Biblical Eldership Church Leadership

Notes

confusing. For verse 14, Paul specifically urges younger widows to marry: “Therefore, I want younger widows to get married, bear children, keep house, and give the enemy no occasion for reproach.” What if a widow’s second husband were to die? Would she then no longer be eligible for the widows’ roll because she followed the apostle’s advice to remarry when she was young and, therefore, had been the wife of two men? This would be confusing counsel indeed. If the phrase “the wife of one man” doesn’t limit a woman to having but one husband in a lifetime, then there is no conflict in Paul’s counsel. (6) It is almost unthinkable that Paul, who is so sensitive to marital issues (1 Cor. 722-5,7,8,15,32-36,39), would use an ambiguous, three-word phrase to teach something so vital to widows and widowers. It is particu larly unusual that he would offer no further explanation for a teaching that is in apparent disharmony with the rest of Scripture. In 1 Corinthians, for example, where Paul counsels unmarried Christians to consider single ness, he is quick to qualify his words. He knew the propensity to asceti cism. He knew that people could take his words to mean he was speaking disparagingly of marriage. But he is in no way discrediting marriage. Mar riage is the norm, but singleness, which Paul wants his readers to con sider, can be effectively used to further the work of God. So he writes, “Yet I wish that all men were even as I myself am. However, each man has his own gift from God, one in this manner, and another in that. But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them if they remain even as I. But if they do not have self-control, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn” (1 Cor. 727-9). This counsel is for elders and deacons, as well as for every other member of the congregation. If an elder is a widower and decides to remain single for greater undivided service to God, that is good. But if he must marry, that is also good. (7) Finally, if this phrase means married only once, it is an extremely frightening and potentially harmful restriction. During the time that Paul wrote, and for the next eighteen hundred years, it was not uncommon for a person to lose a spouse through death at a relatively young age. So if a good elder or deacon lost his wife and remarried, he also lost his place of leadership in the church. That would hurt the whole church. Good elders and deacons are hard to find, so to disqualify an elder or deacon because he remarried is a terrible loss. We know that God loves the church. Thus it is hard to believe that He would place a requirement upon its leaders that would bring harm to them or to the church.

9. J.B. Huther, Critical and Exegetical Hand-book to the Epistles to

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