Highlighted terms or phrases have notes below on translation.

1 Timothy 3: 1-13 Qualifications of Overseers and Men and Women in Serving Roles

¹ The saying is sure: whoever aspires to the office of bishop desires a noble task. ² Now a bishop must be above reproach, married only once, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, an apt teacher, ³ not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and not a lover of money. ⁴ He must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way, ⁵ for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how can he take care of God’s church? ⁶ He must not be a recent convert, or he may be puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. ⁷ Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace and the snare of the devil.

  ⁸ Deacons likewise must be serious, not double-tongued, not indulging in much wine, not greedy for money; ⁹ they must hold fast to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. ¹⁰ And let them first be tested; then, if they prove themselves blameless, let them serve as deacons. ¹¹ Women likewise must be serious, not slanderers, but temperate, faithful in all things. ¹² Let deacons be married only once, and let them manage their children and their households well; ¹³ for those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and great boldness in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

When we hear the titles of bishop and deacons and we talk about their role in taking care of the church we can easily overlay modern positions, authority, structure and assumptions onto this letter. To translate the Greek word episkopos (where the Episcopal church gets its name) as bishop for most modern readers conjures men (and women depending on your tradition) in ornate vestments participating and leading large numbers of churches and leaders. Deacons (Greek diakonoi) within most modern churches would fit somewhere lower in the hierarchy than bishops and in many places this role still maintains the connection with the service ministries of the church. Yet the church at the time Paul is writing to Timothy is far different than its modern incarnation.

The early churches in Ephesus carried out many of the activities that the synagogues did for the Jewish community throughout the diaspora: They prayed (2: 1-3), read and explained scripture (4:13), and cared for widows (5:3-16) and likely other vulnerable members of the community. However, it is significant that instead of the adoption of religious titles like priest, or even high priest, of the Jewish as well as other Roman temples, they utilize episkopos and diakonoi: “overseer” and “server.” The term episkopos was commonly used for positions with oversight, particularly financial oversight, in the surrounding culture. (Bassler, 1996, p. 64)

It is important to remember that the early church met primarily in the homes of one of the community members. The household of both individuals as well as the household of God is central to the language of 1 Timothy. As James D.G. Dunn states:

Just as good order in the state (2: 1-2) led into thoughts of good order in the household (2: 9-15), so also that leads into thoughts of good order in the church (3: 1-13). (NIB XI: 804)

Men in the Greco-Roman world who were viewed as leaders were expected to manage their household well. This is a world before the separation of work and home: the management of the home (Greek oikos) is foundational to the economic outputs (Greek oikonomia literally house management) for not only the home but for the city and empire. A man with disobedient children or an unstable marriage was viewed in the ancient world as a poor home-maker, and a person unable to manage their household was unlikely to be a good manager of the household of God.

It is likely that “overseers” or “bishops” were hosting gatherings of the faithful in their homes and their hospitality. The receiving and sending off of guests in the ancient world was a central role in households throughout the Greco-Roman and Jewish world, and it is likely that the hospitality expected of the episkopos could be costly as well as the frequent presence of Christians in their home.

The virtues listed for the “overseer” or “bishop” are virtues that would be “marks of good character” (Long, 2016, p. 88) throughout the culture.  Being beyond reproach introduces the list of virtues which focus more on how they embody their faith in their living than their mere knowledge of faith. “Married once” is literally “the husband of one woman” and can be understood to address a range of meanings: a man who marries once and if widowed does not remarry, or monogamous rather than polygamous, or faithful to one’s wife without a mistress, or ruling out divorce or serial matrimony, or it may be encouraging a married overseer in contrast to a celibate one. (Johnson, 2001, pp. 213-214) The list continues with temperate, self-controlled, and respectable—terms that will be expanded on in the following verse. As mentioned above, hospitality by inviting people into one’s household would be expected by an “overseer” and the only skill-based item on the list is that they are to be a good teacher.

