Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without. — The man to be chosen as a responsible office-bearer in the Church, should be one possessing a stainless reputation for integrity and honour with the world outside the Church’s pale; he should be one regarded by the world at large as having led a self-restrained, decorous life — a life free from those disorders and licentious practices which worldly men, even while themselves indulging in them, are the first to condemn in others.
Lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. — For such a one, bringing with him into the new society his unhappy reputation, earned in the old thoughtless days — if placed in the new society in a prominent position of authority — would draw down upon himself and the brotherhood over whom he presided many a reproach, many a sneer. Those who once knew him among other associations living a very different life, would be only too ready to attack the blameless character of the congregation, through the stained and scarred reputation of their minister. The temptation to fall away and deny his Lord in such a case, would be overwhelming. The man might be in earnest, might be wishful to lead a new and better life, but the risk that one with such connections, with such memories of old days, would of necessity run, must be very great. Weakened and disheartened, such a presbyter would be likely to fall an easy prey into some snare skilfully laid by the Enemy, and, by his fall, cause a terrible and damaging injury to the Church of Christ. For these weighty reasons St. Paul charged Timothy to be very watchful when he chose his presiding elders, to elect only those who, in the dissolute society of Ephesus, had known how, even in old days, to preserve their good name stainless, their character unscarred.
The snare of the devil. — The teaching here of St. Paul respecting the Evil One is deserving of a special comment. What he says in 1 Timothy 3:6-7 is simply introduced as part of the main argument, which relates exclusively to the care to be exercised in the selection of fit persons for the sacred offices in the congregations. It is evidently not introduced as a special teaching on this mysterious subject. No disputings on this point as yet had been originated at this early period in Christian history. It lays down, however, certain broad principles which must have been the ground-work of St. Paul’s belief in this now disputed question; and receiving as we do St. Paul’s words in this and in his other epistles as an authoritative declaration of the mind and will of the Holy Spirit, it seems that these broad principles should have all weight whenever the doctrine respecting the Spirit of Evil is discussed. The lines hero sketched are as follows: (1) The personality of the Evil One is distinctly affirmed. (2; This unhappy being has fallen and has been condemned, and is now able to lay snares for and to tempt men. (3) An overweening pride seems to have been the cause which led to this once mighty one’s fall. (4) All idea of dualism — the old Persian belief adopted in the Manichsean heresy, and in so many other false creeds, that of two principles eternally opposed to one another — presiding respectively over the realms of light and darkness — is distinctly here repudiated by Paul, who in the course of his argument casually introduces the Evil One — the Enemy of man, as one who at some remote period rebelled, was crushed, and condemned, but to whom, in the supreme Providence of God, some terrible power over man was left.