1 Timothy 3
McGeeCHAPTER 3THEME: Officers in the churches
1 Timothy 3:1
REQUIREMENTS OF ELDERS"This is a true saying" could be translated, “This is a faithful saying.” In other words, this is a saying that stands the test of time; it is one you can depend upon. “If a man desire the office of a bishop” means if a man seeks the office of a bishop. This has in it the thought that there will be the active seeking of the office. I believe that a man who has the qualifications ought to seek the office. He ought to want a place where he can use the gift that the Spirit of God has given him. If the Spirit of God has not given him the gift and is not leading him, then it would be a tragedy indeed if a man sought the office of bishop. This also suggests that there was not just one bishop in the church, but there were several. “The office of a bishop.” Bishop is a word that has been misinterpreted and interpreted differently by different groups. Those who practice the episcopal form of church government put great emphasis upon this word and its interpretation. Bishop actually means “an overseer, a superintendent.” In the early church the pastor was called by several different titles: (1) he was called a presbyter, or elder; (2) he was called a pastor, or shepherd; (3) he was called a bishop, or an overseer; and (4) he was called a minister. The pastor was never called “reverend,” and I don’t think any preacher should be so called. Reverend means “terrible, that which incites terror.” It is a name which applies only to God. I take the position that the terms elder and bishop refer to the same person. Those who hold to the episcopal form of church government will, of course, disagree with me altogether. I believe that the use of “elder” (presbuteros in the Greek) refers to the person who holds the office, and it suggests that he must be a mature Christian. On the other hand, the use of “bishop” (episkopos in the Greek) refers to the office that is held. Therefore, these two words apply to the same individual or office. A bishop in the early church never had authority over other bishops or elders. He did not have authority over churches. You do not find such a practice presented in the Word of God. Even Paul, who founded a number of churches, never spoke of himself as the bishop of a church, or as the one who was ruling a church in any way whatsoever. Therefore, the minister is one who is to serve the church, not rule over it. “He desireth a good work"he is seeking a place where he can serve in the church.
1 Timothy 3:2
We have given here the positive requirements of an elderthe things he ought to be. “Blameless.” The thing that must be understood is that you will be blamed for things if you hold an office, any office, in the church. What is important is that the accusation must not be true. An elder must be blameless in the sense that he will not be found guilty of anything of which he might be accused. Shortly after I had been called to a pastorate in downtown Los Angeles, I met Dr. James McGinley in Chicago. He asked me, “How do you like being pastor in that great church?” “Well,” I said, “it’s a marvelous opportunity, but I find myself in a very unique place: I am accused of many things, and I can’t defend myself. You cannot spend all your time answering everybody, so I’ve determined to just preach the Word of God and not try to answer them.” Dr. McGinley said, “Just rejoice that the things you are accused of are not true.” It is nice to be in that position, and that should be the position of a bishopblameless: accused, but not guilty. “The husband of one wife.” This can be interpreted two ways. It could mean that he ought to be married. I feel that Paul had this in mind. You may say, “Well, Paul was not married.” I take the position that Paul had been married and his wife had died. He could not have been a member of the Sanhedrin without being married. He simply had not married again, perhaps because of his travels as an apostle. When I first became a pastor I was not married and I was frequently kidded by a friend who said I had no right to be a pastor if I wasn’t married. Using this verse, he would say, “You should be the husband of one wife.” However, I think that the primary meaning here is that the bishop or elder should not have two wives. Polygamy was common in Paul’s day, and bigamy was certainly prevalent. The officer in the church should be the husband of one wife. “Vigilant” means temperate. The elder should be calm and not credulous. He should be a man who knows how to keep his cool. “Sober” means sober-minded or serious. He means business. This does not mean an elder cannot have a sense of humor, but he should be serious about the office which he holds. “Of good behaviour.” An elder should be orderly in his conduct. He doesn’t do questionable things. I knew a minister who got himself into a great deal of difficulty because of his careless actions. The rumors were that he had had an affair with a woman in his congregation. I’m confident from all the information that came to me from several sources that he was not guilty, but he certainly had been careless in his conduct. He was a young minister, and often at church social gatherings, he would kiddingly say that he was going to take another man’s wife home.
