1 Tim. 3:1-7
“An Overseer Must Be…-5”
Here we have a string of negative qualifications: “not a drunkard, not violent but
gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money” (v. 3). These
negative qualifications provide a more definite cut-off line, if you will, for
elder qualifications. They also indicate that there are two opposing kingdoms
and principles at odds with each other.
The first
we are dealing with today is that an elder must not be a drunkard. This is
rather an obvious point, isn’t it? Have you ever dealt with an alcoholic, or a
drug addict, for that matter? I am certain that, if Paul were writing in our
time, he would have certainly included drug addiction, or any kind of
life-consuming, life-destroying addiction, including eating, gambling,
pornography and sex. This problem of addiction seems to be an epidemic in our
country. Even if you have not personally dealt with a chemically dependent
person, I am certain that most of the grownups in this place probably saw a
movie or a TV program dealing with the topic. I have had some personal
experiences to know its devastating effects on the person and the people
around. A sweet, caring person can turn into a monster under the influence of
alcohol or drugs. He does not care about anything or anyone but hitting the
next bottle, or getting the next fix. He does not care about his job, his
future, his family and the people around him, who love and care for him. He
does not show up at his work. He neglects his wife and does not care that his
children starve. He swindles his friends and steals from his family. All his
brainpower is used to come up with excuses for his irresponsible behaviors and
to find a way to get the next fix, which often involve deception and lies and
even criminal activities.
It is
obvious, then, that a drunkard, or an addict, cannot be an overseer of the
But we must
go beyond the typical images of a drunkard, roaming aimlessly, or sleeping in
the streets, in dirty rags, unkempt and smelling foul. We know that there are
varying degrees of alcoholism or drug addiction. Some are able to hold down
their jobs and function normally (or, at least, appear to function normally).
Is it OK as long as a person has some degree of control over his life? After
all, isn’t the issue here the loss of control?
It would
interest you to know that the Greek word used in v. 3 is not a noun (a
drunkard) but an adjective. This Greek adjective is a compound word (pároinos), made
up of pará
and oínos. Pará, when used to form a compound word,
“denotes 1. situation or motion either from the side
of, or to the side of; near, beside, by, to….” (Thayer). Oínos means
wine. So from the compound word we have a picture of someone very attached to
wine--that is, someone spending a lot of time drinking a lot of wine. So then, this
vice is not limited to getting drunk to the point of passing out. Since this
vice is mentioned in relation to elder qualification, we should take it as any
amount of drinking, which compromises one’s ability to lead and rule as an
elder. In this regard, we find Proverbs
31:4-5 very helpful: “It is not for kings, O Lemuel,
it is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to take strong drink, lest they drink and forget what has
been decreed and pervert the rights of all the afflicted.” This is not a
prohibition against drinking per se. It is a prohibition against any level of indulgent
drinking, which affects our decision-making abilities.
But having
this (negative) qualification included in the list sheds a light on another
important principle in Christian living. While Scripture speaks strongly
against drunkenness, it also speaks, with equal potency, the goodness of wine.
It is a symbol of God’s covenant blessings (Deut.
If wine is a good gift from God, why is drunkenness so bad? Well,
even our conventional wisdom tells us that too much of anything, even a good
thing, is bad. We know why. Too much consumption of anything, even good food or
drink, can make you very, very sick. But if God calls drunkenness bad, it is
not simply because too much wine makes us drunk and gets us sick; it is because
something deeply spiritual is involved--nothing less than idolatry. What is
idolatry? Simply bowing down to a statue or a figurine? No! That is only a
primitive form of idolatry. As many of you know, idolatry in its ultimate sense
is worshipping something other than God. But consider this: there is only one
true God and “[e]very good
gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of
lights…” (James 1:17). Therefore, idolatry can be defined as worshipping God’s
gifts more than God Himself. To put it in another way, idolatry is valuing,
treasuring, holding onto, God’s gift more than God Himself.
This is
what lies underneath drunkenness, or any kind of addiction, or any kind of sin.
Martin Luther said in the summary of his teaching on the Ten Commandments how
the First Commandment is the foundation of all other commandments: all other
commandments are, in a sense, an expansion of the First Commandment; if we love
and fear anything other than and more than God, we not only break the First
Commandment but also some other commandment(s) (http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/catechism/web/cat-09.html).
