Re: enos andros gunh

From: Arlie D. Rauch (adarpub@servco.com)
Date: Sat Mar 30 1996 - 22:46:44 EST


Glenn Wooden writes,

>The expression "one woman man" may be limited to bishops, but the
>term "one man woman" is used as a qualification for the widows who
>may receive help from the other believers. I am assuming here that
>you do not understand 1 Tim. 5 as concerning bishops, who are discussed
>at 1 Tim 3. It would seem that this attribute was not limited to just
>bishops; in my experience, however, the discussion of the construction
>"a one X Y" usually has been limited to 1 Tim 3:2 (bishops). That is why I
>keep bring up 1 Tim 5; it seems to throw light on the bishop
>discussion by showing that it does NOT mean "one and only ever one
>husband/wife"--unless the author of 1 Tim. was facing mounting
>debts and annual deficits and thought that urging young widows to
>remarry would lighten up the future requirements on the congregation's
>coffers! ;-)

This is not totally ridiculous. The (possibly unknown) mindset of the
Apostle may have something to say about the way this should be understood.
Is it like a government program for which we must find clients so we can
legitimate further funding? Or is there any indication that there are
limits, perhaps even stringent, to those qualifying? There are other
criteria for the qualifying widow, also. To say that a certain
interpretation prevents widows from receiving benefits should not be
considered seriously as an obstacle to that particular interpretation.
Perhaps that is one of the reasons for the criterion. It does have
practical implications.

Arlie D. Rauch
Community Bible Church
Glendive, MT



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