Qualifications for Overseers and Deacons

¹ This is a faithful saying: someone who seeks to be an overseer desires a good work. ² The overseer therefore must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, modest, hospitable, good at teaching; ³ not a drinker, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; ⁴ one who rules his own house well, having children in subjection with all reverence; ⁵ (for how could someone who doesn’t know how to rule his own house take care of God’s assembly?) ⁶ not a new convert, lest being puffed up he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. ⁷ Moreover he must have good testimony from those who are outside, to avoid falling into reproach and the snare of the devil.

⁸ Servants, in the same way, must be reverent, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for money, ⁹ holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. ¹⁰ Let them also first be tested; then let them serve if they are blameless. ¹¹ Their wives in the same way must be reverent, not slanderers, temperate, and faithful in all things. ¹² Let servants be husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well. ¹³ For those who have served well gain for themselves a good standing and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.

The Mystery of Godliness

¹⁴ These things I write to you, hoping to come to you shortly, ¹⁵ but if I wait long, that you may know how men ought to behave themselves in God’s house, which is the assembly of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. ¹⁶ Without controversy, the mystery of godliness is great: