Qualifications for Overseers and Deacons

Qualifications for Overseers

1 Trustworthy is the saying: If anyone aspires to oversight, he desires a good work.
2 It is therefore necessary for the overseer to be above reproach, husband of one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,
3 not addicted to wine, not violent but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money,
4 one who manages his own household well, having children in submission with all dignity,
5 (but if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for the assembly of God?),
6 not a new convert, lest, having become conceited, he fall into the judgment of the devil.
7 And it is necessary also for him to have a good testimony from those outside, so that he might not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

Qualifications for Deacons

8 Likewise, deacons must be dignified, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain,
9 holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience.
10 And these also must first be tested; then let them serve as deacons if they are blameless.
11 Likewise, women must be dignified, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things.
12 Deacons must be husbands of one wife, managing their children and their own households well.
13 For those who have served well obtain for themselves a good standing and great boldness in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

The Mystery of Godliness

14 I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you soon;
15 but if I delay, so that you may know how it is necessary to conduct oneself in the household of God, which is the assembly of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.
16 And confessedly, great is the mystery of godliness:
 God was manifested in flesh,
  justified in Spirit,
  seen by angels,
  proclaimed among nations,
  believed on in the world,
  taken up in glory.