These leaders are not to be addicted to wine, bullying, or a lovers of money. They are to be peaceable (a-machos in Greek) rather than one who engages in battle (mache), this would exclude a type of macho behavior that some mistake for leadership. As mentioned earlier, the management of one’s own household is an indicator of the possibility of being an leader in the community of the faithful. Just as women were to be submissive in the assembly (2:11) now the children of the “overseer” are also to be submissive. Finally these leaders are not to be recent converts (neophytes, Greek neophutov) so that they may not become overconfident or puffed up and be misled by the devil, but they are also to have a good witness (NRSVue well thought, Greek martupian (where our word martyr comes from) kalos). For these “overseers” there is the need for both a faithful example of a leader within the household and the public facing witness to the church’s faith and righteousness.

The requirements of “deacons” or “servers” is similar to the expectations of an “overseer.” Before drawing too great a distinction between “overseer” and “servers” it is worth noting that:

Paul, for example, describes Timothy (1 Thess 3:2), Phoebe (Rom 16:1), the civil ruler (Rom 13:4), Apollos (1 Cor 3:5), himself (2 Cor 6:4), and even Christ (Rom 15:8) as diakonoi. In Phil 1:1, the deacon is linked with the bishop or overseer, though the relationship between these two is not spelled out (cf. 1 Clem. 42. 4-5; Did. 15.1). Though Paul used this word, as he did “overseer,” to describe a role or function in 1 Timothy the noun clearly refers to a position for which one is tested. (Bassler, 1996, p. 69)

While Paul, Timothy, Apollos, and even Christ all serve, there does seem to be the beginning of a distinctive serving role in the young church. Paul here[1] and other places[2] accepts women in this role. One distinct addition to the description of the deacon is that they are not double-tongued (literally two worded). Thomas Long makes an educated guess about the possible need for this description:

If they indeed were practical helpers in the community, the ones who assisted the elders and bishops in their duties and the ones who did the legwork of running the financial support program for widows, then they would naturally be constantly in and out of homes in the community. If they were people who spike one way in one home and another way in another, if they were gossips who spread rumors and gave one version of events here and a different version there, or if they were duplicitous flatterers who spoke soothing words of comfort to a widow in need and then whispered about her to the next widow, they could easily spread the contagion of divisiveness. (Long, 2016, p. 93)

Like overseers they as men and women are to manage their household before they are entrusted to enter the household of others. They are to hold fast to the mysteries of the faith and not to spread false doctrines and practices. These “servers,” like the “overseers,” can build up the household of faith, or through unserious, deceitful talk, drunkenness, greed, or bad reputation damage the same household.

Although we do not know the details of the conflicts that Paul is writing to Timothy to help him address, the need for Paul to state to aspire to be an overseer is a good thing may continue to indicate that the struggles of the community has made good leaders cautious before assuming these roles in the community. It’s unlikely that Paul goes into this extended discussion of leadership without needing to address the absence of leaders of the proper character in these roles. For Paul the expectations of a good man (or woman) in fulfilling their roles within the household is the minimum threshold that all leaders in the household of faith should surpass.

There are many ways that our world and cultural expectations are different from the world of Paul but the need for ethical leadership remains. I have seen the damage that an unfaithful leader can do in a community and in half of the communities I have served I have had to intentionally rebuild trust between the community and their leaders. The scandals in the Catholic Church as well as Protestant churches have done great harm to the members of those communities and to the reputation of the church and its leaders in the society. New York times columnist Frank Bruni when commenting on the sex scandals in the Catholic church stated:

the evil that an entire institution can do, though it supposedly dedicates itself to good…[and by] the way that a religious organization can behave almost precisely as a corporation does, with fudged words, twisted logic and a transcendent instinct for self-protection that frequently trump the principled handing of a specific grievance or a particular victim. (Long, 2016, p. 91)

This is one of the passages that I have wrestled with personally since my divorce in 2010[3], and then my remarriage five years later. Although I have on occasion been told by another person in the church that I shouldn’t be a pastor because of my divorce I was fortunate to have a bishop as well as colleagues who prayed for me, offered counsel and guidance. I do think we underprepare people entering ministry and their families for the pressure of trying to balance their household and the demands of the household of faith.

