Give Honour not Gossip
1 Timothy 5:17-2
17 The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. 18 For Scripture says, “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.” 19 Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. 20 But those elders who are sinning you are to reprove before everyone, so that the others may take warning. 21 I charge you, in the sight of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, to keep these instructions without partiality, and to do nothing out of favoritism.
22 Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, and do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure.
This chapter of the Bible is Paul’s summary on how to treat people in the church. In the early parts of this chapter, Paul talks about how to treat men, women, widows and those in need. Here he turns his attention to how to treat those in church leadership.
Paul states that church leaders (elders) should be counted worthy of double honour. In this context, double honour means financial support.
Paul already stated that certain widows were worthy of honour (1 Timothy 5:3) speaking of financial support. Now he added, let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching.
Some may say the church should not financially support pastors and staff and may think that the church instead should be using the money to support the needy. It’s tempting to think this way, but it isn’t Biblical. If the needy are worthy of honour, then those who properly rule and teach in the church are worthy of double honour.
The next part of the passage deals with how to treat a church leader accused of sin. In these verses, Paul hit the balance between believing and acting on gossip about a church leader and ignoring serious sin in a leader’s life. Either extreme is wrong.
If a leader is in serious sin, it must certainly be addressed forthrightly. However, I would hazard a guess that gossiping and complaining about a church leader is more common than ignoring their sin.
Being a church pastor is a high calling and an incredibly challenging job. No one will get it right all of the time, but we are clearly called to give them honour.
Lord God, help us to give proper honour to our church leaders with our words and with our giving. May we grow in grace to guard our hearts and our mouths against words of gossip and criticism.
Written by Shelley Witt