Passage

1 Timothy 3.1

Book: 1 Timothy · NASB95

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

1. Faithful is the saying, If a man seeketh the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.

The bishop therefore must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, orderly, given to hospitality, apt to teach; 3. no brawler, no striker; but gentle, not contentious, no lover of money; (1 Timothy 3:1-3, ASV)

WEB

1. This is a faithful saying: if a man seeks the office of an overseer, he desires a good work.

The overseer therefore must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, modest, hospitable, good at teaching; 3. not a drinker, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; (1 Timothy 3:1-3, WEB)

KJV

1. This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.

A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; ^{of good: or, modest} 3. Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; ^{given: or, ready to quarrel, and offer wrong, as one in wine} (1 Timothy 3:1-3, KJV)

YLT

1. Stedfast [is] the word: If any one the oversight doth long for, a right work he desireth;

it behoveth, therefore, the overseer to be blameless, of one wife a husband, vigilant, sober, decent, a friend of strangers, apt to teach, 3. not given to wine, not a striker, not given to filthy lucre, but gentle, not contentious, not a lover of money, (1 Timothy 3:1-3, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: Paul, who names himself in the opening line (1:1) and writes in the first person throughout. Authorship of the three Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy, Titus) is disputed. Many critical scholars hold that a later follower wrote them in Paul's name, pointing to differences of vocabulary and style from the undisputed letters and to a more settled church order. Others defend Paul's authorship, among them Luke Timothy Johnson (Anchor Bible, 2001), William Mounce (Word Biblical Commentary, 2000) and Philip Towner (NICNT, 2006), citing the letter's personal details and its acceptance in the second-century church.
Audience: Timothy, Paul's "true child in faith" (1:2), whom Paul had urged to stay on at Ephesus to stop certain men from teaching "a different doctrine" (1:3). Timothy came from Lystra, the son of a believing Jewish mother and a Greek father, and had travelled with Paul since the second missionary journey (Acts 16:1-3). The letter is addressed to him, but its directions on prayer, worship, overseers, deacons and widows are meant to order the church at Ephesus as a whole (3:14-15).
Location: not stated. Paul says he left Timothy at Ephesus "when I was going into Macedonia" (1:3) and hopes to rejoin him soon (3:14; 4:13), so Macedonia is the usual suggestion for where the letter was written.
Time period: on Pauline authorship, usually c. AD 62-65, after Paul's release from the Roman imprisonment that ends Acts, since the journey in 1:3 is hard to fit into the Acts narrative. Scholars who regard the letter as pseudonymous usually place it late in the first century or early in the second. The reading below does not depend on the choice.
Literary context: the opening of the qualifications for overseers (3:1-7), which follow the instructions on prayer and worship in chapter 2.

Theological reading

"Faithful is the saying, If a man seeketh the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work." (1 Timothy 3:1, ASV)

Faithful is the saying. The formula occurs five times in the Pastoral Epistles (1 Timothy 1:15; 3:1; 4:9; 2 Timothy 2:11; Titus 3:8) and nowhere else in Paul's letters. It marks a known and trusted statement. Interpreters divide over whether here it points back to 2:15 or forward to the saying about overseers; the ASV, like most English versions, takes it forward.

The office. "The office of a bishop" renders episkopē, "oversight"; the officer is the episkopos, "overseer". In the Pastorals and Acts the overseer appears to be the same person as the elder. Titus is told to "appoint elders in every city" (Titus 1:5), and two verses later the qualifications are given for "the bishop" (Titus 1:7); Paul summons the elders of Ephesus (Acts 20:17) and calls them overseers (Acts 20:28). Clement of Rome, writing to Corinth near the end of the first century, still speaks of the apostles appointing "bishops and deacons" (1 Clement 42). The pattern of a single bishop presiding over a body of presbyters appears clearly in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch early in the second century. See 1 Timothy 3.1-7 and Pastor.

Desiring a good work. Paul commends the desire, but he calls the office a "work", not an honor. The list that follows (3:2-7) is about character and household more than gifting; only "apt to teach" (3:2) names an ability. "If a man" in the ASV renders the Greek indefinite "if anyone"; how the passage bears on women in the office is discussed on Women in Ministry.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word.

None of the words in this verse has its own lexicon entry yet.

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Notes

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Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.