Sermons
“Questions and Answers 128: Elder Reexamination”
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Our scripture reading this evening will be from 1 Timothy.
We'll, we'll start in chapter 3.
And start in verse one.
Paul, uh, the writer of the letter to First Timothy, writer of the letter to Timothy, had just talked about some instructions for all people to pray for all people and also some specific instructions for men and women.
And we pick up in verse 1 of chapter 203.
Uh, and I'm reading from the New King James version.
This is a faithful saying.
If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work.
A bishop then must be blameless.
The husband of one wife, temperate, sober minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome.
Not covetous, 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?
Not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil.
Moreover, he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.
Well, good evening.
Does anybody recognize these folks?
Yeah, those are Supreme Court justices, 9 of them.
You may have realized pretty quickly that's a dated picture.
And the reason is that Justice Ginsburg is in the picture.
And of course, she's passed away by now and been replaced by another justice.
But I wanted to use that picture because I wanted you to think about the fact.
That when a US Supreme Court justice is appointed to that work, to that role, That justice will serve for the rest, perhaps the rest of his or her life.
And Justice Ginsburg served into a very old age, actually to the point where she really wasn't able because of her health, to do the work that's uh that is required of Supreme Court justices.
Well, why am I talking about that?
Because some elders in local churches may have the same problem.
That is that they're no longer able to do the work of a shepherd, but they continue to be the part of the eldership of that congregation.
Typically we think of elders as being appointed and then serving for as long as they are able to serve.
But sometimes elders end up serving when either they're unable to do the work any longer.
Or they become unqualified for one reason or another.
Some congregations, it may be, have nobody else.
To serve with a fellow elder and so a man who really isn't qualified any longer.
ends up continuing to serve because if he resigns.
Then there's nobody else to serve with the other elder, and the New Testament pattern is at least two elders serve together.
And the church will lose its eldership if nobody else in the congregation is qualified.
And so sometimes what happens is it appears that elders almost serve for life and even into The age or in the condition where they're no longer able to do the work that God wants elders to do.
Well, this evening we're going to have a question and answer sermon, and some of you are many of you are familiar with the format of that kind of sermon.
Occasionally I just devote a sermon to questions that either have been related to me verbally or sent to me by electronic means.
The questions that I consider are not necessarily related to one another if we ever get to more than one question.
And tonight I've prepared two questions, but I'm going to warn you, I think the chances of us getting to that second question are slim.
And none But I have the question prepared in case for some reason we end up just going till midnight.
You're laughing like I'm kidding.
The answers that I give are my own answers.
They're not any kind of credal statement by the eldership.
I don't run my sermons past the elders or they would probably slash half of it out just for the sake of time, and it's not a creed statement for this congregation.
They're my own answers.
But I do these sermons in an attempt to deal with some things that perhaps we might not always deal with or have time to deal with in our adult Bible classes.
So this evening, as I said, I've prepared two questions.
The first one has to do with the re-examination of elders, something that this congregation did not all that long ago.
And the second question has to do with the 3 hours of darkness at the cross.
When Jesus was on the cross and the land was dark, what was the significance of that, if any?
So those are the two questions and we're going to do, uh, look at them in that order.
The first question Indicating by the quotes is a question that I received verbatim.
Uh, that's exactly how I received it.
Are we authorized to reexamine our elders?
I want to spend just a moment or two talking about the background and also the relevance of this question.
The question was submitted by a member of the congregation here as a result of an article.
That this member had read an article written by Doug McLeish.
Some of you may recognize that name.
He is a brother in Christ.
He is an institutional brother.
And in this article, he identified the reaffirmation of elders to be an unscriptural practice.
Now, I want to point out that the member who submitted this question was not challenging our practice.
This individual didn't agree with the article, but thought that it would be.
A good thing to talk about the rationale behind something that we have done now for the better part of 18 years, the life of this congregation thus far.
The KSR congregation has a practice of re-examining its current elders from the beginning of the congregation, practically.
Tim and I were the first two elders appointed in December of 2006.
And uh it was 6, wasn't it?
Yeah, 2006, 0, getting old.
2006, and at the time that we were appointed, Tim and I agreed that and conveyed to the congregation that we would allow the congregation.
Encourage the congregation to reevaluate our qualifications from time to time.
