Benny Hinn 'Shocked' by Divorce Papers (wife, Suzanne files for divorce)

Christian Post ^ | 02/21/2010 | Audrey Barrick

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Paul, setup Churches and got them started he was in the truest sense an Evangelist. And yes he did exclude himself from being a permanent Church pastor because the Holy Spirit guided him to write what he did. Paul did not make the rules God did.

Yes I agree that God made the rules. But the rule does not say that you cannot be a Pastor when you are single. I don't see that as God's rule and not in this verse you quote.

The rule says to me and to what has traditionally been understood as this --- CHARACTER is the most important thing, not the state of matrimony.

There are at least three possible interpretations of the phrase “husband of one wife” in 1 Timothy 3:2. 1) It could simply be saying that a polygamist is not qualified to be an elder, a deacon or a pastor. 2) The phrase could also be translated “one-woman man.” This would indicate that a bishop must be absolutely loyal to the woman he is married to. This interpretation focuses more on moral purity than marital status. 3) The phrase could also be understood to declare that in order to be an elder/deacon/pastor, a man can only have been married once, other than in the case of a remarried widower. Your interpretation that a man MUST be married otherwise he cannot be a Pastor is in fact not the common understanding of it.

The first qualification of an elder/deacon/pastor is to be “above reproach” (1 Timothy 3:2). An elder/deacon/pastor is to be a man that the church and community can look up to as an example of Christ-likeness and godly leadership.

If we followed the rule that ONLY married men should be Pastors, then widowed Pastors would have to be disqualified from serving as pastors. I don't see how that would be God's rule.

Hence the correct interpretation of God's rule is this :

A pastor is to be “a one-woman type of man.” This does not necessarily mean that he needs to be a married man, but if so he is not to be a polygamist. To have one wife means to have one wife at one time. If a pastor’s wife dies he may remarry, but he is not to be a man who has divorced his wife to marry another. Whereas polygamy and divorce were common among both the Jews and Gentiles, pastors are to stay especially clear of those sins.

This is not a requirement that every pastor be married. It is a statement demanding necessary sexual fidelity. This has ALWAYS been the understanding of the early church and tradition tells us that many outstanding church fathers were Bishops and unmarried.

Also, a word about separating the work of evangelist and Pastor. Why would we do that ? Paul was as much an evangelist as he was a pastor in his ministry as shown in his work with the Ephesian church. The fact that he did not serve as pastor permanently is beside the point. The point is he DID server as pastor and HE WAS SINGLE.

I don't think you can argue for the use of the word -- "permanent" to differentiate between what Paul did in Ephesus and what Timothy became later. How long did Timothy pastor the Ephesian church ? Was it permanent ? What is permanent ? That you pastor the church till you die ? If someone pastors a church for 5 years and then leaves to be a missionary someplace else isn't he following the footsteps of Paul ?

We cannot use the word permanent to dichotomize the work of Paul. He was PRIMARILY an Evangelist and Church Planter, true, but he DID serve as Pastor.

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The verses also do not mention that a woman cannot be a pastor either, but if I wanted to I could say that the verse does not specifically exclude women, so it must be OK for a woman to be a pastor

That would be true only if Paul was totally silent about the role of women in church and you limited yourself to this one verse. But he did not. He spoke about the role of women in church in his Corinthian letters for instance. Therefore, the above argument does not hold.