Authority and the Gospel
July 14, 2024 Speaker: Jim Davis Series: Timothy: The Household of God
Passage: 1 Timothy 5:17– 6:2
Today we are actually finishing a section that Clark started last week. Paul is getting into the nitty gritty about what it looks like for us to relate to certain groups of people as the members of the household of God. Clark talked about what it looks like to relate to widows, now Paul transitions to elders and slave masters. Nothing controversial here.
I went back and forth for a while trying to decide whether to separate these two passages or take them together and I ultimately decided to put them together for two reasons. First, I would feel really bad asking Ben who is slated to preach next week to teach on obeying your slave masters with just one week’s notice. But even more than that, I began to see why Paul chose these two groups. It actually makes one coherent section about how we respond to authority. We have one type of authority inside the church and one type of authority outside the church. You might even say Paul is talking about how we respond to spiritual authority and how we respond to worldly authority. Either way, authority is the issue.
I would argue that authority has always been difficult for humanity. Our problem is that when it comes to authority structures, most of us are going to swing one way or another. One group of people is going to obey too much because they have no higher authority by which to judge their authority so they fall in line no matter what happens. The extreme of this is Nazi Germany. The other group, though, is going to swing the other way and obey too little because they don’t think any institutions like government, family, work, or cultural norms have more authority than they do. And I think this second group is what our culture is pushing us toward today. In 2010, Tim Keller wrote a piece on authority and he said this, “The root idea of modernity is the overturning of all authority outside of the self.”
Back in May I got an email asking if I’d go on a podcast with one of the presidential candidates from the Republican primaries. I was actually very hesitant to do it for a number of reasons so I asked the elders what they thought I should do and they encouraged me to do it primarily in the hopes that God would use me to make the gospel more clear to this man who is not a Christian. So, I did it and God was very gracious in that regard, but in that conversation, I made the case that because Christians have an authority that is higher than our government, that that should actually make us the best citizens. We should be citizens who are on one hand going to be the most likely to obey even when we disagree, but also the ones that have clear moral lines we will not transgress (which is good for society). We should NOT be a group that will obey too little, but also not a group that will obey too much.
Now, I say should because I see a lot of Christian voices out there that seem to know nothing of what it looks like for us to follow and honor authority when we don’t like them. And can I just say that it never gets lost on me when sermons align with cultural events without any planning whatsoever.
Our problem today, I think, isn’t obeying too much, but too little. And that takes us back to that Tim Keller quote. We are overturning all authority outside of the self. So, again, we have two types of authority here in this text. We have a spiritual authority and we have worldly authority and Paul uses a lot of ink here to tell us some things that most of us don’t want to hear, so we should pay attention. First, let’s look at spiritual authority.
- Spiritual authority
Our spiritual authority in the church are the elders. When I say spiritual authority, I don’t mean that they get to have you come wash their cars, that they get to bully you in any way, or anything else that looks more like a cult than the household of God. The elders are charged with shepherding the church, protecting the church, discipling the church, and equipping the church as undershepherds to the True Shepherd, Jesus. Spiritual authority means that this group of elders will be held accountable to teach the Bible and the gospel to a local congregation and to urge everyone in our church to believe and obey the gospel. That’s a very different kind of authority that you have outside the church.
And as you will see, you are not called to blindly follow. You are very much a part of deciding who is qualified to be in this role. Unlike many worldly authorities, you have a say in your spiritual authority. Paul says there are three things that the congregation should do for our elders. We should honor them, protect them, and hold them accountable. And I say ‘we’ because even though I am an elder, this command applies to us as individual elders as well. So I’m not asking anything of you that isn’t also required of me.
So, first, honor the elders. Paul says in verse 22 that elders are to pursue godliness and be pure and holy. This is what should make spiritual authority safe. And then in verse 17, he says that the elders who do this, who rule well, and especially those who labor in preaching and teaching, should be considered worthy of double honor. And it’s clear that Paul is talking about honor in material ways because he connects it to allowing a working ox to eat the grain as he treads over it to separate the grain from the chaff. This comes from Deuteronomy 25. Paul is saying the same principle applies to those elders who use a substantial part of their time that they could be using to make money for preaching, teaching, and leading the church.