No set schedule, but every once in a while to do that, and we have done that a number of times over the intervening years.
Well, I want to talk a little bit about why we do that.
Why, why reexamine the elders.
After all, men who serve as elders are supposed to be qualified according to the scriptures.
Why would we need to re-evaluate or reexamine them?
What's the thinking behind That practice.
Well, let me suggest to you it's not very difficult.
Elders are individuals who have met qualifications identified in Scripture.
You all recognize that.
In fact, one of the passages was read just a few moments ago by Zach 1 Timothy 13:17.
More qualifications are given in Titus the first chapter in verses 5 through 8.
According to or following the practice of Acts the 6th chapter, when the apostles instructed the Jerusalem congregation.
To select 7 men who would be given a specific task, the congregation selected its own servants, and we have followed that principle in the selection of elders each time this congregation has looked out among its members for additional elders.
And so the congregation selects its own elders in the context of Acts 6 and Uh, you can read this at your own leisure, but in that story there in the 1st 6 verses.
The congregational servants there are said to serve tables.
The word that's translated, the verb that's translated to serve there is the verb cognate of the noun that's translated deacon in other passages.
It has other translations servant, minister.
But the verb form is to serve, and that's of course what these men would be doing.
They were going to be looking out for widows who were needing aid in that early church in the Jerusalem church.
Something interesting about Act 6 that we need.
To note, and that is that we have apostles as a part of this early congregation, and yet when men were to be selected in order to serve the congregation, to serve these widows, the apostles did not go out and pick those men.
Although I would tell you, it would seem to me that they might be the best equipped to do that.
But I think there's an important principle here.
These men are going to serve that congregation.
And so the elders said, you speaking to the congregation, you look out among yourselves and choose these men.
It's interesting that the choice of the seven reflected a desire to be unified, although there had been some discontent among the brethren about widows who they felt were not necessarily being taken care of properly.
And so for that very reason, current elders do not select additional elders.
Has it ever happened at the Kelly Spring Road congregation.
Tim and I served as the first two elders, but when additional elders, actually one additional elder after a couple of years, when an additional elder was selected, it was the congregation that selected that elder.
It wasn't Tim and I who sat down and said, well, who do we want to work with?
Who do we want to have as an elder of this congregation, but instead, The congregation selected an additional elder.
Now, if you look at Titus the first chapter and in verse 53, Paul wrote to Titus that he was to appoint elders.
But I want you to understand that there's a difference between select and a point, and you can see that in the word that is translated a point.
It is a word that usually Vine says usually signifies to appoint a person to a position.
And in this sense, he writes, the verb is often translated to make or to set in appointing a person to a place of authority in similar fashion when the congregation selected 7 men in Acts chapter 6, what happened was the congregation selected those men and then the apostles appointed them to that task, two separate things being done.
And while the congregation doesn't appoint the elders in the term in, in, in light of who's been selected or put forward, the elders will do that, preacher could do that.
But the congregation selects the men, and then they are set to the task of shepherding the flock if we're talking about elders.
We use a very similar process in the selection of deacons or additional deacons, as the case may be.
Elders should continue to be qualified as long as they serve in that capacity.
I'm talking about the rationale behind reexamining elders.
I have over my lifetime worked with congregations, and I hate to say this.
I don't mean to bash any congregation, but I've worked with elders that I did not believe were qualified.
Some of them had been elders for a very long time, long before I came to work with that congregation.
But I don't think they were qualified, but they continued to serve year after year, even though they didn't seem to meet the qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1.
Listen to me carefully.
This is a critical point.
If elders must be qualified, if men must be qualified according to the qualifications given by the Holy Spirit in order to begin serving as elders, tell me why they wouldn't need to continue to be qualified if they're going to continue to do the same work.
I think that's very, very clear.
As Paul noted in 1 Timothy 3:4 and 5 when he talked about the domestic qualifications of at least some of them, of an elder.
Paul noted that a man needed to manage his own household well.
If he cannot take care of his own family, Paul says, how will he be able to take care of the Lord's household?
And what that statement in verse 203 suggests in verse 5, actually, in verse.
5 suggests is that those qualifications given in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 are given so that the men who are selected as elders are qualified to do the work that God intends for them to do.
