“The Pastor’s Job Description”
(1 Timothy 3:1-7)
Series: Reality Check: Keeping it Real at FBC
Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD
First Baptist Church Henderson, KY
(9-28-08) (AM)
- Take God’s Word and open to 1 Timothy, chapter 3.
A few weeks ago we began a short series of messages through the book of 1 Timothy. 1 Timothy is a short letter written by the Apostle Paul to Timothy while he is serving as a missionary delegate to the church at Ephesus. And 1 Timothy is like a brief church administration handbook. So this study, called “Reality Check” is helpful to us in that we are checking to make sure that we are in keeping with God’s design for the local church.
Having addressed general expectations of both men and women in the church, Paul now turns to a discussion of the two offices of the church: the office of the pastor and the office of the deacon. You see that there in your Bibles: verses 1-7 concern the qualifications of the pastor. The English word “bishop” there in verse 1 is a word that means an overseer of the local church, used interchangeably with the word “pastor.” Then in verses 8-13 Paul writes about the qualifications of deacons. So this morning we’re going to be studying in verses 1-7 about the pastor’s job description.
- Stand in honor of the reading of God’s Holy Word.
1 This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work.
2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach;
3 not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous;
4 one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence 5 (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?);
6 not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil.
7 Moreover he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.
- Pray.
Introduction:
What if I were to ask you to take out a sheet of paper this morning and prepare for a brief assignment? That always scared me in high school: the teacher would get up in front of the class at the beginning and say, “Take out a clean sheet of paper” and you could just feel the air go out of the room and people tensing up because that usually meant: “Get ready for a pop quiz. I’m going to see if you studied last night!” But what if I asked each of us to write down on a sheet of paper the pastor’s job description? What would you write? What sort of things do you feel would be very important? What would you list as his most important task or tasks? How would you rank them? What would be at the top of the list? What kind of character qualities would be important? Think about that for a moment. Of course what we have here in these verses is precisely that: we have the pastor’s job description. It is primarily a list of qualifications and we may take it and compare it with other passages of Scripture and come up with a fuller job description, but I really want us to think about the kind of list we may have written and compare it to what God has said in His Word. I’ve arranged the material under five main headings for us to consider this morning. First:
I. Consider His Responsibility (1-2)
1 This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work.
The pastor’s responsibility may be seen first in that word “bishop.” This word is used interchangeably with other New Testament words such as pastor, elder, or overseer. In fact that is what the word here actually means, one who “oversees” a local congregation. So a general and important responsibility of the pastor is to oversee the local church. The pastor has the responsibility to make sure the church is operating biblically, which is one of the reasons we are preaching through 1 Timothy.
Now it seems to me as I study the New Testament that the first churches had what we might call a “plurality of elders” who oversaw the ministry of the church. This simply means that there was more than one elder or pastor in many of the churches. For that reason Baptist churches today may have one elder or several elders ruling or leading the local church depending on the size or context of that church. While we may not use the same exact language here at First Baptist, as senior pastor of the church, I serve as a primary elder who leads with the assistance of a great ministerial staff, a staff which acts much like a plurality of elders. But Paul seems to have in mind here particularly those who serve as pastors over churches, that is, men who serve as the primary elder, or lead pastor, or senior pastor over the church.
Leading the church is a great responsibility. The pastor oversees everything that happens in the church. It doesn’t mean that everything must have his literal stamp of approval, but it does mean that he is ultimately responsible before God for everything that happens. So while the pastor has authority as one who oversees the church, he himself is acting under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is head of the church. I may be over a congregation, but I am under Christ.
Peter says to pastors in 1 Peter 5:2-4:
2 Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly;
3 nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock;
4 and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away.
Now I do want to comment on the word “desires” there in verse 1. There are two different words in the Greek that are both translated by the English word desire. I want to comment on this because I want you to see that it is a good thing to desire the work of the ministry. I used to think you weren’t supposed to desire the work of the ministry. But the Bible says that if one desires the position of pastor, he desires a good work. It’s okay to want to be in the ministry. It may very well be that God has planted that desire within a man to be in the ministry. You say, “Well, how will I know whether it’s from God?” The answer, in large part, is to read the rest of the qualifications.
