From Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. I’m sent to bring about the faith of God’s chosen people and a knowledge of the truth that agrees with godliness. Their faith and this knowledge are based on the hope of eternal life that God, who doesn’t lie, promised before time began. God revealed his message at the appropriate time through preaching, and I was trusted with preaching this message by the command of God our savior. To Titus, my true child in a common faith. Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our savior. The reason I left you behind in Crete was to organize whatever needs to be done and to appoint elders in each city, as I told you. Elders should be without fault. They should be faithful to their spouse, and have faithful children who can’t be accused of self-indulgence or rebelliousness. This is because supervisors should be without fault as God’s managers: they shouldn’t be stubborn, irritable, addicted to alcohol, a bully, or greedy. Instead, they should show hospitality, love what is good, and be reasonable, ethical, godly, and self-controlled. They must pay attention to the reliable message as it has been taught to them so that they can encourage people with healthy instruction and refute those who speak against it. (Titus 1:1-9, CEB)
Who can be a leader, an elder in the church, and do these qualities apply only to leaders in the churc,h or should we apply these to leaders of society as well?
First and foremost these are leaders of the gathering of the church. They should be without fault, faithful to their spouse, have faithful children who can not be accused of self-indulgence or rebelliousness. So this effectively eliminates every person. No one is without fault, nor should the parents be judged by the actions of their children. It is not possible to control another human being, even if that person is your child. Leaders should also avoid being stubborn, which can sometimes be a good trait for leaders, irritable, addicted to alcohol, a bully, or greedy.
Leaders should show hospitality, love what is good, and be reasonable, ethical, godly, and self-controlled. These are all wonderful qualities for leaders in and out of the church. And these should be the things we look for in all of our leaders.
One thing that the author of Titus leaves out is power. Leaders should not be in love with power, and should guard their hearts against becoming drunk with power.
Power over people needs to be handled with kid gloves, and used to support all people, not our own needs or desires.
Leaders love all and show that through their guidance.
aSacredRebel 