1 Timothy 3:8

1 Timothy 3:8. The deacons likewise. As the ‘bishops' and ‘elders ‘were titles applied to the same persons, expressing different aspects of their relation to the Church, there is, of course, no mention of the ‘elders' as an intermediate order. The absence of that order, as contrasted with the recognition of the three grades in the Ignatian Epistles, is, so far as it goes, evidence of the early date of the Pastoral Epistles. There is a certain touch of inferiority in the conditions named for the deacons, as compared with those for the Episcopate. No teaching power is required. The danger of intemperance is expressed in stronger terms; the evil of the love of base and fraudulent gain, the special temptation of those who had the charge of the Church's alms, is more prominent.