Hey everyone, Derek here (a.k.a. “Mr. THEOparadox“).

One of the oft-overlooked qualities essential for any pastor is that he “must have a good reputation with those outside the church.” (I Timothy 3:7). This past Sunday I heard a testimony that demonstrates the fruit of possessing this qualification.

In our men’s Sunday School class, our pastor’s neighbor shared the reason he recently started attending our church. He said that he had waited two years before coming to the church because he wanted to “see if this man really was who he claimed to be.” After observing and interacting with my pastor during that time, including a spirited dispute over a fence line, he saw something authentic and impressive (no doubt it was the image of Christ, unobscured by human pride). My pastor passed the reputation test, and he’s won the opportunity to effectively share the Gospel as a result. God uses the qualifications He requires.

For several years, I was part of a very solid family of Reformed charismatic churches. There, I discovered a peculiarly strong emphasis on the Biblical qualifications for church leaders. I saw these qualifications accurately described and defined, and I watched as my pastors were held accountable not only to attain the qualifications at the start, but to maintain them all the way through. I know of specific cases where church discipline was applied because leaders failed to remain “above reproach” in areas like finances and family discipleship. All of this was very refreshing, especially in light of my Pentecostal background. Back in my Pentecostal days, anyone who had a decent speaking voice, a strong personality, and something interesting to say, could be a preacher, teacher, or leader in the church. Everyone was considered “qualified until proven guilty.” But in the Reformed charismatic church, the qualifications sometimes seemed unattainable for common mortals.

The pastor of the small Evangelical Free church I’ve been attending for about a year now offers a radically different approach that brings a needed balance. He once told me: “Derek, if you can’t do what I’m doing, then I’m not doing the right things. The Biblical qualifications for leadership are the goal for all of the men in our church. When there is a need for leadership, there should be a large pool of men to choose from because we’re all learning to be leaders in our homes, and many of us will have attained to those qualifications.” In my previous church, leadership qualities seemed to be reserved for the elite few who dared to make a run at them, but here they are a universal goal and are viewed as the roadmap of growth for every Christian man. Although the bar has not been lowered, the grace to reach it is now much more sharply in focus.

To summarize, I have seen three different approaches to the qualifications listed in I Timothy 3 and Titus chapter 1 . . .

1. Make them irrelevant by under-emphasizing them – ignoring or downplaying their significance.
2. Make them unachievable by over-emphasizing them – sometimes to the point of elitism (which makes them practically irrelevant for most people).
3. Aim to instill them by making them an achievable goal for all Christian men – by grace and through the ongoing work of sanctification.

Certainly there is a need for special gifting in areas like teaching, administration, etc., but I’m primarily considering the character qualifications. In the lists below, the only real gifting is “able to teach.” All the rest are issues of character.

Qualifications for Elders:

• must be above reproach
• must be blameless
• the husband of but one wife
• temperate
• self-controlled
• respectable
• hospitable
• able to teach
• not given to drunkenness
• not violent but gentle
• not quarrelsome
• not a lover of money
• must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect
• a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient
• must not be a recent convert
• must have a good reputation with outsiders

Qualifications for Overseers/Bishops:

• must be blameless
• not overbearing
• not quick-tempered
• not given to drunkenness
• not violent
• not pursuing dishonest gain
• must be hospitable
• one who loves what is good
• self-controlled
• upright
• holy
• disciplined
• must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it

Qualifications for Deacons:

• are to be men worthy of respect
• sincere
• not indulging in much wine
• not pursuing dishonest gain
• must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience
• must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons
• must be the husband of but one wife
• must manage his children and his household well
• their wives are to be women worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything

Here are the generally ignored qualifications for a deacon from Acts 6 . . .

• known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom

So . . . how are Biblical qualifications for leadership handled in your church?

~ Derek ~

Hey everyone, Derek here.

This week I listened to C.J. Mahaney’s sermon, “Christ Our Mediator.” (Click here to download it free from Sovereign Grace Ministries)

C.J. quoted three definitive Gospel summaries . . .