We have spoken of the pastor’s responsibility to oversee or lead the church. There is one other specific responsibility that is listed here in the text. You find it there at the end of verse 2. Paul says a bishop must be a certain kind of person and then he mentions some of these things, things to which we will return in a moment—blameless, the husband of one wife, etc.—and then he says at the end of verse 2, “able to teach.”
The pastor must be able to teach. The word pastor means “shepherd” which is why we may speak of the pastor’s role as that of both “leading” and “feeding” the flock. He leads. He feeds. And what does he feed the flock? He feeds them the Word of God. He is “able to teach.” That is, he teaches the Bible.
You note that again in chapter 5 where Paul talks about honoring the elders by taking care of their financial needs. Look at verses 17-18:
Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer is worthy of his wages.”
So Paul says that leading is important, but even more important is feeding: “Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine.” The pastor must be a teaching pastor. He must teach the Word. He must love the Scriptures and regard his role as pastor as that of fundamentally teaching the Bible. And he must regard it as his primary task, more important than anything else he does.
The Bible says nothing about the pastor being known as a so-called “visiting parson,” going from house to house just visiting people—and eating fried chicken! Or that he must be on this committee or that committee and attend this event or that event, or be involved in this social organization or that community initiative. Quite the contrary! The pastor’s chief responsibility is to feed the flock. He labors in Word and doctrine. He teaches the Bible. I’m so glad we’ve got a great ministerial staff here at First Baptist and a great body of deacon servants to help with hospital visitation and a thousand other ministry areas so that I may spend the majority of my time doing what the Bible says: providing general oversight by leading the congregation, and by providing spiritual nourishment through feeding the congregation.
When I came here for the first time and looked around at the office area I was encouraged to see on the pastor’s door the sign: “Pastor’s Study.” That signaled to me that the church had expectations for their pastor to spend time in the study and teaching of God’s Word. The pastor is not to be some kind of CEO, but he is to preach the Word. He feeds the congregation the Word of God. And he also teaches the congregation to feed themselves.
I’ve tought a lot about this given the context of these first couple chapters. We have noted previously that God expects men to be spiritual leaders in their homes and in the church. If the husband is to be the spiritual leader in his home then, as pastor, I need to help him do that. So here’s a practical way I can help. In the past I may have received a phone call or email or something from a godly woman who says something like this, “I’ve been studying my Bible and I came across this verse. What does this mean?” Now, in the past I would have just given an answer withouth really thinking much about it. In light of Paul’s teaching here, however, it seems to me it would be far more helpful to that home to respond in the future like this: “Well, have you asked your husband about this? What has he shared with you?” This response honors the husband as spiritual leader and allows him the opportunity to fulfill his role as leader in his home. Now husbands, if you have some trouble here, give me a call! I want to help our men as best I can.
Paul gives one of the reasons why pastoral teaching is so important in his letter to Titus. In Titus 1:9, Paul says that the pastor is to “hold fast the faithful word he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict.” We’ve got to make sure that we are teaching the Word, teaching “sound doctrine.” God uses the man of God to preach the Word of God to equip the people of God.
