Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - What Does a Church Elder Actually Do? Biblical Qualifications, Role & Calling Explained

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

What is the biblical role of a church elder or pastor — and why should it matter to you, even if you never plan to be one? In this episode, a father-son pastoral duo break down the calling, qualifications, attitude, function, and motivation of a biblical elder, drawing from 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, and 1 Peter 5.You'll learn:✅ How a man is called to be an elder (subjective desire + objective qualifications)✅ The biblical qualifications of an elder or pastor (1 Timothy 3 & Titus 1)✅ Why elder plurality matters — and why no pastor should act like a CEO✅ The right attitude of a shepherd: serving, not lording over the flock✅ The core function of an elder: preaching, teaching, and equipping the church✅ What motivates a faithful elder for the long haulWhether you're a pastor, an aspiring elder, or simply a church member wanting to understand biblical church leadership, this conversation will help you see why "the church cannot rise above its leadership."📖 Scriptures referenced: 1 Timothy 3:1-7, Titus 1:5-9, 1 Peter 5:1-4, Acts 14:22-23, Acts 20:28, Ephesians 4:11, 2 Timothy 2:15, 2 Timothy 4:5🎓 This episode is sponsored by The Master's University. To learn more about how you can invest in a college education devoted to Christ & Scripture, visit https://www.masters.eduSubscribe for more conversations on church health, biblical leadership, and pastoral ministry.

This episode of Dialen is brought to you by Crossway, publisher of the pleasures of God, Meditations on God's Delight and Being God. And this beloved classic pastor and best-selling author, John Piper, searches Scripture to uncover the pleasures that delight the heart of God. Each chapter focuses on a specific joy, the glory of his son, the beauty of creation, the richness of his grace, the prayers of his people, and more. Pick up a copy of the pleasures of God wherever books are sold, or visit crossway.org forward slash pleasures of God to get 30% off with a free Crossway Plus account.

I'm a believer. I'm not an elder. Don't want to be a pastor. I want to go into business. Why should I know anything about what an elder does and how they become an elder in the first place? I remember you saying this growing up that the pastor of a church is not a CEO. Johnny, in our evangelical conservative world, I think we sometimes can exalt the guy who's a bully. and exalt the guy who has such strong convictions, but he's actually a law unto himself and he can't get along with anybody else on the team. In this episode, I want to talk about the role and function of an elder or a pastor.

I want to walk through five things, the calling of an elder, how does someone become an elder, the qualifications of an elder, who can become an elder, the attitude of an elder, what should their demeanor be as they approach eldering and shepherding, the function of an elder, what do they do, what does that look like? the motivation of an elder. Why should someone want to be an elder? And so I just want to jump into that. Welcome to the Dialin podcast. My name is Johnny Artivantis and I'm joined by my dad, Scott Artivannis. Grateful to have you back. My dad spent in a few weeks here in Franklin, Tennessee, where I

pastor and we've had a great time getting to hang out. Before we continue in this episode, this episode is brought to you by the Masters University. If you or someone in your life is looking to continue higher education, I would highly recommend the Master's University. It is an institution that is committed to both Christ and Scripture. I went there, my dad went there, played basketball, come on. And you can check out more at masters.edu, and you can use our unique code dial-in

to waive the application fee. On this episode, I want to talk to you about elders and their role within the church. I remember, Dad, when I was growing up, I used to wait for you when you would come home from an elder meeting because you would bring me a Dunk of Donuts and you would kind of talk to me

about different things that were happening ever since I was a boy at the elder level. We talked in our previous episode. If you haven't, you should go back and listen to it on just the importance of the church, eight marks of a healthy church. We were about to do nine marks, but we couldn't do that out of respect to Mark Devere.

And so we did eight marks of a healthy church. And in this episode, I want to talk about the role in function of an elder or a pastor and that term being interchangeable throughout the scripture. And maybe just to set us up, why is it so important that the average believer, and not that any believer is average, but just the person within the congregation have a grasp about the role, function, qualifications, attitude, and motivation of the elders that lead

and shepherd the church. Like if I'm just, I'm a believer, I'm not an elder, don't want to be a pastor, I want to go into business, why should I know anything about what an elder does and how they become an elder in the first place? Boy, great question. That is so crucial, Johnny, and you might have alluded to that in the last podcast.

