What Does It Mean for a Man to Manage His Own Household “Well”?

What Does “Well” Mean?

He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? (1 Tim. 3:4–5)

What does it mean for a man to manage his household “well”? Oh, the apostolic brilliance of that qualifier. To some, it may sound like a low bar. Just “well”? To them, well may seem like welcomed leniency. To others, however, this is a glimpse of grace and a reason for hope.

While the qualifier well does provide a gracious subjective element, the objective facet must not be lost on us: overall fruitfulness, not failure, in leading at home. Well does not mean perfection, but it does mean something. Well does not mean “poorly.” The man’s leading should be fruitful and improving. Of course, overall healthy and productive households have their moments, even days on end, of chaos and floundering and failure rather than perceived fruitfulness. Those who lead well, though, recognize the strain, renew their attentiveness, make a plan, turn a corner, and respond by giving more of themselves to relieve burdens and patiently restore peace.

However low of a bar well may sound to some ears, the wise and godly man (as with the other elder attributes) will not take a minimalist approach to his own household but regularly evaluate what can be better. Leading at home or in the church is not something any man gets on top of for good. Busy households, without upkeep, tend quickly toward disorder. Active households, like living sheep, incline toward chaos and need the regular attention and investment of the shepherd, not semiregular checkups.

And with the addition of children—and growth of children into more activities and levels of awareness and responsibility—the kind of energy and attention that was adequate in previous seasons no longer proves sufficient. Over time, especially in young adulthood, the demands of fathering increase, not decrease. Managing a household well is not static but ever changing, and changing in such a way that it demands more, not less, from dad.

Managing Different Relationships

Typical households include wife and children (and sometimes others) as well as material possessions. Taking care of the inanimate stuff is the easiest aspect of managing. Caring well for people is the most challenging. However, managing the material is not to be neglected. Certain men gravitate toward or away from dealing adequately with the stuff or from caring well for the people. We each have personal penchants to identify and necessary adjustments to make.

But leading a household is first and foremost about taking care of people.

For (and with) His Wife

The first and most important person in a man’s household is his wife—and he feels a unique tension (and privilege) in caring well for her. On the one hand, she is a member of the household and deserving of his greatest attention and care and emotional provision and investment. On the other hand, she is his comanager. According to Paul, a Christian man is not the lone master of his domain. Married women also “manage their households” (1 Tim. 5:14).

Dad has an associate, “a helper fit for him” (Gen. 2:18), for whom he thinks and cares in fundamentally different ways than he does for the children. A good manager treats his comanager differently from the other workers under his leadership. God did not design Christian households to be mini-monarchies where the husband rules as king with his wife as a childlike subject. Rather, she is the queen, and together they manage the household, even as he carries a unique burden of leadership and owes his comanager a special kind of care.¹

For the husband, being head in his home doesn’t center on his enjoying the greatest privileges, but on gladly shouldering the greatest burdens. Being head means going ahead and apologizing first when both are at fault. It means taking the small, humble initiatives in conflict and turmoil that his wife does not want to take. It means treating his comanager with unrelenting kindness, even when she’s less than kind. It means exercising true strength by inconveniencing himself to secure her good, rather than serving himself by presuming on her. And, of course, it includes vigilance in being a one-woman man utterly committed in mind, heart, and body to his one wife

For His Children

After his wife, and with her, a Christian man takes care of his children. In 1 Timothy 3:4 the phrase “with all dignity” modifies “keeping his children submissive.” There are dignified and undignified ways to raise submissive children.

Domineering and heavy-handedness are undignified and ruled out by the nature of Christian management and caretaking. Even if abusive fathering remains hidden from the public eye for years, it will catch up with a man as his children become adults and realize what he was doing. God means for a father to teach and train his children with dignity—in a respectable way, appropriately engendering respect from his children, and his wife, in how he treats them, even at their worst moments. Their sinful conduct is not justification for his. Paul captures the heart of it in one stunning sentence: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4).

Not only are children different from a wife, but also children have their various stages of growth. In partnership with their mother, dignified fathering takes that into account and adapts accordingly.

God means for dads to frequently come to the end of themselves and learn what it means to lean on him and, in faith, keep moving.

Does an Unbelieving Child Disqualify an Elder?

A father’s management and care for his children raises a perennial question: How submissive must a pastor’s children be to not disqualify him from office? Or, more to the point, must a pastor’s children be professing believers, in good standing with the church, for the pastor to be qualified for office?

Clearly, 1 Timothy 3:4–5 makes no such requirement, but some (understandably) stumble over the language of Titus 1:6: “His children are believers.” That way of translating the Greek (pista) sounds like a pastor-elder’s children must be (at least) professing Christians. However, we should note the same word is often translated “faithful” elsewhere, depending on context.² And when we step back to take in the full context in Titus, the meaning becomes clear enough. Not only does the companion list of qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 highlight submission in a pastor’s children (rather than, say, regeneration), but what immediately follows in Titus 1:6 also clarifies: “His children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.”

Paul also adds further explanation in the next verse: “For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach” (Titus 1:7). So, the issue at hand is not the eternal state of the child’s soul, but the nature of the elder’s fathering. Is he above reproach as a father? Does the child’s behavior betray faults in the father’s leadership? Quite apart from whether the child is unbelieving or not (something a father cannot control), is the child faithful to his father in a way that good fathering can, in fact, secure?³

Childrearing done well requires attending to countless and seemingly ceaseless needs. Often a father has his wife at his side, and together, as they share the burdens, the work becomes lighter and feels freshly doable, even enjoyable. But where does a man turn when his wife already carries as much as God means for her to bear? She is his comanager, but he is the head. And God designed men to bear the final burden and carry the greatest weights, even and especially when they are too great for his wife to shoulder with him.

Who Cares for Dad?

God means for dads to frequently come to the end of themselves and learn what it means to lean on him and, in faith, keep moving. In the moments when fathers most soberingly feel the weight of being the buck-stopper at home or as pastors in the church, God wants them to know that they themselves have a Father and that he does not call them to pretend to be the hero in their own strength, but to ask for his help, lean on him, and roll their burdens onto his shoulders. Both pastor-elders and husband-fathers need the solace and blessing of 1 Peter 5:6–7:

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

Before and beneath God’s call that fathers care for their households and for God’s church is his care for them. Before he says to fathers and pastors, “You go, and do likewise” (Luke 10:37), he first is the good Samaritan to them. He comes to them in those moments when they’re feeling half dead on the side of the road. He binds their wounds, pours out his own precious oil and wine, picks them up off the ground, brings them to the inn, and takes care of them (Luke 10:34) at great cost to himself and with a promise to return (Luke 10:35).

Rightly was it said about Jesus, “He has done all things well” (Mark 7:37). Surely such is the case with his household and bride, the church. He has and does manage his household well, and that is a dad’s great comfort not just if but when he feels inadequate, even in his best efforts, to manage his own household well.

This article is adapted from Workers for Your Joy: The Call of Christ on Christian Leaders by David Mathis.

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