“A Question Of Age”

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

     My question is regarding the appointing of elders.  Is a man an appropriate candidate if he has young (say, under twelve years old) children still living at home?  My understanding is that to be an elder, the man's children must also have obeyed the gospel and be baptized and leading godly lives.  How can a child do that?  And if so, what if in five or six years’ time, the child (now a young adult) falls away from God?  Is that man still qualified to be an elder?  Would he have to step down if one of his kids fell away?

Sincerely,
The Children Challenge

Dear The Children Challenge,

The Bible gives two qualifications regarding an elder’s relationship to his children.  The elder must have believing children that are in good standing in the Lord’s church (Tit 1:6), and he must be a good manager of his household, able to keep his children in submission (1 Tim 3:5).  This means that at least some of the man’s children must have reached the age when they have chosen to become Christians and serve the Lord, and none of his children have abandoned the faith.  It also means that even if his children are Christians, he must have shown himself to have managed his home and reared them in a godly manner.  So, yes, at least some of his children must be old enough to have obeyed the Word through baptism.

As for what should happen if one of his children falls away, good brethren are evenly divided on what to do, and a lot of it has to do with the connection between his children being faithful and his management of his home.  The children aren’t being appointed to an eldership – the man is.  The children’s faithfulness is factored in because it is a reflection upon their father’s ability to manage and lead.  As a child becomes older, eventually, the child is no longer under their father’s roof and rule, and their choices reflect less upon the parent’s choices and more upon their own adult decisions.  Depending upon the circumstances (i.e. did the child fall away while still under the father’s rule, or did it happen twenty years after the child left the house), good brethren disagree on when an adult child’s behavior stops reflecting on the parent.  Some feel that at any stage, an elder’s son/daughter falling away disqualifies him, and others feel that there reaches a point when the child is on their own and no longer reflects upon the qualifications of the father.  It is best to not be too dogmatic in such cases and leave these sorts of decisions to the wisdom of each congregation if an unfortunate circumstance forces them to address it.

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