We have a love-hate relationship with the human body. We see it in society. We feel it in ourselves.

Many, to be sure, are infatuated with their own bodies. It must not only feel but look as good as possible. Whatever exercise it takes. Whatever dieting. Whatever sleep. And eventually, whatever surgery. Love for the body can swiftly become self-worship. And much of the world’s vibes, and many of its tribes, stand ready to help us craft our own flesh into the idol of hearts.

On the other hand, countless souls despise their bodies. They look in the mirror and see a lost cause. Some, of course, even feel themselves to be a different sex than they are. The body haunts them and holds them back. In extreme cases, a surgeon may be called to the rescue. But for most, online platforms, with their avatars and carefully sculped profiles, can serve as treatment. Still, the end is idolatry. Now the craftsman carves his idol with a keyboard or a scalpel.

But Christians are called out of this twin darkness into his marvelous light. We are men and women reckoned holy in Christ and in the process of becoming holy in both body and soul, through the quiet, omnipotent, indwelling help of the Holy Spirit.

As people in the midst of our own sanctification, we are not immune to the world’s errors and temptations. We struggle. We wrestle with soul-weakening, joy-undermining versions of the world’s love-hate relationship with the body. And the battle is not new in our generation. Christians throughout history have had similar struggles.

Body Versus Soul

Historically, the most well-known tendency among Christians has been to undervalue the earthly body because of a priority placed on the soul. This tendency is understandable because it begins with a good instinct. Christianity does claim such stunning glories for the human soul that we should not be shocked if a good number of Christians, from various theological traditions, struggle with neglecting the body. After all, the apostle Paul acknowledges that “bodily training is of some value,” yet “godliness is of value in every way” (1 Timothy 4:8).

Mere bodily training related to eating, sleeping, and exercising does hold some promise for the present life, but godliness — that is, Christlikeness in soul and body, holistic maturity through the power of the Spirit — holds promise both for the vapor’s breath of this life and also for the life to come. If you’re doing the math at home, you see that godliness far outshines mere bodily training.

Still, understandable as its origins may be, the neglect or minimizing of the human body is far from Christian. We were created, soul and body, in the image of God — fearfully and wonderfully made, even with our indwelling sin and under the curse of all creation. And remarkably, God’s own Spirit has been given and dwells in those in Christ, and the New Testament holds out stunning hope that Christ’s disciples will honor him not by escaping their human bodies but precisely by enjoying him — and thus glorifying him — in their bodies.

Body Serves Soul

As much as our world oscillates between errors, and many Christians with it, there has long been another path: the one laid out so clearly by the apostle Paul (who wrote often about the human body in his letters). Francis of Assisi observed this road least-traveled, and C.S. Lewis paid him memorable tribute in the last century. Lewis recalls that Francis called the body “Brother Ass,” which Lewis defends:

Ass is exquisitely right because no one in his senses can either revere or hate a donkey. It is a useful, sturdy, lazy, obstinate, patient, lovable and infuriating beast; deserving now a stick and now a carrot; both pathetically and absurdly beautiful. So the body. (Four Loves, 93)

For Christians, the magnificent beasts that are our bodies are worthy of love but not worship; they are infuriating but not to be hated. We may have affection for them like a brother and find them stubborn as a donkey. “Pathetically and absurdly beautiful” indeed.

“Love for the body can swiftly become self-worship.”

However, the adjective that strikes me most in Lewis’s florid list is useful. Oh, the usefulness of these lovable, infuriating beasts. The human body is useful in giving us the priceless powers of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, lifting, pulling, and moving. If you have an able body, you are rich beyond compare. What wealth would a blind man trade for working eyes, or the deaf for hearing? Yet, apart from Christian faith, these bodily abilities facilitate a steady journey to hell. Even for believers, they can become avenues for wandering.

How, then, might our physical bodies be useful in the cause of the Christian life and the pursuit of spiritual joy in God?

‘Marked Effect’

When I Don’t Desire God might be John Piper’s “most practical book” (in his own words). In it, he writes plainly about everyday dynamics for the pursuit of joy in God, including the central place and use of God’s word and our prayers in the fight for joy (as well as the covenant fellowship of the local church).

What many readers may not expect, however, is the focus of his penultimate chapter: “How to Wield the World in the Fight for Joy.” Here Piper wrestles with the relationship between physical causes and spiritual effects and, in particular, “how to use the world of physical sensation for spiritual purposes” (182).

