What’s valuable

Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.” Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging, doing nothing from partiality. Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, nor take part in the sins of others; keep yourself pure. (No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.) The sins of some people are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later. So also good works are conspicuous, and even those that are not cannot remain hidden. 1 Tim 5:17–25

At the conclusion of 1 Timothy 5 we get what I initially read as a sort of melting pot of commands and encouragements from Paul. This comes on the heels of the quite extended discussion of how the church should continue its support for widows and the guidelines that surround the practice. There is a thread here though and one that reveals Paul’s practicality and wisdom:

• Elders are worthy of honor
• How to handle charges against an elder
• What to do if the elder is unrepentant
• Avoid partiality in administering this discipline to elders
• Be cautious in laying on of hands to install elders
• Personal note about Timothy’s health and purity
• The nature of sin and good works

When we consider these commands follow the in-depth guide on how the church should administer its support of widows the flow of Paul’s thought becomes more clear. We mentioned previously that it’s this response that occasions the institution of the second office of the church: deacons. From the beginning, deacons have been administering the care of widows and the practice continued even 30 years later when Paul is still teaching on it in this epistle. The connection we should draw then is that in the first part chapter 5 Paul is giving instruction for Timothy handling the deacons of the church as they execute their responsibilities. Likewise, here at the end of chapter 5 Paul is giving Timothy instruction on how to handle the elders of the Ephesian church.

This section also contrasts interestingly with Paul’s earlier concentrated commands to Timothy at the end of chapter 4. There Paul gives 10 commands in the space of 6 verses all of which center around Timothy’s role as a leader in the church. Here, on the other hand, we get a mixture of commands, personal notes, and general truths.

How to honor elders

Paul statements on elders in v. 17 gives us several important details surrounding how we should think about those who lead the church in general.

• Paul confirms what it is that elders primarily do: rule
• Paul confirms that there are some elders that do not teach
• Paul confirms the propriety of paying the church leadership

I find it interesting because we, or at least I, often think of the difference between elder and deacon primarily in terms of the qualifications that we see earlier in chapter 3. The most notable functional difference in these lists is that the elder is required to be “able to teach” while the deacon is not. I recognize the silliness of this since both practically and scripturally it’s quite clear that elders lead the church while deacons minister to the needs of the church. Yet Paul confirms here that there are some elders who only lead. So what does it imply or what does it mean for us to have an elder that is able to teach yet does not as a practice do so?

I think this question gets us to the core of the kind of people we should consider as elder:

• familiarity with the teaching (in the Acts 2:42 sense, the teaching of the church)
• wisdom in regards to its application
• faithfulness in its delivery (managers of households, it’s not only that children mirror their parents but that every parent is always teaching)

A note on Paul’s use of Jesus words

It’s tempting to stop at Paul’s use of the OT and a quotation from Jesus to establish his point and talk about what these mean for our understanding of Scripture. It is true that this verse gives us some important insight in this regard.

• Paul puts the authority of Jesus words’ explicitly alongside of that of the OT
• Paul describes both quotations under the heading of “scripture” giving them equal weight
• This usage of “scripture” also implies that by this point the words of Jesus have been written down
• The quote of Jesus itself matches the wording of Luke 10:7 making that the likely source
• Even if we consider this epistle to be non-Pauline and date it to the 90s or early 2nd century, it would still be one of the earliest references to the written words of Jesus

All that is true but not the point of what Paul is saying here. Paul, in fact, had none of this in mind. Everywhere we read his words he’s assuming that the words of Jesus are of equal authority with God’s words in the Old Testament. His entire life after Damascus was built around Jesus’ authority to install him as an apostle.

Side note: on re-reading Acts 9 where Paul encounters Christ on the way to Damascus it’s striking how little Jesus tells Paul. The entire exchange is Jesus asking Paul the reason for the persecution, Paul’s questioning response, and Jesus’ statement of identity followed by the command to go into the city where Paul “will be told what [he is] to do”. Everything else we get is from Jesus’ conversation with Ananias which Paul was not privy to.

Paul’s actual concern

So Paul is not concerned with our understanding of what is or is not the Bible and how we should understand Jesus’ words. His concern is rather for the church. This is the first of the wisdom we see in this text. I think Paul more than most others is aware of the weight of responsibility the leaders of the church bear. And he commands the church to recognize this through money.

