"Do not hurry to lay hands on anyone [ordaining and approving someone for ministry or an office in the church, or in reinstating expelled offenders], and thereby share in the sins of others; keep yourself free from sin."
1 Timothy 5:22
What is Laying On Of Hands? Laying on of hands is a Biblical principle of commissioning people into the work of ministry. In Acts 6:5-6, the Bible recorded that Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolas were all ordained this way. Also in Acts 13:2-3, the Bible says Barnabas and Saul, who later became the apostle Paul were laid hands on and they were sent to go kick start the work of the ministry. So, laying hands on people to commission them officially into the work of the ministry is Biblical and it is normal and acceptable anywhere in the world.
Listen To Podcast: THE MINISTER AND LAYING ON OF HANDS
Now, I know that as ministers of the gospel, one of the things we want to do and love to do as well, is to start reproducing young ministers after our kind. The moment we have been commissioned into the ministry, we want to have followers who would refer to us as "My father in the Lord" or "My mother in the Lord." That is actually a good thing. But the challenge is this: many of these people we ordain and commission into the work, we don't even take our time to do our due diligence on them, knowing who they are and what they stand for, before we approve them for ministry. And so sometimes, some of these people end up messing up the work, and their errors one way or the other gets back to us.
So, in order to avoid that, apostle Paul warned Timothy not to hurriedly approve people into the work of ministry because it is not everyone who love to do ministry that has that good motive in going into the ministry. There are some in ministry who are just hirelings and not true ministers of the gospel. Many of them don't have love for God nor for the things for God, but they are in ministry just for the most mundane reasons. Jesus spoke about these set of people in John 10:11-13. He says: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. 12 But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. 13 The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep."
The hirelings don't care about the sheep (the people of God), all the hirelings want is to make money off the ministry and so, he or she will do all he can to make the money and then move on. And so, if the minister of the gospel is not discerning enough, he or she would have commissioned an hireling into the work of the ministry, thinking that they would be good instruments in the hands of God. So, why did the apostle Paul admonished Timothy not to hastily lay hands on anyone? Let's find out why!
He said Timothy would be partaker of the sins of those ones. In other words, those who commissioned such people into the ministry, when those commissioned eventually show their true colors, their so called father and mother in the Lord would also be blamed for whatever errors they commit. I remember so many years ago in the church I was attending back then, the pastor of the church had commissioned and ordained a particular young man at the time to become a minister of the church. As good and respectable as this man of God was, he boasted about this brother on the altar, telling the congregation that the supposed brother is fit for the work of the gospel.
Not long from that time, this brother was exposed about how he has been sleeping with young ladies in the church and the matter immediately became a public knowledge. It was really an embarrassing period for the church, the brother, and the man of God who ordained and commissioned this brother into the ministry. Whether we like it or not, even though the man of God is not complicit in the illicit affairs that this brother was perpetuating on the ladies in the church, the man of God cannot be totally absolved from the matter because he commissioned this brother into the work of the ministry without doing his due diligence on him and be discerning enough to know what manner of man he was.
So, this is why apostle Paul wrote to Timothy that if he goes ahead to approve all manner of people for the work of ministry, if anything goes wrong in the future, he would be complicit in the sins of those ones. So, before you approve someone into the work of ministry, can you vouch for such people? Have you done your due diligence on them? Do you truly know them? Because if the unexpected happen in the process, you as the minister who commissioned them will also take the fall for it.
Where Does Ethics Come Into Play?
As a spiritual father or a spiritual mother or a mentor, knowing people very well, doing your due diligence on them before you ordain them for the work of ministry is a matter of ethics. Because if spiritual fathers and mothers have done their due diligence well on their spiritual sons and daughters, maybe we would have little or no drama that we see happen in the body of Christ every now and then about men of God engaging in immoral sexual activities with their church members, issues of pastor raping church members or issues of men of God stealing church funds.
I believe we have been blessed!
Thanks for the gift of your time, I am Obayomi Abiola Benjamin!
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