The Qualifications for Deacons, Elders, and Pastors-1 Timothy 3-Part 3

The first qualification Paul gives us for an overseer in this passage is that they are to be above reproach. As best I can figure this statement means that a person is to above or free from anyone being able to blame them for wrong doing. The word Anepileptos carries a connotation of not being able to be arrested. The question then becomes how far back into a person's life to we look? How much of person's past is to be considered in this discussion?

The first part of the answer deals with when they came to know Christ. I believe that a person's choices before Christ are not relevant in determining their ability to serve now. When we accept Christ as Savior and Lord the old has gone and the new has come. The second part of the answer comes when we examine the level of discipleship. A local church must take the time to prayerfully examine how ignorant a person may have been when they did certain things. They must also look into what a person was doing to move out of situations and habits. For example, is a person disqualified from church leadership because they slipped back into drugs after coming to Christ? I do not think there is a hard and fast rule on this. The local church must be willing to follow God's leading on this. We must always remember that God is in the business of restoration and forgiveness and as His church we must also be doing the same.

I think this same principle applies to the statement on being the husband of one wife. Does divorce automatically disqualify someone from church leadership? I do not think that it does. Once again we must consider the specific circumstances for each candidate for overseer. We must examine why they are divorced. Is there former spouse dead? If so then this changes the dynamic in God's eyes in that the man would be free to marry again and so it would only serve to reason that he would meet this qualification again. We must ask if the man had biblical justification for divorce. Was it done before his salvation? Has he attempted reconciliation?

The bottom line with these two qualifiers is that I believe it would be false to make some hard and fast rules about specific applications of these verses. We do see this kind of narrowing of God's rules in Scripture but it was with the Pharisees and they were condemned by Jesus for doing so. When we begin to make hard a fast rules that go beyond the words in Scripture then we begin to move down the path of legalism.