1 Timothy 5:19

The mention of καλῶς προεστῶτες πρεσβύτεροι, and of what was due to them, naturally suggests by contrast the consideration of unsatisfactory presbyters. Yet even these were to be protected against the possibility of arbitrary dismissal. They were to have a fair trial in accordance with the provisions of the Old Law, Deuteronomy 19:15 (see also Deuteronomy 17:6; Numbers 35:30. This requirement of two or three witnesses is used allegorically in 2 Corinthians 13:1. Cf. John 8:17; Hebrews 10:28.) It has been asked, Why should this, the ordinary rule, be mentioned at all? The solution is to be found in a consideration of the private, unofficial, character of the Christian Church when this epistle was written. The Church was altogether a voluntary society, unrecognised by the state. The crimes of which its governors could take cognisance were spiritual; or if they were such as were punishable by the ordinary state law, the Church was concerned only with the spiritual and moral aspect of them, that is to say, so far as they affected Church life. There were then no spiritual courts, in the later sense of the term. No Church officer could enforce any but spiritual punishments. In these circumstances, the observance of legal regulations would not be a matter of necessity. Indeed a superintendent who was jealous for the purity of the Church might feel himself justified in acting even on suspicion, when the question arose as to the dismissal of a presbyter.

ἐκτὸς εἰ μή : This phrase arises from a blend of εἰ μή and ἐκτὸς εἰ. Examples of its use are cited from Lucian. Alford notes that similar “pleonastic expressions such as χωρὶς εἰ or εἰ μή, are found in later writers such as Plutarch, Dio Cassius, etc.”. Deissmann cites an instructive example for its use in the Cilician Paul from an inscription of Mopsuestia in Cilicia of the Imperial period (Bible Studies, trans. p. 118). See reff.

ἐπὶ … μαρτύρων : This seems an abbreviation for ἐπὶ στόματος μαρτ. So R.V. Cf. 2 Corinthians 13:1, Hebr. עַל־פִּי עֵד. It is a different use from ἐπὶ in the sense of before (a judge), Mark 13:9; Acts 25:9-10. See Blass, Gram. p. 137.