Textus Receptus Bibles
Geneva Bible 1560/1599
| 3:1 | This is a true saying, If any man desire the office of a Bishop, he desireth a worthie worke. |
| 3:2 | A Bishop therefore must be vnreproueable, the husband of one wife, watching, temperate, modest, harberous, apt to teache, |
| 3:3 | Not giuen to wine, no striker, not giuen to filthy lucre, but gentle, no fighter, not couetous, |
| 3:4 | One that can rule his owne house honestly, hauing children vnder obedience with all honestie. |
| 3:5 | For if any cannot rule his owne house, how shall he care for the Church of God? |
| 3:6 | He may not be a yong scholer, lest he being puffed vp fall into the condemnation of the deuill. |
| 3:7 | He must also be well reported of, euen of them which are without, lest he fall into rebuke, and the snare of the deuill. |
| 3:8 | Likewise must Deacons be graue, not double tongued, not giuen vnto much wine, neither to filthy lucre, |
| 3:9 | Hauing the mysterie of the faith in pure conscience. |
| 3:10 | And let them first be proued: then let them minister, if they be found blameles. |
| 3:11 | Likewise their wiues must be honest, not euill speakers, but sober, and faithfull in all things. |
| 3:12 | Let the Deacons be the husbands of one wife, and such as can rule their children well, and their owne housholdes. |
| 3:13 | For they that haue ministred well, get them selues a good degree, and great libertie in the faith, which is in Christ Iesus. |
| 3:14 | These things write I vnto thee, trusting to come very shortly vnto thee. |
| 3:15 | But if I tary long, that thou maist yet know, how thou oughtest to behaue thy self in ye house of God, which is the Church of the liuing God, the pillar and ground of trueth. |
| 3:16 | And without controuersie, great is the mysterie of godlinesse, which is, God is manifested in the flesh, iustified in the Spirit, seene of Angels, preached vnto the Gentiles, beleeued on in the world, and receiued vp in glorie. |
Geneva Bible 1560/1599
The Geneva Bible is one of the most influential and historically significant translations of the Bible into English, preceding the King James translation by 51 years. It was the primary Bible of 16th century Protestantism and was the Bible used by William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John Knox, John Donne, and John Bunyan. The language of the Geneva Bible was more forceful and vigorous and because of this, most readers strongly preferred this version at the time.
The Geneva Bible was produced by a group of English scholars who, fleeing from the reign of Queen Mary, had found refuge in Switzerland. During the reign of Queen Mary, no Bibles were printed in England, the English Bible was no longer used in churches and English Bibles already in churches were removed and burned. Mary was determined to return Britain to Roman Catholicism.
The first English Protestant to die during Mary's turbulent reign was John Rogers in 1555, who had been the editor of the Matthews Bible. At this time, hundreds of Protestants left England and headed for Geneva, a city which under the leadership of Calvin, had become the intellectual and spiritual capital of European Protestants.
One of these exiles was William Whittingham, a fellow of Christ Church at Oxford University, who had been a diplomat, a courtier, was much traveled and skilled in many languages including Greek and Hebrew. He eventually succeeded John Knox as the minister of the English congregation in Geneva. Whittingham went on to publish the 1560 Geneva Bible.
This version is significant because, it came with a variety of scriptural study guides and aids, which included verse citations that allow the reader to cross-reference one verse with numerous relevant verses in the rest of the Bible, introductions to each book of the Bible that acted to summarize all of the material that each book would cover, maps, tables, woodcut illustrations, indices, as well as other included features, all of which would eventually lead to the reputation of the Geneva Bible as history's very first study Bible.