The eldership is an office of great responsibility, not mere honor: elders are warned against serving by compulsion, for money, or as lords; admonished to guard themselves and their households; charged to feed, oversee, and watch for the flock — and the flock, in turn, is…
The New Testament shows elders appointed in every church — at Jerusalem, Ephesus, Philippi, and the cities of Crete — always a plurality serving as shepherds and bishops in the local congregation, never one bishop ruling over many churches. “Elder” is a plain word that has…
The New Testament reveals no single method for selecting elders, only that they were appointed; therefore any method that does not violate a New Testament principle and that promotes unity may be used — but not a popular vote, which divides rather than appoints. The outline…
God has placed elders in the church, named the office, and specified its qualifications in two lists — 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 — which overlap and complete each other, together drawing the full portrait of the man fit to shepherd God’s flock. This lesson…
The eldership did not pass away with the age of miraculous gifts; because elders were not inspired men but qualified men, because their work of feeding and ruling the flock is still needed, and because God ordained the office and never repealed it, the eldership continues…
The dangers that ruin a life are usually not the great and obvious ones but the small, unseen ones — little faults of conduct, little compromises in our company, little neglects in our spiritual life — and wisdom watches for these “little foxes” before they spoil…
Two Deborahs appear in Scripture: Rebekah’s nurse (Gen. 35:8), and the prophetess of the book of Judges. The name means “a bee.” This outline considers her under five heads: her history, her victory with Barak, her calling of a man to help her, her faith in…
Life is shaped by its decisions; Scripture is full of those who chose well and those who failed to choose at all, and every soul must finally make the great decision for God personally — for no one, in heaven or on earth, can make it…
God has always blessed obedience and condemned disobedience; there is only one way to obey — to do what God says, as He directs — but four ways to disobey: refusing, adding, subtracting, and substituting, and all four stand equally condemned. Man is the most disobedient…
God has always required His people to give; since we own nothing but merely steward what is already His, the Christian gives himself first and then his means — liberally, freely, willingly, as he has prospered, regularly through the church and as need arises among men….