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Eugene Prewitt

Being a Good Elder

Our Father in heaven, I ask this morning that you would join us here as a teacher, that you would help us understand the truth in your Bible.

Being here, Being here for morning worship reminds me of how nice it is to be where we all are usually for morning worship.

It's good to be reminded of your blessing sometimes.

1 Timothy chapter 3, we're looking at verse 14.

Verse 14 is just after Paul gives his counsel regarding elders and deacons.

These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly.

But if I tarry long, that you may know how you ought to behave yourself in the house of God.

There's an administrative lesson there for everyone, whether or not they'll ever be an elder or a deacon.

And that is, in your organization and your planning, make room for contingencies.

It means realize that you don't know the future.

And so he gave enough information where Timothy could prosper and do okay if it didn't work out just right.

Those of you that are in Maggibook leading, which is a good chunk of you, this is a big part of how to lead well.

It's to organize your day so that if something goes wrong, things won't go very wrong.

And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness.

You might wonder how there have ever been persons denying the divinity of Jesus with such a simple passage in the Bible.

The reason that there has been some equivocating over this passage is that there are 2 Greek words that are so similar 1 is theos and 1 is os.

I'm not gonna make this real simple it's not 1 of my main points this morning.

But when they were trying to conserve paper and time, when papyrus was a very expensive stuff compared to how much you had to write, they would often abbreviate theos, that is just the theta and the sigma.

But if it would fade and get very used, papyrus, if the middle line in the theta fades, you know what theta looks like if the middle line fades?

Looks like Omicron and suddenly it looks like the word Os and Os is a good Greek word that means witch.

So that would say something like this, the mystery of God, which was manifest in the flesh.

Os doesn't end up looking like Thos by the, or Theos, by the appearance of a middle line.

So the manuscripts, the old ones and the ancient ones, most of them have Theos, God, but 1 of those ancient problematic texts, the Alexandrican manuscript, looks like it has us, except for some later writer in strong black ink wrote the line across the middle where it was obviously edition not in the original.

And it started a conspiracy theory that people tried to change it way back when.

This is not important for you to know, and I don't know why I even spent 4 minutes telling you about it, except for you to know that it's a perfectly good verse, and you ought not to let anyone tell you it's not.

It's the best reading available, and God was manifest in the flesh, and that was Jesus.

Then it says, he was justified in the Spirit.

Probably it's the most difficult phrase to understand in the verse.

I don't know if you need to turn there because I plan to make more progress, but it says there that he was declared to be, verse 4, declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead.

That is, that Jesus, when he was resurrected, it showed 2 things about him.

1 that he was God, and the other that he was holy.

Because if he had sinned in his life he would never have been resurrected.

And so here it says that it's chronological, it's sensible, that first he was manifested in the flesh, that was while he was alive, then he was justified in the Spirit by the resurrection from the dead.

That may honestly, it could refer literally to the angels that were there at his tomb, but it really could be referring to the fact that he was seen of the apostles.

That is a focal point of much of what happens after Jesus is resurrected.

He was seen of the 1 and the 3 and the 12 and then, was it 500 Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 15.

Yeah, that seems to me likely what it means, scene of angels.

Because he was seen of angels the whole time...

Now you might think that looks out of order, but there was some preaching to Gentiles going on before Jesus was ascended to heaven.

But I haven't got to my main point yet, so I'm going to just make progress and go there.

Now the Spirit speaks expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.

You should know that this famous passage is in the context of deacons and elders.

That deacons and elders are introduced as the means of protecting the church and after describing their duties in that regard, Paul says that God speaks expressly that in the last days we're going to need deacons and elders more than we even need them now.

Do you understand what I'm communicating?

3 says deacons and elders help protect doctrinal integrity.

Chapter 4 says in the future things are going to get worse doctrinally.

Verse 3 is a favorite 1 of Martin Luther, They will forbid to marry, that is, these are the seduced people, they will command to abstain from meats which God has created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth." If you'll think about it for a minute, you'll realize that there are some animals that God created to be eaten.

That's a blessing to mankind because God could have made the entire animal creation to be wholly unfit for food and that would have set us up ill for the flood.

But there are some animals that God created to be chewed on by people when necessary.

Didn't this verse say they were created for that?

Verse 4 says, for every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused.

The implication is that we're talking about the creatures that God created for the purpose of being eaten.

And nothing to be refused, listen, if it be received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the word of God in prayer.

Now of course when you bless your food you can set it aside for holy purpose.

But the word of God, does it set aside any animals for holy purpose?

What kind of animals did it set aside for holy purpose?

They weren't just set aside for eating, what else were they set aside for?

They were sanctified by the word of God and by...

And of course there's a relation between being set aside for sacrifice and being set aside for food because the animals set aside for sacrifice, most of them, were also at 1 time or another eaten by the priest as part of the sacrificial service.

I don't know if that applies, I don't think that applies to pigeons.

If you put the brethren in remembrance of these things, You shall be a good minister of Jesus Christ Nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine where unto thou hast attained if the quiz question was How can you be a good minister?

Which of course is what people study for 4, 6, or 7 years to figure out.

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Being a Good Elder

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