1 Timothy 3:2
New International Version
Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,

New Living Translation
So a church leader must be a man whose life is above reproach. He must be faithful to his wife. He must exercise self-control, live wisely, and have a good reputation. He must enjoy having guests in his home, and he must be able to teach.

English Standard Version
Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,

Berean Standard Bible
An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,

Berean Literal Bible
Therefore it behooves the overseer to be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,

King James Bible
A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;

New King James Version
A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach;

New American Standard Bible
An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, skillful in teaching,

NASB 1995
An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,

NASB 1977
An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,

Legacy Standard Bible
An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,

Amplified Bible
Now an overseer must be blameless and beyond reproach, the husband of one wife, self-controlled, sensible, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,

Christian Standard Bible
An overseer, therefore, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, self-controlled, sensible, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,

Holman Christian Standard Bible
An overseer, therefore, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, self-controlled, sensible, respectable, hospitable, an able teacher,

American Standard Version
The bishop therefore must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, orderly, given to hospitality, apt to teach;

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
And an Elder ought to be one in whom no fault is found and is the husband of one woman, is of a vigilant mind, sober, orderly, loves strangers and is a teacher;

Contemporary English Version
That's why officials must have a good reputation and be faithful in marriage. They must be self-controlled, sensible, well-behaved, friendly to strangers, and able to teach.

Douay-Rheims Bible
It behoveth therefore a bishop to be blameless, the husband of one wife, sober, prudent, of good behaviour, chaste, given to hospitality, a teacher,

English Revised Version
The bishop therefore must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, soberminded, orderly, given to hospitality, apt to teach;

GOD'S WORD® Translation
A bishop must have a good reputation. He must have only one wife, be sober, use good judgment, be respectable, be hospitable, and be able to teach.

Good News Translation
A church leader must be without fault; he must have only one wife, be sober, self-controlled, and orderly; he must welcome strangers in his home; he must be able to teach;

International Standard Version
Therefore, an elder must be blameless, the husband of one wife, stable, sensible, respectable, hospitable to strangers, and teachable.

Literal Standard Version
it is required, therefore, the overseer to be blameless, a husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, respectable, a friend of strangers, apt to teach,

Majority Standard Bible
An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,

New American Bible
Therefore, a bishop must be irreproachable, married only once, temperate, self-controlled, decent, hospitable, able to teach,

NET Bible
The overseer then must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, an able teacher,

New Revised Standard Version
Now a bishop must be above reproach, married only once, temperate, sensible, respectable, hospitable, an apt teacher,

New Heart English Bible
The overseer, therefore, must be beyond criticism, the husband of one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, good at teaching;

Webster's Bible Translation
A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach;

Weymouth New Testament
A minister then must be a man of irreproachable character, true to his one wife, temperate, sober-minded, well-behaved, hospitable to strangers, and with a gift for teaching;

World English Bible
The overseer therefore must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, modest, hospitable, good at teaching;

Young's Literal Translation
it behoveth, therefore, the overseer to be blameless, of one wife a husband, vigilant, sober, decent, a friend of strangers, apt to teach,

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
Qualifications for Overseers
1This is a trustworthy saying: If anyone aspires to be an overseer, he desires a noble task. 2An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3not dependent on wine, not violent but gentle, peaceable, and free of the love of money.…

Cross References
Luke 2:36
There was also a prophetess named Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher, who was well along in years. She had been married for seven years,

Romans 12:13
Share with the saints who are in need. Practice hospitality.

1 Timothy 3:8
Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued or given to much wine or greedy for money.

1 Timothy 3:11
In the same way, the women must be dignified, not slanderers, but temperate and faithful in all things.

1 Timothy 3:12
A deacon must be the husband of but one wife, a good manager of his children and of his own household.

1 Timothy 5:9
A widow should be enrolled if she is at least sixty years old, the wife of one man,

1 Timothy 5:10
and well known for good deeds such as bringing up children, entertaining strangers, washing the feet of the saints, imparting relief to the afflicted, and devoting herself to every good work.


Treasury of Scripture

A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach;

bishop.

Titus 1:6-9
If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly…

blameless.

1 Timothy 3:10
And let these also first be proved; then let them use the office of a deacon, being found blameless.

Luke 1:6
And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.

Philippians 2:15
That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;

the husband.

