1 Timothy 3:2

2 Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. (1 Timothy 3:2, 3, NIV).

`I don’t know about you, but I want to be a man who is above reproach. I want to have a good reputation in the church and outside. What is important in all of this is the ‘why’ question. Why do I, why do you, want to have a good reputation? Why do you want to be blameless, above reproach?

Some people would say, “So you don’t disgrace the office of pastor or church leader.” I would agree with that. When a person steps up to the plate, they come under a microscope of sorts. People may not mean to do so, but when you write “Christian” across your chest, expectations change.

Some people who have a church office change the way they live their life. They pray more. They read their Bible more. They attend services they might not usually attend. Some have even suggested we put people into leadership to help them get back on track with God.

Here is what happens. These people do make changes as long as they are serving, but once they are done, they go back to their old ways. Why? It hasn’t been a change of heart. They don’t want to disgrace the office, so they live as they think people want them to live, but when it is done, they are done.

We certainly don’t want people who will discredit a leadership position serving in that position, but we do desire that every Christian would remove the reproach. God wants you to live a holy life.

The primary reason we should want to live above reproach is to please God. Jesus died to save us from our sins. When we are not saved from our sin, when we continue to live in sin, when we bring reproach to the name of Christ, we are in a battle with God. Theologically we call this process sanctification. We are grieving the Holy Spirit when our desire is other than pleasing God. You can please your friends and in so doing grieve God. Or, you may find that you grieve your friends by pleasing God. For the Christian, the latter is better than the former.

We established that to be above reproach was the main quality for a bishop, an overseer, and elder, a church leader. We also said that the rest of the list fleshed out some areas that might bring reproach.

The first one is the most controversial. The NIV says, “the husband of but one wife.”

You will find books and books on what this means. You go to another church down the road that preaches about what we preach and they may differ on the interpretation of this phrase.

Let me explain why.

First, the Greek phrase has many possibilities. The Greek has three words. These words literally are “one woman man.” And here is where the fun begins. The word “woman” can also mean “wife” and the word “man” is also used in the Greek for “husband.” So two of the three words can have different meanings. Notice that the NIV uses the words “husband” and “wife.”

Second, the word “one” is not clarified. The word “one” defines the word “woman” or “wife.” So does this mean a husband should only have one wife? If so, what if the first wife dies? Can he lead if he remarries after she dies? The text is not clear. Or what if there is a divorce? Does a man who is divorced and remarried have one wife or two? Or, to give a third option, does a man have to be married to be a leader? Or, to give a fourth option, is this forbidding polygamy, a man having many wives? Or do we take it literally, a person must be a “one woman kind of man?”

If you are confused, join a lot of people on that band wagon. I would like to give my take on it, but you all can understand that all of the above positions I have given are espoused by different people.

Let me start with this test. Of all the options that I have given, which ones are not clearly identified as sin in the Bible? For whatever the option, it must bring reproach on you if people who love the Lord know you are doing it.

If you are married and have one wife and have only had one wife, you are not sinning.

If you have remarried after your spouse died, you have not sinned. The Bible clearly teaches that remarriage after the death of a spouse is not a sin. You might not choose to, but if you do, you are not sinning.

If you are not married, you have not committed a sin. Jesus was single. Paul was not married at the time he wrote some of the New Testament, though his wife might have died. 1 Corinthians 7 encourages people to remain single. To be single is not a reproach, though some have made it so.

If you are divorced you may not have committed a sin. Within the church and within the community, there are people who have left their husbands or wives because the other spouse committed adultery. Jesus is clear that a person does not have to put up with adultery. There are others who wanted their marriage to work, wanted it to last, but the other party broke their marriage vows by divorcing them and remarrying someone else or by rejecting them because of their Christian faith. When the unrepentant spouse remarried, they made reconciliation impossible with the person who wanted to work out the issues.

Let me state that some people may question someone’s ability to lead in the church because they know the details of how that person acted in a previous marriage, but I do not believe that this passage is addressing divorce at all. There is a Greek word that is used for divorce and it is not used here. If Paul had wanted to highlight divorce, he could have said so in clearer language. But he didn’t. So when you think of submitting names, ask yourself this question, “Does this person’s divorce show an ongoing character issue that brings them into reproach in the community or in the church?” Your answer will determine your thoughts.

Before I give my thoughts on this, I want to mention one more thing that I don’t think this Greek phrase means. I do not think that it addresses polygamy. I have heard many Bible scholars say so, but I disagree.

First, “polygamy” comes from the Greek. It means “many wives.” If Paul was trying to address that issue, he could have said so.

Second, a similar phrase is used later on to talk about women. It calls them “one husband wives” or “one man woman.” We know that in Jesus’ day and throughout the history of the Bible that a man might have had more than one wife, but a woman never had more than one husband. Whatever the word means as applies to a man, the same meaning must be given to the application to women. We call polygamy among women by the word “polyandry.” As there was no “polyandry” among women in that culture, I don’t believe that Paul was calling people to look at “polygamy.”

Let me go on to say that if a person committed polygamy, they would not be above reproach. This list is not exhaustive. I am just saying that the term used here does not, in my opinion, cover polygamy.

So let’s look at the literal translations of this as “one woman man.” What does that mean? Remember, whatever it means must apply to women as Paul writes later about “one man woman.”

Let me share two possibilities.

The first is that this man must only have one woman in his life. In the Roman world a man could have a wife to bear children, a mistress as a companion and visit prostitutes for sexual favors. Many believed that if a man paid a woman for sex, it was not adultery. Adultery included someone else’s wife or potential wife.

So in this culture, what would a one-woman man look like? He would look like a man who had a wife, did not have a mistress on the side and stayed away from prostitutes. He would be a one-woman man.

So what would a one-man woman look like? She would be a person who was not a mistress or a prostitute. Her husband would be her only man.

So let’s look at the second possibility. This is the man who fits the first description and goes one step further. He is a man who is devoted to this wife.

Have you ever known married men who, though they never did anything, flirted with women to whom they were not married? Have you ever met people that you wouldn’t trust your daughter with or may be your wife said, “Don’t leave me alone with that man. I don’t trust him.” These people may be one-women men in action, but in thought are anything but. And this goes both ways. There are married women who flirt with other men and unmarried women who flirt with married men.

So let’s stop and ask some questions right now.

If you are single, are you stringing more than one person along? Do you have a boy or girl that thinks you like them? And you make it appear as though you do, but are doing it with more than one person? It’s not the issue of whether you have more than one friend of the opposite sex, it’s the deception, it’s the lie you are living that is causing the problem.

Do you have boundaries? Are you respectful to people of the opposite sex? Are fathers worried about you being with their son or their daughter? If your actions men or women were put up on the screen, would you be embarrassed?

If you are married, does your spouse know that you love them? Do they feel that they are special? Do they worry that you might be playing the field outside the home? Have you given them any cause to doubt your integrity?

What are you doing to build your relationship with your spouse? It’s so possible to be so busy that the relationship suffers. Please slow down and make time for each other. It will honor God and it will benefit your relationship. If you don’t build your relationship, you are opening yourselves to the allure of someone else wanting to fulfill the needs that your spouse isn’t filling. How many people have heard someone say, “I’m leaving. I found someone who makes me feel good.” That used to be you. Let it be you again.

When it comes to leaders, we are not looking for people with perfect marriages. None exist. Some of our leaders may have conflict in the home. They may have unresolved issues. But look and ask, are they one-women men? Are they devoted to the woman that they have?

And may God uses this message to encourage us to get things right if they are not. We need to pray for our families.