Usually, the phrase “husband of but one wife” is only discussed during elder selection or the occasional lesson about elders. Over the years the main emphasis I’ve heard about this phrase is that it means that an elder should be one who has only been married once – no divorces in his past, and some even believe that he cannot be a widower who has remarried. Disagreements to this view usually have centered around what it means for one to have one wife – if he is a widower who has remarried, how many wives does he have? Only one since the bond of marriage with his first wife has been broken by death. Then the discussion might head into the realm of divorce and remarriage and if this is what is meant by this phrase.
I wonder if we’ve missed the point all along. Generally, long held beliefs aren’t questioned since “that’s what we’ve always been taught.” Is God’s intention in this regard to disallow men from serving as shepherds because they have been married before their present wife? Many have given explanations as to why that would be the case, but none of them are explanations from Scripture, they focus on our own reasonings as to why it would be the case. The descriptions given in Timothy and Titus about elders center on character and maturity. How does “husband of but one wife” fit into this context?
The talk about widows in I Timothy chapter 5 might give us a clue. The same type phrase is used, though it is translated in different ways. In Greek the widow who can be added to the list of widows must be a “one man woman.” The NIV translates it as “has been faithful to her husband.” NAS says “the wife of one man.” Does God mean that a widow cannot be put on the list of widows if she has outlived two husbands or that somewhere in past years she was divorced by one husband and then remarried? Or is God meaning that she must be one of good character and faithfulness (as seen in the other qualifications listed)? It would fit better into the context and the intent to say it talks of her faithfulness to her husband rather than how many husbands she might have had in past years. (Would the woman at the well have been excluded from the list of widows even if she had repented and changed her ways after her encounter with Jesus?)
The phrase “husband of but one wife” is literally “a one woman man.” We understand that phrase when we use it to mean a man who has shown love, dedication and faithfulness to his wife. We don’t use it to say if he has been married any before his present wife. It would seem to fit the context better for elders as well.
I was once a member of a Church of Christ congregation. There I learned all that stuff about elders being the husband of one wife meaning currently married, married exactly once.
Yet today I am a divorced and currently unmarried elder in an independent Christian Church of the Restoration Movement. When I felt called to step up, I had to come to the same conclusion you did, that “husband of one wife” is best understood as “one woman man.”
I’m reminded of the fellow in the CoC congregation, a lifelong member who insisted that a man with only one child could not be an elder, because the Word says you must have children. I asked, “Okay, so if you have one child and I ask you if you have children, are you going to say no?” He replied, “I wouldn’t want to risk hell for getting it wrong.”
That blew my mind. Didn’t Paul say in Galatians that Christ set us free for freedom’s sake? I think we risk putting on the yoke of slavery when we subdivide the word this far.