1 Timothy 4:3
Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.

1 Timothy 5:9
Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man,

Hebrews 3:14
For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;

vigilant.

Isaiah 56:10
His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.

1 Peter 4:7
But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.

1 Peter 5:8
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

of good behaviour.

Romans 12:13
Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.

Titus 1:8
But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate;

Hebrews 13:2
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

apt.

2 Timothy 2:24
And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient,

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Apt Behavior Behaviour Bishop Blameless Character Dignified Discreet Freely Good Hospitable Hospitality House Husband Irreproachable Minister Modest Opening Order Overseer Prudent Reproach Respect Self-Controlled Sensible Serious-Minded Sober Sober-Minded Strangers Teach Teacher Teaching Temperate True. Vigilant Wife
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Apt Behavior Behaviour Bishop Blameless Character Dignified Discreet Freely Good Hospitable Hospitality House Husband Irreproachable Minister Modest Opening Order Overseer Prudent Reproach Respect Self-Controlled Sensible Serious-Minded Sober Sober-Minded Strangers Teach Teacher Teaching Temperate True. Vigilant Wife
1 Timothy 3
1. How bishops, deacons, and their wives should be qualified;
14. and to what end Paul wrote to Timothy of these things.
15. Of the church, and the blessed truth therein taught and professed.














(2) A bishop then must be blameless.--Now follow the various social and moral characteristics of the appointed and recognised officers of the Christian Church--the presbyters or bishops, and the junior ministers, the deacons. The second chapter had treated of the duties of congregations collectively in the matter of public prayer; the third chapter speaks of the special character and qualities necessary for the rulers of these congregations. These "elders" must, in the first place, be men whose character is unimpeachable--men who stand high in public estimation, known for their pure life and spotless integrity. Not only must believers reverence the character of the superintending and ruling elders of their community, but even those outside the brotherhood of Christ must respect the life and conversation of these prominent and conspicuous members of a society which, from the nature of things, would be sure to provoke distrust and jealousy.

The husband of one wife.--The general opinion of the most ancient writers--the decisions of Church councils when the question seems to have been placed before them--the custom of the great Greek Church, which, while permitting a single nuptial, still regarded the repetition of the marriage relation as a disqualification for the higher grade of the episcopate--tell us in general terms that the opinion of the Church from the earliest times interprets this saying of St. Paul as a declaration against second marriages in the case of those seeking the office of presbyter or deacon. The Greek Church evidently accepts this interpretation, though it relaxes the rule in the case of the inferior orders.

There seems, however, good reason for doubting the accuracy of this popular interpretation, which appears, by thus casting a reproach upon second marriages, to urge a spirit of asceticism on all Christian society, very foreign to St. Paul's usual teaching, which was content with gently inculcating a higher and a purer life as alone in accordance with the mind of his pitiful and loving Master. It was only by slow degrees that he hoped to raise the tone of society and public opinion in this world.

Inspired Christian teaching was careful not to distract the everyday life of men and women by insisting on sudden and violent changes. The behaviour of the great Christian teachers in the matter of that terrible and universal practice of slavery should be especially noted.

When we ask, What then did St. Paul mean by these words? we must picture to ourselves the state of society in the empire at the time when the Apostle wrote to Timothy. An inundation of Eastern luxury and Eastern morals had submerged all the old Roman habits of austere simplicity. The long civil war and the subsequent license of the empire had degraded the character of the people. The period when St. Paul wrote was especially marked by an extreme depravity. A great and general indisposition towards marriage at all, and the orderly restraints of home and family life, had become so marked a feature in Roman society, that we find Augustus positively enacting laws against celibacy. Another cause which helped to undermine the stability of home life and those family ties which ought to be deemed so sacred, was the ease and frequency of divorce, which Seneca, who may be considered almost as the contemporary of St. Paul, alludes to as incidents no longer looked upon as shameful in Rome. He even, in his indignation at the laxity of the morals of his day, cites cases of women who reckoned their years rather by their husbands than by the consuls. Martial writes of a woman who had arrived at her tenth husband. Juvenal speaks of one who, in five years, had had eight husbands. Among the Jews we know polygamy was then prevalent. St. Paul, fully conscious of this low and debased moral tone which then pervaded all society in the empire, in these few words condemned all illicit relations between the sexes, and directed that in choosing persons to fill holy offices in the congregations of Christians, those should be selected who had married and remained faithful to the wife of their choice, whose life and practice would thus serve as an example to the flock, and to whose homes men might point as the pattern which Jesus loved, while the heathen world around them would see that the hated and despised Christians not only loved and honoured, but lived that pure home life their own great moralists pressed so earnestly upon them, but in vain. This direction, which requires that those to be selected to fill holy offices should be known for their purity in their family relations, of course does not exclude--should any such offer themselves--those men who, while contracting no marriage ties, still were known to lead upright, moral lives.

