I appreciate your care in handling the Eighth Commandment (Edited to maintain this). I know two LCMS pastors who, according to your flowchart, were faithful—until they remarried. And have heard a a couple more then sounds like have broken the flow chart completely and yet remain pastors somehow.
As a layman seriously considering the pastoral ministry as a second career, and as a husband and father whose wife abandoned our marriage, I am convicted to remain faithful to her no matter what she has done. By God’s grace, it has been relatively easy; she has not entered other relationships but insists she “needs” to be single. She left in 2020, so I’ve been walking this path for some time.
With all that, I believe your flowchart is correct. However, grace should be infused—but only at the final point where the pastor remains faithful yet remarries, perhaps due to the “burning desire” Paul warns about.
And to that point: every pastor in good standing—now and forever—has broken the Sixth Commandment according to Jesus’ standard. I’m curious about even more complex situations. Suppose a pastor, whether married or single, is discovered to have a regular pornography habit—not debilitating, but persistent. He repents, yet keeps returning to it.
Studies show pornography affects the brain like drugs. So here’s another hard question: should a repentant pastor be defrocked if he struggles with a recurring, non-debilitating drug habit? Divorce is public; these sins involve the body, not just the mind, and carry tangible consequences. So where is the line?
I don’t know—but I do know grace must ultimately overtake the law.
You can remarry or you maybe (and that is a big maybe) can remain a pastor as long as the spouse remains alive, but you can't be both. Resigning and getting married is the answer. No one is perfect is not an argument, but obfuscation. The standard is repentance not perfection. A remarried pastor while his ex-wife is still alive is in a state of unrepentance.
Brother, thank you for this. A broken and unreconciled marriage is a terrible thing, and we pray that you will rely on God's promises to restore everything by, through, and for the sake of Christ's atoning sacrifice.
If you make a decision tree with your reasoning, we can justify female and homosexual ordination.
St. Paul, an Apostle of Christ, has given us the rules, and we need to abide by them. A pastor must only have one wife, and that is where we should stand, just as we stand on the plain meaning of the real presence.
The complex situation you cite does not mitigate what the fundamental requirements are for the pastoral office. We don't allow an alcoholic pastor to remain in the OHM as long as his breathalyzer ignition is working. We don't allow a street-fighter pastor to stay in the pulpit as long as he wears headgear and a gum guard for his next bar brawl, we don't allow the profane man to preach as long as he limits his F-bombs to 2 per day and does not blaspheme, and so on.
If a besetting sin plagues a pastor and he cannot shake it, then he should resign because a scandal is inevitable. His conscience will continually distract him from his duties.
Lastly, I did not have anyone in mind writing this article. Many examples out there do not need to be named, but they know who they are. The preaching office is greater than any man, not vice versa.
God bless your deliberations about going to Sem. If you make that decision, you are committing to remain unmarried for as long as you are in ministry or your first wife goes to glory.
Mathew, an additional item to consider is your final statement. It seems to be a recapitulation of things the radical Lutherans talk about, but it is not from Scripture. Grace is not in conflict or combat with the law. If we need an analogy, law and gospel are a Möbius strip, or a double helix. Grace never overtakes the law; they advance together.
On public scandal or offense, there is a difference between giving offense and people (wrongly) taking offense. That sort of distinction must be made. If a man is surrounded by scandal, but he is innocent and did not do things at which Christians should take offense, the presence of scandal is no reason for him to cease to serve as a pastor, even if a change of place might be beneficial.
Next, if the Lord permits a divorce (e.g., Matt. 5:32; 19:9; 1 Cor 7:15), then the man is *not married* in the Lord's eyes. So if he remarries, he is still the husband of only one wife. Why then should he not continue to serve as a pastor?
But these cases need to be investigated by "wise men" in the Church (1 Cor. 6:5) and especially marital cases should be adjudicated fairly, and not just allowed for everyone to do what is right in his own eyes (cf. Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope 75, 77-78).