By world, Piper means the sights and sounds of nature, human art and music, poetry and literature, and even the commonplace in our everyday lives. And one vital aspect of this “wielding the world” is the use of our own bodies:

the proper or improper use of our bodies can have a huge effect on the way we experience spiritual reality. . . . Proper eating and exercising and sleeping has a marked effect on the mind and its ability to process natural beauty and biblical truth. (78)

What are these “marked effects,” and how can we wield them in the fight for Christian joy? To answer, we might follow Paul’s own treatment of the dinner table and the marriage bed, and take our cues from there for sleep and exercise as well.

Food and Marriage

Paul’s mention of “bodily training” in 1 Timothy 4:8 does not come out of the blue. In the previous paragraph, he warns Timothy about false teachers who (under demonic influence) forbid marriage and certain foods. They are ascetics who disavow the pleasures of good food and marital intercourse. Paul counters with creation and consecration (1 Timothy 4:1–5).

Creation: God created food and marriage, and he means for those who believe and know the truth (Christians) to receive them with thanksgiving. As Creator, he gives all. As creatures, we receive and enjoy the goodness of his gifts and should give him thanks that he may be honored.

Consecration: God means for us to enjoy his gifts (1) according to what he himself says about food and sex (“by the word of God”) and (2) through our speaking back to him (“and prayer”) in light of his word. This prayer would include words of gratitude to him as well as requesting that he would sanctify our use of his gifts — that he would make the enjoyment of them holy, occasions of serving both physical and spiritual needs. We consecrate our meals and our marriage to him so that he might use these common kindnesses beyond what good they bring to nonbelievers.

From here, Christians might cultivate habits of Scripture intake and prayer that would not only refine their understanding of food and marriage but also use these physical aspects of bodily life for the advance, and not detriment, of the soul.

Sleep and Exercise

Now, expand that to include sleep and exercise. Piper encourages Christians to use the physical world in such a way that our spiritual joy is “more intense and more constant” (183).

That’s amazing! I wonder if you’ve ever thought of it like that. We pursue joy in God not only with an open Bible, on our knees, and gathered in corporate worship. We also can honor God in our bodies by making use of them in our pursuit of joy in him.

Take exercise. Piper notes that “consistent exercise has refining effects on our mental and emotional stability” (203). And I speak from years of experience that while physical exercise does not, on its own, produce spiritual joy, it can indeed serve it. And a cascade of good effects follow (not just physical but spiritual) when sedentary humans get their bodies moving regularly and do some modest upkeep.

Or how about sleep? Here I have far more to learn, and I acknowledge there are some nights, and even rare seasons of life, when God calls us to sleep less. For instance, when parents have young children, particularly newborns, the call of love might leave us often without adequate sleep, even for some months. But few other seasons justify ignoring our creatureliness and the humbling fact that God made us to sleep. Faithful stewardship of our bodies requires rest, and proper sleep is indeed useful in the pursuit of spiritual joy. Says Piper,

For me, adequate sleep is not just a matter of staying healthy. It’s a matter of staying in the ministry — I’m tempted to say it’s a matter of persevering as a Christian. I know it is irrational that my future should look so bleak when I get only four or five hours of sleep several nights in a row. But rational or irrational, that is a fact. And I must live within the limits of facts. (205)

God made us for his goodness in meals and marriage, for the strain (and joy) of exercise and the recovery of sleep, that we might “make our bodies and minds as proficient as possible in their role as physical partners in perceiving the glory of God” (199). Your body matters in the fight for joy.

I love the old word equanimity. It’s almost fallen out of use today. Perhaps that’s because, in part, the reality has become increasingly rare. Equanimity is a term for composure, for emotional calmness and presence of mind, particularly in trying circumstances.

We’re living in times that condition us to overreact and explode, in a society that rewards outrage and outbursts. It’s never been easy for sinners to keep even tempers in trial, but present distresses summon us afresh to learn composure under pressure, how to “hold our peace” when the moment requires it, and give release to emotion in its proper time and place. Our families and churches and communities need leaders who have learned to keep their heads when others are losing theirs, to not lose control in anger or self-pity but keep a sober mind, and be, like our God, “slow to anger” (Exodus 34:6).

We need to bring equanimity back.

Non-Anxious Presence

The road-tested wisdom of Proverbs 16:32 whispers to those with ears to hear,

Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty,and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

“Our families and churches need leaders who have learned to keep their heads when others are losing theirs.”

