Take your Bibles with you and turn to 1 Timothy chapter 5 tonight. We're going to read the last couple of verses of this chapter, starting in verse 17 and going down to verse 25.

1st Timothy, again, is all about how to run a church. Paul is writing Timothy, who he has left in charge of the church at Ephesus. This is a very important church but it is a church with some problems, particularly with some problems in their leadership. Paul makes the apostolic decision that Timothy is their pastor and puts Timothy in charge of getting things right there, the church in Ephesus.

Last week Brother Adam preached on the first 16 verses of this chapter, which were mostly about how we take care of widows in the church. The last eight or so verses of this chapter are about our relationship to pastors in the church.

Let's go ahead and read.

[17] Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine.
[18] For the scripture saith, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward.
[19] Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses.
[20] Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.
[21] I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality.
[22] Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men's sins: keep thyself pure.
[23] Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.
[24] Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after.
[25] Likewise also the good works of some are manifest beforehand; and they that are otherwise cannot be hid.
1 Timothy 5:17-25 (KJV)

One of the greatest problems facing churches today is the lack of pastors. Most churches have an older pastor who is wanting to retire and nobody to replace him.

My parents' church is one of the favorite churches I've ever been to. It's about the same size as this church. It's a conservative church. It's in a very nice area. It's a church with a paid-for beautiful building, lots and lots of money in the bank, and wonderful godly people. The pastor is in his seventies and he's wanting to retire. He cannot find anybody to replace him. Nobody wants to come.

Randy King, who you all know here, told me one time that in just the states of Wisconsin and Michigan, at any given point there are hundreds of Baptist churches that are looking for a pastor.

I was just talking to Arnold Alagao this week. He went to a church pastors' fellowship somewhere in Kentucky. Of the sixteen churches that were in the fellowship, he said ten of them were looking for a pastor.

We need pastors. One of the reasons I think we don't have pastors is because the pastors that we do have are often not treated very well.

If you are a young person considering giving your life to the Lord and you are looking up to pastors who are struggling just to survive financially, who are given zero honor by society, and who are constantly dodged by people who want to chew them up and spit them out, why would you want that?

I've known quite a few pastors' kids who have grown up and said, "I will never do what my father did. I've seen how he was treated. I've seen how he was paid. I've seen how he's struggled, and I want nothing to do with that life. I will be faithful in church but I will not even consider being a pastor.“

Now I'm grateful for our church. I'm grateful that you all take care of me in more ways than one. I'm not preaching at you tonight with these things.

But I think it's important for us to understand what the Bible says about how to treat leaders.

This passage we just read gives three words of advice for leaders:

1. We have to honor our leaders.
2. We have to discipline our leaders.
3. We have to choose our leaders wisely.

Let's pray and we'll look at those three things.

Prayer

So three things in this passage for us to consider. The first thing I believe this passage is teaching is...

1. We have to honor our leaders

Verse 17-18 are about honoring leaders. It says:

[17] Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine.
1 Timothy 5:17 (KJV)

Elders here is speaking of the office of an elder, not an older person in the church - and we know that because of the phrase “rule well” and “labour in the word and doctrine.”

This is speaking of what we today call pastors. People who have given their life to leading the church and preaching the word.

And it says they need to be counted worthy of double honor. What does that mean? Well, it clearly means two things in context:

• We could say renumeration and respect

But let’s go with “p”s. Let’s say that “double honor” means paying them well and “protecting their good name”

So first...

A. A church needs to honor their leaders by paying them well.

Honor here definitely is talking about pay. We know this because the word “honor” has already been used in this passage to talk about pay. We just got through a passage about “honoring widows that are widows indeed” and that was talking about which widows deserve financial support.

We also know this is talking about pay because of the next verse:

[18] For the scripture saith, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward.
1 Timothy 5:18 (KJV)

Paul uses two quotes from the scripture to back this up:

1. A quote from Deuteronomy that says you're not supposed to muzzle the ox that treads the corn.
2. A quote from Jesus where he says the laborer is worthy of his reward.

In both cases Paul is making it clear that pastors should be paid and paid well.

What does that look like? Well it depends on the area. It depends on the pastor. It depends on the church.

If somebody is a pastor in a little church out in the country and ten people come every Sunday, most of them are widows. It's a little bit unrealistic for that person to expect much of a salary in that situation.

But in a church that's growing, in a church that has some health to it. That's a different story.

Rather than give you my opinion, I'm going to just read a quote from Kent Hughes, who I think has a really balanced take about this.

What is a fair wage? As a rule of thumb, pastors ought to be paid on the same scale as others in the congregation of the same age, education, level of experience, and responsibilities. They should not live above or below their congregation, and it's generally better for their church to err on the plus side.

