The Moral Character of a Pastor
Titus 1:5‑6
Let's open our Bibles to Titus chapter 1. We have completed our study of the first four verses which is the opening greeting. And now we move into the next section of this tremendous letter. And this particular section from verses 5 through 9 could be titled, "The required character of a pastor...the required character of a pastor."
There are many trends in the church today and I have tried to address them very often from this pulpit, as you know, and in books that I write. And part of my task as the servant of the Lord is to warn the church about encroaching danger. And as I began, of course, to study this particular text it hit me that these qualifications for one who is a pastor are for the most part today being ignored or selectively applied and they couldn't be more clear. Look at verse 5, "For this reason I left you in Crete that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you, namely if any man be above reproach, a one‑woman man, having children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion, for the overseer must be above approach as God's steward, not self‑willed, not quick tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of sorted gain but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, just, devout, self‑controlled, holding fast the faithful Word which is in accordance with the teaching that he may be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict."
When you read that it's fairly apparent that the standard for being a pastor or an elder or overseer, all those words are used interchangeably in the New Testament, the standard is very very high. But there is a disturbing trend, as I noted a moment ago, in the church today and that is a trend toward lowering these standards or applying them selectively. That is to say picking and choosing from among the list what you want to apply, or on other occasions applying all of it to some people but not to other people.
No trend in my mind, no trend is more disturbing or threatening than the shocking moral sins of a gross kind that pastors today commit only to step right back into ministry as soon as the publicity cools down. I have received inquiries from other churches wondering if our church had some written guidelines or a workbook for restoring fallen pastors to pulpits and ministries of spiritual leadership. We have to tell people we don't have such a book or such a process because we believe that the Bible is so explicit that once a man fails in the moral sexual area, he is unqualified. No doubt many suppose that a church our size perhaps would have some systematic restoration process to bring back sinning pastors. Certainly we want them restored to the Lord and to the fellowship, but there are qualifications for one who preaches God's Word and is identified as pastor, overseer, elder that we must subscribe to. Such sin among pastors is a serious serious trend that threatens to destroy the integrity of the church. But more disturbing to me in some ways than the sin that discredits them and ultimately more destructive than that sin is lowering the biblical standard to let them back in to the ministry. The fact that the churches are so eager to bring these men back into leadership reveals there is a corruption at the heart of how the church thinks and what the church believes about the required character of one who is a pastor.
This is a disheartening thing to me. This is a grievous thing. This kind of tolerance of sin, lowering of God's standards for those who represent Him because it spells such a terrible future for the church. Where do people get the idea that a year or a few months or few weeks can somehow restore integrity to a man who has squandered his reputation, who has stained the pulpit with his sin, who has destroyed people's trust and most heinously, sinned against the gracious God who called him to preach? Once purity is sacrificed the privilege of leadership by example and proclamation is gone.
Certainly example is the heart of ministry. When Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:12 he said, "Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity show yourself an example." That is required for one who ascends to ministry.
Now by all means if a man is truly repentant we should embrace that man and love that man and forgive him seventy times seven and let him share in the joy of Christian fellowship when his repentance is real. But that does not mean that he should be put back into the place of spiritual ruling and teaching. We cannot erase the consequences of sin by a simple prayer or an elaborate recommissioning service. We have to measure every man who seeks to minister by the scriptural standard. But sin is so pervasive in our world, it's so pervasive even in the church that there is a tolerance for sin that I don't think certainly in my life time we've ever seen. And there are many, I suppose you could call them casual Christians, or carnal Christians, or professing Christians who want to lower the level of holiness in their leaders because it makes them feel much more comfortable about their own sin. It is even true that modern religion, modern Christianity has spawned the evil notion that experiencing the worse kind of sin makes you a more effective servant. You all of a sudden become more sympathetic and more effective because you have sinned greatly. The implications of that kind of thinking are frightening. And the trend, as I said, of a restored clergy who supposedly understand and are more sympathetic because they've sinned greatly is a spiritual tragedy but it is increasingly the case.
Evangelical Christianity for the most of this century has focused on the battle for doctrinal purity and it's right that we have, but we're losing the battle for moral purity. So we have people with the right theology living an impure life. And the worse defeats the church is experiencing may be coming at the very hands of its leadership. We cannot lower God's standard for the sake of sympathy. We don't need to. We can be loving and forgiving and gracious and merciful and kind without lowering God's standard. We have to hold it higher so that purity can be regained. In fact, all of the battles that we have fought for orthodoxy, all the battles for the integrity of Scripture fall uselessly by the wayside if preachers of it are corrupt and if their people no longer follow their shepherds as models of holiness. What's the point? Because the reason we fight for a pure Scripture and a pure theology is that we may have a pure standard to live by held up by pure men who are the models of it. The church has to have leaders who are pure and holy and above reproach. And anything less than that is an abomination to God and spells disaster for the life of the church.
