Difficult Questions of Leadership: Part Three--Believing Children

                This series of articles has sought to follow God’s truth where it leads.  It has tried to bind where God binds and loose where God has loosed.  That same spirit will guide the direction of this last article.  What does it mean that an elder must have “believing children” (Titus 1:6)?

                There are two interpretations available to the expositor.  The first is that “believing children” refers to children who are “believers,” i.e. Christians.  The second takes “believing children” to indicate faithful, trustworthy, and obedient children.  The lexicon is no help here.  The word “believing” is pista and can mean believing (1 Timothy 6:2) as well as faithful/trustworthy (Revelation 1:5).  Context must determine the meaning. 

                First, the parallel passage indicates its proper interpretation.  Both lists mention the children of an elder (Titus 1:6; 1 Timothy 3:4).  Titus requires that the elder’s “children are believers,” tekna echon pista, while Timothy requires that he “have his children in submission,” tekna echonta hupotage.  The parallelism is obvious.  To have children which are pista is to have children which are hupotage.  The children are to be faithful to the managerial authority of their father.  Therefore we ought to understand the latter half of Titus 1:6 as expanding and explaining the former half.  “If . . . his children are believers [in other words, if they are] not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination [anupotakta].”

                Second, the rationale for this qualification is another helpful insight regarding its interpretation.  Timothy’s list provides that rationale.  “For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?” (1 Timothy 3:5).  Often people will say, “If an elder cannot convince his children of the truth of the gospel, how will he ever convert the unbeliever?”  That, however, was not Paul’s concern.  A man’s ability to convert is not referenced here; it is his managerial ability.  The “care of God’s church” is the care of the already-saved and requires no converting.  It is that same kind of care that must be observable in his family.  It should also be remembered that a man is to be judged according to those things which are within his control.  Certainly a father ought to exercise the most influence over a child’s faith (cf. Ephesians 6:4), but he is not responsible for it.  It is outside of his control.  If a man’s children do not become Christians that does not indicate failure as a father.  To say so would raise many uncomfortable questions.  God is a perfect Father yet the majority of His children do not have saving faith.  Are we prepared to say that God is a failure as a Father?  Is he unfit to care for His own church?  I dare say that some of our brethren would not allow God to be an elder in their congregations.

 A candidate for the eldership must “manage his own household with dignity keeping his children in submission” (1 Timothy 3:4).  His children must not be guilty of “debauchery or insubordination” (Titus 1:6).  Rather, they ought to be faithful—pista—to him and to the rules of his house.  If he has such children then he has fulfilled the requirement.  He has proven worthy of the office.  How often has the church lost its best leaders because one of his grown children lost faith many years down the road?  How many leaders have never had the opportunity to share their wisdom with God’s sheep because they had no Christian children?  We must require what God requires and allow what God allows.  Let us say farewell to the days when our best leaders warm our pews and our churches live as sheep without a shepherd.