Summer Bible Study

Ok, so now it is officially summer and the men of the Community Group are officially reading through Genesis. The biggest reason why I wanted to read through the last half of the first book of the Bible is that in it we hear the accounts of the family of men that God hand picked and used to establish his Kingdom. There is so much that we can learn from these men, but my desire is that we can all walk away with a better understanding of what it means to be a Godly Man.

1 Timothy 3:1-7

1The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 2Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 5for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? 6He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. 7Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.

In the ESV, 1 Timothy 3 has been titled Qualification for Overseers, but I think that this falsely gives men the assumption that if they do not seek to be an Elder of a church then they should not be concerned with what Paul is saying hear. However, what if we understood these qualifications as extending to all men. Look how Paul puts it, "If anyone aspires to the office...he desires a noble task." ANYONE, that you and me, guys. Why are these qualifications for overseers? Because they are those things that make any man noble, therefore they should be exemplified especially by the elders of our church.

Why am I talking about 1 Timothy 3 in regards to us reading Genesis? Let's think about it, the Jews found their conduct for life from Pentateuch. So, when Paul writes about God's qualifications for the Elders of His church, he is going to be drawing all of them from those men on who God began to build his Kingdom.

If we seek to be Godly men, let's learn from these men of old, and see what God has in store of us in Genesis.

Anybody out there want to join us?