Trying to set guidelines for leadership within the church takes wisdom and grace, but those set aside for leadership are held to a higher standard. An unfaithful leader can cause immense harm to their fellow members of the body of Christ, can destroy a congregation and damage the Church’s reputation, and unfortunately the desire to protect an institution’s reputation has often perpetuated the harm. Normally we focus on sexuality as the location of the damage, but I have also seen congregations damaged by the addiction of a leader, financial mismanagement, and bullying. Being above reproach, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, and a faithful teacher while managing one’s relationships and household is a daunting task but it is also a noble one for the one called to such a ministry of overseeing a community of faith or the service ministries of the church.

1 Timothy 3: 14-16 The Mystery at the Heart of the Gospel

  ¹⁴ I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these instructions to you so that, ¹⁵ if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth. ¹⁶ Without any doubt, the mystery of godliness is great:
 He was revealed in flesh,
  vindicated in spirit,
   seen by angels,
 proclaimed among gentiles,
  believed in throughout the world,
   taken up in glory.

Paul would be known to the community in Ephesus since, according to Acts 19, he spent two years there. As mentioned previously, Paul went to Macedonia and then sent Timothy back to Ephesus to address some of the problems reported in this letter. I know that a lot of very intelligent readers in the last two centuries have viewed this letter as written at a later date by a later author writing in Paul’s name, but there are a number of sections like this one where this later writer would have to fabricate not only these more personal addresses, but also why write a letter about two famous members of the church addressing issues at Ephesus when the people in that congregation would know Paul and Timothy, know their own situation (which is not presented in a flattering manner in this letter) likely within a generation of Paul’s death. Is it possible that someone later wrote 1 Timothy? It is possible, but to me the easier reading is that Paul is addressing his hope to return to the community at Ephesus in a world where travel is not quick or reliable. For later generations of Christians, we are the beneficiaries of Paul’s attempt to support the early Christian communities through writing letters which we continue to have.

Paul throughout his letters often talks about ‘mystery’ when referring to the revelation which led to his ministry among the Gentiles (Romans 11:25; Ephesians 3: 3-9; Colossians 1: 26-27). Here in 1 Timothy the ‘mystery of faith’ (v.9) and ‘the mystery of godliness’ (v. 16) appears to be linked to the confession of faith which concludes verse sixteen. What the NRSVue translates as ‘godliness’ is the Greek eusebia which is normally translated piety or religion, so Paul here is talking about the ‘mystery’ of the faith as it is practiced. Confessional fragments are common in Paul’s letters, the most famous examples being Philippians 2: 5-11 and Colossians 1: 15-23, and just as the later church would develop creeds as a teaching method of handing on the faith, the church of Paul’s day had these fragments which illuminate the narrative content of the faith of these followers of Jesus. Yet, as James D.G. Dunn states there is also a sense that there is a mysterious aspect to the faith, “requiring someone skilled in understanding and exposition to unveil it to initiates.” (NIB XI: 807)

The six lines in the NRSVue are short but focus on key points of the story of Jesus. Jesus was revealed ‘in the flesh’ a key Pauline term which here reflects the humanity of Jesus without Paul’s normal negative implication of the flesh’s corruption by sin. Jesus is ‘justified’ (Greek dikiao, NRSVue vindicated) in the Spirit. The NRSVue’s rendering of this term as vindicated obscures this central Pauline word of justification. The Greek angelos (NRSVue angels) can mean angels as heavenly beings but also can generically mean ‘messengers’ and that is likely the intended meaning here, that Jesus was revealed to messengers, like Paul, who would proclaim him among the gentile/nations (Greek ethnos has both meanings: Gentiles as other than Jews and the nations).  To me the rendering of ethnos as the nations makes sense in the context where Jesus is believed throughout the world. Finally, Jesus is taken up into glory, echoing the story of the ascension.

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[1] There is some debate over the sudden introduction of women in verse 11. Some interpreters view this as referring to the wives of deacons, but many interpreters seem to believe that this is a role open to women in Ephesus.

[2] For example, Phoebe in Romans 16:1.

[3] I try to remain transparent about my own journey through this both in my three part reflection on What I Learned About Myself, Life and God from my Divorce, as well as passages like Deuteronomy 24; Matthew 5: 21-32; and 19:1-12 where divorce are mentioned.