I want a single man

[Gość chelsybernard927]

Hello, Guest.

 

Article about i want a single man:

| Desiring God In Paul’s elder qualifications, he seems to assume that pastors will be married. So how should churches assess the qualification of a single man who wants to pastor? Can Single Men Pastor?

 

>>> GO TO SITE <<<

 

John Piper is founder and teacher of Desiring God and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy . Loving the Son with God’s Own Love. Find the Truth to Protect Both Elders and Sheep. Christ’s Desire for Us. Should I Use AI to Help Me Write Sermons? Don’t Muzzle Your Grain-Treading Ox-Pastor. Our King Has Done Us No Wrong. John Piper. John Piper is founder and teacher of Desiring God and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy . Defending Biblical Authority. Advice for Reading Romans After Decades of Experience. The Depth of J.I. Packer’s Legacy. Find the Truth to Protect Both Elders and Sheep. Loving the Son with God’s Own Love. Christ’s Desire for Us. Founder & Teacher, Desiring God. Subscribe. Audio Transcript. Welcome back to the podcast. This week we’re talking about pastoral ministry. Can single men pastor — or must pastors be married? That’s today. And then, how much should pastors make? That’s up next. So, Pastor John, we know that many professing Christians around the world claim that church leaders must be single men who have taken a vow of clerical celibacy. We of course disagree with that. For Protestants like us, pastors are typically married men. So we face a question in the opposite direction — and it’s a question recently asked by two different listeners. First, Josiah. “Pastor John, thank you for sharing your insight with us week after week on this podcast. Do you believe a first requirement for eldership is that he have a wife and kids?” Then Josiah cites 1 Timothy 3:2–4 and Titus 1:6. And Blake, another listener, likewise asks if a single, non-married man is eligible to be a church elder. What would you say to Josiah and Blake? Whether a single man is permitted biblically to be an elder or pastor boils down to whether two passages — one in 1 Timothy 3, the other in Titus 1 — mandate that elders must be married. If they do, that settles the matter: we obey. If they don’t, then we have to ask whether there are other passages or other pointers or principles that would suggest it’s permitted or wise or unwise to have pastors who are not married. Here are those two most immediately relevant texts: He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? (1 Timothy 3:4–5) This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained in order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you — if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife . . . (Titus 1:5–6) Assuming Marriage. A couple of observations are, I think, especially relevant. First, Paul does not say here or anywhere else that elders must be married. He could have said that very clearly. It would’ve been easy in Greek to say that. (It would’ve been easy, of course, in English to say that.) “Paul does not say here or anywhere else that elders must be married. He could have said that very clearly.” For example, Titus 1:7 says, “An overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach” (see also 1 Timothy 3:2). And the Greek dei — “must,” “has to be,” “is necessary” — makes it an explicit necessity. No questions. Paul could have said, “an overseer must be married,” but he didn’t say that. What he said was, first, the elder “ must manage his household well.” And second, if he’s a husband of one wife, he can be considered. Neither of those statements amounts to an explicit mandate for marriage. So, it appears that marriage was assumed, but that it was not explicitly commanded. And I expect that it was assumed because ongoing, lifelong singleness in cultures was so rare that it scarcely needed addressing. That’s the first observation. Another observation is the assumption that the elder would not only normally be married, but that he would normally have children. Both passages assume that the elders have wives and have children. So, if we’re going to infer that marriage is required for the pastorate, on the same grounds, it seems to me, we would need to infer that a pastor have children, not just a wife.