Saturday, January 16, 2010

Qualifications of a Bishop or Priest


Good day, readers.

Even though he's ticked me off in recent days, the Ochlophobist did post a link to a superb new Orthodox website:

http://orthodoxleader.paradosis.com/2010/01/15/the-making-of-a-pastor-part-1/

This was a convicting post and the website as a whole is sorely needed.  

I fall short in a number of ways according to this post.  

I've never really blown the doors off of a secular career, as one example.

Time to seek greater mercy and repentance.

This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?); not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. Moreover he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. (1 Tim. 3:1-7, NKJV)

Columba Silouan