1950 This Means Everlasting Life - A2Z.org

130 "THIS MEANS EVERLASTING LIFE"
various congregational offices that needed to be
filled : "They appointed older men to office for
them in the congregation and, offering prayer
with fastings, they committed them to Jehovah
in whom they had become believers." Acts 13 :2-
4 and 14 :23, NW The inspired Scriptures give no
description or instructions concerning any ordination
. So all the lengthy, pompous, formalistic, ritualistic
ceremonies of ordination in Christendom's
religious systems are mere inventions of men, human
traditions, and unscriptural . They are not
Theocratic and so are not recognized by God .
11
The Scriptures give instructions for the appointment
of overseers and ministerial servants
to assist them . Timothy, a young man physically
but a mature person spiritually, was made an
overseer by the laying on of the hands of Paul and
possibly the body of older men with him . Acts
16 :1-3 ; 1 Timothy 4 :14 ; 2 Timothy 1 :6 The apostle
Paul, a member of the governing body of that
century, told his assistant Timothy what requirements
the ones he appointed to service in the congregation
must meet in order to have apostolic or
Theocratic approval. "The overseer e.pis'ko .pos,
Greek should therefore be irreprehensible, . . .
not a newly converted man, for fear that he
might get puffed up with pride and fall into the
judgment passed upon the Devil . . . . Ministerial
servants di.a'ko .noi, Greek should likewise be
serious, . . . let these be tested as to fitness first,
then let them serve as ministers di .a.ko.nein',
ii . What requirements must overseers and ministerial
servants meet?