They're not just arbitrary qualifications.
They relate to the work of shepherds of a local congregation.
And so before God turns his people over to uh a group of elders, he wants the congregation to determine whether they've done a good job with their own family because there's going to be some similarities in the work that they do as fathers and husbands and also as shepherds of God's people.
And so if an elder no longer meets those qualifications, then he should not continue to serve in that role.
If he does, not only will he hurt the congregation, if he's not qualified, I guarantee you at some point he's gonna make a mess out of the work.
And secondly, for his own benefit so that he doesn't forfeit his eternal life because he served in a role for which he was not qualified, that I think would be contrary to God's will.
And so let me give you now very quickly.
A brief summary of our practice.
Now many of you, because you've been here, some of you from the very beginning and others for enough time that we've gone through this process more than once, you're familiar with the process, but then there are some who perhaps are not, even some may be visiting with us this evening.
And so let me just give you kind of a brief summary of our practice in talking about re-examining elders.
Now I want to tell you how important this part of the sermon is.
Because later, I'm going to talk about the criticisms that were leveled against the re-examination process.
And I want you to see the difference between what we do and what This article was criticizing in terms of re-examination.
So without further ado, the way we begin is the congregation is asked to measure the current elders against the qualifications that are listed in scripture.
And in fact, when the form is handed out to all of the members, at least as many as we can reach, when that form is handed out, the Qualifications are listed on the form and it's made very clear that what members are supposed to do is look at the current elders.
We're talking about re-examination here, not the selection of additional elders, and that's important.
We're talking about examining the current elders by the qualifications given in scripture to see if those elders still measure up.
And so members are asked on that form to indicate if they believe the elders continue to be qualified or if they think that one or more elders are not qualified, they are to identify.
In a specific way which scriptural qualifications that elder or elders do not meet.
Well, when all the forms come in, And it becomes known what the reaction of the congregation is to the current elders.
If there are objections, somebody says, Well, Alan Dvorak, he's not qualified because of this particular qualification, or maybe several.
And so when that's known, then the elder who has been identified as or charged with being unqualified goes to the people who have offered the objection.
With the intent of perhaps being able to resolve that, there are some judgment matters in those qualifications and sometimes there is information that may not be available to everybody about that elder.
So, uh, the, the task is to try to observe uh resolve the objection.
Uh, incidentally, you, you may remember those of you who participated that objections are not anonymous.
Nobody gets to take potshots at the elders.
Oh well, I think that Tim is unqualified because, you know, he's pretty old.
Nobody gets to take those kinds of shots or say, well, I think Alan's not qualified because of this or that or something else, but don't sign their names.
Those forms get thrown away.
If you're not bold enough, courageous enough to say what you really think to be forward about your, your, your opinion, then it is discarded.
The member objecting is going to be contacted by the elder who has the objection raised against him, and if that objection is not resolved, then that elder and the member or members who object take the matter to the rest of the eldership.
Now it has happened that there have been some objections raised in the past against one or more elders, and the other elders keep a hands-off position that now needs to be resolved between the elder who has been uh objected to and the person or member or members who have objected.
It only comes to the rest of the elders if in fact that objection cannot be resolved.
I want to say something about this process that I think is critical for our examination of the article this evening.
And that is that in this process, the elders, the current elders, are not reappointed at the conclusion of the process.
They never stopped serving as elders.
They're being examined to make sure that they are still qualified, but they didn't resign.
And then are reappointed at the end of the re-examination process.
The process usually takes less than a month.
And that's a description of how we have done it, uh, several times in the past.
Now, I want to make some observations here.
And, and some of this I suspect you're, you're well aware of, but I think it's important that we say these things.
First of all, the scriptures do not detail any specific method for a congregation to select its elders.
We know that elders were men were chosen.
They were selected, and then they were appointed to the work, but we don't have any information about the specific method that was used to choose those men before they then would be appointed later on.
How did the congregation select the 7 men in Acts 6?
Well, we don't really know.
We know the congregation did it.
But we don't know the specific method that was used, and I would suggest to you that that would mean that there's some liberty or judgment in how that should be done.
It needs to be done efficiently.
It needs to be done according to scriptural principles.
I think those are always things that would guide our, our practices even in other areas.
