Introduction
The western church is in a great war. While we hold fast to the promise of Christ that the gates of Hades will never prevail against the Church Universal and we trust that the Great Commission will in fact be completed, and all the ends of the earth will turn and remember the Lord, these are not promises that guarantee success at every stage.
The fact that we have churches consecrating homosexual unions, preaching socialism and critical theory, and even blessing abortion clinics tells you the state of the modern western church. And now even so-called conservative churches have effeminate non-practicing gays in their leadership. We have what you might call a situation on our hands. But you can’t fight evil with compromise. You can’t fight wickedness with faux holiness. You need real holiness, truth in the inward parts, complete surrender to God’s Word and unflinching obedience to whatever it says. And you can’t insist that the other guys do that while you don’t. That’s what they call hypocrisy.
So read the Bible. When did God’s people prevail? When did they get their hineys kicked? Over and over and over, it’s the same story. God’s people are blessed when they worship God in spirit and in truth, when they forsake all idols, confess their sins, and cry out to God in true humility. And God’s people get trounced when they worship idols, when they compromise with the nations, when they try to hide sins in their tents.
So do the math. Why are Christians being run to the ground in this culture? Because we worship idols, because we hide sin in our tents, because we arrogantly twist scripture to suit our tastes and preferences. Let me give you just one simple example of how conservative churches are currently doing this.
The Glaring Problem
The Bible clearly teaches that the children of church leaders must be Christians. If a church leader’s children rebel, leave the faith, or are otherwise living in scandalous sin, that church leader is no longer qualified for office and in obedience to God should submit his resignation, step down, and find another line of work and serve Christ in that capacity.
An elder/bishop is “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?)” (1 Tim. 3:4-5). An elder is qualified if he is a man who is “blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of dissipation or insubordination” (Tit. 1:6). Likewise, Paul says that deacons must “be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well” (1 Tim. 3:12).
God says that our elders and deacons must have faithful and orderly homes, but in our arrogance, we redefine these verses and insist that we know better than God. We explain the pastor’s daughter’s premarital pregnancy as just what happens in a fallen world. We explain the deacon’s sons in drug rehab as just the cost of doing business. We excuse the fact that the elder’s children are rebellious and apathetic and everything you don’t want in the youth group as the cross he has to bear. We excuse the bitterness of the elder’s wife as a personality quirk or maybe even the not-so-secret fact of the pastor’s anger issues because he’s such a gifted preacher. And sure, the deacon’s daughter was excommunicated, but he was so humble and meek through the whole process, isn’t that just a model of Christian leadership?
Well, if he’s still a deacon, then no, it isn’t a model of leadership at all. Whatever he’s been doing through the whole process, it isn’t biblical humility or meekness. Why wasn’t he at the front of the line with a letter of resignation insisting that he is no longer qualified to serve? Why wasn’t he at the front of the line insisting that he obey the Word of God?
Are there ever exceptional situations? Sure, of course. Should a daughter who was adopted at 13 be held to the same standard as a daughter raised from birth in the pastor’s home? No. But compromise is a road paved with an ever growing list of exceptions, which turn out to be just excuses for not obeying God’s clear word.
Real Intolerance and Bigotry
But this is the point: so long as conservative churches make these excuses, they have no moral foot to stand on when a young, effeminate man arises who wants to identify publicly with his temptation to sodomy and lead worship or pursue ordination. He promises that he is staying pure, has accountability partners, but definitely identifies as queer and this is the cross he must bear. He went to the Revoice conference and feels empowered to live for Jesus as a celibate gay man.
How can you actually stand up and condemn this effeminacy and homosexuality while you harbor high handed disobedience to God on your elder board? While you refuse to actually address the sin in your leadership, you are making it clear that your stance against this sexual immorality is merely a matter of personal prejudice. There are certain sins that you will tolerate. You will tolerate a gossiping secretary, bitter elder’s wives, apostate pastor’s kids, but when it comes to anything approaching a lisp the hammer of Thor falls. But that means that all your preaching and protesting against homo-sins actually is just straight up intolerance. You can tolerate some sins but not those. And to that extent, the Left is entirely right to point out the inconsistency.
The world sees through our hypocrisy. As long as we put up with our pet sins, while condemning the sins of the left, we are not being Christians, we’re just being bigots.
Where Judgment Begins
But the answer is not to go soft on sodomy and effeminacy, the answer is to repent of all our softness at the same time. Repent and step down from office. Repent of your cowardice and respectfully request the matter be considered by your leaders. Repent and insist that freedom and joy and courage is found in Christ, in His forgiveness and in obedience to His word — all of it, no exceptions. This isn’t legalism. This is the only kind of freedom there is. Do you want the world to bow the knee to Christ, why don’t you show them how?
Our leaders have spaghetti sabers and cotton candy canons. To the extent that they refuse to turn their guns on their own sins, they are cowards and fakes. They stand in their pulpits and shadow box with idols and demons or perhaps some will even wave their hands around wildly on Twitter or Facebook, but they will not actually land a punch or launch a real rocket against the kingdom of darkness because their marriage is a sour mess, their kids hate them and their god, and everyone is just biding their time. They don’t really intend to submit to God’s word. They are not actually resisting evil because that requires actual holiness. Their selective application of God’s clear word amounts to returning evil for evil, which really is just malicious, sinful hatred, not godly resistance to sin.
Judgment begins with the household of God (1 Pet. 4:17). We are the salt of the earth, the light of the world – and therefore if the world is dark and rotten, it is because the Church is dark and rotten. We do not believe the gospel for our sin, and therefore we do not really trust and obey the Word of God. Why should the world believe and obey if we do not?
