1 Timothy 3 · Titus 1 · Featured Study · The Church's Two Offices
Elders and Deacons
Paul leaves Timothy at Ephesus and Titus in Crete with the same charge, get the household of God in order, and the order runs through people, not programs: elders tested by character before competence, and deacons proved before they serve. The same men in Acts get called by three different Greek words in three verses; and the deacons' own word turns up in Romans attached to a woman named Phoebe, read at face value below, with the alternative reading held at full strength beside it.
Nicolas Poussin, The Sacrament of Ordination (Christ Presenting the Keys to Saint Peter) (c. 1636-1640) — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Summary
This page compares the church's two offices side by side, what 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 each require, and where they differ. It also faces the hardest verse in the debate, 1 Timothy 3:11, with both readings held at full strength.
- Elder, overseer, and shepherd named as three Greek words for the same office
- 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1's qualification lists set side by side, with each list's one novel item
- Deacons: the office's own qualifications, and Acts 6's loosely held parallel
- Phoebe and 1 Timothy 3:11's women: both readings held at full strength, with this site's tradition named
- Church government named across three forms, not settled
Three Words, One Office
the same men, called elder, overseer, and shepherd in the same breath
“From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus for the elders of the church.”
Acts 20:28“Keep watch over yourselves and the entire flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood.”
Paul calls for the same men twice in eleven verses: "elders" (presbyteroi, v.17), then to their faces "bishops"/overseers (episkopous) set to "feed" (poimainein, the shepherd's own verb) "the flock" (v.28). One office, named from three angles: presbyteros for the person's standing, episkopos for the function of oversight, poimēn for the pastoral work itself. Titus 1:5-7 does the identical move in a single paragraph: "appoint elders" (1:5) becomes "the bishop must be blameless" (1:7) two verses later, no change of subject.
The Words
elder, overseer, shepherd: one office, three names
The Qualification Ledger
1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9, side by side: character before competence
| Category | 1 Timothy 3 | Titus 1 |
|---|---|---|
| Reputation | without reproach (3:2) | blameless (1:6-7) |
| Marriage | husband of one wife (3:2) | husband of one wife (1:6) |
| Household | rules his own house well, children in subjection with all gravity (3:4-5) | children that believe, not accused of riot or unruly (1:6) |
| Temperament | temperate, sober-minded, orderly, gentle, not contentious, no brawler or striker, no lover of money (3:2-3) | not self-willed, not soon angry, no brawler or striker, not greedy of filthy lucre, self-controlled (1:7-8) |
| Character | given to hospitality (3:2) | given to hospitality, a lover of good, just, holy (1:8) |
| Teaching | apt to teach (3:2) | holds the faithful word, able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to convict the gainsayers (1:9) |
1 Timothy's novel item
“not a novice, lest being puffed up he fall into the condemnation of the devil” (3:6)
A recent convert is disqualified regardless of character: untested faith is its own risk. Titus's list has no equivalent line.
Titus's novel item
“having children that believe, who are not accused of riot or unruly” (1:6)
A stronger household test than 1 Timothy's simpler "in subjection with all gravity" (3:4), the children's own faith, not just their behavior, is in view.
The two lists do not open the same way, and the difference is worth noticing. 1 Timothy opens with a fanfare over the office itself: "Faithful is the saying, If a man seeketh the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work" (3:1), a good work sought, not a status claimed. Titus has no such formula. It opens with a job handed to a man on an island: "For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that were wanting, and appoint elders in every city" (1:5). One frames the office as something a man may rightly aspire to; the other frames it as something that has to get done, city by city, because it has not been done yet. 1 Timothy also adds one line Titus does not: "he must have good testimony from them that are without" (3:7), the elder's reputation has to hold outside the church as well as inside it.
Deacons
1 Timothy 3:8-13: the second office, proved before it serves
“Deacons in like manner must be grave, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre;”
3:9“holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.”
3:10“And let these also first be proved; then let them serve as deacons, if they be blameless.”
3:12“Let deacons be husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.”
3:13“For they that have served well as deacons gain to themselves a good standing, and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.”
Deacons (diakonoi, "servants") share several of the elders' qualifications: grave, not given to wine, husband of one wife, ruling their household well, but nothing about teaching: the office is service-shaped, not doctrine-guarding. Acts 6:1-6, where the Jerusalem church chooses seven men to administer the daily distribution to the widows, is the traditional prototype, held loosely, since Luke never actually calls the Seven "deacons"; he uses the verb diakonein ("to serve," 6:2) rather than the office-title diakonos. The parallel is natural and long-received, not a verse-for-verse identification.
Phoebe, and the Women of Verse 11
Romans 16:1 and 1 Timothy 3:11: the same word, and an ambiguity worth naming
“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church in Cenchrea.”
The ASV renders the Greek here as "servant." The noun underneath is diakonos, the identical word that names the office in 1 Timothy 3:8 and 3:12, and one Paul attaches to Phoebe with a specific congregation named: not a servant in general, but a servant of the church that is at Cenchreæ.
Reading one: verse 11 names women deacons
“In the same way, the women must be dignified, not slanderers, but temperate and faithful in all things.” (3:11) opens with the same "in like manner" that introduced the deacons themselves a few lines earlier (3:8), the formula Paul uses to move from one group to the next group, not to add a footnote about the previous one. And the sentence carries no possessive: the Greek says women, not "their women." On this reading Paul lists a third set of qualifications for a third set of people, and Phoebe is one of them.
Reading two: verse 11 names deacons' wives
Greek has one word for both: gynē means woman and wife alike, and only context decides which. The context here is a household one: the very next verse returns to "Let deacons be husbands of one wife" (3:12), using that same word for "wife." Paul gives verse 11 no title of its own, no "let them serve," and no proving requirement like the one he just laid on the deacons in 3:10. On this reading the wives are addressed because the deacon's household is part of what is being tested.
“Moreover, if the wives of the deacons were meant, there seems no reason for the omission of “their” (not in the Greek). Also the Greek for “even so” (the same as for “likewise,” 1Ti 3:8, and “in like manner,” 1Ti 2:9), denotes a transition to another class of persons.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on 1 Timothy 3:11 — public domain
This site's tradition: This site's tradition, Wesleyan-Pentecostal, teaches that women serve as leaders in the church, ordination and eldership included.
The wives reading of 1 Timothy 3:11 has the household context of the paragraph genuinely on its side, and it is held by serious readers of this same text. The ambiguity in gynaikas is real.
The teaching-and-authority passage in the same letter (1 Timothy 2:11-15) is the larger contested point behind this one, and it gets its own treatment at full strength. See the 1 Timothy hub.
Church Government
episcopal, presbyterian, congregational: named, not adjudicated
Episcopal
Authority runs through a distinct bishop's office set above the local elders: historic Anglican, Catholic, and Orthodox polity.
Presbyterian
A plurality of elders (presbyters) governs, joined across congregations through regional and national assemblies: Reformed/Presbyterian polity.
Congregational
The local, gathered congregation holds final governing authority under its own elders/deacons: Baptist, independent, and many charismatic churches.
MannaFest's own research roster flags church government as one of its thinnest-populated topics: the decoder's dedicated slot carries a single voice (J.I. Packer) without a worked-out summary yet. All three forms trace real elder/overseer/deacon language back to 1 Timothy and Titus; which polity best fits that language is a live, unresolved question this page names rather than settles.
Word studies
The Hebrew and Greek under this study, each word in its own room.
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