Troublesome TopicLEADERSHIP WAS BASED ON FAMILIAL AND SPIRITUAL QUALIFICATIONS

1 Timothy 3:3

Translation

not hooked on wine,

Go to footnote number

not a striker, but gentle, peace-loving, not a lover of money.

Paraphrase

not a drunkard, not a contentious quarrelsome person who is quick to deliver a blow, but reasonable and fair,  peace-loving, free from the love of material things and not easily influenced by the desire for financial gain.

First the leaders had to qualify in the way leaders had gained authority down through the ages, based on family units – grandfathers and fathers were the natural leaders. But in the early church there was a twist – they had to also be qualified spiritually. They had to fit both sets of qualifications or they could not lead a group of believers. However, if no suitable leader was found for, say, the level of “elder” then whoever was best qualified for the next level down (deacon) was the automatic leader. There were no elections, the person who was the best qualified was usually obvious to everyone involved.

The concept of grandfathers as “elders” was fully understood, therefore Paul put most of his effort into describing the spiritual qualities required in order to be a leader of leaders in the body of Christ.

Notice that Paul takes the marriage requirement back to the Garden of Eden. God did not create one man and multiple women; He created one man and one woman. The leader of a group of believers must follow God to the point of following all the principles of God’s word without looking for loopholes or ways to water down God’s intentions. It did not matter if ancient cultures thought it was OK for a wealthy man to have multiples wives. It did not matter if God acquiesced on this point in order to protect women from being left on their own with no one to protect them, the original standard is the best one to follow.

Footnotes

1

This is a compound word coming from the preposition that means “by, beside, near” and the word “wine.” It is a picture of someone who stays near wine all the time. It came to suggest someone who was even willing to argue and brawl over wine, but it is not necessary to include the brawling part here because the next word covers that characteristic. They often drank wine with their meals because sources of pure water were hard to find. Therefore, a moderate amount of wine was no problem, but it became an issue when someone over indulged or became addicted to it. This would change a man’s personality and make him aggressive in his attempts to get more wine.