Count “he who rules his spirit” as a biblical phrase for equanimity and holy composure. Note well, the wise man neither smites his spirit nor takes orders from it. He neither stuffs his emotions nor lets them play king. Rather, he rules his spirit. He learns how to keep his spirit cool, his temper even, in moments when fools get hot, weak kneed, and their passions carry the day.

This is not stoicism. Christians have long called this “self-control.” We aim not to be men without spirits but those who keep “a cool spirit” under duress, when the immature lose control. We do not discard our emotions (as if we could) or suppress them, but by God’s grace we seek to bring our spirit increasingly under the control of his Spirit.

Holy Calm

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) commends the “holy calm” of godly strength and praises the Spirit-empowered composure to which God calls his people and provides — and all the more in times volatile and easy agitated.

The strength of the good soldier of Jesus Christ appears in nothing more than in steadfastly maintaining the holy calm, meekness, sweetness, and benevolence of his mind, amidst all the storms, injuries, strange behavior, and surprising acts and events of this evil an unreasonable world. (Religious Affections, 278)

Foreign as “holy calm” and equanimity might seem in our frenetic and furious age, we are well aware of the present challenges to our composure — which Edwards names in language we could hardly update more than two hundred years later: “storms, injuries, strange behavior, and surprising acts and events of this evil and unreasonable world.”

Superlative Meekness

Yet Edwards not only commends “holy calm” in Christ’s soldiers. He presses deeper. He celebrates it in our captain and Lord himself. “In the person of Christ do meet together infinite majesty and transcendent meekness,” he writes, which are “two qualifications that meet together in no other person but Christ.”

Only God has infinite majesty; only in becoming man does Christ have meekness, “a virtue proper only to the creature.” In this meekness, Edwards says, “seems to be signified, a calmness and quietness of spirit, arising from humility in mutable beings that are naturally liable to be put into a ruffle by the assaults of a tempestuous and injurious world. But Christ, being both God and man, hath both infinite majesty and superlative meekness” (“Excellency of Christ”).

Who among us has not felt the temptation “to be put into a ruffle by the assaults” of our lives and age? And what comfort might we take that God himself, in the person of his Son, entered into our same “tempestuous and injurious world” and exhibited such an unusual and admirable “calmness and quietness of spirit”?

Sinless as he was, Jesus had his emotional moments as he dwelt among us. We do not presume he was “calm” when he took up a whip and cleared the temple with zeal, or when he wept at Lazarus’s tomb, or when he prayed, in anguish, in the garden, with loud cries and tears. Yet apart from a few exceptions, the Christ we encounter in the Gospels is strikingly calm. A man of equanimity indeed — a model of the kind of composure that we his people want to grow in, and can grow in, by the power of his Spirit.

Severely Injured and Remarkably Calm

For Edwards, such equanimity wasn’t theoretical. It was all too real, in fact. Years of injuries, strange behavior, and surprising acts in this evil, unreasonable world came to a head in the spring of 1750. His trial was his own congregation, the church he had pastored for twenty-five years. His own people dismissed him after a week of painful proceedings. However, from all surviving accounts, he never lost his composure.

Even though the church dismissed him for his spiritual views about church membership, they couldn’t help but commend his “christian spirit and temper.” As biographer George Marsden reports, “Edwards’ demeanor during these proceedings apparently was remarkably calm and helped earn him this affirmation even from his opponents. His supporters viewed him as simply saintly” (Jonathan Edwards: A Life, 361). One observer of the long, gut-wrenching process wrote,

I never saw the least symptoms of displeasure in his countenance the whole week, but he appeared like a man of God, whose happiness was out of the reach of his enemies, and whose treasure was not only a future but a present good, overbalancing all imaginable ills of life, even to the astonishment of many, who could not be at rest without his dismission.

Even as Edwards, before his God, received “these afflictions as a means of humbling him” — and he did suffer deeply, and had his own failings — he held his peace. He showcased an equanimity under strain that could not be pretended, a composure arising from decades of grounding and a happiness “out of the reach of his enemies,” from a treasure that was “not only a future but a present good” — that is, from looking to Equanimity himself, the preeminent man of God, and God-man, seated at his Father’s right hand.

Edwards — like Stephen, whose “face was like the face of an angel” (Acts 6:15) before his accusers — looked to that same face as church’s first martyr, who

full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:55–56)

Asleep in the Storm

No doubt, Edwards, like John Owen (1616–1683) before him, would have us “study Christ more,” not only to “recover spiritual life” when we find ourselves to have “decayed” spiritually, but also “to have an experience of the power . . . in our own hearts” that would feed composure and produce equanimity in trying times.