In fact, I would be so bold as to say entrance into and continuance in the pastorate, the eldership of the church of Christ must be barred, it must be barred to men whose character does not meet the divine requirements. That is precisely what Paul is telling Titus, precisely what he is saying. If a man is to be an elder, this is the kind of man he must be.
Now the list in verses 5 to 9 falls into four categories. First, his personal or sexual morality. Secondly, his family leadership. Thirdly, his general character. And fourthly, his teaching skill. So if you're looking for someone to be a pastor or an elder, you must consider his morality, his family leadership, his general character and his skill as a teacher and preacher.
For this morning we're going to begin with the first category, personal or sexual morality. And there's simply one statement to that effect in verse 6, "The husband of one wife," it says in most versions, the literal Greek says, "a one‑woman man." And in a few moments we will direct our attention to that issue. Prior to that, however, there is a general statement in verse 6 that a man must be above reproach, that is the general statement dissected and explained in the following statements that come after it.
But let's set the context before we look at the moral, sexual character of one who is a pastor. Verse 5 says, "For this reason I left you in Crete that you might set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you." Now dear Titus, this wonderful son in the faith to Paul, of whom we have learned to much in the first four verses, has been left on this large island in the eastern Mediterranean. In fact, Crete really sits kind of in the center of a triangle of Europe, Asia and Africa. It is in the eastern Mediterranean, southeast a little bit of the Greek mainland. Crete is 160 miles long and anywhere from seven to 35 miles wide, highly civilized, right there, of course, in the middle of the world, as it were, it has always been civilized and for centuries prior to the writing of Paul civilization was there. Of late the civilization had become very corrupt. In fact it tells us down in verse 12 that one of their own prophets said Cretans are always liars, evil beasts and lazy gluttons. So there had been a severe decline in the culture.
The first time we see anything about Crete is at Pentecost. On the day of Pentecost, you remember, of course the Spirit of God came and the church was begun but the feast of Pentecost was celebrated annually by Jews from all over the world. And according to Acts 2:11 there were Jews there from Crete. So we know there was a population of Jews living in Crete worshiping the true God who came to Pentecost. And some of them may have been converted to Christ that day because you'll remember that when the 120 received the ability to speak in languages, they spoke in a myriad of languages, one of those languages was the language of Crete. And so the Cretans heard it in their own language, the wonderful works of God and then heard the preaching of the gospel by Peter that may well have been where the seed of the church was originally planted.
Also going kind of to the opposite end of the book of Acts, in Acts 27 when Paul was on his ship traveling to Rome, he stopped at Crete, part of the journey there. And if you read Acts 27 you will note that. It may well have been that in Paul's brief stop in Crete he had influence for the gospel of Jesus Christ as well.
The church by the time this letter is written had extended throughout the whole island. That's obvious because he is to appoint elders in every city. That's a fairly comprehensive statement. The church must have found its way all over that island and there was the responsibility now to organize the church and give it some leadership. We don't know who founded the church, it's speculative. As I say, it could have been someone from Pentecost. Paul could have an influence passing by but someone other than Paul, no doubt, founded it or Paul would have long ago have taken care of these basic things of setting it in order and ordaining the elders as his custom was everywhere else that he went. He had been there some time but that perhaps was not a founding time.
Now just prior to the writing of Titus he went there. We know that. This would be other than the time he was traveling to Rome in Acts 27. Sometime after the end of the book of Acts, after his first imprisonment with which the book of Acts end, after that Paul went there, met Titus, look at verse 5, he says, "I left you in Crete," which means they had been there together and Paul did some work there among the churches and left Titus in Crete. Now Acts says nothing, as I said, about Paul being there except that mention in Acts 27 where he went by on a ship. So we would assume that this is after the book of Acts is over, Paul goes there with Titus and between his first and second imprisonment does a basic work there, can't stay, he's got other things to do. He's promised to go and see, you remember, Philemon as he noted in verse 22 of that epistle, he also wrote to the Philippians in chapter 1 verse 25 and 26 about coming there. There were other things he needed to do.
