Today’s passage: 1 Timothy 3:1-7
Helpful thoughts:
- Today’s passage gives the qualification for an “Overseer.”
- This office is also referred in other passages and in other translations with words like, “bishop”, “elder”, “shepherd/pastor”.
- The word for, “overseer” means to lead, to guard, to supervise.
- “The husband of one wife” could be literally translated as, “A one-woman man.” Meaning, the man will be singularly devoted to his wife and sexually pure.
- Divorce in the past is not necessarily an automatic disqualification, though it does call for some questions regarding the qualifications from verses 4-5.
- With sexual purity in mind, I do think it would be wrong to disqualify a man who is single. I do not think this passage excludes single men from serving as a pastor.
- Again, when read along with 2:12, God has reserved the office of the pastor/elder/overseer to men.
- Divorce in the past is not necessarily an automatic disqualification, though it does call for some questions regarding the qualifications from verses 4-5.
- Other than the qualification of being able to teach (The speaking aspect, not the knowledge aspect), there really isn’t anything in this list of qualifications that all of us shouldn’t be striving to grow in and be faithful in.
Questions to consider:
- If you read verse 1 again, what becomes one of the first qualifications for being a pastor/elder/overseer? Should anyone lead as an elder without the desire to do so?
- As you read through all these qualifications, why do they make sense? How do these qualifications help a man to lead the church? How would most of these qualification be important for any and all of us?
- Knowing that we as Christians have been promised that the world will be at odds with what we believe (John 15:18-19), what do you think is meant by the qualification to have a good reputation with people outside the church? How can a pastor have a good reputation in the community even though people would disagree with the truths of the gospel?