When reading these narratives, read carefully and consider all the details, both what is included and what is not. Finally, and most importantly, work hard to understand how all the Bible’s individual narrative units come together in one grand narrative, climaxing in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

The Bible records the covenantal narrative about God’s creation of all things, humanity’s fall into sin, redemption through the covenant of grace and its various administrations, and the consummation of all things in eschatological glory. God Himself is the master narrator as the One who declares the end from the beginning (Isa. 46:10) and who is Himself the first and the last (Isa. 44:6; Isa. 48:12). It is an ancient narrative told over a span of some fifteen hundred years in three different languages. The literary devices of the ancient world are not always like our own, so it can be challenging to understand what we encounter in these accounts. What follows, therefore, are three reading strategies that can help us better understand and appreciate the art of the ancient historical narrative as set forth in the Bible.
1. Understand that the unified narrative of the Bible is not always set forth in chronological order.
This can be seen in an ancient literary technique whereby the author makes a statement and then circles back to focus on important details about the event itself or how something came to be. Sometimes in the Bible, theology trumps chronology in the arrangement of recorded events. For example, Genesis 2 begins with a description of the seventh day of creation (vv. 1–3), but the rest of the chapter steps back in time to reconsider the events of day six in more detail (vv. 4–25). Genesis 10 records the names and descendants of Noah, the so-called table of nations, listed “by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations” (Gen. 10:31). However, in the very next chapter, we return to the time when there was only one clan, language, land, and nation in order to focus on the events of the tower of Babel. The same is true of 1 Samuel 16 and 17. At the end of chapter 1 Samuel 16, David is loved by Saul and serving full-time as his armor-bearer.
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There will be those who will insist on their view, or their accusations, irrespective of what the overwhelming majority of the church think. But in the end, we have to let go of our reputations. Ultimately, it is not before every accuser that we stand or fall, it is the judgement of Jesus that really matters. We cannot be in ministry and avoid accusations and, often, we will not find that we are ultimately able to make ourselves fully understood. Sometimes people will think badly of us and we will not be able to do anything about it. 

Everybody wants a good reputation. Nobody enjoys people speaking ill of them. And let’s face it, the Lord Jesus expects elders in his church to be ‘thought well of by outsiders’ (1 Timothy 3:7) and ‘beyond reproach’ (Titus 1:7). Reputation matters.
Of course, that doesn’t mean an elder must be universally liked. As Kevin DeYoung helpfully explains here:
If [outsiders] think my blog is whack, my views are repulsive, and they believe all kinds of nasty things about me (which I hope they don’t, and I think they don’t), that would not mean I have fallen foul of 1 Timothy 3:7. If, however, most of the outsiders who know me from school or from the restaurant or from the pool know me to be rude, untrustworthy, undependable, and hypocritical, then my church should take notice. The key, I think, is that even if a pastor cannot have a good reputation with outsiders everywhere (probably impossible for anyone with more than a handful of Twitter followers), he should be respected (even begrudgingly) by the outsiders who see him up close.
He argues the same is broadly true within the church too:
If the requirement to be “above reproach” focuses on the discernment of the local believers, the qualification to “be well thought of by outsiders” concerns the wider non-believing community. Again, knowing what we do about Jesus’ public ministry, the requirement must not be pressed to mean that the elder must be universally beloved by the unregenerate world. Rather, the issue for us, as it was for Ephesus, is that “the leadership of the church should bring no unnecessary disrepute upon the church through improper and immoral actions” (Mounce, Pastoral Epistles, 183).
Whenever people make accusations against elders, the reality is that these things need to be weighed and judged by the church. Independency demands that these things are not outsourced to others, but ought to be weighed and judged by the church, within the church itself. Being above reproach and well thought of by outsiders i.e. not a hypocrite is judged by the church itself.
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Paul urges women to learn in quietness and submission, while in verse 12 he states that he doesn’t permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man. The infinitives “to teach” (didaskein) and “to have/exercise authority” (authentein) contrast what Paul doesn’t permit women to do with what he does want them to do: learn and be “in full submission.” Teaching, as we’ve seen, is the domain of elders who must be “able to teach” (3:2; cf. 5:17; Titus 1:9). The exercise of authority, likewise, is the domain of elders who “rule well” (5:17; cf. 3:4–5). “Quietness,” of course, doesn’t mean women must never speak in church, just that they should willingly submit to male teachers and elders in the church (cf. 1 Pet. 3:4). 

God’s Word calls qualified men to teach and pastor God’s flock. In discussions of this topic, 1 Timothy 2–3 are central to explaining why Paul did not permit a woman to teach or have authority in the church and why the pastoral office is grounded in creation and not culture. If anyone needs to see the most recent scholarship on the debate, the third edition of Women in the Church: An Interpretation and Application of 1 Timothy 2:9–15 is a good place to begin.
For today, I will provide a brief introduction to 1 Timothy 2–3, a passage that clearly affirms male eldership in the household of God.
Paul’s first letter to Timothy contains vital and abiding instructions for the church and its leadership. Paul writes to his apostolic delegate, Timothy, toward the end of Paul’s life and ministry in order to leave a legacy and pass on the pattern of church leadership to his foremost disciple. These instructions are not limited to first-century Ephesus (where Timothy was at the time) but abiding principles grounded in God’s creation order (Paul writes similar instructions to Titus, who is on the island of Crete).
The Church as God’s Household
Underlying Paul’s instructions is the metaphor of the church as God’s household. While in some of his other letters Paul uses the metaphor of a body with many members and Christ at the head, here (as well as in Titus) Paul conceives of the church in terms of an ancient household. It is well-attested historical fact that in both first-century Jewish and Greco-Roman households, the father (paterfamilias) was the head. Similarly, Paul stipulates that male elders be responsible for God’s household, the church.
In the ancient world, households consisted not only of the nuclear family (parents and children) but also included relatives (such as widows) and even household servants. The head of the household had the important task of caring for all the members of his extended household and of ensuring that their needs were met. Likewise, male elders were to care for the needs of all church members.
Proper Conduct in God’s Household (1 Tim. 3:14–15)
The most relevant instructions regarding church leadership in 1 Timothy are found in chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 2 opens with the words, “First of all, then, I urge that ….” (ESV). Here we have the beginning of a set of instructions Paul gives to Timothy for ordering the life of the church, particularly its leadership. The unit concludes with the words, “I am writing these things to you so that … you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:14–15).
So here we see that chapters 2–3 are built on the metaphor of the church as God’s household. We also see that Paul thought of these instructions as general directives on “how one ought to behave” in God’s household, which he solemnly calls “the church of the living God” and, in yet another metaphor, “a pillar and buttress of the truth.” For this reason we can be sure that the instructions on church leadership in chapters 2–3 contain abiding—rather than merely culturally relative—instructions for the church.
Male Elders (1 Tim. 3:1–7; 5:17)
In 1 Timothy 3:1, Paul introduces the “trustworthy saying” that, “if anyone aspires to the office of overseer (episkopē), he desires a noble task.” He stipulates that an overseer (episkopos) be “above reproach” and a faithful husband and adds several other qualifications (vv. 2–3). He adds an analogy between the natural and God’s spiritual household: “He must manage (proistēmi) his own household well … for if someone does not know how to manage (proistēmi) his own household, how will he care for God’s church?” (3:4–5).
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