Elder Qualifications (2 of 3): Husband of One Wife
The following is the second in a series of blogs regarding the biblical qualifications for eldership. The first blog examined the overall purpose of the qualifications, this blog and the one that follows it focus on specific qualifications that merit special attention due to the variety of interpretations they have generated.In our previous blog post we considered the elder qualifications in 1 Timothy 3:2-7 and Titus 1:6-9 as a whole. We saw that the primary aim of the qualifications is that elders should be those known to display godly character and possess an ability to communicate biblical truth. An elder must be the kind of man other Christians can look to as an example in both word and deed.
In this blog, we consider what is perhaps the most hotly-debated qualification: “husband of one wife” (1 Tim. 3:2, Tit. 1:6) This phrase has been taken a variety of different ways, each excluding a different category of men from eldership. This is no theoretical debate, it deals with the intersection of God’s Word and God’s church. Our guiding desire is to be biblically faithful regardless of what is most convenient or popular.
An Outlier?
Our previous blog showed that Paul’s focus in the qualification lists is on current character, not a man’s life-history. However, we noted that “husband of one wife” could be taken as an outlier. If Paul is comprehensively barring any man who has been divorced from eldership, this one qualification would relate to a candidate’s past sin in a way that the others do not.
Noting the potential uniqueness of this one qualification is not in itself a sufficient reason to prefer an alternative meaning. That is, we can’t simply say “Paul is concerned with a man’s current character, therefore he cannot possibly be concerned with a sin from his past.” That would be to foist a general observation over and against a specific text. We should expect each puzzle piece to fit the picture on the box, but Paul is free to throw in an extra piece if he needs to. “Able to teach” is certainly an exception to the focus on character, so it’s possible that “husband of one wife” diverges from the rest of the list as well. But the potential uniqueness of this qualification is at least a good reason to take a hard look at it and see if it really is an outlier.
Interpretive Options
In Greek, the phrase translated “husband of one wife” is mias gynaikas andra. Mias means “one,” gynaikas (related to modern words like gynecology) can mean either “woman” or “wife,” and andra means either “man” or “husband.” The phrase is somewhat colloquial: “a one-wife husband” or “a one-woman man.” It’s an odd phrasing, even in Greek. This ambiguity has generated five main interpretations throughout the history of the church. Here they are:
The phrase excludes single men
The phrase excludes widowers who have remarried
The phrase excludes polygamists
The phrase excludes divorced men
The phrase describes men who are faithful husbands
Let’s consider each of these in turn.
Option 1 understands “husband of one wife” as equivalent to “a married man.” That is, it positively requires marriage and excludes unmarried men from eldership. This view is easily dismissed by the fact that Paul himself was single (as, of course, was Jesus) and encouraged others to follow his example (cf. 1 Cor 7:6-40). It would be bizarre for Paul to require marriage for eldership when he sings the praises of singleness elsewhere! Moreover, it would have been far more natural for Paul to simply say “a married man” if that’s what he meant.
Option 2 understands “husband of one wife” as equivalent to “married only once.” That is, a man may be qualified so long as he has only had one wife over the course of his lifetime–so a remarried widower (having been part of two marriages) would be excluded. This option is similarly discarded as the first. It makes no sense for Paul to bar remarried widowers from eldership since there is nothing biblically immoral about such a union. Paul himself encourages widows to get remarried (1 Tim. 5:14 1 Cor. 7:39). And, as with the first option, if Paul meant to forbid remarried widowers then he could have said so much more clearly.
Option 3 understands “husband of one wife” to mean “not a practicing polygamist.” While a remarried widower has had more than one wife over his life, a polygamist has more than one wife at the same time. This option is possible (a practicing polygamist certainly fails the godliness requirements for eldership!), but it seems unlikely for two reasons. First, Paul could have made that point much more clearly (perhaps by actually using the word “polygamy”). Second, polygamy was not widely practiced in the Greco-Roman world–least of all among Christians! In fact, it seems so obvious that a man with multiple wives should not be a leader in the church that Paul would be wasting his time to say so. Whatever Paul means, it’s surely not less than excluding polygamists, but it must be more than just that.
That leaves us with two possible interpretations: Paul is either excluding divorced men from eldership, or expecting qualified elders to be faithful husbands. These interpretations are the most commonly held today and both merit further consideration.
