1 Timothy 3:2 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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1 Timothy 3:2

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This is about the office of an overseer or overwatcher, translated ‘bishop’ in our King James Version. The term bishop or overseer is interchangeable in the New Testament with that of elder. ‘They watch for your souls,’ for your spiritual good, ‘as they that must give account’ (Hebrews 13:17). Paul here dwells on the preacher of the gospel, but of course it is Christ who the preacher longs to make known. It is Christ, the eternal Son of the living God, truly God, who came into this world and became the God-man in order to suffer and to die, to bear the punishment of sin on behalf of all who would be saved, so that they could be forgiven. To make him known is a major part of the call to serve as an elder.The eldership is divided into two parts, and the two parts are seen by looking at other texts. There is the preaching overseer or elder, and the ruling overseer or elder who leads the church, watching for souls in other ways. There is a certain parity, but there is a distinctiveness about the preacher of the gospel, the pastor preacher, the preaching elder. He is first and foremost a preacher of the gospel. The term pastor is also used interchangeably with elder. So the preacher is a pastor – the word ‘pastor’ means shepherd. He watches over and he shepherds the people of God. He is a servant of Christ, and he is a preacher of the gospel, and some of his necessary minimum qualifications are going to be listed in this chapter. ‘Blameless’, that is to say, beyond reproach. He cannot be accused of being a liar or a cheat or an adulterer, and what follows really amounts to a working out of this word ‘blameless’. ‘The husband of one wife.’ Some would translate that ‘a one-woman man’, by which they include, if he is single, the idea that he is not a flirt. He is somebody who believes in the sanctity of marriage and will love his wife. He is to be ‘vigilant’, watchful, always aware of needs, watchful for souls. That is an excellent translation on the part of the Authorised Version. There is a little bit of interpretation, but it is obviously the meaning, because it comes so close to the watcher term: a bishop, a watcher, an overseer. The Greek says ‘not intoxicated’, but the apostle Paul picks up the attitude to alcohol a little later on in the list of qualifications, and he would repeat himself. Modern versions tend to go for ‘temperate’ or perhaps ‘sober’, but it is obviously to be understood in a figurative way. The picture here is of a shepherd on the hillside or a sentry guarding a military camp. If that shepherd or that sentry takes the flagon of wine and drinks away, soon his head will be muzzy and he will be sleepy and he will not see the wolf or the thief coming in the case of the shepherd, or the enemy coming in the case of the sentry. It means temperate in a figurative sense: keeping awake. The sentry must keep away from the wine in order to keep awake. The watcher is on the lookout all the time for the things that the world, the flesh and the devil are throwing against the church.‘Sober’, which translates the Greek for safe-minded. It isn't actually about alcohol here, though hopefully he is sober in that sense too, and, best of all, an abstainer. But sober here actually means safe-minded, not an extremist. It means not reactive, not a person who always trusts his instant judgment. Some people hear a thing, they make up their minds at once, and they think their judgment is terrific, fixed, final. They will never reconsider; they jump to conclusions too quickly about situations and about people. We are looking for somebody who is prepared to weigh the thing in the light of the word of God. ‘Of good behaviour’, dignified, careful in every area of life. The original Greek indicates ordered, well arranged. It includes the idea of good behaviour but it means more than that. A watcher for souls must be a person who remembers things and is organised and to some degree is an organiser. If we are not very good at remembering things and yet we have responsibility, then we need to carry a notebook; we have to use some memory aids. ‘Given to hospitality.’ The word literally means ‘fond of strangers’. Where the opportunity arises, in personal hospitality, but certainly at the church level, welcoming everybody under the sound of the gospel and constantly reaching out. We must notice the person who is a stranger in our midst, and be concerned to extend some appropriate ministry to that stranger. Maybe it is an unconverted person who needs to be encouraged to come back to the services, needs some friendship and some help, some explanations. Some churches are not hospitable. There's nice fellowship within the church, but they cold shoulder the newcomer and the outsider. That is tragic. ‘Apt to teach.’ This means able to communicate in a real way, to persuade a person of something, to convey understanding. The churches have been sorely wounded by people who can give lectures, but they do not seem to know how to communicate in a meaningful way. This applies to the preaching elder of course, but it applies also to the ruling elder, even if much of his teaching is one-to-one. He can explain things clearly; he can convince; he can answer questions, suggest solution to spiritual problems, and given wise counsel.

Application

Questions

How many preachers are there in a church? At least one to every church or family of God's people. In Revelation 1:16-20 there is reference to the stars – one per church – in the hand of Christ, and the explanation is given that these stars are the angels of the churches. The seven letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3 are all addressed to the angels of those churches. Who are the angels of the churches? Some people have thought that each church has a guardian angel, but that's a little bit absurd, because the angel of each church seems to be counted as one of the church people. He's addressed along with the church; he's responsible with them; he is on earth with them, and he is to tell them where they need to be corrected. Some of those churches were badly out of line, and he is to warn them. Well, an angel doesn't speak to warn all the church members. Some people have said that the angels of the churches are just messengers – delegates were sent from the churches to John on Patmos, and these are the messengers sent back to the churches. That is equally absurd because John was in exile on Patmos. He wasn't at liberty to receive delegates, and there's no mention of such people. There's no alternative to the majority interpretation down the centuries, that the angels of the churches are the pastors, the preachers, the teachers of the churches.

The overseer or the preacher of the gospel is not a priest. One of the mistakes of the Church of England is that when the Church of England reformed from being lost in Catholicism and under the Pope and became a gospel church, according to the Scriptures, it never fully reformed. It was never allowed to fully reform because of the politics of the day. As the leading reformers tried to go forward, so the Crown held them back. The Reformation was about to complete almost a final leap to become a holy biblical Church of England when King Edward VI died, and Mary came to the throne, reformation stopped dead, and the clock began to be put back to Catholicism. Eventually, of course, Elizabeth I came to the throne, a nominally Protestant queen who wanted to uphold the Reformation, but only up to a point, because she was convinced, that if you reformed the Church of England too much, and if you did away with the hierarchical structure and the authority of the bishops, then the authority of the Crown itself would be weakened. The royal watchword was, ‘No bishops, no queen’. That is why it still has an archbishop and bishops. Now for many years the bishops' control was very weak, so in the history of the Church of England after the Reformation you have got many great preachers and fervent evangelicals, because there was no discipline in the Church of England. When John Newton, the ex-slave trader, was the rector of St. Mary Woolnoth in the city, he could do as he pleased. But in the 20th century, the bishops – most of them unbelievers – got control, and there are now more unbelievers than believers officiating in the Church of England. Because it didn't fully reform, it kept words like ‘priest’; when you become a full minister, you become a priest. Well, that is not complete reformation, because the priesthood was done away with in Christ. There is no power flowing through the clergyman's cuffs, transmitting blessing. Everything comes to us directly from Christ by faith. There is not supposed to be any hierarchy in the church. These elders are not lords over God's heritage. Christ says so, the Apostle Paul says so. The only sense in which they rule is by teaching the word of God. Their authority is not personal; it's what they draw from the word: that is what challenges our souls and rules us. So the overwatcher doesn't have personal authority. He's a teacher of the infallible word of God, and everything is drawn from that.

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

1 Timothy 3:2 Commentary and Bible Study