But then, Paul goes on to quote Jesus from Luke 10 where he says, “The laborer deserves his wages.” So, it’s clear that it is good for the church that certain elders be freed up financially part or full-time to labor as an elder. The age old question then is, what does double honor mean? Is it double the average salary in the church? Is it double what the man was making? Is it double the average elder salary? Is it the country club membership the Baptists get? Is it the congressional pension plan the Episcopals get? Is it the salary the Presbyterians get? I don’t know. I do know it’s not the fleet of jets that Kenneth Copeland has:) All I can really say is that a church should make life work in a city for a pastor who is freed up to do full-time vocational ministry. That’s going to mean different things in different contexts, but I will say that OGC does that for us and I’m very thankful.
Second, Paul says that we should protect the elders. And this protection comes in two forms. Form 1: Likely, in Ephesus certain people were making crazy false claims about the character of the elders there because they didn’t like them and Paul is saying that elders should be protected from that. No charge should be admitted against an elder without two or three witnesses. As we will see in just a minute, Paul isn’t creating a good ole boy system where the elders can do whatever they want and get away with it. He’s protecting them from unsubstantiated false accusations.
Now, I will say that in the craziness of 2020 and 2021 I got accused of some nonsense. I was accused of having a hidden agenda that only I knew. No one could say what my hidden agenda was, but they just knew it was there. And the elders here protected me from that because there was no proof. They were totally unsubstantiated claims and the elders shut it down quickly and effectively and I’m so thankful for that. But, what if an elder has harmed someone in a serious or illegal way and you don’t have a witness? Paul is going to get to that in a minute.
Sticking with protecting the elders though, we have a second form of protection: don’t lay hands on them too early! You are protecting elders by not giving them the office too early. Now, I don’t think Paul has an age here in mind because Timothy was young himself. I think Paul is saying give them time to be tested. Let their humility catch up with their zeal. Ligon Duncan tells a story about when he was new to First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Mississippi and a woman said she was not going to vote for a certain man to be elder because he had only been a member for 17 years. Now, that might work at an old church like that, but if we applied that here I think Kurt Bowerman would be the only qualified elder. We need to protect potential elders by giving them time to mature and be known in the church.
Then, lastly, we are to hold our spiritual authority accountable. Verse 20 says that there should be serious discipline for serious sin. That serious sin in elders should be brought before the whole church. There are times when people in this church get caught in serious sin and we walk the path of repentance with them and we go the extra mile to never widen the circle of knowledge about their sin if we can help it. I will also say that our newer elders don’t know about sin issues in the church that happened five or six years ago if those issues have been repaired. We want to help people, not shame them. But, if it is an elder, Paul says the whole church needs to know. There is a higher level of accountability.
He also says in verse 21 that we should be unbiased in our treatment of that sin. No elder should get special treatment. Paul commands this in the presence of God, Jesus, and the elect angels which I have no time to flesh out right now. The point is that God cares about his church and he gives us means to hold our leadership accountable.
So, let’s come back to the question I already raised. What if an elder has harmed someone in a serious or illegal way and you don’t have a witness? There are times when it is the elders’ burden to find the witnesses and not yours. Paul is instructing church leaders on how to receive accusations; this is not a ban on confrontation unless you can find these witnesses yourself. There are, sadly, some men out there, albeit a very small number of them, but they are out there, who have used their power to do very bad things. These pastors engaging in sexual misconduct or abuse are going to isolate their victims and make them think they’re all alone—in hopes that they won’t come forward. Once the accusation is made, church leaders have the biblical responsibility to seek out the additional witnesses (which are usually easier to find than most would anticipate).
What about going directly to the pastor, though, as Matthew 18 seems to indicate? Matthew 18 cannot be easily applied to every situation, since it assumes two laypeople and specifically deals with one party directly sinning against another (“if your brother sins against you” v. 15).
If you have knowledge of disqualifying sin like sexual indiscretion, embezzlement, or abuse of authority, you have no obligation to confront the pastor alone. In these situations, 1 Timothy 5 instructs elders how to deal with accusations. Again, the witness requirement seems to be a way of protecting a pastor from unjustified slander. Godly elders bear responsibility for evaluating a case against another elder and confronting him about his sin. As the shepherds of the congregation, they are charged with caring for and protecting the vulnerable people in their flock.
Those are the commands for dealing with authority in the church, now Paul shifts to authority outside the church and specifically, how slaves are meant to relate to their masters.
- Worldly Authority
Paul is shifting very intentionally from authority that should be safe and easy to follow to authority that would be much harder. Paul has but one command for slaves: honor your masters. So, the first and most uncomfortable question here is…is Paul endorsing slavery? The answer is emphatically, no! Roman slavery was incredibly complex. Some were slaves because they were prisoners of war. Others were convicted of a crime. Others were working off debt. Some were kidnapped from other parts of the empire. And some were just born into slavery. On top of that, you have different degrees of culture among the slaves. Some were cooks, some were barbers, some were doctors. Some slaves even had their own slaves. Often on the other side of slavery, you earned the right to become a full citizen of the Roman Empire. It is estimated that possibly one third of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire were slaves as Paul was writing this.
So, there is, you might say, a sliding scale of slavery. Don’t get me wrong, it’s all bad, on one end of the spectrum, you get into debt, you work off that debt, earn a skill, you’re treated well, and you get your citizenship. Not great, but not as bad as the other end of the spectrum which is what the United States did. Race based kidnapping, the stripping of all rights, in many cases torture, sexual abuse, and no path at all to freedom. The Old Testament actually commands stoning for anyone who does what the US practiced from Jamestown to the Civil War.
But even though there is a sliding scale, all forms of slavery exist because of sin. It’s absolutely crazy that people who called themselves Christians in the American South used this very passage to justify something the Bible condemns people to death for. No form of slavery is good and Paul knows this. What he’s doing is upending slavery from the bottom up instead of the top down. I want us to see three things about slavery here from Paul’s view. First, Pauls just a few chapters earlier in this very letter writes a list of egregious sins and he includes enslavers on that list. Again, he’s attacking the very foundations of the system.
Then, second, he urges Christians who are slaves in the Corinthian church to gain their freedom if they can get it. Third, just look at Paul’s beautiful letter to Philemon. Philemon is a Christian owns a slave named Onesimus who was sent to help Paul, but it seems like Onesimus himself became a Christian in Paul’s service. Listen to what Paul says to Philemon: 10 I appeal to you for pmy child,qOnesimus,2 rwhose father I became in my imprisonment. 11 (Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me.) 12 I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart. 13 I would have been glad to keep him with me, in order that he might serve me son your behalf tduring my imprisonment for the gospel, 14 but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be uby compulsion but of your own accord. 15 For this perhaps is why vhe was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, 16 wno longer as a bondservant3 but more than a bondservant, as xa beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, yboth in the fleshand in the Lord. - Philemon 10-16
There is no way to read Paul and think he’s pro-slavery at any level. The irony is that the same white so-called Christians in the 19th century American South who used this passage to preserve their worldly authority are being told by this passage to give it up! What Paul is doing in the totality of his writings is throwing a grenade into the practice of slavery by understanding the way Jesus turns authority upside down.
Everyone in Jesus’ day expected the Messiah to be a man wielding great wordly authority who would take the throne and rule the world. But, Jesus already had all authority. He was already on the heavenly throne. He experienced honor, comfort, and power that no worldly king could ever imagine. Yet he humbled himself by taking on flesh, leaving that throne, and coming here. He grew up with gossip about who is father really was. During his ministry, he had no place to even sleep. His family members turned against him. He had no money. He was a king without a coin. He submitted himself willingly to the sin and corruption of this world so he could pay the price for our sin and corruption.
