James 3:1 and the New Testament Qualifications for Elders

Our class begins James 3 this week, and the first verse is one of the most uncomfortable sentences in the letter.

"My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation" (James 3:1, KJV). The New Living Translation renders the same verse, "Dear brothers and sisters, not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged more strictly."

The older word "masters" means teachers. James is not warning about domineering people. He is warning about people who stand up and explain the Bible to others, which is what I do every Sunday morning, and he says we will be judged by a stricter standard than everyone else.

What James does not do is tell us what that stricter standard is. He states the warning and moves immediately to the tongue. So I want to spend some time this week borrowing a description from elsewhere in the New Testament.

Why the elder lists

The two principal lists of qualifications for elders are 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9. Acts 20:17 and 28 and 1 Peter 5:1-4 fill in the picture of the work itself.

These lists are not identical to a list of qualifications for everyone who teaches. Not every teacher is an elder, and the passages are written about a particular office. But they are the fullest New Testament portrait we have of the character, maturity, conduct, and competence expected of people entrusted with spiritual instruction. If James tells us teachers are judged more strictly without telling us on what, Paul at least tells us what the church is supposed to look for in the people it puts in front of the room.

What the lists actually contain

Area	The qualification	Principal texts
Overall character	Above reproach, blameless	1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:6-7
Marriage and sexual integrity	"Husband of one wife," a one-woman man	1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:6
Self-control	Vigilant, temperate, sober-minded, disciplined	1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:8
Conduct	Respectable, of good behavior, just, holy	1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:8
Hospitality	Welcomes and cares for others	1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:8
Temperament	Not self-willed, not soon angry, no striker, not a brawler	1 Tim. 3:3; Titus 1:7
Alcohol	Not given to wine	1 Tim. 3:3; Titus 1:7
Money	Not greedy of filthy lucre, not covetous	1 Tim. 3:3; Titus 1:7
Household	Rules his own house well, children in subjection	1 Tim. 3:4-5; Titus 1:6
Spiritual maturity	Not a novice, lest pride lead to a fall	1 Tim. 3:6
Public reputation	Good report from those outside the church	1 Tim. 3:7
Teaching ability	Apt to teach	1 Tim. 3:2
Doctrinal soundness	Holds fast the faithful word	Titus 1:9
Pastoral use of doctrine	Able to exhort and to convince those who contradict	Titus 1:9
Shepherding	Feeds the flock willingly, not for filthy lucre	Acts 20:28; 1 Pet. 5:1-3
Example	Leads by example rather than lording it over the flock	1 Pet. 5:3

The thing worth noticing

Read the table again and notice the proportions. Almost every line concerns character. Exactly three concern anything we would call professional competence, and all three are about handling doctrine: apt to teach, holds fast the faithful word, able to exhort and convince.

Now notice what is absent. Paul says nothing about charisma. Nothing about popularity, academic degrees, business success, organizational ability, eloquence, or a commanding personality. A man could have every one of those and meet none of Paul's requirements.

The pattern is roughly this: godly character, spiritual maturity, a well-governed personal life, sound doctrine, the ability to teach it, and the ability to shepherd people.

Where this meets James 3:1

Set that pattern beside James's warning and something falls into place.

An elder is not qualified merely by knowing enough to teach. He must have the maturity to carry the influence that teaching creates. That is why Paul's lists join together things we usually keep separate. "Apt to teach" sits in 1 Timothy 3:2. "Not soon angry" sits in Titus 1:7. "Patient, not a brawler" sits in 1 Timothy 3:3. Competence and temperament appear in the same breath, as one qualification rather than two.

The New Testament joins the teacher's doctrine, tongue, temperament, and life together and refuses to grade them separately. That is precisely why James moves from the warning in verse 1 straight to the tongue in verse 2. He is not changing the subject. For a teacher, the tongue is the subject.

If I had to compress the whole picture into a sentence, it would be this. A New Testament elder is a spiritually mature, morally credible, self-controlled and hospitable believer whose family and public life support his profession of faith, who is neither domineering, quarrelsome, greedy, nor controlled by alcohol, who knows and holds firmly to sound doctrine, can teach it faithfully and correct error appropriately, and shepherds God's people as an example rather than using spiritual authority for himself.

The disputed corner

Most of what is above is not controversial. Christians of very different traditions read those lines much the same way.

Two of the qualifications are different. "Husband of one wife" and "faithful children" carry real interpretive questions, and whether these texts restrict the office to men is disputed among Christians as well. I want to keep those questions clearly separated from the many qualifications on which the text and the major traditions substantially agree.

The first of them is worth a study of its own, and it turns out to be a useful case study in something larger than eldership: the difference between what a text explicitly says and the conclusions we reasonably draw from it. That is taken up separately.

It is a fitting question for this passage. James 3:1 counsels unusual care about what we teach and confidently affirm. A phrase that sincere readers have read five different ways is a good place to practice that care.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Unmarked quotations are from the King James Version.