First Timothy lesson 17 question 4-7

All right, we are in lesson 17. We are going over 1 Timothy 3, verses 8 through 10. And we got through the first three questions, I believe, last week. And we are starting in question 4. So question four, how would you describe the requirements for elders and deacons to not be given too much wine? So in verse eight, deacons likewise must be men of dignity, not double-tongued or addicted to much wine or fond of sordid gains. As we discussed for the elders qualifications, does that mean that the deacons should be teetotallers, never touch alcohol? Is that the same requirement for the elders that they have to be never to be seen with a glass of wine or anything like that?

Is that what this means? And they all said, yes. No. And you have to give reasons for your answers. No. It really is, and this one says addicted to wine and the NASB. And that's kind of a strong word and we'll get to that, but the word it's Prosecco is given and then echo which is toward. So to hold toward or to apply oneself, to attach oneself. So this is somebody who's wanting to drink a lot. Somebody who wants to go to the bar more times, or have a drink every night, or a couple drinks every night, and has to have it.

Yeah, is your mic on? I was thinking of the conversation we had about does it master you? Yes, that's what I was getting to, is that can you live without it? Or does it master you? You have to have a drink. That's weird, does the red button mean? I saw it go red when you hit the button. So, Davey, can you hear Donna when she's talking right now? I can. You can? I can. All right. It's just weird.

The one she has has a red button. All the rest are green buttons. Anyway, I just want to make sure she's coming through. And I also looked at the verb tense on this. It's present tense or continuous action. So it's somebody who's doing it all the time. It's not just one and done or one glass every month or a glass every week once. It's somebody who's doing it all the time. And he's doing it. It's in the active voice. So he's the one doing it. He's drinking. And it's weird. And I'm not sure what this means. I was trying to look it up.

It's in the Greek accusative. I don't know. Do you know what accusative case case? Yeah, it's like it sounds pretty threatening in the you know, it's somebody who's who's addicted to wine or fond of wine, but it was yeah, it was a Greek accusative. I was trying to look it up. It had a massive thing in my DC study Bible.

So I didn't know if there was a a abridged version of what that definition of the accusative is. You got that? I don't know. Okay. Do you know JD at all? I'm trying to look it up, but I probably won't be able to answer it right away. Yeah, mine was like, I looked it up and it was like three pages of what it was. I can't boil that down to one simple thing, but anyway. The word translated as addicted is probably a bit strong. Prosecco means to pay attention or to occupy oneself with. The NASB is addicted.

So it's more just, again, something that masters you, that you have to have it. It's not like, especially that you're just a drunk all the time, but you really, you have to have it. And that's getting back to what Donna was saying, that are you mastered by it?

Yeah. I also think there's another element here, and that is not so much that you have to have it, but that if you do, Does it have an effect on your clarity or ability to study or to understand? If it interferes in any way, then it doesn't mean I can't have a beer at a baseball game, but if I'm going to sit down and study God's Word, I better not have. Well, that's, again, about at the end of the verse, that you're dissipation or that you're drunk. Basically, the word is that you're affected, you're drunk.

You're affected by it, yeah. I was also thinking, too, as a shepherd of the sheep, you don't know when the call's going to come. You always want to be ready to Actually, that's kind of an interesting thing. I won't name names, but there was one that we know of that somebody came in and I think they were getting counseling. And they stopped counseling because they felt he was under the influence of alcohol at the time. And so, yeah, they wasn't ready. But is there ever a time that an elder or a deacon should be drunk? Never. Never.

I mean, that's really, I mean, in the other verses about dissipation, is that right? Dissipation, alcohol, or whatever, drunk. Yeah. And I think all believers are not to be controlled by I forget what the verse is. Controlled by the spirit and not with liquor, basically. And even if you only do it once every three months, I don't think frequency matters as much as you drink so much that you're not in control, or that the spirit's not in control.

Which brings up the contemporary situations we have now, which is marijuana. It's legal. I know some of those versus all things are maybe legal but not profitable. So this is one of those ones where I think it really, and I think I may have brought this up earlier, I've just talked to people about this, that how does weed fall into this?

