The overseer therefore must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, modest, hospitable, good at teaching;
given to hospitality: This phrase literally means, "a lover of strangers." An elder who practices hospitality is warm, friendly, and responsive to others. People feel at ease with him. A congregation is blessed when it has for its leaders men who are friendly and open to visitors. Gaius, in the third epistle of John, gives an example of Christian hospitality. Verse 5 says, "Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to brethren, and to strangers." We live in an impersonal world today. In our high-tech society, men and women who work with cold, impersonal machines all week long don’t need to find cold, impersonal people at church on Sunday. We need more than correct heads filled with correct doctrine; we also need warm hearts filled with correct Christian love.