This is one of the reasons why we are committed to expository preaching here at First Baptist, particularly the preaching through biblical books, because it is the best way to learn sound doctrine. Preaching is not defined in the Bible as a man who screams, hollers, shakes and sweats and then everybody goes to lunch as says, “Wow, that preacher sure preached today!” Someone asks, “Well, what was his text? What did he teach you?” They say, “Well, I don’t know—but that preacher sure preached today!” Biblical preaching is fundamentally the teaching of doctrine. It is biblical exposition. It is exposing a text of Scripture, rightly dividing the Word of truth so that a congregation understands what the text says, what it means, and how it applies. Well, we’ve got to move on. We’ve identified the pastor’s responsibility. Number two:
II. Consider His Integrity (2-3)
2 A bishop then must be blameless (that doesn’t mean perfect. It means literally, “nothing to take hold upon.” There’s not some obvious personal habit that may be questionable to others, for example), the husband of one wife (this speaks to his faithfulness to his wife. The text literally reads, “of one woman, a man.” The pastor is a “one-woman kind of man.” He is faithful to his wife. This text does not speak to the matter of divorce and remarriage, so we want to be careful here and we really don’t have time to go into this today. I will try to address this next time when we deal with the phrase again later in verse 12), temperate (self-controlled), sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable (the word means “loving strangers.” The NLT has, “he enjoys having guests in his home.” You’re welcome to my home—just bring the food!), able to teach (we dealt with this earlier. It is the only qualification that relates to a pastor’s giftedness and ability);
3 not given to wine (we’ll try to deal more with this next time as it occurs again in verse 8 with deacon qualifications. I have a personal conviction that the man of God serving a church in America should abstain from all alcohol, period. It goes along with the very first character quality mentioned in verse 2, “blameless.” There should be nothing about the pastor that someone else could “take hold upon” and say, “Aha, here’s a problem!” the rest of these are pretty self-explanatory…), not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous;
III. Consider His Family (4-5)
4 one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence 5 (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?);
A couple of things here: first, that the man of God should rule his house well is not something expected only of the pastor. The Bible teaches in Ephesians 5-6 and Colossians 3-4 that God expects every man to rule his house well. So it’s not that the pastor is exceptional because he rules his house well—that’s to be expected of all Christian parents—but rather that the pastor does not fail to rule his house well. That is the idea.
And of course this doesn’t mean that the pastor’s kids are supposed to be these sinless, perfect, creatures, never making a wrong move, always dressing or looking a certain way, forever meeting the impossible expectations of every single member in the church. Some pastors to their shame have expected that sort of thing from their kids and their kids have grown up bitter and resentful. Ray Stedman said some pastors’ kids behave the way the do because they’re playing with the other church members’ kids!
Ruling one’s own house well includes taking time to be there for his family. He takes care to not place others before his family. It’s not always easy determining the exact priority model for every moment. As a general rule, most of us would say, “God first, family second, everyone else third.” But relationships and events are not always so static. Emergencies occur and we must readjust our priority scale—and then we must have wisdom in asking what constitutes and “emergency” in the first place!
He must rule his own house well.
IV. Consider His Maturity (6)
6 not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil.
The word “novice” there refers to the pastor’s conversion. The pastor should not be a new convert, a recent convert, or a new Christian. Teens today might say, “He’s not to be a ‘nube’ or, ‘nubie.’” He is to be a relatively mature Christian. He’s been at the Christian life for a little while. He’s not to be a recent convert. Why? Because, says Paul, he may become “puffed up with pride” and “fall into the same condemnation as the devil.”
I believe this simply means that, just as the devil is puffed up with pride, so may the new Christian become “puffed up with pride” as he tries to become a pastor and gets out in front of the congregation and begins to regard his leadership or his preaching as something the church just can’t live without. A mature Christian knows better. Mature pastors know better. They know that pastors are everywhere. I don’t mean to demean the office, but honestly, in one sense, pastors are a dime a dozen. One pastor can do about as well as another. So he must not be a novice otherwise he may become “puffed up with pride” and “fall into the same condemnation as the devil.”
Donald Guthrie, “Pride gives a false sense of altitude, making the subsequent fall all the greater.”
We have considered the pastor’s responsibility, integrity, family, and maturity. Finally:
V. Consider His Testimony (7)
7 Moreover he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.
This speaks to the way unbelievers regard the pastor. People in the community who are not Christians should think highly of the pastor. The pastor should have a good reputation among outsiders. That doesn’t mean that outsiders agree with our even like the pastor, but it does mean that they can say there is no inconsistency between his preaching and his living. The guy in the pulpit on Sunday is the same guy pumping gas on Monday. He is not hypocritical or inconsistent.
Conclusion:
The pastor’s job description: we have considered his responsibility, his integrity, his family, his maturity, and his testimony.
We noted earlier that the qualification of “teacher” is the only qualification in the text that speaks to the pastor’s giftedness or spiritual ability. The role of the teacher of the Bible is primarily to point people to Jesus. In my last church, a godly man, a former pastor, used to come up to me after I preached and he would encourage me. And he used to say, “Brother Todd, I want to share with you what I always liked to hear people say, not, ‘What a great sermon,’ but, ‘What a great Savior!’” That’s my desire for you: to always point you to our great Savior.
- Stand for prayer.