Must a deacon be monogamous? What does Greek heis/mia/en mean here?

[Cap]

On what basis would you think that?

Acts 1:26
26 And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles

It seems to me that casting lots is a group effort and had the effect of an individual voting with God's help. Since there are many other references in the Bible about this method of deciding things in a group, I would believe voting on an elder would follow the same pattern.

How could one individual decide for a group?

Who would ask the question, Do you have more than ONE wife?

 

[andrew]

I always understood that as Paul saying, if anyone wants to be contentious about this they can take a hike because this is how it’s done, period.

Some translations say 'no such', some say 'no other', but the underlying Greek looks like 'no such' to me. @IshChayil, got any thoughts?

 

[andrew]

Cap, that quote is from the apostles deciding together that that's how the HS wanted them to resolve this particular issue of replacing Judas. Some folks still use 'casting lots' today in various ways to help make close decisions. But again, that's just copycatting a story we read in the bible to validate something we're going to do.

Same deal with Paul, Timothy, and Titus. It's clear from Acts and what else we know of the time period that Paul and some other guys he recruited went around the Mediterranean world preaching and planting churches. And we're privy to some internal correspondence between them, wherein Senior Apostle Paul was coaching two of his Junior Apostles and how to select and install leadership. There is no record in the NT of assemblies voting on their elders (sorry, Presbyterians). It's a function of appointed apostolic authority appointing shepherding and servanting authority in the churches planted by said apostolic authority.

And Paul doesn't even give the two men exactly the same advice, which requires further reflection re what exactly is going on here.

Moving a little further into this, I could put a fork in it right here: Each of us is going to follow whomever we're going to follow, and we're going to lead whomever we're going to lead. But if you're going to follow, then be a good follower, and that will almost always include a sensation of being led by God to submit yourself to someone whether you like it or not. If you see yourself as the judge of your leadership, then you're part of the problem in our culture.

- - - - - - -

EDIT: My comment above about Junior Apostles touched off a discussion of apostolic authority that has been moved to this thread.

 

[rockfox]

A good argument for folks wanting to translate "a" here could be "why didn't paul use mono to make it extra clear"

Because he was writing to Greek's and Romans and none of them had more than one wife. The only two possible questions are: do they have a wife, and are they still married to their first wife. Just a side effect of his audience.

 

[The Revolting Man]

Cap, that quote is from the apostles deciding together that that's how the HS wanted them to resolve this particular issue of replacing Judas. Some folks still use 'casting lots' today in various ways to help make close decisions. But again, that's just copycatting a story we read in the bible to validate something we're going to do.

Same deal with Paul, Timothy, and Titus. It's clear from Acts and what else we know of the time period that Paul and some other guys he recruited went around the Mediterranean world preaching and planting churches. And we're privy to some internal correspondence between them, wherein Senior Apostle Paul was coaching two of his Junior Apostles and how to select and install leadership. There is no record in the NT of assemblies voting on their elders (sorry, Presbyterians). It's a function of appointed apostolic authority appointing shepherding and servanting authority in the churches planted by said apostolic authority.

And Paul doesn't even give the two men exactly the same advice, which requires further reflection re what exactly is going on here.

Moving a little further into this, I could put a fork in it right here: Each of us is going to follow whomever we're going to follow, and we're going to lead whomever we're going to lead. But if you're going to follow, then be a good follower, and that will almost always include a sensation of being led by God to submit yourself to someone whether you like it or not. If you see yourself as the judge of your leadership, then you're part of the problem in our culture.

I've always been a problem child. I would say the exact opposite of you though, if you are willing to accept authorities that aren't clearly laid out in scripture then you are part of the problem in our culture. Remember the problem is a bunch of sheeple blindly believing what a bunch of appointed "leaders" tell them too.

I am the priest/king in my home and I will never willingly surrender that.

 

[steve]

I think that we are comparing apples and oranges.
Our concept of the structure of the assembly is still devolving from Roman Catholicism and hasn’t reached the organic state that existed in NT times.

Gotta go driving.

I have time to just add this point.
Paul typically only stayed in town a month or two when he started churches.

 

[Cap]

Cap, that quote is from the apostles deciding together that that's how the HS wanted them to resolve this particular issue of replacing Judas. Some folks still use 'casting lots' today in various ways to help make close decisions. But again, that's just copycatting a story we read in the bible to validate something we're going to do.

