Updated and enlarged November 30, 2006 (first published May 27, 1997) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -

“A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife ... One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)” (1 Timothy 3:2, 4, 5).

“If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly” (Titus 1:6).

“Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock” (1 Pet. 5:3).

There is a great controversy over the matter of the pastor’s marital standing, whether or not he can be divorced and continue in the ministry, yet God has made it clear that He intends for the pastor to be a man who is above average. He cannot do things other Christians might be able to do. The pastor must be “blameless” in some very clearly defined areas of his life.

We know this is not speaking of any sort of perfection. The Bible doesn’t say the pastor must be perfect; it says he must be blameless. There is a big difference! The requirement of being blameless does not mean, either, that the pastor must fit everyone’s idea of what a pastor should be. That would be as impossible as attaining sinless perfection! Some believe a pastor must never smile; others feel he must always smile. Some are convinced he must always dress formally; others believe he should be informal. Some want their pastors fat; others want them skinny. Some want them scholarly; others feel a studious man cannot meet the needs of the common folk. Some want the pastor to spend all his time in visiting church members; others want him to spend all his time in soul winning. Some want a pastor who loves sports; others feel it is wrong for a pastor to have such interests.

It is impossible for a pastor to be blameless by human standards, but that is not what God requires. He must be blameless by the standards that are set forth in the Scriptures.

Let us examine those standards in light of whether or not a divorced man is qualified to be a pastor.

I. THE PASTOR MUST NOT BE DIVORCED BECAUSE HE MUST BE BLAMELESS IN HIS REPUTATION BEFORE MEN

“A bishop then must be blameless ... Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil” (1 Tim. 3:2, 7).

The first thing to consider is that the pastor must be blameless in his reputation before men. A divorced man, no matter what the cause for the divorce, does not have the spotless reputation a pastor must have. His divorce is a handle that the devil can take hold of to injure the work of God. The blemish of divorce will be used against his ministry and against the church. It will hinder the ministry. And since the church’s testimony is far more important than the feelings or ambitions of any individual, divorced men should refrain from pastoral positions.

One reader of an earlier edition of this article wrote to ask the following question: “Satan can and will use any sin a pastor has ever committed to try and tarnish the work of God and his Kingdom. If one has struggled with porn or any other fleshy sin, that is a strong handle as well. Would you say for them not to become a pastor?”

My answer to this is that though every type of sin can be forgiven and forgotten, all sins do not have the same type of abiding consequences. Believers and unbelievers alike understand and sympathize with men who have struggled with sin in the past and have gotten the victory. (By the way, if a man is still “struggling with porn,” he has no business in the pastorate. What I am addressing here are sins that are in the past.) If he had a problem at one time with some type of sin, whether it be drunkenness or pornography, and he has been saved and has gotten the victory in his life, that is not something that the Devil can any longer use effectively as a blot on his ministry. If the Devil tries to dredge up such things from the past, it backfires on him, because the pastor can testify of the grace of God that gave him the victory in that matter and he can encourage others that they, too, can have the victory. But divorce is a different type of thing, because it has consequences that do not go away.

What if the divorce were for the cause of fornication? It appears in Christ’s teaching in Matthew 19 that divorce might be allowable for such a cause. “And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery...” (Matt. 19:9). Even so, divorced men do not have an unblemished reputation in the eyes of men. It is the nature of divorce that some respect is lost, no matter what the cause. It is a rare divorce, anyway, which is not the cause, at least in part, of both parties--even if it were only in the matter of neglect. 

What if the divorce occurred before the man’s conversion? Is he not forgiven? Certainly he is; yet he has, by his divorce, done permanent damage to his freedom to hold offices in the church. Forgiveness does not necessarily mean a person will avoid consequences for past sin. A man who, in a drunken condition before salvation, has an accident and loses a limb, will be handicapped the rest of his life even if he gets saved. King David was forgiven for his sin with Bathsheba, but he suffered for the rest of his life as a consequence of this sin. (The fact that David was not removed from being king does not mean that a pastor can remain in office regardless of what he does. The office of king in Israel was a matter of lineage and was very different from the office of a pastor in the church.)

This applies to the person who was divorced before his conversion. The sin is forgiven and he can enjoy the manifold blessings of the Lord, but scars will remain throughout his earthly life. One consequence is that he is restricted as to the type of office he can hold in the church.

II. THE PASTOR MUST NOT BE DIVORCED BECAUSE HE MUST BE AN EXAMPLE OF GOD’S PERFECT WILL

“The elders which are among you I exhort ... be ensamples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:1, 3).

The second thing to consider is that the pastor is to represent God’s perfect will before this world. If the pastor is not a pattern for God’s will, there will be no pattern, and standards among God’s people will fall to the level of the world. This has happened repeatedly and we see it all around us today.

What is God’s will in this regard? The Word of God clearly says that God opposes divorce. “For the Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away...” (Mal. 2:16). “And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from the husband: but and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife” (1 Cor. 7:1-11).

God only allows divorce because of the hardness of human hearts; it has never been God’s perfect will. “He said unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts allowed you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so” (Matt. 19:8).

Since the pastor should be in the business of upholding God’s perfect will he must not be a divorced man, no matter what the cause of the divorce. In many parts of the world divorce is no longer looked upon as a bad thing. In some states in America a divorce can be obtained almost as easily as a driver’s license! Some pastors in the United Methodist Church have begun performing divorce ceremonies to help remove “the guilt and stigma” associated with divorce. This is wrong. We should be kind to those who suffer divorce and love them with Christ-like love, but the world also needs to see that God takes divorce seriously, even if society and apostate denominations do not.