As we look habitually to Christ, as we find him communicated to us in the Gospels, we observe a man who is stunningly calm. What composure, what self-control, what holy equanimity he demonstrates again and again when failed by his disciples, interrupted by the infirm, imposed upon by the well-meaning, challenged by the sophisticated, and disrespected by the authorities. He even shows us what calm is possible in our own storms by what he did in a literal storm: he slept.

And when they woke him, he was not frantic but spoke stillness into the wind: “Peace. Be still.” And so the calm of his own spirit settled over the raging sea: “the wind ceased, and there was a great calm” (Mark 4:39).

Face of Composure

So too, as we look to Christ at the right hand of the Father, in glory, we see the one who not only modeled such composure in our own skin and setting, but now, with all authority in heaven and on earth, he upholds us and makes it possible for us to find the feet of composure.

“We cannot study the real Christ too much. We cannot look to him too often. We cannot meditate on him too much.”

Christ, as man, is not only our example of Christian equanimity. Seated on heaven’s throne, he is now God’s mediatorial king who, by his very reign, makes our progress in equanimity to be holy, rather than delusional. We not only follow him, imitating his calmness; we have faith in him as the world’s only unshakable footing for real and lasting composure. We can scarcely even begin to estimate what healing there is for the flighty, ruffled soul, what health and strength and stillness may be found in “the frequent actings of faith upon the person of Christ,” as Owen says.

Beholding the glory of our Lord — in his striking Gospels calmness and his present imperturbable equanimity — we are “transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). We cannot study the real Christ too much. We cannot look to him too often. We cannot meditate on him too much.

In coming as near to him as we can, and abiding in him as much as we are able, we will in time learn more of that holy stillness of soul, that godly composure, that glorious equanimity, and a thousand other graces besides.

In our first session, we dealt with the heart of pastoral ministry: working from joy for the joy of our people. Then in the second, we reflected on the two main tasks of pastor-elders: teaching and governing. Now, in this final session, I was asked to address two specific practical issues.

At first glance, “husband of one wife” and “not quarrelsome” might seem like a random pairing, but interestingly enough at least two threads hold them together. First, both are particularly countercultural today (one has been for a while; the other, all of a sudden). Also (and this was surprising to me), both were live issues in Ephesus in the first century, when Paul gave the list of qualifications in 1 Timothy 3. Warnings against quarrelsomeness and disordered relationships between men and women is the focus of chapter 2, which leads into the elder qualifications in chapter 3.

First, Paul addresses the men in 2:8, “I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.” Two quintessential dangers for men: anger and quarreling. May it not be so in the church. Then he turns to women in verses 9–15. Admittedly, the issues here are modest dress and proper submissiveness in the assembly, but we have here male-female, man-woman issues, which are related to (though not the same as) “husband of one wife.”

‘Husband of One Wife’

The qualification is literally “one-woman man” (miās gunaikos andra).

In 2015, Desiring God surveyed eight thousand of its users. The study found that ongoing pornography use was not only dreadfully common but increasingly higher among younger adults.

More than 15 percent of Christian men over age sixty admitted to ongoing use.
It was more than 20 percent for men in their fifties, 25 percent for men in their forties, and 30 percent for men in their thirties.
But nearly 50 percent of self-professing Christian men ages eighteen to twenty-nine acknowledged ongoing use of porn.

(The survey found a similar trend among women, but in lesser proportions: 10 percent of females ages eighteen to twenty-nine; 5 percent in their thirties; increasingly less for forties, fifties, and sixty-plus.)

Today the “one-woman man” may seem like an endangered species in some circles. In our oversexualized and sexually confused society, it may seem increasingly rare to come across married men who are truly faithful to their bride — in body, heart, and mind. It may seem even more rare to find unmarried men who are on the trajectory for that kind of fidelity to a future wife.

Of the fifteen basic qualifications for the office of elder in the local church, one-woman man may be the one that runs most against the grain of our society. We’re relentlessly pushed in precisely the opposite direction. Television, movies, advertising, social media, locker-room talk, and even casual conversations condition the twenty-first-century man to approach women as a consumer of many instead of the husband of one. The cultural icons teach our men to selfishly compromise and take rather than to carefully cultivate and guard fidelity to one woman.

