Divorsed Deacon?

If he has never had any children and his wife left him how can he lead a home that does not exist? A single person cannot lead a family either, does that disqualify him too?

So you say a man can preach to millions and lead people to Christ, lead ministries and disciple people and start churches but never pastor? If that is not pastoring what is it? Give me some scriptural proof of that.

I know of pastors that do not disciple people. Would you call that pastoring according to the context of scripture and qualifications for leadership according to the Bible? I would not call them a pastor. They just have a title because they are not doing the work of a pastor but simply trying to run an organization.

In the church I attend every one of the elders must be currently discipling at least one person.

Can a fat man pastor a church? He is living in sin. According to the Bible he is a glutton. Isn't it amazing how we separate one sin from another and do just like the Catholics do by distinguishing between different kinds of sins.

You need to understand that there was one more practice that we do not recognize in America but it was a custom then. If a couple were betrothed the only way that could be broken was by a legal divorce. So according to you any man who was once engaged and not quite married could not pastor either. So if we take into account the entire hsitorical context of divorce we must include that as well.

I don't believe for a minute that the qualifications teach that a man must never be divorced. It teaches a one woman man. Now what is that? I believe it is a man who faithful to one woman. In our culture a man wil be divorced if the woman chooses. But not so in the background of the Jewish culture in the NT. During that time in most cultures a woman could not divorce a man. So it was very much one sided. So divorce was most often aimed at the man. It was his choice not her's. She had no choice. But rememeber shacking up was rampant at that time in the NT. Don't you think it was in the church in Corinth?

A man can have had (past tense) ten adulterous affairs and have ten kids and never be divorced. Would he qualify to be a pastor today?

 

Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes

If a deacon's family is out of control, the deacon had the responsibility to step down. If he refuses, he needs to be removed.

 

Diane,

If you were a man rather than a woman, you would make a great pastor as far as standing up for Biblical values is concerned, and as far as many other things are concerned.

I very much enjoy reading your posts—I find them to be very refreshing and spiritually uplifting.

 

"ScottEmerson, if the children are underage and living at home.... yes."



Diane, I'll have to strongly disagree here. This is what I mean by not getting the sense of the passage. How do you know he has not ruled his children "well"? Good Godly parents sometimes DO have to deal with "blacksheep" children.

And the example of prison???

Paul was is prison wasn't he?

Your statment about the deacons being above reproach morally is quite right! But what does that mean? Is a nondivorced, never incarcerated man whose children don't use drugs, who does not drink wine, and whose wife is always grave necessarily the "picture" of moral purity?

I've known many deacons who fit this bill to a tee but who are judgmental and undermining of the pastor - while someone who has been divorced (not his choice) is automatically disqualified no matter how Godly a man he is? That should tell us that our emphasis is a little misdirected.

A man who left his wife because he just "felt like the marriage was a mistake" obviously does not have a right mind - quite different from a man whose adulterous wife left him!

Is our God a capricious God who gives us rules that don't make sense? I answer a resounding NO!!

I think we must diligently study the INTENT (not only the literal word order) of the passage - whether or not it agrees with the traditional fundamentalist stance!

 

But when we begin to 'study the INTENT', what God MEANT to say... are we not translating the Bible to fit our own agenda?

I'm not KJVO and I'm not an IFB, just for the record. Scripture is clear cut to me on this issue.

Diane

 

But, Diane, we must also remember that the Bible was written to a specific culture 2,000 years ago. That doesn't mean that it's not applicable to today's world, but that we need to understand what it meant to the people then, and what it can mean to people today.

 

"But when we begin to 'study the INTENT', what God MEANT to say... are we not translating the Bible to fit our own agenda?"

Certainly not! At the risk of sounding stuffy it's a strange for us, 21st century North American Christians, to believe the Bible should be assumed to have been composed just to fit our language. Studying the word to me means just that - studying. Didn't Jesus show us time and time again just what the "soul" of the Law really was? Did not the Pharisees and scribes hold the LETTER of the law higher in value than those PEOPLE for whom the Law was given?

I want to know absolutely as much as I can about God's word - and I have absolutely NO PROBLEM questioning a traditional interpretation if it seems flawed.

 

I do not believe that any of us are forgetting that, especially if we read the KJV .

 

But when we begin to 'study the INTENT', what God MEANT to say... are we not translating the Bible to fit our own agenda?

I'm not KJVO and I'm not an IFB, just for the record. Scripture is clear cut to me on this issue.

Diane </font>[/QUOTE]If it is so clear cut then why did Peter (who was one of Paul's contemporaries) write differently in 2 Peter 3:14-16, "Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, 1and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction."?


If I said to you, "The bats were sure flying today." What would that mean? The words mean nothing unless you know the context. It could mean the bats were flying out from under a bridge in Austin, TX at about 5:00 in the evening. It could mean that a lot of baseball bats were broken at some baseball game. It could mean there were a lot of hits or homeruns. It could mean that a number of players could not hold onto their bat very well. Context will give the clue to the message ort intent of the message. At that same game you may hear, "Kill the umpire." Do you really think that a person usually means that. In our culture it is an idiomatic expression. There are several expressions like that in the Bible.

 

So if a deacon's daughter has a child out of wedlock, should the church remove him from service? How else can we apply this, in the way that you suggest? His teenager getting arrested for smoking pot? His wife being known as a gossip? His daughter getting caught with a boy in the choir room making out? </font>[/QUOTE]It is so amazing that people will come up with any excuse not to do what the Bible clearly says.

A person who is divorced and remarried can always be a servant in a church without being a deacon.

This is the same reason women are not to be preachers. The Bible clearly says it, period. We are not to question as to WHY? A woman is no more of a sinner than a man is, but the Bible is very clear that a woman should not be a pastor.