It's so crucial because when Paul left, Titus in Titus 1-5 dropped him into Crete and he told him to put what was left into order. And then the first order of business was elders. And so this topic today is vital and crucial because you cannot have a healthy church without a proper functioning of a plurality of elders fulfilling their God-designated role. And then in Titus, you see that in 1st Timothy 3. You see it in 1st, Peter 5. So when we think about the doctrine of the church, the role of leadership is vital.

And the church can't rise above its leadership. And so the leadership, the elder team, we're using that phrase. We recognize there's other forms of church polity out there in the evangelical world. But we believe that when you look in the New Testament, we're finding. and seeing a group of elders who are leading that flock, and we can talk about some of those functions as we go forward. Yeah, so important what you just said. No church is healthier than the leaders that shepherd them,

and so it's important to understand what that looks like, and you mentioned one passage. Obviously, there's a number of different passages than the New Testament that talk about this. This is not like a, you know, a small component of what the New Testament describes. It's a chief element of the health of the church. You mentioned 1st Peter 5, and the context of that is, Peter is writing to a group of believers that are scattered,

and it's roughly 62 AD. People are getting fed to wild beasts. They're being dipped in wax and lit on fire for Nero's garden parties. And Peter is writing the believers that are scattered, and he's telling them to do primarily two things, to stand firm. Don't bend to the contemporary culture. Don't waver in your faith. Stand firm and don't just stand firm and Holy Huddle.

He says to stand out, be a witness. You've been called by God, 1 Peter 2. to proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into marvelous light. Now, in order for the believers to do this, Peter is mindful that they need biblical leaders. There needs to be biblical shepherds.

And so we come to 1st Peter 5, and in this context of significant persecution, he says in 1st Peter 5, therefore I exhort the elders among you. And he's going to give some instructions, and I want to talk about that more in a moment. But I think just to stop there and say that what you talked about,

that word elders is in the plural. He doesn't say I exhort the elder among you. I remember you saying this growing up, that the pastor of a church is not a CEO. He's not an oligarch or a dictator. It's always to be done in a plurality, which means that it protects, you know, the church from a domineering attitude.

Just talk about that need for plurality. It's not a biblical church unless there's a plurality of qualified leaders that work together. Talk about that for a moment. Yeah, I mean, that's just vital. Some churches have just one pastor and one elder. Maybe there's an understanding in a church plant situation where there might be a layover. But even at that point, I would say other elders from another local church ought to be attached to that. But it is always plural. And whenever you see that, it's obviously always masculine. And when you see elders in particular in the book of Acts, it's always mentioned as elders, So it is always a team of men. I think, Johnny, one of the reasons it's obvious why it's a team of men is where the pastor is not the CEO,

nor is he the single witness, if you will, to the person of Christ. And when you have a team, a plurality of men, those men, even collectively as a group, should look and talk and act and think like the Lord Jesus Christ. So the plurality is of necessity to reveal Christ in that church and all the way through the New Testament. It's plural. Yeah, and Harry calls it mutual submission, mutual sharpening. Yes. Meaning when I sit down with our elders at a church, I'm not, you know, the boss of them, nor are they the boss of me in the sense of obviously like I'm responsible to our team.

But we partner together for mutual sharpening and mutual submission. That word elder, and I've mentioned this, is used. interchangeably with that of pastor or overseer or bishop. And so sometimes people say, well, what's the difference between an elder and a pastor? But biblically, we're going to look at this reality that to be a pastor is to be an elder and to be an elder is to be a pastor because the function that is given to them is the same. And I want to walk through in this episode really five things. The calling of an elder.

How does someone become an elder? The qualifications of an elder who can become an elder? The attitude of an elder. What should their demeanor be as they approach eldering and shepherding? The function of an elder? What do they do? What does that look like? And then the motivation of an elder.

Why should someone want to be an elder? And so I just want to jump into that. First, I want to look at the calling of an elder. Let's just think about that for a moment. Paul tells Titus to appoint elders in Acts 1422. It says through many tribulations, we will enter the kingdom of God. That's a reality. And then in the following verse, it says when they had appointed elders for them in every church,

having prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed. So we see this, or Titus is charged to appoint elders, but then we see elsewhere in Acts 20 that it says, take heed to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers or Episcopas, that's elders. So there's this, I don't know, would you say, a dual reality where the Holy Spirit is the one who appoints elders. And then the church affirms those men that the Holy Spirit is raising up.

