This is one of those perennial questions, and it came up again the other day so I thought I would summarize the issues. For more detail, see my commentary (pages 170-173).
Paul urges Timothy to insist that an elder is above approach. What this means is laid out in the following verses, and one of the requirements is that he is “a man of one woman,” or, “a husband of one wife,” mias gunaikos andra. What does this mean?
1. Some hold that it means an elder must be married. But the force of the construction places its emphasis on “one” (because of its location at the beginning of the phrase), makes Timothy and Paul ineligible for eldership, and runs counter to Paul's preference for celibacy.
2. Some hold that it is a prohibition against polygamy, i.e., married to one at a time. This argument is stronger than one might suspect from its near universal rejection. However, while polygamy was common in Judaism it was not common in Christianity, so it seems unlikely that Paul would have thought to prohibit something that rarely occurred. Also, because the phrase is so unique, one would suspect it has the same meaning but in reverse when applied to widows (who needed to be a woman of one man, 1 Tim 5:9), and there is no evidence of polyandry.
3. Others think that it means the elder must be faithful to his wife. In the modern vernacular, a “one-woman kind of guy.” In fact, I. H. Marshall in his ICC commentary merely lists this as the meaning and moves on, not debating the point.
4. The dominant interpretation places primary emphasis on the “one” and says that being above reproach means he has only been married once. This position divides into two camps, and your position here depends more on your theology of divorce and remarriage than it does on the text in 1 Tim 3.
Some argue this limits an elder whether his first marriage ended in divorce or his wife died. Others say a man is restricted from the office only if he was divorced. From here there are even more qualifications that can be made, such as if he was divorced before he was a Christian. As I recall, Saucy’s article in BibSac 131 (1974) 229-240 was very good.
As far as the Greek is concerned, the genitive is ambiguous. The Greek gives us a range of possibilities, but our theology is going to determine our interpretation. But a couple comments.
The Bible never says a divorced person cannot be an elder. This is an important distinction. A person’s interpretation of a difficult phrase may yield this conclusion, but the Bible clearly does not say the word “divorced.” We need to be honest with this fact.
The NIV’s “the husband of but one wife” may be placing emphasis on mias, but to me this is inappropriate translation and is adding to the biblical text. I was glad to see the TNIV’s correction to, “faithful to his wife” (also the NLT, “He must be faithful to his wife”). The RSV (“the husband of one wife”) was changed to “married only once” (NRSV), a surprisingly interpretive translation by an otherwise more reserved translation.
When I was pastoring, one of my joys was writing position papers. This is a practice that I would encourage all pastors to do. It involves not only exegeting the text but then applying it. For example,Titus 1:6 requires that an elder’s children must be “faithful” or “believers.” Once you have exegeted the text, you still have to apply it. I go with “believers” in my commentary, but then what about the elder who has 5 believing children and one child who is wandering. Is he ineligible? This is what Position Papers are for. I have made a few of my Position Papers available at BillMounce.com/publications. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see the links.
When I wrote the commentary I initially went with Position 4. But when I got to chapter 5, I could not say that a widow had to be married only once in order to be enrolled in widows list since Paul encourages the younger widows to remarry. So I went back and changed my commentary to Position 3.
This allows for a person to be an elder who has been divorced in the distance past -- how far in the distance needs to be decided in your position paper. I didn’t come to this conclusion for this reason, but it is one of the ramifications.
But in this debate, let’s be fair. 1 Tim 3:2 is a confusing text, and whatever it says, it does not say it clearly. At least to us; I am sure Timothy had not doubt as to Paul’s meaning.
Comments
Personally, I never have
Personally, I never have seen much of a distinction between positions 2 and 3. Presumably, most folks that hold to the second would consider it as inferring the third. You mentioned “while polygamy was common in Judaism it was not common in Christianity.” Though perhaps true at the time, I have no problem with the Holy Spirit inspiring Paul to write such things to address matters that would arise in different cultures and at different times in the history of the Church. For instance, polygamy can be a significant contemporary problem for churches located in tribal African regions, where multiple marriages are not uncommon.
Aside from that, being honest, I’ve always been annoyed by the first interpretation of the fourth position. Perhaps it reflects a lack of study on my part, but I’ve never heard any Biblical reason for why a man who re-married after his wife died would be prohibited from eldership. Frankly, it smells of legalism. It disturbs me to think of a gifted and fitted man being rejected on this basis.
As for an elder re-marrying after divorce, it is a matter of theology; however, if someone has a problem with it, it’s often because they don’t believe divorce dissolves the marriage bond. The fundamental problem then would not strictly be divorce, but rather, having two wives at the same time (back to position 2).