But what’s rare in society is still easier to find, thank God, in biblically faithful churches. The true gospel is genuinely powerful and changes lives, even under such intense pressure from a world like ours. You can be pure. You can retrain your plastic brain. You can walk a different path by the power of God’s Spirit, even if that other path was once yours. In the company of others who enjoy pleasures far deeper than promiscuity, you can become the one-woman man our world needs.

For All Christians

Just because being a “one-woman man” is essential for church leaders does not mean it’s irrelevant for every Christian. The elder qualifications, as Don Carson says, are remarkable for being unremarkable. What’s demanded of church officers is not academic decoration, world-class intellect, and talents above the common man. Rather, the elders, as we’ve seen, are to be examples of normal, healthy, mature Christianity (1 Peter 5:3). The elder qualifications are flashpoints of the Christian maturity to which every believer should aspire and that every Christian, with God’s help, can attain in real measure.

God does not mean for us to relegate one-woman manhood to formal leaders. This is the glorious, serious, joy-filled calling of every follower of Christ. It’s a word for every Christian man (and every Christian woman to be a “one-man woman,” 1 Timothy 5:9). And it’s relevant for married and unmarried alike.

For Husbands and Bachelors

Clearly, “one-woman man” applies to married men. In faithfulness to the marriage covenant, the married man is to be utterly committed in mind, heart, and body to his one wife. Being a one-woman man has implications for where we go, whom we are with, how we interact with other women, what we do with our eyes, where we let our thoughts run, what we access on our computers and smartphones, how we use direct messaging, and what we watch on screen.

It’s also relevant for married men in the positive sense, not just the negative. A married Christian must not be a “zero-woman man,” living as though he isn’t married, neglecting to care adequately for his wife and family. If you’re married, faithfulness to the covenant requires your interests being divided (1 Corinthians 7:35), but only with your one woman.

Do you have to be married to be a one-woman man? The challenge to be a one-woman man applies not only to married men but to the unmarried as well. Are you a flirt? Do you move flippantly from one dating relationship to another? Do you enjoy the thrill of connecting emotionally with new women without moving with intentionality toward clarity about marriage?

Long before they marry, bachelors are setting (and revealing) their trajectory of fidelity. In every season of life and every relationship, however serious, they are preparing themselves to be one-woman men, or not, by how they engage with and treat the women in their lives.

Isn’t It ‘Husband of One Wife’?

At this point, you may be feeling the weight of this phrase “one-woman man” both for elder qualification and for Christian manhood in general. Don’t our English translations read “husband of one wife” in 1 Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:6? That seems like a clearer box to check. It’s either true or it’s not — you’re either married to one woman or more — without any of these questions about whether your eyes and mind might be wandering unfaithfully or if your connections are shady. And nothing that might apply to the unmarried.

In a previous generation, this may have been the most debated of the elder qualifications. Some take it to require that church leaders be married; others say it bars divorced men who have remarried; others claim it was designed specifically to rule out polygamy. But one problem, among others, with each of those interpretations is that they make the qualification digital — that is, plainly true or false — rather than analog, like every one of the other fourteen qualifications.

The traits for leadership in the local church are brilliantly designed to prompt the plurality of elders, and the congregation, to make a collective decision about a man’s readiness for church office. Sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable — these are analog and unavoidably subjective categories (not easy either-or questions) that require careful thought and evaluation.

I believe Paul intended us to read “one-woman man” as requiring the same spirit of discernment, not as a black-and-white, no-exceptions rule. Rather: Is this man today, so far as we know, through years of tested faithfulness, faithful to his one wife? Is he above reproach in the way he relates to women? Is he manifestly a one-woman man?

Ask Yourself

Brothers, ask yourself these questions, and be ruthlessly honest: Am I a one-woman man? What, if anything, in my life would call this into question? What habits, what relationships, what patterns do I need to bring into the light with trusted brothers, and ask God afresh to make me truly, deeply, gloriously, increasingly a one-woman man?

At the level of the public qualification, if you’re married, what is your reputation? Do people think of you — your speech, your conduct, your body language — as joyfully and ruthlessly faithful to your wife? Or might there be some question? Are you known for demonstrating self-control publicly and privately for the sake of the purity and fidelity of your marriage?

For the unmarried, what do your friendships and relationships look like with the opposite sex? Do you genuinely treat women “as sisters, in all purity” (1 Timothy 5:2)? Are you dabbling with pornography, trying to stop, but still allowing room for it? Or have you become tragically desensitized to impurity because of the boundaries being crossed on your screens? In your thought life, on the Internet, in your interactions, are you a one-woman man waiting for your one woman?

