Sermon: What A Bishop Must Be - Part 3 (Titus 1:5-9)

The Local Christendom Podcast with Aaron Ventura

What A Bishop Must Be – Pt. 3
Sunday, August17th, 2025
Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Titus 1:5-9

Prayer

Father, we thank you for the power of Your word, which is as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Please cleanse us, please renew our purity and chastity as saints, so that we may become as holy temples wherein you walk and dwell forever. Grant us Your Holy Spirit now, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Introduction

For the last two weeks we have been studying this long list of qualifications to be a bishop. Recall that the title of elder/presbyter refers to a man’s spiritual age and maturity, and the title of bishop/overseer refers to his work of keeping watch over God’s flock.

• The Apostle Paul had left his co-worker Titus on the beautiful island of Crete to, “set in order the things that are wanting.” And we discover that what was wanting/lacking in Crete was a distinctly presbyterian form of church government.
  • What is presbyterian church government? It the government of the church by a plurality of qualified presbyters of equal rank. This is the universal apostolic pattern in the New Testament, and it was Titus’s job to examine and appoint such men for this work in the many cities of Crete.
• Now thus far we have looked at 9 of these 16 qualifications that Paul sets down for us. And this morning we are going to almost complete that list by looking at the six remaining moral qualifications. And then Lord Willing next week we’ll look at the 16th and final qualification which is a matter of skill and competency to teach sound doctrine and refute error.
• Now before we study these 6 moral qualities, I want to remind you of two important truths:
  • 1. The standard for elders in the church is also a universal moral standard for all Christians. And so while this list of 16 things is most applicable, relevant, and binding for those called to the ministry, it is still a high moral example that all of us should be aspiring towards. To put it another way, no Christian can say to himself, “well I am not a pastor, so I don’t have to live as holy as the pastor does.”
    • No, the charge that Paul gives to all the saints in the church is, Follow me as I follow Christ (1 Cor 11:1), And Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow/imitate, considering the outcome of their conduct (Heb 13:7).
    • So while most of us are not called to become elders or deacons, and James 3:1 says not many should become teachers my brethren, for we shall be judged with a stricter judgment, still these moral qualities that Paul sets down here should be what we all aspire to. So your work in hearing these sermons on “What A Bishop Must Be,” should be to examine your own life with an eye to how you may grow in godliness.
  • 2. Remember that God never calls us to be or become something, without also giving us the grace to obey Him. So while this high moral standard applies to everyone according to their unique age, sex, and station in life, this list is not the basis for our right standing with God, but it is rather the fruit, the effect, and the necessary consequence, of God making us righteous in His Son.
    • This is because when God justifies you (He declares you righteous for Christ’s sake), He not only forgives and forgets all of your past sins, not counting them against you, but He also gives more grace.
    • The God who justifies you graciously, is the same God who sanctifies you graciously. And so all of our hard work and labor to become more holy, to repent of our vices and embrace virtue is still all a work of God’s grace. Furthermore, it is only by grace that you can become this.
    • Paul describes this divine-human cooperation in Philippians 2:12-13 saying, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
    • So we must resist the temptation to make our progress in grace the ultimate cause and basis for which God loves us, instead of it being the joyful effect and fruit of God’s unchangeable love working within us.
      • God says in Jeremiah 31:3, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. And in Malachi 3:6, I am the LORD, I change not.
    • So nothing you do can change the character and essence of God. He is Himself love essentially. God is love invincible. Your sins cannot harm him or change the love that He has for you. What your sins do is harm you, and make you feel distant from God’s love when in reality His love has not gone anywhere. And yet even that distance from Him that He sometimes allows you to feel, is how God woos you back to Himself.
    • Like the father of the prodigal son, God knows that we sometimes need to taste the pig slop before we return home in repentance. But did the father’s love ever change for his son? No. His heart was always ready to welcome him back.
    • It says in Romans 5:8, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And in Romans 8:39, that for those who are predestined, nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
      • This means that however great your sins may be, however disordered or dysfunctional your present life is, God has a plan that is only good for you, and Christ is the fountain of grace that never dries up.
      • So as you examine your own faults and shortcomings, do not forget the gospel of free grace, the good news of God’s unchangeable love, for this is the source and power from which we renew our strength to live and die for Jesus.
• So with that in mind, let us consider now these 6 remaining moral qualities that a bishop must be. In verse 7 Paul gave us 5 things a bishop must not be, not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; and then he sets this in contrast to verse 8 where he says,But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate.

