
Request your free, three-month trial to Tabletalk magazine. You’ll receive the print issue monthly and gain immediate digital access to decades of archives. This trial is risk-free. No credit card required.
Try Tabletalk NowAlready receive Tabletalk magazine every month?
Verify your email address to gain unlimited access.
1 Timothy 4:14
“Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you.”
Possessing a sense of internal calling is important both for identifying the vocation to which God has called us and for persevering in it. After all, this fallen world introduces difficulties into every vocation, and it is much harder to continue in a vocation when difficulties arise if a person has no sense that God has called him to that work. Whether we are talking about the call to ordained ministry or the call to another work or office, the internal calling often manifests itself as a desire for the specific vocation in view (see 1 Tim. 3:1).
Despite the importance of the internal call to ministry, Christian thinkers throughout history have recognized that an individual’s desire for ministry or belief that he is called to a particular vocation is not enough to confirm a calling from God. Thus, the church has also spoken of the necessity of the external call. The external call is the wider church’s recognition of a person’s giftings for a particular vocation, and it is commonly associated with the call to be a preacher or church elder. As with the internal call to ministry, however, the principle of the external call can have wider application. To put it simply, if God has truly called a person to a particular vocation, someone besides that person will recognize it.
We can find the external call to ministry described throughout Scripture, including today’s passage. Paul describes in 1 Timothy 4:14 the ordination of Timothy to vocational ministry, describing how the young man received a gift from God when “the council of elders laid their hands” on him. The laying on of hands in this case represents the leaders of the church formally recognizing that Timothy had been appointed by the Lord as a leader in His church. By placing their hands on Timothy, the leaders of the church made a public declaration of his calling. When this occurred, Timothy also received a gift from the Holy Spirit. The Apostle does not specifically identify that gift, but we may assume that it was a gift to equip him for ministry, perhaps a gift related to teaching or administration.
Later in the epistle, Paul warns Timothy not to be too hasty in the laying on of hands (5:22). The church should not be quick to extend an external call to a man who seems to be gifted by God for ministry but is to observe his character and teaching. More than anything else, an elder is to be a man of godliness (see 3:2–7), but godliness becomes evident only over time.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
The church must take its time when it is evaluating a man for ministry, since disaster can result when the church appoints to office a talented man who does not possess the right character. None of us should be appointing ourselves to ministry, whether it is to formal ordained ministry or to informal service in the church. If the church is not affirming our sense of call, we likely have not been called by God to the task we desire.
For further study
- Genesis 41:1–46
- 1 Samuel 3
- Galatians 2:1–10
- Hebrews 5:4
The bible in a year
- Psalms 25–27
- Acts 20:17–38