An overseer... or bishop, must be BLAMELESS... not overbearing, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain... oh-oh... there go some more pastors I’ve known! Not given to drunkenness, not quick-tempered... oh-oh... not quick-tempered? Not violent, uh-oh... there went some more preachers I’ve known who call themselves ‘sheperds’ and demand that people look up to them and obey them..

This man is to be hospitable... "one who loves what is good", (we’re not talkin’ fried chicken here! ) "one who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined."

Religion today has overlooked all these things and focused on just one thing.... ‘if a man has been divorced, he is unfit for the ministry’. I do not see that stated in the above Scriptures, nor any other. Paul wrote, in 1 Corinthians 7:32, "I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs... how he can please the Lord. BUT A MARRIED MAN IS CONCERNED ABOUT THE AFFAIRS OF THIS WORLD... HOW HE CAN PLEASE HIS WIFE... AND HIS INTERESTS ARE DIVIDED."

" Yes, Jesus spoke against divorce. It causes adultery. But sometimes adultery causes divorce. And sometimes unbelief will cause divorce from one who is a believer. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 7:15 "But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace."

"Nevertheless, each one should retain the place in life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not be uncircumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing. KEEPING GOD’S COMMANDS IS WHAT COUNTS.

EACH ONE SHOULD REMAIN IN THE SITUATION HE WAS IN WHEN GOD CALLED HIM. Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it trouble you,... although if you can gain your freedom, do so."

This says to me that a man should remain in the position God called him to, no matter what happens. If a man is called to the ministry of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ, of securing lives from hell, then he is to continue doing so even if his wife leaves him and divorces him. Don’t hinder the working of God in men’s and women’s lives! If He chooses to unite in marriage a man and a woman who have been divorced and forgiven, and use them for His glory and to save people from eternal destruction ... why go nitpicking and say that that past mistake has ruined his life? "Blameless", is the word. Jesus forgave our sins on the cross and took our blame. On the other hand, if people are going to follow a so-called sheperd simply because he’s still married to the same woman since he was a teenager, (even though she may be Jezebel in the flesh!) then they would accept a man who had past murders on his slate, or grand larceny, or had been saved in prison after serving 35 years for dismembering a human being... simply because he had not been married before! See also 1 Timothy 3: 1-7, not just the verse about ‘one wife’ but all of them together.

Some people will follow like little lambs a pastor whose children steal cars, speak and act disrespectully to their parents, and do all manner of disorderly things... just because they like the man... or feel that they have to follow him because he’s the pastor of the church they belong to. Well! Tommyrot and Poppycock, if you don’t mind my saying so. Why get hung up on one thing that satan dearly loves to use to dis-qualify godly men, and bar them from being of any use in the Kingdom?

What about a man who has been saved and got married after having lived riotously with women for years? Even months or weeks! Read 1st Corinthians 6:16 "Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "the Two will become one flesh." In Matthew 19:4 it is written, "Haven’t you read,: He (Jesus) replied, "that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. and the two will become one flesh? So they are no longer two, but one."

Are you going to research into the past of every man who aspires to be a pastor and see if he has ever ‘become one’ with any woman, whether in holy matrimony or otherwise? Or ten women, or a hundred? No, I don’t think so. The crux of the matter is not whether he has or has not... it’s whether he is NOW blameless. Is his life uncluttered enough for him to be a good overseer of the house of God? Are his children obedient and self-controlled? Is he hospitable, or does he hide himself from the flock except when he’s preaching? Is the man himself self-controlled, or does he fly into rages and verbally beat his sheep? Does he Lord it over his flock as though he were their master? Does he hold on firmly to the message as it has been taught, or does he run to and fro, gathering other men’s (or women’s) opinions and basing his beliefs on those, until perhaps, he reads or hears something else that sounds better and flies to that post for a while... until something else catches his eye or ear.