Thank you, Pr. Mayes. I would disagree that the man ceases to be married in the Lord's eyes just because the divorce was permissible in those circumstances. Those passages reinforce the sanctity of marriage as a permanent earthly institution that has made a husband and wife one flesh. What the exceptions are allowing is for the innocent party to be remarried, but I don't see any loophole for an innocent yet divorced pastor to be remarried and remain in the office.
Yes, cases must be carefuly, wisely and gently handled because the termination of a marriage is ghastly and has profound multi-generational effects that can persist longer than a century (I use my own family's history of divorce as the example).
I would counsel the wise men to also speak with the plain men in these situations. I don't think the clergy understand how unsettled the laity are by the divorce casuistry, which blunts our Christian witness in so many areas.
To quote a faithful man who has suffered the indignity of divorce that has obliged him to leave the ministry, "So long as we continue to make little exceptions and loopholes, we will continue to diminish the Office of the Ministry and the Institution of Marriage."
I would include wise, learned laymen among the "wise men" who should help to adjudicate such cases. I have several chapters on this my forthcoming book from CPH (likely 2026): "Divorce and Remarriage: Ecclesiastical Discernment and Pastoral Care."
Thank you, look forward to it. Our prayer is that the DPs dealing firsthand with these issues would keep it simple. The folks in the pews are desperate for things that only require the faith of a child.
Perhaps I'm too harsh and emphasizing 1 Timothy 3 on managing your household well, but I would think the flowchart is simply "Pastor's divorce finalized -> Resign call". Likewise, I've heard it many times that sin has temporal consequences, even for those who may be innocent victims of the sin. Perhaps the pastor is a completely innocent victim, but it still may be what is best for him and the congregation that he resigns. The position is not one to be coveted or sought to be maintained apart from consideration of the congregation, even one that may, at the time, be sympathetic to the pastor. He may one day be called upon to call a woman leaving her husband to repentance, and it may not be received as well from someone with his past. These things should be considered, even if a pastor is nothing more than a victim of his poor choice in a wife.
It is a very reasonable position to go from divorced straight to no longer qualified for the OHM. What I presented is really a rehabilitation proposal to get us out of the current state of affairs, which has a hundred branches, e.g. how long without conjugal relations becomes abandonment, but is there a medical issue, and on it goes.
My hope is that men thinking about entering the ministry would see this flow sheet and take to heart that marriage should not be entered into lightly.
Likewise, James 3:1 should be meditated on day and night before a man commits to a seminary.
Justin, I agree that "Perhaps the pastor is a completely innocent victim, but it still may be what is best for him and the congregation that he resigns." But on 1 Tim. 3:4, if that would exclude an innocent, divorced pastor from the ministry, then it surely excludes a pastor whose child has fallen away from the faith. But we all know cases where parents raise their kids the right way, but the child still rebels and rejects the true faith. A pastor should not be removed from office due to the sins of others against his will and outside of his control.
Pr. Mayes, can we agree that the household is constrained to the family under the man's management? He is not accountable for adult children outside the home who have decided to switch teams. However, he is responsible and accountable for his wife and the minor children living under his roof. Example, if the wife and kids attend the local Joel Osteen knockoff on Sundays instead of his, then he is disqualified. If adult children are living dissolute lives, then he is not disqualified unless he encourages it or affirms it (e.g. attending or participating in the homosexual marriage ceremony/celebrations of an adult child).
Rev. Mayes, I would like to get away from comments like, "we all know cases where". Yes, we do. We all know far too many cases of infidelity, divorce, apostasy, and more. And it is more so in this present age with a lot of ink spilled about the causes (feminism, no fault divorce, etc.). Accommodating the fall out of these cases might not be the best approach to hopefully getting to a place where they aren't so commonplace.
But the fact that it happens frequently isn't an argument about whether a man is, according to Scripture, fit to be a pastor. Instead, I see it as feeding into a sort of idolization of the role of pastor (or maybe borne out of the pastor shortage fear) to where the goal seems to be to maintain the man in the office. That's not the goal though.