“The glory of the Gospel is this:  the One from Whom we need to be saved is the One who has saved us.”   – R.C. Sproul

“Divine love triumphed over divine wrath by divine self-sacrifice.”   – John Stott

“The debt was so great that while man alone owed it, only God could pay it.”   – Anselm

The results: God’s holy wrath is satisfied, so believers have peace with God and no condemnation from God.

Got nothing to add to that. Thank God.

Paradoxes can be a great tool for parenting.

Last weekend, I had a lot of yard projects to get done, so I told my kids (ages five and eight) that we would be spending the day together working. They looked excited, and started holding out their hands at me. Somehow, without trying to, I’ve given them the impression that this type of work should always be compensated. Or maybe they’ve given themselves that impression, I’m not sure.

Either way, I found myself staring down at two very expectant youngsters. I didn’t want to pay them, so I proposed decreed the following:

1. Everyone who works will get paid (including Daddy).

2. The payment scheme will be as follows: I will pay my daughter $1.00 for her work. She will pay her little brother $1.00 for his work. He will pay me $1.00 for my work.

3. If any of us doesn’t work, that person will still have to pay, but won’t get paid.

We were left with the perfect paradox: everyone gets paid, but no one gains anything. And no one loses anything, either. And we all have a motivation to work. Most importantly, Daddy doesn’t lose his shirt on the deal.

I even promised to pay them upfront. Each child was excited to receive the advance, but looked dejected about having to give an advance to someone else. “Cheer up,” I said, “You’ve just been paid upfront for work you haven’t done yet.”

One child looked up at me with a mixture of awe and indignation and said, “But we didn’t get anything.”

“That’s the way it works,” I said. “Everyone who works gets paid. And if you don’t work, you’ll have to give back the advance.” (Some people say I’m an unfair Daddy – but remember, I provide all their food, clothing and shelter at no cost to them).

With the financial issue out of the way, the children worked vigorously and joyously. In the end, I told everyone they did such a good job, their pay was going to be raised to $100.00. They looked at me and said, “No thanks.” Ah, mission accomplished.

All of this got me to thinking . . . could this paradox of payment without gain have anything to do with the extent of the atonement, or the futility of our own works, apart from Christ? Or some other theological issue?

Doubtless, some theological arguments are a zero-sum game. But as my kids are learning, godliness with contentment is great gain (I Timothy 6:6).

-Derek

The following quotations are from William P. Farley’s excellent book, Outrageous Mercy: Rediscover the Radical Nature of Christianity.

. . . all true worship is a response to God’s revelation. God initiates worship by speaking to us . . . Worship is not something that we fabricate or produce. God reveals some aspect of His moral beauty – His love, mercy, or holiness – and we respond with worship. In other words, to the degree that God communicates His proper nature to us we respond with worship. “Worship is dialogical,” notes Michael Horton. “God speaks and we respond.” (p. 166)

Where do we find the revelation that produces worship? The cross is the Bible’s greatest revelation of God’s goodness and mercy. In other words, the more we see God’s goodness and our bankruptcy at the cross, the greater our capacity for worship. God initiates worship by revealing Himself, and the cross is the pinnacle of all worship-inducing revelation. (p. 171)

Let us consider the worship of the Old Testament saints. For them, worship was not about sentimental singing, nor was it truth expressed in cold repetition. They certainly sang, and danced, and lifted their hands, and sometimes expressed extremes of jubilation rarely seen in modern America - except, perhaps, at sporting events. They also recited doctrine continuously (phylacteries, anyone?). But the central feature of Old Testament worship was sacrifice. Animals were slaughtered and burned (and also eaten) to the glory of God. Blood (innocent blood!) was everywhere. True believers understood that a living being was dying for their sins –  in their place, as it were. They recognized that their conduct, and their corrupted soul itself, was in violation of God’s moral perfections and His holy Law. Something had to be done to rescue them from His wrath; something bloody, and horrific, and terrifying. All of this pre-figured the cross. So, in it’s own way, even the Old Testament worship was cross-centered.

