‘But a lover of hospitality’ – one who loves strangers is the literal original. So you may be in a one-bedroom bedsit, and you can't give hospitality in terms of guests. But it is not just about that. A lover of strangers. You speak to people of other ethnic groups, as if they are just exactly the same as you are. You speak to people in different age groups as though you are all in one family. And if you don't know people and you have the opportunity, well then you welcome them. You try to talk to and establish over the months and the years as many fellow believers as possible. You make no difference in relating to each other between the sexes, because we Christians don't look at each other as sexual objects; we look at each other as Christians. So we are at ease, and we can talk to each other and communicate and share.
‘A lover of good men.’ Actually the original is ‘lover of good’ or ‘good things’; our translators have bended to the context and said ‘good men’, and they are probably right, but it is literally ‘a lover of good’. People who love things that are good. It's too easy in life for our conversation to be one hundred percent pointing out what's wrong. ‘A lover of good things’, and a supporter and a helper of good things.
‘Sober’ – we must understand in the pastoral epistles that whenever we see the word ‘sober’, we are to think ‘safe minded’. It doesn't just mean sober from drunkenness. In fact it doesn't mean that at all. It translates the word which means ‘safe in mind’. In other words, you are a safe, sensible person. You are a thinker. You consider things. You don't do everything rashly. You don't necessarily follow your very first impression. You think because you want to be fair, and you want to get things right. If the Charismatics would only listen to this, they would never go into trances. How can you be safe minded in a trance? Safe minded means your elder has never gone into a trance. He has never gone into another state of consciousness, wilfully and willingly, as though there is something meritorious in seeking clairvoyance of some kind. He is safe in mind.
‘Just’, fair. Actually, it means ‘upright.’
‘Holy’, separate for the Lord. Separate from the world. You turn on the God channels on the television, and what do you see? A great exhibition and demonstration of what it is to be as worldly as you can possibly be. Here it says ‘holy’. That means sacred unto the Lord, not playing the world's songs, not imitating the world's chord forms and music and rhythms; not doing all that. Not dressing in the extremes in the way they do. What a demonstration of worldliness! All of them disqualified from any form of eldership, and yet, that's just about all you see. We live in dangerous times! Holy, separate for the Lord, distinct for him.
‘Temperate’, self-control. Some translate that as ‘self-mastery’, and that's perfect. That is to be my goal: to be in charge of myself, to be able to resist temptations, whether it's food and greed and gluttony, or whether it's luxurious possessions, having the best of everything, because it makes me feel good, and I appear better than other people, and I have prospered more, and I have accomplished more: the trappings of success.