No Double Standard

The Holy Spirit, through Paul's letters to Timothy (I Timothy 3) and Titus (Titus 1), provides us with a couple lists of qualifications for bishops, deacons, and elders in His church. So are ministerial leaders held to a higher standard than the lay people? Please allow me to put it this way: No!

But a simple declaration rejecting a double standard is not enough. For it would seem that there are some within the church quite ready and willing to affirm that “pastors, too, are only human.” In other words, “we lay folk are not the only ones living shallow, disobedient lives of compromising God’s law; we need leaders who can relate. Jim Baker, Ted Haggard, and Parson Smith ought not be expected to live in such a way that sheds light on our own hypocrisy.” – That is exactly the opposite of what the Holy Spirit requires.

There is no double standard, because of the imitation principle set forth clearly in the writings of Paul and, of course, by Christ Himself. In The Christian Counselor’s Manual,* Jay Adams points out that Christ called the twelve apostles to be “with him” (Mark 3:14), so that they would learn how to be like He is and not just how to say what he says. Of course, Christ was successful as evidenced by the testimony of the Jews who took notice that the disciples “had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). This same principle is mentioned by Paul multiple times while directly summarized in I Corinthians 11:1, where he writes, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.”

So that which is required of elders is required of all men of God, at least, in principle. All of God’s people are to obey these standards, and we ministerial leaders are to show them how. We are the example-setters, the pace-cars, the under-shepherds of the Great Shepherd, or, if you will, the bellwethers of the flock, following the Great Bellwether, “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

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* - The Christian Counselor's Manual, by Jay E. Adams, (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, Phillipsburg, New Jersey 08865, USA; copyright, 1973 by Jay E. Adams. First printing, November 1973; Twelfth printing, March 1982), pp. 335-336.