The Instruction on Marriage
Summary
ExpositoryThe appointment of biblically qualified elders — men who demonstrate domestic faithfulness, personal faithfulness, and the ability to teach sound doctrine — is essential for the well-being of the local church and reflects God's ordained means for edifying his people and calling sinners to salvation.
Titus 1:1–9 provides Paul's instructions to Titus for establishing gospel order on the island of Crete, centering on the appointment of qualified elders. The sermon works through the twofold purpose of Titus's ministry — setting things in order and appointing elders in every city — before examining the elder's domestic faithfulness (blamelessness, sexual fidelity, faithful children) and personal faithfulness (five vices to avoid, six virtues to exemplify). The exposition closes with the elder's indispensable giftedness: holding fast sound doctrine so as to both exhort the people of God and silence those who contradict. The whole is applied to the congregation as a call to pray for qualified men, to know the qualifications, and to insist that the church install only those who demonstrably meet them.
Key quotes
The church is not the elder's church. The church is the Lord's. The church is God's house. It is the pillar and ground of the truth. And so we are to comply with God's will for His house.
Elders are not essential for the being of the church. Elders are essential, however, for the well-being of the church.
Brethren, if you are not theologians, you are in your pastorates just nothing at all. You may be fine rhetoricians and be rich in polished sentences, but without knowledge of the gospel and aptness to teach it, you are but a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.
Applications
- Pray to the Lord of the Harvest to raise up qualified men so that the church may have a functioning plurality of elders.
- Know the qualifications for eldership from 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, and 1 Peter 5, and insist that men who aspire to office actually meet them.
- Exclude any man from the eldership who does not meet the biblical qualifications, even when the decision is difficult.
- Demonstrate faithful biblical churchmanship — consistent attendance, service to the brethren, and faithfulness in small things — as the prerequisite foundation for any man who aspires to office.
- Do not come to saving faith on the basis of a distorted theology that portrays God as reluctant to save; Christ is a willing Savior for real sinners, and the call of the gospel is to look to him and believe.
Questions this sermon answers
Are elders absolutely necessary for a church to exist?
Elders are not essential for the existence of the church — Crete had churches without elders — but they are essential for the well-being of the church, as Christ's gift for instruction and order.
What does 'husband of one wife' mean for elder qualifications?
The phrase means the elder must be sexually faithful — a one-woman man — excluding polygamy, concubinage, homosexuality, and any sexually promiscuous conduct; it does not demand that an elder be married or that a widower may not remarry.
Must an elder's children be converted for him to qualify?
The text requires that his children be faithful in the sense of being under his control and not accused of insubordination, not that they be regenerate, since a man cannot convert his own children.
How does a church appoint elders?
Through the common suffrage of the congregation — the people voice their affirmation of qualified men, and those men are then solemnly set apart by fasting, prayer, and the laying on of hands by the existing eldership.
What is the primary gift required of an elder?
He must hold fast the faithful word as he has been taught and be able by sound doctrine both to exhort the people of God and to refute those who contradict — he must, in short, be apt to teach.
Transcript not yet available.
Study notes
Confessions & catechisms
- 1689 LBCF 26.9
Theological terms
- Blamelessness×8
- Cessationism
- Churchmanship×3
- Common Suffrage×3
- Elder×38
- Imputation
- Justification by Faith×3
- Means of Grace×2
- Plurality of Elders×3
- Sound Doctrine×6
- Steward×5
People cited
- Charles Spurgeon×2
- George Knight
- John Calvin×3
- John Gill×2
- Philip Towner