JOIN THE JOURNEY JR.
Families Abiding in Jesus together
With shorter reading assignments and kid-specific focus areas, Join The Journey Jr. is designed to help parents disciple their kids and engage with Scripture in the best ways for their age.
This month's memory verse
Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.
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He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.
Titus’s Work in Crete
5I left you on the island of Crete so you could complete our work there and appoint elders in each town as I instructed you. 6An elder must live a blameless life. He must be faithful to his wife,* and his children must be believers who don’t have a reputation for being wild or rebellious. 7A church leader* is a manager of God’s household, so he must live a blameless life. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered; he must not be a heavy drinker,* violent, or dishonest with money.
8Rather, he must enjoy having guests in his home, and he must love what is good. He must live wisely and be just. He must live a devout and disciplined life. 9He must have a strong belief in the trustworthy message he was taught; then he will be able to encourage others with wholesome teaching and show those who oppose it where they are wrong.
In Acts 20, as Paul is getting ready to leave the church in Ephesus, he gave the “elders” of the Ephesian church instructions on how to live and lead the church. This gives us an important question to ask: what is an elder?
An elder is a church leader who watches over and cares for God’s people in that church. The elders of a church help lead, guide, and instruct the people in following Jesus. In Acts 20, Paul was giving the elders at Ephesus instructions on how to lead the church when he left. It was important that the churches had good men leading them so the gospel would continue to spread and more people would get to know Jesus.
Who could be an elder? Well, Paul wrote to the Cretan church about who could become an elder in Titus 1.
Read Titus 1:5-9 and practice active reading by doing the two items below.
The biggest responsibility that elders have is found in verse 9. They are responsible to know God’s Word very well, teach it to the people, and correct people who go against what his Word teaches.
That’s a lot of responsibility! But Paul knew it was good for there to be people in charge of the church who would lead people closer to Jesus.
So what can this teach us? Well, as kids, you can’t be elders right now. But one day, when you’ve grown up, the church will need new elders and leaders to help build up the church. And you could be part of that!
But you don’t have to wait until you’re grown up to start practicing what an elder does. Look back at your list from Titus 1:5-9. Things like being patient, not quick-tempered, self-controlled, and hospitable aren’t just “elder skills.” They’re characteristics God wants to grow in you right now, at school, at home, with your friends.