Really, you can have a glass of wine, you can have a beer at the thing and you're not impacted by it. But when you smoke weed or you have the edibles with THC in it and all that, I don't think there's anything where you're not impacted by it. So you can't just have, I think I've said this maybe in the class, I can have a glass of wine, it's great, ooh, but it's not like you can have a weed, smoke a joint, and it's like, oh, that's great, and it impacts you. It's specifically meant to impact you. So how do we address addicted to or somebody who's a deacon or an elder? Can they smoke weed once in a while? I think the key word that you said is impact. If any of these kinds of things impact my ability to think comprehensively, then it goes on.

I probably shouldn't do it, at least. Well, it goes back to what I think. In their time, evidently, they didn't have weed. But as Paul is giving this scripture, it goes back to the drunk part. It would be the same thing. I can't be doing drugs, either. I'm hitting meth, or I'm hitting heroin, or something like that. It would be the same thing.

It has an impact on your cognitive abilities. And so I think any of those fall under this type of warning for Paul, for deacons or elders, but as Ingrid says, nobody should be really doing something that impacts their cognitive abilities. So again, I think this doesn't mean a teetotaler, but it doesn't mean anybody who gets drunk or really has to have a glass of wine every night at dinner or has to have it mastered. You shouldn't be that way. That's what I think this is fond of or directed to.

And it's the same qualification for an elder. So deacons have the same qualification requirement. So what if a guy smokes pot and every morning he gets up and smokes it just to get one Well, normal in his own mind. But that's what I'll hear from people. It started as medical, and we had people when we were doing the catering stuff, they were perfectly fine. They're hooking tables around, doing all this stuff, and oh, they got weed, a certificate from Bozo, Dr. Bill, and said that they had back issues and they could go to medical recreational marijuana and that they needed it for their back. If there's a medical reason or something that's demonstrable, but again, if it impacts your cognitive ability, I think that's what it's going after. And that's what the other verses, which were contemporary to Paul's time, was drinking. And that feeds into the idea of trials and suffering in a believer's life.

You can seek remedies for different maladies, but sometimes there aren't any. And the Lord wants you to live with whatever it is and learn from it. Paul, the thorn in his side, three times he went to the Lord, and, nope, you're stuck with it. In his weakness, strength was perfected.

All right, so but that's kind of contemporary, you know, really have to kind of translate this to what is today. And the qualification for a deacon shouldn't be smoking weed, shouldn't be on any drugs that are impactant. Again, anything that masters them, that shouldn't be a, well, disqualification, but doesn't meet the qualifications that Paul puts here. All right, question five.

What's another word for sordid gain? So deacons, likewise, must be men of dignity, not double-tongued, or addicted to much wine, or fond of sordid gain. So what is your definition or understanding of sordid gain? You know what I'm going to do, but I want to do this first. I'm developing patterns that people know what I mean. So what does sordid mean?

Mine says filthy lucre. Filthy lucre? I love that term. Yeah. That is one, I think, Zodiates, I think, in the definition has filthy lucre. Oh, is that what's in your actual translations? It's filthy lucre? King James. King James? Filthy lucre. Mine says dishonest, Dean. Yeah, dishonest.

So fond, what does fond mean? You love it. You want to do it. You're drawn to it. I'm fond of that stuff. And then sordid. So sordid is filthy lucre or anything. So going to my worldly definition, going to the infamous Merriam-Webster. So fond, apprising highly, desirous, or having an affection or a liking.

So those are okay. Sorted, now this is where, you know, your translation, dirty, filthy, wretched, squalid, meaning avaricious. You know what avaricious means? Avarice, desire. I had to look that one up too, so. Avaricious, greedy of gain, excessively acquisitive, especially in seeking to hoard riches.

So I think those are all pretty good definitions for what we're here. They're fond of sordid gain. So from the Greek, the words not greedy of gain are the proper rendering. So I like Zodiaty's definition. It's 147 strong. And it's kind of interesting. We'll look at that. There's kind of two different words here.

