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elder
As you look through the lists of qualifications for elders in the New Testament, you can’t find words like tough, outspoken, bold, or unrelenting. In their place is the call to gentleness. An elder is someone who is neither quarrelsome nor arrogant but is marked by a considerate attitude toward others. Consider whether you’re gentle enough to do the hard work of Christian leadership.
The most common term to refer to church leaders in the New Testament is “elder,” but it sounds foreign because we value youth so much today. The tech revolution has deemed most people who are over 30 as out-of-date, and so calling leaders “elders” seems to require that they be old and traditional. There’s value in holding onto the term, though. While it doesn’t demand a certain age, designating Christian leaders as “elders” does draw attention to the value of time as a necessary preparation for the role. In response to the question, “How old do you have to be to become an elder?” the Bible seems to answer in several ways.
We all know that Christian leadership is different than leadership in other areas. We’re not surprised to see certain requirements that you wouldn’t see, for example, in a senior management position. But there’s always been one requirement that seemed out of place. The qualifications for elders in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 both list “hospitality.” Can you imagine being interviewed for an executive role and being asked about your grilling skills and the frequency of your dinner parties? Is that what’s required of an elder? Why is hospitality one of the essentials of Christian leadership?
If you can smile and make conversation on a Sunday morning and are willing to volunteer to help, chances are someone will eventually ask you to lead. How do you know if you’re ready? Just smiling and putting up your hand surely aren’t the qualifications. Then again, a Christian is someone who admits that they’re a sinner in need of God’s grace, so you probably don’t have to be perfect to be a Christian leader. In the case of an elder, the lines are drawn pretty clearly in Scripture. We looked last time at the first of those qualifications: integrity. Today, let’s consider self-control from 3 different angles.
What should you do if you’re asked to serve as an elder? Do you decide on the basis of related work experience? Is there an x-factor you should know about? Is it a question of who has the strongest opinions or whether you think you could make better decisions than the current elders? The Bible gives a clear benchmark, and the starting point is integrity. But it’s not just a requirement of elders. It’s the goal of all discipleship and should characterize every believer. We all need to work on integrity whether we’re ever asked to becoming leaders or not. The Christian version of integrity is slightly different than how people typically conceive of it, though. Let me explain.