Conclusion
Why is the world going up in the flames of lust and perversion? Because we taught the world that it is OK to read the Bible selectively. We taught them that if something is really shameful, we can just ignore it and hope it goes away. Or worse, we can claim that the shame is actually a sign of our faithfulness, scars of ministry, the cross we must bear. We taught them that God’s word is optional whenever it makes us feel uncomfortable and can be reinterpreted to support whatever it was that we wanted to do in the first place. We taught them that some sins and scandals just can’t be avoided despite what God’s word says. Revoice is just following the logic of what the PCA and many conservatives have been practicing with their leaders for decades.
Why are we losing this culture war? Because we refuse God’s blessing. We worship with bloody hands. There is no truth in our inward parts. Just look at the state of our leaders’ families. And if your church refuses to actually deal with obvious problems in leader families, find a new church. Why would you go to a church where the leaders are publicly insisting that the Bible only applies where they want it to? This kind of selective reading is idolatry. The idol may be the leader himself, a public reputation of the ministry, comfort, ease, financial stability, or any number of other considerations, but you can be sure that the one God that church does not fear is the living God. So why would you want to stay there?
Photo by Aral Tasher on Unsplash
Joshua says
Goodness.. powerful. Thanks for the read.
Jeff Singletary says
Can a manager manage well yet still have someone under his charge do poorly or be unruly? Does that disqualify him from management?
Toby says
To the first question: yes, it’s possible — see my 13 year old adopted daughter example. But in the ordinary course of things, the Bible requires us to assume that outcomes are the fruit of the management. That should be our assumption. But we live in an era that nearly always assumes exceptions. That’s simple disobedience.
Jeff Singletary says
You seem to be saying that if manager/Dad does A then B automatically happens. I doubt you believe that but that’s how it comes across to me.
The deacon may have been faithful in the discharge of his biblical duties to help his daughter realize the promise of her baptism/dedication. Yet she rejected it. Was it a momentary and very public lack of self control aka sin? Which would say that secretive sins get a pass?
You and I have known men who manage well. And the willful rebellion of their children brings them to a sad, doubting and broken place. What if? What did? Could have I?
Toby says
No, not automatic at all, by faith alone, but your concerns need to be taken up with Scripture. Scripture is clear, and any man pursuing ministry should know the qualifications in his bones and gladly relinquish office if his children are not believers. When we make exceptions here with our special pleading, we are inviting exceptions elsewhere (e.g. Revoice). The heartbreak of wayward children is real, but that heartbreak does not justify disobedience.
Nicholas Villarreal says
Great article, thank you.
I think the exception we like to raise, “What if he catechized, instructed, disciplined, and brought his children up in the fear of the Lord and yet a child of his is living as an unbeliever?” seems reasonable to us as our own experience shows us that while Proverbs 22:6 is a truism and general promise, it is not an incontrovertible one.
However, Titus 1:6 still stands. And we need to take it seriously. The aforementioned special pleading seems to me to be a similar line of reasoning that is willing to accept female pastors.
“She is so gifted, she meets every other qualification for an elder. She is a better teacher than any of the men we have, etc.”
Except for that one small point that she is not a man. And thus God ordained she would be disqualified before she was ever born or had done anything. He wanted her to be a woman and thus he did not want her to be a pastor.
Granted, the similarities are not exact since one is by nature and out of our control while the other is greatly influenced by how we raise our children (Proverbs 22:6). But the exception raised is one concerning providence, not disobedience. And in such a case, why should we chafe against God? His providence is not to be pitted against his clear revelation to us.
Toby says
Nicholas, Exactly.
Jeff says
The issue is not one of interpretation or not taking the Bible seriously. I think you already pointed out that the comparison between this passage and those concerning women as pastors/elders are really dissimilar. I am familiar with churches who don’t take the qualifications of leadership seriously. This is not what we I am discussing.
The issue is one of application which is being addressed in a wooden manner.
Using this standard of application very few biblical men would be able to serve in your churches. Scratch Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Solomon. And while we don’t have any information on Peter’s family life he was rebuked for having the mind of Satan and did deny the Lord three times.
On what arbitrary sliding scale do you apply this? This is a difficult question. The leader (pastor/elder/deacon) who has ten children. The 7 year old hellion who has been willful and disorient from birth it seems. Sorry, you’ve failed. The rebellious teen son gets tangled in unsavory affairs? Disqualified? The twenty-something daughter, so sweet and kind who made a profession of faith and was baptized, starts shacking up with her boyfriend. Learn to code pastor? The forty-two year old who has an affair and divorces. Leader becomes disqualified?
Where do you draw the line in application?
One of the things which attracted me to the truthfulness of the faith was how the Bible honestly speaks of the lives of the people it chronicles. There’s no whitewashing or lionizing. It is real life with real people who really sin. Yet they find redemption and grace. This is the world in which we still live.
Toby says
I agree that our standard must not be arbitrary or wooden and there should be room for redemption and grace, but it must also be honest. Our job is to be obedient to the Word. My point here is that we have been manifestly disobedient at this very point, and it has clearly not been blessed by God. How about we at least try to obey this particular point and see if we have any better results? Cheers!
Jeff says
Thanks for the kindness and thoughtfulness of your replies. In the main I think we agree. Ignoring standards for leadership puts the church in great peril. It is a cause of Her weakness in the present.
I’ve been involved with churches that thought God’s standards for leadership were far to high. Why, you are judgmental for evening breaching the subject! To be crass, choosing leaders was like ‘Any idiot can do this job. You are any idiot. Do you want to?’
But as with any passage we must let Scripture interpret Scripture. Paul knew his OT. He knew of their failings. I think this verse should be understood in that context. A graceless, pharisaical, moralistic understanding is just as harmful as saying, meh, nice sentiment but unworkable.
Grace to you.