Who Leads the Church? (Titus #2) - Bible Baptist Church

Who leads the church?

Text: Titus 1:5

Ordain elders

Ordain is a word with the same root as order. It has the same idea as to set something in order.
Some fatalists called Calvinists will use the word ordain to mean overriding someone’s free will. As in the idea that God ordained who would be saved and who wouldn’t. This isn’t what the word means. Furthermore, Paul isn’t overriding anyone’s will, he’s just setting things in order. And if Paul was overriding someone’s will, then there’s no need for the qualifications of an elder.
So no vote?
A plurality of teaching elders with a pastor was the organization in the early church.

This is a position of oversight.
If a man isn’t qualified to be an elder, it doesn’t mean he’s not qualified to serve God at all. It means he hasn’t demonstrated leadership in his home or discipline within himself and therefore will not make a good overseer in a local congregation.
Sound doctrine is the pattern of behavior
- Not hypocritical
- Sound doctrine is a policy of behavior. It is not just knowledge.
- Emphasis is not on eschatology or end times or having the right view of the end of the world. The emphasis is on proven behavior now.

1 Timothy 5:17-20
Honor as in compensation for them that labor in the word. If an elder is an example who helps around the church but isn’t teaching he deserves the honor. If an elder does those things and labors in the word to teach it, that elder deserves double honor.
If an elder is found in specific sin by two or three witnesses who have observed his sin, and approached him to stop in a scriptural way, but he refuses, then Paul says, make a public example of him just as Paul did with Peter in Galatians.
- The specific sin is not something we have a differing opinion about. You don’t make a public example of an elder because you have a different opinion. Although many choose to do that.

James 5:14
This sounds like instructions for healing. There is a conspicuous absence of a healing gift. This seems to be how the gift of healing is administered within the church.
Anoint may be medicinal or for hygiene, not religious. (See Ruth 3:3, Amos 6:6, Matthew 6:17.)

Elders are ensamples