Troublesome Topic: The Authority to Lead a House Church Was an Extension of the Authority to Lead in the Home

Lesson 4 of 6

1 Timothy 3:5

Translation

But if one does not know how to lead his own house, how will he care for the assembly of THEOS,

Paraphrase

But if there is a man who does not know how to properly lead his own household, how can he be expected to care for the needs of the church of THE CREATOR AND OWNER OF ALL THINGS?

As I understand the situation, the house churches of the New Testament were usually made up primarily of a single extended family unit, plus a few neighbors who followed Jesus but whose families did not. There were times when some grown sons of a family did not choose to follow Jesus and were thus not involved in the house church led by their father or grandfather. Likewise there were individuals, male or female, who had chosen to follow Jesus but whose families did not want to do so, meaning that this person felt spiritually alone. These were the ones that strong spiritual families accepted as part of their “household” when it came to the spiritual issues such as worship, prayer, discipleship, fellowship, and teaching/learning.

The grandfather who met the spiritual qualifications the best was the leader of the house church. If there were any other spiritually qualified grandfathers in the group, they functioned as the second leadership tier of the house church. Each adult male was a leader on the third leadership tier. Thus the connection between leadership in the home and leadership in the house church was direct and clear. That is why Paul indicates that a person whose home was not managed well (i.e. was characterized by chaos, lack of respect for authority, outright rebellion, manipulation, and self-centeredness) should not be given the responsibility of a key leader in a house church.

It appears to me that God was taking the church back to a theocracy – a leadership structure in which He was the true leader and all human leaders were simply His representatives. In a theocracy there were no elected officials, only God’s system of governance. The visible, human leaders God chose to function under His authority were fathers and grandfathers. That is what God chose for the early church as well. A theocracy is difficult to follow and, in my opinion, the only way to do so is with leaders that fit the description given in Scripture.

Footnotes

1: Theos

Because of the requirements of the Greek grammar of this sentence, the actual Greek word is not Theos, but a different form of it. However, I have purposefully left it in the translation column in a form that the reader is more likely to recognize.