My two cents...
bh
I would think you are right
I would think you are right on the similarity of 2 and 3. While the Holy Spirit can inspire men to write to situations beyond their understanding, everything else in chapter 3 is addressing specific Ephesian situations, so I would think that at least the primary thrust of this command is addressed to things actually happening in Ephesus.
You - “The Bible never
You - “The Bible never says a divorced person cannot be an elder."
I think bh is right. People who have a problem with a divorced elder would not consider divorce as a dissolving of the marriage. Luke 16:18 (also Matt 5:32 and Mar 10:11,12) seems to indicate that divorce is not recognized in the eyes of God. By being divorced and remarried you would in effect be married to more than one woman. However, 1 Corinthians 7:15 seems to indicate that a believer can be free from a pre-conversion marriage.
On a practical note, I haven’t seen a lot of success with ministers who try to continue with their ministry after a divorce or adultery incident. They lose the credibility in the eyes of the layman to lead and teach.
My 2 cents.
I think this is the major
I think this is the major conflict in the whole discussion, and I am
unaware of how to solve the problem. I am not sure you can view 1 Cor 7
as a pre-conversion rule of divorce, though. Are the bonds of marriage
just as true for non-believers as they are for believers? An
interesting question.
Two points, if I may, humbly
Two points, if I may, humbly made with gratitude to the Lord of Grace:
1. With the exception of the "marriage" qualification, I could not find any other qualifications that involved vows undertaken, in this case:
"until death do us part" / "so long as we both shall live" / "all the days of my life"
Ecc 5:5-6
It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it. Do not let your mouth lead you into sin. And do not protest to the [temple] messenger, "My vow was a mistake." Why should God be angry at what you say and destroy the work of your hands?
Num 23:19
God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?
Should, then, an elder be a man of his word (vow) if he is to "be above approach", "manage his own household well", and "be well thought of by outsiders"?
2. I believe the standard of measure should not be what our theology dictates, instead it should be:
What is God's heart here
What does God want accomplished
Our Lord reveals that plainly:
Mk 10:2-9
They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” (also Mt 19:3-6)
He is clearly addressing mankind as its Creator, therefore overiding the tints of cultures and periods.
In light of these, how then should we now view "mias gunaikos andra"?
...........................................
Also a response to:
Posted by: Bill Mounce | Monday, March 09, 2009 at 02:11 PM
The question I have is, as you mentioned, how does one interpret in light of all the scripture regarding the covenant of marriage? Much, is spoken of, even to the analogy of the body of Christ being the Bride.
Can an elder, who has been divorced, teach and/or exhort upon the purity of this God given covenant and be seen as above reproach? It seems to me, that this may lead to a poor view of the marriage covenant, and also may hinder ones view of the purity of the church? I would really like to hear your thoughts on this?
Greetings in Christ, Dr.
Greetings in Christ, Dr. Mounce. I have two initial observations that I believe cannot be overlooked with this passage. First, as all Scripture is God-breathed, I would like to keep in mind an important verse about God: "She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce." Personally, I think it changes the tone of the debate when we consider that we are trying to discern how our God, who did divorced, might have us believe on divorce and qualifications for holy office.
The second thing I like to point out here is the tense of the passage, which I understand to be in the present tense ("must BE above reproach"). The problem is the assertion that "divorce in his past" (to use the language common to many position papers) wholly disqualifies him based on the past personal failure, even though he may now be the most faithfully married man in the church. Aside from the obvious assault on grace and restoration, it strikes me a missing the present tense of the verse and instead changes it to effectively read, "... [is and have always been] the husband of one wife." I don't believe the text supports that, and I find it curious that those asserting such an interpretation do not apply that same "is and has always been" tense to the remaining qualifications. If they did, they would be reading 1 Tim 3:2-5 as:
2. An overseer, then, must [be and have always been] above reproach,
[be and have always been] the husband of one wife,
[be and have always been] temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,
3. [be and have always been] not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle,
[be and have always been] peaceable,
[be and have always been] free from the love of money.
4. He must [be and have always been] one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity
5. (but if a man [does not or did not] know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?)...
Such an interpretation would impose lifetime barring for former alcoholics, those with violent pasts, greedy pasts and so on. Of course, such retroactive interpretation is never applied, except for the first qualification clause; divorce. As you said, this has more to do with our various understandings of divorce and remarriage. But when I lay out that verse with the verb imposed on it as I have above (which is consistent with their interpretation and application of verse 2) I feel those that are intellectually honest about the matter quickly realized that such retro-holiness standards are not only untenable textually but also irreconcilable with grace.
