⁵ The apostle Paul listed the basic Scriptural requirements for overseers in his first letter to Timothy and in his letter to Titus. At 1 Timothy 3:1-7, we read: “If a man is reaching out to be an overseer, he is desirous of a fine work. The overseer should therefore be irreprehensible, a husband of one wife, moderate in habits, sound in mind, orderly, hospitable, qualified to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, but reasonable, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money, a man presiding over his own household in a fine manner, having his children in subjection with all seriousness (for if any man does not know how to preside over his own household, how will he care for the congregation of God?), not a newly converted man, for fear that he might get puffed up with pride and fall into the judgment passed on the Devil. Moreover, he should also have a fine testimony from outsiders so that he does not fall into reproach and a snare of the Devil.”

⁷ Although the Scriptural requirements for overseers may at first seem overwhelming, Christian men should not hold back from reaching out. When they manifest the fine Christian qualities required of overseers, they encourage others in the congregation to do the same. Paul wrote that such “gifts in men” are provided “with a view to the readjustment of the holy ones, for ministerial work, to build up the body of the Christ, until we all attain to the oneness of the faith and of the accurate knowledge of the Son of God, to being a full-grown man, attaining the measure of stature that belongs to the fullness of the Christ.”​—Eph. 4:8, 12, 13.