Should Divorcees Be Forbidden to Teach or Lead in Local Churches?

https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/thabitianyabwile/2007/10/08/findin…

Phil Ryken makes the following observation:

To be above reproach, an elder must be ‘the husband of one wife.’ This does not prohibit bachelors from serving as elders. Commonly, elders will be married, and God will use the demands of their callings as husbands and fathers to do much of the sanctifyinig work that needs to be done in their lives before they are ready to serve as officers in the church. But remember that Paul himself was single and commended singleness to others as an opportunity for greater service in the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 7:17; 9:5). Some suggest that the phrase means ‘married only once.’ This would disqualify widowers who remarry, as well as men who have been through a divorce. If this is what Paul meant, however, one might expect him to be more explicit.

The point of the phrase is probably more general: elders must be morally accountable for their sexuality. The Greeks and the Romans of the day generally tolerated gross sexual sin. Polygamy was practiced by both Greeks and Jews. Marriage was undermined by frequent divorce, widespread adultery, and rampant homosexuality. The words of Demosthenes show the scope of the problem: ‘Mistresses we keep for the sake of pleasure, concubines for the daily care of our persons, but wives to bear us legitimate children’.

Example this https://theologicalstudies.org.uk/article_divorce_snuth.html

If a man were divorced and never remarried, would we still be having this debate?

There have been instances of a pastors who were divorced for understandable reasons such as abandonment by an unbelieving spouse or adultery by the wife and the pastor chose not to remarry because, in spite of the legal action, he still considered himself married. I can understand this, after all Paul said that singleness was preferred.

• Given a choice between a [A divorced or divorced & remarried man] or [B never divorced man] , in the candidate process; A has virtually no chance of being considered
• A pastor whose marriage is disintegrating in a divorce process, is not likely to survive (Charles Stanley an exception (but there are few Charles Stanleys)

You can talk theory all you want, but the above is the reality

Options:

• Lie or obfuscate in the candidate process (grossly unethical)
• Split a church if you are popular and powerful enough to ride out the divorce implosion

My friend mentioned in the above post

• Left the vocational ministry when their marriage imploded (I know the man well …and the wife. There was no innocent party here! Although the wife might have been more to blame …)
• Took a sales job
• Struggled making a living (his only living had been pastoring)
• Was invited to teach a Bible study by disgruntled church members …
• That group organized as a church

You’re right about the reality check. No doubt about it. I think it is easier and, perhaps, safer to just have a blanket rule. But, I think the Scriptural evidence doesn’t rule out a divorced person from leadership in a local church. I think a church ought to be willing to consider it, on a case by case basis.

[TylerR]

You’re right about the reality check. No doubt about it. I think it is easier and, perhaps, safer to just have a blanket rule. But, I think the Scriptural evidence doesn’t rule out a divorced person from leadership in a local church. I think a church ought to be willing to consider it, on a case by case basis.

I agree with the bolded above with the following disclaimer / qualification

How “the Pastor” is different:

• No doubt about it: “the Pastor” (especially in single-pastor churches and in hierarchical multi-pastor churches) is the big kahuna: He’s ex officio on all committees, probably has veto power on all important decisions, literally “has the pulpit”, he is he spokesman, the mouthpiece for the church. He sets the course.
• A century ago when most people rarely traveled more than a days journey from home, there was a community sense about things - a local knowledge about families and histories. Today that is lost; people get up and move - they leave their baggage far behind. Because pastors are recruited from “the outside”, in the case of divorce little is known about the true causes.
• In my view: Should be true plurality of elders & generally raised up from inside the church. I really believe this was the early church pattern.
• In light of the above: having a simple statement excluding a divorced man from the pastorate is the most common sense solution for a local church

We ought to be careful about using it, since one thing in Jim’s link is that the church quite early decided—in direct contradiction to Paul’s command in 1 Tim. 5:14 to let the younger widows marry—that remarriage after being widowed constituted bigamy. Millions of believers suffered without the Biblical comfort of a wife due to that one! (there are hints of it in the “Wife of Bath’s Tale” from “The Canterbury Tales”—this one lasted a LONG time) Also worth noting is that the early church quickly moved to infant baptism and an episcopal structure. Those writings are interesting, but not binding, especially where the Scripture contradicts them.

It’s also worth noting that women really didn’t have a means of supporting themselves after divorce, so the church’s sanction would include both that against divorce in Matthew, and also against leaving the woman in poverty. So they knew, a priori, some things that we don’t necessarily know about cases of divorce today. (divorce sometimes leaves a woman, or man, in poverty today, but back then many would end up in prostitution or starving….)