Interesting approach. I
Interesting approach. I would guess the counter argument is that there is something different about unfaithfulness and its consequences, but you make a good point. When one item in a series is viewed fundamentally different from the other items, there may be an exegetical problem.
You hit on what is usually
You hit on what is usually the next arguments:
Pre-conversion or post-conversion divorce?
Who was the "guilty party" (or, "who initiated?" is also asked in this same vein)
The "consequences" of divorce, adultery, etc?
First, as for whether the divorce, adultery (or abortion, or theft, or whatever) was pre-conversion, that gets into two serious problems; one Scriptural, the other in application. For the latter, in my experience it's often difficult to determine when, exactly, someone fully "came to Christ" since many come to faith gradually, evidencing many stages of immaturity, rather than the road to Damascus experience or sensational altar call. But whatever the case, we have to deal with the theological foundation for such a line of questioning in the first place: namely, do we give more grace before someone is reconciled to God through Christ than after? Do sins committed before the cross get tossed in the sea of forgetfulness, while post-conversion sins get stacked up and scored? What does it mean to "keep no record of wrongs" vis-a-vis setting up a sort of Protestant purgatory-on-earth wherein the "consequences" of sin must be atoned. It starts to smack of a Catholic-like penance system, complete with venial sins for which we can forgive an elder candidate and mortal sins (which as I've shown above, there is only one: adultery) for which the penance is a term of life.
As for "who was the guilty party" or "who filed" I want to stress that those ARE good lines of questions for the candidate, as it may reveal cracks in the foundation of their character that have not been strengthened and repaired, mortified and healed in Christ. That said, if the events happened many years ago, maturation has taken place and his character is (to use Paul's present tense) in line with 1 Tim. 3, then one must ask if the candidate's life is not at all a poor witness but rather a holy witness of a life transformed?! Look at Psalms 51, wherein after his plea to God, David was confident of his purgation and would “teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.” In the aftermath of David’s sinful weakness and wickedness, God glorified Himself with His magnanimous grace and restoration.
By the way, thank you for the though-provoking post that got this started.
Eloquorius, I think you
Eloquorius,
I think you missed the point. Having more than one wife is a present issue. If God doesn't view your divorce as valid and you remarry you are married to two women in the present. A definition of "be and have always been" is something you are imposing. In the case of something like alcohol, once you stop drinking too much, you are no longer an alcoholic in the present.
Trying to find the will of God and obey it is hardly a retro-holiness standard.
JM: As has been noted here,
JM: As has been noted here, and seen elsewhere this issue has been tackled, the interpretation of 1 Tim. 3 often has far more to do with the understanding of marriage and divorce that we import to the exegesis process than it does with the text itself. In the example you give, I would say that the unbiblical divorce and subsequent remarriage constitutes an adulterous second marriage, which fully and finally breaks the first marriage through adultery (likewise leaving his first, wrong-fully divorced wife now free to remarry). At any rate, if an elder candidate has done this, I would say that substantial evidence of repentance must be clearly evident after lengthy demonstration of transformed character before any consideration of service. But if a man was divorced in, say, 1977 and has been a faithfully (re)married man for the last 30 years(!), barring him for a sin dating back to the the Jimmy Carter era seems completely antithetical to our "ministry of reconciliation" [2 Cor. 5:18] and all manner of love and grace. For those legalists who would attempt such, I would merely challenge them with Christ: "But if you do not forgive, your Father in heaven will not forgive your sins." Since eternity is at stake, let us be careful how we measure unto others, lest mercilessness be measured back unto us on the day of the Lord.
As for "imposing" the "be and have always been" interpretation, that comes from experience. I've been researching and debating divorce/remarriage for almost eight years and from those I've encountered who oppose the installation of divorced men in the eldership the most common response is nearly always something like, "Yeah, OK, but even if he's a good husband now, he wasn't before in his first marriage, so he's not above reproach." In nearly all cases I've seen/read, it's his past "failure" that is held against him. From what I've seen it's very rare that someone tries the "two wives" angle, as most in conservative Evangelicalism tend to believe that the second marriage constitutes adulterous breaking of the first, rather than creating a polygamous situation.
Eloquorius, I see where you
Eloquorius,
I see where you are coming from. I would just make a couple comments.
First I haven’t decided on this issue myself. It is a difficult issue and I am open to different views.
Second, I would not see this as a forgiveness issue at all as you seem to be doing. I think forgiveness is available for all. However, there do seem to be requirements for different positions in the church. To me this is a requirements issue and not one of forgiveness or grace.
Thanks for the thoughts.
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