I heard many times in evangelical circles that 1 Timothy 3:4-5 and Titus 1:6 say that the children of an elder must be believers in order for the elder to be qualified for his position. Is this the right interpretation of the passages?
I am thankful for the several good responses to this thread, particularly those quotes of our faithful forbears. I would like to add something that I believe is of equal importance.
Several men note that a distinction is warranted between those men who have a household with children in its bounds (who live under an elder's roof and formally are in some measure subordinate to him); and those men who have children who have left their father and mother to live independently. While a child lives under the parent's authority--even if after only a modest count--the father has a say in how that child conducts him/herself, or whether that child brings the whole family or house into disrepute while the father plays a fool and holds none to account.
It could even come to a case where a rebellious child, against both parental authority and the church's admonishments, is compelled to depart both from the house and from the church. Here is a case of difficult, even heartbreaking, but necessary discipline. I ask:
what has this father/elder demonstrated but his faithfulness to his duty, his preference of divine honor to the honor of his child? This elder has proved his office, not stumbled in it. In most cases, probably the secret deviant departs on his own, before his sin or apostasy becomes known. Perhaps, for a season while the elder is distracted by the need to establish order in his dwelling he might require a leave of absence, but in order to his responsibility and not for his delinquency. But even this is an extreme case, if in all other respects the elder fulfills his duties and maintains a stable family order while exerting all the discipline necessary.
Yet, there are some who forbid such a man from holding office. "First, Elder or Pastor, get your house in order and see that your children are members in good standing." These and like terms are dictated even to some who have grown children, married sons and daughters with houses of their own who seemingly have wandered from the faith. As if the apostle and the Holy Spirit was not concerned for a man's dedication, but his appearance and the external display of faith? Is it even in the power of a man to hold such persons accountable who have forsaken his sphere of counsel? Is it in the power of a man to command faith from his children? Finally, is it the case that in order to a proper, spiritual end, all that is necessary is sufficient effort and the due use of means?
Has it crossed the mind of those who take a
severe approach, who rebut the notion that a serving church officer could ever have a wayward child, that God allows some of his most dedicated servants to bear the heaviest crosses? What does it say to an ordinary church member, when all his pastors have "faithful children," but he does not? The message seems to be: "These men are the best, see how obedient they are (and their children are)? You are not the best, and not officer material (obviously)." Yes, he even sees a former officer now and again, who can't get it together (clearly) because his child is backsliding. "Officers are those who have stabilized their spirituality at a minimal level of excellence, as measured by how well their children recite the catechism."
In this sort of church, there are no pastors who know the grief of a child who has fallen. Consequently, they have no personal experience of that sorrow. Never having to bear that cross--or, only for a time until that issue was straightened out and the show is now
doubly successful--their answer to the broken father and mother is: "Should have tried harder when you had the chance; don't mess up with your other offspring. God blesses effort (look at our officers, and their results plainly stemming from their good efforts)."
God let the church in Corinth go through a whole series of errors and struggles. Indeed he allowed church after church that might have marked the first great missionary-evangelist and apostle to the Gentiles with an unbroken string of successes to falter, to toy with false doctrine, to fall into cult of personality, and be prey to many other pits and schemes of the devil--God let this happen and even ordained it should, so we would have the letters our apostle-father wrote with many tears in his eyes making up the bulk of the doctrine and practical teaching of the New Testament. It's a good thing Paul had such taste of failure (in earthly calculus) from his spiritual children. Paul had a cross to bear and a thorn in his flesh to teach him humility, and so he might teach us what God taught him: "My grace is sufficient for you." And when I am weak, then I am strong.
I don't need a pastor who has never had a straying child, or only who has successfully seen one of those back into the fold (to prove his wholesomeness). I don't need a pastor only whose wife never left him for no good reason (God forbid he should exercise a biblically lawful divorce, or even remarry?). I don't need a pastor who is marked by his place three rungs up ahead of everyone else on the sanctification ladder. The same as I don't need a pastor who is a careless father indeed, a non-disciplinarian, a thrice-divorced serial adulterer, or some other derelict in his biblically defined duties.
I should be glad to have a pastor who may know--directly or by analogy--both the crushing weight of some woeful cross, and the sustaining grace of God in the midst of trial, someone who will experimentally point me to the heart of the Savior who bore our griefs and carried our sorrows.