I did say I might be too harsh though, so I am interested in a Scriptural analysis of when a pastor should resign (I hope it doesn't come to removal simply because he wants to hold on to the title) from the office. And to your point it should bring in the concept of when a pastor would be held responsible for the sins of others against his will. I think of Numbers 30, 1 Cor. 7, and so on. It should also note that simply because there might be some exception that applies to Christians does not mean it applies to pastors in the same way. Because I would once again emphasize that the pastor plays a role within the church, and that role might impose requirements on him that aren't normally imposed on Christians generally. That's just part and parcel to pursing that vocation, and part of what demands my respect for those in that position. If my children leave the faith, I don't get kicked out of the congregation and neither would the pastor, but it might mean that we are now both not fit to be pastors. That might be a bummer, but in the grand scheme it is fine because we'll still end up in the same place at the end.
Even Herman Otten once printed in his publication (which I read with great interest, having been cheated on by my first wife and an employee from the church Benefit Plans) that “pastors undergoing divorce on account of an adulterous woman need extra grace. They should not marry for a time, probably 3-5 years, but they can remarry if no reconciliation is sought by the other party.” After approaching my adulterous wife one more time two years after I uncovered the affair, she said no, and on advice and counsel of friends and DPs, I remarried 3 years later.
So… you would compound the hurt and confusion of being cheated on by also stripping away my vocation? Ouch, man. I may have lost complete sanity had you been my DP.
No, pastor, I would not compound your misery by stripping away your vocation, I would apply what scripture sets as the standard. I understand the extra grace arguments and justifications, but I don’t see it anywhere in the requirements for an elder to be the husband of one wife. Extra grace has a very long tail when it becomes the subjective opinion of a DP.
Interesting. I’m not sure if you agree or disagree with me, and I know it doesn’t matter per se, and we are just conversing on a public forum. But I’d like to think you agree and that it should all be handled pastorally, every time, for every individual case.
This also brings to mind how each District office needs to have a more robust Reconciliation staff in place; pastors or trained laymen who are ready to go to a place and visit a pastor going through a separation or divorce. We need help when things first get ugly!
You seem to have taken away the words of 1 Cor. 7:15 from your chart, as well as our Lord Jesus explaining to the 12 disciples how some will ἀφῆκεν their wives for his name's sake in Mark 10:29 (see also, Matthew 19:29, Luke 18:29-30) this is clearly explained in Apology XXVII 41.
Not to say that some in the church's history haven't held your position but the denial of a man (including pastors) to remarry in cases when he is the innocent party is neither in line with Christ's teaching of marriage, the Apostle's explicit instruction and our Lutheran Confessions.
I think that is an implausible case to make for clergy remarriage. If you build out the decision tree on this logic, you get to have as many wives as you like.
:+:1 Corinthians 7:15
“But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace.”
St. Paul permits separation only when an unbelieving spouse deserts a believer. Not enslaved (οὐ δεδούλωται) can't be turned into permission to remarry. It is confined to addressing a release from marital cohabitation because of desertion.
:+:Mark 10:29 / Matt 19:29 / Luke 18:29–30
“There is no one who has left (ἀφῆκεν) house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time…”
Jesus is talking about the sacrifice that discipleship will exact. ἀφῆκεν (has left / has forsaken) is a generic leaving, not the right to void a marriage because the spouse is an unbeliever.
:+:Apology XXVII:41
“Christ teaches that not all men are fit for celibacy. … Therefore, those who are not fit for celibacy ought to marry; for vows cannot remove the commandment and ordinance of God. … This commandment of God cannot be removed by any human law or vow. Hence Paul says (1 Cor. 7:2), ‘To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife.’”
This is dealing with monastic vows of celibacy only, not divorce. The whole point is that the Apology is refuting the RC determination to overturn what God declared good (marriage).
"not all men are fit for celibacy" is not a license for unrequited sexual desire to be the norming norm when it comes to remarriage. Yes, sexual desire is very powerful and dangerous (hormones are pretty much undefeated in all human history), and if you cannot bear it, then get remarried, but resign your call if you are a pastor.