So if we make graven images to worship, it is because we love our idea of God more than the true God. If we use God’s name in vain, it is either 1) because we value the appearance of our piety to other men more than our standing before God (the case of feigned piety) or 2) because we exalt ourselves over the holy name of God (the case of using God’s name in cursing and profanities). If we break the Sabbath, it is because we delight to do our pleasure rather than God’s. If we do not honor our parents, or any authority, which God placed over us, it is because we treasure our autonomy more than the social order, which God established. If we murder someone, it is because we value our feelings and our sense of justice over God’s administration of justice in His own time and way. If we commit adultery, it is because we value our lust over God’s love for us. If we steal, it is because we worship our convenience and ease over God’s goodness and provision for us. If we bear false witness, it is because we treasure our safety and reputation among men more than before God and His justice. If we covet, it is because we value material and physical riches over God.
We can summarize all this in this way: all our sins are a result of our idolatry and we commit idolatry when we value God’s gifts more than God Himself. Any form of addiction, then, is an extreme manifestation of idolatry. Though wine is a good gift from God, when a man, or a woman, is given to drunkenness (as NIV translates it), he makes an idol of wine and the pleasure it gives--although the pleasure is, through his abuse and obsession, soon degenerated into stupor and head-splitting hangover and humiliation and regrets and guilty conscience and negligence of duty and deceptions and lies and loss of health and wealth and relationships and memory, etc., and even life itself. How tragic! But don’t forget! The self-destructive behaviors of an addict is a dramatic example of what we are doing when we sin in any way!
We see how idolatry is at work in the last of the negative qualifications as well: “not a lover of money”. This, too, is an adjective in Greek, not a noun: áphilárguros. This is a compound word as well, made up of: 1) a, a particle that negates what follows (such as the a in atheism); 2) philos, which means love; 3) árgúrion, which can mean silver or money, particularly a silver coin. So, literally translated, it is “not loving money”. An elder must be “not loving money”. Neither should we. Money, or wealth, is a gift from God. But we should not treasure money more than God. Indeed, there is nothing more pathetic than a creature made in the image of God worshipping money. We all feel some degree of disdain when we see misers, who consider money more important than anything, even the people they have relationships with. If we feel that way, how abut God? He made us in such a way that we should worship nothing other than the most glorious and majestic God. God has placed us over all other creatures as His stewards. We have been entrusted with all that we have, including and most prominently, money. That means, we are to rule over our money rather than be enslaved by it. We are to use it for the glory of God rather than save it and save it and save some more because we find our security and happiness in money. So, to tear us away from our worship of money, to remind us of our stewardship to God, God commands His people to worship God with offerings. When we present our offerings to God, many things are happening: we acknowledge God’s lordship over us and our stewardship to Him; we affirm that all we have is His gracious gift; we declare our independence from the enslaving grip of money; and we show how grateful we really are by what we give.
In this fallen world, with our fallen nature, we can easily
wander into the temple of money if we forget that we are God’s stewards. It is
tricky there in the temple of money. It does not demand that we forsake all
other gods. It welcomes other gods; it is willing to coexist with other gods,
as long as it has prominence. It assures us that we can have it all, that we
can worship both God and money. How do we know that we are in a dangerous
liaison with the temple of money? When we seek God as a means of acquiring and securing wealth.
When we define God’s love in terms of money--to feel loved by
God when we have money and to feel unloved by God when we don’t. If we
live this way, we allow money to be our god, from whom all blessings flow,
whose absence, we think, is the cause of all our miseries. Yet the Word of God
says that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils (1 Tim.
This idea of idolatry applies to the other negative qualifications as well. Being violent is an extreme manifestation of idolatry--an idolatry of one’s self. Not only is a violent person insisting on his own ways; he is also using force to subjugate others to get his way. Thus he sacrifices others’ safety and dignity at the altar of his unbridled temper. Whoever opposes him is struck and beaten and hurt and even killed. This shows, ironically, how fragile his temple of self-worship is: for its defense it must unleash violence even at the smallest provocations.