Option 4: Paul is barring divorced men from eldership
Strengths
This view has some strengths to commend it. First and foremost, it comports with the Bible’s high view of marriage. In Paul’s divinely-inspired estimation, marriage is nothing less than a picture of Christ and his Church (cf. Eph. 5:31-33). Divorce is no light matter in the Scriptures. While there are allowances in the case of adultery (Matt. 19:9) or abandonment (1 Cor. 7:15), these are always presented as grounds for divorce but never as a guarantee of it. Divorce may be permitted, but it is never prescribed. Devoted marriage is always the biblical ideal. Thus, this interpretation rightly upholds the biblical sanctity of marriage. In this regard, this fourth interpretive option makes sense. Paul is definitely talking about marriage. The Bible has a strong view on marriage and divorce. Shouldn’t that mean Paul is excluding divorced men from eldership?
Weaknesses
Despite its strengths, this view goes too far in understanding “husband of one wife” as a ban on divorced men. The most obvious reason is that if Paul had wanted to communicate “never divorced” he could have easily done so. There are several Greek words for “divorce” at his disposal, but he does not reach for them here. Paul is known for his epistolary precision. When he wants to make a point, he makes it clearly. If he intended to bar divorced men from eldership, then we are left mystified as to why he did not say just that.
A second issue here is that this view makes divorce the only inexcusable sin of eldership. This would be shocking. If a man has a divorce in his past, then (according to this view) it does not matter if the divorce was biblically permissible or not, nor (in the case that the divorce was unbiblical) if he is repentant of it. It does not matter how much time has passed, if he’s now been faithfully remarried for decades, or if he’s a godly example in the eyes of every single member of the church, etc. All that matters is that he has the one black mark on his resumé that he can’t have. If only he had been a reformed murderer instead of a divorcé, then he could have been an elder! The Bible does have allowances for divorce. While it is never preferred, the existence of such allowances points us to the fact that divorce is not always sin. A man may have been abandoned by an unbelieving spouse (cf. 1 Cor 7:11-13) or had an adulterous wife (Matt. 19:9), at no fault of his own. Why would Paul bar a man from the pastorate for something that is not always a sin?
Another difficulty with this view is that it shares an underlying problem with the other interpretations we have dealt with above. They all assume a very wooden and literalistic meaning to Paul’s phrasing. But what if Paul is speaking idiomatically? Imagine someone trying to dissect the biblical idiom “apple of his eye” (Zech. 2:8). If we take that literally we’re going to come up with all kinds of interpretations! The literalistic approach assumes Paul is using obscure language to say something straightforward. As we’ll see below, a more idiomatic understanding of the qualification makes the best sense of the text’s wording. It’s meant to be read as an idiom. Not to mention, if we prefer such a wooden approach to the text, why should the “never divorced” option be more likely than the previous three?
Finally, as we noted above, if “husband of one wife” means “never divorced” then this qualification would function as an outlier from the rest. None of the other requirements deal with one specific sin from a candidate's past–it would be odd for this one to break the mold. While, by itself, that isn’t a sufficient reason to say Paul cannot mean “never divorced,” it does have a corroborating power in light of the issues we’ve identified with this interpretation.
One last word on this option is necessary. This view’s primary strength is its affirmation of the Bible’s high view of marriage. In that light, it is understandable that some Western Christians gravitate toward it. Our culture has devalued, redefined, and discarded marriage and replaced it with a cheap counterfeit more favorable to homosexuality, polyamory, and casual dissolution. This is deeply lamentable. In some ways it makes sense for Christians to run the other direction: ultimatizing marriage and castigating anything that rings of its devaluation. We see the world downplay marriage, so we elevate it every chance we get. But mistakes can be found on both sides of the narrow path. The world’s approach to marriage and divorce is nothing short of catastrophic, but our goal is to be biblical regardless of what the world is saying. We must be wary, lest we flee one cliff and fall off another.
Option 5: Paul is describing men who are faithful husbands
At this point it may seem that the only remaining option from our list of five wins the day simply by process of elimination. But while we do consider the other options generally untenable, the final option has much more in its favor than simply the honor of being the last interpretation standing.
The first reason we take mias gynaikas andra as “faithful husband” is the use of a near-identical phrase just two chapters later in 1 Timothy 5. Here, Paul is instructing Timothy to care for the widows within his congregation. The Apostle instructs his young protegé to make a list of the widows being financially supported by the church.¹ But he wants to be sure that the help goes to those most needy and deserving. Paul writes, “Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, the wife of one husband, and having a reputation for good works” (1 Tim. 5:9-10a). The Greek phrase here is identical to “husband of one wife” in the list of elder qualifications just two chapters earlier, but with “husband” and “wife” switched. Paul then goes on to list other qualities that should mark church-supported widows: hospitality, service, etc.