Do people here read their Bible?

 

It's even more amazing that people can read the Word without choosing to critically engage the text. That's what we (at least many of us) are attempting to do.

That's what the word deacon means in the Greek - servant. We aren't even getting into the office of "deaconness," which is mentioned in the Scriptures!

I absolutely think that it is important for us to understand why. There are principles that must be understood here, and the more that we engage the text to begin to understand why the better we can lead, teach, and live.

Yes. Making such statements doesn't help your case here.

 

The Greek word diakonos has several different meanings, depending up the context, ranging from a waiter at tables to a position of authority in the Church as a servant of the Gospel. In 1 Tim. 3 the meaning is that of a position of authority in the Church as a servant of the Gospel.

 

Perhaps if you would participate in helping us to understand the principles rather than criticize our efforts we could make some progress.

 

Perhaps if you would participate in helping us to understand the principles rather than criticize our efforts we could make some progress.
</font>[/QUOTE]It's the lack of effort that sadddens me, Craig. I just find it completely antithetical to the theology of the Scriptures to say that a man who gets a divorce and then gets saved somehow has all of his sins cleaned away, except somehow divorce. Now, there are consequences of sin that will always remain - drug abuse, veneral diseases, etc., but to think that such a spiritual consequence would remain goes outside the teaching of II Corinthians 5.

We must also look at the life of Paul, who was most likely divorced or at least separated from his wife. How do we know that? He was a Pharisee, which required him to be married, and later, in I Corinthians, we read that he is single. Somehow this divorce did not keep him from being one of the greatest evangelists, church planter, leader, etc. the world has ever seen.

We must also take into account Paul's commendation of Phoebe, who is also called a "diakonos" - a deacon. Commentaries and lexicons (such as Thayer's) note that this is the same use of the word as those used in the "elected office."

Does "man of one wife" mean once-married man, or does it mean a non-polygamist? My church ordained me as a single man. Did they break the Scriptures? I didn't have a single negative vote in the ordination process and I am from quite a conservative church. I am married now, and have never been a polygamist. Did I follow the rule, or was my ordination worthless?

 

What does the phrase, “husband of but one wife” (or literally “a one-woman man,”) mean?

There are three prevalent interpretations.

1). A married man who has never been divorced.
2). A married man who has a committed relationship with one woman (allows divorce).
3). A man who is not a polygamist; a man who is not promiscuous.

In chapter 5 of Timothy, Paul discusses who should be put on the widow’s list (a list of those widows who would be supported by the church). A parallel to the phrase “one-woman man” (used in 1 Timothy 3:2) is found in 1 Timothy 5:9; here Paul uses the phrase “a one-man woman.”

The marriage of a woman to multiple husbands (polyandry) is exceptionally rare in history and was not practiced in Rome at that time. That interpretation can be reasonably excluded! IMO that also excludes the third interpretation (polygamy) from 1 Timothy 3:2; (polygamy was rarely practiced in Roman culture at that time).

1 Timothy 5 clearly excludes the woman who “gives herself to wanton pleasure” (vs. 5) and then goes further on to clarify that she must be a “one-man woman”. IMO, Paul is now excluding those women who have had more than one husband.

Still some may not be convinced that the phrase “one woman man” in 1 Timothy 3:2 necessarily excludes a divorced or remarried man from serving as a pastor or a deacon; there are other issues to consider here as well.

Scripture seems to allow for divorce in exceptional circumstances (Matthew 19:9; 1Corinthians 7:12-16). The first qualification of a pastor is to be “above reproach” (1Timothy 3:2). The Greek word means to have nothing in one’s conduct where someone could ground a charge or accusation. In a like way, deacon’s are to be “men of dignity” (1Timothy 3:8).

Christ says in Matthew 5:31,32, “I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
If the divorce or remarriage results in a poor testimony for the man in the church or community, the “above reproach” qualification would exclude him.

There are places where the divorced man or woman can serve with honor. Pastoral/Elder leadership positions and the office of a deacon are not one of them.

Rob

 

And if it doesn't? A man got a girl pregnant at the age of 17, and married her. She left him for another guy to raise the child by himself and got a divorce. Seven years later, he marries another woman. He gets saved through the testimony of his neighbors and immediately gets inolved in a discipleship group and in serving in a variety of ways at the church. He and his wife are now 45 with two more children. Their family is the most hospitable family in the community and are always looking for ways to help people. He is on the personnel committee at his church, and the vast majority of the church look to him as an example of what it means to be a Christian man. They are in agreement - this man should be a deacon of the church.

Does he pass the "above reproach" test? Is his divorce not Biblical? Is he not a one-woman man? Is somehow his sin before salvation still counted against him by the church? Is the church in error for extending to him an invitation to be a deacon.

 

We have a similar situation in the church I attend. While the gentleman serves in many different situations within the body, he does not serve in the office of deacon.

I would agree, both men are "above reproach", as to "husband of one wife", we choose to err on the conservative side.

Rob

 

Perhaps modern cultural influences affects how we interpret this phrase today.

I own a nine year old long-haired dachshund named "Cracker Jack" (aptly named for his mischievous nature).

The short-haired dachshuds are known to be "one-person dogs" or shall we say "a dog of one person". They center their lives around one person and one person only. While they put up with other people, they honor and obey above all others, the person in that role. Sometimes its the one who feeds them, but often it's the man of the family.

Now the long-haired dachshunds are not as discriminating. They are family dogs. A family group fills that role. They still obey and fill the role that they were called to do but they are not "one-person dogs".

It's possible that after a long absence the "one-person dog" would replace that person and choose another person, but they will probably never forget that person for all of their short lives, they may be aloof and distant.

Rob