The pastor of the church also is under that rule. If somebody comes to him and says, there is an office bearer in the church who he thinks has done this or done that, the pastor is not even to give it a second thought, unless it is sufficiently well established to be supported in the mouths of two or three witnesses. Why is that? Because the word of God is teaching that, because of their work, Satan will be against elders or deacons or any office bearers, who are striving prominently in the work of God. Therefore he may well orchestrate and engineer gossip against them and get people worked up and upset trivially and unnecessarily, misunderstanding them and so on. Satan will be seeking to bring them down or to bring their work to a halt and therefore the matter has got to be serious enough to have impressed itself upon two or three at least before you receive any of it. That applies to the pastor of the church.
It also applies to every man or woman in the church. If somebody comes to you and says, do you know this leader in the church has done such and such a thing, you have a biblical duty not to entertain that for one moment, unless it is well established enough for two or three people to know about it and to have directly witnessed it. This is a simple provision to protect the leadership in the church. Not to over-protect them, but to protect them to a degree that is necessary, because their work depends upon what for want of another term we call honour. Their work depends upon it. If they are undermined by empty rumour and empty gossip and unsubstantiated things, then theoretically a single person in a church, who had an unpleasant mind and wrong motives, could work around the church and be taken very seriously and listened to by all the church concerning something that was completely invented. As a result, that deacon’s, elder’s, or pastor’s capacity to function would be completely undermined, because people would be saying to themselves, ‘We know what this person does, or has done’, and it is untrue; it is unsubstantiated. No, if a thing has really happened, and something is really wrong or untoward or inappropriate, then two or three people at least will know about it and will properly take it to the fellow office bearers or to the pastor. And then, of course, the Scripture says to Timothy as a prototype pastor, you must deal with it, and you must investigate it without any partiality. Both sides are mentioned in these verses. The leadership has got to be kept on the rails and pure, but it's also got to be given some protection from unworthy tittle-tattle, which will undermine it.