a man so determined that the gospel should cost the hearer nothing that he would rather work nights than have anyone think he was in it for the money.
Ask honestly how many ministries today would be recognisable to him.
Scripture gives this sin a face, and the man's name became a byword.
Balaam was a genuine prophet who could not be bought outright. He would not curse what God had blessed, and he said so. But he kept the door open. He went back to God a second time, hoping for a different answer. He wanted the fee and the standing and looked for a way to have both without an open breach — and in the end he found one, and taught the enemy how to seduce the people he could not curse.
Both Peter and Jude reach for him when they describe corrupt ministers. Peter speaks of those who follow the way of Balaam, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. Jude speaks of men who ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward.
"Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core." (Jude 11)
Mark what is being described. Not a man who denied the faith. Not an unbeliever. A man whose theology was sound, whose prophecies were true, and whose heart was for hire — and God dealt with him as an enemy.
The apostle Paul puts the diagnosis in a single phrase in his letter to Timothy: men supposing that gain is godliness. He warns that they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and that the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
"But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition." (1 Timothy 6:9)
"But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness." (1 Timothy 6:11)
Pierced themselves through. The wound is self-inflicted, and it goes all the way through.
Now a correction in the other direction, because this article would be dishonest without it — and because churches have wounded good men by the opposite error.
Scripture is emphatic that a minister may be supported, and that supporting him is not charity but obligation. The labourer is worthy of his hire. The elders who rule well are counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine. The ox is not to be muzzled as he treads out the corn. They which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.
"Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine." (1 Timothy 5:17)
So a congregation that keeps its pastor poor while its own members prosper is not being spiritual. It is disobeying, and often it is doing so to keep a man dependent and controllable — which is its own species of the love of money, wearing the opposite coat.
There is a particular cruelty in churches that expect a man to be always available, always studying, always visiting, and always grateful for a wage that will not cover his rent, while telling him that his reward is in heaven. It is in heaven. So is theirs.
The line is not the amount. It is the direction of the heart. A man may take a good salary with a clean conscience if he did not preach for it, would preach without it, and would say the same hard things if it were withdrawn tomorrow. And that last clause is the whole test.
Three more, easily hurried past.
Not a brawler — not quarrelsome. Some men are always at war, and the war always has a doctrinal name. Every church they enter divides, every fellowship they join fractures, and there is always a villain, and it is never them. Scripture disqualifies this man from the office, and the constancy of the pattern is the evidence.
"Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation." (Hebrews 13:7)
Not covetous — the word here is broader than money. It is a grasping disposition toward whatever the man wants: influence, position, recognition, the last word.
Patient — the word carries gentleness and forbearance, the willingness to be wronged and not retaliate. It is the opposite of the striker, and it is the temper the work requires, because the work is with sheep, and sheep are slow, and frightened, and they wander.
"One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)" (1 Timothy 3:4-5)
God supplies His own argument here, which is rare, and the logic is inescapable: the smaller trust proves the man for the larger.
Two errors have to be avoided at once.
The first is dismissing it — treating a chaotic or frightened home as a private matter unconnected to the office. It is not private. It is the qualification God chose to reason from.
The second is weaponising it — using this verse to hound a faithful man whose adult child has walked away. The requirement concerns children under his roof and his authority, and it concerns his conduct, not a guaranteed outcome. Godly men have had prodigals; God Himself has children who rebel. A man is not disqualified because a grown son made his own choice. He is disqualified if his household is presently ungoverned, or if it is governed by fear.
And here is the searching form of the question, which no congregation is placed to ask and every wife could answer: is he the same man at his own table as he is behind his own pulpit? If he is not, the pulpit is a performance, and the table is the truth.
The reason attached to this one is more alarming than the requirement.
A new convert is not to be given the office — not because he lacks knowledge, but because of what elevation does to a man who has not yet been proved. Lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.
Read that last phrase again. It is generally understood to mean the very condemnation the devil incurred — and his sin was not immorality or theft. It was wanting a place he had no right to, and being lifted up because of what he was.