I would grant that, as a rule, I’d see a history of divorce as a HUGE impediment to pastoral service, as it usually reflects moral and leadership failure, either of which is a bad sign for a pastor or deacon. I just think that if you can have a not only a murderer, but also a thug (Peter and that ear), a terrorist (Simon the Zealot), and a tax collector (Matthew) among the apostles, we can’t see divorce as an inherent disqualifier.

Agreed as well that it is “simpler” just to have the rule, but again—look at the apostles—God somehow didn’t choose “ease of administration” as His criteria for what is right for the Church. We ought to heed that.

Don, I know we’ve mixed it up a lot here on SharperIron, but I really, really appreciated your post earlier in the thread. Thanks for sharing that.

Tyler asked this:

Would anybody have a problem with:

• your children being taught by a divorced woman who fled from an abusive relationship?
• sitting under a Sunday School teacher who divorced before he came to faith?
• sitting under a preacher whose wife renounced the faith, abandoned him, and left the marriage?
• having a Deacon whose wife cheated on him and divorced him?

No for #1 & #2, Yes for #3 on the basis of I Tim. 3:2-3, and possibly #4, depending on the circumstances.

I’m not a pastor, but I’ve counseled probably 10 (maybe more) situations involving some sort of emotional / mental / spiritual / physical abuse in a marriage. What usually happens is that someone finds the wife crying, or she confides in someone (usually my wife) who then comes to me. I’m usually aware there are problems in the marriage but the husband excuses it as a “general lack of submissiveness” or “good leadership”.

In the most recent case, a woman caught her husband looking at pornography and indulging in voyeurism. She threw him out of the house. He had been telling others at their old church that she wasn’t following him and the pastor told the woman that she needed to submit to his headship among other things [this was while they were still living in the home together]. As it turns out, he had been indulging in affairs, was heavily into pornography, and refused all Biblical admonitions about dealing with his sin. He told his wife he wanted her to sell their home, because he didn’t live there anymore, and that he wanted a divorce. He also refused to pay for the family’s bills, so she fell seriously behind on the mortgage and wasn’t able to cover necessities like food and utilities, but he did, at the same time, lavish money and gifts on their son while this was going on. He also refused all contact with other believers that went after him to try and restore the marriage. Fortunately, she got support from her new church and others so she is rebuilding her life and finances.

At this point, we didn’t have any other choice other than to follow the admonition of I Corinthians 7:15 and ‘let him depart’. I don’t have a problem with her remarrying, either, but I doubt that she would after this, which is sad.

My point is that we need to vet our teachers extremely carefully when it comes to men who want to teach or lead in the churches, because the original story we got was of a husband who tried really hard to ‘save’ his marriage. What was going on under the surface was much uglier and more painful.

If someone wanted to teach or preach in a church I was at, I’d want to see the divorce paperwork. That might be the only way to get at the objective truths under the inevitable ‘he said / she said’.

Your point is well taken.

[Jay]

If someone wanted to teach or preach in a church I was at, I’d want to see the divorce paperwork. That might be the only way to get at the objective truths under the inevitable ‘he said / she said’.

this is probably one of the most important points in this thread. The amazing thing is that when a divorcee shows up *wanting* to teach, it is amazing how innocent he is. You have to be really careful before you allow this.

on the other hand, some years ago, we had a couple join us. We found out he played an accordion and we asked him to use it in our evening services. He, very concerned, told me he had been in the ministry, but was divorced and remarried. His second marriage was now some years, perhaps decades old. He was a faithful man and humbly concerned about his situation. Needless today, we had him play. They later moved away to another city, but his attitude was, in my mind, conscientiously spiritual. I have a lot of time for that.

Divorce paperwork generally doesn’t tell the truth about why people divorce; most states are no fault since 1983, so you don’t need to put all the causes in the filing documents, and perjury is rampant in hearings over custody. Even if it’s not “no fault”, people often say just enough to get the divorce, because they don’t want their dirty laundry out in public. (I actually possess my mom’s divorce paperwork and correspondence with her lawyer—I know a lot of the reasons for my parents’ divorce, and it’s not in those documents) Plus, think about the optics of asking people for legal documents prior to playing the squeezebox or working in Sunday School. It’s a very real psychological barrier—I even make a point of explaining what happens with background checks so people don’t freak out. Some still do.