Same deal with Paul, Timothy, and Titus. It's clear from Acts and what else we know of the time period that Paul and some other guys he recruited went around the Mediterranean world preaching and planting churches. And we're privy to some internal correspondence between them, wherein Senior Apostle Paul was coaching two of his Junior Apostles and how to select and install leadership. There is no record in the NT of assemblies voting on their elders (sorry, Presbyterians). It's a function of appointed apostolic authority appointing shepherding and servanting authority in the churches planted by said apostolic authority.

And Paul doesn't even give the two men exactly the same advice, which requires further reflection re what exactly is going on here.

Moving a little further into this, I could put a fork in it right here: Each of us is going to follow whomever we're going to follow, and we're going to lead whomever we're going to lead. But if you're going to follow, then be a good follower, and that will almost always include a sensation of being led by God to submit yourself to someone whether you like it or not. If you see yourself as the judge of your leadership, then you're part of the problem in our culture.

I understand that this particular verse was referencing that particular situation, but there are many other verses that use this method of making a decision. The point I was trying to make was that whatever decision that they were making and whatever method that they were using, it's still took a group of believes to decide the outcome. Now, to be honest, I would never follow another man. However, I can learn from another man, or woman, through God's Holy Spirit. And the key ingredient for me is how much of a 'like' mind do I have with the individual, and with the individuals that he/she is in relationship with.

Any person that I may follow, I would only do it based on the leading of God for the edifying of my life to a higher purpose. So technically, I would not choose an elder to lead me personally, but I world participate in choosing an elder to lead a group, if that makes any sense.

So how did the early church decide deacons and elders? Who would be responsible to ask the requirements Paul is laying out for these offices?

NOTE: ACT 6 would have been a better way to respond to your question @andrew. Wonder if Stephen had more than one wife?

 

[andrew]

Because he was writing to Greek's and Romans and none of them had more than one wife. The only two possible questions are: do they have a wife, and are they still married to their first wife. Just a side effect of his audience.

Are you saying then that we should understand mia as 'one' because that's what Paul probably thought and didn't need to be super-specific? Or are you saying that Paul may have used mia not because he was trying to limit men to one wife but because it simply wasn't an issue writing to apostles who were operating in Roman (monogamous) territories?

Just wanted to check because of the way IC's statement you're quoting relates to your follow up. The way I'm reading it, though, looks like another pretty good insight with a lot of explanatory power (although @IshChayil, let me know if I'm pushing too hard against the grammar here).

Jesus straight up said his mission was not to the unwashed heathens but to the house of Israel, but then he told his messengers he would send them to the uttermost part of the earth. Then this guy Paul comes along, says he's had an encounter with God and he's appointed specifically to be an apostle to those unwashed, uncircumcised types. He recruits his own crew (Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, Titus, Silvanus, etc) and gets to work, preaching and establishing fellowships of converts around the Roman/Mediterranean world, wherever the Spirit leads him.

In that context, he writes a couple of his crew to advise them on how to set up fellowships when he's not around, and one of the qualifications for the men who are going to run things after the messengers leave town is that they should have mia wife. Paul could have been grammatically more specific if he meant "at least one, but he can have as many as he wants" or if he meant "there can be only one", but he wasn't.

If that situation happened today, we would presumably get the exact same result. Something happens over in the Middle East, news starts to spread, messengers are sent out, letters are written, and I could very easily see a letter being written to a junior apostle working in America that would say 'the men you appoint should have a wife' or even 'one wife' simply because polygamy is just not on the radar in that moment. When the whole culture is based on legally-enforced monogamy, your choices are 'guys with a wife', and 'guys with no wife'.

This circles back to the grammar, because in English our use of articles is different. In other words, if something happened today, Paul would presumably write to an apostle in America in English (the koine Greek or linga franca of the 21st century), so we would know what he meant, or we could email him back and ask him to clarify, but I digress....

My point is that the fact that Paul's choice of words is to our way of understanding Greek 'ambiguous' may be grounded in the fact that polygamy was not at issue because of who he was talking to. If he had intended to unilaterally and without explanation limit men to one wife, he could have said so more clearly. And if he had intended to promote polygamy, he could have said so more clearly. He simply didn't say.

So maybe we shouldn't say either. We don't see any evidence that Jesus or any of the Jerusalem apostles ruled out polygamy for the house of Israel, and Paul does not speak as clearly as he could have to rule it out for Roman-ruled gentiles, he just doesn't make an issue out of it one way or the other. "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind."

 

[andrew]

I've always been a problem child. I would say the exact opposite of you though, if you are willing to accept authorities that aren't clearly laid out in scripture then you are part of the problem in our culture. Remember the problem is a bunch of sheeple blindly believing what a bunch of appointed "leaders" tell them too.

I am the priest/king in my home and I will never willingly surrender that.

