Divorce and Remarriage: Husband of One Wife

I have had repeated and extended conversations on this topic over the last few weeks. Those conversations have come from various sources. One of the questions that continues to arise concerning this issue is whether a preacher—specifically a pastor—may remarry after divorce. I am going to address that issue in this blog. I realize that I have not stated my full position on divorce and remarriage. However, assume with me for the sake of this blog that there are biblical causes for divorce and remarriage. What does that look like for the biblical injunction for bishops to be the "husband of one wife"?

A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; (1 Timothy 3:2 KJV)

For many this text is open-and-shut with no interpretation necessary. Just how complicated can it be? How many ways are there to understand "the husband of one wife"? There are two primary answers with several secondary answers. I will define the two primary answers briefly.

One Wife at a Time

This is the answer that usually makes people who deny any valid reason(s) for remarriage scoff. The response is usually something like: "So I can just divorce and remarry as much as I want for any reason I want?" Well of course the answer is, no! There are parameters on divorce and remarriage. Divorce and remarriage is not a free-for-all. So let me give a more nuanced statement. The "husband of one wife" must me understood as the husband of one biblical wife at a time. For Paul "the husband of one wife" had nothing to do with how many times a Bishop had been married. Rather, it had everything to do with how many current biblical wives he had. I shall give a few examples to illustrate the point.

1. With one exception, every apostolic preacher I know believes that a bishop can remarry if his wife has died. Theoretically, he could remarry several (many) times if his wives all died. Because death frees—this will be key later—one from the marriage covenant/contact a bishop may remarry every time death occurs. Therefore "the husband of one wife" has nothing to do with how many times a bishop has been married. Only that the bishop is biblically free to remarry.
2. This example is a little more split in the Apostolic movement. Many who oppose a preacher remarrying after a divorce in the ministry have no problem with man who was divorced and remarried prior to conversion being in the ministry. The argument here is that even though he was divorced and remarried prior to conversion, the wife that has when he becomes a Christian is his one wife in the eyes of God. Again the issue is not how many times he has been married, but how many biblical wives does he currently have?
3. Now to the most important point of this section. What about a preacher who has divorced and remarried in the ministry? Can this man be considered "the husband of one wife?" I shall argue that he can. If he had a biblical grounds for divorce, then he has biblical grounds to remarry. I understand that I have not made the case yet that there are biblical grounds for divorce and remarriage. This is a case I will make in subsequent blogs. For now, the argument is that if divorces for biblical reasons frees a person from a marriage, then a bishop may divorce for biblical reasons and remarry and still be the husband of one wife. If divorce like death frees one from marriage then in neither case does he have more than one wife if he remarries. Allow me to repeat myself. It's not about how many times one has been married, but how many biblical wives do they currently have. I will use car ownership as an analogy. Purchasing a car is like getting married. The contract on the car is like the marriage covenant/contract. Legally selling the car is like getting a biblical divorce. I have owned five or six cars in my life. But how many cars I have purchased says nothing to how many cars I have. If I had sold all of my previous cars but the one I currently own, then no one would insist that I am the owner of six cars. Likewise, if a bishop married and legally divorced his wife and married another wife, then no one can logically say that he has more than one wife. 

One Woman Man

This is the heart of the issue. It is not that the previous section is untrue, but that this section pinpoints the spirit of the text under consideration. This is what Paul was getting at with the phrase "the husband of one wife." As David Instone-Brewer points out, the phrase means "a one-woman man" (Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage in the Church, 2003). To further clarify, let's take look at what a couple of translations say for "the husband of one wife":

• "faithful to his wife"—NIV
• "he must be faithful to his wife"—NLT

This strikes at the heart of what Paul was saying. To understand it in this way is actually more restrictive. Technically, a man may have been married one time and be a serial adulterer and be the "husband of one wife" if my view is not correct. But this view says that a bishop must not be a womanizer. It is much more commendable that a man would be married more than once and be faithful to his wife, than to have one been married only once and be flirtatious, or worse, an adulterer.