The article does not have any mention of an“innocent party” in a divorce.
Your interpretation of 1 Cor. 7:15 is not in line with the rule of faith. For "what has a believer to do with an unbeliever"?
2 Cor. 6 14-18 "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”"
Yet you are saying that the believer must remain forever bound and yoked to the unbeliever even after the unbeliever has already abandoned them! According to Scripture the abandoned believer has already been released and is free to remarry (only in the Lord).
Your idea that abandonment is not dissolving of a marriage is also incorrect. As the Ambrosiaster Corinthians commentary says, "Paul maintains the religious principle that Christians should not desert their marriage partners. But if the unbeliever leaves out of hatred, the believer is not to be blamed for having dissolved the marriage, for the claim of God is greater than that of the marriage." Ancient Christian Texts Commentaries on Romans and 1-2 Corinthians Ambrosiaster p. 151
You are arguing against Luther as well, "Here [1 Cor. 7v.15] the apostle releases the Christian spouse, once the non-Christin partner has separated himself or will not permit his mate to lead a Christian life, giving the former the right and authority to marry another partner... If this were not permitted, the Christian spouse would have to follow after the non-Christian mate or live a life of chastity without the will and capability to do so, and he would thus be the prisoner of another's caprice and live in danger of his soul." LW vol. 28 p. 36
Luther explicitly says that not being enslaved IS freedom to remarry. "But if someone is not bound, he is free and released. If he is free and released, he may change his status, just as though his spouse were dead." "If he wants to wait for his mate that is up to his good will... he is not obliged to wait for his mate but may change his status in the name of God." LW vol. 28 p.37
*If you build out the decision tree on this logic, you get to have as many wives as you like.* that's what Luther does, take a look at Luther's Works vol. 28.
reread Luke 18 verse 29 AND 30. (see also the parallels: Matt. 19:29, Mark 10:30) Our Apology does apply this passage to monastic abuses, but you cannot deny that it is clearly dealing with marriage principles for all Christians.
Does not Jesus promise to THE DISCIPLES (read, clergy) that the man who suffers a "Christ-approved forsaking" i.e. he whose unbelieving wife (et al.) deserts him, he will receive [house, faithful spouse, believing siblings and parents] many more times {one hundred-fold} in this age and eternal life in the age to come? That is to say, Christ acknowledges that some disciples will be forsaken by their unbelieving spouses, and some will receive in this age believing spouses.
Mark includes "with persecutions" Mk. 10:30. Indeed, with persecution, when men like you are devoted to forbidding marriage to men and pastors whose unbelieving spouse has deserted them.
If you had a pagan marriage, that might be an excuse, but if you had a Christian marriage, then the case you are not.
You are welcome to get remarried, but you are not welcome to remain a pastor. The meaning of St. Paul's instruction is clear, whereas the hoops you are jumping through are the opposite.
I would say, take some time, review the references I gave you, read the Scriptures quoted and pray on it because "NUH UH" is not a very convincing rebuttal.
As Paul clearly says, an unbelieving spouse deserting a believer is not a binding Christian marriage. No hoops.
"And he [Jesus] said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.” Luke 18:29-30
"...the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace." 1 Cor 7:15
You are disregarding and dismissing the Scriptures before you, and binding consciences as you ought not do, sowing discord in line with the monastic, papist abuses, not sharing Christ's truth and peace.
I do wish that you would talk to some wise senior men in your circuit and district instead of hashing out a very sensitive and troubling issue in public. You are making the case for bigamy and polygamy by willfully ignoring that 1 Cor 7:15 does not grant a universal right to remarry while the other spouse lives.
