Society Abilities of 1 Timothy 3, & Titus 1

Society Abilities of 1 Timothy 3, & Titus 1

Alex Montoya

More ministers, missionaries and Christian leaders lose their ministries over their inability to get along with people than they do for their inability to preach or carry out their ministerial duties. The average tenure for a pastor in a local church is three years; by then the people have discovered who he and his wife really are and they don’t want them any longer. What we fail to realize in the ministry is that ministry is about getting along with people. If we do not develop the proper people skills (that is, the ability to get along with people of all stripes and colors), we will not have a lasting ministry.

What is remarkable in the Biblical qualifications for the ministry is that the Scriptures focus more on who the minister is than what he is able to do. The list of requirements for pastoral leadership in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 have more to do with how we interact with others, than on how well we preach or how well we perform our duties. Each list only has one item having to do with ministry; the rest have to do with character. This is not to minimize the importance of the ministerial duties, but simply to stress a major factor in the area of pastoral ministry. People skills matter greatly.

Before considering the relationship of the qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 as they relate to people skills, it would be good to remind ourselves what we mean by “people skills.” People skills refer basically to the ability to get along with people. As leaders, people skills relates to the ability to mobilize a group of people to accomplish a common goal.

We should also note that good people skills are the application of the Great Commandment to daily life. Our Lord stated that all the Law and the Prophets are summed up in two commandments: that we love God and that we love our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:34- 40). The command to love our neighbors as ourselves is the sum of the Decalogue, which in short commands us to do no harm to our neighbors (Romans 13:8-10). It is treating others as we would want others to treat ourselves (Matthew 7:12), and involves a consistency in the application of love to every person we meet (James 2:8). For the believer, the fulfillment of the command is done when we walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh (Galatians 5:13-15; 6:2). In summary, people skills are the ability to express God’s love through us to others.

When we view the qualifications given in the Pastoral Epistles concerning church leaders it is the application of the commandment toward the people in their lives. The Apostle Paul speaks of three distinct groups that make up the chorus that affirms a man’s qualifications for the office: his family, the members of the Christian community, and the unbelievers (1 Timothy 3:7). That he be “above reproach” means that each of these groups affirms that the man lives in accordance to the expression of the commandment in a positive manner. They do not affirm perfection; they affirm constancy, sincerity, and maturity.

The Christian leader must have good people skills when it comes to his own family. The pastor must be “the husband of one wife” (1 Timothy 3:2). He must be a husband who displays loving and loyal affection toward his wife. The husband and wife must “get along,” in the same manner that Christ “gets along” with His Church (Ephesians 5:25-27). The minister must be one “who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity.” He must display great people skills in leading his own household, in controlling his children, in gaining the respect of his family to follow his leadership.

The List of Qualities

In the lists of qualifications given in 1 Timothy and Titus it is clear that they are addressing his ability to deal lovingly and in a godly manner with the Christian community. They would be the ones to affirm his qualification to fill the office of overseer. They testify to his ability to get along with other believers, to model the Christian character which should be reflected in every believer. In the average believer, these qualities are expected. In the pastor they are required. When viewed from the perspective of people skills, these lists take on a new dimension.

He is to be “temperate,” possessing soberness towards the serious issues of life, never making light of serious matters and thus offending others. In that he is to be “prudent” implies the special discernment to approach every situation in a tactful fashion. He would study how to answer and how to act in difficult circumstances. He would not needlessly offend either in private or in the pulpit. Every word is carefully chosen.

The pastor is to be “respectable,” a word implying orderliness and organization. We can insult and abuse people’s time by being unprepared or late in our engagements. “Respectable” in short means to respect other peoples’ time and space. To that Paul adds “hospitable,” which is literally, “a lover of strangers.” This is more than just providing donuts and coffee to guests, or entertaining friends. It means that special love for people we do not know and that we are not intimately acquainted with. People skills mean the ability to befriend a stranger and making him or her feel loved by God. Christians get “turned off” by ministers and their wives who only cater to a select group within the church. If too many get turned off, they will eventually turn you out.

