1 Timothy 5:22

In Scripture to lay hands on another is the sign of fellowship, rather than the communication of authority as Christendom teaches. A false generosity can look big-hearted while it carelessly extends fellowship to people who are going a wrong way. In this way we may put our approval on evil and share in other men's sins. We are to keep ourselves pure, an instruction that clearly proves our associations can defile us.

There was also the laying on of hands as the induction to office, as Moses laid his hands on Joshua, and gave him a charge from the Lord as his successor. The apostles also laid hands on the men chosen to take charge of the poor, Acts 6:6... Hands were laid on Paul and Barnabas as a mark of commendation and fellowship when they were sent out on their missionary journey. Acts 13:3... The sick were often cured by the laying on of hands. Christendom has copied this apostolic action and badly misused it, claiming that it gives a man a status and passes on spiritual blessing. If people treated it as a simple recognition and mark of fellowship in service, it would be a scriptural act.

Scripture never once says that hands were laid on elders. Hands were laid on Timothy, and even the elders joined in doing so, when the apostle conveyed the gift of God that was given then. Hands were laid on Barnabas and the apostle himself when prophecy named them for a special mission... it takes extreme and ignorant prejudice to confuse either of these very different cases of laying on hands with eldership, or even with what people call ordination.

Scripture never says so, yet I do not doubt that hands were laid on elders, and that 1 Timothy 5:22 includes them. But the verse is not only about them.

Even when only the ceremony of laying on of hands is in view, the passage points to discernment and responsibility... Timothy was not to lay hands hastily on anyone. So it was a matter of discernment on his part, and of grave responsibility about the man he backed with his solemn approval. That makes the meaning of what follows very plain. If he did it lightly, and the man was unfit for this charge, Timothy would have his share in the evil that man might do.

Suppose a man he had laid hands on then walked badly. Timothy would be involved in the evil, though he never meant to be, because he had put the man in a position that carried his approval. This leads the apostle to add, "The sins of some people are conspicuous, going before them to judgment." Everyone can see them. Like messengers sent ahead, they announce the judgment waiting for those who commit them. The sins of other men were more hidden, but they would still come out into the open... Since sins can stay hidden, Timothy was to be careful about laying hands on people who came to him for this.

Then follows the closing appeal: "Keep yourself pure." Wycliffe and the Rheims Version limit this last word to chastity, but that is only part of what the apostle presses on Timothy. Purity in Timothy himself would better guard him against careless, formal approval of men. Such men would do great damage to the flock of God, or dishonour the Master by abandoning the work out of love for the present age.

If I do not know the individual either personally or by reputation I may find myself identified with sins I did not suspect. To accept him in fellowship in the work of the Lord or in the worship of the Lord would make me a partner in what he practises. This is a more serious matter than even saints of God generally think.