In Christ, we need not be satisfied with anything less. Try as hard as you can, you will not be satisfied. But in Christ, we are called to be one-woman men in a world that expects and encourages far less. And in Christ, you have the resources you need to see that fidelity become reality. This is what God expects and makes possible in the church and requires in its leaders.

And to end this section with a practical exhortation: Brothers, you are not a victim of your own heart. Seize it. Direct it. Renounce disordered desires. Resolve to cultivate new ones. How you handle your heart in individual moments forms a pattern that profoundly forms and shapes your plastic brain and desires. Do not pretend to adjust the fixed, objective world to your subjective, disordered desires.

Rather, take hold of your heart and tell it, “Heart, feel according to reality. Be shaped by truth. Learn to feel how you should feel about reality.” This is what wedding rings are for. They are fixed, objective, solid, near, on your very hand, to remind you of objective reality. You made an exclusive covenant. You vowed to her before God and your witnesses. Now, renounce sin, embrace righteousness, and grow your heart to flourishing within the life-giving tracks of the covenant.

Satan thrills to have you follow your sinful heart, whether you celebrate it full-on, like the world does, or whether you back into it by thinking there’s nothing you can do about it. Seize it in moments to form habits that mightily reform and reshape your heart over time. We tend to overestimate what we can do in the moment (and then get discouraged and give up), while we tend to underestimate what we can do, with God’s help, in the long run.

And all that happens within the matrix of God’s ongoing grace: his word, prayer for help, and accountability from brothers and your wife. This is not mere willpower, because God gave us his word and his Spirit. Word in hand, as your God-provided tool, and Spirit in you, go to work and conform your heart to reality.

‘Not Quarrelsome’

This brings us to “not quarrelsome.” Or, as the four-hundred-year-old King James Version (KJV) translates it with surprising timelessness, “not a brawler.” The best of the KJV qualifications are in verse 3: “Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler.” (And verse 7: “He must have a good report of them which are without.”)

Of the full list of fifteen, “not a brawler” is one of just four negative traits. Modern translations say “not quarrelsome” (ESV and NIV) or “not pugnacious” (NASB), but the language of the KJV has endured. We still know what a brawler is, and it doesn’t take much foresight to recognize what a problem it would be to have one as a pastor — or, God forbid, a whole team of brawlers.

However, a nuance that “not a brawler” may lack is the distinction between the physical and verbal dimensions of combat. This is the upside of the term “not quarrelsome.” In 1 Timothy 3, the physical (if there were any question) has been covered already: “not violent but gentle” (“no striker,” KJV). What’s left is the temperamental, and especially the verbal.

We all know by the war within us how the flesh of man finds itself at odds with the Spirit of God. By nature, we are prone to quarrel when we should make peace, and not to ruffle feathers when we should speak up. And in a day in which so many are prone to sharpness online and cowardice face-to-face, we need leaders who are “not quarrelsome” and at the same time have the courage to “reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Timothy 4:2). We need men who “contend for the faith” (Jude 3) without being contentious. We need pastors who are not brawlers — and yet know when (and how) to say the needful hard word.

We need men who know how to disagree without creating unnecessary division. We need pastors and elders with sober minds and enough self-control to avoid needless controversies, and with enough conviction and courage to move gently and steadily toward conflicts that await wise, patient leadership.

Men Who Make Peace

The flip side of the negative “not quarrelsome” would be the positive peaceable. Titus 3:2 is the only other New Testament use of the word we translate “not quarrelsome” (amachon): “Remind [Christians] . . . to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people” (Titus 3:1–2).

James 3, which warns, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness” (verse 1), also directs us to “the wisdom from above,” which is bookended by peace:

The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. (verses 17–18)

Healthy pastors are peacemakers at heart, not pugilists. Like Mufasa: “I’m only brave when I have to be. Simba, being brave doesn’t mean you go looking for trouble.” They don’t fight for sport; they fight to secure and defend true peace. They are not wolf hunters but competent defenders of the flock.

They know first and foremost — as Christ’s representatives to their people — that our God is “the God of peace” (Romans 15:33); our message, “the gospel of peace” (Ephesians 6:15). Our Lord Jesus himself made peace (Ephesians 2:15; Colossians 1:20) and “is our peace” (Ephesians 2:14), preaching “peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near” (Ephesians 2:17). Christian leaders want real peace — enough not to avoid the necessary conflict that may be required to secure real peace.

