Continuing in the overview of the qualifications for elders, we turn our focus to 1 Tim 3:4-5. In particular this section focuses on the home because the relationship between the home and the church of God is closely tied. There are, of course, other verses that underpin this subject header: 1 Cor 11:3, 8011; Eph 5:21-25; 1 Pet 3:1, 6-7. The qualifications of the speaker for this subject perhaps can be helpful for understanding that the speaker is not teaching out of a void. The speaker can empathize with those who struggle with a rowdy home with three boys, now by the grace of God one is an excellent expositor, one is a missionary and the other is very active in an assembly. All of the speaker’s grandchildren are saved and he and his wife of forty seven years are grateful.

The lesson in this section is clear: we can not separate what we are at home from what we are in the church for the way we conduct ourselves in the home will affect our church in some degree or another. The apostle places his house-life next to the very house of God—therefore there must be complete consistency. The home is the training ground for any type of work we may partake in for in it: 1) character is developed 2) we learn to love, 3) learn to pity, 4) learn to exercise tenderness, 5) exercise headship, 6) and administer discipline. A person doesn’t begin to function as an overseer upon receiving a label; he is already doing the work. As you know sheep can not read labels and see the shepherd’s overalls and read the words on his lapel to know he is a shepherd: they recognize the worker when they see him working. There is no formal ordination where people don’t expect the person to be their overseer and if the day ever comes where someone is raised as an overseer and it’s a big surprise to everyone then he is not an overseer.