The Bible clearly says that a bishop must be “the husband of one wife.” That is a real qualification, and we should not weaken it. But based on the passages examined, we cannot say with certainty that this means a pastor must have a living wife at every moment he serves. The Bible establishes a real marital qualification more clearly than it establishes continuous present marriage.
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What the Bible Says
The main passage is 1 Timothy 3:2:
1 Timothy 3:2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
Notice the wording. Paul says a bishop “must be” these things. These are not suggestions. They are qualifications.
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And one of those qualifications is very clear:
“the husband of one wife”
So we cannot simply say that marriage does not matter. It does matter. The man’s marital life is part of his qualification.
But we also have to be careful not to make the verse say more than it says.
The verse does not say, “A bishop must currently be married.” It does not say, “A bishop must always have a living wife.” It says that he must be “the husband of one wife.”
That may imply present marriage. It is certainly a reasonable reading. But we have to examine the rest of the qualification passage before turning that inference into a definite statement.
Paul continues:
1 Timothy 3:4 One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;
1 Timothy 3:5 (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)
Family life clearly matters. God looks at how the man handles his own house because that says something about how he will care for the church.
Titus gives us the same kind of qualification:
Titus 1:6 If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly.
Again, the man is called “the husband of one wife.” That strengthens the case that this is deliberate qualification language.
But notice what comes immediately after it:
“having faithful children”
That creates an important question.
If “husband of one wife” means that every pastor must actually have a wife, does “having faithful children” mean that every pastor must actually have children?
That question matters because the two qualifications appear together.
Why This Answers the Question
There are two things we should not do with this passage.
First, we should not explain away the word “husband.”
A bishop is positively described as “the husband of one wife” in both 1 Timothy and Titus. So the argument that a pastor must actually be married has real textual force. We should take that seriously.
But second, we should not add words that God did not give us.
The Bible does not explicitly say, “If a man is unmarried, he cannot be a bishop.”
There is also another difficulty with saying that a pastor must be married at all times: what happens if his wife dies?
Scripture tells us that death ends the marriage bond.
Romans 7:2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
Paul says the same thing in 1 Corinthians:
1 Corinthians 7:39 The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.
So consider a pastor who unquestionably meets the qualifications. He has one wife. He rules his house well. He is blameless, sober, vigilant, hospitable, and apt to teach.
Then his wife dies.
Did he become disqualified the moment she died?
If “husband of one wife” means that he must continuously possess a living wife, that conclusion seems to follow. Yet none of the passages examined explicitly says that a bishop loses his qualification when his wife dies.
That does not prove that an unmarried man qualifies. But it does show why we should be careful about turning “the husband of one wife” into the broader statement, “A pastor must have a living wife at all times.”
There is also nothing inherently spiritually inferior about being unmarried.
Paul wrote:
1 Corinthians 7:8 I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I.
And later:
1 Corinthians 7:32 But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord:
Paul was not saying that every unmarried man qualifies to be a bishop. First Corinthians 7 is not a list of pastoral qualifications.
But it does show that we cannot argue that a pastor must be married because an unmarried man is somehow less spiritual, less devoted, or incapable of serving God. Scripture does not say that.
Strongest Objection
The strongest argument for requiring a pastor to be presently married is simple:
The Bible says he “must be” “the husband of one wife.”
That is a strong argument. A man who has never married is not presently a husband. We should not pretend that the word “husband” is not there.
But that interpretation has to be applied consistently to the rest of the passage.
Titus says:
Titus 1:6 If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly.
If the first phrase absolutely requires him to possess a wife, what do we do with the next phrase requiring him to be “having faithful children”?
Do we conclude that every pastor must also have children?
And what do we do with the faithful pastor whose wife dies?
Those questions do not prove that marriage is unnecessary. But they do prevent us from claiming more certainty than the text gives us.
There is another useful comparison later in 1 Timothy:
1 Timothy 5:9 Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man,
Here Paul uses the corresponding expression “the wife of one man” concerning a widow. Obviously, she does not currently have a husband. The verse explicitly says “having been,” so the wording is not identical to 1 Timothy 3:2. We should not pretend that it settles the issue.
But it does show that this kind of one-spouse language can involve a person’s marital history or character and not merely whether that person presently has a spouse.
Bottom Line
Does a pastor have to be married right now?
1 Timothy 3:2 unquestionably gives a bishop a real marital qualification: he must be “the husband of one wife.” But the passages examined do not establish with enough certainty that this means every pastor must continuously possess a living wife in order to remain qualified.
The present-marriage interpretation is a serious reading of the verse. But the children qualification and the question of widowhood keep us from declaring it an explicit biblical requirement when Scripture itself does not say those words.
And this study does not settle the separate question of whether a divorced man can pastor. Divorce, remarriage, “blameless,” and “the husband of one wife” would have to be examined directly before making that conclusion.
