Don’t receive any accusations against elders.  Don’t be badmouthing.  Don’t listen to anybody that wants to complain about the eldership.  It can put you in great jeopardy.  He continues on in here and he’s recognizing them.  He said, however, those that we can bring evidence at the mouth of two or three witnesses.  Those that are found guilty, rebuke before all that others may fear.  And he said, “Do these sayings without preferring one before another.  Let nothing be done by partiality” (verse 21).  And then here’s part of where we’re wanting to go.  “Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men’s sins.”

So, these men are to be proven that are be recognized by eldership.  Hands are laid upon them, and they’re recognized now within the community as those gifts of Ephesians.  And we recognize, according to Hebrews, that these are the men that rule over us.  And so, we’re to move in subordination to that authority.  Now, I’m spending a long time introducing where we’re really going.  But this is how the Holy Ghost instructs the church.  This is what we call context; right?  When we’re studying the Bible and we’re practicing exegesis, then we’re trying to draw truths out of certain passages.  The law of hermeneutics, where this study and understanding these things, these truths have to be in proper context to give us the truest understanding of these different principles.

So, here’s the context with which Paul goes in and instructs Timothy further about the condition of the church as he continues down in his thought into Chapter 6.  Now remember, in the original manuscripts there were no chapters and verses.  There are still people today that say, “Oh, this must be God.  Look, this chapter and this number.  And Chapter 3 means this and this verse, some other numerology means this, etc., etc.”  There are a lot of people that still fool around with that stuff.  There were no chapters or verses.  We have these thoughts, and the thought continues down into Chapter 6 and a very interesting thing then, in his instruction, begins to emerge.  He’s going back and talking about how authority became established, and what their purposes are.  He comes down and begins to speak toward the responsibility of servants and their duties within the community.  He then references false teachers again that are referencing both the false doctrine of how servants are to be related to and what their responsibilities are.

All of a sudden, we find ourselves reading these verses.  “These false teachers,” he says, “are proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdrawal thyself” (1 Timothy 6:3-5).  Now, I could have jumped in right on that verse and saved us a lot of time.  But there is more going on in the church than just this subject and these subjects we just dealt with that establish the environment and the community of thought to which this is a very serious problem.  He said, “We’re being taught that there’s a caste system in the body of Christ, and that the rich people are favored of God and the rest are servants.”  We were just talking about the servants’ duties, that there are different positions that we can hold or responsibilities that we can be given or gifts that may be used through us.

Can you imagine when you’re in church and here you have one of your servants, one of your slaves there?  And God is using him in the church mightily in the gift of prophecy or maybe the gifts of healing, and now service is over, and you come home and have to start bossing him around.  How do we relate?  That servant is seen differently in the community of believers than he is in your household; isn’t he?  What priorities do we place on him?  Which of his roles is most important to us?  And so, the statement here that I want to work off of, supposing that gain is godliness, from such withdrawal yourself.  So, we know what the problem must be here in the church at Ephesus.  Schisms are coming.  Rich are hanging out with the rich, poor hanging out with the poor, ethnic groups hanging together, whatever you might want to call it.  “There is one body…one Lord…one baptism” (Ephesians 4:4-6); amen?  There is no caste system.

Money and position don’t make you special in the church; amen?  What you do out there doesn’t have anything to do with who you are in here.  The greatest is servant.  And we’re seeing that by Jesus girding himself with the towel and washing the feet of the disciples.  We are so inundated in our thought processes, and it has been for years within the church because there’s somebody who’s successful on the outside, and we make them special on the inside, in the church.  Because they’ve succeeded out there and accomplished whatever it is, that somehow, they’re special in the church.  God puts us in here severally as He wills, and He gifts us severally as He wills; amen?  And the servant is worthy of his hire.  Let’s give the other Scripture that goes right along with that.  Give “honour to whom honour” is due (Romans 13:7); amen?