God is more worried about character than competency.
In 1 Timothy 3, the apostle Paul continues sharing guidelines for Christian worship to his ministry protégé and spiritual son, Timothy.
In this passage, the focus is specifically on qualifications for leadership with the positions of overseer and deacon.
Overseers, or “bishops” pers some translations, refers to an office where someone has the position that deals with:
“caring for the needs of a congregation as well as directing the activities of the membership” [1]
It is a position characterized by oversight and supervision of Christian communities.[2] It is likely the same position as pastor-teachers (Eph. 4:11) or elders with the role of shepherding (1 Pet. 5:1-3).
It is necessary to remember that all shepherds are merely under-shepherds of the Good Shepherd (see 1 Pet. 5:1-4). They are overseers under the true Overseer of our souls (see 1 Pet. 2:25), who are to, “care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood” (Acts 20:28).
Likewise, Paul addressed the role of deacon, which is a transliteration of the Greek diakonos. They are those who are called to a special place of service in the church.
What is interesting to note is that the qualifications for both positions have a primary focus on character over competency:
Overseers must be able to teach (1 Tim. 3:2) and likewise must manage their own households well (1 Tim. 3:4). Yet beyond these two things, none of the qualifications are focused on competency!
Likewise for deacons, there is an expectation that they will manage their own households well (1 Tim. 3:12) and aside from this qualification, everything else has to do with character.
In our present time, many have written books on leadership. There are countless pages on vision-casting, delegating, organizational structuring, and the list goes on.
Yet, in God’s book, if you do not have the basic character qualities that He is looking for you are disqualified. No matter how much of a visionary you might be or how well you can lead people or command a crowd, if you are not a good reflection of what the Christian life looks like, God has no need of you.
The world likes leaders who look the part. God likes leaders who have the right heart. Hence in the Old Testament Saul was disqualified even though outwardly he looked like leadership material, whereas David was qualified because he had a heart for God:
“For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7b).
Now, you might be thinking that if you are not in leadership that you are spared of these things. However, the character-qualifications that are listed for leadership are those that are expected of Christians generally too.
While there may be specific areas where those in leadership are expected to hold a higher standard as an example to others, qualities such as self-control, not being a lover of money, not being a drunkard, and not being quarrelsome are standard expectations for all Christians.
Let us then strive for moral excellence, by the grace of God, based upon God’s ideals in His Word. God is at work within us (Phil. 2:13) and His Spirit, having taken up residence in the human heart, will grow fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23).
Remember, God’s first priority for us all as His servants is first and foremost character and not competency. He has plenty of gifted people He could use, but how many are dedicated in their hearts with fruit to show for it?
[1] Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996) 541.
[2] William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 379.