Qualifications for Overseers and Deacons

¹This is a faithful saying: anyone who seeks to be an overseer desires an excellent work.

²The overseer therefore must be without reproach, a one-woman man, temperate, sensible, modest, hospitable, able to teach,

³not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, peaceable, free from the desire for money.

⁴They must manage their own household well, having children in subjection with all reverence

⁵(for how could someone who doesn’t know how to manage their own house take care of God’s church?),

⁶not a new convert, so that they don’t become conceited and fall into the same condemnation as the devil.

⁷They must also have an excellent reputation with outsiders, so that they won’t fall into disgrace and the snare of the devil.

⁸Deacons likewise must be reverent, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for sordid gain,

⁹holding the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.

¹⁰They must first be tested, then let them serve as deacons if they are blameless.

¹¹Likewise, the women must be reverent, not slanderers, temperate, and faithful in all things.

¹²A deacon must be a one-woman man, managing their children and their own household with excellence.

¹³For those who have served as deacons with excellence gain for themselves an excellent standing and great confidence in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.

¹⁴These things I write to you, hoping to come to you shortly,

¹⁵but if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

¹⁶By common confession, the mystery of godliness is great:

He was revealed in the flesh,

justified in the spirit,

seen by angels,

proclaimed among the ethnic groups,

believed on in the world,

and taken up in glory.