ON THE VANGUARD

BEING AN OVERSEER
“Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task.”
I Timothy 3:1

When I was a child, as I have shared before, it was prophesied over me that I would be a pastor. At the time being a pastor was far from my mind. What child still in his single digits in age desires to enter the ministry when there are so many other occupations available? But as time continued on, and so did the same words prophesied by others, my heart began to change. It wasn’t all that long after that instead of running from these words that I was embracing these words. I set out for seminary and graduated with my pastoral training under my belt in 1998. Three months after graduating college, however, things would change. Having explained prior to marriage where God was leading me, my dreams were halted once the honeymoon was done. The subject of this prophesy became the cause of many arguments and soul-searching. Yet I also came back to the same truth. I felt God pushing me into ministry. In 2007, following our divorce, a part of me thought, “Now you can run after what God first gave you years ago.” The only problem, though, was that in the eyes of many I was damaged goods. One pastor even bluntly told me that God would never use me for more than a Sunday School teacher because divorce was in my background.
Imagine that; imagine being told that for a divorce you did not elect to get, you now would be unable to proceed in the dream you had. Imagine the pain I felt when life suddenly wasn’t as exciting. For years I had felt the pit of not following this desire already, and now people were encouraging me to give up still. But why would God give me this prophesy, knowing all that would happen in my life, and then not somehow make a way? Does not the Bible say His word will not return void? So I began to look at the qualifications of a minister as named in I and II Timothy and Titus, and it is from these books I wish to share with you over the next few days.
Let’s jump right into Paul’s first letter to Timothy and see where we land. According to Paul, seeking to be an overseer is a noble task. What exactly is an overseer? The Greek word for this title is EPISKOPE, and means an elder or bishop. This same word has a little deeper meaning to it, however. It is also defined as the act by which God looks into and searches out the ways and deeds, or character, of man. Thinking this in true context then, we read that a trustworthy saying is, “anyone who sets his heart on being searched in character desires a noble task.” Regardless of if I ever step foot into full time ministry or not, this is what I want. I want God to take His fine microscope over my life and find the things that are not right in me so that I can get them changed. I want to live a life that expresses Him and His ways. Do I want it for nobility reasons? No. I want it simply because I do not want a gap in my relationship with Him because of a sin that I refuse to get rid of, or a behavior I want to hold on to. How many blessings have I already missed as a result of holding on to things that block His ways?
Alright, so perhaps we did not get too far into this study for today, but the point of bringing this verse to light was to help set the stage. As we continue to read in these three books about which are commonly titled the ‘pastoral epistles’, we need to realize that these books are not just for the ministers of the world. They are for all of us. The instructions that we will see Paul set concerning being the husband of one wife, not being drunk, and so forth are not only for those standing behind the pulpit every Sunday, but are the instructions for the one who wants to be an ‘episkope’, the one who wants God to look into and search deeply the heart of the person. If that is you, despite your occupation, then stay with me over the next few days and let us see what we can uncover.