Biblical Eldership Church Leadership

Paul ’s Instruction to Timothy

(anepile'mptos). To be above reproach means to be free from any of fensive or disgraceful blight of character or conduct, particularly as described in verses 2-7. When an elder is irreproachable, critics can not discredit his Christian profession of faith or prove him unfit to lead others (Neh. 6:13). He has a clean moral and spiritual reputation. Since all God’s people are called to live holy and blameless lives (Phil. 2215; 1 Thess. 5223), since the world casts a critical eye at the Chris tian community (1 Peter 3215,16), and since Christian leaders lead primarily by their example (1 Peter 523), an irreproachable life is in dispensable to the Christian leader. Job, for example, was an elder among his people (Job 2927,21,25; 31:21), and he, the Scripture says, was morally above reproach: “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job, and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil” (Job 121). Paul now begins to delineate concrete, observable qualities that de fine what it means to be irreproachable. THE HUSBAND OF ONE WIFE: In both of Paul’s qualification lists, he places the qualification “the husband of one wife” immediately af ter “above reproach.” So the first and foremost area in which an elder must be above reproach is in his marital and sexual life. The phrase, “the husband of one wife,” and its related phrase, “the wife of one man,” occur four times in the New Testament. Each occur rence is in the context of qualifications for overseers, deacons, or wid ows: 0 An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach (I Tim. 322).

0 Let deacons be husbands of only one wife, and good managers of their children and their own households (1 Tim. 3212).

0 Let a widow be put on the list only if she is not less than sixty years old, having been the wife of one man (1 Tim. 529).

0 If any man be above reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion (Tltus 1 26).

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