Now how long Paul and Titus were there we don't know. But just circulating over the island would be difficult, Homer, this is interesting, Homer called Crete "The island of 100 cities...the island of a hundred cities." So if there was a church in every city, or a church in most of the cities, you can imagine what a tremendous job it was to confer them all. They may have been there for some time. It sounds as though the church was wide‑spread through the island of Crete. I read one history book a couple of weeks ago that said even to this day over 90 percent of the occupants of the island of Crete still claim to be Christians. Probably more a sacramental type of Christianity than the real thing, but nonetheless, the effect of this had lingered even though there were years and years of Muslim influence.
Paul had to leave then and go to other ministries, so he left Titus. You remember Titus was a man of like passion with Paul, according to 2 Corinthians 8, he was a trusted partner and a fellow worker. He was a skilled and able leader and peacemaker as he had proven in ministering to the Corinthian church of which he brought to his knees as it indicates in 2 Corinthians 7:6 and 7. So Paul left this very able capable man there. For what reason, back to verse 5, "That you might set in order what remains." That's the first reason. The second reason, "To appoint elders in every city as I directed you."
Now just very briefly to say this, that you might set in order what remains. "Set in order" is kind of an interesting Greek word, epidiorthoo. The first two, epi and dio are prepositions. The word orthoo is the word from which we get orthodontics, orthopedics, orthodics and all of those mean straightening. When you go to the orthodontist, he straightens your teeth. When you go to the orthopedist, he straightens your bones. That's what that means. So what he is saying intensified by two prepositions is "thoroughly and completely and fully straighten out what still isn't straight." In ancient times that word was used by secular medical writers for the setting of bones or the straightening of bent limbs. So he says I want you to completely set things straight.
Obviously Paul had begun some process. We don't know what the process was but the process of getting the church right, maybe dealing with some sin, maybe dealing with some leaders that were not godly, maybe it was a matter of dealing with some theological things that weren't in place, or maybe they hadn't yet formulated obviously leadership because they didn't have elders. And so they didn't know who was in charge and things were a bit chaotic. Whatever remains...we don't know what that means, it could be correction but it could be construction. It could be repairing something but it could be building something new. He's just saying get the church together, get the church organized the way it ought to be, around the truth with proper spiritual leadership and response among the people. This, of course, would be very challenging. Down in verse 10 it says there are many rebellious men, there are empty talkers, there are deceivers, especially those of the circumcision. By the way, that does indicate to us that the church was probably around for quite a while, long enough for the Jewish Judaizers to come in and try to sell the gospel of circumcision, long enough for false teachers to have arisen. There were, down in verse 14, Jewish myths and commandments of men. They were struggling with a lot of things that were not right in that church. Over in chapter 3 verse 10, verse 9 rather, it says, "Shun foolish controversies, genealogies, strife, disputes about the law." Here again we see the Jews, the specter, the shadow of the Jews over the church as they try to tie everybody into the Mosaic Law. Verse 10, "Reject the factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and sinning being self‑condemned." So they were dealing with people here, not just organizing the church but dealing with error, dealing with Judaism imposing itself on the church, dealing with some kind of Gentile heresies, dealing with sinful people.
In chapter 2 he starts by saying, "Speak things fitting for sound doctrine," so obviously that speaks about unsound doctrine. He tells older men how to conduct themselves, older women how to conduct themselves. He talks about what should happen in the home, what should happen with young women, what should happen with young men. Down in verse 12 he says we're to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and live sensibly. So we're talking here about ordering and organizing the church around the truth...very challenging. Over in 3:12 Titus had to do it in a short time because he says, "When I send Artemas or Tychicus to you, make every effort to come to me at Nicopolis for I decided to spend the winter there." Now I'm going to send somebody to replace you, when he gets there you come to Nicopolis and meet me. So he had a very hard task, strengthening believers, establishing effective ministry in the homes and the churches, opposing false teachers and their errors, teaching sound doctrine.
And then secondly, and here is the specific thing, "appoint elders in every city." Obviously then the church was wide spread through the island. In every city while it may not mean all without exception surely means that there were churches scattered all over the place. And this may well indicate, as I said, that Paul was not the founder since he usually would have done this early, so he's stepping in to someone else's work. The church has lacked leadership. The word "appoint" means to ordain, to set in place, to put in office. I don't want to beg the issue because we've studied it so often in the past. Elder, presbuteros simply means an older man, it's just the Greek word for older men. Put older men in leadership. But it came to mean more than just a generic older man, it came to be the official office of the one who was the pastor or the overseer. Here it speaks of ordaining elders. In 1 Timothy 3 where the same qualifications are closely to it are given they're called overseers. Several times they're called pastors, Acts 20 and 1 Peter chapter 5. Whether they are pastors, overseers, bishops, elders, they are all the same. It's the spiritual leaders of the church. And the New Testament says they are to be highly regarded and they are to be given high responsibility. They have responsibility to feed and lead the flock and they are to be honored, lifted up, appreciated, obeyed and followed for their leadership. Now if you want a full detail on that you can get our book, The Master's Plan for the Church and there's much much that is there, but I don't want to belabor that point because we've talked about it in the past, but it's talking about pastors.
