Can anything be more beautiful than leading the flock of God’s people towards the Heavenly City (Rev 22:1-6)? Won’t it be incredible to meet together before the throne of Christ? The central thought of our sermon on Sunday at The Red Brick Church per 1 Timothy 3:1 was that God’s plan for leadership in the local church is a noble or beautiful thing (listen here to the 4/21/13 sermon).
My vision is a pastor is to see our flock meet together on the other side! There can be no greater vision that to say, “Let’s meet in the presence of Christ, and let’s invite as many people as possible to come with us.” Those who have been around our church know that we talk about meeting at the 5th tree on the right side of the river.
Throughout the sermon we saw that the repeated New Testament emphasis on biblical elders cannot be missed (See Acts 14:23, Acts 20:17, Acts 20:28-31; Philippians 1:1; 1 Thess 5:12-13; 1 Timothy 3:1-7, 1 Timothy 4:3-14, 1 Timothy 5:17-25; Titus 1:5-9; Hebrews 13:7, 17; James 5:13-15; 1 Peter 5:1-5).
This coming Sunday we will consider the biblical qualifications for eldership. The below table compares qualifications from key New Testament passages.
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Comparison of Elder Qualifications Per Strauch, Biblical Leadership: An Urgent Call to Restore Biblical Church Leadership, pages 73-74
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1 Timothy 3:2-7 |
Titus 1:6-9 |
1 Peter 5:1-3 |
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*Pugnacious: “Eager or quick to argue, quarrel, or fight.”