It seems clear from Paul's instructions to Timothy and Titus that the congregation has to in some way, measure men of the congregation against the qualifications given in that initial selection process.
We don't just randomly pick, you know, at least 2 men or 3 or 163 or however men, many elders, the congregation thinks they need, but rather there is a conscientious and careful process where men are being compared against those qualifications given in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1.
The process of that measurement.
It is a matter of judgment as long as no scriptural principles are violated.
Can I say that again?
We use the right standard.
We use the standard that Paul gave to Timothy and Titus.
The measurement is the way that men are selected, chosen.
But the means by which we make that comparison or that measurement.
is not revealed in scripture.
The elders have affirmed on numerous occasions that any member can address any qualification concerned at any time with any of the elders.
I'm talking about the reexamination process.
You don't have to wait until the next time the elders decide that they're going to stand for reexamination.
If you believe one of the 6 elders who serve this congregation, if you believe they're unqualified.
Then you need to talk to them now.
Don't wait.
You don't have to.
And we've tried to make that clear.
To new members and hopefully those who are older members, that is those who have been members of the congregation for long periods of time, that you understand that point.
And then next, and, and this is, this is essentially an explanation for why Tim and I began this practice in the beginning of the congregation.
This process is intended to avoid the building of parties.
That are divisive That stir up problems in local congregations in the event of an unqualified elder.
I will tell you that I have seen in my lifetime more than one occasion where a congregation split because unqualified elders refused to step down and brethren tried to deal with the situation and it just didn't work out very well.
And so what Tim and I And I think we're on the same page with this that Tim and I decided that we would give the entire congregation the opportunity to say at once, at the same time whether each of the elders is still qualifying.
Here's what sometimes happens.
You've got an eldership, let's say at least 2, maybe 3, and uh one of those elders, there's a member or two who think that that elder is not qualified.
And so that member goes to the elder that he or she thinks is unqualified and says, here's the reason I think you're unqualified.
You're you're self-willed or you're not temperate, you're, you're soon angry or whatever the qualification, disqualification would be.
And sometimes what happens is when you have an unqualified elder.
He doesn't accept that kind of criticism.
Or accusation And so what happens is that member then becomes identified by at least that elder and sometimes the whole eldership as a troublemaker.
Be careful of brother so and so or sister so and so because she's trying to unseat the elders.
And so the person who has conscientiously said, I've looked at the qualifications and I've looked at your life and you're not qualified, that person now becomes the black sheep.
I've seen it happen.
Sometimes in order to avoid that kind of process.
A member who thinks that there's an unqualified elder or maybe unqualified elders as a group more than one.
will then go around in order to avoid being singled out as a troublemaker or a black sheep, that person will go around and start asking others, well, what do you think about older, you know, brother so and so who's an elder?
Do you think he's qualified?
And what they're doing is they're building support.
They're developing a party which then will go and challenge the elders.
Our practice is intended to avoid that, so that nobody has to be singled out, nobody has to work just on their own.
All the congregation can speak at the same time and that means nobody has to work behind the scenes to try to get enough pressure on an unqualified elder.
To make to be influential and so that's the thinking behind Behind this process.
Now, if you agree with that, it was my idea.
If you don't agree with that, it was Tim's idea, and uh you can talk to the relevant person uh at your own leisure.
Brother McLeish, who wrote this article, makes the charge that members shouldn't charge an elder with being unqualified once that member has agreed to work with the congregation and should thus submit to the elders.
And I think that's a narrow vision.
I think that's a mistake.
Now I'm not saying that members shouldn't submit to the elders, and I think that when someone wants to be a member of this congregation.
Basically, what they are saying is, I will submit to the elder's leadership.
But the fact of the matter is, someone who has come from another place.
Maybe doesn't know the elders all that well, hasn't spent months and months or even years attending, getting to know the elders may discover after placing membership that maybe one or more of the elders doesn't appear to be qualified.
So what should that person do?
Should that person, that member, ignore the problem?
I'm not sure what Brother McLeish would say about that.
But I think that's a problem.
I want to give you a brief summary of the article, and when I say a brief summary, I mean that because it's a 20 page article, including footnotes at the end.
But I'm gonna spare you what I had to wade through in order to see if I could understand the argumentation was, that was being made.