1. You have pitted Paul against Paul. You are not holding to regula fidei, but to some Bible, some tradition, some reason, and some experience. You have misused 2 Cor. 6 to turn it into nullifying marriage in God's sight when it actually deals with making deals with non-Christians. "Paul warns the Corinthians of the danger of being intimately connected to the false teaching of counterfeit apostles." (LSB notes, p. 1989)
2. 1 Cor. 7:15 says "not enslaved" rather than "The marriage bond is dissolved and remarriage is authorized." I refuse to pit 1 Cor. 7:15 against 1 Cor 7:39 or Rom. 7:2-3. The full context of all the marriage passages is clear, but you have imported to 1 Cor. 7:15 a whole new category: “still-living spouse, but no longer married in God’s eyes.”
3. Ambrosiaster is not Scripture, not in our Confessions, and not a unanimous early-church voice. He has an opinion, and it cannot be squared with 1 Cor 7:39 or Rom. 7:2-3.
4. Luther’s marriage and divorce counsel is not canon law, and the bigamy episode of Philip of Hesse is instructive. If Luther was confident in his position he would not have proceeded in secret. We don't rest on permissive and speculative Luther dealing with hard-edge cases (imagine treating Table Talk as gospel!) to create binding doctrine.
5. You are again importing things into Luke 18:29–30. It says absolutely nothing about the permissible dissolution of marriage, the rules for remarriage, or the qualifications of the pastoral office. This is not how Lutherans exegete. The Apology uses that text against monastic vows that forbid marriage where the right exists. Who forbade you to marry because you were a monk?
6. Men like me are not forbidding marriage, we are guarding the OHM and the people in the pews. You have chosen to conflate 1 Timothy 4:3 with 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. The church can confess that marriage is a good gift, and allow remarriage for the laity (in hard and exceptional cases). The church can simultaneously confess that a pastor with two wives disqualifies himself from being in the pulpit.
The NT never suggests that marital desertion automatically creates widow(er) status. The bar for pastors is much higher than for the laity. The pastor must be *above* reproach. You are arguing for a standard *below* reproach.
I will not comment further. Please discuss with your supervisors. Alternatively, I can put you in touch with an outstanding man who had to resign his call due to abandonment.
Lastly, if anyone can demonstrate that my understanding of Scripture is faulty or false in these examples, I would be glad to hear it, and repent.
I think your right about God's standards on this topic. But even God gave concession for sinful behavior for civilities sake due to the hardness of our hearts. Does this extend to the pastoral ministry where the standards and protections of the office should be guarded more then what is typical for our hard hearts. I think there maybe more nuance and clarity in the subject then what you have provided here.
My concern is 2 things.
1. Do we as a synod have a clear and executable policy that can guide us much like your flow chart.
2. Standards should not change once they are codified based on Scriptural direction, but it appears your strict standards could gut our pastoral roles. If your standards are found scripturally correct then so be it and the consequences are what they are, but are your standards correct?
To be clear, God is not making concessions to excuse sinful behavior; he is offering peace to the innocent party.
Our highest priority is to guard pure doctrine. That starts by recruiting men and holding them to *all* the standards of the preaching office (https://www.datawrapper.de/_/DhoD4/?v=3 scroll through all four pages using the top right arrow). One of the reasons Missouri is suffering a drought of the Word is because we have slackened the standards to be and remain a pastor. There is no nuance in the Biblical standards for a man ordained to the OHM.
To answer your specific questions:
1. No. Each district will do what it believes is right. A district like Wyoming has the highest standard (divorce ➔ resign), while others will add many branches to the flowsheet to find a way to leave a man in the office.
2. So far, nobody has accused me of false doctrine or demonstrated that the flowsheet violates St. Paul's requirement that a pastor has but one wife. The only criticism that has stood up is that it should be as simple as divorce ➔ resign. Returning to a faithful application of St. Paul's instruction will not gut the OHM, it will strengthen it.
Again, these are not my standards. I have littered the chart with references to Scripture and the Confessions for everyone to test whether these standards for clergy marriage are true or not.
I appreciate your care in handling the Eighth Commandment (Edited to maintain this). I know two LCMS pastors who, according to your flowchart, were faithful—until they remarried. And have heard a a couple more then sounds like have broken the flow chart completely and yet remain pastors somehow.
