Verse 12
‘Let deacons be husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.’
Like the elders, deacons are to be husband of one wife, not polygamists or divorced. In view of their inevitable ministry among women someone with strong sexual urgings and not quite such a pure conscience would be unsuitable for the work. And again one of the ways in which they would be ‘proved’, would be by considering how well they ruled their own households and their children.
Note how there was nothing ‘super-spiritual’ about the appointments. The church would certainly pray and expect some spiritual confirmation, and would no doubt set them aside by the laying on of hands, but they were not to be appointed without careful scrutiny. It was not just to be a case of ‘the Lord showed us’, with that then being it.
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