So Brother Doug McLeish listed several congregations by name and location in this article.
who he claimed engaged in the reaffirmation of elders.
And in some cases where he had information, he described the process that they used, much like I've described the process that we use when we reexamine the current elders.
Now some of those congregation, I, I will not bore you with all the stuff that you would have to wade through in this article.
It's not really germane to our purposes this evening.
But some of those congregations used rather complex processes involving drafting committees and administrative committees, ballots, tenure limits, percentages for reaffirmation, etc. etc.
We'll say more about that when we get to the list of concerns that he gave toward the end of his article.
He also supplied what he had found to be the rationale of some of these congregations for their practice.
And as you might guess, some of these congregations uh cited uh First Timothy, excuse me, Acts 6 verses 1 through 75193.
Others Acts chapter 1 verses 23 through 26, and others, 1 Timothy 5:19.
Are you familiar with those passages?
Many of you are.
Act 6, we've already talked about, that's the passage where seven men were selected by the Jerusalem Church to take care of widows, help take care of widows.
First Timothy 5:19 is a passage that talks about the, the, the process of charging an elder with sin.
And Acts 13:23 to 26 is a passage that talks about replacing Judas as an apostle, and what was done was two men were suggested as having the uh the qualifications to be an apostle, and then the apostles cast lots so that the Lord could show which one of the men.
They should select as the, the 12th apostle.
Any of you cast lots?
To find out what God wants you to do.
I find that kind of humorous.
One writer argued that they were following the pattern of Acts one in which the apostles did not choose a man to replace Judas. Yeah.
They cast lots and God apparently directed the lots so that they would get the right man.
I'm not sure we can do that today, can we?
I found that argument almost amusing.
In fact, I did find it amusing.
So Doug McLeish gave a list of concerns regarding the practice of reaffirmation or reevaluation.
Now I'm going to jump one step in this whole process because what I would really need to do would be to go in and talk about the process in detail that's used by this congregation and process in detail by that congregation, and frankly, I have neither the patience, and I don't think you do either.
For us to do that, but I am going to go through his list of concerns.
And I'm going to point out some of the problems with the processes that we used.
I'll have to identify some details of the processes as we go.
Hold on to your seats.
There are 16 of them.
Let not your heart be troubled.
We're going to go through these pretty rapidly.
Because in some cases, it won't take much for you to understand what the problem is and how what he's criticizing is not at all what we are doing, OK?
So Let's talk about this list of concerns and, and I'm gonna give you these concerns exact they're, they're verbatim from the article.
I'm gonna give you each concern, I'll read it and then make quick, quick comment and then we'll move on to the next.
Here's the first one.
It professes this reevaluation process to reappoint the practical meaning of reaffirming or reconfirming men who are already appointed and who have not resigned both contradictory and nonsensical.
And my response to that is we don't do that.
We don't appoint elders in a reexamination process.
They have already been appointed.
They've already been serving, and they continue to serve as long as it's not been demonstrated that they are unqualified.
Well, there you go.
That's #1.
We're making progress.
Number 2, it renders duly selected and appointed elders only de facto and quasi elders during the reevaluation process.
Now, the reason.
He says that is that in some of the processes there were committees who actually kind of ran the whole thing and they set the guidelines and the percentages, etc.
while the elders were kind of uh standing in the background.
We don't do that.
So that one doesn't apply to us either.
The third one, it places an administrative or screening committee in authority to which the existing elders must give account and submit.
Yeah, I think that's a problem.
I, I, I don't remember, not even in the ESV or the New Living translation reading about a screening committee or an administrative committee.
We have deacons who pass out forms and collect forms.
They tabulate results and they convey those results to the elders and to the congregation.
They don't set the guidelines, the elders do that, but the elders have deacons who take care of those processes so that we are viewed as being hands off in the process.
So that the elders are not perceived.
This is in a selection process.
We're not perceived as choosing the next elders and in the reexamination process, that way we are not perceived as defending ourselves by ways that lack integrity.
Does that make sense?
The elders guide the process, but we don't interfere with the congregation's reexamination.
Same with the selection process.
Which incidentally is not done at the same time.
Those are two different processes.
In some of the processes.
Congregations are actually reexamining their current elders at the same time that they're appointing new elders, and they're using different criteria for both.