So it's not just the church is spotting the most talented men in the room saying, hey, you seem pretty successful. You seem like you could be an elder. Talk to us about the calling of an elder. You know, when you think about the calling of an elder, I would just say this. There's both a subjective element in that calling, and then there's an objective element. I begin in that calling. The Holy Spirit does that, but I begin subjectively.

When I look for a guy at our church in California, a Grace Church of the Valley, I look for the guys. That's right. Shout out, Kingsburg. I look for the guy's desire and I'm building that, Johnny, as we've talked before, where he says it is a trustworthy statement, 1 Timothy 3-1. If any man, and then it has two choice words there, aspires to the office of an overseer. It is a fine work that he desires to do.

So when you think about the calling, subjectively, God begins to place that. on a man's life. And the thought there, he's aspiring to the office, which literally in the Greek means that he's reaching out for the office. He has a subjective desire to honor Christ. And then that second word in 1st Timothy 3.1, it's a fine work. And so it is a noble work, if you will, but he desires to do. And the word for desires, of course, is epithumia, the word that we get lust from and really what it means is epithumia is a strong human desire. So here's a man subjectively is aspiring, reaching out like a runner in a race, and then he has a passion for the things of God to be done right. Johnny, maybe I'm making a contrast there is some elder teams, you know,

they rotate them off every three years, and then they pick another set of men and the other set of men don't necessarily want to do it. It's just as one guy said to me, hey, your turn, you're up, you're up to do this. And so we begin to pick men that don't really have a passion or a desire. And I think when you talk about calling, subjective desire is a place that you need to look at early on lest you pull a wrong guy forward. You know, I think it's also interesting because sometimes people want the guy to lead. That's the last guy in earth that wants to leave. lead meaning like, oh, we want, if someone mentions that they want to be an elder, it means they shouldn't be an elder.

And the people we want on our elder board should be the guys that really don't want to do it, but then because they've got so much else going on and they're humble. But hey, there's nothing prideful about the desire. It's actually, in Titus says it's a good thing. If you want to be an elder, it's a good thing. But I think somewhere along the lines, it's like, no, if a guy wants to lead, then that means that his heart is in the wrong place. You know, like, and I think that we kind of need to return to the biblical,

Yeah, there's a subjective. Yeah, you should want to be a leader. You know, like, and obviously I understand that there's some guys that like, hey, they're busy and they're doing other things and they need to be tapped on the shoulder and say, hey, we need to. But it's almost like that there's like, that's the better. That's more godly than somebody saying, coming up to you and saying, I'd love to be an elder one day.

Yeah. You know, and you're like, no, no, no. That's a good thing. That's not something that should be a concern. It's something that should be, depending on the person, that should be celebrated, which leads us, I think, to the qualifications of an elder. Obviously, there's a, you know, a couple different passages, but if the Holy Spirit is the one that appoints elders

and people affirm them, what are the qualifications of a person that the Holy Spirit appoints? We see that there is, in Second Timothy 3, I think, is it 16 different qualifications in a matter of seven verses? I can read that section. It says it is a trustworthy statement, if any man aspires to the Office of Overseer. It is a fine work, what you said, that he desires to do.

An overseer then must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine or pugnacious. I remember you telling me when I was a boy, what does pugnacious mean? It means to be a striker. He's a punter. He likes to pick fights. But gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money, he must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity.

but if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God, and he must not be a new convert so that he will not become conceded and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil, and he must have a good reputation with those outside the church, which means he's known by people outside of the church, right?

He has to have a good reputation outside of it. He's known. He's known. Like he's not a, this isn't my guy that he's in the world in the sense of he's a witness, right? So, Johnny, even just practically to jump there, I have never brought a guy on our board. If he's a lay elder working in the community, I would always find out both what his wife says. You brought lay guys onto the elder board, but you're saying when you do that.