What you do is what Don did with the accordion player; simply invite them to tell you about it. If it’s remorseful, etc., then you can consider the seriousness of what happened, but as a rule they can take part in ministries. If all the blame is poured on the other person, watch out. You definitely need to get to know people, though.

Bert, I’ll cede the point to you - in part because I really don’t want to be prying into all the details if it’s not necessary - but how else do you cut through the knot of ‘he said / she said’? Particularly in a situation like I ran into last year? I could give a couple more examples like that if I wanted to…but maybe God only sends me the ‘hard’ cases and not the easy ones.

Honestly, in a situation like Don’s where the guy not only came clean but manifested the right attitude about it, I probably wouldn’t review the paperwork anyway…his attitude would tell me most of what I needed to know. The problem is that the guy in my case manifested a similar attitude…hence the need for some sort of objective basis for a decision like court paperwork.

The question is really not, “can we get by without these people serving,” or “is there an easier/more efficient way to staff ministries and programs.” The question is, how do we accomplish the central purposes of a local church in reference to these folks?

The issue has to be framed right before it can be answered biblically.

That’s a great point, Aaron. As I read the NT, the more I come to appreciate the shocking grace that God manifests to sinners like us. The NT church was composed of all sorts of sinners and scoundrels (1 Cor. 6:9-11) and yet God trusts us with His plan and work, so we need to be very careful about saying ‘No, God can’t use you in _______________ capacity as a result’.

[Jay] The NT church was composed of all sorts of sinners and scoundrels (1 Cor. 6:9-11) and yet God trusts us with His plan and work, so we need to be very careful about saying ‘No, God can’t use you in _______________ capacity as a result’.

Point: There are many opportunities to use one’s giftedness in the local church. As an aside, I’m not concerned if the accordian player is divorced.

Question for Jay: In your view, is there anything that would permanently disqualify a man from the office of pastor-elder-bishop?

Jay, I’m afraid I’m not a genius in sussing these things out—I must confess I probably missed some clear signs of a marriage going bad last year at my church and opportunities to reach out—but it strikes me that one key sign (as you note I think) is a general stiff arm to talking, and especially blaming the other. “Oh, she’s just not submissive enough.”, and all that.

Great way of drawing a man out on such things is “what do you mean by that?”. Phrase from my wife and I’s premarital counseling that works wonders, really.

Really, I see a LOT of differences between what you document and what Don does. I see Don asking someone to participate and declining; you’re seeing someone who isn’t volunteering the information. I’m guessing Don’s friend didn’t blame his ex; your contacts do. It’s along the lines of one reason for judging the Bible as accurate; it makes God’s people look like idiots at times, no? It’s always a good sign when someone fesses up and blames himself.

[Jim]

Point: There are many opportunities to use one’s giftedness in the local church. As an aside, I’m not concerned if the accordian player is divorced.

No, neither am I. I brought it up because this man’s conscience was sensitive to his past. He was concerned for the well-being of the church even in serving in a non-teaching role.

There are many ways for divorced people to serve in the local church apart from pastor/elder or deacon. While that seems to be the consensus view on this thread, many of us know of churches that are uncomfortable with divorced people in any visible role. There have been church splits over whether divorced people could teach SS or sing in the choir.

As an aside, my first encounter with this debate was many years ago in an IFB church with strong ties (familial and otherwise) to John R. Rice. The pastor selected a friend of mine as deacon who had been divorced and remarried. When my friend shared his experience and reluctance to serve as deacon with the pastor, the pastor just said, “We’ll make sure nobody knows.”

[Jim]

Jay wrote:

The NT church was composed of all sorts of sinners and scoundrels (1 Cor. 6:9-11) and yet God trusts us with His plan and work, so we need to be very careful about saying ‘No, God can’t use you in _______________ capacity as a result’.

Point: There are many opportunities to use one’s giftedness in the local church. As an aside, I’m not concerned if the accordian player is divorced.

Question for Jay: In your view, is there anything that would permanently disqualify a man from the office of pastor-elder-bishop?

I’m not Jay, but given that pastors counsel vulnerable people, practically speaking you ought not have anyone who’s name is on Megan’s List, or really anyone with a conviction for a violent felony, in a pastoral position or anywhere near Sunday School/kids activities. Writing as “Sunday School Grand Poo Bah”, no way I want to be on the witness stand while an aggressive plaintiff’s lawyer asks why I knowingly put such a person in such a position. “OK, Counsel, here are the keys to the building…”

You might have such a person in a “teaching only adults” class, though. Really, if we believe in the regenerating power of the Gospel, there ought not be too many sins one can commit that, Biblically speaking, would preclude ministry. (as the murderer, the terrorist, the thug, and the tax collector would tell you) The trick is in figuring out whether the repentance is real.