He would take her, leave her off at her door, and then go on to his home. All this was done with a great deal of kidding, but it caused some people to raise their eyebrows and start talking. My feeling is that the conduct of an officer or a minister should be absolutely above reproach. Kidding is fine, but it should not lead to questionable activity. “Given to hospitality” means that an elder is to be a hospitable individual. He is the type of fellow who invites his preacher or others out to lunch. I’ve always liked fellows like that and have had the privilege in recent years of meeting many wonderful and hospitable laymen in my travels all over the country. One will come and put his arm around me and say, “Now can I help you in some way? Is there anything I can do?” They do things like having a bowl of fruit or a bouquet of flowers sent to my hotel room where I happen to be staying. One time in San Diego I broke off a capped tooth, and a doctor friend recommended a dentist there. That dentist is such a wonderful man I still go all the way to San Diego for my dental care. Such hospitable men can be found all across our country. “Apt to teach.” This is something I emphasize, because I do not feel any man ought to be an elder in a church unless he can teach the Word of God. I used to say to my church officers that I wished it was possible to give a theological exam to each one of them to determine if he was qualified to be an officer. I never actually did that, but I always thought it would be a good idea.
1 Timothy 3:3
Now we come to the negative qualificationsthe things an elder should not be. “Not given to wine"he should not be a drunkard. “No striker"not violent or pugnacious. “Not greedy of filthy lucre.” He shouldn’t have a love of money. The love of money is a root of all evil we are told in Scripture (1Ti_6:10). The way a church officer handles his money can lead him into a great deal of troubleeither his own money or the church’s money. “Patient” means reasonable. He should be a reasonable man, someone you can talk to or reason with. “Not a brawler.” He should not be a contentious person. Men who are constantly stirring up trouble in a church should never be selected as church officers. “Not covetous” again refers to the love of money, but it also suggests idolatry, actually the worship of money. He should not be a man who puts the pursuit of wealth above everything else.
1 Timothy 3:4
An elder should have the authority in his own homewithout being a dictator.
1 Timothy 3:5
A man does not know how to rule the house of God if he cannot rule his own home.
1 Timothy 3:6
“Not a novice” means not a recent convert, not someone who has recently been saved. Sometimes a man is converted one week, and the next week he is made a church officer or asked to give his testimony. He is not ready for it. This is a caution that needs to be heeded today. I had the privilege for several years of teaching a Bible study group of Christians in Hollywood. It was natural for them to want to push to the front some prominent personality who had recently made a decision for Christ. However, the cause of Christ is hurt when those who are young in the faith attempt to speak on matters of doctrine about which they are not knowledgeable. “Lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.” Pride was the Devil’s great sin. Also it is often the sin of officers in the church and of preachers. It is a danger for all of us, but it is reprehensible when it is in the church.
1 Timothy 3:7
“Them which are without” means those who are outside the church. In other words, if a man has a bad reputation on the outsideif he doesn’t pay his bills, is untrustworthy, or is a liarhe immediately is not a candidate to be an officer in the church. If he is such a man he is really a candidate of the Devilhe would better represent the Devil than he would represent the cause of Christ.
1 Timothy 3:8
REQUIREMENTS OF DEACONSThe word that is translated “deacon” here is the same word that is sometimes translated as “minister.” Paul and Apollos are called deacons. The Lord Jesus is called a minister in Mat_20:28. In Rom_13:4 government officials are called ministers, and in 2Co_11:15 ministers of Satan have the word applied to them. Deacon or minister, therefore, is a general term for a servant or a worker. We think of the account in Acts 6 as giving the occasion when the office of deacon began in the early church. However, the Greek word for deacon is not even used there. But I’m confident we have scriptural grounds to say that those men were being appointed as deacons in the church. A deacon, although he deals with the material matters of the church, should be a spiritual man. We have a problem today when we appoint a man as a deacon on the basis of physical rather than spiritual qualifications. We think that because a man is a successful businessman he will make a good deacon. There are too many men who are appointed to office on that basis. I have attempted to emphasize in 1 Timothy that the local church is an organization that needs to make itself manifest in the community, and in doing so it gets right down where the rubber meets the road. It must deal with the problems of a building, supplying heat and light, and a lot of material issues that don’t seem very romantic. However, the important matter is still that a church is to have a spiritual ministry in the community. We often put the material qualifications first, but the men who are in office must have the spiritual qualifications for their office. Someone has put it like this: “When a church ceases to be in touch with another world, she is no longer in touch with this one.” I agree with that 100 percent. Until the spiritual aspects are emphasized, a church cannot accomplish the material and practical functions down here. The deacons, therefore, are to have