I always ask their wife, the guy's wife, and I tell him I'm going to do that if he's elder qualified. And secondly, I do a phone call to his employer. Yeah. Hey, what's he like? Yeah, what's he like? What's his reputation there? It's very important. Yeah, I just want to pick a few of these 16, you know, that we... Sure. First of all, he's got a lot to do it. We've already talked about...

Subjectively. Yeah, he's got to be above reproach. Yes. You've used to use the term, I don't know if it's original to you, but a Teflon man, nothing can stick. There's no cause for concern in his life and conduct. Husband of one wife, talk about that, you know, just in regards to being a one woman man. Why is that maybe the beginning of the list? You know, like, hey, what's his marriage look like?

And that seems to be the most significant factor. Those are important, Johnny. I think when I addressed earlier, the subjective desire, that subjective desire is not alone. That is not enough. It's got to be matched by the objective qualifications of the man. And you just read it, the overarching quality, at least if you put Timothy and Titus together, I think there's 18 distinct qualities. But all of those are a description of a man.

man being above reproach. We both know it doesn't mean that the man is perfect, but the man has established enough of a relationship where there's not a negative, you know, response coming back on his life. He's above reproach and then, you know, quickly in three areas. One would be his family, life. Secondly, in his personal disciplines, there's six, I think, negative qualities that he can't have in Titus. Then there's five positive ones that much matches life. And then the third one, we can talk about that, is his function in the life of the church. But that first one on family is he has to be above reproach and be a one woman man, is really what it says. And then secondly, He has his children under control.

When it talks about being a one woman man, some people think it means that he can't have been married twice. Some people, when I was in Russia, they thought the man had to be married, which it doesn't mean that. It just means that this man is above reproach and in an exclusive devotion to the woman that he's married to. In fact, Johnny, we certainly have talked over the years.

We've known men that are married to only, one woman, but they have eyes for many others and sometimes even an impure relationship. So it just means that he's devoted to this woman with his eyes, with his life. He is a one woman man exclusively devoted to her. But we would say, Johnny, that's the qualifying race. You don't get to become an elder until your family is under control. Again, not perfection, but the direction of a man's life is his home is in order first. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And because the church is made up often of families, it's what qualifies you. I just kind of look at these other ones real quick. It says being sober-minded, he's a mastery. There's a mastery of his appetites. He's not a drunkard.

There's no bondage to temptation. He's respectable. I always think it's interesting that hospitable is a qualification of an elder. I mean, big idea to be an elder or a leader or a pastor of a church You love people, right? Like you love people, you're gentle. We'll talk about the attitudes of an elder in a moment, but just, hey, this is not a guy that loves to dominate people. This is not a heavy-handed man. No.

He's gentle, not quarrelsome. In fact, to add to that, one of the greatest detriments to an elder board that is absolutely cancerous in an elder board is to have a man in that list you read that is self-willed. Yeah. Some men choose to come or desire to come on an elder board because they want to change the church or change the pastor or change the structure or change the leadership. And a man whose self-willed will create havoc in that local plurality of leaders.

So you've got to be others minded. It doesn't mean you're not strong or have opinions. But to be self-willed can actually be just such a negative. It's like an asset. Yeah. church and yes so this it begins with this aspiration and then maybe 14 of the 16 qualities have to do with character the qualifications regarding drunkenness sober minded respectable yes then there's this one distinction between an elder and a deacon and that is what we have here the ability to teach

which just means he's skilled in teaching he's learned I would say to wield the word of God and we could talk about that more when we when we talk more about function in a moment but to sum it up an elder needs to be a godly man who desires to lead God's people and to wield teach and train others with the word of God. And they operate in this plurality. Now, I want to talk about the attitude of an elder. And Peter, going back to 1st Peter 5 on this, Peter says, I exhort the elders among you. This is third. We've talked about the calling of an elder. We've talked about the qualifications of an elder. I want to talk about the attitude of an elder here. Peter says, I exhort the elders among you as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ and a partaker also of the glory

that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily according to the will of God and not for sort of gain, but with eagerness, nor yet is lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. So Peter's appealing to them, and he is doing this personally and passionately and as a fellow elder. I mean, this is a big dog in the early church. And he's not like, hey, by the way, as a fellow elder.

