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Sunday, 12 May 2013

1 Timothy 5:17-21 - Dealing with accusations against leaders

All Christians are to be honoured, but elders who direct the church well, and especially those who preach and teach, are to be doubly honoured. The Greek speaks about "toiling" at preaching and teaching. Preaching and teaching well requires hard work and commitment. So we are to respect those who lead us.
We are also to pay them. Now there are some parts of the church where pastors and ministers are relatively poorly paid, and it is almost seen as right and proper that they are poorly paid. Other parts of the church seem to glory in leaders being super-rich. Neither of these positions seems particularly Biblical to me. A church should seek to pay its leaders a reasonable salary. 
Church leaders are subject to accusations, this is one of the attacks of the enemy. Now if a leader is genuinely guilty of some misdemeanour then proper actions should and must be taken. However, accusations should only be entertained if there are two or three witnesses. If there is a genuine case against a leader, then they are to be "reproved publicly". Now this does not mean we do this for every little fault, but it must be done for anything serious. This counsels against the practice of dealing with things in private.
Paul reminds Timothy that he is a servant of Christ. In situations like these it is very tempting to want to take the easy way out. We must take the proper way out.

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