Question for Jay: In your view, is there anything that would permanently disqualify a man from the office of pastor-elder-bishop?

Sure. I mentioned that I would have a problem with #3 of TylerR’s example. I have a problem with a pastor whose sons have rejected the faith while he was pastoring, and I’ve talked with a specific person in that situation about it. I have a problem with someone who has disciplined out a teenager that was raped, especially when he told his the congregation that she was guilty of ‘fornication’ and under church discipline instead. To get away from sexual issues, someone convicted of a felony assault would not be able to serve as a nursery worker or in children’s church.

Blameless = ‘not able to lay a hand on’ this person. For a pastor/elder, the standards are incredibly high, and we do well to keep them that way. My earlier post was a general reference to how God chooses to use any of us in His plan, but that doesn’t mean that we all get to serve in all the different capacities. God’s guidelines are there for a reason.

Here’s a question for you - minister in Iowa (for example) loses his wife when she decides that she doesn’t want anything to do with God, rejects all attempts to reconcile, utterly abandons the faith and her family, even going as far as to write a book about it that you can buy right now. He ends up being divorced (again, in keeping with I Cor. 7:15), rebuilds his life, parents his children into mature Christian adulthood, and is eventually (10-15+ years later) approached about being pulpit supply for a small church desperately in need of a pastor. He explains his background, but they want him anyway. I don’t know that I could argue dogmatically that he should not serve while they look for a new minister (or even that he shouldn’t candidate himself). What do you think?

I think your man should be considered for that church, as their Pastor.

[M] any of us know of churches that are uncomfortable with divorced people in any visible role. There have been church splits over whether divorced people could teach SS or sing in the choir.

One of my real issues with Evangelicals / Fundamentalists as a whole is that we seem to generally want a church composed of polite, wealthy, upper-middle class white people. That’s a sin (James 2:1-7), and we ought to be as diligent about going after that as much as we are unmarried and pregnant teenagers. It does bother me - immensely so - when we see the kind of issues Ron notes and actively tolerate that as acceptable.

My post earlier that referenced 1 Cor. 6 was addressing this point that Ron brought up. I wasn’t saying that we can ignore 1 Tim. 3 or Titus 1. That’s not my point at all.

[Jay] One of my real issues with Evangelicals / Fundamentalists as a whole is that we seem to generally want a church composed of polite, wealthy, upper-middle class white people.

I completely disagree with the bolded. You really have no support for your point of view.

On the scale of wealth: Baptists tend to be poorer than most denominations

Support http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/11/how-income-varies-among…

[Jim]

Jay wrote:

One of my real issues with Evangelicals / Fundamentalists as a whole is that we seem to generally want a church composed of polite, wealthy, upper-middle class white people.

I completely disagree with the bolded. You really have no support for your point of view.

On the scale of wealth: Baptists tend to be poorer than most denominations

Support http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/11/how-income-varies-among-…

My take is that we’ve got strong cultural cues that select for middle class respectability, from our music to the way we stand with feet nailed to the floor, to what we eat at church potlucks. We get nervous around high end cars and rustbuckets alike. We don’t mean to, but we do. Might be good to make sure we get our pastors and ourselves out to ethnic restaurants, listen to music of different genre, etc.. It’s really hard to see what your native culture is until you immerse yourself in another.

One thing we tend to do right in many cases is to reach out to the poorer side of town with things like van ministries and VBS, but I simply don’t see a lot of the kids that come to AWANA on Wednesday on Sunday.

Even unsaved people have lasting marriages: I know many. My parents managed to live lives committed to each other until Dad died at 80

What it takes

• Wisely choosing a mate (two actually wisely choosing)
• Having reasonable expectations
• Putting the other first
• Living daily commitment
• Faithfulness
• Growing love

I’m not in favor of divorced & remarried pastors

[Aaron Blumer]

….it’s easier to maintain a ministry involvement mindset of “only exemplary people with exemplary families need apply.”

The church we have been attending for the past few years seems to follow this model. Two-thirds of the present congregation has come to the church since we’ve been there, and two-thirds have left. The church is meeting in a “store front” and preparing to move to a school, and we will not be moving with them, but will go to another church. The church has many good things going for it: solid preaching, good music, great fellowship, but appears to lack compassion for less than “exemplary families.”

