What Does Titus 1:7 Mean?

(7) **For a bishop must be blameless.**—There is no doubt that the “bishop” here must be identified with the presbyter of Titus 1:6. In the Pastoral Epistles written between A.D. 63-67 these terms are clearly applied indifferently to the same person. The title presbyter refers to the gravity and dignity of the office; the title bishop suggests rather the duties which belong to an elder of the church. On the question of bishops, and their position in the early Church, see Note on 1Timothy 3:1, where the grounds for assuming that the episcopal order was formally introduced into church government before the end of this century, and during the lifetime of St. John, are discussed. The Christian bishop, within a quarter of a century after the death of St. Paul, assumed many of the functions and generally discharged the duties of government which were exercised by the Apostles during their lifetime. The presbyter—then writes St. Paul—seeing he is appointed an overseer or bishop (the use of the latter term bishop in the ecclesiastical sense is, however, premature), as God’s steward, as a responsible administrator of the House, that is, of the Church of the Living God, ought indeed be blameless. **Not selfwilled.**—He should not be one of those self-loving men who seeks to gratify his own personal ends in the first place, and in consequence is usually regardless of others. **Not soon angry.**—Not soon provoked, or not irascible. He should not be one ever ready with an angry, hasty word, remembering always his Master, “who when He was reviled, reviled not again.” **Not given to wine.**—While the presbyter is not to be chosen on account of any stern austerities or rigid asceticism he may have practised, he must be known as one “temperate,” moderate, self-denying. **No striker.**—Not a brawler. No man of God—above all things, no one holding office in the church—should ever, even under sore provocation, so far forget himself as to raise his hand against his fellow. **Not given to filthy lucre.**—The presbyter of the House of God must be above all dreaming of mean and paltry gains. He who is to administer the alms devoted to God must surely do it with clean hands. There is, too, another and a deeper meaning in the words. The presbyter whose mind is at all devoted to the amassing of gold is too preoccupied to be able to fix his thoughts upon those high things of God committed to his charge, among which one of his most important duties is to instruct the flock.