A person who is eager to gain, even if such gain degrades his moral character, occurs only in 1 Timothy 3.3 and Titus 1.7. A bishop or elder or deacon must not go after gain that would dishonor his character. So I think that was really good. It's go over something that dishonors him. So somebody who's just gotta have it, gotta have it.

One of the things that comes to my mind is not just money, but how about power? Yeah, I think that falls in. Sorted game, well game can be power too. But you're just so obsessed with power that you have to have it. And it's kind of one of those things, same thing almost as we've just gone through on the alcohol. It's something that you're addicted to. You have to have it, you're fond of it, you're desirous of it. And it could be power, it could be money, it could be lots of things. Again, to the mastery of it, or just you have to have it, which is something that is not seeking after the Lord or His Word.

Another example might be social capital. the people on my side. Even if I'm not in power, I want them to be aligned with my way of thinking. Well, if you're a believer, or somebody trying to get non-believers, yes, you do want them to believe after you, but this is in the body. Yeah, but there's a difference there in my mind, and I think what I'm trying to say is that I want more people to agree with me than not, you know, and even in the body of Christ, like there are those that are, you know, they have a doctrine, they have a method, they have a way, they have a class, they want their class to be filled and they want, you know, folks to come alongside their method of thinking.

And again, I think, you know, it goes back to motive. What is your motive? To get a bunch of people? That's your goal, not to give the gospel out to more people. The backside is that you want more people, rather than your desire to get it to more people. It's kind of two different aspects of looking at it. Yeah, there are. First, you've got to know the truth. Well, yeah, the truth, obviously. And that's to draw people. We all have to learn about the same nature, you know, how corrupt he is.

Well, that's what really these verses are pointing out on elders and deacons, the qualifications. That you're really, you're not, your focus is on the body of believers and God's word and getting that to them and leading them. In a deacon sense, you're serving the body. That's your desire. And maybe Jade is the deacon. I want all the people behind me. Yeah, that was my point. Right. And he gets the motive. You can be a servant, but you want everybody behind you.

So the flip side, like I said, you can serve somebody and it's great, but you have no motive that says, man, it's great that 20 people are following me, or whatever, or like me, or whatever. Yeah, I'm just imagining a situation where you have a deacon or an elder, because I think these apply to both, where you have a small body and you've always imagined yourself fond of having a larger congregation or a larger group, and so what the Lord gives you by way of sheep to shepherd is not enough, right? It doesn't suit you because of the following that you're getting, things of that nature. Not to name names, but what do you think Joel Osteen would do here with a small body?

I think he'd do fine versus the 5,000 or 10,000 he has at his church. And I think that falls into this verse. Right. That's what I'm pointing out. I don't think he'd last very long. He wouldn't last very long, because he likes the numbers. So yeah, that's the point, is that he's looking at 10,000 out there and feeling pretty proud about that. If he went to a group like us, he'd fall apart in two seconds. Yeah.

I think you mentioned this, that really what we're going through here are what Romans 7 talks about, the desires of the flesh. And a person who desires to be a deacon or an elder, the desires don't go away. But he's mature enough or she's mature enough that and understands their position on the cross, they can walk away from the desire of the flesh because they have the right information and their faith is focused on, wait a minute, I don't have to go there, I don't have to do that, even though it's a strong desire. And so desiring isn't the sin, it's the desire. figuring out how you can feed the desire as an elder and not get busted for it.

I'll give you that. You do it in private, but as long as you don't get busted, it's OK. Are you smoking weed in the closet? There are guys, high-profile pastors, that publicly take a salary that's pretty modest. But they live in a $5 million home and they have all these other things that generate income to them, but they're not directly tied to it.

Well, come on. Well, and I don't want to say, you know, wealth doesn't mean that you're a wicked person. It's again, if you lost everything tomorrow. It's the desire. Yeah. I mean, wealthy people can be strong believers and great. It's whether it masters you and controls you. That's exactly right.

If you come to me because you have something that masters you and I don't know how to deal with that because I've not dealt with it in my own life, then I'm not qualified for the job. I say somebody here in this body who felt guilty about getting a car. And I said, why are you worried about that? That's not the problem.