This purpose of the virtue list in 1 Timothy 5 is evidently similar to the elder qualification list: Paul is describing godly character. It would be scandalous for a widow who receives financial support from her church to live a visibly immoral life. Paul, knowing the church’s limited capacity for economic aid (cf. 1 Tim. 5:16), wants Timothy to focus his care on the godly widows. The similarity in both phrasing and purpose means that whatever meaning we take for “husband of one wife” we must also apply to “wife of one husband.”
The issues noted above with the “never divorced” view are exacerbated in the parallel passage. Why bar widows from care on that basis? It would be astounding to think that an elderly widow could have all the other virtues Paul notes and yet, if she has been divorced, she’s off the list. What if the widow was abandoned by her former husband? What if he had an affair and left her? Paul doesn’t mention any such exceptions. And why does he (again) fail to simply use the word “divorce”? Answer: because he isn’t talking about divorce. He’s talking, as he did in 1 Timothy 3, of devoted fidelity to their spouse.
Another reason we favor “faithful husband” is the idiomatic quality to Paul’s language. As noted above, the first four options all take a rigid, hyper-literal meaning to the phrase “husband of one wife.” But when we play each of these interpretations out, we run into difficulties. We are convinced that the reason for these difficulties is that the interpretations have started from the wrong place: they’ve taken a figurative phrase literally. “Husband of one wife” sounds like a colloquial expression. Consider the English idiom “a man of his word.” We all immediately recognize it as an expression. The point is not literally about a man and a word; it refers, idiomatically, to an honest man. Paul is doing something very similar with the phrase “husband of one wife.” It is an idiomatic expression for a faithful man–which is why each of the literal readings inevitably founder.
This view also naturally coincides with the general pattern we have identified in the qualification lists: Paul is concerned with a man’s present godliness. He is not listing out some unique sins from a man’s past that would permanently bar him from eldership. It is possible for a man to have a divorce in his life history and yet also be a godly man today. The very nature of Christian maturity demands this. Godliness does not mean a man has never committed some specific sin. Rather, godliness regularly acknowledges, confesses, and repents of sin, turning to God for forgiving mercy and transforming grace. That is what Christian maturity looks like–not some immaculate record to which few (if any) can attain.
In sum, we conclude that “husband of one wife” is best interpreted as “faithful husband.” A divorced man is not necessarily barred from eldership. This is neither a unique nor a novel position. A considerable bulk of evangelical scholars have made similar arguments², and it has been the practice at Parkway for decades.
When is a divorce disqualifying?
Our contention is that a past divorce does not necessarily disqualify a man from serving as an elder. This then begs the question: when does a divorce disqualify? Surely a past divorce is relevant to a man’s fitness for eldership. Indeed it is! Just not as an automatic disqualification.
The answer comes down to whether or not the divorce is still such a part of the man’s reputation that it calls his current character into question. This relates to another of the elder qualifications: “above reproach.” A variety of factors come into play here: How long ago was the divorce? Was it an unbiblical divorce? If so, is he repentant of the divorce? Is his ex-wife known in the community (such that the association of the man and his failed marriage remains strong)? Was it publicly messy, creating ugly memories that would be hard for members of the congregation to shake, creating a bad example that can’t be separated from the man? How does he speak of his ex-wife? Has he been divorced more than once?
All of these questions deal with the power of the past in the present. That’s the question that matters–not the spills that have happened but the stains that remain. That is what “above reproach” means. If it meant “he must have a perfect track record” then no man would ever be fit for eldership. As noted in the previous blog, consider the Apostle Peter, who had an ugly history but served as a pastor nonetheless. Those fit to be elders may have gross infractions in their past, but that does not in itself disqualify them from the office.
It is possible, even likely, that the answers to the above questions will cast a shadow over a man which leads to the conclusion that he is not “above reproach.” A divorce may then indeed be disqualifying, but never in an automatic sense. Perhaps the divorce is far enough in the past, his repentance for whatever sins he committed in the process has proven sincere, and he displays a fidelity worth imitating in his current marriage. If that’s the case, then it is indeed possible that he meets the biblical qualifications for eldership.
¹The command “Honor widows who are truly widows” (1 Tim. 5:3) indicates a financial relationship. The word “honor” was often short-hand for monetary support, cf. 1 Tim. 5:17.
²For two such examples, see God, Marriage, and Family by Andreas Köstenberger and “Defining Elders” (blog) by D.A. Carson