For each one, that just doesn't make any sense.
The fourth one, it prevents elders, this re-examination process, who are to oversee all of the members and all of the work of all the congregation from having any voice in or oversight of who will serve as elders.
We don't really have oversight of who will serve as elders.
The congregation selects the elders.
We don't determine that this man who was selected by the congregation, we're pulling his name because we don't like uh something that he said or way he looks or where he lives or whatever.
Congregation makes the selection, selects its elders, and the congregation reexamines its elders in two separate processes.
That's not the same process.
In some congregations, the elders do in fact engineer who will serve as additional elders.
The eldership becomes almost a good old boy club where we, we're, we're in power is kind of the thinking and we're gonna determine who comes into this club.
And that is wrong.
Just flat wrong.
It's not according to the way the principles that you find in the New Testament.
All right, number 5.
We're almost a third of the way through.
It sets a precedent this process of re-examination that will be very difficult to abandon.
It will thenceforth appear unfair to those to whom it was originally applied if all succeeding elders are not likewise subjected to it.
I need to read that again because I'm not sure I understand what he's trying to say.
So I'm going to just say that his comment has to do with the fact, apparently that different criteria are used for the original selection of elders and then for the reexamination of elders in the same process, it's all packaged together in some of these congregations apparently in most of the congregations.
Number 6, it adds the qualification of leadership characteristics to the qualifications found in the New Testament.
One of the processes that was described, what happened was uh prospective men were given questions by a screening committee, I believe it was, um, and they were to answer these questions.
Questions that didn't necessarily have anything to do with qualifications, just, you know, what kind of leader are you in this regard or, you know, and so they kind of had invented a standard for measuring these guys.
We don't have the authority to add or to subtract qualifications found in Scripture.
How presumptuous for any members of a local congregation to say, well, we're gonna set aside Paul's qualifications that he lists there to Timothy and Titus because we've got our own set of qualifications.
Our examination process measures all of the elders against the same qualification lists found in Scripture, and as I said before, the form actually has the qualifications on it so that people can see them even as they think about the various men involved.
Number 7, It may result, he writes, in removing certain unqualified men from the eldership, but it also provides an opportunity for forces of error to quickly and easily gain control of the eldership of a congregation with a minimum number of people by removal of qualified men.
Now what he's talking about is a coup.
Where there are some members who are upset at the way the elders are doing things and so they have this reaffirmation process and in that process, in several of these processes that congregations use, there is a minimum criteria.
Maybe I should say a maximum criteria of no votes.
In some of these churches, what they're doing is they're using yes or no ballots.
Yes, he's qualified.
No, he's not qualified.
But you don't have to say why he's not qualified.
You just give him a no vote.
And at least in one process, if you got more than 33% of no votes of those who participated, you're out.
You don't have a choice.
You're removed, and that's what he's talking about.
He's talking about a minority, 25%, who come in and say we want to get rid of.
Allan And so we'll all vote no, and he'll be forced to resign by the agreements of the administration committee or what they set out.
And we can put in somebody who We'll do what we want to do.
Well, that's not what we do.
We don't use ballots.
We don't vote.
Number 8, it creates a great potential for dissension and division in a congregation should the elders dare contradict the committee, the existence of which they have authorized and whose policies and procedures have been sanctioned by the congregation.
So the elders have created a committee that they then become subservient to.
And so he says that that's great potential for dissension and evasion.
Well, I have an answer to that.
Don't formulate a committee that's not spoken of or talked about in the New Testament.
These elders authorized the committee who set up policies and procedures.
Who gave them that authority?
Where's the scripture for that kind of a committee?
I was kind of shocked at some of the processes.
They seem to have no connection to scripture at all.
Number 9, we're making headway.
It gives an opportunity for fraud, deceit, and favoritism in the process of tabulation of the ballots by the committee members.
Who's going to count the vote?
So you've got a vote of the congregation and you've got a committee of members who have been selected one way or the other.
And they're tabulating what if By fraud, they report that Tim Smith got 21% knows, and so he's out, when in fact, Tim only got 25% knows.
Sorry, Tim, you're still in, buddy.
I just think that's humorous.
You mean to tell me that you don't trust your own members to count ballots?
