Multitude of Counselors Prevents Strife
How the Officers of the Church Should Be Ready to Receive Questions for Wisdom
Good Morning,
Today in our prayer and worship help we are moved to consider afresh the summer sermon series at Bethany ARP. I announced at the first of the year that we would be taking a break from our year-long Christianity 101 lessons in June and July in order to reset. What we will be covering in morning worship are seven particular sins which must needs be dealt with, not only in 2025, but generally speaking throughout the Christian life. The first one we will be dealing with is pride.
Proverbs 13:10 will be our text, “By pride comes nothing but strife, but with the well-advised is wisdom.”. While we could spend a lot of time on the second word of the verse, I think we would be better served thinking about the contrast drawn between the first and last portions of it. And when I say that I don’t mean the actual words, but something that is living in the background of Solomon’s idea. It is worth remembering that the king is speaking to his son ordinary principles if followed would provide blessing in life. God in His saving grace nearly always speaks of the benefits of redemption by the adding of our persons into a great multitude of faithful believers, those still with us, those gone before, and those who will come in the future.
We call this great multitude by many names, but most often we use the term “church”. The people of God gathered together has a certain and particular calling. It is the house in which we partake of the means of grace. It is the body with which we celebrate life, and death. More vital for our purpose today is the way our Lord has provided the church to function as a common spirit through which we might serve one another in love. A for instance here is the way Christ in seeing His bride shepherded by officers elected from within. Those elders and deacons are specially given to give advice and to speak the words of Jesus to their brethren in times of trial, as well as when the future is in question. To be there and present in order that the saints might be helped to know what is they should be thinking and doing in various times in life as events arise.
That certain blessing of having godly leaders in the church relevant to the verse as we read it above. The passage goes from the singular you to the plural well-advised. Men and women often cause the most trouble when they are their own source of understanding and truth. Rather than seek the multitudes for comprehending a situation they lone ranger it full-speed ahead. Solomon says to do that is to bring strife. Or as Proverbs 11:14 says, “Where there is no counsel, the people fall; But in the multitude of counselors there is safety”. There is a part of us that bristles against this idea. The Bible calls that pride. In warning against the judgment coming upon them for their sin the prophet Jeremiah speaks likewise, “Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, and the pride of thine heart”. An unwillingness to listen, or to consider another word usually has a start that is unrelated to the event taking place. Thy terribleness referenced here is pointing to the historical fact that the Edomites had rejected the wisdom of God hundreds of years before while still in the loins of their father Esau. The failure of the one had led to the failure of the many. It is keen to take note for the sake of the original verse and the warning of Solomon.
Developing a spirit of humility and a willingness to consult those in authority over us when we are dealing with all numbers of life things is seen by the king as warding off the kind of strife that always arises when everyone is a king in their own eyes. As you know I was once in the active military and you might surmise from that how important it is when in drill that not only that everyone steps off with the correct foot (the left one), but listens to the cadence and the commands of the drill leader. The same can be said of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. If there is no clear note (1 Cor. 14:7-8) nor a willingness to hear (Prov. 1:5) then strife will always result. Nearly all the problems one experiences in local congregations (and in presbyteries) have their genesis in the lack of these two witnesses. When we make assumptions and do not come together in love to better understand what is happening it is no surprise that strife continues, hence again the wisdom of a multitude of counselors. We may not have actually heard what we heard, and we may not have rightly seen what we thought we saw, and thereby it is good before accusations or made or hearts hardened that a full measure is made to ensure all things are like grounded in the truth, not in supposition. Seeking the insight and intelligence of those around us is not farming out labor, it’s recognizing that in singular pride trouble is sure to come. It is better to be proved right by friends, than run those same friends away because you believe a lie.
|In closing, on a related note it’s worth asking the question how do those same officers that we should be able to go to in times of need become well-advised. Recently we had someone come and do elder and deacon training at Bethany. In his presentation he made the remark that to be a leader in the church you have to be doing at least two things: 1) Be at church, 2) Be in prayer. On the first that seems like a no duh kind of thing. You can’t be a helper if you either don’t know the person nor are present to be asked. You also can’t be a helper if you yourself aren’t building yourself up in faith through spiritual conversation with the Lord of glory and the giver of wisdom. The people of the church need to know implicitly that the elders and deacons are ready and able to serve, at any time, that they are ready in season and out of season so that they in humility might seek to be well-advised themselves in order to serve well their sheep. Building up one another in love witnesses to see both pride nipped in the bud and the corporate church taken care of in order that singular striving leading to strife is both unnecessary and without thought.
Here is the last word:
https://clearlyreformed.org/what-makes-for-a-good-elder/
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church