Vigilant.--The Greek word here is more accurately rendered sober. The presbyter or elder should be soberminded, self-restrained, temperate (not merely in wine, but in all things).

Sober.--Better rendered, discreet.

Of good behaviour.--Rather, orderly. This word refers to outward conduct, to behaviour in public.

The Christian office-bearer must not only be wise and self-restrained in himself, but his outward bearing must in all respects correspond to his inner life.

Given to hospitality.--In the early days of Christianity, when Christians travelling from one place to another, were in the habit, when it was possible, of resorting to the houses of their brethren in the faith, to avoid consorting with idolaters in the public inns. It was of no slight importance that the presiding elders in a congregation should be men who loved to entertain strangers and others, from whom nothing could be expected in return.

Apt to teach.--The elder should possess something more than a willingness, or glad readiness, to teach the less instructed the mysteries of the faith. He ought also to have the far rarer qualification of a power to impart knowledge to others. Zeal is not by any means the only, or even the principal, qualification to be sought for in a minister of the Word.

Verse 2. - The for a, A.V.; therefore for then, A.V.; without reproach for blameless, A.V.; temperate for vigilant, A.V.; sober-minded for sober, A.V.; orderly for of good behavior, A.V. The bishop (see note on ver. 1); "a bishop" is better English. Without reproach (ἀνεπίληπτος); only here and 1 Timothy 5:7 and 1 Tim 6:14 in the New Testament; not found anywhere in the LXX, but used by Thucydides, Euripides, and others, in the sense of "not open to attack," "blameless." The metaphor is said (though denied by others)to be from wrestling or boxing, when a man leaves no part of his body exposed to the attack of his adversary. The husband of one wife (comp. Titus 1:6). Three senses are possible. The passage may be understood

(1) as requiring a bishop, (or presbyter) to have a wife, and so some took it even in Chrysostom's time (though he does not so understand it), and so the Russian Church understands it;

(2) as prohibiting his having more than one with at a time;

(3) as prohibiting second marriages for priests and bishops. Bishop Wordsworth, Bishop Ellicott, and Dean Alford, among English commentators, all agree in thinking that (3) is the apostle's meaning. In spite of such consensus, it appears in the highest degree improbable that St. Paul should have laid down such a condition for the priesthood. There is nothing in his writings when treating expressly of second marriages (Romans 7:2, 3; 1 Corinthians 7:8, 39) to suggest the notion of there being anything disreputable in a second marriage, and it would obviously cast a great slur upon second marriages if it were laid down as a principle that no one who had married twice was fit to be an ἐπίσκοπος. But if we consider the general laxity in regard to marriage, and the facility of divorce, which prevailed among Jews and Romans at this time, it must have been a common thing for a man to have more than one woman living who had been his wife. And this, as a distinct breach of the primeval law (Genesis 2:24), would properly be a bar to any one being called to the "office of a bishop." The same case is supposed in 1 Corinthians 7:10-13. But it is utterly unsupported by any single passage in Scripture that a second marriage should disqualify a man for the sacred ministry. As regards the opinion of the early Church, it was not at all uniform, and amongst those who held that this passage absolutely prohibits second marriages in the case of an episcopus, it was merely a part of the asceticism of the day. As a matter of course, such writers as Origen and Tertullian held it. The very early opinion that Joseph, the husband of Mary, had children by a former wife, which finds place in the Protevangelium of James (9.), is hardly consistent with the theory of the disreputableness of second marriages. In like manner, the phrase in 1 Timothy 5:9, ἐνὸς ἀνδρὸς γυνή, is best explained in accordance with the apostle's doctrine about the lawfulness of a woman's second marriage, as meaning that she was the husband of one man only, as long as her husband lived. (For the chief patristic opinions on the subject, see Bishop Wordsworth's note, and Bingham's 'Christian Antiquities,' bk. 4. 1 Timothy 5.) Temperate (νηφάλιον); peculiar to the pastoral Epistles (see ver. 11 and Titus 2:2), but found in classical Greek. The verb νήφειν means "to be sober" (1 Thessalonians 5:6; 2 Timothy 4:5; 1 Peter 1:13; 1 Peter 4:7; 1 Peter 5:8). It denotes that temperate use of meat and drink which keeps the mind watchful and on the alert, and then the state of mind itself so produced. The opposite state of mind is described in Luke 21:34. Sober-minded (σώφρονα); in the New Testament only here and in Titus 1:8; Titus 2:2, 5. But σωφρονέω is found in the Gospels and Epistles; σωφρονίζω σωφρονισμός σωφρόνως, in the pastoral Epistles; and σωφροσύνη in 1 Timothy 2:15 (where see note). Orderly (κόσμιον; see 1 Timothy 2:9, note). Given to hospitality (φιλόξενον; as Titus 1:8 and 1 Peter 4:9). The substantive φιλοξενία is found in Romans 12:13; Hebrews 13:2. Apt to teach (διδακτικόν); only here and 2 Timothy 2:24, and Philo, 'De Proem. et Virt.,' 4 (Huther). The classical word is διδασκαλικός, though chiefly applied to things. In the above-quoted passage in 1 Peter 4. the gifts of speaking and ministering are, as here, placed alongside that of hospitality.