It was through his willing submission and his denial of his own rights for our good that Jesus modeled a whole new understanding of authority. Paul wants Philemon to receive Onesimus as a brother, not a slave. He wants Onesimus to honor Philemon so much that it convicts Philemon of sin and that Philemon willingly relinquishes his right to keep Onesimus.
This is why Paul is saying in our passage that if you find yourself in the very unique situation of being a Christian slave to a Christian master, honor him as a brother. If you are a slave to a pagan master, honor him and, in so doing, you are honoring God and this is the best chance for you to be used in the hearts of those over you.
And the very last part of verse two is very important to see this. Phil Ryken and others have pointed out that the word Paul uses for service is an odd choice because it’s the word that normally describes a donation given by some wealthy benefactor. Paul is making the Christian slave the willing benefactor and the master the one who is blessed by the slave’s generosity. The Christian slaves become the generous benefactors of their Christian masters!
This isn’t just the best Paul could do given his limitations, it is the best way! One commentator wrote, “Paul avoids extremes that would harm both slave and master. He advocates neither for outright revolt nor the continuation of the status quo. Instead of recommending either of these he aimed by the law of indirection to destroy the very essence of slavery, with all its attendant evils. This method, though for a while maintaining slavery in outward form, was, nevertheless, the surest and most commendable way of working toward the final goal of complete abolition of this gruesome, inhumane institution."
Jesus brings his kingdom by changing peoples’ hearts. These words by Paul are not an endorsement of slavery, but a death blow to it. Willing and joyful submission by the Christian to our authorities in the world is a way of exposing the flawed foundation of this corrupt world and a way of helping us to find more joy and contentment in Jesus. Our main problem is that we want to be the ultimate authority in our lives and Jesus tells us that we are actually pretty bad in that role and that he is perfect in that role. And the more we give authority to him, the more satisfying life will be and the less we will be bothered by those in authority over us.
So, where does this leave us today? Well, in this great reversal of authority, elders in the church are servants to the people. They follow a Savior who washed his servants feet so we serve those in the church just as humbly. Elders don’t lord over the church, but give their very lives for the good of others because that is exactly what Jesus did for us. Those under the authority of the elders honor this work by providing for them, protecting them, and in certain cases, calling them to repent. But we do it out of love, not vying for power.
Out in the world, we should be the best employees because we have a master who is greater than our employer. It doesn’t mean that we have to stay in a job that isn’t working, it means that whatever job we find ourselves in, we serve our employer as a way of honoring God, even if our employer doesn’t deserve it because we received a grace from God that we will never deserve.
You can ask my kids, one of the things I do not tolerate in our house is any complaining about their teachers. Now, there are productive ways to navigate differences, but we do not gossip or slander our authority and school is the first place outside of our homes that we will learn this lesson. I tell them all the time, they will have bosses they don’t like and how you engage now is going to affect not only your effectiveness in work and ministry, but it will affect your joy.
And going full circle here, it’s why we should be the best citizens. It’s why we don’t obey too little. Why we can disagree in the public realm without gossiping or slandering. Why we can use our voting privileges for the good of others, not just us. Why we can not only obey, but bless the authorities God gives us even if we don’t like them. It’s crazy to me that I wrote all this before the assasination attempt last night, but this is why we would never support or condone what happened last night.
All of us should ask ourselves, are we serving our worldly authorities in a way that honors Jesus? Are we honoring them in our speech the way we do each other in this room?
We have the privilege of serving a heavenly Master who we could never deserve, so we willingly serve worldly masters who don’t deserve it. And as we do, we honor God and enjoy him more and, as a result, we enjoy our worldly authorities more.
More in Timothy: The Household of God
July 28, 2024
Lovers, Fighters, Wise Men & FoolsJuly 21, 2024
Godliness: An End to the MeansJuly 7, 2024
Fathers, Brothers, Mothers, Sisters