1 Timothy 3: Only One Item on the Bishop's List Is a Skill

Verse 14 is the one I'd read first, and it sits near the bottom of the chapter where hardly anyone stops. Paul says he hopes to come to Timothy shortly, and then in verse 15 he says what the writing is for in case he doesn't: "that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God." So the qualifications for a bishop and for deacons are partly a stand-in for Paul walking into the room.

In chapter 1, which I wrote about earlier this month in Paul calls the law good, then says how to use it, Timothy has been left in Ephesus to correct some teachers. Chapter 3 reads like something he can keep in his pocket while he does it.

Thirteen items, and one of them is a skill

Here is the bishop's list as it opens, verses 2 and 3.

A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;

1 Timothy 3:2-3

Counting them gives seven items in verse 2 and six in verse 3, thirteen in all. "Apt to teach" is the only one that sounds like an ability, and hospitality is a habit anybody can pick up. That leaves eleven, and most of them are about temper, appetite and money, a good many phrased as things he doesn't do. You could read the whole passage aloud at a ward council and nobody would learn whether the man can run a meeting.

Titus has a parallel list, and it's useful beside this one because Titus is told to do something with it. Titus 1:7 starts with "a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God" and covers much of the same ground, and then verse 9 spells out what 1 Timothy 3 leaves at three words: "Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers." Verse 10 gives the reason, that there are "many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers." The Cretan list leans on the work because of the trouble in front of Titus.

Timothy's trouble was the same kind, and Paul's answer here is to describe the man rather than the work. If the people unsettling a congregation are clever and loud, you'd want whoever oversees them to be somebody nobody could call clever and loud. That's my guess at why the list looks the way it does, and it's only a guess.

What verse 5 is for

Verse 4 reads: "One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity." It isn't a phrase I'd hand to a tired father of four on a Thursday night, but it says what it says. Verse 5 gives the reason: "(For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)" How a man handles the people he lives with is a sample of how he'll handle the people he doesn't. The parentheses are the King James translators' punctuation, so they tell us nothing about Paul. The verse still does what it does, which is argue from the small case to the large one.

The word "house" is in verse 4 and again in verse 5, verse 12 gives the deacons the same test, "ruling their children and their own houses well," and verse 15 uses it for the church: "the house of God, which is the church of the living God." One word covers the place where a man lives and the place where he's asked to serve.

A good report from people who aren't in the church

Verse 7 is the one on the list I'd have trouble inventing.

Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

1 Timothy 3:7

The summer I was fifteen I swept up at a lumberyard in Bountiful, a few weeks of it, for a man named Vic Castellano who went to Mass on Sundays and had no interest at all in what the ward down the road was up to. That June our ward got a new bishop, a man named Gordon Reese who ran an insulation business. I mentioned it to Vic only because Gordon's truck was in the yard that morning and I was making conversation with a man who wasn't big on it.

Vic didn't look up from the invoice he was writing. He said, "Reese. Well, good."

Then he said Gordon had called him once, back in the eighties, to say Vic had undercharged him on a load of plywood, a little over a hundred dollars, and that he was bringing a check by on his lunch hour. "Nobody does that," Vic said. "I'd have never caught it."

I've thought about that more than I've thought about most things Gordon said from the stand. Vic didn't care about our church and he had the man's character down to the plywood. Verse 7 doesn't ask what the church thinks of him. It asks what the people "without" would say, and it gives a reason that has nothing to do with manners: reproach, and "the snare of the devil." Verse 6 had already warned of "the condemnation of the devil" for a man lifted up with pride, and the two verses sit side by side without Paul saying how they connect.

Novice, proved, and the boldness in verse 13

Verse 6 says "Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil." A novice is someone new, and a recent convert is the obvious reading, though the verse doesn't say it. It names the danger, which is being lifted up.

The deacons' list in verses 8 through 13 is shorter and runs the same way, with "not doubletongued" added. Verse 10 says: "And let these also first be proved; then let them use the office of a deacon, being found blameless." The "also" ties the deacons back to the bishop. The chapter doesn't say who does the proving or for how long.

In between, verse 9 says "Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience." A conscience is the one item on either list nobody else can inspect. The proving in verse 10 covers what shows over time, whether the man is found blameless, and the conscience is left to him.

Then the reward in verse 13: "For they that have used the office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree, and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus." The chapter never defines "a good degree." The second half is plainer. Paul could have promised the deacon a great many things at the end of the list, and what he promises is boldness in the faith.

What the pillar is holding up

After twelve verses of "must be" and "not," the chapter changes. Verse 15 says the church is "the pillar and ground of the truth," and verse 16 opens with "And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness," and then it stops giving instructions altogether.

God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

1 Timothy 3:16

Six clauses, and not one of them is about a bishop or a deacon. God is the subject of the first, and the rest pass through the Spirit, angels, Gentiles, the world and glory. Verse 9 has "the mystery of the faith" and verse 16 has "the mystery of godliness," which are different phrases, but I notice that the first is held by deacons "in a pure conscience" and the second is the thing being held, so I read them as neighbors.

Everything before verse 16 is support work: temper, appetite, money, house, reputation. A pillar holds up a roof it didn't design, and verse 16 is the one place in the chapter where Paul says what the roof is.

The Bible Dictionary entry on "bishop" says the word translates the Greek episkopos, "overseer," and points to 1 Peter 2:25, where Christ is "the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls." Peter's verse is about Christ and Timothy's list is about ordinary men, but it's the same word and the question in 1 Timothy 3:5 is how a man shall "take care of the church of God."

Frequently Asked Questions

What does "husband of one wife" mean in 1 Timothy 3:2?

The verse states the requirement and doesn't explain it, and verse 12 repeats it for deacons. Commentators disagree about which situations Paul had in mind. Current Church practice for priesthood callings comes from the handbooks and from Church leaders, so that's where to go with a practical question.

Is a bishop in 1 Timothy 3 the same office as my bishop?

They share a name and a set of expected qualities. Doctrine and Covenants 107:68 describes the Latter-day office as "administering all temporal things," and 1 Timothy 3 says nothing about what a bishop administers. It's a list of what the man should be, and says little of what the office does.

What does "the pillar and ground of the truth" mean?

The sentence is about the church as the house of God, attached to how Timothy ought to behave there. "Ground" is the base something stands on, so the picture is the church holding the truth up rather than making it.

Why are deacons "proved" first?

The verse says so and gives no method. The "also" at the start links them to the bishop's rule against a novice in verse 6, so it's the same worry about putting a man forward before anyone has watched him. How long or by whom, the chapter doesn't say.

I drained the hose on the north side of the house this afternoon and shut off the outside spigot for the winter. About a quart of brown water came out of the hose before it ran dry.

— D.