David recognized that all of this had to be more than mere outward observance when he said,

“For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it;
You are not pleased with burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.
Psalm 51:16-17

Animal sacrifices by themselves don’t break the heart of  a sinner and humble his spirit. It is only in seeing the perfectly worthy, sovereignly ultimate, infinitely pure, totally righteous, relentlessly loving Son of God SUFFERING in our stead that we are reduced to silence, and awe, and appreciation, and fear, and ecstatic joy!  It here that our hearts are changed to the glory of God.

As the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament were only a type and shadow of the cross, so our sacrifices of consecration, surrender and service are merely faulty (but necessary) imitations of Christ’s sinless self-sacrifice. There must be truth, and there should be exuberance, but there is NO worship of God apart from the cross. Whether it is quiet or loud, old-fashioned or contemporary, conventional or creative, all true worship is a heart-level response to the cross that points to the cross and is sanctified by the cross. Outside of this, there is nothing but ”strange fire” on one side, and freezer-burned doctrine on the other.

Links to cross-centered music:

Sovereign Grace     http://www.sovereigngracemusic.org/

Indelible Grace        http://www.igracemusic.com/

One of my blog friends, Derek Ashton, and I recently decided to team up on our respective blogs.  My appreciation for Derek has grown immensely as we’ve gotten better acquainted in the last few months, and I highly recommend his blog, THEOparadox, where he will continue to write. In this post, he introduces himself.  Please welcome Derek Ashton to the ‘who am i?’ blog team.

I’d like to briefly relate a part of my journey with Christ . . .

As a young man studying in a Bible College, I had a decidedly low opinion of the American Church, and a profoundly high opinion of my own place in relation to it. Nowadays, it’s easy to see why I took such a severe and self-centered view of things: I hardly trusted God, and loved myself far too much. And due to my stubbornness, I didn’t know much about His great, merciful heart, or the blessings He gives us in fellowship with other believers. Frankly, I was a graceless, self-righteous moron.

More than 10 years have passed. These days, my viewpoint about the Church is being enlightened and transformed by several factors:

• A recognition of my own depravity and desperate need for Christ
• A renewed appreciation for the blessings that can only be  found in relationships with other believers - including my daily need for their encouragement, accountability, and admonitions toward love and good deeds
• A realization of God’s effective working to bring about His purposes in His world and in His Church - despite our ubiquitous failure and weakness
• A fresh appreciation and love for the Gospel, and grace, and Christ, and the Word of God

Only God can do these things. A Scripture passage which He has burned into me is Hebrews 3:12-13

Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Since I started blogging almost a year ago, I have made “virtual” friends with several people who have further reinforced these truths and greatly encouraged my soul. Barry Wallace especially stands out in this regard.

Something resonated very deeply within my heart when I first read Barry’s feature article, “A Bad Heart.” I knew immediately that I had found a fellow believer in the wonderful grace of the Gospel -  not merely as  a story or a message that has to be preached to lost people – but as the daily remedy for the believer’s own bad heart. Here I saw a man who was not fooled by his own apparent godliness, but recognized that every good gift comes from above. He is a man who knows God’s grace is more than a quick-and-easy solution for the sin problem - it is the daily food of the soul, changing our inner world and conforming us to the image of the Son of God. And that’s why God alone gets the glory when His children walk in this grace.

I like the way Barry writes with an open heart. I like the way his articles cut through the outer shell and cause me to check my motives. I like the way his testimony shines through. I like the way he keeps the focus on Christ.

We’ve never met in person, but we’ve certainly carried some of the same crosses. And we love the same Savior, the same Lord, the same God. I thank God for providing this “virtual” friendship that produces very REAL encouragement.

I pray our growing partnership in the Gospel will yield fruit for the Kingdom of God, and the glory of Christ, and the building up of His saints. I join Barry’s blogging team with overflowing joy and gratitude for what God has done.

Soli Deo Gloria – to God alone be glory