To establish the principle he recalls an OT passage and NT one. He cites Deuteronomy first to make his point:

You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain. Deut. 25:4

He adds Jesus words to the seventy-two disciples he sent out before him to preach the gospel.

And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house. Luke 10:7

What’s really interesting is that Paul also quotes the Deuteronomy passage in 1 Cor. 9:3-10 when he’s pointing out his right to support to the Corinthians (along with his refusal of that right for the sake of the gospel). Rooted in both of these passages is establishing the value of the work of ministry. Paul’s refusal of monetary support is exceptional in the true sense of the word, it is an exception.

We should also note how all throughout this past chapter we’ve seen the close connection between honor and money. At the beginning we’ve mentioned how the fifth commandment lies behind so much of what we see in this chapter. And in this chapter we see how that plays out practically. Paul commands Timothy to honor widows and goes on to describe how these widows are to be enrolled for material support. Now that we turn towards the elders they too are worthy of “double honor”. This is not Paul having mercenary concerns. Rather he’s operating on a simple understanding of value. Money is a representation of value. It’s representative of time and effort, intellectual and physical labor. Paul has the simple understanding that we should value what is valuable and he’s commending Timothy to teach the Ephesian church to do the same. Value the valuable good work of the widows who serve the church and the good work of elders who lead it.

Paul’s wisdom in leadership

Paul goes on to describe how to handle a charge or accusation against an elder. There are several interesting points here. He again draws from both the Old Testament and Jesus in his handling of the matter. Two or three witnesses are required by Mosaic law:

A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established. Deut. 19:15

We see this in Jesus commands about conflict within the church as well:

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. Matt. 18:15–16

Timothy is to apply the standard that Jesus sets for the whole church to the leadership of the church as well. How necessary is this? Magna Carta much? Furthermore, Paul emphatically commands Timothy:

1. Not to show partiality in applying this standard
2. Be restrained in ordaining elders, and
3. Be careful to maintain his purity even while working closely with the Ephesian leadership

Though the next commands seem almost to be a non sequitur with what comes before it’s actually Paul’s fatherly care and pastoral wisdom shining through again. He commands Timothy not to drink only water but also use wine for the sake of his constitution. As you may have heard before alcohol was often mixed into water as a matter of course in earlier times due to the uncertainty of fresh water. The result was a safer drink which had a very low amount of alcohol. Drinking only water as we can see here was not unheard of, but was often done in the context of religious asceticism. Now you can imagine why Timothy might make a practice of forgoing alcohol completely even in the very small quantities used in daily consumption.

The Ephesian church has it’s problems with asceticism and Paul warns of drunkenness of the part of the church leadership. It’s reasonable to imaging that Timothy would avoid even the appearance of evil by committing himself to total Nazarite-like purity. (This would also lead me to believe that Timothy could be quite young here, as that’s kind of a typical young person thing to do.)

Hidden virtues, public vices

Finally, Paul gives us a Jesus-esque statement on the nature of sins and good work. It sounds so much like something Jesus would say because it’s almost the equivalent of the saying about trees and good fruit:

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits Matt. 7:15–20

Also:

Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. Matt. 12:33

Paul is echoing this general truth from Jesus for this very reason: fruit grows slowly. This is why Timothy should exercise caution in his leadership of the Ephesian church and particularly in the administration of the eldership there. Virtues and vices both grow in time and with cultivation. Timothy must be aware of this both for himself and the other leaders.

The value of being rooted

This truth applies in an extremely practical and often unconsidered way. My wife is one who gets itchy feet. Occasionally she’ll just get the urge to go somewhere, typically somewhere not close. I don’t view this as a bad thing, I’m willing to bet that Paul had some wanderlust himself. I’m kind of the opposite of that. I may have taken Jesus a bit too literally with the whole tree thing. I tend to stay rooted in one place. This is not a wholly good thing but it does have one distinct advantage.

Being in one place over a long period of time especially in one church gives you opportunity to see the fruit in the lives of those around you. We just had a vote for elders. How difficult would it be to vote on these men if you know little to nothing about them? But seeing them over a long time to be faithful to the church, faithful to their spouse, and faithful to their children says quite a bit.