Now, if you had to have it and they take it away and your life is destroyed, then I have a problem with it. But you can have a good car, you can have a Mercedes, you can have a whatever. As long as you don't have clergy to pay for it. You can have any of this stuff, but if he lost it, is your life destroyed? Then it's a problem. So again, I just want to get away from that.

If you're wealthy, you can't be a strong believer or even an elder or a deacon. You can have a lot of money and still be focused on the Lord. I think God allows Christians certain Christians to be wealthy because the money doesn't control them. Right. And they can help and fund. I just want to make that clear that it's not that you have to be a poor person to be an elder. You can do it. It just can't be. That's all you're fond of is the money. All right, six, what is the mystery of the faith? So in verse nine, befolding to the mystery of the faith with clear conscience. So in what sense is it a mystery? Why is it a mystery? Or what sense is it a mystery?

Silence out there. Okay. We wanted to know what marriage was, sir. No, I didn't do that on this one. It would be the same as what really it is. It's a mystery. Unknown. A mystery of something. God hasn't revealed it. It hadn't been revealed. So, first doctrine is a mystery in that it is a truth that would never have been known to man unless revealed by God. So that's the mystery. The second doctrine concerning the church was unknown in Old Testament times. Church age truth is unique. So in the Old Testament times, they didn't know anything about the church. So it was a mystery.

And now the mystery has been revealed by God. So the mystery of the faith. So it was unknown for a thousand years, or whatever the time frame, more than that, to the time of Christ and after Pentecost, this was revealed. And so, if you ask a Jew, even 5 AD, could they tell you anything about Christ? Well, if they knew the scripture, they'd know about it, but it was a mystery to all of those people in the early church.

So God revealed it. And so that's the, the mystery was something that hadn't been revealed to him. Now Christ came and now it's revealed. And then, you know, think of Paul, three years in the desert with the Lord. The mystery is being revealed. And now Paul is the one who tells us about who we are in Christ and the body, all of his epistles.

Without that, we really don't know who we are in Christ. Well, and what he taught Paul was something that he didn't teach the others. In other words, the whole doctrine of the church and grace and identification, all was Paul. And he didn't teach that to the other 12.

Yeah, that's right. And the three years in the desert with him, all of that was revealed to him. And then Paul goes out and met a bit of resistance teaching this, even amongst the apostles. At first, they were like, what do you mean? But then Peter had his revelation with Gentiles. So the word mystery, were you going to say? I was just going to say, could we say that this is just the deep truths of the faith? Yeah, it's a whole revealed doctrine, basically, I think is the mystery. Because really, the mystery was there.

I mean, in the scripture, all the prophets and everything, they pointed to them. It's like Galatians 23, 24, that the law was a tutor that pointed us. or the law is pointed to Christ and then now at once, and it's not exactly Christ, but now that Christ has come, there's no longer a need of the Tudor, which was a law. So everything is pointed to Christ. That word Tudor is not the word teacher. That guy's whole job was just to get the kids to school.

So, actually from the Greek, the mystery is musterion, and the New Testament meaning of which, truth which was kept hidden from the world until revealed at an appointed time, and which is secret to ordinary eyes, but is made known by divine revelation. I think that's from Vincent. So, truth is understood by illumination of the Holy Spirit. So, let's get to the next one.

What is faith? So, holding the mystery of the faith. What is that? What is the faith? It's a mystery now, the mystery of the faith. So what is the faith? That's the body of truth that Paul was revealed. Right, what we're talking about. Yeah, because it's the with a definitive Right, and that's the key, is the article, definite article, the, before it's the faith. So that's not personal faith, and what are the four? Personal faith, and I forgot. Faith itself, what it is. Yeah, what the word is, faith. Personal faith, the faith, and unity of the faith. was there for, I think, the unity of it.

