The overseer therefore must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, modest, hospitable, good at teaching;
Without reproach ...  This is the great and all-inclusive qualification. Wuest pointed out that the Greek word from which this comes means "one who cannot be laid hold upon,"[8] that is, a man without a handle, one who has given evil men no occasion whatever to blame or censure him.  The late Grover Cleveland Brewer denominated this as really the only qualification for elder, the other qualifications mentioned here and in Titus being merely the checkpoints for determining blamelessness.  As Zerr said, of course, "This word has been distorted out of its true meaning, by saying it requires a bishop to be without sin."[9] Sinless perfection is not required of Christians, nor of elders; and those are profoundly in error who make the high standard in evidence here the excuse for appointing none at all. The very fact of Paul's appointing elders in every church immediately after the first missionary journey (Acts 14:23) proves that such officers are absolutely necessary in every congregation; and the fact that one or more of a given group of elders might be declared deficient in given qualifications is not a valid reason for countermanding God's order to ordain elders "in every church."