Qualifications for Overseers

To this point, Paul has addressed some concerns related to the community at worship and corrected some abuses generated by the activities of the erring elders. Now he turns to the elders themselves and sets forth some qualifications for “office.”

He begins, in verses 1–7, with a group called episkopoi (“overseers”); then moves in verses 8–13 to a group called diakonoi (“servants,” “deacons”), with a note also about some “women” in verse 11. It is altogether likely that both “overseers” and “deacons” come under the larger category presbyteroi (“elders”). In any case, the evidence from Acts 20:17 and 28 and Titus 1:5 and 7 indicates that the terms episkopoi, “overseers” (Acts 20:28; Titus 1:7), and presbyteroi, “elders” (Acts 20:17; Titus 1:5), are partially i…