The Lord Jesus Christ says that I'm a leader here. He says, I appeal to you as a fellow elder. And he pleads with them to shepherd God's people not with a domineering heart, not out of compulsion, but with eagerness. And so as we reflect on the attitude of an elder, maybe just, maybe where have you seen this go wrong, you know? and the attitude of an elder, Paul tells elsewhere, is it for Sassalinians too, that he comes to the church like a nursing mother.

Yes. Meaning he's not a guy who's obsessed with authority. Yes. He loves God's people and no one's coercing him into shepherding. Right. Nor does he find his identity in being respected. Mm-hmm. Maybe just talk about where this goes wrong and how an elder, their attitude towards their role in responsibility.

Boy, that's just good. maybe the overarching positive quality there would be just the principle of the Lord Jesus Christ that he came not, you know, to be served, but to serve others, right, and give his life a ransom for many. So that overarching principle ought to be the heart attitude of an elder. I mean, just think of that description there. It says that he's not under compulsion. I mean, this is not a bummer for him. He loves the local church. Now we're back to that opening podcast on the church. It's the bride of Christ.

And in this man's heart, he loves the bride of Christ. He's not, it says that he does it voluntarily. In other words, he does it out of the love for the bride of Christ and a love to see the church fulfill its New Testament responsibility and capacity. But what a description according to the will of God and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness. there's a heart there of a servant, and I would call it a humble servant, that just wants to see the church thrive. And again, the negative quality that's going to utterly chip away and be a cancer is an elder who is self-willed. And Johnny, maybe I would say that sometimes...

And what do you mean by that? You just mean he's got his own agenda? He's got his own agenda. In other words, he's self-willed. It comes out of the word out of hedonay self. His agenda, his desire. I sometimes think, Johnny, in our evangelical conservative world, I think we sometimes can exalt the guy who's a bully

and exalt the guy who has such strong convictions, but he's actually a law unto himself and he can't get along with anybody else on the team. And you get a guy like that amongst an elder team, and it could be very dangerous. So that quality of self-willed where the guy is thinking about himself, his own agenda, his own strategy, sometimes even different from maybe the lead pastor who's in the pulpit, we're obviously well aware of the bully pulpit or the bully elder team who's not gentle anymore. They're not.

They're in charge and they know it and you better know it or else. I just remember Johnny that John MacArthur told me one time, he said, Scott, what's the greatest, this is for me still, what's the greatest weakness of a leader? And I would say, I don't know, tell me, John, he would say the greatest weakness of a leader is a lack of patience with people. I've never forgotten that. that sometimes we have to lead strongly with doctrinal convictions, but as soon as you cross that fine line where you lose your patience with people, then you could end up not shepherding out of the quality that you just read in 1st Timothy 5, 3, and 4. One other thing just to touch on regarding the attitude is,

I think he did such a good job at this when I was growing up, but I think a lot of pastors bond around the difficulty of pastoring and ministry. They projected as kind of like a drag. And sometimes pastors ask each other how they're doing, but they're almost inviting. You know, like, how you're doing? I'm doing great. Thanks. How you're really doing?

And obviously, ministry is difficult. You've been through difficult stuff. I've been around in my entire life. I've seen you walk through trials. I've seen you navigate difficult transitions. But the attitude, when Peter says here is with eagerness, meaning that ministry is not a drag. ministry is a joy and the people that lead God's church it's obviously responsibility there is a weight to it but that weight shouldn't be confused with this idea of it being this laborious you know

almost depressed yeah like man I got joyless yeah exactly think that you've done a great job at that let's talk about the function of an elder yeah in verse two of first peter five peter says shepherd the flock of god among you now what does this even mean that's the main verb here shepherd the flock. Now what does that mean to shepherd the flock? What do pastors do with the Bible saying pastor, you know, pastor the flock? Well, we would just say they teach, they feed, they lead, they protect the flock and they do this through the preaching and teaching of the Bible. You know, and I think sometimes people say, well, as a pastor, you know, preaching is one of my responsibilities and I do a bunch of other things, which would be true, right? Counsel, you Mary, Barry,

