Pastoral Authority (Part 2)

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1. Pastors are supposed to teach, instruct, reprove, rebuke, exhort, and admonish their church members.
2. Reproofs of instruction are the way of life (Pro 6:23).
3. A primary job of a pastor is to reprove and rebuke (2Ti 4:2; 2Ti 3:16; Tit 2:15).
4. Reprove – trans. To reject. 2. To express disapproval of (conduct, actions, beliefs, etc.); to censure, condemn. 3. To reprehend, rebuke, blame, chide, or find fault with (a person).
5. Rebuke – trans. To beat down or force back; to repress or check (a person); to repulse.  2. To reprove, reprimand, chide severely. b. To express blame or reprehension of (a quality, action, etc.) by reproof or reprimand addressed to persons.
6. Chide – intr. To give loud or impassioned utterance to anger, displeasure, disapprobation, reproof. a. To contend with loud and angry altercation; to brawl, wrangle. b. To give loud and angry expression to dissatisfaction and displeasure; to scold. c. To scold by way of rebuke or reproof; in later usage, often merely, to utter rebuke.
7. A pastor is to exhort his church members (2Ti 4:2; 1Ti 4:13; 1Th 2:11; Tit 1:9; Tit 2:6,9,15).
8. Exhort – 1. trans. To admonish earnestly; to urge by stimulating words to conduct regarded as laudable. Said also of circumstances, etc.: To serve as an incitement.
9. Admonish – gen. To put (a person) in mind of duties; to counsel against wrong practices; to give authoritative or warning advice; to exhort, to warn.
10. A pastor is to admonish, and warn the flock under his care (1Th 5:12; Col 1:28).
11. Warn – To make aware, to put on one’s guard. 2. a. trans. To give timely notice to (a person) of impending danger or misfortune.
12. A pastor must defend the truth and charge some that they teach no other doctrine (1Ti 1:3).
13. Sharp rebuke is necessary at times (Tit 1:13).
14. Sharply – Severely, sternly, harshly. b. Of speech, rebuke, command: Sternly, severely, harshly, peremptorily; in cutting terms; in stern or angry tones.
15. Public rebuke is sometimes necessary (1Ti 5:20).

1. Pastors are not to be lords over God’s church, nor rule according to their self-interest, but should seek the best for the church under their care.
2. A pastor is not to be a lord over the church of which God has given him the oversight (1Pe 5:3 c/w Eze 34:1-4).
3. The church is God’s, not the pastor’s (1Pe 5:3 c/w Act 20:28 c/w Deu 32:9).
4. Heritage – That which has been or may be inherited; any property, and esp. land, which devolves by right of inheritance.
5. The pastor is supposed to be an ensample (example) to the flock (1Pe 5:3; Phi 3:17; 1Ti 4:12; Tit 2:7-8); therefore he should expect no more out of the church than he does of himself.
6. Ensample – Example
7. Example – A typical instance; a fact, incident, quotation, etc. that illustrates, or forms a particular case of, a general principle, rule, state of things, etc.; a person or thing that may be taken as an illustration of a certain quality.

III. A pastor should be held in very high regard.

1. Church members should esteem their pastor very highly for his works’ sake and for the office he holds (1Th 5:12-13).
2. Esteem v. – 1. trans. To estimate the value of, assign (a value) to; to value, assess, appraise.
3. It is because of the office (Rom 11:13) a pastor holds and the work he does, not because of his personality, that he should be esteemed highly.
4. Paul’s converts thought very highly of him (Act 17:34; Gal 4:14-15).
5. Paul instructed the church at Philippi to receive the minister Epaphroditus and hold him in reputation (Phi 2:29).
6. Reputation – 1. Opinion, supposition; also, the opinion or view of one about something.  2. The common or general estimate of a person with respect to character or other qualities; the relative estimation or esteem in which a person or thing is held. In phrases:  †a. in (or of) reputation. In later use applied to titles given by courtesy. Obs. (Cf. 3b.)  3. The condition, quality, or fact, of being highly regarded or esteemed; credit, note, or distinction; also, respectability, good report. b. In other prepositional phrases, esp. in reputation. (Cf. 2a.)
7. An elder is not to be rebuked like a sibling, but rather intreated like a father (1Ti 5:1).
8. Intreat v. – obs. or arch. form of entreat.
9. Entreat – II. With additional sense of asking, asking of somebody or for something.
10. An elder should be asked, not told or demanded of.
11. Uncorroborated accusations are not to be received against an elder (1Ti 5:19).

1. The youth of a pastor is no reason to refuse to submit to his authority or to make light of him.
2. Paul told the young preacher Timothy to let no man despise his youth (1Ti 4:12).
3. Paul also told the church at Corinth to not despise Timothy (1Co 16:11).
4. Paul told Titus the same thing (Tit 2:15).
5. Despise – 1. To look down upon; to view with contempt; to think scornfully or slightingly of.
6. Contempt – 1. The action of contemning or despising; the holding or treating as of little account, or as vile and worthless; the mental attitude in which a thing is so considered.

iii.    Slightingly – In a slighting manner; contemptuously, disdainfully; with little regard or respect.

1. Despising the authority one is under brings a man under the judgment of God (2Pe 2:10; Jud 1:8; Exo 22:28).
2. 1Ti 5:1 says to “Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father…”
3. This verse doesn’t forbid a pastor from rebuking someone older than himself, nor does it mean that a pastor is totally immune from rebuke.
4. If someone is so much as a few minutes older than another, he is his elder in age (Rom 9:12).
5. If this forbids a pastor from rebuking someone older than himself, then in some cases a pastor cannot rebuke many or most of the church. How then can he fulfill 2Ti 4:2 and 1Ti 4:11-12?
6. In Tit 2:15; Titus was commanded to teach, exhort, AND REBUKE the things noted in that chapter, which included instruction to aged men and women (Tit 2:2-3).

iii.    The elder in 1Ti 5:1 cannot be limited to the elder in age.  The language is broad enough to include the elder in office also.

1. In the church, God gives the elder in office authority over the elder in age: pastors oversee ALL the flock (Act 20:28).
2. Timothy was to impart this instruction to the church at large, that the members might be blameless (1Ti 5:7).
3. Consider the definitions.
4. Rebuke – trans. To beat down or force back; to repress or check (a person); to repulse. 2. To reprove, reprimand, chide severely. b. To express blame or reprehension of (a quality, action, etc.) by reproof or reprimand addressed to persons.
5. Intreat – I. To treat; to handle. II. With additional sense of asking, asking of somebody or for something.
6. This is instruction to the church members to personally appeal to one another as in a family.
7. In families, the father is generally not to be rebuked. So, too, Christ’s minister should be respected and intreated as a father.
8. A minister should intreat older men as fathers and older women as mothers in a personal context.
9. But in the office of pastor, he must deal with older members as with the rest, rebuking as required (1Ti 5:20-21).
10. A distinction must be made between a minister’s personal and official relationships.
11. The Lord will be with a young man whom He has called to the ministry (Jer 1:4-10).