Zec, I don't see that as being opposite/oppositional/opposed as much as being complementary. We're on the same team.

But ultimately leadership is a top-down affair, or it's not leadership, it's being a hireling, paid to tell people what they want to hear. You figure out what God wants you to do and plug in where He tells you to plug in, then get to work. All I'm sayin.

 

[andrew]

So how did the early church decide deacons and elders? Who would be responsible to ask the requirements Paul is laying out for these offices?

NOTE: ACT 6 would have been a better way to respond to your question @andrew. Wonder if Stephen had more than one wife?

Hard to say.
According to Paul, with respect to fellowships being set up by Timothy and Titus, Timothy or Titus would.
Hard to say.

What we know is how Paul instructed Timothy and Titus to do it when they were out doing the apostle thang. What we don't know is whether that's how everybody did it, and your example of Stephen is an interesting illustration of a variant method for selecting and appointing deacons/servants. A bunch of Jews in Jerusalem, all of whom were not under Paul's authority and certainly hadn't seen his letters, casting lots to appoint an apostle (your previous example) and asking the disciples to pick seven men from among themselves—what were they up to?...

 

[Cap]

Hard to say.
According to Paul, with respect to fellowships being set up by Timothy and Titus, Timothy or Titus would.
Hard to say.

What we know is how Paul instructed Timothy and Titus to do it when they were out doing the apostle thang. What we don't know is whether that's how everybody did it, and your example of Stephen is an interesting illustration of a variant method for selecting and appointing deacons/servants. A bunch of Jews in Jerusalem, all of whom were not under Paul's authority and certainly hadn't seen his letters, casting lots to appoint an apostle (your previous example) and asking the disciples to pick seven men from among themselves—what were they up to?...

What were they up to? ahh, yes, the plot thickens for me here, but I will refrain from comment here.

Then this guy Paul comes along, says he's had an encounter with God and he's appointed specifically to be an apostle to those unwashed, uncircumcised types. He recruits his own crew (Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, Titus, Silvanus, etc) and gets to work, preaching and establishing fellowships of converts around the Roman/Mediterranean world, wherever the Spirit leads him..

Another can of worms of intrigue, but your comment does open the idea that its probably best to view his requirements as society specific. To Paul, not having a wife at all was his preferred method. Which raises another question, based on Paul's requirements, How could he be an elder?

 

[IshChayil]

Some translations say 'no such', some say 'no other', but the underlying Greek looks like 'no such' to me. @IshChayil, got any thoughts?

In reference to 1 Corinthians 11:16 right?
"...we have no such custom ..." I don't see where one would get "no other" from that.
Here's the full verse:
Εἰ δέ τις δοκεῖ φιλόνεικος εἶναι, ἡμεῖς τοιαύτην συνήθειαν οὐκ ἔχομεν οὐδὲ αἱ ἐκκλησίαι τοῦ θεοῦ.
Aland, K., Aland, B., Karavidopoulos, J., Martini, C. M., & Metzger, B. M. (2012). Novum Testamentum Graece (28th Edition, 1 Co 11:16). Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft.

Looks like this to me:
"If then someone thinks to be contentious, we have no such custom (tradition, habit, etc) and neither do the assemblies of G-d"

The word in question is τοιοῦτος (toy-ū-tos) which functions like a relative pronoun in these situations.
BDAG lexicon introduces "correlative adj. pert. to being like some pers. or thing mentioned in a context, of such a kind, such as this, like such"
Syntactically, the word τοιοῦτος is presented without the definite article in our verse. It even calls out our verse in question with other verses for comparison where we see the word clearly is used as we use English "such":

ב . without the article (TestAbr A 11 p. 89, 19 [Stone p. 26] ἐν τοιαύτῃ δόξῃ; JosAs 6:7; 13:11; GrBar 1:2; Ar. 13:1; Just., A I, 9, 5; Mel., P. 20, 137; Ath. 22, 1) ἐξουσίαν τοιαύτην such power Mt 9:8.—18:5; Mk 4:33; J 9:16; Ac 16:24; 1 Cor 11:16; 2 Cor 3:4, 12; Hb 7:26; 13:16; Js 4:16. AcPlCor 1:9 ἔστι γὰρ ἃ λέγουσιν … τοιαῦτα what they say … is as follows
Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., Bauer, W., & Gingrich, F. W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., p. 1009). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

so you are on strong footing to say "no such custom"

 

[IshChayil]

I will never accept that anything in scripture is any man's opinion on how to deal with a specific culture.

