Scott J said
Your principle seems to be that a pastor must not have any sin in his past that people will remember and talk about thus hurting the church. Can you honestly say that you are ready to apply this consistently or is marrying a divorced woman unique? What other sins committed in the distant past, that people might talk about disqualify a pastor?
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This is absolutely not what I was saying! I'm sorry if I am not explaining myself very well. Let me try again. Obviously to require a person to have no memorable past sins is not realistic and furthermore not biblical. Peter denied Christ. All of the apostles did so, in fact. Paul persecuted Christians. The list goes on.
1 Cor. 6: 9 ¶ Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
The point here is that no one is without sin. Your reference to the man who WAS a drunk is a past tense situation. Once he is a Christian, verse 11 applies. Also, he will no longer live in this sin. A person who is an aldulterer, even if it is so by marriage to a divorced person, IS present tense sinning (ongoing). This is a "living in sin" situation. Any person who has a life pattern of sin---whether it is drunkenness, adultery, thievery (read the list up there in verses 9 and 10)---that person is disqualified from being a pastor. Because a pastor must lead by example it is important that his current life example be a good one. That is why a man who is married to a divorced woman is not qualified to be a pastor.
Scott J said
No. There are two different conditions being dealt with here. Verses 10 and 11 deal with one. Verse 12 sets a new condition that Paul addresses, believers married to unbelievers. This is the only way to read this passage in its normal context. This could not possibly be more clear.
It would be just as easy to use verse 9 as a condition for verse 15 as verses 10-11. This would be a command to marry rather than burn... In fact, this would make much more sense. If a widow or widower were given a provision in case they were "not able to contain" then how could the divorcee released from the bondage of preserving the marriage be any less entitled?
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I agree with you that there are 2 situations dealt with in this chapter. The first is dealing with married people in general. The command is given to not get a divorce. Also that if you get a divorce and want to remarry, it should be to the person who divorced you. The second situation is a subset of the first. It deals with what I call mixed marriages. This is a marriage in which one spouse is saved and the other is not. The command here is if the unsaved one wants to leave and insists on it, well, let him (or her) leave. This does not change the requirements that are set out for the group in general of married people. Basically, the divorced person is only supposed to get remarried if they remarry their former spouse. Verse 9 actually has no bearing on either of these situations because it is addressed to people who either have never been married or whose spouse has died.
Let me point out that just because a person finds themselves in this situation makes them a useless Christian. They can teach, evangelize, serve in various other ministries, maybe lead music. There are all sorts of opportunites for this person---he is only disqualified from a few. A woman cannot be a pastor either and this is not because of any kind of sin. Being unqualified for a pastor's job is not some sort of curse or indelible blot on someone's Christian career or character!
First, "not under bondage" in context refers to the effort of trying to keep your spouse from leaving because "God hath called us to peace." In other words, the spouse of the one doing the leaving is not required to maintain this effort indefinitely if the unsaved spouse insists on leaving. This is spelled out in detail in 1 Corinthians 7:10-11