But can someone be an elder as long as he is not physically violent, as long as he does not beat his wife and children and not get into fist fights with others? Of course not! Paul goes on to say that an elder must not be quarrelsome. Being quarrelsome may be viewed as a prelude to violence: it is the attitude out of which physical violence is launched. It may stop short of physical violence. But it spews out its lethal venom in combative attitudes and belligerent words.
What do you think about these negative qualifications? Do
they seem too low of a standard for elders? If they do, it is because they are
to serve as representatives rather than as a list of individual vices. Here we
can detect another dimension to this list, which is closely related to the idea
of idolatry. Take a look at Rom. 14:17: “For the
The way we
live can reflect that wonderful reality even now! So Paul goes on to say in
Rom. 14:20-21, “Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God.
Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble
by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that
causes your brother to stumble.” Paul reminds us that, while we live in this
fallen, imperfect world, even what is good, at times, may have to be let go for
the sake of what is better. There is nothing wrong with eating meat (even the
meat sacrificed to idols!) and drinking wine. Indeed, we can, and we ought to,
glorify God by eating and drinking (1 Cor.
But Paul’s words also point out the tension between the
Now the
works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality,
idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries,
dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I
warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit
the
In the list of the works of the flesh we see the negative
qualifications of our passage expanded. At the same time, we see gentleness
(which is mentioned as the opposite of being violent) included in the list of
the fruit of the Spirit. The presence of these negative qualifications shows
that, for now, we are engaged in spiritual warfare. Not only do we have good
things to strive for and defend; we also have bad things to ward off and fight
against. And our spiritual battle is not just an individual, moral combats: it
takes place in the larger context of two opposing kingdoms, two opposing
principles. Our individual battles are only a part of a much bigger war being
waged. Ultimately our victory depends on which side we are on. When
Let us conclude. What do these negative qualifications show
us? They show us, at the most basic level, a list of
individual vices, which would disqualify a man from being an elder. But this
list is not comprehensive. Rather, it is representative. What does it
represent? It represents what we have been saved from--from the sin of idolatry,
with all of its multi-faceted manifestations, and from the kingdom of this
world, from the dominion of the flesh. These are the representative principles
of our former life before Christ sought us and delivered us from it. An elder
must be free of these characteristics because he is to be an example of our new
creation (2 Cor.
Again God reminds us of who we are in Jesus Christ, in whom
we have salvation and life and new identity. We are what we are because of
Jesus Christ, who is the Last Adam, the covenant Head of the new humanity. Praise
God that, where the first Adam failed, the last Adam succeeded with an
overwhelming victory! Praise God that, though we lost the image of God on
account of the first Adam and his sin, we have been renewed in the image of God
on account of the last Adam and His perfect righteousness! When Jesus died as
our Covenant Head, we, too, died with Him in relation to Adam and the curse of
his fall. That means, we have been rescued from the kingdom of darkness and are
now naturalized, or super-naturalized, if you will, as citizens of the
We have a new King, who is not a tyrant but a gracious Savior. That we might have life and have it abundantly, He bore the punishment of our sin and died in our place. He is a loving King, who labored tirelessly so that His people might have rest in Him. He is a generous King, who bore our sorrows and agonies so that we might have His joy made full in us! He is not drunk with wine but is full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. He will judge the world according to its deeds but He will do so with equity and justice. And He is not violent with His people but gentle. He is not quarrelsome with His people, though we are often wayward and downright sinful. Rather, He is patient with us because He wants to lead us to repentance by His kindness. He is not stingy and miserly towards His people. His love for us does not allow Him to withhold what is truly good from His people: “though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).
Because He is the true God, we have been set free from the
futile, destructive practice of idolatry. Because He is the true King, we have
been set free from the enslavement to the things we should rule over rather
than worship! This is not just a grand, comforting idea! This is the new
reality of your life. It is not just your individual, subjective, postmodern,
relative reality you have created out of your desperate needs! It is the
cosmic, historical, objective, absolute reality, which the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ inaugurated! Jesus was not a fictional character
that some people came up with! He did walk on the streets of
What is it that hinders you from following Christ all the
way? Are you overly preoccupied with anything so as to lose sight of
God--whether it be any kind of addiction, any kind of
obsession, etc.? Being drunk, violent, quarrelsome and loving money are not
just moral vices. They are diametrically and diabolically opposed to the
© Copyright 2008 by Jeong Woo "James" Lee
All Rights Reserved.