Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

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First Timothy III. 4, 5. 69
in favour of the lutter, against whicli neither the expression oeiivoTrjg
nor the [ierd—not tv—is decisive, as De Wette remarks, appeahng
to ii. 2, ii. 15, vi. 6. "Exovra is then the consequence of ruling ivell,
and oeiivoTTjg, propriety of conduct, as in ii. 2, denotes the fruit in
which his influence is to be perceived. Ver. 5 shews why this particular
quality deserves a special consideration, by an inference a
minori ad majus. How shall he who knows not how to rule his own
house take care of the church of God ? The apostle places on the
same footing the capacity for both duties, that of ruling one's own
house and taking care of the church. That which qualifies for
ruling one's own house qualifies also for an efficient discharge of
official duties. Hence the inference from the one to the other. The
office gives a wider sphere of active duty, but it is the same energy
of a Christian and moral character that must be brought into exercise
here, as in the narrower sphere of the family. The exact opposite
of the idea here expressed is the abstract separation between the
office and the person. Ae, " the sentence is parenthetically opposed
to the ruling well his own house," Winer's Gr., § 53, 102,
p. 401. The antithesis to IStog is here clearly expressed by church
of God, compare with verse 15. ^FjmixeXelodat, again at Luke x. 34,
35.
Ver. 6.—Two qualifications are mentioned in vers. 6 and 7 which
do not occur in the Epistle to Titus i^tj veo^vtov^ still dependent
on the 6d, ver. 2, and also, that the candidate have a good report of
those without the Christian church. The word veocpvTog, which became
a standing expression in the later ecclesiastical usage, is found
only here in the New Testament ; literally, recently planted, in the
Sept. The figure, used of the veoKarijxv^og (Chrysostom), or veolSdTT-
Tiarog (Theophylact), naturally suggests passages such as 1 Cor. iii.
6, seq.; eyw icpyrevaa, which represents the Christian church as a
planting of God ; comp. 1 Cor. iii. 9 ; Rom. vi. 5, xi. 7. We have
therefore no reason for surprise at the word when the apostle designates
his own apostolical labour by the word (pvTeveiv. But there is
greater reason for surprise, says Schleiermacher, at the requirement
itself ; for how could Paul contrive to make no vsore^g sl bishop in
any of those many churches which he often planted hastily one
after another on a journey. This might have been possible, he
says, twenty years later. Why then may it not have been so ten
years later ?
And what the apostle writes to Timothy with special
reference to Ephesus, where Christianity had existed for some length
of time, is not to be held as an inviolable rule for all cases. Matthies
has already expressed himself to the same efiect, and referred
to the circumstance that this particular rule is wanting in the Epistle
to Titus. " But," replies De Wette, " the rules are laid down
in quite a general form." They will therefore apply everywhere in