How do we reconcile the verses were Paul says He is not speaking for the L-rd then gives his personal opinion on an issue as well as verses like "to the Jew I am as a Jew and to the Greek as a Greek ...to win all men" (bad paraphrase I know but you get the gist). In Israeli culture there were already solutions to almost all issues and as Paul continued to abide even by those cultural norms this suggests the new issues are involving other cultures.

I'm coming from the perspective of having lived on 4 continents and several countries among the natives so to speak; engaging with them and it's surprising how often things which seem clear cut scripturally in USA are not always so clear cut in other countries.
What do we do with verses that command a woman to not dress like a man? It begs the question, "how do men dress?". In some cultures the men dress downright girlie.
Surely we don't lock it in Ancient Israeli culture and mean "tunics with four corners", women can't wear ponchos with fringes on them today.

We are always evaluating scripture through cultural eyes.
In Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes) the writer often seems to be questioning things not presenting answers "who knows if the soul of an animal descends or raises up..."
Surely it's that writer's opinion, granted not about a cultural issue, but it's not G-d who included in the category of "who knows"...well G-d knows.

The bible was written first and foremost for the immediate audience at the time (which means they had to understand it which includes the lense of culture), and of course for us as well but we are not more important than they were. It had to be culturally relevant or else people would not have understood it and included it as something important to be lumped in with other holy writings.
I hope you get the thrust of my response.

shalom

 

[andrew]

The whole head covering outbreak has been moved here. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

 

[andrew]

So back to what IC said about the Greek for 'no such custom'....

It appears to me that Paul is saying: (a) here's how you Corinthians should be doing it (so he very much does plan for this to be their 'custom'), but (b) it's not something I want you guys to argue about, so (c) if someone's trying to pick a fight, just make it a non-issue, don't defend it, to the point of acting as if it's not a thing.

If that is true, it takes 'serpent wisdom' (thanks, @Slumberfreeze!) to a whole new level. We just discreetly do what we believe the Lord has told us to do, but we do NOT get drawn into 'contentions' over the issue, and don't even really discuss the issue (which would be the logical effect of taking 'no such custom' seriously, once you've determined that someone is trying to be 'contentious'—if there is no such custom, then there's nothing to discuss).

Lots to think about here....

 

[Slumberfreeze]

(c) if someone's trying to pick a fight, just make it a non-issue, don't defend it,

I think he goes for the same thought again in a couple chapters (speaking of women speaking in church) when he says But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.

 

[andrew]

Whoa. Which is also pertaining to male/female relations. Anyone else see a pattern here? What's that thing about two or three witnesses?...

 

[andrew]

Seems to me this would be helpful with respect to @jacobhaivri's recent thread in a way. I won't have time until this weekend (and then only maybe) to do any real searching, but off the top of my head I'm not getting any other major subject matter regarding which Paul's advice is to pretend it's not happening so you won't have to engage the ignorant, or the contentious, etc.

This is a big deal.

 

[Verifyveritas76]

Ran across this tonight in Polycarp’s writings to Phillipi. I noticed a distinct lack of emphasis on this ‘syllable’ as regards a deacon having only one wife. He doesn’t address the issue of Bishops in this particular letter.

Polycarp 5:2
In like manner deacons should be blameless in the presence of His
righteousness, as deacons of God and Christ and not of men; not
calumniators, not double-tongued, not lovers of money, temperate in
all things, compassionate, diligent, walking according to the truth
of the Lord who became a minister (deacon) of all. For if we be
well pleasing unto Him in this present world, we shall receive the
future world also, according as He promised us to raise us from the
dead, and that if we conduct ourselves worthily of Him we shall
also reign with Him, if indeed we have faith.

Edit: I realize that this does not prove anything. I just found it interesting that this apparently wasn’t a big issue to Polycarp.

 

[LoveisaLion]

...one thing we also need to consider very carefully - is that Messiah used examples based on Truth and truths. He presented Himself as a Polygynist - having 10 potential wives, but ending up with 5 that were vigilant and faithful to the end.

He would not have used that example, if there was any 'slight' on the principle of polygyny in practise and in truth. Therefore - with regards to an elder, apart from the fact that:
(Isa 9:15) The head is the elder and honorable man, And the prophet who teaches falsehood is the tail." … and
(Isa 3:2) The mighty man and the warrior, The judge and the prophet, The diviner and the elder...," indicate that clearly a polygynous Godly man can be an elder; the example rendered by Yahshua Messiah cements that ideal/principle by the fact that He uses His relationship with His humanity as being Polygnous relations - by principle.

Messiah would not use a 'stumbling block' as an example but rather Paul IMO should be seen in the perspective of the context of the entire bible.

(Rom 3:4) May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar..."