December 16, 2020 Bible Study Church Leaders Must Be Hospitable

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Titus and Philemon

I have skipped over the other places where Paul speaks about the qualifications for Church leadership, but I will touch on it today  Church leaders are managers of God’s household and therefore must be men who lead a blameless life. Paul goes into detail on what that means, but there is one qualification he mentions which is not summed up in “blameless life”.  Church leaders must enjoy having guests in their own home.  They must like being around people.  Paul tells us that all of these qualifications are necessary because there are many rebellious people who engage in useless talk and thus deceive others.  I find it interesting that being a good host leads to one being good at countering those who deceive others.

Paul goes on to say that Believers should submit to the government and its officers.  We should be obedient and always ready to do what is good.  It should be noted that this was written by a man who was imprisoned by the government for preaching about Jesus Christ, and who continued to preach even so.  We should not slander anyone.  Actually, I am going to bring up a story about my Mom here.  My Mom was a firm believer in the saying, “If you cannot say anything nice about someone, do not say anything.”  The worst thing I ever heard her say about someone was, “He dresses nice.”  This was in response to me asking her opinion of a man prominent in the Church community (not someone who held any Church offices that I can remember) about whom I had heard some rumors (just rumors that people were spreading rumors about him).  I knew that my Mom knew the man personally, and had likely heard whispers of something inappropriate regarding him.  Hearing my Mom say that about the man was the most devastating put down of the man imaginable, and my Mom had no intention of putting him down when she said it.  “He dresses nice,” was the only nice thing she could say about a man she had known for more than 20 years.  The point of this story was that my Mom always sought to see some good in everyone