Seven Characteristics of a Faithful Minister
by Victor Paul Wierwille
Tonight I had prepared for you an 8-1/2 by 11" sheet of paper that has the
whole teaching on it. This teaching that I'm going to share with you tonight, I
think, is one of the most important teachings that I could do at this time in
the history of our ministry and of my life. I'd like for you to turn to II
Timothy.
Tonight the subject is the seven characteristics of a faithful
minister. I wanted to share this with the leadership Friday at International,
but we had so much other business to take care of that we never got to it. So
you are the people that'll have to live through it tonight. But everybody there,
I think, was an ordained minister and I had been working this and I wanted to
share it, but as I said, just time was not available.
This is also the truth regarding a twig 1 coordinator. There is an exhortation
of each characteristic given in this second chapter of II Timothy. The number
seven, people, is the number of perfection, and this is the only place in the
Bible where all the seven characteristics of a faithful minister are put
together in one chapter. So all you need to do is understand this chapter, and
you'll always be able to judge from the Word of God (let the Word of God do the
judging) of whether the ministry of a twig coordinator or any other individual
is according to the Word of God. It is these seven characteristics that I listed
on your paper, because I thought you might be able to write in other things, but
these seven are:
Those are the seven characteristics given in II Timothy, chapter two, with an
exhortation on each one of the characteristics. Tonight I want to go through
this second chapter with you, verse by verse.
Timothy was not Paul's physical son, but he was his spiritual son. Paul was
the one who had taught him the greatness of God's Word and led him to the Lord
Jesus Christ and the great truths of God's Word. The first chapter of I Timothy
gives a real great insight on this word "son."
The literal of those words "own son" are "true child." "Unto Timothy my true
child in the faith." That is basically the meaning of chapter two, verse one:
"Thou, therefore, my true son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus."
True son be strong in the grace. Grace is God's divine favor, perpendicular from
God to man, unmerited and that grace is in what Christ Jesus accomplished for
us.
(1). The first requirement of a faithful minister is that he is to be
strong in grace, divine favor, perpendicular. He is not to be strong in his own
mental acumens or the seminaries he graduated from; that's all secondary. The
primary is that he remembers to be strong in what? Grace, divine favor. That's
why a true minister of God is never critical in a negative sense. He's not
raising hell with people. The only people who ever raise hell with people are
people who forget the grace of God and the love of God and forgiveness of God.
A true son is one who remembers that it's by grace that he is a minister of the
Word, and that he is to be strong in that grace. And if he remembers that, and,
verse two, "The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses," in
other words, a true son stands faithful with the one who taught it to him. Paul
taught Timothy, and Paul said, "The things that thou hast heard of me (Paul)
among many witnesses (other people heard the same thing)..." A true minister, a
faithful minister, a son strong in the grace, is concerned about committing to
faithful men that same truth "...who shall be able to teach others also." So
that is the exhortation about a son who is strong in grace.
(2). Number two is in verse three: Be strong in service. The King
James reads, "Thou, therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus
Christ." It should be translated and read, "Thou, therefore, endure training,
mental pressure, as a good server of Jesus Christ." Because we are athletes of
the spirit, we are not warring soldiers that go out to kill and to destroy, but
we are athletes running in the spiritual race of life. "Thou, therefore, endure
training as a good server of Jesus Christ." The second great truth regarding the
characteristic of a faithful minister: he is strong in what? Service. Strong in
service. He endures training.
(3). Number three is to be a strong athlete and that is in verse
five:
The word strive in this verse is the Greek word athleo, from which we get our
word "athlete." Literally, this verse accurately reads, "And contending in the
games, the athlete will strive to be the best (masteries) but he is not crowned
except he (do what?) strive lawfully (stay within the bounds of that athletic
competition as he contends in the games)." He was talking about the Roman games.
So he is a strong athlete who develops himself to be absolutely the best it is
possible for him to be. But he is not rewarded or he doesn't receive, he is not
laced with the floral tributes, except he contend in the games according to the
rules.
(4). The fourth characteristic is in verse six:
I figured most people didn't understand the old English usage of the word
"husbandman." The husbandman is the cultivator, the one who cultivates the land,
Biblically speaking. Today we would call him a farmer. This son is to be a
strong cultivator. He is to cultivate people properly. He is to work with them
properly like you would prepare the ground properly to receive the seed like a
farmer would. That's why he says he must be first partaker of the fruits.
You must be a partaker in cultivating and seeing this fruit develop if you're going
to be a faithful minister, a wonderful twig coordinator. You have to work with
people and you have to cultivate them. You have to prepare them to receive the
Word of God. You just don't come in and bulldoze your way through a twig
meeting. You love those people and so you cultivate them, you understand? Some
people need help here, someone else there. That's how you get to be partaker of
the fruit that you will see in their life as they grow. There are quite a few
verses after verse six that set this great truth in here, and I think the reason
he used this many verses from six on through fourteen is because it's such an
important phase of a faithful minister's responsibility. That's why he expanded
it: so we would have a greater understanding and not screw up.
