Qualified

• Why does it so often seem the world is wiser than the church?

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Acts 6:3 – Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.

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Go to almost any potential employer seeking a job, and you will find that there are certain qualifications that must be met before you will be hired.  Even in low-skilled employment, there are age, health, and perhaps other physical requirements for employment.  The world understands that quite clearly.  And as ridiculous as it sounds, you would not go to a brick mason for dental work, or to an auto mechanic for heart surgery.  You would seek out professionals who are as highly trained in the needed field of endeavor as you could find.  That simply makes good sense.  Yet there are times in the church when one might wonder, where has the good sense gone?

I cannot tell you how often I have witnessed someone being put to work in a church leadership position, not because they were qualified, but simply because a warm body was needed to fill a position.  The true problem there is not the person who was put in the leadership position, but the leader, or leadership system that put that person in that place.  The problem lies in existing leadership.  One thing that immediately comes to mind is novice – a person who is not mature enough to handle a position.  How often has someone been placed in a position of leadership and visible ministry when that person was simply not mature enough to handle the position or the pressures that come with it?  And how often has such a placement ended with problems at the least, and possibly very destructively?

Do not misunderstand this writing.  Jesus chose Judas Iscariot who became the betrayer.  This was done after much prayer, and was certainly at the direction and leadership of Holy Spirit.  We should learn from that.  When we, who are certainly fallible, do the very best we can, we will always find it possible to choose someone to be a part of our life, ministry, or work who will fail us miserably.  That does not mean that we should stop.  What it DOES mean is that we need to be more diligent than ever in our selection process of whom we choose for leadership roles in our life, ministry, and work.  We MUST accept Biblical standards, apply them diligently, and never compromise them.  From the earliest days, the church had Biblical qualifications for whatever work needed to be accomplished.  Qualifying standards still exist, and the church should abide by them.  Study the Scriptures, for therein are the qualifying standards revealed.  Learn them, apply them, and stand by them.  And foremost among those standards – believers who are “of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom.”

Manna for Today – Acts 6:1-7; Luke 16:1-13; 1 Timothy 3; Psalm 15