Parallel Commentaries ...


Greek
An
τὸν (ton)
Article - Accusative Masculine Singular
Strong's 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

overseer,
ἐπίσκοπον (episkopon)
Noun - Accusative Masculine Singular
Strong's 1985: From epi and skopos; a superintendent, i.e. Christian officer in genitive case charge of a church.

then,
οὖν (oun)
Conjunction
Strong's 3767: Therefore, then. Apparently a primary word; certainly, or accordingly.

must
δεῖ (dei)
Verb - Present Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 1163: Third person singular active present of deo; also deon deh-on'; neuter active participle of the same; both used impersonally; it is Necessary.

be
εἶναι (einai)
Verb - Present Infinitive Active
Strong's 1510: I am, exist. The first person singular present indicative; a prolonged form of a primary and defective verb; I exist.

above reproach,
ἀνεπίλημπτον (anepilēmpton)
Adjective - Accusative Masculine Singular
Strong's 423: Irreproachable, never caught doing wrong. Not arrested, i.e. inculpable.

[the] husband
ἄνδρα (andra)
Noun - Accusative Masculine Singular
Strong's 435: A male human being; a man, husband. A primary word; a man.

of but one
μιᾶς (mias)
Adjective - Genitive Feminine Singular
Strong's 1520: One. (including the neuter Hen); a primary numeral; one.

wife,
γυναικὸς (gynaikos)
Noun - Genitive Feminine Singular
Strong's 1135: A woman, wife, my lady. Probably from the base of ginomai; a woman; specially, a wife.

temperate,
νηφάλιον (nēphalion)
Adjective - Accusative Masculine Singular
Strong's 3524: Sober, not intoxicated (with wine), temperate, vigilant. Or nephalios from nepho; sober, i.e. circumspect.

self-controlled,
σώφρονα (sōphrona)
Adjective - Accusative Masculine Singular
Strong's 4998: From the base of sozo and that of phren; safe in mind, i.e. Self-controlled.

respectable,
κόσμιον (kosmion)
Adjective - Accusative Masculine Singular
Strong's 2887: Orderly, virtuous, decent, modest, well-ordered. From kosmos; orderly, i.e. Decorous.

hospitable,
φιλόξενον (philoxenon)
Adjective - Accusative Masculine Singular
Strong's 5382: Hospitable, loving strangers. From philos and xenos; fond of guests, i.e. Hospitable.

able to teach,
διδακτικόν (didaktikon)
Adjective - Accusative Masculine Singular
Strong's 1317: Able to teach, apt to teach. From didaktos; instructive.


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NT Letters: 1 Timothy 3:2 The overseer therefore must be without reproach (1 Tim. 1Ti iTi 1tim i Tm)
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