What does God say about the marital bond? “Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matt. 19:6).

If these truths cannot be seen in the marriages of our church leaders, where will they be seen? If a pastor tries to warn against divorce and remarriage, yet he himself is divorced and remarried, how seriously will people listen?

Believers need to see God’s will in the lives of their leaders. Can a divorced man truly set forth the right standards for young people (or older people, for that matter)? Will they listen to him and take him seriously as he tries to teach them what God thinks about marriage?

The institution of marriage is under fierce attack. God’s people need to see that a successful Christian family marriage is possible. Where are they going to see that if not in their pastors?

III. THE PASTOR MUST NOT BE DIVORCED BECAUSE HE MUST PREACH THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD

Third, the pastor must not be divorced because he has to preach the whole counsel of God, and if he has a broken and crippled marital status, he is not in a position to preach some things with complete authority. People tend to discount preaching when it is done by a man who has serious blemishes in relation to the things he preaches.

Christians are continually having marital problems serious enough to lead to divorce if not corrected. A pastor must be a man who can share with them God’s perfect will for marriage. He must be able to exhort couples to avoid divorce, to stay together and work things out by God’s grace. His own marital life must back up his exhortations. Otherwise his counsel will not have much effect. He must be a man who has demonstrated in his own marriage that God’s plan and God’s grace are sufficient for holding a home together.

A divorced man simply cannot do this.

BUT GOD HAS CALLED ME

I have heard men say that God would not allow them to get out of the ministry after their divorce, that God had called them and His calling is without repentance.

I don’t believe God operates contrary to His Word. When He lays down standards for the pastorate, He is not going to lead a man to go contrary to them.

Our feelings about God’s will are very undependable.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9).

“He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool...” (Prov. 28:26).

We can easily be led astray by one’s feelings in regard to God’s will. We must therefore depend upon what the Bible plainly says and not what we feel.

Many women are absolutely convinced that God has called them to be pastors. They feel so strongly about this that they would rather die than quit. You can quote the Scripture to them all day long and it has no effect, because they are living by their subjective experiences.

Yet they are wrong. If they are saved, they will be ashamed at the judgment seat of Christ because of their disobedience to God’s Word; but in this present hour they are utterly self-deceived, entirely convinced that God has called them to pastor.

Likewise, many men who feel that God has called them to pastor aren’t qualified to do so and are flying in the face of clearly defined Scriptural teachings.

A wise man or woman will be content to be what God has truly called him to be, not what he would like to be. “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith” (Rom. 12:3).

A man’s calling needs to be tested by the Word of God. If I am not qualified to do something, I should not do it, no matter how much I desire to do it.

A CALL TO PREACH IS NOT NECESSARILY A CALL TO PASTOR

A man might argue, “God has called me to preach, therefore I must be a pastor,” but the call to preach is not necessarily the call to pastor. A man does not have to be a pastor to have an effective preaching ministry. He can preach on the streets. He can preach from house to house. He can preach in jails and nursing homes. He can preach in the highways and byways.

Let me give my own testimony. I know that God has called me to preach. I believe I have a teaching and a prophetic gift and ministry--not foretelling, but forth telling. The prophets of Israel spent most of their time preaching about Israel’s sin and calling God’s people to repentance. I believe God has called me to this today. I believe my calling is referred to in Romans 12:6--”Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith.”

The major verses God has laid upon my heart in regard to my preaching ministry deal with a prophetic type of ministry.

For example, the ministry of Way of Life Literature is based upon Proverbs 6:23 -- “For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.”

The ministry of O Timothy magazine is based upon 1 Timothy 6:20 -- “O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called.”

The section in O Timothy called “Digging in the Walls” is based upon Ezekiel 8:7-10 -- “Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall ... And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. So I went in and saw...”

God specifically laid these verses upon my heart as these ministries were started. All of these have to do with speaking against error and upholding the old paths. This is what God has called me to do, and it is what I am qualified and gifted to do. I know that God has not called me to be a pastor, but he has definitely called me to preach.

The fact that a man has a burden to preach does not mean that God has called him to be a pastor. He might be an evangelist, a prophet, or a teacher. There are four types of ministry gifts mentioned in Ephesians 4:11. Romans 12 also mentions four -- prophesying, ministry, teaching, and exhorting.

It is common today to use the term “called to preach” synonymously with the call to the pastorate, but the two are not necessarily the same. The man who is “called to preach” might be called to be a pastor, or he might not be.

Not only must a man’s calling be tested by the Bible, but it must also be tested by the church. This is what ordination is all about. It is the church’s recognition of God’s call upon a man (Acts 13:2-3). If a spiritual church does not think God has called a man to a certain ministry, he would be unwise to push himself forward in that thing. As Charles Spurgeon said to his Bible students,

“I have noted ... that you, gentlemen, students, as a body, in your judgment of one another, are seldom if ever wrong. There has hardly ever been an instance, take the whole house through, where the general opinion of the entire college concerning a brother has been erroneous. ... Meeting as you do in class, in prayer-meeting, in conversation, and in various religious engagements, you gauge each other; and a wise man will be slow to set aside the verdict of the house” (C.H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students).

The counsel given by the apostle regarding marriage is fitting in this matter of God’s calling: “But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that. ... Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called” (1 Cor. 7:7, 20).

A divorced man should, for honor’s sake, be content to serve outside of the office of the pastorate--for the honor of that office and for the honor of the church of Jesus Christ.

If you are called to preach, preach on, brother, but don’t be a pastor unless you are qualified.

“My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation” (James 3:1).