not a drinker, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous;
but patient: Thayer defines patient as "mildness, gentleness, fairness, sweet reasonableness." An elder’s conduct should be like the beauty expressed in James 3:17, "But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy."