Every year my alma mater, Princeton Seminary, honors somebody from a previous class. Four or five years ago, they honored a pastor from Seoul, Korea, the pastor of probably the largest Presbyterian church in the world, with some 40,000 members.

During an interview, the pastor was asked, "How do you elect elders for a church of that size?" The room was filled with Presbyterian pastors, and we all have elders in session.

"Well", he said, "we give an examination for prospective elders."

The interviewer pressed him. "What do you examine them on?"

"We examine them on four great topics. We examine them on Bible theology, and church history." Everybody was nodding in agreement up to then. When he came to his fourth point, the audience roared: "And we also examine them on common sense."

I wish every church examined their elders and pastors on those four, especially the last! We certainly don't need hysterical Christians running around everywhere, do we? We don't need people putting out fires in the midst of a flood. We need people with common sense.