NOTE: This is a modified excerpt from “Is Staying Married A Matter of Luck?“
There is a specific group of men who you can legitimately call lucky if they find a good wife. These are men who are on their second, third, or later marriage. By default, a large majority of those marriages will fail, especially with successive marriages. A betting man would, in an even bet, win a lot of money by always assuming that a divorced and remarried man would eventually divorce. Give the odds against their success, they are lucky if they manage not to get divorced.
This is one practical reason to support divorce and remarriage being forbidden in Christianity. This is why the Manosphere errs when it advises anything other than lifetime celibacy for divorced men, and how it errs when it allows divorced men, remarried men, or married men who don’t manage their households well to lead.
Men who are divorced should not be leading a ministry that teaches, especially if that ministry involves dating, marriage, and divorce. So it is interesting that the modern statistics cohere with what Paul told Timothy, when he disallowed such men from being leaders.
At the manosphere-troll-site that thedeti linked to in the comments on the previous post, dummy Derek says:
Now if I were to argue like how Derek does, I’d point out that he is using Argumentum Ad Hominem to try to invalidate my writings and ideas based upon who I am. And if I were an eternal fool in the mold of Derek, I’d then claim that example then shows that everything he writes is based upon “logical fallacies” and that then we should conclude that everything Derek writes based upon fallacies is of course false. That’s how that fool operates.
…and…
So, the fool, Derek, is trying to say that because men like Jack and I have been divorced, we should not be allowed to offer our unpaid service to other Christian men through writing the things we do to counter his own unbiblical pedestalization, aggrandizement, and worship, of women.
No, it is not I, but the Apostle Paul, who says this. This is the same Paul that told a woman in Timothy’s church to be silent and not teach a man. Divorced men should also defer to the married men of the church, not be leading a ministry. Their ministries should be overseen by the married men of the church who have managed their households well.
Consider Dalrock. His church’s elders had no idea who he was online, but at least Dalrock was purported to be a married man who managed his household well. He did nothing disobedient.
Notably, I don’t censor Sharkly’s teachings, despite his disobedience. I even started a mirror of his site for when he inevitably gets banned from WordPress. The issue isn’t his ideas, which can stand or fall on their own merit. Rather, the issue is his disobedience. As I said yesterday, I have a high view of agency: if anything, he should be censoring himself.
The biblical stance is not an argument from authority or an ad hominem. It is about merit through the simple acknowledgment that divorced men have demonstrated—by their own actions and their results—that they are unable to manage their households well. It is “reaping what you sow” or “forgiveness doesn’t mean no consequences.”
The statistics just happen bear this out.
But even if you think it is unfair and that such men should be given a chance, the issue is to be resolved as a matter of personal obedience to scripture. If you don’t find scripture to be authoritative, then you can disregard what I’m saying.
Derek is the kind of stubborn fool who seemingly can’t admit that folks like Artisanal Toad have schooled him, until after they’re dead.
…
Furthermore, Paul didn’t say, “one and only one woman”. Derek is lying again. Paul said Bishops/Superintendents should be mias gynaikos andra meaning: (primary numeral one) a debate rages over whether that means “one” or “first” (woman or wife) (man or husband). So, Paul was either saying that a Church Bishop should be a “one woman man” or else still the husband of his first wife. He wasn’t saying that divorced men had to be silenced in the congregation like women, so that Derek’s Feminism would have less divorce-informed detractors. LOL
Someone didn’t do his research.
If you are going to engage in ad hominem personal attacks, at least get your facts right! I’ve made no secret of the debate Sharkly mentions. Here is what I wrote just last year in “Ambiguity in the Bible“:
His interpretation of the Greek word (μιᾶς) as “first” instead of “one” directly and unambiguously implies that Paul approves of polygyny. I retorted that while “first” is a valid meaning in the lexicon, the meaning of “one” is mutually exclusive: it implies that Paul is categorically forbidding polygyny.
And so once again we are left with a problem. To understand what the Bible says, one must know how Paul meant by his use of that Greek word. If you get it wrong, your theology on polygyny—as well as the qualifications for a Christian pastor—will be critically incorrect. This is hardly a minor issue, but it is also a complex problem with no easy answer.
Of course, since Jesus and Paul forbid polygyny in their teachings on marriage, marital duties, divorce, and adultery, we know what Paul must have meant and so can avoid the ambiguity between “first” and “one.” There is no serious debate over whether the word was anything other than “one” because there is no reason to think Paul was promoting polygyny, a practice that had largely been abandoned by the 1st century AD. Thus, the demand that a leader be the husband of one wife would be a nonsensical requirement if it allowed a man to be divorced (i.e. not a husband of one wife). The only serious debate, IMO, is whether being married is an absolute mandatory requirement (vs. celibacy) to be a leader or speak with authority. But this “raging debate” is driven by Roman Catholics trying to interpret the passage to defend the non-biblical unmarried priesthood, an issue of church authority and not Greek grammar.
Critically, notice that Artisanal Toad said “a man still married to his first wife.” Even as we both understood that distinction between “first” and “one” was about whether to accept or reject polygyny, we both understood it to mean that divorce was a disqualification regardless of which word was chosen. Sharkly should reconsider who has schooled whom.
Sharkly—a (former?) Anabaptist—is probably aware that many Anabaptists have traditionally rejected anyone from leadership who is divorced, for he must be “above reproach.” Anyone who thinks that I and the Anabaptists are liars should probably read more about my public argument here. See also this discussion on the wider context and James White’s comments on the two ecclesiastical offices—elders and deacons—here.
I’m not surprised that a divorced man who is actively engaged in a self-proclaimed ministry that actively opposes the teachings of the church has decided that Paul didn’t forbid him from doing so. Did you expect a different result?
Fundamentally, the false information and advice that divorced men in the ‘sphere have shared as fact has been clouded by their anecdotal experiences. Had they followed Paul’s precepts, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.