Biblical Eldership Church Leadership

Paul ’s Instruction to Timothy

under orders from God and Christ’s apostle to perform his duty faith fully in a time of crisis. The letter was meant, then, to authorize Timo thy to act as Paul’s representative in Ephesus. The church in Ephesus urgently needed corrective discipline. Sense less, destructive doctrines were being taught that disrupted the entire inner life of the church. Christians were acting unlovingly toward one another. Quite likely, unqualified men had become elders and fallen into sin. Some women were crudely flaunting their wealth and new found knowledge. Exclusive ideas and fighting among men had ad versely affected the church’s prayers. Needy widows were forsaken by their selfish families and forced to rely on the church for support. Sin was ignored. But worst of all, the gospel message and its reputa tion in the unbelieving community was seriously threatened. As a re sult of these problems, Paul spells out in the letter of 1 Timothy (1) how Timothy should faithfully execute his duties, (2) how he should handle the false teachers, and (3) how the local church should conduct itself as God’s household and the pillar and foundation of the truth. This last point is of direct interest to our study. In 1 Timothy 3214,15, Paul states: I am writing these things to you [Timothy], hoping to come to you before long; but in case I am delayed, I write so that you may know how one ought to conduct himselfin the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth (italics added). The “these things” mentioned in verse 14 are the instructions Paul writes to Timothy and the church, which begin in chapter two (1 Tim. 2:1-3213). They are the God-given principles for ordering the life of the church. The word “conduct” (anastrepho') in verse 15 means “be havior,” “one’s manner of life and character,” or, as one Greek lexicon puts it: [to] “live in the sense of the practice of certain principles.”4 The conduct, then, of every single member of the church family must conform to these apostolic principles. The reason for insisting upon proper conduct and order is that the local church is “the household of God,” “the church of the living God,” and “the pillar and support of the truth.” “The gist of Paul’s message,” writes J.N.D. Kelly, “is that order, in the widest sense of the term, is necessary in the Christian congregation precisely because it is God’s

184