So God's warning is that a man raised too fast is in danger of the identical ruin, by the identical mechanism. Not a lesser fall. The same one.
This has a plain application to how churches actually behave. We put gifted young men on platforms very early, because they draw. We hand influence to men whose character has never been tested by a decade of anything. And when they fall — publicly, expensively, with a trail of wounded people — we express surprise, when God wrote the mechanism down in advance and told us why.
Its clearest New Testament portrait is a man named in three verses of a private letter: Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them. He would not receive the apostle. He prated against him with malicious words. He would not receive the brethren himself, and forbade those who would, and cast them out of the church.
"I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not. Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church." (3 John 9-10)
Every element is recognisable. The refusal of oversight. The talking against those who might correct him. The controlling of who may come and who must go. And the diagnosis is not doctrinal at all — it is a man who loved to be first.
Set beside it Peter's charge to elders: feed the flock, not by constraint, not for filthy lucre, neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock. The flock is God's heritage, not the pastor's property. A shepherd who speaks of my people, my church, my ministry, and means it possessively, has forgotten whose blood bought them.
The last requirement looks outward, and it is remarkable that God included it.
The man must have a good report of them which are without — the unconverted. Not their approval of his doctrine; they will not give that, and it would be a bad sign if they did. But their testimony that he is honest, that he pays what he owes, that he tells the truth, that he treats his neighbours decently, that he is not a fraud.
It is the plainest of tests and the easiest to check. What do the tradesmen say? What does the bank say? What do the people who worked for him say? What do the neighbours say about the man in the house, not the man in the pulpit?
God's stated reason is protective: lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. A minister with a bad name in his own town has already handed the adversary a weapon, and it will be used, and the gospel will take the damage.
"Likewise must the deacons be grave, not doubletongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre; Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience." (1 Timothy 3:8-9)
Two things in this list deserve particular attention.
Not doubletongued. Not saying one thing to one man and another to the next. This is the besetting sin of committee life, and it is deadly in a deacon, because a deacon moves among the people. The man who agrees with everyone in the room and reports a different version outside it will wreck a church more thoroughly than a heretic, and take longer to be identified.
And they are first to be proved. Scripture adds that these also must first be proved, and only then use the office of a deacon, being found blameless. There is to be a period of observation before appointment. Not an interview. Not a nomination from the floor because a man is well liked or because his family has been in the church for three generations. Proved — watched, over time, under pressure.
"And let these also first be proved; then let them use the office of a deacon, being found blameless." (1 Timothy 3:10)
"Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men’s sins: keep thyself pure." (1 Timothy 5:22)
And not greedy of filthy lucre appears here too, for the obvious reason that deacons have historically handled the money. The men nearest the funds are given the same warning as the men in the pulpit.
Then comes a verse that is skipped in almost every discussion of church office, and it should not be.
"Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things." (1 Timothy 3:11)
Godly men differ over whether this refers to the wives of deacons or to women serving in the church. Either way the qualities are prescribed by God, and they bear directly on the household of a man in office.
Grave. Weighty, serious, not frivolous. A woman whose presence steadies a room rather than charging it.
Not slanderers. This is the one that must be said plainly, because it names the particular temptation of a woman in that position, and it is the sin most tolerated in our churches.
The wife of a man in office knows things. She knows who is in debt, whose marriage is failing, who confessed what, who is under discipline and why. She did not seek that knowledge; it arrives because of who her husband is. And it is the most dangerous currency in any congregation.
The word rendered slanderers is the same word used elsewhere for the devil himself — the accuser. That is not a coincidence of vocabulary that should be passed over quickly. A woman who trades in what she knows about the flock is doing the adversary's own work with the pastor's own information, and the office is what gave her the access.
It rarely announces itself as gossip. It comes as a prayer request with too much detail. As concern shared with one trusted friend, and then another. As a warning about someone's character, delivered privately, for their own good. And a congregation cannot defend itself against it, because it carries the authority of the manse.
Sober. Clear-headed. Not driven by drama, not requiring a crisis to feel useful, not needing to be at the centre of every matter in the church.
Faithful in all things. Trustworthy across the board — with money, with confidences, with her word, in small matters as in large.