Yesterday was communion and a great sadness washed over me, when I realized I would never again celebrate it with this fellowship of believers - it’s very hard to leave.

[Aaron Blumer]

Craig Toliver wrote:

Even unsaved people have lasting marriages: I know many. My parents managed to live lives committed to each other until Dad died at 80

What it takes

• Wisely choosing a mate (two actually wisely choosing)
• Having reasonable expectations
• Putting the other first
• Living daily commitment
• Faithfulness
• Growing love

I’m not in favor of divorced & remarried pastors

This is a pretty good summary of what’s involved, but overlooks one detail: all six points have to be performed by two individuals… and neither of the two can control what the other chooses. Influence, yes, control, no. An additional complication is that the choices made by one of the two can greatly limit the choices left to the other. Marriage is truly a boat that one person can sink. Maybe an airplane with two wings is a better analogy.

This speaks a bit to an earlier point about whether there is an innocent party. A couple of points on that.

• The concept of innocence is often muddied when folks are dismissing it. As far as causality is concerned, there are different kinds of innocence: as in when a blind man trips over some rubbish someone left on a sidewalk, falls into a “little old lady” and knocks her into oncoming traffic. He is arguably the “cause” of her death. But he is innocent of her death. On the other hand he may be a mean spirited man with a serious gambling habit… who enjoys frightening kittens. But these flaws did not contribute to the woman’s death, much less “cause” it.
• A marriage is always a union of two sinners and they always both fail each other in many ways. But when one of them chooses to walk away in response to problems other couples have chosen to solve—and while the other spouse is still trying to solve them—who is responsible for the “end” of the marriage? Neither of them is ever “innocent” in any absolute sense. But one of the two is quite often the actual cause of the death of the marriage.

First of all there are seemingly two strains of thought on this thread:

1.) Divorce and the perfect family in general (as in John Brian’s previous post)

2. ) Divorce and the pastor (as in Peet’s above) (the “reality check” post)

–-

Focusing on # 2:

* A pastor trying to pastor a church while his marriage is falling apart. Divorce just doesn’t happen … it’s the end of a miserable road. So can a man effectively pastor during that journey?

* A divorced man seeking the pastorate? Is this part of his history “a disclosable event” during the interview process? Or immaterial?

Question for Jay: In your view, is there anything that would permanently disqualify a man from the office of pastor-elder-bishop?

Was asked earlier above

Of course anybody can respond!

Hey Craig,

I did respond, here: https://sharperiron.org/comment/93273#comment-93273. Is there something there that was unclear or did you have a follow up question?

JohnBrian, it’s a terrible feeling to have to leave a church body, esp. if you have been there for a while. I will pray for you and your family.

Craig, well said, but it’s worth noting that if we have a church culture of “the perfect family in general” (at least to outward appearances, as Aaron noted), we then would expect a fairly tight “rule” about divorce vis-a-vis the pastor, no? I would argue that the two phenomena are pretty tightly linked.

To any young preachers out there -

For the huge majority of pastors, a divorce ends, or seriously limits their pastoral ministry.

Do your very best, under God, to avoid divorce.

My preacher dad used to say, “I’d rather be known as a great husband and father, than as a great preacher. I believe he was all three.

God, family, ministry. Don’t neglect your family!

David R. Brumbelow

No!

Straight Ahead! jt

I personally will NEVER have a divorced pastor:

• Will not join a church with one (if I know)
• Would leave one if my pastor got divorced and stayed
• Would leave one if a pastor called who had been divorced

Jim, and others,

What about a pastor who had never been divorced, but his wife had been divorced?

Not wanting to start an argument, just wondered about viewpoints on this.

David R. Brumbelow

[David R. Brumbelow]

Jim, and others,

What about a pastor who had never been divorced, but his wife had been divorced?

Not wanting to start an argument, just wondered about viewpoints on this.

David R. Brumbelow

….of the questions we ought to be asking. If a pastor marries a divorcee, has he dealt with the Biblical issues surrounding it well? Great interview question at the very least—how do you deal with the ex-husband, stepchildren, and the like? Was it before or after she came to faith, etc..?

Definitely a deal-killer, per Jim’s comments, in a lot of cases. But I think if we back off just a touch from the absolute ban and start asking questions and getting to know each other better, everybody’s going to be better off for it.

If some was divorced and/or remarried before their conversion, does conversion erase the consequences and make everything all right?

