Qualifications for Overseers and Deacons

Here is a trustworthy saying:(A) Whoever aspires to be an overseer(B) desires a noble task. Now the overseer is to be above reproach,(C) faithful to his wife,(D) temperate,(E) self-controlled, respectable, hospitable,(F) able to teach,(G) not given to drunkenness,(H) not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome,(I) not a lover of money.(J) He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full[a] respect.(K) (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?)(L) He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited(M) and fall under the same judgment(N) as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders,(O) so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap.(P)

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Footnotes

  1. 1 Timothy 3:4 Or him with proper

This is a true saying: If anyone desires the office of an overseer, he desires a worthy work.

Therefore, an overseer must be blameless - the husband of one wife, sober, temperate, modest, a lover of strangers, able to teach -

neither a drunkard nor a brawler nor given to greed, but gentle, peace-loving and without avarice.

One who rules his own house well, having obedient children under him with all respect.

For if anyone cannot rule his own house, how shall he care for the Church of God?

He may not be a young scholar, lest he (being puffed up) falls into the condemnation of the devil.

He must also be of good reputation, even among outsiders, lest he fall into rebuke and the snare of the devil.

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