#1 – A bishop must be a lover of hospitality (ἀλλὰ φιλόξενον)

• In Greek this is just one word, φιλόξενον, which refers to a love (philo) for strangers (xenon), or a love for people that are foreign to or different from one another. It is also interesting that in the history of this word, xenos can refer either to the host or to the guest. That is to say, being hospitable (loving the foreigner) is not just the role of the host but also includes being a good guest.
• So hospitality is not merely the action of feeding someone or welcoming them into your home (though that is often a big part of it), but it is more importantly a steadydisposition, or a ready eagerness to open your heart and life to others.
  • I should also note that while we tend to think of hospitality as a more feminine virtue, since our wives are often the ones cooking and cleaning and making things homely, notice that it is the man’s job as head of his household to take the lead by acquiring this hospitable disposition, even if his wife carries out some of the actions. See Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 18 for a good example of this.
  • Paul describes what this hospitable state of mind looks like in 2 Corinthians 6:11-13, O Corinthians! We have spoken openly to you, our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections. Now in return for the same (I speak as to children), you also be open.
    • Paul yearns for the Corinthians to be open-hearted even as he has been open-hearted towards them.
  • He says likewise in 1 Thessalonians 2:8, So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us.
  • So Paul has modeled for the Corinthians and the Thessalonians, what hospitality ought to look like, even as an unmarried man, without a home, and without a bunch of extra material resources to share. What Paul had was an abundance of love and truth and a ready eagerness to share that love and truth with everyone. Moreover, since Paul was a traveling missionary, he was often the guest living and staying in other people’s homes.
• So the essential mark of a hospitable person, is that it brings them joy to share with others the things that are most valuable. The things that are most life-giving. Food and drink are just the material means to that spiritual end. And the Lord Jesus illustrates this for us by his teaching the five thousand and then feeding the five thousand. One exists for the sake of the other.
  • It says in Proverbs 11:25, The generous soul will be made rich, And he who waters will also be watered himself.
  • And in Isaiah 32:8 it says, But a generous man devises generous things, And by generosity he shall stand.
  • So the hospitable soul knows by experience that it is more blessed to give than to receive.
• Now God knows that when we try love people who are different from us, it can get awkward, it can be uncomfortable, and that can go both directions (for both hosts and guests).
  • If you have ever traveled abroad, and been served food that you did not recognize, you know how nerve-racking it can be to eat the fish-eye ball soup, or the cow’s tongue. What might be an expensive delicacy and an honor to serve in one culture may be anathema in the next. And so part of being hospitable is learning to just roll with things as they come, and to not take yourself too seriously.
  • When we remember what the whole point of hospitality is: to simply love someone for God’s sake, then we can relax a bit. We can adjust our expectations so that we aren’t offended by someone’s difference in manners, while also doing our best to give offense.
  • It says in 1 Peter 4:9, Be hospitable to one another without grumbling.
  • And in Romans 12:8, show mercy with cheerfulness.
• God loves a cheerful giver, and that includes the cheerful giving and sharing of our own food, table, and lives.
• Remember that the goal in all of this is to bring people to God’s table. To establish fellowship in the light between God and our guests. This is what it means to be lover of hospitality.