Why are you using ballots?
Why are you voting?
Let me tell you something.
The elders here trust the men who tabulate the results because they're already deacons.
And one of the things that we want to see in deacons is that they are trustworthy.
And so we don't have to worry about that.
We don't worry about that.
That's a part of being selected as a deacon, being recognized as trustworthy.
Tabulation of ballots.
Where's the scripture for voting in the church?
220. It could encourage an elder who's being reevaluated to engage in politicking and promise making in order to be able to attain the necessary percentage of votes for reaffirmation.
And so, you know, if, if, if it's just a yes or no vote, then you start to go around and say, well, do I have your vote?
Do I have your vote?
Does that sound familiar?
That's what they do in government.
That's what they do in Congress.
When they want to try to pass a bill, they try to build support.
Well, if you'll vote for my bill, I'll make sure that your state gets money in the future for this project or that project.
Now I will tell you right away that this doesn't happen here.
Here, the elders are more likely to come to you and say, if you'll vote no, I, I'll give you something.
If you I'm just teasing, I'm just teasing.
I shouldn't even joke about it, but the whole thing is just kind of humorous.
So politicking and promise making.
In order to attain the necessary percentage of votes for reaffirmation.
One process uh indicated that you had to have 216% of yes votes in order to stay, uh, I guess in office is maybe the way to say it.
In our process, every scriptural objection is noted and resolved or an elder should resolve, should resign.
If there's a legitimate scriptural objection to an elder, it doesn't have to have 27519 votes behind it.
All it has to do is display or confirm that that is a legitimate objection.
And that's enough.
Everyone Number 21, it establishes arbitrary percentages for reaffirmation or deaffirmation.
Well, yeah, it does.
Percentages of votes.
You'll have to look that up.
In one of the versions, number 13, it necessarily tabulates the percentages only of those who actually participate in the balloting, which may represent much smaller percentages of the actual membership.
I repeat myself, percentage of votes.
Seems like we're still running with the same problem.
Number 21, we're making big progress.
It allows a small percentage of the members of a congregation to determine who will be its elders and how long they will serve, not in our process, because we don't operate on percentages.
We don't say in the re-examination process, if Gary Copeland doesn't get 22%, he is out of there.
All it takes, what we encourage members to do is measure Gary Copeland and the other elders against the qualifications, and if you think he doesn't meet one of them, or if I don't meet one of them, then you need to talk to that elder.
And see if that can be resolved, if there's a misunderstanding or whatever.
We don't operate on percentages, even if only one member has a confirmed scriptural objection, that's enough.
Because that means that man's unqualified.
It doesn't take 22% of the congregation.
Just confirmation of one disqualification or one qualification that's not met.
Number 14, it smacks more of the standards of failure and success employed by business rather than the standards set forth in the New Testament.
I agree with Brother McLeish on this.
It really does smack of that kind of things, but that's not what we do.
Number 15, it replaces the scriptural mandate them that sin rebuked before all 1 Timothy 5:20.
With quote, in the event an elder is not reaffirmed by the congregation, he should be given opportunity to retire with dignity.
Well, I'm not sure if some of the processes, maybe this was a thing with them, but our reexamination process is not a means of dealing with sin on the part of an elder.
I believe that 1 Corinthians 23 1 Timothy 5:20 does give a pattern, uh, a means whereby sin can be dealt with in the life of an elder.
But I would also point out That some of the congregation procedures that he described seem to confuse or conflate these two different matters.
And for that reason, when he talks about an elder resigning, he's assuming that that elder has sinned.
And he shouldn't be allowed to resign with dignity.
That's not the point of our reexamination process.
If you think that I have sinned in some way and you can point to the scripture and to my life, then you need to do that.
You don't have to wait for a reexamination process.
Now, there's a pattern in 1 Timothy 5:20 that we need to follow, but we don't do that in the re-examination process that has a whole different purpose than that.
But I want you to think about this, the assumption that of the comment that an elder not being reaffirmed is a matter of sin.
is, is just ludicrous.
Sin's not the only reason that an elder might resign or need to resign.
Did you hear me say that?
Sin is not the only reason.
It could be a possible reason for elders to resign, but it's not the only reason.
Let me give you some, some examples.
