Text: Titus 1:9
Theme: As men who must be able both to instruct and rebuke according to the Gospel, the church’s elders must cleave to the trustworthy word of God as they were taught it.
Structure/points: We close our discussion of Christ’s qualifications for elders with Titus 1:9. In this verse, Paul focuses on the final quality that a man MUST have in order to be ordained as an elder in the church. The word of God is central to everything an elder is responsible for in the church, so his understanding of the word is of crucial importance. We will see Paul explain this in two ways.
- An elder must cleave to the word
- An elder must teach the word