organized, strategize. But then there's this other element where preaching and teaching is, the main, not a main, I would say the main responsibility of a pastor or an elder. You see that in Acts chapter 6 where there's, the church is exploding, right? And in Acts chapter 2, Peter begins by preaching, Acts chapter 3, they preach, Acts chapter 4, they're thrown in jail, and they get out and they continue to preach. Acts chapter 6, the church is growing so much, there's too many needs and the widows are being overlooked. And you have to ask the question, well, why would they continue to preach if the widows are being overlooked? But they don't stop what they're doing. They say, hey, we need to elect deacons, right? So it says so that we can commit ourselves

to the teaching of the Word of God and to prayer. So this function of an elder, obviously it includes caring for people, praying for the sick. It includes ministering to people, discipling people. But by and large, you see that call to preach and teach as you would be able to say at least, right, a central core priority. overarching core priority, as you just quoted from Acts 6. And even you see that in Titus, in Titus 1-9, where the man is holding fast to the word. And I don't take that because he's a pastor, an elder. That elder, that pastor in those qualifications is holding fast to it in his own life. And then he comes back and he says that he would refute those who contradict. And so there's always that

personal priorities set alongside the function. But Johnny, as you mentioned that word shepherding, I've always thought of that passage in Ephesians 411 where he gives pastors and teachers, the ascended Christ as gifts to the church. Those pastors and teachers have a twofold role. We actually teach it as one office there, pastor slash teacher. He feeds and he leads. He leads. He leads the people through the Word of God, but he's feeding the people the Word of God. In fact, the reason, Chani, you can add to this, the churches are weak today is because many pastors don't take highly the responsibility of their role in the Word of God. It's kind of a side.

It's a side gig. The 15% of my job, you know. Right. But no, not at all. And the sad part is, Ephesians 411, he gave. those gifts, pastors and teachers to the church, to equip the saints. When the pastors and the elders are not teaching and leading, the saints will not be equipped. And when the saints are not equipped, they can't build up the body. So the pastor has got to see that he is the channel of the means of

grace to get his body the word of God. Johnny, I was thankful probably for my first 30 years of pastoral ministry, I had set aside 30 hours a week to be in my study. That was an exposition Sunday morning, another exposition on Sunday night. But that was the bulk, wasn't all of it, that was the bulk of my time frame of a weekly allotment probably for 30 years in a row. And I'm so thankful for that because I, like you. And the Lord always blessed those churches. Yes.

You know, it's not like you're looking to strategize elsewhere. I think sometimes people, I was talking to a guy at a church a couple months ago, and he said, I feel like I, you know, I'm not doing a good job. You know, he's a youth pastor. And he was said, I was told that I should be preparing my sermon in three to five hours a week. And I said, well, listen, you're not going to get any depth there. You know, like I don't know who told you that. But, you know, I'm, I'm in the text.

I want to. Paul tells Timothy to rightly divide the word of truth. This is the greatest thing you could do for your youth group. Obviously, there's this other ditch on the other side where, like, you spend no time with people and your door is shut 45 hours a week and don't talk to me. I'm a studier. I'm an introvert savant. It's kind of an ivory.

Yeah, I mean, I'm a monk. Yes. We're not talking about that, but hey, a lion sheriff of the lead pastor's job of, let's say, a lay elder. What the lay elder does is obviously it's not just, oh, the business guys do the business. No, they also wield the Word of God or else it's not an elder. It's not an elder unless they're doing the function of an elder. So the guy might have a lot of business savviness,

but unless he's wielding the Word of God, that guy's not an elder because there's a function given here. And so, you know, that's so important for, I think, people to understand that this is what a pastor and an elder team should do. They preach, teach, they train with the Word of God, not just so that people continue to consume, but so that what you said, to equip them to do the work of the ministry,

Obviously, shepherds feed the flock, right? But then he also wants them to do, to use their gifting, right? So that it's a fully functioning body. And you mentioned that already in Ephesians 4, but I think it's often neglected. And even with Paul, you're talking about those two ditches of like, I don't prioritize study on the one hand. Too busy, too distracted.

And then there's the, all I do is studying. Like Paul said, like he spends his life in the Word of God. I find it fascinating that Paul tells Timothy to let your progress be made known to all. He said, take pains with these things. With his gifting. And then he says, he says be absorbed in your gift. In what? In preaching.