This must be added at once, and with as much force, because the verse has been misused to crush good women.
She does not hold the office. Her husband does. She is not a second pastor, not an unpaid staff member, and not obliged to run the women's work, the music, the children's ministry and the hospitality because she married him.
She is not the congregation's property. Churches that scrutinise a wife's clothing, her housekeeping, her weight, her children's behaviour and her every expression on a Sunday morning are not upholding this verse. They are breaking several others.
She is entitled to a husband. A man who gives every evening to the church and comes home empty is not being sacrificial; he is robbing his own house to pay a church that never asked him to. His first congregation is at his table.
And a fair word must be said about the pressure such a woman is under. She has watched her husband criticised by people she must smile at on Sunday. She has held things she may never repeat. She has moved house for his calling and lost friendships for his stands. The requirement of gravity and faithfulness is real — and so is the debt the church owes her, which is almost never acknowledged and almost never paid.
Behind all these lists stands an older passage, and it is the most frightening chapter in Scripture on this subject.
Through Ezekiel, God turned on the shepherds of Israel with an indictment that reads like a charge sheet. Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks? They ate the fat and clothed themselves with the wool. They killed them that were fed. But they did not feed the flock.
"Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks?" (Ezekiel 34:2)
Then the specific failures, one after another: the diseased they had not strengthened, the sick they had not healed, the broken they had not bound up, the driven away they had not brought again, the lost they had not sought. And with force and with cruelty they had ruled them.
"The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them." (Ezekiel 34:4)
Notice how much of the indictment is about things not done. Not heresy. Not scandal. Neglect — sheep left sick, left broken, left lost, while the shepherds were comfortable.
And then God's answer, which every man in ministry should read on his knees: Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand. He removes them, and He takes the flock back into His own keeping — and the chapter ends with the promise of one Shepherd, David's greater Son, who would feed them Himself.
"Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand." (Ezekiel 34:10)
Jeremiah says the same in fewer words: woe to the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of God's pasture. And Malachi, to priests who had corrupted the covenant of Levi and caused many to stumble at the law: they had departed out of the way, and God had made them contemptible before all the people.
"Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD." (Jeremiah 23:1)
"For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts. But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the LORD of hosts." (Malachi 2:7-8)
A man may lose his own reputation by his own folly. That is his affair. But a man who scatters a flock has damaged what was purchased with blood, and God says He will require it at his hand.
Congregations have obligations here too, and an article that only examined ministers would be doing precisely what it condemns.
Do not receive an accusation lightly. Scripture is explicit: against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses. Ministers are perpetually vulnerable to the bitter, the mentally unwell, the disciplined member seeking revenge. A church that will believe anything about its pastor is not discerning; it is dangerous, and no faithful man is safe in it.
"Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses." (1 Timothy 5:19)
But do not be silent either. The same passage continues: them that sin, rebuke before all, that others also may fear. The protection is against the unsupported accusation, not against accountability. A church that will hear nothing about its pastor has built the exact structure in which serious sin survives for decades.
"Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear." (1 Timothy 5:20)
Do not measure him by the wrong list. If you assess a man by numbers, charisma and building projects, you will get a man who is good at numbers, charisma and building projects. God gave you the list. Use it.
Honour him if he is faithful. Pay him properly. Defend him when he is misrepresented. Let him rest. Let him have a day when nobody rings. And say the thing you have been meaning to say for eleven years — that a sentence of his changed your life, and you never told him.
"Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you." (Hebrews 13:17)
And pray for him. He is carrying things he cannot tell you about, and the adversary has particular interest in him. Most ministers who fall were not ambushed suddenly. They were exhausted for a long time first, and nobody noticed.
Peter, who had denied his Lord and been restored and told to feed the sheep, ends his charge to the elders with a promise and a warning in one sentence: when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
"And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." (1 Peter 5:4)
Three things are in that.
There is a Chief Shepherd, and no man in any pulpit is He. Every pastor is an under-shepherd with a Master, tending a flock that is not his own, on ground he does not own, with a Book he did not write.
