Sense: overseer (church)
n. — a leader who watches over, directs, cares, and is accountable for an assembly of believers.
Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers (ἐπίσκοπος), to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.
Acts 20:28
“The Holy Spirit has made you overseers ….” What are some of the implications for the lives of the elders of the church at Ephesus when Paul tells them that the Holy Spirit has made them overseers? The Bible Sense Lexicon concordance quickly takes us to two other texts where we can see attributes of overseers more clearly. 1 Timothy 3:2-7 reads as follows:
Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil.
Further, we find in Titus 1:7-9:
For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.
These texts from the wider New Testament canon help us to understand the profound impact that the activity of the Holy Spirit will have on the lives of the elders of Ephesus in Acts 20:28.
What is the Bible Sense Lexicon?
Sense of the Day is based on content from Logos’ Bible Sense Lexicon, which organizes biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words by meaning based on a variety of semantic relationships. Sense of the Day provides examples of senses in context, along with insight into their application for theology and interpretation.
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