1 Timothy 3:2 KJV
A bishop
then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good
behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
1 Timothy 3:12 KJV
Let the deacons
be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.
While I am certain I am unable to settle
the issue once and for all, I chose today to settle it in my own mind. “Is a
man who is divorced breaking the command of the Bible to pastor a church?” I
therefore read every commentary I had at my disposal (eighteen in all).
Virtually every one of them that had any commentary at all on this subject
agreed that the subject was not polygamy (more than one wife at a time – an
argument used frequently to admit men who are disqualified by divorce into the
pastorate). Several of them do not employ the word “divorce” so I left them out
of this compilation. Below are the words of Bible students of a century or more
ago. I do not, of course, endorse all that they say on every subject but only
reference them to make the point that the most common agreement is that this
command of Paul was given for the purpose of reversing the common practice of
the day of divorce and remarriage.[1]
Some of the most wonderful
Christians I know have been divorced and remarried. I believe these fine
people are to be treated with dignity, respect and, in many cases, honor. They
are not second class Christians in any respect of the word. But we have to obey
the Bible no matter what our mistakes have been. The Bible very clearly
commands that those men who have been divorced and remarried not serve in the
capacity of either of the church offices: pastor or deacon.
John
Gill
(1690-1771)
“...to be understood...in a literal sense
of his conjugal estate; though this rule does not make it necessary that he
should have a wife; or that he should not marry, or not have married a second
wife, after the death of the first; only if he marries or is married, that he
should have but one wife at a time; so that this rule excludes all such persons
from being elders, or pastors, or overseers of churches, that were
"polygamists"; who had more wives than one at a time, or had divorced
their wives, and not for adultery, and had married others. Now polygamy and
divorces had very much obtained among the Jews; nor could the believing Jews be
easily and at once brought off of them. And though they were not lawful nor
to be allowed of in any; yet they were especially unbecoming and scandalous in
officers of churches.”
Philip
Schaff, Popular Commentary of the New
Testament,
(1879-1890)
“A third explanation is, perhaps, more
satisfactory. The most prominent fact in the social life both of Jews and
Greeks at this period was the frequency of divorce. This, as we know, Jewish
teachers, for the most part, sanctioned on even trifling grounds (Matthew 5:31-32;
Matthew 19:3-9). The apostle, taking up the law which Christ had laid down,
infers that any breach of that law (even in the one case which made marriage
after divorce just permissible) would at least so far diminish a man’s
claim to respect as to disqualify him for office. This case
would, of course, be included in the more general rule of the second interpretation,
but the phrase ‘the husband of one wife’ has a more special emphasis thus
applied. St. Paul would not recognise the repudiated wife as having forfeited
her claim to that title, and some, at least, of its rights.”
Adam Clarke
(1715-1832)
“The
apostle’s meaning appears to be this: that he should not be a man who has
divorced his wife and married another “
Vincent’s Word Studies
(1886)
“Is
the injunction aimed (a) at immoralities respecting marriage - concubinage,
etc., or (b) at polygamy, or (c) at remarriage after death or divorce? The last
is probably meant.”
Peoples New Testament Commentary
(1891)
“A
married man, and having only one wife. In those loose times of divorce, men
might be converted who had successively several wives. Divorce for unscriptural reasons
would not free a man from his first, lawful wife. Hence the limitation
to those who had only one living wife.”
Matthew Henry
(1662-1714)
“He
must be the husband of one wife; not having given a bill of divorce to one,
and then taken another, or not having many wives at once, as at that time was
too common both among Jews and Gentiles, especially among the Gentiles.”
Expositors Bible Commentary
(1887-1896)
“Far
more worthy of consideration is the view that what is aimed at in both cases is
not polygamy, but divorce. Divorce, as we know from abundant evidence, was very
frequent both among the Jews and the Romans in the first century of the
Christian era. Among the former it provoked the special condemnation of Christ;
and one of the many influences which Christianity had upon Roman law was to
diminish the facilities for divorce. According to Jewish practice the husband
could obtain a divorce for very trivial reasons; and in the time of St. Paul
Jewish women sometimes took the initiative. According to Roman practice either
husband or wife could obtain a divorce very easily. Abundant instances are on
record, and that in the case of people of high character, such as Cicero. After
the divorce either of the parties could marry again; and often enough both of
them did so; therefore in the Roman Empire in St. Paul’s day there must have
been plenty of persons of both sexes who had been divorced once or twice and
had married again. There is nothing improbable in the supposition that quite a
sufficient number of such persons had been converted to Christianity to make it
worth while to legislate respecting them. They might be admitted to baptism; but they
must not be admitted to an official position in the Church.”
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