There are several things I like about that quote. The first is it talks about age. We don't expect a 25-year-old in any profession to make a lot of money. But a fifty-year-old in any profession that's stuck with it, they're probably doing okay.

The second is education. Somebody who has taken the time to get more education typically is going to be paid better. Same with level of experience and level of responsibilities. I think all of that needs to be taken into account when you consider what it means to pay a fair wage, what it means to pay well.

I think one other thing should be said and that is, consider inflation. What happens in a lot of churches is that people that are in leadership have been retired for 20-30 years. And when they hear about a number, they think: "Wow! That was a lot of money when I was working." There has been almost 100% inflation in the last 20 years.

A home cost twice as much as it did twenty years ago. A car cost twice as much as it did twenty years ago. That has to be taken into account.

One other thing before I move on from the pastors being paid well especially those that labor. Nobody, and not pastors for sure, should have the expectation that they are going to get something for nothing. Everybody in this world who gets paid should expect to have to labor at it.

Paul said, "Those who rule well." Those who labor in the Word and doctrine. Not every pastor is to be counted worthy of double honor.

The second thing I think Paul had in mind when he was talking about “double honor” is...

B. A church needs to honor their leaders by protecting their good name

Look at verse 19

[19] Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses.
1 Timothy 5:19 (KJV)

Here's the truth about being a pastor, being a leader in a church. When you are up on a pedestal, you become a target. When part of your job is disciplining people and dealing with errors, you become a lot of people's enemy. That's just the nature of it.

And one of the ways that the devil destroys pastors, good pastors, faithful pastors, is with gossip, with criticism - and more often than not that gossip and criticism isn't even true.

A lot of people will repeat things that they don't know for sure are true. Warren Wiersbe said, "Where there's smoke there's fire" may be a good slogan for the volunteer fire department but it doesn't apply to local churches.

So Paul gives us instruction here. There has to be two or three witnesses before we believe an accusation. “Witnesses” is the key word there. Not “repeaters of the gossip” but witnesses.

Two or three people have to have seen something happen for it to rise to the level of believing it and acting on it.

I'm thinking about something. That just recently I heard a bit of gossip that have been passed around the church for years and years and believed by many people, it turns out there just wasn't any truth to it. It affected somebody's reputation. If somebody had just picked up the phone and talked to the person that actually saw it, it could have saved a lot of hurt.

For the protection of the Church and for the protection of leaders, we have to hold gossip to a very, very high standard before we start believing it.

So the first thing Paul says here in this text is we need to honor our leaders. The second thing is...

2. We need to discipline our leaders

What? I was just talking about honouring leaders; now I'm talking about disciplining leaders? Yes. Because that's what the text says. Look at verse 20.

[20] Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.
1 Timothy 5:20 (KJV)

I think, and most of the commentaries think, that this is talking about the leaders of the church. If a leader of a church is in open sin, they need to be openly rebuked. Why? It is a warning to everybody else not to go down that road. It is a warning to both the guilty and the would-be guilty of what happens when we continue in sin.

Listen, Paul is not saying that we should never deal with the sin of pastors and leaders. On the contrary we must deal with the sin of pastors and leaders. It just has to rise to a the same standard of evidence as anybody else.

In the Old Testament you had to have two or three agreeing witnesses before somebody could be charged with a crime. Witnesses, not hearsay, but witnesses. Paul says if there are two or three witnesses to the sin of a leader, then that leader has to be openly rebuked.

Look at verse 21:

[21] I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality.
1 Timothy 5:21 (KJV)

This is some heavy stuff. Paul is telling Timothy, "Listen: God is watching you. Jesus is watching you. The angels are watching you. You need to handle these kinds of church business and this kind of discipline without preference and without partiality."

Preference is when we say, "Oh but this is my friend. Oh but I love this guy. He's been here for years and years and years so we look the other way." We give somebody a pass that we wouldn't give anybody else as a preference.

Partiality is the other side of it. Partiality is when we think, "That guy's a jerk. Of course he did it." And Paul is saying, "No, Timothy, as the pastor when you are handling these things you have to be fair."

Barclay said it this way:

Nothing does more harm than when some people are treated as if they could do no wrong and others as if they could do no right.

If somebody, even a leader in the church, is guilty of doing something, it has to be dealt with. When we don't deal with it because we like them or we are unfair to them because we don't like them - it brings great shame to the church.

This passage talks about how leaders must be honored and leaders must be disciplined when it's appropriate. There's a third thing that this passage talks about in verses 22-25, and that is:

3. We need to choose our leaders wisely

Look at verse 22.

[22] Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men's sins: keep thyself pure.
1 Timothy 5:22 (KJV)

This verse always makes me laugh because I think of a guy in Amanda and Adam's home church. When Amanda and I were dating, he would come up behind Amanda and say, "Lay hands subtly on no man."