So this is the phase. So this is really the whole doctrine, the whole body of the doctrine of Christ. And actually, going back to the Old Testament pointing to him, this is all of that truth revealed. Now the mystery is revealed. So, the word faith referred to Christian system of revelation. The noun faith with a definite article refers to a body of truth or a body of doctrine. So, therefore this describes for a deacon's qualification, he must hold on or retain what was a mystery, but what is now known, that is all that is true and revealed about us in God's word. So, see, and I think that is a big deal in 2025 because there's so much misinformation, bad reform doctrine and these other things that are around. A deacon slash elder, elder or a deacon must be settled down on what the truth is and not have some other belief that isn't consistent with what church doctrine is.

Yeah, and so he must hold on or retain what was the mystery. He must hold on to it. He can't be swayed left or right. He's got to hold on to the word. And that's really, and we're at 45 now, unfortunately. But we can get to that, JD, if you want. The last ones, there's one about being the last, which is I think a convert, be tested before they're appointed question aid. But let me do one thing.

Let me just get in, because since you won't do it next week, JD, I'll get quickly, describe what is a clear conscience. But holding on to the mystery of faith with a clear conscience. So what is your definition of conscience? What is your conscience? with a clear conscience. What does conscience mean? Nobody has a conscience. I would say in this case, maybe you just understand it well, and nothing's going to sway you, just kind of more about, I'm stable in these facts about the faith, and nothing's going to change me.

Okay. It's God's satisfaction. Conscience is a mechanism whereby it either approves what you're doing and thinking, or it disapproves what you're thinking or doing. Right. It's not the truth, it's your ability to decipher truth. That's what a conscience does. You can finish this up, JD, because I know you wouldn't go to Merriam-Webster.

I did go up there because I was kind of curious to see what his definition is. Unfortunately, like I said, when you get to Zodiatis, he says it means conscience, which doesn't really give much more of a definition. It does give a little bit, but the sense of consciousness. of the moral goodness or blameworthiness of one's own conduct, intentions, or character together with a feeling of obligation to do right or be good.

Kind of what, you know, the mechanism to decipher right, good, and evil. Conformity to what one considers to be correct, right, or morally good. Kind of in there, same thing. A sensitive regard for fairness or justice. So kind of what we're talking about. So Miriam kind of has that definition where it's really a process.

Your conscience guides you based on truth of the word. good and evil, good or bad. That's a clear conscience. So when you have it, JD, you can get into it, a clear conscience, what that means is a clear conscience. But it's the ability to decipher good or bad. So yeah.

One of my own notes, I don't know where I got this from. I thought this was great. and intellect, however powerful and active, joined with an impure conscience cannot solve but only aggravate the mystery. I love that. Whereas a pure and loyal conscience and a frank acceptance of imposed duty along with mystery puts one in the best attitude for attaining whatever solution is possible. That's good. It only aggravates the mystery.

That's why trials and tribulations can be so complex and completely out of your hands. Well, and the conscience is, in those trials, good or bad, too. Your conscience is what drives it. But it's not based on human, but it's based on God's word. That's the key, I think, when we talk about conscience. Because people can have a conscience, but if it's based on worldly parameters, it's wrong. It's got to be based on God's word to give you good or bad deciphering of whatever the situation is. But it's got to be based on God's word. Just human conscience really is worthless and it's only going to be sinful.

So, JD, if you want to finish that up or you can start in eight or just finish that last. Yeah, he can send you the notes and he can finish on question eight. Question eight, you got it. Yep, and it's fairly straightforward on that one. I've got to stop because I'm right under a heater and I'm dying. and i know that that's what you know i am just about sweating actually it's uh... there's a better right here and i am dying uh... archaic let's close with prayer and if i would thank you thank you get back uh... just for this portion of scripture which outlines the qualifications for beacons as well as we've gone through for elders and uh... just the uh... importance of having uh... uh... men and women who are uh... abiding by these qualifications or meet these qualifications or on a whole are following these directions that you have for deacons that, again, are not mastered by things outside of your word. Again, just have a desire of fondness for your word and not for worldly things. So again, we just thank you that you've given a direction on how to run the local body with elders and deacons, and that that's how you want, even today, how to run the local body. So we just thank you for this scripture, and again, as we go through this day, may we honor and glorify you by all that we say and do. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.