1 Timothy Chapter 3

What sort of men are to be admitted into the clergy. The church is the pillar of truth.

3:1. A faithful saying: If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.

3:2. It behoveth therefore a bishop to be blameless, the husband of one wife, sober, prudent, of good behaviour, chaste, given to hospitality, a teacher,

Of one wife.... The meaning is not that every bishop should have a wife (for St. Paul himself had none), but that no one should be admitted to the holy orders of bishop, priest, or deacon, who had been married more than once.

3:3. Not given to wine, no striker, but modest, not quarrelsome, not covetous, but

3:4. One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all chastity.

3:5. But if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?

3:6. Not a neophyte: lest, being puffed up with pride, he fall into the judgment of the devil.

A neophyte.... That is, one lately baptized, a young convert.