What Does 1 Timothy 3:4 Mean?

(4) **One that ruleth well his own house.**—Paul here again turns to the vein of thought first struck in 1Timothy 3:2 : The life of the officer in the Church of God must be a pattern life for those without, as well as for those within the Church’s fold, to copy and imitate. He must be pre-eminent in nobility of life and aims; but the life and the aims must belong to ordinary every day life. His high standard must be no inimitable one; the example must be one that all honest men may follow and copy, if they will. So, first of all (1Timothy 3:2), the Apostle places among the qualities necessary for a governing elder in the Church, the pure home life of the husband; then, after enumerating other points to be sought for in the character of one chosen to rule in the congregation, Paul comes back to this central idea, *the home life of the Church official;* that home life must present the spectacle of a well-ordered household. This will be at least a good test of a man’s fitness to rule the large family gathered together in the form of a congregation, if his own home is gently yet firmly ruled; the wife, a pattern Christian lady; the children growing up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. **Having his children in subjection with all gravity.**—The Greek word rendered “gravity” occurs in 1Timothy 2:2, where it is translated in the authorised version, not very happily, by “honesty.” The word employed in the original Greek denotes that decorum, that propriety of demeanour, which belongs especially to the pure and chaste, and seems to urge that a peculiar reverence and an especial decorum shall be aimed at in all relations with the young. *Maxima* *debetur pueris reverentia.* The *child life* in the families of these ministers of Christ’s religion must, too, be an example to countless other homes.