But making peace is not unique to Christian leaders. Rather, we insist on it in our leaders so that they model and encourage peacemaking for the whole church. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” said our Lord, “for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). “Let us pursue what makes for peace” (Romans 14:19). “Strive for peace with everyone” (Hebrews 12:14). “If possible, so far as it depends on you” — all of you who are members of the body of Christ — “live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18).

This kind of peacemaking means not only leading our flocks in preserving and enjoying peace but also in making the peace that first requires confrontation. Some controversies cannot be avoided, and we engage not because we simply want to fight and win, but because we want to win those being deceived, and protect the flock from their deception. God means for leaders in his church to have the kind of spiritual magnanimity to rise above the allure of petty disputes, and to press valiantly for peace and Christ-exalting harmony in places angels might fear to tread.

What Brawlers Fail to Do

Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus are particularly helpful in this regard, as the veteran apostle gives his counsel to younger leaders in the thick of church conflict.

Perhaps no single passage is more perceptive for leaders in times of conflict than 2 Timothy 2:24–26. More than any other, this charge expands what it means for pastors to be peaceable and “not quarrelsome.” Alongside 1 Peter 5:1–5, I would put this text as one of the most important words in all the Bible for church leaders:

The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

Paul fleshes out the negative “not quarrelsome” with four great positive charges.

First is “kind to everyone.” The presence of conflict does not excuse a lack of kindness. How pastors carry themselves in conflict is as important as engaging the right battles. And the Lord calls his servants not to be kind just to the sheep while treating potential wolves like trash, but to be “kind to everyone” — both to the faithful and to those who at present seem to be opponents.

Then comes “able to teach,” which, as we’ve seen, includes both ability and inclination (1 Timothy 3:2) and is the main trait that distinguishes pastor-elders (1 Timothy 3:1–7) from deacons (1 Timothy 3:8–13). In the previous verse (2 Timothy 2:23), Paul refers to “foolish, ignorant [apaideutos] controversies” — literally, “untaught” or “uneducated.”

How many conflicts in the church begin in, or are fueled by, honest ignorance, and need pastors to come in with kindness (not with guns blazing) to provide sober-minded clarity and instruction from God’s word? The people need patient teaching on the topic. Pastors, as we’ve seen, are fundamentally teachers, and Christ, the great Teacher, doesn’t mean for his undershepherds to put aside their primary calling when conflict arises. Conflict is the time when humble, careful, Bible-saturated teaching can be needed most.

Next is “patiently enduring evil.” Rarely do serious conflicts resolve as quickly as we would like. And whether some genuine evil is afoot or just an honest difference of opinion, good pastors lead the way in patience. That doesn’t mean resigning themselves to inaction, or letting conflict carry on needlessly without attention and modest next steps, but patiently walking the path of a process — not standing still and not bull-rushing the issue, but faithfully and patiently approaching the conflict one step at a time. The pastors should be the most patient and least passive men in the church — and therefore the most able to deal with conflict and make genuine peace.

The fourth and final charge from 2 Timothy 2 is “correcting his opponents with gentleness” (verse 25). In commending kindness, teaching, and patience, Paul doesn’t leave aside correction. God calls pastors to rightly handle his word (2 Timothy 2:15), which is profitable not only for teaching but for correction (2 Timothy 3:16). The goal is, first, protection of the flock from error, and then restoration of those in error “in a spirit of gentleness” (Galatians 6:1).

The pastor’s heart for peace, not mere polemics, comes out in the kind of soul that endures in needful conflict: we pray that “God may perhaps grant them repentance” (2 Timothy 2:25). We long for restoration, not revenge (Romans 12:19). We pray first for repentance, not retribution.

And we remember that the real war is not against flesh and blood — especially within the household of faith. There is a cosmic war that far outstrips any culture war. Our final enemy is Satan, not our human “opponents.” We want them to come to repentance — to “come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil” (2 Timothy 2:26) — through kindness, humble teaching, patience, and gentle correction — remembering that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). We do not first want to be rid of our opponents but to win them back from Satan’s sway.

Hardest on Themselves

How, then, do pastors pick their battles? What foolish controversies do they wisely avoid, and what conflicts require their courage to address kindly, patiently, and gently with humble teaching?

First, as we have noted again and again today, pastors do not work solo in the New Testament. Christ not only put teachers in charge of his churches, but a plurality of teachers. And he intends for countless prudential issues in pastoral work to be worked out in the context of a team of sober-minded, self-controlled, self-sacrificial leaders who check one another’s blind spots, and shore up each other’s weaknesses. Together, such men learn over time to be hardest on themselves, not their flock.