The exhortation begins in verse seven: "Consider what I say..." These words,
"Consider what I say" are the translation of the word "selah." "Selah" in the
Old Testament; whenever you read that word in the Old Testament, class, it
always means "consider what I say." Flip to Psalm 3, please. To the best of my
knowledge, this is the only place I could remember where it was used for the
first time. I'm not sure, but I think it is. People read the words like "selah"
and they don't know what they mean. At the end of verse two in Psalm 3 - do you
have it?
It means "consider what I've said." And it relates itself to the context of
that which immediately follows. So back to verse seven of II Timothy,
please.
The Lord give thee understanding. The reason he says that is because human
nature is always to go back to what men say, or read what the world calls the
most up-to-date periodicals, things that people talk about. The Word of God says
that a faithful minister is to go back primarily to the Lord, for it's the Lord
that's going to give him what? Understanding. See, it's always a temptation to
go to the world and then to quote what the world says. It's wonderful to quote
what the world says if it agrees with the Word, I guess. But the Word teaches
that a faithful minister has to rely upon the Lord, not man, to give him
understanding in what? All things.
The reason it was his gospel is because God revealed it to him and Paul
declared it.
The word "evil doer" here is the same word that's used regarding two of the
men that were crucified with Jesus. It's the word "malefactor"...kakourgai. You
suffer trouble from other people because they will treat you as a malefactor.
Paul said he had suffered it even to where they had put him in jail. But when he
was in prison, the Word was still not what? Bound.
Philippians, Colossians,
Thessalonians were all written from Rome when he was in prison. See, I don't
think Peter was ever in Rome. Told the Corps that last Wednesday night. So if
that group over there wanted to have a Pope, they should've had Paul. Paul was
there, but Peter never was. So the first Pope in Rome could not have been Peter;
he never was there. Well, you figure it out, I don't care. But Paul was in
prison in Rome and from the prison in Rome he wrote some of the great mystery
revelation because the Word of God is not bound by chains. You see, no matter
what people say about you, you know your own heart. You know your own mind, and
they can speak of you as a malefactor and evil doer, but you know the purity of
your own soul and of your own mind, and you know that you are a faithful
minister.
You're a strong cultivator of the people.
"Faithful is the saying: for if we are dead with him, we shall live with him
and if we suffered with him we shall also reign with him." You see, when Jesus
Christ died, we died with him. When God raised him, we were raised with him.
When he was seated at the right hand of God, we were seated with him. Everything
with what God wrought in Christ Jesus.
If we deny the truth of the greatness of this, then God can't do anything
else but deny us too and say, "Look, Dude, you're wrong! You're not a
faithful minister." To teach anything else but that every believer died with
Christ and arose with him is to deny what Christ Jesus really did for us,
and we're not faithful ministers.
If you are going to be a good cultivator, a faithful minister, a good twig
coordinator, you've got to remember to charge them before God that they contend
not. You do not contend about words that are unprofitable. You know you can
spend all night arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
That would be words to no profit, and all it would do is subvert, distract the
hearers.
(5). That's why verse 15 now comes as the fifth great truth: Son, be a
strong workman.
You study diligently, you apply yourself as a twig coordinator, as a faithful
minister, to do one thing - to stand approved unto God as a workman of the Word.
Not of theologians or all that other stuff, but you work the Word, people!
That's the only way you can stand approved before God ... working the Word,
rightly dividing the Word of truth.
The Scriptures, the Word of God is the Word of truth, but only to the end and
in the proportion that we rightly divide it do we have the true Word. And most
of Christendom today is built on tradition rather than the right dividing of the
Word. They are sincere, but sincerity is no guarantee of truth, people. The
devil is as sincere as you are. I think, many times, more so than you are.
Shouldn't be, but... Look, you will never have the true Word until we rightly
divide it, and that's that right cutting. I think it's orthotomounta or
something in the text. I teach it in the Foundational Class.
Then come the following verses regarding this strong workman. Verse sixteen:
"...shun profane and vain babblings..." I put this on your paper because I
doubted if too many of you would be able to understand what "profane" really was.
"Shun profane" is the dishonorable, and "vain babblings" is intellectual
stupidity; and you're constantly being tempted with that and bombarded with it
in the world. So a faithful minister, a twig coordinator, has to shun (the word
shun, you know, means to avoid), you avoid profane or dishonorable because we
are to study to show ourselves approved unto God.