#2 – A bishop must be a lover of good men (φιλάγαθον)

• Again, in Greek this is just one word, φιλάγαθον, and most translations put it more broadly as simply a lover of what is good.
  • The idea is that a bishop must love what God loves and hate what God hates. He has tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and he wants that good for himself and his people.
  • To be a lover of good men is to say with David in Psalm 16:3, As for the saints who are on the earth, They are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight. And in Psalm 68:36, God is wondrous in His saints, the God of Israel shall give power and strength unto His people.
• When a bishop obeys Romans 12:9, which says, Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Then he can say with the Apostle about his own church what Paul says to the Thessalonians, For ye are our glory and joy (1 Thess 2:20).
  • To be a lover of what is good is to delight in the fruit of the spirit that grows from a regenerated heart. And this love for what is good is most necessary in a bishop, because a bishop like a good gardener must know when to prune and when to nourish, when to call someone to humble themselves and when to encourage another that is downcast.
  • Only a man who loves what God loves can be entrusted with the pruning knife. And so this quality a bishop must possess and ever seek to grow in.

#3 – A bishop must be sober (σώφρονα)

• Or of sound mind. Other translations of this Greek word σώφρονα, are discreet, or of sound judgment, prudent, and thoughtful. The idea is that the sober person has mastery (self-control) over what he thinks about and gives his attention to.
  • This quality is repeated in Titus 2:2 and Titus 2:5 in the lists of what an older man must be, and also what a younger woman must be. So this is a quality for everyone and of utmost importance to Paul, perhaps because the Cretan culture especially lacked it. Remember Titus 1:12 says, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.
  • So Christian men, Christian women, and a Bishop especially must be of sober judgment, controlled in their thought life.
• This means you are guarding the entrances of your mind. It says in Psalm 101:3-4, I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me. A perverse heart shall depart from me: I will not know a wicked person. And it says in Proverbs 2:10-12, When wisdom enters your heart, And knowledge is pleasant to your soul, Discretion will preserve you; Understanding will keep you, To deliver you from the way of evil, From the man who speaks perverse things.
  • It is not easy to keep yourself unstained from this world, this evil and adulterous generation. The world is corrupt in its desires and revels in its corruption, and the tentacles of sin are always trying to drag us down to hell.
  • Therefore, the Christian must always be on guard, constant in his watchfulness, and diligent to acquire what Philippians 4:7 describes, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. [and then how does that guarding of our peace in Christ take place? verse 8] Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.
  • Are you doing this? If not, you are drinking the cup of worldliness, you are imbibing the spirit of the age which is insobriety and perversion.
• The discreet and sober Christian wants to live in the light and stay in the light. For as it says in Ephesians 5:10-12, find out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret.
• The sober man, and the sober bishop exposes the darkness to the light. And therefore, as Jesus says in Matthew 6:23, But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
  • The light of the eye is the mind. And therefore, a bishop’s eye must be ever illumined by the light that is Christ. This is how we can become sober and discreet.

#4 – A bishop must be just (δίκαιον)