The appointment of such pastors is Titus' primary task. Now remember there's more than just a human deal going on here. In Acts 20, just one footnote to the elder discussion and I don't...as I said, I don't want to get into it in any more detail...but in Acts 20 verse 28 to remind you of one thing, "Be on guard for yourselves and all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church." It is the Holy Spirit who appoints pastors. So what Titus was to do was to get in line with the mind of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit had a plan. He's the one who calls and He's the one who ordains and He's the one who gifts and He's the one who sets apart. But the Apostles and in this case the delegated envoy of the Apostles Titus were responsible for knowing the mind of the Spirit in carrying that work out in the church. You remember in Acts 14 the Apostle Paul gives us there really what is his pattern, Acts 14:20, it says, "But while the disciples stood around him, he arose and entered the city. The next day he went with Barnabas to Derbe and after they had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encourage them in the faith," and so forth, then in verse 23, "And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, having prayed with fasting they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed."
So here the Apostles did it. But the Apostles did it knowing the mind of the Spirit of God through prayer and fasting as was indicated in Acts chapter 13. In Acts 13 the Holy Spirit separated Paul and Barnabas and the Holy Spirit is still doing that, I make this point because you need to understand that men are not into the ministry on their own whim, they're called by the Holy Spirit, that calling was affirmed by the Apostles or their delegated envoys, and furthermore it was usually stamped by the affirmation of the congregation, such as is exemplified in Acts chapter 6.
Now at the end of verse 5 he says, "I directed you," which simply means I already told you to do this, now I'm just putting it into print. I already gave you verbal instruction to do these two tasks, now I'm reiterating them to you in print. I want everybody to know this is what you're supposed to be doing, I want it written down so the whole church...so the whole church will know and they won't resist you.
We want to look and see what the qualifications were. Let's look then at verse 6. Namely, "If any man be above reproach." This is a general qualification. This is the first sort of overarching statement to which all the others somehow relate. Saying above reproach and then defining it throughout verse 6, 7, 8, and 9. What does it mean to be above reproach? Well in the specific sense it means to be a one‑woman man, having children who believe, not accused of so forth and so forth, all the way down through verse 9. But let's just look at that general category of being above reproach.
Any man who is going to be an elder, a pastor, an overseer in the church, called to the noble work, as Paul calls it in 1 Timothy 3:1, must be a noble person. He must be a noble person. In 1 Timothy 3 where you have the parallel qualifications for leadership, verse 2, it says, "An overseer, then must be above reproach," dei...it is absolutely necessary, it is not something about which you can equivocate or debate, he is to be above reproach, so says 1 Timothy 3:2, so says Titus 1:6.
Now look at the term "above reproach" in Titus 1:6. It's an interesting Greek word, anenkletos. I mention the word for those of you who will be interested in that, it means to be without fault, unchargeable, without indictment, without accusation. The verb in the middle, or the end of the word is kaleo, to call. It has an alpha privative which negates the word so that simply it has the idea of not being called, that is to say not being called before the court, not being called before the tribunal, not being called into question, not being called to account for what you've done, not being called to indictment...that's the idea. It is used also of deacons, by the way, the same word in 1 Timothy 3:10.
In other words, there's no charge that can be affixed against this person. He is unchargeable. There is no indictment against him. There is no fault for which he has been confronted. First Timothy 3:2 uses the same English term, "above reproach," but it uses a different Greek word. In 1 Timothy 3:2 the word is anepileptos, it means not able to be held. What does that mean? Not able to be made a prisoner, not able to be taken captive, not able to be laid hold of as if you were taking a prisoner. Here was a man who cannot be indicted and who cannot be held for his sin, is a man who has no mark, no vice, no sinful defect in his life that calls his virtue, his godliness, his righteousness into question. There is no one asking and successfully bringing against him a charge. There is nothing in his life present. There is nothing in his life past that would disqualify him from being a model of spiritual character for all to follow. There's no indictment against his life, there's nothing for which he can be laid hold of, and taken, as it were, prisoner. He is a man who is without accusation. One writer says, "Not one about whose past or present accusations are being circulated among the people."
In the ears of all here is a faultless exemplary man whose life is a model for spiritual conduct. He has to be a model because that's what shepherding is. They don't just listen, they follow, Philippians 3:17, "Brethren," Paul writes, "join in following my