ACC ~ 1 Timothy 3 v8b

NO NEW COMMANDMENT. ATHANASIUS: What Moses taught, Abraham observed. What Abraham observed, Noah and Enoch acknowledged, discriminating pure from impure and becoming acceptable to God. For Abel too in this way witnessed, knowing what he had learned from Adam. This one himself had learned from that Lord, who said, when he came at the end of the ages for the abolishment of sin, “I give no new commandment to you, but an old commandment, which you have heard from the beginning.”In the same way also the blessed apostle Paul, who had learned it from the Lord, when describing ecclesiastical functions, forbade that deacons, not to say bishops, should be double-tongued. In his rebuke of the Galatians, he made a broad declaration: If anyone preach any other gospel unto you than that which you have received, let him be anathema, as I have said, so say I again. DEFENSE OF THE NICENE DEFINITION 2.5.

DECEIT DEBASING. CHRYSOSTOM: Not hollow, or deceitful. For nothing so debases a man as deceit, nothing is so pernicious in the church as insincerity. HOMILIES ON 1 TIMOTHY 11.

NO DOUBLE TALK. THEODORET OF CYR: “Not double-tongued” means that the deacon is not to be a person who says one thing to one person and something else to another. INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST LETTER TO TIMOTHY.

THE PARTICULAR INTEGRITY OF DEACONS. THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: Since the ministry of deacons is at least as much toward the women in the community as the men, their integrity is all the more important. They are to be honorable and sincere in performing the duties assigned to them by the presbyters. COMMENTARY ON THE FIRST LETTER TO TIMOTHY.

1 Tim