How One Becomes a Different Person

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be…

Paul’s First Letter to Timothy 3:1-2a (ESV)

Paul goes on to list qualities an overseer must possess. The list is obviously meant to eliminate many Christians from being considered for the office. But he doesn’t begin by saying that people should not aspire to the office. Rather, he encourages them in the aspiration, inviting them to develop the required qualities.

People can aspire to change. Generally speaking, a Christian can (and should!) aim at becoming someone with a different character than he currently possesses.

To see how this is possible, let’s consider the dark side of the story. One can also become a different person without such an aspiration. One can change for the worse.

Take an alcoholic or drunkard as an exemplar of this. I doubt any alcoholic arrived in his current state by following a lifelong ambition to become such a person. In fact, part of the reason he might have become an alcoholic is because he didn’t think he could really develop (or decay) into one. He prided himself on being impervious to such a weakened character. He prided himself on being able to drink to excess.

But he was wrong. And his desire to not become an alcoholic was useless for preventing him from becoming one. His actions determined his character, not his desires.

Likewise, wanting to be qualified as an overseer, will be useless unless one takes action. One has to practice at doing the things an overseer does (and at not doing things an overseer refrains from doing).

Thus, you become a certain type of person by behaving in a certain kind of way and repeatedly practicing at it. Whether you practice because you want to become that sort of person, or for some other reason, iw not as important as the fact that you practice for the role.

So the point of aspiring to be an overseer is to be motivated to execute a plan to become a little bit more like an overseer (meaning, closer to an overseer’s character). One must look at one’s normal behavior and start making changes, endeavoring to make those changes more consistent over time.

[Addendum: My thought here is far from complete. My next post is a sequel (perhaps one of several).]