Not meeting some of the qualifications is not necessarily a matter of sin.
For instance, one of the qualifications of an elder is that he needs to be the husband of one wife.
If one of the wives of the current elders passes away, that's not sin on the part of the elder, but I believe that he would need to resign.
If he needed to be the husband of one wife in order to be qualified to serve as an elder in the beginning, tell me why that qualification no longer exists.
Later on, after he's been serving.
I know there are people who disagree with that, but that's the rationale that I follow.
There's no sin involved there.
I've seen it happen where a man's wife passed away, elders are often elderly like Mike.
And so, you know, sometimes wives pass away and the elder steps down.
What about a case where an elder is no longer able to teach?
I've asked the other elders if they would be kind enough to tell me if I get to the point where all my marbles aren't rolling around in the same same course and I'm not making sense anymore.
Are we there yet?
That they will say to me, Alan, it may be time for you to retire and sell pencils or something.
I think it's possible for an elder to lose his mental acuity to the point where he is no longer able to do the job that God wants him to do as a shepherd of the flock.
It may be in some cases that he just doesn't have the health in order to participate in that work.
I've seen that situation where you had two elders in the congregation and they're both elderly, but one was old enough that at some point he just stopped doing much of anything as an elder.
He's still an elder because if he resigns.
Then they lose their eldership.
They don't have anybody else qualified.
And so he just stays in there even though he's not able to do the work anymore.
I think he should resign.
When he's not able to do what God wants him to do.
This is the one we've been looking for.
This is number 16.
It supplants the scriptural instruction for dealing with sin and or failure in qualifications of elders for 7519 with a humanly contrived scheme of detailed and intricate re-evaluation relating more to leadership characteristics than the scriptural qualifications.
Now what he did here is he took a bunch of things from others and he just kind of threw them all in the last one.
I guess that's kind of the climax of the whole thing.
And this is the slide you've been waiting for.
My answer.
The question Are we authorized to reexamine our elders?
And my answer is yes.
Elders need to stay qualified and however we do that, however we measure that in the men.
That needs to be true.
I would agree with Brother McLeish that what these congregations are doing, and I understand you haven't read the article, is without scriptural authority, but I've given you some hints, haven't I?
It is also true that what he describes is not at all what we do.
And here's the reason I've spent so much time on this sermon.
You're probably wondering When someone says, well, it's not scriptural to have a reexamination process, and then the elders here at KSR said, Well, next month we're going to have a reexamination process.
I don't want anybody to be confused with what he's talking about that these other congregations are doing and with what we do.
And that's why I've said a number of times that's not what we do.
We do not reselect elders during the reexamination process, nor do we stipulate tenure limits for elders.
Some of the congregations did that.
When an elder was re-examined, he was given a certain tenure, and if he'd hit that tenure, then he was to resign.
And then secondly, There's no committee that establishes member approved percentages for elders to continue to serve in our process.
We don't have those kinds of things.
We don't use yes or no ballots.
We ask members to determine if elders are still qualified by comparing those men with the scriptural qualifications, and frankly, that's the same thing we did when they were first selected.
We measured them against the qualifications because I think that's exactly what Paul implied needed to happen when he gave those qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1.
All right.
Question number 2.
Did I hear somebody choking?
I'm going to save question number 2.
And we'll talk about the darkness.
Uh, while Jesus was on the cross in our next, uh, question and answer sermon.
But in the meantime, I want to ask the question.
This has not been a sermon to talk about obeying the gospel.
But you know, just like changing the qualifications for elders, we don't have the right to do that.
We don't have the right to change the conditions that God set forth for the provision of His graces.
You can see them on the screen on the left there.
It's the qualification or the conditions for those who are not Christians in order for them to become part of God's spiritual family.
And on the right, what people who are Christians who have been involved in sin and need to deal with that sin, perhaps even in a public way, what they need to do and we can't change scripture.
We can't make the conditions different, softer, harder.
God's word is truth, and if you need to respond to that truth this evening by obeying the gospel, don't wait.
The hope of eternal life can be yours even tonight.
If you'll fulfill the conditions, become a New Testament Christian, part of God's spiritual family.
Let's stand and sing as we invite those who need to respond to the invitation.
- 2025.02.02P-QA128.mp3 (18.75 MB)