I know of a case where a pastor committed adultery, divorced and remarried and then “really got saved” and returned to the ministry.

I’ve also discovered that people outside of the church don’t understand “under the blood”.

Let’s assume we’ve got a pastor who committed adultery, decided he wasn’t saved, and than asks to return to the pastorate because he’s now saved. For that matter, let’s assume that this kind of case is common. It may, or may not, be, but for the sake of discussion here. What questions might we ask?

My take:

• What gross theological errors were you making while you were pastoring outside of Christ? If the Counselor guides our learning of Scripture, there ought to be some.
• What have you done to learn to avoid those errors? How have you retrained? I would dare say refresher courses in seminary would be appropriate.
• How long do you think it’s appropriate to be on the sidelines before you resume ministry? Keep in mind Paul warns against a “novice” being a pastor; at less than two years after your conversion, how are you not a novice?
• What have you done to fix your relationship with your family? What fallout have you seen? If a person doesn’t observe fallout from adultery, he’s either clueless or suffers NPD.
• What did you do to support your family after you were fired for adultery? If he’s relied on his wife to earn money, isn’t he “worse than an unbeliever”?

…and the list goes on, and it strikes me that the person who is a classic narcissist, likely to re-offend, is going to stumble over these questions. It all comes down to how we look at these things.

Bert, in a case like yours, I could only support someone (and this very carefully) if it had been a sufficient period of time since their adulterous affairs. I’m thinking a minimum of seven to ten years out. Minimum.

Jay, technically Ron’s (sadly real example), and in my view, resisting the urge to restore the man for a period of time is probably the easiest part. The hard part is getting willing to get under his skin and ask him what he’s learned with the situation, and what he’s done to deal with the fallout.

For now we know him by his fruits - and that fruit is a long history of debauchery … conclusion an unregenerate man!

So for Jay and Joel … were Donn Ketcham to “really get saved” … could he serve as Pastor?

Same goes for Jack Schaap … were he to “really get saved”?

…Ketcham and David Hyles getting back into ministry despite repeated peccadilloes, I don’t think we can discard Jim’s challenge lightly. My take is the list I posted above, plus the proverb “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” Repeated allegations after correction tell you that someone is gaming the system and should not be in a position of authority if you can help it.

[Aaron Blumer]

Point was that the extreme cases are obvious and churches that are accepting guys under those conditions are clearly doing wrong. Nobody here is saying otherwise.

(As for the names that have been named, I don’t claim to know anything about that. I hear all sorts of allegations about people all the time, and unless I have a role in making some decision about them, or someone wants my advice, I don’t have time to follow every scandal to find out what the truth is. Better things to do. Even in the wants my advice situation, I don’t mind telling people: “I don’t follow scandals and I’m not a resource for you on this.”)

Can we agree on this? That there should be transparency about a pastoral candidate’s marital history?

I typically have seen it phrased as follows: Have you ever been divorced?

[Jim]

For now we know him by his fruits - and that fruit is a long history of debauchery … conclusion an unregenerate man!

So for Jay and Joel … were Donn Ketcham to “really get saved” … could he serve as Pastor?

Same goes for Jack Schaap … were he to “really get saved”?

[Joel Tetreau]

Jim wrote:

For now we know him by his fruits - and that fruit is a long history of debauchery … conclusion an unregenerate man!

So for Jay and Joel … were Donn Ketcham to “really get saved” … could he serve as Pastor?

Same goes for Jack Schaap … were he to “really get saved”?

Jim,

Great question - for me cold Donn or Jack ever have a standing of “blameless” enough to serve as en elder/pastor? Maybe on Pluto…..but not our planet. What about some Godly man who prior to salvation or early in his walk with the Lord he was divorced but now is a different man and everyone in his life and ministry knows it, sees it and embraces it. Well if he is blameless today…..sure…..we would be thrilled to have guy like that on our elder or deacon team. I understand the other views…..but I reject them as being mostly superimposed on the text.

My view…..shalom bro!

Straight Ahead!

jt

ps - the reader must understand that Joel’s viw is Joel’s view and because this is a controversial subject Joel is first to suggest that his view does not necesarily reflect the views of his church, his various associations, his family, any of his teachers and is not at all a statement on any of the places where Joel studied the Bible. Joel’s view is only Joel’s view and the blame of those things should not be passed on to his parents, his wife, his dog, his association with the IFCA….his former association with other nameless groups……Joel approves this message……..keep smiling!