This is the 14th article in a blog series dealing with resume questions I recently answered for various churches searching for a new pastor.
The issue surrounding this particular question has been gaining more attention in the western church as of late.
I’m all for God’s amazing grace and, positionally, Christians are forever set free from the yoke and burden of our sins. But the question remains: What significance, if any, do our past actions have even 2 seconds after we’re saved?
What if you were divorced, or a murderer, or a rapist, or a child molester, or cheated on your taxes, or…
Get the picture?
Here is the question and below that is the response I gave. What do you think about my answer?
[stextbox id=”custom”]There are a growing number of respected Bible-believing church members and church officers who believe that qualifications for pastor and deacon do not apply to a candidate for the period in his life before he received salvation; qualification criteria apply only after salvation. They cite the Apostle Paul as their example. According to many, Paul would not qualify to be a pastor today. What is your position in this matter?[/stextbox]
MY RESPONSE: In short, I do believe that pre-conversion criteria are to be taken into consideration and certainly apply when determining whether or not a man would qualify to hold the position of a pastor or deacon. Also, I believe the same pre-conversion criteria applied to the apostle Paul and that he would, indeed, qualify to be a pastor if he were alive today.
I endorse the plain, Scriptural teaching that God is in absolute sovereign control over every detail in this universe. If God were not in total control over all things, He could not be God. Therefore, I support the belief and understanding that God (can, does, and has) specifically intervenes and/or providential directs people and events in order to secure any outcome that He desires. Because this is the case, it is my belief that since God chose (elected/called/foreordained) those whom He would save before the foundation of the world (c.f. Ephesians 1:4), and that He would appoint some of them to lead the church as pastors or deacons, that He could sovereignly (and providentially) control the events in those few people’s lives to ensure that sins such as adultery and divorce would never transpire, thus disqualifying such persons from future church leadership. Therefore, I believe that certain unalterable pre-conversion actions may (and sometimes do) automatically disqualify a man from serving as a pastor or deacon in a local church.
The spiritual and character qualifications for a man who aspires to the office of pastor are detailed in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:6-9. Although Scripture is clear concerning these character qualifications, many today are advocating that we abandon all efforts to examine the nature of a candidate’s pre-conversion life, particularly their social life, marital history, and/or sexual infidelity. They insist we appoint men to leadership positions in the church based upon selective, present tense circumstances only. Proponents of this view often do so on the basis of the apostle Paul’s (Saul’s) pre-conversion persecution of Christians, and his language found in 1 Timothy 3:2 which says that the man must be “the husband of one wife.”
Regarding the “husband of one wife” issue first, it is my opinion that such people not only misinterpret this qualification, but that they also fail to take the other qualifications into consideration, particularly: “A bishop must be blameless” (vs.2), that he be “one who rules his own house well…(for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?)” (vs.5), and finally, “he must have a good testimony among those who are outside” (vs.7). I believe that when these qualifications are taken into consideration, individually or as a whole, it is unbiblical to allow a man to serve as pastor who is not blameless, can’t rule his own house well, or has a poor testimony with those outside the church. After all, the pastor is to be a spiritual leader in the church, living a blameless lifestyle that church members should strive to imitate—not be ashamed of.
Discussion concerning the “husband of one wife” qualification has lead to four general interpretations: 1) pastors must be married; 2) pastors must not be polygamists; 3) pastors must have married only once in their life, and; 4) pastors must be sexually pure and therefore totally committed to their wife (biblical monogamy).
Proponents of the first interpretation (pastors must be married) believe that a man must, in fact, be married in order to pastor. They insist that, for example, a single man (never married) would be unqualified to pastor, and also that a man who became a widower while serving as a pastor would immediately become disqualified to remain a pastor. If this were true, then Jesus Christ Himself would not qualify to be a pastor! The apostle Paul was, himself, a single man at the time he wrote 1 Corinthians, for while explaining that being single has its advantage, he wrote, “For I wish that all men were even as myself” (1 Corinthians 7:7). Moreover, in verse eight he wrote, “But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them to remain even as I am.” Paul was not only an apostle but also a pastor, for he served in that pastoral office at Ephesus for three years (c.f. Acts 20:31). Therefore, Paul would certainly not be commanding Timothy to examine and appoint potential pastors on the basis of what he himself was not qualified to undertake.
Proponents of the second interpretation (pastors must not be polygamists) fail to realize that such a person could not even be a church member, let alone a pastor. Polygamists (adulterers) are not eligible for church membership, let alone church leadership.
Proponents of the third interpretation (pastors must have been married only once in their life) interpret the phrase to mean that a man could marry only once in their lifetime and that remarriage is not an option for a widower. Scripture does not teach that remarriage for a widower renders a man no longer above reproach. Furthermore, Paul even warned Timothy a chapter later that some false teachers were actually “forbidding to marry” (1 Timothy 4:3), and that such men have departed “from the faith” (vs.1).
Proponents of these first three interpretations fail to understand that the requirement of “husband of one wife” (1 Timothy 3:2) is a moral character qualification and not an issue of marital status. I believe the proper interpretation of this qualification means that the potential pastor is to be a “one-woman man” and refers to his sexual purity, not marital status. It means he is to be solely devoted to one woman if (and while) married.
Finally, many proponents of not using one’s pre-conversion actions/history/lifestyle as a basis for pastoral qualification site the apostle Paul’s (Saul’s) lifestyle before his Damascus road conversion (c.f. Acts 9:1-30). They believe that since Saul was such an intense persecutor of Christians (c.f. Galatians 1:13-14), he would not be “blameless” or “have a good testimony among those who are outside” and, therefore, would be disqualified to serve as a pastor. If this were a legitimate argument, then Jesus Christ Himself is at fault, for the Lord is the one who manifested Himself to Paul (Saul) and ultimately put him into the ministry (c.f. Galatians 1:1 “Paul, an apostle (not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father…”; 1 Timothy 2:7 “for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle…”; 2 Timothy 1:11 “to which I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles”; 2 Timothy 1:3 “I thank God, whom I serve with a pure conscience…”)! This fact alone should be enough to silence any who believe that Paul was disqualified to serve in church leadership, especially as a pastor or apostle.