The heart of Christian leadership is not taking up privileges, but laying them down; not gravitating toward the easy work, but gladly crucifying personal comfort and ease to do the hard work to serve others; “not domineering over those in [our] charge, but being examples” of Christlike self-sacrifice for them (1 Peter 5:3).

When trying to discern between silly controversies to avoid and conflicts to engage with courage, pastors might ask:

Is this conflict about me — my ego, my preferences, my threatened illusion of control — or about my Lord, his gospel, and his church? In other words, is this for my glory or Christ’s? Am I remembering that my greatest enemy is not others, or even Satan, but my own indwelling sin?
What is the overall tenor of my ministry, and our shared ministry as a team? Is it one fight after another? Are there seasons of peace? Do I appreciate peace, or does it strangely make me nervous and send me looking for the next fight? Do I need conflict because I crave attention and drama? Is securing and then preserving Christian peace clearly my goal?
Am I going with or against my flesh, which inclines me to fight when I shouldn’t, and back down when I should kindly, patiently, gently engage? As the servant of the Lord, not self, am I avoiding petty causes that an unholy part of me wants to pursue, while taking on the difficult, painful, righteous, and costly causes that an unholy part of me wants to flee? And here we might ask about online versus “real life” in our own churches as well: Is this conflict actually my responsibility and objective calling in my church, or am I neglecting my real-life church to chase my curiosities online?
Am I simply angry at my opponents, desiring to show them up or expose them, or am I compassionate for them, genuinely praying that God would free them from deception and grant them repentance? Am I inclined to anger against them? Are tears for them even a possibility?

One last practical word here before we close. Let me mention Bob Yarbrough’s commentary on yet another place where Paul exhorts pastors to stay out of stupid tussles. First Timothy 4:7 says, “Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths.” Yarbrough writes,

Some ideas or proposals are so far beyond the pale of plausible that a pastor has no time or business giving them the dignity of extensive attention. This does not mean writing people off crudely. But overall, Paul’s view (and example) is to focus on and promulgate the truths of Christ and the faith, not to be distracted with undue attention to aberrant beliefs. There are contemporary analogies, for example, in conspiracy theories, so-called urban legends, and endless issue-oriented (and often polemical) blogs and websites from which most pastors find it wise to recuse themselves. (Pastoral Epistles, 238)

To be clear, this is not a reductionistic call for all pastors to stay off social media (though many find that wise). Rather, more holistically — in our preaching and teaching, our conversations and emails, our text messages and online comments — do we “focus on and promulgate the truths of Christ and the faith”?

Who Sets the Agenda?

Practically, then, one question to ask ourselves as pastors — about our preaching schedule, about our meeting agendas, about our conversations — is, Who sets the agenda? Is it the world? Is it what’s trending on Twitter? Is it the never-ending flow of daily news that keeps us from giving our limited attention to what’s most important and enduringly relevant? Is it the latest error you’ve been made aware of in a famous church or Christian spokesman far, far away? Or is it even the loudest, most immature voices in our own church?

When Yarbrough mentions Paul’s “example” in the quote above, he adds this footnote:

It is an ongoing source of scholarly frustration that Paul is not more specific about the names and views of his opponents. He tends to focus on what he holds to be true and redemptive rather than allow gospel detractors to set the agenda for his remarks or exhaust his energies in venting so as to profile them.

Paul focuses on what he holds to be true and redemptive — and he does not “allow gospel detractors to set the agenda.” That is a good word for pastors in the Information Age. To be clear, it’s not that gospel detractors don’t inform Paul’s ministry. Indeed they do. We have thirteen letters from Paul that give evidence to his being seriously informed by, and aware of, quite a number of grave errors in his day. However, being aware of error, and responding to error through a “focus on what [we hold] to be true and redemptive,” is a far cry from letting error set the agenda.

God means for his ministers, together, by his Spirit, to strike the balance, dynamic as it can be. We can learn to avoid foolish controversies and move wisely toward genuine conflicts. We can be unafraid of disagreements while not creating divisions. In a world of haters, trolls, and brawlers, we are to be men, set apart by Christ to lead his church, who fight well, in love, for peace.

Brothers, we have a countercultural calling in this age, not only as pastors but as Christians. Don’t give in. Don’t coast. Don’t let the world take your lunch. Save both yourself and your hearers. “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock” (Acts 20:28). “And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory” (1 Peter 5:4).