The profane would be that they
would lower the "Study to show yourself approved unto God." They would demand of
you that you study to show yourself approved to the tradition. It's dishonorable
to study to show yourself approved to tradition. The vain babblings, as I said,
are the presentations that people hit you with. It sounds so intellectual and
they're so intellectual, and they hold degrees from the most reputable so-called
academic institutions, and so people sit back and say, "Well, he's got to be
right." But what he says is contrary to what the integrity of the Word says.
That's why it's intellectual stupidity.
They did this in a very intellectual way, and so they overthrew the believing
of some.
That's another terrible mistake. Not dishonor, less honor; because a vessel
that's of less honor is still not a dishonorable vessel. What he is giving here
is an illustration out of the culture of his time. That they had vessels of gold
and of silver that were used for the anointing of the head of the guest. There
were vessels that were used for the washing of the hands and the face. Then
there were vessels that were used for the washing of the feet, and then there
were vessels that were used when you have to go to the bathroom. Now those
vessels that were used for the washing of the feet were not gold or silver; they
were lesser vessels. That's what he's talking about. And yet, very needful.
Likewise the vessels that they used when they went to the bathroom. Those were
considered lesser vessels. then comes the sixth great truth: Be a strong vessel,
a good, strong vessel.
You see, the lesser vessel was clean, but it was just not used for the
anointing of the head. It might be used for the washing of the feet. Those
vessels are meet for the master's use, prepared unto every good work. In order
to illustrate this, he gives the exhortation in verse 22:
(6). We are to be a strong vessel unto honor, and we have to flee
youthful lusts. What are youthful lusts? Well, I don't think it's particularly
sexual. Maybe occasionally, but, you know when you're young you want so many
things. You want to own things. You know, you want this, you want that, you want
two cars, you want this, you want that, you want all new furniture in the house,
you want three TV sets, all of that stuff. And that's what he says we ought to
flee. God said Held supply our need. Every faithful minister, every twig
coordinator will have his need supplied. God never promised He'd fulfill our
greeds, and it's in greeds that you get burdened down. When you get all these
things that when you're young you think you'd like to have, you get so burdened
down that you're just like the rest of the world: you get nothing done for God.
All you work for is the world, and the world, for the most part, gets people so
tied up they're never free to serve God. All they can do is go out there and
serve the world and pay off what they've already accumulated which they didn't
need.
You try to keep your life as simple as you can, if you're a faithful
minister. You see, Jesus Christ came that we might have a life and have it more
abundantly. But the abundance is not particularly in material things,
possessions. See, I don't care who owns this auditorium as long as I have the
privilege of teaching the Word in it. I don't own it. You don't own it. The
ministry has it. And yet every one of us in here tonight can get blessed, see?
If I owned it, I'd have a barrel of trouble. You know, then I'd have to pay tax
on it, I'd have to see about all the heat, everything else. Now all I do is
bless people, and they all work together as a family: we all get blessed. You
know, I don't care about these material things as long as I can use them. That
is why I can speak with great authority in this field: because I've been there.
I was born and raised in a very wealthy family, and then of course when the time
came to inherit the Wierwille stuff, we gave it all away, gave it all to The Way
Ministry. The whole farm, all the money, everything else, and it's wonderful. If
I still owned The Way International farm, I couldn't enjoy it as much as I enjoy
it now, and yet I have the freedom of living there, have the freedom of spending
my life there. What else could a man want? You know, I can walk all over that
three hundred acres, every foot I want to walk on it; nobody throws me off. So
can you. So it's not in ownership, it's just that we have the freedom to use
that which is made available to us.
That's why in verse twenty-three comes up another truth, like we had earlier,
only here it's stated, "Foolish and unlearned questions (do what?) avoid." Like
poison ivy. They're unlearned questions because they do not represent the
accuracy of God's Word. They are simply put in there to irritate you. They want
to irritate you. They say something which is contrary to God's Word, you know,
like they'll say, "Well, you don't believe Jesus Christ is God? Well then,
explain John 1:1 to me." That's a foolish and unlearned question. You explain
it! Don't ask me to explain it. Let them explain it to their friends or enemies.
You see, you just don't get taken in with those things when you are a faithful
minister. You don't spin your wheels with foolish and unlearned questions. You
avoid them, like I said, like poison ivy or something. Why? Because you know
that they will just gender strife. They are asking this of you not because they
want to learn but because they want to fight, and you and I haven't got time to
fight as faithful ministers and Twig coordinators. All we've got time for is to
love God's people and then hold forth the Word in all of its greatness and all
of its truth. Let them fight with somebody else.
(7). And then comes this great twenty-fourth verse, which winds up,
which is the seventh one, which puts it into the perspective of perfection,
class: son, be a strong servant.
The word servant is doulos, the marked-out minister. You've got God's brand on
you, you've been branded by God. You have His stamp on you as a twig
coordinator, as a faithful minister. And as a doulos of the Lord, he must not
strive. Strive is the word "battle" or "fight".