certain spiritual qualifications. “Grave"he should be a man of dignity. “Not double-tongued.” A deacon should not be two-faced. A man’s word should amount to something. It can be dangerous when a man tries to please everybody or doesn’t have the courage to stand on his own two feet. There is a fine balance between being a Mr. Milquetoast and being a dictator. An officer in the church needs to be somewhere between those two. “Not given to much wine.” I take this just as it is: the Bible teaches temperance, and that is important to see. I do not think the Bible teaches total abstinence because there weren’t many medicines in those days and wine was used as medicine. In 1Ti_5:23 Paul encourages Timothy to use a little wine for his stomach’s sake. Even today many of the medicines we take contain a high percentage of alcohol. The problem we encounter with alcohol in our day is the way it is used as a beverage, and I feel that the church should teach total abstinence because the abuse of alcohol is so prevalent. I do not believe that a Christian should use alcohol as a refreshment or a drink. “Not greedy of filthy lucre.” This means that a deacon should not have an insatiable love of money. He should be a man of integrity and should handle the money of the church in an honest way. There is nothing that can hurt a church more than the accusation that the deacons are juggling the finances. Money given to a church for a specific cause needs to be carefully alloted to the intended cause. I have discovered in my experience in the ministry that most of the churches I know are run by men of high integrity, but it is that small minority of dishonest men who are muddying the waters and causing difficulty. If there is one thing a church ought to be able to present to the world it is the fact that it is honest and holds a place of high integrity in financial matters.
1 Timothy 3:9
“The mystery of the faith” means the revelation of the gospel of Christ. When Paul says “the faith” he is not speaking of the abstract quality of faith, but of the doctrines of the faith. He speaks of it as a “mystery” because these doctrines were not revealed in the Old Testament but are now revealed in the New Testament. We are told in Acts that the early church “continued in the apostles’ doctrine.” The apostles’ doctrine was “the faith” of the early church. It should be the faith of the church today, and the church needs to represent that faith before the world. There are a great many people who think the faith is outmoded and needs to be changed. An editorial in one of our national magazines a number of years ago supported this idea by suggesting an updated list of the “seven deadly sins.” Their new list included selfishness, intolerance, indifference, cruelty, violence, and destructiveness. The list replaced lust, of course, with prudery. Lust was replaced, they said, because it had become as commonplace as the neighborhood newsstand or cinema. Gluttony was not included because it was considered a cholesterol problem but not a theological one. Words like covetousness and sloth were deemed antiquated.
The article noted that different segments of society have different concepts of what constitutes sin. For example, young people would have placed irrelevance and hypocrisy high on their list of sins, but destructiveness would not have been included unless it meant only destructiveness of the environment. Similarly, elderly people would want noise, hair, and incivility included on their list. Some would argue that the new list simply contained old sins under new names. For example, selfishness had merely replaced covetousness. The article contended that the old names were obsolete and needed changing if sin was to retain any contemporary, moral force at all.
It concluded by affirming that sin is a concept well worth saving! I would emphatically agree that sin is a concept worth saving, but I must insist also that sin has in no way changed. What the Bible calls sin is still sin. Human nature is still human nature. The spiritual qualifications which the Bible lays down for church officers must still hold good today if the church is to represent the Lord Jesus Christ here on this earth. The church and its officers must hold to New Testament doctrine, calling sin the sins which are clearly labeled as such in the Word of God. “In a pure conscience"not with the conscience that has been seared with a hot iron (see 1Ti_4:2).
1 Timothy 3:10
A man should not be shoved into office a month after he joins a church and before he has proved that he is the type of man that Scripture has described here. Now Paul has a word about the wives of deacons. They must measure up to certain standards also.
1 Timothy 3:11
“Grave"they should be serious, able to be calm and cool. “Not slanderers” means they are not to be gossips. A gossipy deacon’s wife can cause much trouble in the church. “Sober,” again, is sober-minded. “Faithful in all things.” She should be faithful to her husband, to Christ Himself, and to His cause.
1 Timothy 3:12
The deacons are to meet the same personal and family requirements that were given for the elders.
1 Timothy 3:13
“Good degree” could be read “good standing.” In other words, a deacon who serves well will become known as a man who is to be trusted. “Boldness” means confidence and courage in witnessing. Remember that a deacon primarily has a spiritual office. I remember the case of one man who was a deacon and was asked to take the office of an elder. Well, he didn’t think he was spiritual enough or knew the Bible well enough to be an elder. If that was true, then he should not have been a deacon either, but he had been selected a deacon because he was a successful businessman. The spiritual requirements should be met by both elders and deacons before they are allowed to represent the church of Christ.
