1 Timothy 3 Bible study: A good work

The chapter opens: "This is a faithful saying: someone who seeks to be an overseer desires a good work." (3:1) (tap good). It is the second of the three sayings the letter calls faithful (1:15, 3:1, 4:9). Then it says what the overseer must be: "The overseer therefore must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, modest, hospitable, good at teaching; not a drinker, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; one who rules his own house well, having children in subjection with all reverence; (for how could someone who doesn’t know how to rule his own house take care of God’s assembly?) not a new convert, lest being puffed up he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. Moreover he must have good testimony from those who are outside, to avoid falling into reproach and the snare of the devil." (3:2-7) (tap well, take care of). The letter says no more here about the overseer than these words. These notes don't say what an overseer did beyond them, or how one was chosen, and they apply none of these words to any church, or to anyone's home, today.

καλόςkalossay kal-OS

Strong's: "properly, beautiful, but chiefly (figuratively) good (literally or morally), i.e. valuable or virtuous". "This is a faithful saying: someone who seeks to be an overseer desires a good work." (3:1): behind good is this word. It comes twice more in this chapter: "Moreover he must have good testimony from those who are outside" (3:7), and "a good standing" (3:13) (in all eight editions TAGNT compares). Among its later uses in the letter: "you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus" (4:6). Favor's John 10 studies it too.