That's the second great exhortation here. Be gentle. You see, people through
the years have violently disagreed with what I stand for and what I believe to
be the truth of God's Word. Yet I always endeavor to be gentle with them, as
much as lieth within me. A faithful minister, a faithful twig coordinator has to
be apt to what? Teach. He must be able to teach. I so believe that I am able to
teach that when I finish tonight I don't expect any questions left over the
subject I've taught. I expect everybody here to understand it, because I believe
I've got the ability to teach. Because, first of all, the enablement came from
God with the manifestations, and then I have studied to show myself approved by
rightly dividing the Word. So when I teach, I expect people to understand what I
teach, because I try to make it so simple that nobody is stupid enough to miss
it. You just can't miss it when I teach because nobody would be that stupid. (Or
else the devil'd never let you get in here, or something...)
Good Lord! That's another one of those youthful lusts: impatience. You want
everything right now. A faithful minister, a wonderful Twig coordinator, is
patient. Whenever you work with people, which is basically all that we work
with, it just takes patience. Sometimes it takes a whole month until you see any
fruit, but you're cultivating, remember? And when a farmer plants a field, he
doesn't see the wheat crop immediately. He has patience. I, as a minister of
God, for God - I have to have patience with people. Wait, just wait ... they'll
come, sooner or later. If it doesn't come sooner or later, what have you lost?
Nothing, you just wait.
That's why we were able to do those thirteen major
television productions, which should've been done ten years ago, but I just had
to wait until the right people that were committed and had the talent that could
put it together. You know, I don't like to wait either, but I cannot be a
faithful minister and not wait, because if I don't I become critical, just
opposite of what the Word says. Then you criticize people and find fault, and
that is not being a faithful minister. So I do not criticize or find fault, I'm
just apt to teach, patient.
You'd like for them to walk the Word but you know they're not. So in meekness
you instruct those that oppose themselves. The reason you can do this in
meekness is because you are strong in the grace that is in whom? Christ. When
you forget God's grace, that's when people become critical. That's when they
begin pointing fingers. All you have to remember is what God forgives you for
and you have no problem forgiving others in your twig or people that are under
the ministry that God has given you and made you responsible for.
So, in meekness, humility, tenderness, honey, instruct those that oppose
themselves. The rest of that verse reads, accurately, "That God, at some time,
will give them a change of heart to the acknowledging of the truth." Isn't that
beautiful? You're a strong doulos. A son of God who is a strong servant,
not striving. You're gentle, you're a teacher, and you walk meekly and humbly
with the love of God in the renewed mind in manifestation in your life.
Right. These are those that are opposing themselves. So in meekness.... and
meekness is what helps them to recover themselves. You can't recover anybody;
the individual has to do that. You can't get saved for me; I have to do it.
These people, if you have them in your fellowship and you are a faithful
minister, you will in meekness instruct them that they, by the freedom of their
will, can have a change of heart. When they have a change of heart, they recover
themselves out of the snare of the devil.
The adversary took captive of them at the adversary's will because they did
not have the renewed mind, did not put on the mind of Christ yet. Every day in
this ministry we've got new babies. This next month, perhaps we'll have a couple
thousand new babies. Just here in the United States. Well, you wouldn't expect a
human baby to play football the first day. Well, what about a spiritual baby?
You've just got to take time, and the greatest thing I know that brings people
into the greatness of all of this is the love of God in the renewed mind in
manifestation and a faithful minister. That he so loves because God loved him,
that he just surrounds the twig, the believers, with the love of God.
I see this in our leadership, and I'm real grateful, real thankful, and I
appreciate that God put here in one chapter all those characteristics of a
faithful minister, a faithful twig coordinator. A twig coordinator is
ministering to the twig. All you need to know is this chapter and you can make a
decision according to the Word of God regarding the faithfulness of any minister
any place, anywhere in the world, or in anything you read.
So:
Those are the seven characteristics.
[1]
"Twig" refers to a in-home fellowship of believers, which has a coordinator.
This is a principle of early Church growth found in the Book of Acts which was
instrumental to those in the fellowship growing spiritually, and to the rapid rise
and expansion of the first century Christian Church.
When a twig became too large for the home or for the individual believers to
have their needs met, it would "split" into two, and thus growth continued.
[2]
"doulos" is a Greek word, which Biblically refers to the highest level of a servant. At this level of service,
when the servant (sometimes called 'slave') was given his freedom
he also had the option to remain with his master by freedom of choice. At this point be would become a 'branded' servant, and
he was proud of his position. He chose a life dedicated to serving and representing his master.
Many times this servant was put in positions of responsibility in the household second only to his master.
He managed the household, business affairs, finances.
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