• While sobriety refers to the mind’s ability to know and discern what is right in particular circumstances (we call this the virtue of prudence), justice refers to our ability and desire to carry it out.
• So how do you know if you are just person?
  • The person who has the virtue of justice, finds joy in giving to others what is due to them.
  • For example, a husband who delights to love, provide for, and cherish his wife, is fulfilling the justice of the marriage relationship. A wife who delights to honor, respect, and reverence her husband, is fulfilling the justice of God’s law for marriage.
    • Children who cheerfully obey their parents, are fulfilling the justice of the Parent-Child relationship.
    • Civil magistrates who punish evildoers with the sword and praise the righteous, who are impartial in their verdicts and do not take a bribe, are fulfilling the justice of the law.
  • Paul says in Romans 13:7-8, Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour. Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.
• So a bishop must be a just man in his marriage, in his parenting, in his business and civil relations. And when he has acquired this virtue of justice, together with the virtue of prudence, he is equipped to govern the church for the good and health of the whole body.
• One of the essential aspects of doing justice in the church, is knowing how best to apportion limited time, energy, and resources, such that the whole church is benefitted.
  • We see this principle of justice at work in the book of Acts when office of Deacon is established. The Apostles say in Acts 6:2-4, It is not reason/fitting that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word.
  • So the Apostles recognized that it was unjust for the Greek widows to be neglected in the daily distribution. And yet they knew that it would be more unjust to stop praying and preaching to serve tables. Therefore, from justice, they appoint wise deacons to see that justice is done for the widows, while they attend to seeing that justice is done for the broader church.
  • So a bishop has to factor in and weigh all these diverse and competing needs with the goal of being equitable.Equity requires that we prioritize, distinguish, and discern what God says is due to each member in the church, while ordering all those individual and private needs to the good and public wellbeing of the whole.
  • For example, with 4 elders, and 40 member households, we are trying to schedule elder visits to everyone twice a year. Is that possible? Is that sustainable? We don’t know yet, but it brings us joy to visit you, and we want to visit everyone insofar as it serves the good of the whole body. If our elder visits started to prevent us or get in the way of prayer and preaching and worship and other duties, we have to re-evaluate. This is the hard work of justice, and a bishop especially must have this virtue.

#5 – A bishop must be holy (ὅσιον)

• Now there are a few different Hebrew and Greek words that we translate into English as holy. The most common Greek word for holy is ἅγιος, which refers to being dedicated/set apart by God for His use. We sometimes call this sanctification, or as it says in 1 Peter 1:16, Be ye holy; for I am holy.
  • However, while a bishop must and should be ἅγιος, the word that Paul uses here is ὅσιον which could be better translated as devout, or pious. We might say that to be ὅσιον/holy in this sense refers to a man’s wholehearted dedication to God, or his piety in giving to God what is God’s due.
  • Taken in this sense, a bishop must have a singular devotion to Christ. Paul says in 1 Timothy 4, Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine…Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all (1 Tim 4:13, 15).
• A man should be devout long before he becomes a bishop or an elder. This is because someone can appear devoted to God and seem zealous for a season, but the mark of true devotion is that the flame of charity increases in intensity as the years go by.
• The devout person considers it a great joy and privilege to pray. It is a delight and not merely a duty. Moreover, the devout person yearns for the solitude and quiet of communion with God, and yet joyfully attends to the business of life by bringing with him that spirit of prayer.
  • It says in Proverbs 28:14, Happy is the man who is always reverent. And it is this happiness of revering God that the pious soul knows well. A bishop therefore must be devout.

#6 – A bishop must be temperate (ἐγκρατῆ)

• Temperance is the virtue that governs and moderates our desire for what makes us feel good. The temperate person finds and keeps the balance between excess and deficiency, especially in matters of the physical appetites (food, drink, sex, and the like).
  • Paul describes this virtue in athletic terms in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.
  • So temperance can look like John the Baptist, who wore camel’s hair and ate locusts and wild honey. But temperance can also look like Jesus Christ, who came eating and drinking, and turned water into wine.
  • Jesus says in Matthew 11:18-19, For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.
• So the virtue of temperance is judged by what it produces. John’s temperance produced boldness and humility to call the whole nation of Jews to repentance, to be a voice in the wilderness preparing the way for the Lord and making his paths straight.
  • What about Jesus’ temperance? What did that produce? Jesus feasted and drank with sinners and tax collectors, with men like Zachaeus, and with women who were prostitutes, or demon possessed. But then those men became former sinners and former tax collectors. Matthew the tax-collector became an apostle and author of the first gospel. Some of the women like Mary Magdalene became disciples of Jesus who ministered to him of their substance (Luke 8:2) and became witnesses of the resurrection.
  • Both the temperance of John and the temperance of Jesus’ were for the sake of our salvation. And therefore, a bishop just like every other Christian, should strive for mastery. He should run the race set before him, seeking to obtain the prize.
  • Christ was temperate for us, and so we should be temperate for Christ.And by God’s grace we all shall obtain the prize. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.