The Elder Must Not be a New Convert

Chapter 14

It’s especially interesting here that God’s word does not define what it means by the term “new convert.” Therefore one can only interpret new it is light of what is old. This reasoning is the best case for situation ethics I have ever espoused. Of course however, we are not dealing with ethics here. But we are dealing here as nowhere else in scripture with the idea that Elders will, of necessity, be the eldest men available in a particular geographic area. Unfortunately, that might mean an Elder in a church in Rapid City, South Dakota might have been a Christian for two or three decades, while an Elder in a church in Shelby, Montana might only have been a Christian two or three years. In other words, I think this verse clearly means that the Elders of the local body must be those who have been walking with Jesus the longest in a particular group of believers.

I Tim. 4:12 indicates Timothy must have been rather young. No one knows for sure what that means. If Paul was eighty when he wrote the letter, one who is fifty would seem young. And nothing in the text indicates Timothy was an Elder in Ephesus. I rather doubt he was. He was a church planter and an evangelist who usually traveled with Paul. The point here is that a new believer is not yet ready to handle the incredible authority that goes with Eldership. A new believer, no matter how old he might be physically, spiritually is not ready to deal with the responsibility of leadership in God’s church. When new believers receive such anointing, they often become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil (I Tim. 3:6). God’s Elder must not be a new convert.