Godly Leadership: The Qualifications and Calling of Elders and Deacons
Gods given order of leadership in the church. Elders, and Deacons. Qualifications, purpose, and Should women step up into the leadership role?
What is a Elder?
Here is the central paradox: the pastor is a public figure who must make himself nothing, who must speak not to attract attention to himself but rather to point away from himself—unlike most contemporary celebrities. The pastor must make truth claims to win people not to his own way of thinking but to God’s way. The pastor must succeed, not by increasing his own social status but, if need be, by decreasing it. Moreover, when pastors do refer to themselves, they must follow the example of the apostle Paul, acknowledging themselves to be public sinners who have received yet continue to need God’s grace and mercy (1 Tim. 1:15). Finally (again like Paul), pastors must engage in public speaking about general matters, such as the meaning of life, for which there are no publicly acknowledged credentials, unlike specialists whose expertise is publicly recognized
What is a Deacon?
Qualifications of Elders/Deacons
(Qualifications for Overseers)
In 1 Timothy 3:6-7 What does it mean that the candidate must have a good Testimony among those who are outside?
What other words would you use to describe an Elder?
(Qualifications for Deacons)
In Verse 13, why would a deacon that serves well, would receive a good standing, and great boldness in the faith with Christ Jesus?
In chapter 3 of verse 11 The wives of Deacons “must be reverent, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things”. But in the earlier verses for overseers/elders, it did not say anything about how a wife should present themselves. Should the wives of elders/deacons be held to a higher standard like the wives of deacons? (other stories/context of scripture can answer this.)
God’s order of Authority
But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of the woman, and God is the head of Christ
Every man who prays or prophesies with something on his head dishonors his head.
4. praying—in public (1 Co 11:17).
prophesying—preaching in the Spirit (1 Co 12:10).
having—that is, if he were to have: a supposed case to illustrate the impropriety in the woman’s case. It was the Greek custom (and so that at Corinth) for men in worship to be uncovered; whereas the Jews wore the Talith, or veil, to show reverence before God, and their unworthiness to look on Him
dishonoureth his head—not as ALFORD, “Christ” (1 Co 11:3); but literally, as “his head” is used in the beginning of the verse. He dishonoreth his head (the principal part of the body) by wearing a covering or veil, which is a mark of subjection, and which makes him look downwards instead of upwards to his Spiritual Head, Christ, to whom alone he owes subjection. Why, then, ought not man to wear the covering in token of his subjection to Christ, as the woman wears it in token of her subjection to man? “Because Christ is not seen: the man is seen; so the covering of him who is under Christ is not seen; of her who is under the man, is seen”
A man should not cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God. So too, woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman came from man.
Argument, also, from man’s more immediate relation to God, and the woman’s to man.
he is … image … glory of God—being created in God’s “image,” first and directly: the woman, subsequently, and indirectly, through the mediation of man. Man is the representative of God’s “glory” this ideal of man being realized most fully in the Son of man (Ps 8:4, 5; compare 2 Co 8:23). Man is declared in Scripture to be both the “image,” and in the “likeness,” of God (compare Jam 3:9). But “image” alone is applied to the Son of God (Col 1:15; compare Heb 1:3). “Express image,” Greek, “the impress.” The Divine Son is not merely “like” God, He is God of God, “being of one substance (essence) with the Father.”
Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair it is a disgrace to him, but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her as a covering.
13. Appeal to their own sense of decorum.
a woman … unto God—By rejecting the emblem of subjection (the head-covering), she passes at one leap in praying publicly beyond both the man and angels [BENGEL].
14. The fact that nature has provided woman, and not man, with long hair, proves that man was designed to be uncovered, and woman covered. The Nazarite, however, wore long hair lawfully, as being part of a vow sanctioned by God (Nu 6:5). Compare as to Absalom, 2 Sa 14:26, and Ac 18:18.
15. her hair … for a covering—Not that she does not need additional covering. Nay, her long hair shows she ought to cover her head as much as possible.
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, since we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church. To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.