But in context, what's this talking about? One of the ways to avoid having to discipline leaders is to be very careful in who you appoint to be a leader in the first place.

That's what Paul is saying when he says, "Lay hands suddenly on no man. Do not share in the sins of others." He's saying you need to take time to evaluate leaders before promoting them to a place of leadership.

I know a lot of guys who, very early in their life, were promoted to a place of leadership in the church and flamed out or fell into sin. There's a temptation, especially when we talk about the great need for pastors, for anybody that shows any interest whatsoever to be like, "Oh you want to be a preacher!" and for us to give them our stamp of approval.

What we ought to do is watch them for a little while. We ought not to be in a rush. We ought not to lay hands suddenly on any man. There ought to be a process of training, of watching, of apprenticeship before anybody is sent out or appointed to be a leader in a church. If we don't do that, we can be guilty of their sins. We can be sharing in their sins.

Now I'm going to skip over verse 23 for just a minute. I'm going to come back to it at the end and give it full treatment, I promise. It's kind of a parenthesis. Let's carry on the thought in verse 24 and verse 25. Look at those verses.

[24] Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after.
[25] Likewise also the good works of some are manifest beforehand; and they that are otherwise cannot be hid.
1 Timothy 5:24-25 (KJV)

What Paul's saying here is that some sins are obvious. Some sins are right out there in the open and judgment is coming to those people but sometimes it takes a while to see someone's real character.

Remember, church leadership and ministry is a character profession. Your character matters a lot more than your talent. Your character matters a lot more than your ability. Before somebody is elevated in the ministry, their character has to be evaluated.

We have to see a pattern of good works in their life and we have to make sure that there aren't sins that are controlling their life.

There are three things a church needs to do for the preacher:

1. We need to honor our leaders.
2. We have to discipline our leaders when they fall into sin.
3. To help with that, we need to choose our leaders wisely.

Now there's one verse I skipped over that I want to quickly cover and that's verse number 23. I'm going to give you my idea of what that verse means.

[23] Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.
1 Timothy 5:23 (KJV)

This is kind of an aside, a parenthesis, and what Paul is saying. For some reason in the middle of Paul's writing he stops and he thinks about Timothy as a person. He says, "By the way I hear that you're just drinking water and you're sick all the time. You need to drink a little bit of wine for your stomach's sake."

I do not think that this verse means that it's okay for people to be drinking. There are so many reasons for a Christian person to avoid drinking.

1. it's bad for you.
2. it impairs your judgment
3. It's addictive.
4. It's a bad testimony.
5. Drinking usually goes along with all kinds of other sin: sexual crimes, felonies, traffic deaths.
6. And drinking within a church is going to hinder the spiritual development of other people.

I've said it before and I will say it again: In the modern era there is not a good reason for a Christian to drink. Just avoid this stuff altogether.

But Timothy didn't live in the modern era. Timothy lived in the first-century Roman Empire, and it was a very different world there. Today we have whole departments in every city working to give us clean, safe drinking water. We can go to the store and buy a myriad of juices, soft drinks, and other things to hydrate ourselves that are not intoxicating and are safe to drink.

But that wasn't the case in first-century Rome. They didn't have the same tools for cleaning their water. One of the things they did, very common, was take regular wine and mix a small amount of it into their water to kill bacteria and purify the water.

Taken in that way you would have to drink gallons and gallons and gallons of water mixed with wine to get drunk.

So what I think what's happening here is that Timothy, in an effort to be a good testimony, said, "I'm just going to not drink any alcohol at all, no wine at all." Because of that, he was making himself sick by drinking this dirty water. Paul said, "Timothy, just put a little wine in your water for your stomach's sake."

Now we're not in that situation today. What does it teach us? Sometimes we can be absolutist about things that God is not absolutist about and we do it to our own detriment. We do it to our own hurt. And in those cases godly wisdom says, "Knock it off. Put a little wine in your water for your stomach's sake." Your pride in a position is not worth getting sick over. It doesn't help as much as you think it does.

Conclusion

So what do we take from this passage? I think the main point of this passage is that God gives us instruction for how to treat leaders. Leaders are not supposed to be on this high pedestal where they're above any kind of criticism, above any kind of allegation. But we do have to take those allegations seriously and we do have to make sure that they're backed up, that they're not just gossip.
We have to make sure that leaders in the church are well taken care of. The laborer is worthy of his reward.
And we have to be careful about who we pick to be leaders in the first place.

I think if churches did these three things:

1. honored their leaders
2. disciplined leaders who went astray
3. were more careful about who they chose
   I think pastoral ministry would be a more attractive thing and we'd have stronger churches.

Let's stand together and pray.