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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.

Paul is instructing Timothy (and his Ephesian opponents) on the proper use of the law, listing to whom the “thou shalt not” of the law applies, and concludes with this contrast: “and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted” (1:10-11). What is the “glorious gospel”? Word for word, the Greek says “the gospel of the glory.” “Of the glory” is in the genitive case.

As first year students learn rather quickly, the genitive case is much like the English “of” construction. It is a case that allows nouns to modify nouns. But just as the English use of “of” is flexible, so is the Greek. Is a “bowl of silver” a bowl made out of silver or a bowl full of silver? The ambiguity of English here is perfectly mirrored in Greek.

Wallace lists over 60 different uses of the genitive in Greek, some of them obscure and many of them important. Take for example James 1:20. “For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness that God requires” (TNIV). Word for word, the verse reads, “orge gar andros dikaiosunen theou ouk ergazetai.” dikaiosunen is “righteousness” and theou is “of God.” “For the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God” (NASB, “God’s righteousness,” NRSV). “For human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness” (NET).

But in what sense can human wrath ever produce “the righteousness of God”? Can we ever become righteous in the same sense that God is right? Of course not. The TNIV saw the need to interpret the genitive. Human wrath does not lead to the human righteousness that is required of a follower of Jesus. “Our anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires” (TNIV).

Paul begins his letter to the church at Rome by saying that through Jesus Christ “we have received grace and apostleship unto obedience of faith among all the nations” (1:5).

There are several interesting challenges to translating this verse. “Nations” (ethnos) can refer to any group of people with a common culture (hence “nations, people”), but in a Jewish context it can refer to all nations other than the Jewish nation (hence “Gentiles”).

“Unto” (eis) cannot be translated with a preposition or even a single English word. “To bring about” (ESV) or some such periphrastic construction is necessary. Welcome to translation.

But the most difficult question has to do with the phrase “obedience of faith” (hypakoen pisteos); “faith” is in the genitive case.