1 Timothy 3:14
REPORT OF PAUL TO TIMOTHYPaul was in Macedonia, and Timothy was in Ephesus. Paul was hoping to be able to join Timothy shortly.
1 Timothy 3:15
I have selected this as the key verse of this epistle because 1 Timothy is a book about church order. While he is away Paul writes, “I’ve written this to you so you will know how to act in the house of God.” “The church of the living God"Paul is speaking to the church that is the church. “The pillar and ground of the truth.” “Pillar” means the stay, the prop, or that which is foundational. What Paul is saying is that the church is the pillar, the bedrockit is the prop and support of the truth. If the officers do not represent the truth, the church has no foundation, no prop, and it cannot hold up the truth of God. Some men purport to represent the truth, but they actually do not represent the truth in the way they lead their lives. I knew a deacon once who carried the biggest Bible I have ever seen. Every time you saw him he was weighed down on one side carrying that Bible. But he was a man you couldn’t depend uponthere was a question about his integrity. He hurt the church he served and brought it into disrepute. Paul is writing to tell the church how it should act so that it can represent and proclaim the truth of God to the world on the outside.
1 Timothy 3:16
This verse probably constitutes one of the earliest creeds of the church. Some think that it was one of the songs of the early church. “Without controversy"means confessedly, or obviously. “Great is the mystery of godliness.” The mystery of godliness is that God in the person of Jesus Christ entered this world in which we live, paid the penalty of sin, and is making men and women godlythat is, with Godlikeness. “God was manifest in the flesh.” Certainly Paul is teaching the virgin birth of Christ, but he is also speaking of Christ’s existence before His incarnation. That existence was spiritual: He was “…in form of God …” (Php_2:6). Hebrews speaks of Christ as “…being the brightness [effulgence] of his [God’s] glory, and the express image of his person …” (Heb_1:3). The Lord Jesus Himself said, “God is a Spirit …” (Joh_4:24). Now from this condition as Godnot seen with human eyesChrist came into manifestationinto sightin the flesh. He became a man and entered into human conditions. And under these human conditions the attributes of His essential spiritual personality were veiled. This is the thought John gives in his gospel: “…The Word was made [became] flesh.” He was born flesh “and dwelt [pitched His tent here] among us …” (see Joh_1:14). Just as God was not visible in the tabernacle in the wilderness, so Jesus Christ was veiled when He tabernacled among us in human flesh. He did not appear to men what He really was; man did not recognize who He was.
The One who in the beginning was God, was with God, and who made all things, became a little, helpless baby. He was the image of the invisible God and had all power in heaven and in earth, but down here He took upon Himself human flesh. Because He was not recognized by man, He was treated as an imposter, a usurper, and a blasphemer. He was hated, persecuted, and murdered. God manifest in the flesh was poor, was tempted and tried, and actually shed tears. “Justified in the Spirit.” Yet in all that, He was not justified in the flesh, but in the Spirit. He was manifest in the fleshthat is how the world saw Him; but He was justified or vindicated in the Spirit in His resurrection. There were times when His glory broke out down here; there were revelations and expressions and witnesses of who He really was. There were angels at His virgin birth. His glory was seen at His baptism, at His transfiguration, and at the time of His arrest. The things that occurred at the time of His crucifixion caused the watching centurion to say, “Truly this was the Son of God” (see Mat_27:54).
But it was when He came back from the dead that we see Him now justified. He was manifest in the flesh, but justified in the Spirit: “sown a natural body; raised a spiritual body” (see 1Co_15:44). No enemy laid a hand upon Him after He was raised from the dead. He will never be dishonored again. However, because He came down here and has now returned to the right hand of God, we can be justified. Down here He was delivered up for our offensesHe took our place as a sinner, and now He gives us His place up yonder and we are justified. How wonderful this is! “Seen of angels"it doesn’t say that He saw angels; rather, they saw Him. He has gone back to heaven, and now all the created intelligences of heaven worship Him because He wrought redemption for mankind. Little man down here hasn’t caught on yet, but the song that will be sung throughout eternity is the song of redemption. “Preached unto the Gentiles [the nations]“this is still happening today. “Believed on in the world.” Many today are trusting Him as their Savior. “Received up into glory.” Today Christ is at God’s right hand. At this very moment, my friend, He is there. Have you talked to Him today? Have you told Him that you love Him, and have you thanked Him for all He has done? How wonderful He is!