NOTES for Ti1 3:1-13

Turning to the subject of church ministries, Paul gives special importance to two of them: the ministry of the deacon and the ministry of the bishop. This, of course, is no accident: the two ministries mentioned held a central place in the early Christian church. Deacons were responsible for organizing and conducting church gatherings, including those at which the breaking of bread took place. They were the ones who, first of all, were answerable before God and the church for the spiritual condition of the church community. That is why the apostle requires precisely them to "hold the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience" (v. 9). And for this they had to preserve spiritual and moral purity not only in church and public life, but also in family and personal life (vv. 8, 10-12).

Normal church life requires that the one who presides over the community be its face before God and an example for everyone in spiritual life; righteousness here was not merely desirable, but directly necessary, and Paul reminds Timothy of this, since he most likely had more than once had to resolve questions and problems in the churches he visited. The requirements for bishops were somewhat different, which is not surprising: their role in the church of Paul's time was completely unlike what it is today. Their main function in the early Christian church was administrative and economic, and this determined the requirements Paul set for candidates for the office of bishop (vv. 1-7). The apostle, as we can see, paid especially close attention to the state of the candidate's own household, rightly reasoning that a person who does not know how to put his own house in order will be even less able to do this in the church. In addition, a bishop needed, in Paul's phrase, "a good testimony from outsiders," that is, from the local population and, apparently, also from representatives of the authorities, since he was responsible for everything connected with the legal side of the church community's existence.

But the main thing to which the apostle draws attention is a calling from God to the ministry the minister bears; otherwise, clearly, there can be no question of any "worthy place" ("higher rank," v. 13) for the minister in the Kingdom. Meanwhile, as we can see, for Paul the main thing is not the "benefit" of the church considered as an organization, or even as a church community, but the rootedness in the Kingdom of those who bear church ministries. For the Church does not and cannot have any more important task than witness to the Kingdom. And if those who are most visible in the church community are able to become a living example of the Kingdom in all its fullness, this will become the best witness for everyone who comes to the Church in search of new life.