Lafia Journal of Religion and Humanities

The Christian community at the global front is confronted with leadership issues that pervade the social landscape in which the church of God, particularly in contemporary Nigeria society, is not an exception. Hence, an examination of Paul's instructions to Timothy for the leaders and potential leaders of the church in Ephesus underscores the weight and expectation of God, and the society on Christian leaders at all times. Paul in his pastoral epistle to his disciple, Timothy, listed some qualities expected in the life of the would-be church leader. However, looking at some of the contemporary Nigeria Christian leaders, with attendant cases of moral ineptitude and leadership failure, there is a clear departure from Pauline list of qualifications for church leaders. This paper attempts an explicit and inductive explanation of the qualifications of Christian leaders: the office of the overseer and the deacon. It seeks to draw out biblical injunctions for Christian Leaders. Consequently, the diachronic approach of form criticism was employed to gain an understanding of the leadership qualities expected of church leaders who would bear the burden of leading others, which also serves as a model for contemporary church and society. As a result, a critical study of the Greek and English texts of the passage was examined in order to know what the text meant in their original context and their application to our contemporary society. The result suggests that leadership, in Biblical perspective, is devoid of any form of worldly features.

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