What Are You Carrying Today

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Every minute carrying something like a minute. Are you carrying what not even carry? Or are you carrying something you are never meant to even hold? Every lock deal with your brothers in cry. And take up your cross and follow him. A daily word for men. Let's carry it.

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Welcome back, brother, to everyday carry, a daily word for

Why Teaching Sets The Pattern

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men. Today's Tuesday, and yesterday we laid down the four marks out of Acts 2: Teaching, Fellowship, the Table, and Prayer. And I said the teaching comes first because everything else grows out of it. So today we're actually going to go straight at the man doing the teaching. Not to attack him, but to find out what God actually requires of him. Because if you don't know the standard, you'll invent your own. And the one that we invent on our own is usually never the one that Paul actually wrote

Overseer Is Work Not Platform

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down. So 1 Timothy 3, verse 1, it says, The saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. So stop on that last word for a second. In the Greek, the word is ergon. Work. Labor. You see, Paul doesn't call it a position or a platform or a title. He calls it a job. It's a noble one, but it's a job. And then comes the list. And if you're listening along right now, I want you to actually count with me. You can use your fingers, that's fine. You see, therefore, an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well. He must not be a recent convert. And moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders. Did you catch all those?

One Skill And A Lot Of Character

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That's roughly 15 requirements. Now, let's go back and count how many are skills. One. One of them. Didocticos is the word. Able to teach. That's it. One item on the entire list is a competency. Everything else is character. Sit in that for a second. Because God's requirement for the man who stands over you and handles the word is be a certain kind of man and be able to teach. He doesn't say be compelling, not be funny, not fill a room, able to teach. Capable of accurately explaining scriptures so men can understand it. Now, above reproach is a picture in the Greek. Anapelimptos. It literally means not able to be laid hold of. Nothing on him for an accuser to grab. Paul isn't describing a sinless man, because there isn't one. And Paul knew that better than anybody. No, no, no. He's describing a man whose life offers no handle.

Integrity At Home And Outside

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Nothing you could grip and pull and bring the whole thing down. And then Paul does something that we've stopped doing entirely. He goes into the man's house. He must manage his own household well. Paul's logic is really plain here. If a man can't lead the people who share his last name, you don't fix that by giving him 300 more. And then in verse 7, the one nobody expects, he must be well thought of by outsiders. Hold up. You saying non-Christians? His neighbors? The guys at the shop? Whoever watches him in the parking lot. You better put your card away, by the way. Paul says the world's read on a man's integrity is actually part of his qualification for a spiritual office. Brother, let me give you one more gentle rebuke here. And don't worry, I'm including myself here. We have quietly reversed Paul's list. You see, we evaluate a pastor almost entirely on the one thing Paul spends the least amount of time on the public performance. Was it good? Did it move me? And the 14 items about character, its

We Judge Performance Not Qualification

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temper, marriage, money, humility, what his neighbors think. We filed those under private and none of my business. Paul says the private matters are the qualification. And notice this is a list written so a church knows exactly what to look for. It's not difficult. Which means somebody's supposed to be watching. Somebody's supposed to know these men well enough to know if it's true or not. Which brings us to the most uncomfortable part most of us probably couldn't. Most of us can name the man who preaches and nobody else. We can't name a single elder. We don't know who holds spiritual authority over us, we don't know who those men answer to, and we've never actually even thought about it. That's not a failure of leadership, brother. That's on us. You can't hold a standard that you've never read over men whose names you don't know.

Find Your Elders And Pray

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So that leads us to today's charge. Alright, so here is the carry for today. I want you to go and find out the names of the elders or overseers at your church. Not somebody else's, yours. I'm not talking about the staff, I'm not talking about the cleaning crew, the men who hold real spiritual authority in your church. Whether you need to look at a website, the bulletin, maybe ask somebody at the door, doesn't matter. Whatever it takes, find out their names. And if you can't find out who they are, well, that's not a wasted day completely. That actually is your finding. Write it down and keep it. And when you do get the names, do one thing with them. I want you to pray for each one of those men by name. Tonight, right now. Before you ever evaluate a man, get in the habit of carrying him. That's all the time we got for today, brother. I'll see you back here tomorrow. Carry on, brother.

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Thanks for joining us for today's episode. Share today's episode with a brother in Christ that needs to hear this too. And be sure to leave us a five star rating and review to help spread the word to more men just like you. This has been Everyday Carrie.