He is coming, and He will appear. The assessment is not conducted by the congregation, the denomination, or the internet. It is conducted by the Owner of the sheep, and He was present for everything.
And the crown fadeth not away — set deliberately against everything that does. The building will be sold or demolished. The numbers will be forgotten within a generation. The reputation will be revised by people who were not there. Every earthly reward of ministry fades, and fades fast. One does not.
Which means the faithful man who served a small congregation for forty years in a hard place, buried its members, was never invited to speak anywhere, and is remembered by nobody, has not lost anything at all.
One last thing, and it is not a formality.
It is entirely possible to hold the office, keep the qualifications outwardly, preach the gospel accurately for thirty years — and never have come to Christ personally. Judas held an office. He kept the bag, and the others suspected nothing, right up to the end.
Anyone reading this who has been in ministry for years and has never settled the matter for himself: settle it now, before another sermon.
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." (John 1:12)
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." (Acts 16:31)
The lists are short. They can be read in three minutes. They were written by God, they have never been amended, and they are the only standard by which the ministry will finally be assessed.
If you hold an office, take them down and read them with your own name in the sentences. Not to be crushed — no man alive keeps them perfectly, and the ministry would empty tomorrow if perfection were the bar. But there is a difference between a man who is failing and fighting, and a man who has quietly stopped measuring himself by the list at all.
And if something in this article found you, do not argue with it. Deal with it. There is a verse for exactly this, and it is not written to the world:
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)
The flock is not yours. The Book is not yours. The gifts are not yours. And the Chief Shepherd is coming.
"Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous."1 Timothy 3:3
Our gracious heavenly Father, we come before Your throne of grace through the precious name and perfect merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has opened the way into Your presence.
We thank You for Your beloved Son, and for the Chief Shepherd, who laid down His life for the sheep and never once fleeced them. We praise You for Your preserved Word, which declares "A bishop then must be blameless" (1 Timothy 3:2), and which cannot be broken.
We confess before You for every man in office who has forgotten whose flock he tends, and for every church that measured him by the wrong list. Forgive us, we pray, and cleanse us, for You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
We beseech You for every soul reading these words who is yet without Christ. Send forth Your Holy Ghost to convince them of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; open their understanding; and draw them to Your Son before this day is done.
Strengthen Your people who read it. Comfort the discouraged, establish the wavering, and let none go away empty. And use this message to search every pastor, elder and deacon who reads it, and raise up faithful men, for Your glory and not for ours.
We pray all of this to You, O God, our Holy and Heavenly Father, in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by the power and anointing of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Before you close this page, one question matters more than everything you have just read: if you died tonight, do you know where you would be?
You cannot be saved by joining a church, by being baptized, by giving money, or by living a decent life. Salvation is not a wage that is earned; it is a gift that is received. Every one of us has sinned, the wages of sin is death, and there is a real hell prepared for sin — but the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross in the sinner's place, was buried, and rose again the third day.
If you know yourself to be a sinner, and you are willing to turn from your sin and trust Him alone, then speak to God now. There are no magic words — but if these words are the cry of your heart, pray them and mean them:
Dear Holy and Almighty God, I come to You just as I am. I confess that I am a sinner. I have broken Your law, I have gone my own way, and I deserve the judgment and the everlasting fire that my sin has earned. I cannot save myself, and I bring You nothing.
I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is Your Son; that He loved me and died on the cross in my place, shedding His precious blood for my sins; that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day.
Here and now I turn from my sin, and I trust Him alone — not my works, not my religion, not my goodness — to save me. Lord Jesus, come into my heart, forgive my sin, and be my Saviour from this moment and for ever.
In the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.
1. Tell somebody today. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).
2. Begin reading the Bible. Start with the Gospel of John, then Acts, then Romans. Read a little every day. "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2).
3. Talk to your Father every day. You may now come boldly, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No appointment is needed and no man's permission.
4. Find a Bible-believing church and be baptized. Not to be saved — you already are — but in obedience, and as the public confession of what has happened to you.
5. Rest in this, and do not be shaken by your feelings. "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). You will still sin; when you do, confess it and go on — "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).