The list in 1 Timothy combines a series of traits that point to the leader’s self- control. He is “not to be addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable” (3:3). In Titus, Paul adds that he is “not pugnacious” and that he is “self- controlled” (Titus 1:7, 8). Here is a man who does not lose it with people. God makes it clear that “a brother offended is harder to be won that a strong city” (Proverbs 18:19). We must be careful that in contending “earnestly for the faith” that we do so “with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition” (Jude 3 and 2 Timothy 2:25). As Biblical fundamentalists we may pride ourselves in our defense of the truth and our stance for correct theology and practice, but if our defense reflects a loss of self-control in our defense of the faith, we have failed. We must always display a winsome personality in our endeavor to win the argument, or win the soul to Christ. Good people skills strive for a win-win situation.

Next the Apostle requires that a pastor be “free from the love of money” and “not fond of sordid gain” (3:3; Titus 1:7). These traits point to an honest and generous heart. Dishonesty is taking advantage of another’s generosity or trust. Covetousness is overlooking the need for benevolence towards others. People despise a crooked and cruel person. There is little patience for ministers who are in it “only for the money.” For that reason, those with good people skills are always endeavoring “to do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith” (Galatians 6:10). Titus adds the qualities of “just” and “devout” to point to a person with a deep sense of justice and a reverence towards God (Titus 1:8). People expect their leaders to be fair in the treatment of others, and not to show partiality.

The list of requirements for pastors prevents a novice from the office since such a person has a great temptation to let the office go to his head. Hence there is the need for leaders to be humble, not one whose head is swollen with pride (3:6). To this we add the warning not to be “self-willed,” one who always needs to get his own way. Anyone working with others, and especially with boards and committees, must learn to find common ground, to seek a solution based on information gathered from all, and end up with consensus. There is a great difference between manipulating people for one’s own interest and motivating people to seek God’s will and find common ground. Leaders are at their best when they choose the latter.

The third group of people that Christian leaders must win over is the unbelievers, the non-Christians (3:7). It seems strange that the Apostle would add these to the list before whom the pastor must be above reproach in his activity. Yet it is because this is the audience before whom the leader displays the glory of God as well as being the audience whom he wishes to draw into the church through the Gospel. This group is often despised by the Christian, sometimes displaying a demeaning and unchristian behavior towards them. We feel as though we do not need their approval. The opposite is true. How we treat our neighbors, our local merchants, our public school teachers, our local residents will have a deep impact upon the progress of the Gospel in the local church. We will either gain their hearing, or become despicable in their sight. As Christian leaders we have no right to treat the unbeliever like dirt; they have a say so in our right to be pastors in the local Christian church.

Often pastors blame the slow progress of the Gospel and our lack of church growth upon the hardness of people’s hearts. We can also blame our lack of success in the ministry as the “inability of people to endure sound doctrine and straight preaching.” The truth may lie with our interaction with people. We may have failed miserably in our ability to get along with people, whether they are believers or unbelievers. This applies not only to the pastor but also to his wife and children. A caustic wife may be the undoing of the precious labors of a godly pastor. Some wives have been the main cause for their husband’s dismissal from the ministry. We urge caution here.

Conclusion

You may be tempted to minimize the importance of people skills in the ministry, and may look upon this emphasis as somewhat of a stretch. But in my forty plus years of pastoral ministry it has been proved over and over again that more men lose their ministries or are ineffective in them because of their inability to get along with people. It is not by and large their inability to preach or to carry on their pastoral duties.

If you lack people skills, you are doomed to failure. Yet, the improvement of our people skills is among the easiest of tasks if we only set our hearts to truly love others as we love ourselves. We only need to reread the list of qualifications given to us in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 to understand that they are based upon our interaction with others.