When the apostle Paul writes to his apprentice Timothy about the qualities of an overseer (Gr. Episkopos), he adds an important quality for all men. He must gain respect. Paul says, “He must be well thought of by outsiders” (1 Timothy 3:7a).

Of course, the larger term “outsiders” can include men as well as women who are outside of the boundaries of the local church. Yet for a man, and in Paul’s teaching, it must be a man (v.2 ‘one woman man’), to be well-thought of by other men is to gain their respect.

To be well-thought of by other men may mean that they don’t agree with your viewpoints, your beliefs, or your confessions. But it does mean that you have lived your life with duty, dependability, integrity, resolve, and perseverance. There can be no respect from men without these things.

Respect from men renders a man qualified to be seen and heard among the company of all men in any given place. The fool will be mocked. The unreliable will be shunned. But the respected will be recognized and heard. In this sense, men who have gained the respect of men have earned the right to be heard.

The respect of men does not mean that a man has to be friends with the world, which is prohibited (James 4.4). A man can stand facing his own choices and actions without support from men, yet still be respected by them. He can even gain respect from his enemies when they see him prosecute his arguments and battles with high character.

 This kind of respect will be required if an outsider is to think well of an insider, such as the potential overseer in the church. That Christian man will have obeyed Matt 5:16, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” The men on the outside may not be glorifying God, but they will see the good works of a man who has the respect of men. The hope is that seeing those good works will result in a conversion among men, not just their respect. On the last day of judgment, even those outsiders will be made to recognize that those good works came from God to the glory of the Father.

Christians can forget about the necessity of respect among men. They can excuse their foolishness, fickleness, rudeness, inconsistency, and unreliability. Then they can assume that they don’t have the respect of men because of an enmity that men have toward Christians. But this misses the point. When a Christian man cannot gain the respect of men, he will not be well thought of by outsiders, and he will show that he doesn’t know how to relate to the wide company of men in the world. Lacking the respect of men comes from a failure of maturity and a lack of masculine character. Without these, a Christian man is disqualified from being an overseer.

Consider how different churches would be if their overseers were men who were respected among men, even outsiders. Such masculine character among the episcopate would bring greater integrity to the office of the pastoral role, as well as greater gravity to the church’s presence in the world.