Biblical Eldership Church Leadership

Paul ’s Instruction to Timothy

wages,” is from Luke 1027. Jesus originally spoke these words to the seventy before He sent them out to preach. Paul applied His words to all who teach and preach the gospel (1 Cor. 9214). Here, in 1 Tlmothy 5: 17,18, Paul applies the same words to elders who labor in the Word. No matter how poor a local congregation is, it must exercise faith and liberality before the Lord (2 Cor. 8:1-5) in giving to those who labor in the Word. In short, God’s people must honor their elders. “For what could be more unkind,” writes Calvin, “than to have no care for those who have the care of the whole Church.”32 Today we desperately need to capture Paul’s passion and vision for the centrality of preaching and teaching the Word in the power of the Holy Spirit. If we do, we will gladly render double honor to elders who labor in the Word. If we don’t, we are doomed to wander far off course into forbidden waters, just as the church at Ephesus did. Honoring elders also includes protecting them from malicious people and false accusations. The Scripture says, “Do not receive an accusa tion against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses” (v. 19). We must not be naive about the fact that there are plenty of hate ful, unstable people who aim to ruin people in authority. Godly men like Joseph, Moses, David, Jeremiah, Nehemiah, and Paul all experi enced the bitter sting of false accusation. David, for example, pleaded with King Saul not to listen to false reports about his intentions toward him: “And David said to Saul, ‘Why do you listen to the words of men, saying, “Behold, David seeks to harm you?””’ (1 Sam. 2429; cf. Neh. 625-9). Discontent, rancorous members of the infant China Inland Mission nearly destroyed the mission by their false reports and complaints about their saintly leader, Hudson Taylor. Hudson’s wife, Maria, indignantly wrote to the wife of one of her husband’s accusers, reminding her of 1 Timothy 5:19: I am aware that (your husband) has received...serious misrepresentations—to call them nothing worse. Would it not have been the right course, before allowing these to affect his conduct, to have endeavored to ascertain the other side of the PROTECTING AN ELDER

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