29 August 2024

“Elders” who ought not be elders.

ELDER 'ɛld.ər adjective. Of a greater or advanced age.
2. [noun] A person of greater or advanced age.
3. [noun] A spiritually mature Christian, usually consulted as part of a church’s leadership, often entrusted with ministerial or priestly responsibility.
[Eldership 'ɛl.dər.ʃɪp noun.]

I remind you of the definition of “elder” because you notice the word has three meanings: An adjective describing something old; an older person, and a mature Christian. Don’t mix up the definitions! But of course some do.

Years ago, at a previous church I attended, we had an older person whom I’m gonna call Salwa. She wanted everybody in the church to call her “Grandma,” and think of her as the go-to person whenever we wanted prayer, or spiritual advice.

One evening one of our prayer meetings, she told us the story of how she came to Jesus. She grew up Christian, but never took it seriously; she spent many years living as a pagan; she dabbled in “spiritual” stuff and “spiritual” authors, but found all that stuff unsatisfactory; her neighbor invited her to church and she responded to the altar call, said the sinner’s prayer, and now she’s Christian.

How long ago had Salwa said the sinner’s prayer? Oh, three years ago!

That, I figured, explained everything. The serious lapses in Salwa’s bible knowledge meant she really needed to read more bible, and her many misinterpretations meant she was out of practice with basic reading comprehension. Her inappropriately-intense reactions to anything she found offensive, meant she needed some work on gentleness. Her sheer terror of anything which might lead people astray, meant she needed to learn more about grace.

She had some growing up to do! Same with every newbie.

The problem—as you mighta deduced from how she wanted folks to call her “Grandma”—is Salwa was older than average. In her 70s, I think. And she’d been Christian for three whole years, and had a Christian childhood, and read lots of “spiritual” stuff; therefore she considered herself an elder. Really. One of our “church mothers”—or grandmas, to her way of thinking.

She was awfully fond of this passage:

1 Timothy 5.1-2 NIV
1Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, 2older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.

Paul’s advice to Timothy is about treating fellow Christians as family, not underlings. But Salwa didn’t care about its context, and insisted it made her a “church mother,” who should be honored, respected, obeyed, and treated as in charge of things—same as one’s actual mother.

Um… no. You don’t put newbies in charge of anything. Especially one who won’t listen to anybody. Our head pastor wisely never let Salwa take charge of anything… no matter how often she nominated herself. “No no; that’s okay; we got somebody for that.” Even when we didn’t, and he was gonna have to do it—but he knew Salwa wasn’t qualified to handle authority, so he never gave her any.

Eventually Salwa stopped attending. No doubt she went to another church, looking for the power she coveted, hoping that church would overlook her many red flags and consider her an elder simply because she was elder.

Those who covet power.

Even if she hadn’t outed herself as a three-years’ Christian, Salwa had a lot of red flags, which made her really easy to detect. Lapses of knowledge; lack of good fruit; really wanting that “Grandma” title, and unearned respect from everybody; really wanting power.

It’s hardly the only time I’ve experienced this phenomenon. I used to be involved in politics. A lot of immature people covet power. Some of the worst people in the world covet power. (Not necessarily for evil reasons, but because they’re amoral people, who are willing to do just about anything for power, they’re inevitably gonna be evil.) Those people should never, ever get power; but if they say all the right things, they get elected to city councils and school boards and Congress just the same.

And sometimes they join churches… hoping to take those over.

Most pastors are fully aware such people exist, and know better than to trust them. But every once in a while, the people of a church won’t heed their pastors’ warnings, put these people in charge of stuff, and get burned. Badly.

Other times, these people start churches. I’ve met a few of those pastors. They’re intentionally not connected with any church denomination, because no legitimate Christian leader would put such people in charge of cleaning the carpets, much less other Christians. Some of ’em are proudly independent of every other Christian fellowship. So much easier to start a cult that way!

But all of ’em claim something makes ’em qualified to be an elder… and it’s not Christian maturity. It’s not the Spirit’s fruit. It’s something else.

  • An academic degree, frequently.
  • The call of God: They’ll give a testimony where Jesus himself told ’em he wants them to be in Christian leadership. And maybe he did!—but they haven’t done bupkis to actually prepare for that duty. Instead they repeat that ridiculous proverb about how “God doesn’t call the qualified, but qualifies the called.” Um… no; you’re forgetting Nadab, Abihu, Samson, Eli, Saul, Jeroboam 1, Jehu, Joash, and all sorts of sucky ancient Israeli leaders who were indeed called, but never lived up to God’s expectations.
  • People skills. Personal charisma. Friendliness. Popularity. Sense of humor. And other superficial traits people use to make people like ’em.
  • Talents: Speaking ability, musical ability, fundraising ability, salesmanship.
  • Connections with influential people. Famous friends.
  • Supernatural gifts—which sometimes are legitimate gifts, ’cause the Holy Spirit doesn’t make our fruitfulness a prerequisite for miracles.

You’ll find such people pointing to anything but good fruit, and even downplaying good fruit. Because, of course, they lack it.

And sometimes, like Salwa, they simply point to the fact they’re old. And expect that should make ’em a Christian elder. After all, they’re elderly!

But nope; Christian elders should be spiritually mature, and that means fruit. If they don’t have good fruit, don’t put ’em in charge! If they’re in charge already, don’t go to that church!—the leadership doesn’t know how to keep wolves out of the sheep pen.