In preaching. Which means this, Paul is telling Timothy, the people around you ought to be able to observe in a year from now that you're growing as a preacher. Right. Like, right? I mean, that's just practically what he's saying, correct? listen to you on Sunday at a Psalm 51. You don't just come up with that in five hours. It takes time and concentration. I've been meditating Johnny on 2 Timothy 2.15 where he says be diligent to present

yourself as a workman who does not need to be ashamed. And I don't think he's telling Timothy that so that he could be a great pastor. I think he's telling Timothy that. I think he's telling Timothy that so that when Timothy steps in the pulpit, you be diligent to never be ashamed before the audience of one, which is God. I wasn't prepared and I'm missing in the word of God. No, he says, you're doing this so that you can say with a clear conscience, you're feeding your people to the greatest possible way that we know how. Yeah.

One final thing regarding function is Paul tells Timothy do the work of an evangelist in 2 Timothy 4-5. Which just means this, that pastors are not only internal equipers. They're external evangelists. I think it's, you do a lot with training men. I've been around in my whole life watching you do that. But sometimes pastors can almost obsess over training men inside. Is this fair?

And not interact with an unbeliever their entire life, right? I just feel like pastors need to manifest practically, that they have a burden to reach the lost. Because it's easier, and I said this to my own church, it's easier for me to preach at Dodger Stadium than it would be for me to go over to my neighbor's house and say, hey, you need to know the Lord Jesus Christ. Anything to add there?

Well, I was just in the barber chair today. Looks good. A woman was cutting my hair. I thought I was going to a guide's barber. And I was sharing with her a little bit that you're a pastor, and I'm a pastor, and I told her about Stonebridge. Maybe I could have said more, but I said, you need to be in the hearing of the word of God. And I think, you know, when it says go and make disciples, as you're going make disciples, I think we need to open our mouse and do the work of an evangelist. I don't think he was telling Timothy that you're a gifted evangelist.

I think he was saying as you're moving about in your pastoral ministry, you need to do the work of an evangelist. And then how does he finish? He says, fulfill your ministry. So totally agree with you, Johnny. I mean, some guys, it's all academics or it's all podcast. It's all reach. It's style over substance. But that would include that aspect in our own life that we share the gospel with people.

Yeah, that's so good. Finally, just to touch on this and we'll conclude, but the motivation. And in 1 Peter 5, it says that we're not to shepherd the flock under a compulsion, but with eagerness. And then it says not for sordid gain, meaning you're not in this for what you get out of it. Yes.

It says not lording it over. And then verse 4 says, and when the chief shepherd appears, here's your reward, right? You will receive the unfading crown of glory. maybe there's someone listening that is a pastor or an elder and they've been going through it I've watched you go through it you know I've seen you navigate some real difficulty

the elder the pastor does what they do knowing that one day the chief shepherd is coming back Isaiah 40 God calls God or shepherd John 10 he's the good shepherd and all temporal crowns will rust and fade but one day

it says that the chief shepherd is going to come back and he's going to extend to under shepherds, the unfading crown of glory. And maybe just talk about that motivation, maybe encouraging potentially a pastor or a leader who's listening, that the motivation, you know, is ultimately eternal. And, you know, it's easy to lose sight of that. Yeah, it is easy.

I'm thinking of the words of Christ when he said, well done my good and faithful servant enter into the joy of your master and so faithfulness both from our lord and the apostle paul that he that a steward be found faithful i think in my heart your heart i just want to finish well to hear well done my good and faithful servant and we know that until we stand before him either in death or at his second coming when the chief shepherd appears is second coming. I just want to be found faithful and we're in a race and we're not done until we're done. But we need to keep our eyes on that, Johnny, or we can lose sight of how distracting ministry can be. Paul talks a lot in 2 Timothy about suffering and it's not easy,

as you know, to be a pastor, but I think we need to keep our eye on the prize. I just, I think today in the barbershop of course they had the the world cup game on and that's just a global event for which is soccer which yes exactly it's a sport it's just a sport and here we're shepherding people with the privilege to teach right the unsearchable riches of christ so i want to keep my eye i want you to keep your eye on that so we keep him before us well thanks dad for your input here and you are the best pastor, I know. And so I'm so grateful for you. And I mean, you know, so it's a look up to you in this regard.

And so thanks for your input in this and love you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.