Friday, September 05, 2008

Leadership & The Home

1 Timothy 3:4-5 one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?

Titus 1:6 if a man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of dissipation or insubordination.

I am taking our church through a study of “The Master’s Plan for the Church” by John MacArthur. We recently covered the subject of the biblical requirements for being an elder. This subject sparked more discussion than any other subject we have covered in Sunday School.
I tried to qualify the conversation before I took questions with: “Don’t disqualify the Scripture here because you knew of a pastor who had a great ministry even though his home was not in order.” Although that is exactly what happened.

One dear lady in our class was talking to a friend of hers about the topic and the ladies response was “Well your pastor needs to go talk to Billy Graham. Imagine how many people would not have been saved if he disqualified himself from the ministry because his children were rebellious...” Yeah, just imagine...

Several individuals have been amazed at this teaching and wondered aloud,
“I can’t think of any of the pastors of my previous churches who weren’t disqualified from the ministry according to these qualifications.”

Reverent, faithful children who are not rioters or insubordinate. Can you think of any family in all the bible whose children met this qualification?

Abraham?
Isaac?
Jacob?
David?
Samuel?
Eli?

So what does this passage mean?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am reminded of the words of Mr. Schuler "the bible is full of contradictions"

and "I hope you don't preach that in your church."

Obviously, these are just suggestions.

Or is it that you will find out what a man is really like by looking at those that know him behind closed doors? His wife and children. If he is negligent or abusive it will manifest itself in the home. These traits are obviously disagreeable to being a shepherd.

Arthur Sido said...

I would tell that dear lady in your class that not one of God's elect would have failed to be saved if Billy Graham had disqualified himself.