{"id":303,"date":"2006-01-05T10:30:15","date_gmt":"2006-01-05T18:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tgdarkly.com\/blog\/?p=287"},"modified":"2006-01-05T10:30:15","modified_gmt":"2006-01-05T18:30:15","slug":"titus-purity-and-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2006\/01\/05\/titus-purity-and-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Titus, Purity and Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dawn Treader<\/a> and I started a series on Titus a while ago, which has been proceeding, shall we say, at a leisurely pace. A recent event brought Titus back to my attention.<\/p>\n

I learned this week of a leader in a prominent evangelical church who revealed over the holidays that he has been carrying on a secret adulterous affair for many years. (No, it isn’t the guy you’re thinking of, it’s that other guy, and it isn’t the church your thinking of, it’s that other church \ud83d\ude09 ). Unfortunately, this is a recurring problem in churches all around the country.<\/p>\n

We often are drawn to leaders who are smart, attractive, accomplished in business, wealthy, or “conservative” in appearance and demeanor. The first thing God requires in a leader, however, is purity. In fact, Titus 1:6-9<\/a> tells us twice that church leaders must be “blameless”:<\/p>\n

An elder must be blameless, the husband of but one wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. Since an overseer is entrusted with God’s work, he must be blameless\u2014not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. Rather he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Anyone who seeks to be “blameless” in our culture knows this is difficult. I know from my own perspective as a man how sin constantly assaults us. Sometimes the only thing we can do is follow the example of Joseph<\/a> when he was tempted by Potiphar’s wife: run. Look away. End the conversation. Terminate the pleasant little fantasy. Close your eyes and pray for help. It’s a lie. Call it a lie and leave it.<\/p>\n

I know many men are trapped in addictions that make advice like this sound trite. For those men, this may be trite, and sustained professional help and support is needed. Have the courage to ask for forgiveness and help — you will<\/em> find it. For those who find themselves wavering, though, the first step is simple: run.<\/p>\n

May God keep us blameless and bless His Church and its leaders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Dawn Treader and I started a series on Titus a while ago, which has been proceeding, shall we say, at a leisurely pace. A recent event brought Titus back to my attention. I learned this week of a leader in a prominent evangelical church who revealed over the holidays that he has been carrying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spirituality"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-4T","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}