-Managing household beautifully. An overseer must stand before his family in a way that is beautiful (which goes for any dad, for that matter). So let’s think about dad for a minute. Dad. God sets him down to stand in front of his family - to go before them, to lead them and guide them (in the Way Beautiful), to protect and provide for them, to care for them. So the picture here is not about power - it is about responsibility. Yes there is authority, and some when put in this position can and do abuse the power. But Uncle Ben had it right - with great power comes great responsibility. And as an overseer, it is not that I need to be the most organized person on earth, but I need to be someone to whom God can entrust an entire spiritual family, someone who the Lord can trust to lay his life down for a flock, to stand before them and protect and provide for them beautifully.
-Having/holding children in obedience. One outcome of standing in front of my family beautifully is that my children will be obedient. They will have learned (and most likely are still learning) to obey. They are learning this because Dad is teaching them. Dad in his home is demonstrating that he has the capacity to teach something to someone. That’s not to say that there are not hiccups along the way. But if you see a home where the children are out of control and generally not learning to respect and obey their parents (much less the Lord), you could very likely be looking at a dad who is perhaps not quite ready yet to be trusted to stand before God’s family, for whatever reason. But it's a team effort, right? Mom and Dad together? Two are better than one, right? This charge is as old as the hills - parents are to bring their children up to know and fear the Lord. We are to instruct and teach our kids about Who God is and what He wants. AND this includes teaching them the simple principle of obedience. Teaching them to submit to authority, but again, doing so in a way that is beautiful. We’re talking about the difference between a wild stallion and a broke horse - one which is useful because it has been trained how (and when) to obey. But there are different ways to break a horse, and not all of them are beautiful. So it is with children. There is indeed an art to teaching kids this important life skill. The submittable will is an essential tool for life - life is full of relationships, many of which will require having acquired the ability to rank myself under someone who is in authority, to be able to comply with their instructions when necessary. Teachers, governors, police officers, judges, tax collectors, employers - dad (and mom) should and must help the children entrusted to them to learn the importance of and how and when to submit to those who are in authority over them, not the least of these being their very own Father and Maker in heaven.
-...with all reverence. Obedience. Reverence. This is what one would normally show to the Lord. Yet Paul says that children should be showing this to their dad. What we see is that dad is leading in the home and standing before his family in such a beautiful way that his children have not only learned to obey him but they also revere him. They look up to him and respect him. Maybe there is even a little bit of healthy fear. Just like there would be for the Lord. There truly is an art to this. Because some dads will through force and anger and threat (and even use) of violence teach their kids to obey but dad will not earn their respect, their reverence. But the dads who can elicit both, who manage to manage their household beautifully - these guys show that they are viable candidates for the office of overseer, that they are ready to shepherd God’s people.
-This is precisely Paul’s point in verse 5. Faithful in the little things. And not only faithful, but fruitful. The home, a man’s own family is a type of church - or rather, the assembly of God’s people is like a family, only much larger. And the responsibilities which fall on an overseer in these areas closely mirror those of a dad - the overseer needs to be able to teach the flock to obey the Lord AND to respect and reverence Him. The overseer is the main one to reinforce the need for that. But more than this the overseer definitely needs to be someone to whom the church will listen and whom they will be able to respect. If you look at a man’s family and see that his own children don’t respect or listen to him, then you should not expect that he is ready to stand before a church and lead them.
-Paul uses a beautiful word to describe the beautiful work which the overseer is called to do for the church, that flock which the Lord entrusts to his care. He is to attend to and take care of it - it is what the Good Samaritan did for the man he found in the ditch (Luke 10.34). It is what Paul’s friends did for him in Sidon (Acts 27.3). It is how the woman who lost one of her ten silver coins looked for it (Luke 15.8). With care, with careful consideration of the object in view. It is careful consideration of (and meeting) needs. This is what dad does (or is supposed to do) for his family, and this is what the shepherd must (be able to) do for his flock. A sober and high calling, this...
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