Qualifications for Overseers
1 The word [is] faithful: if any one aspires to exercise oversight, he desires a good work.
1 The word [is] faithful: if any one aspires to exercise oversight, he desires a good work.
2 The overseer then must be irreproachable, husband of one wife, sober, discreet, decorous, hospitable, apt to teach;
3 not given to excesses from wine, not a striker, but mild, not addicted to contention, not fond of money,
4 conducting his own house well, having [his] children in subjection with all gravity;
5 (but if one does not know how to conduct his own house, how shall he take care of the assembly of God?)
6 not a novice, that he may not, being inflated, fall into [the] fault of the devil.
7 But it is necessary that he should have also a good testimony from those without, that he may fall not into reproach and [the] snare of the devil.
Qualifications for Deacons
8 Ministers, in like manner, grave, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not seeking gain by base means,
8 Ministers, in like manner, grave, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not seeking gain by base means,
9 holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.
10 And let these be first proved, then let them minister, being without charge [against them].
11 [The] women in like manner grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things.
12 Let [the] ministers be husbands of one wife, conducting [their] children and their own houses well:
13 for those who shall have ministered well obtain for themselves a good degree, and much boldness in faith which [is] in Christ Jesus.
The Mystery of Godliness
14 These things I write to thee, hoping to come to thee more quickly;
14 These things I write to thee, hoping to come to thee more quickly;
15 but if I delay, in order that thou mayest know how one ought to conduct oneself in God's house, which is [the] assembly of [the] living God, [the] pillar and base of the truth.
16 And confessedly the mystery of piety is great. God has been manifested in flesh, has been justified in [the] Spirit, has appeared to angels, has been preached among [the] nations, has been believed on in [the] world, has been received up in glory.