As a layman seriously considering the pastoral ministry as a second career, and as a husband and father whose wife abandoned our marriage, I am convicted to remain faithful to her no matter what she has done. By God’s grace, it has been relatively easy; she has not entered other relationships but insists she “needs” to be single. She left in 2020, so I’ve been walking this path for some time.
With all that, I believe your flowchart is correct. However, grace should be infused—but only at the final point where the pastor remains faithful yet remarries, perhaps due to the “burning desire” Paul warns about.
And to that point: every pastor in good standing—now and forever—has broken the Sixth Commandment according to Jesus’ standard. I’m curious about even more complex situations. Suppose a pastor, whether married or single, is discovered to have a regular pornography habit—not debilitating, but persistent. He repents, yet keeps returning to it.
Studies show pornography affects the brain like drugs. So here’s another hard question: should a repentant pastor be defrocked if he struggles with a recurring, non-debilitating drug habit? Divorce is public; these sins involve the body, not just the mind, and carry tangible consequences. So where is the line?
I don’t know—but I do know grace must ultimately overtake the law.
You can remarry or you maybe (and that is a big maybe) can remain a pastor as long as the spouse remains alive, but you can't be both. Resigning and getting married is the answer. No one is perfect is not an argument, but obfuscation. The standard is repentance not perfection. A remarried pastor while his ex-wife is still alive is in a state of unrepentance.
Brother, thank you for this. A broken and unreconciled marriage is a terrible thing, and we pray that you will rely on God's promises to restore everything by, through, and for the sake of Christ's atoning sacrifice.
If you make a decision tree with your reasoning, we can justify female and homosexual ordination.
St. Paul, an Apostle of Christ, has given us the rules, and we need to abide by them. A pastor must only have one wife, and that is where we should stand, just as we stand on the plain meaning of the real presence.
The complex situation you cite does not mitigate what the fundamental requirements are for the pastoral office. We don't allow an alcoholic pastor to remain in the OHM as long as his breathalyzer ignition is working. We don't allow a street-fighter pastor to stay in the pulpit as long as he wears headgear and a gum guard for his next bar brawl, we don't allow the profane man to preach as long as he limits his F-bombs to 2 per day and does not blaspheme, and so on.
If a besetting sin plagues a pastor and he cannot shake it, then he should resign because a scandal is inevitable. His conscience will continually distract him from his duties.
Lastly, I did not have anyone in mind writing this article. Many examples out there do not need to be named, but they know who they are. The preaching office is greater than any man, not vice versa.
God bless your deliberations about going to Sem. If you make that decision, you are committing to remain unmarried for as long as you are in ministry or your first wife goes to glory.
Mathew, an additional item to consider is your final statement. It seems to be a recapitulation of things the radical Lutherans talk about, but it is not from Scripture. Grace is not in conflict or combat with the law. If we need an analogy, law and gospel are a Möbius strip, or a double helix. Grace never overtakes the law; they advance together.
This isn't a divorce situation, but it is related. How would we handle Pastors who remarry after their wives have died?
Since marriage ceases in the afterlife, the living spouses are released from their vows and are free to remarry.
Matthew 22:30
Jesus said, “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven”.
On public scandal or offense, there is a difference between giving offense and people (wrongly) taking offense. That sort of distinction must be made. If a man is surrounded by scandal, but he is innocent and did not do things at which Christians should take offense, the presence of scandal is no reason for him to cease to serve as a pastor, even if a change of place might be beneficial.
Next, if the Lord permits a divorce (e.g., Matt. 5:32; 19:9; 1 Cor 7:15), then the man is *not married* in the Lord's eyes. So if he remarries, he is still the husband of only one wife. Why then should he not continue to serve as a pastor?
But these cases need to be investigated by "wise men" in the Church (1 Cor. 6:5) and especially marital cases should be adjudicated fairly, and not just allowed for everyone to do what is right in his own eyes (cf. Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope 75, 77-78).
-Benjamin T. G. Mayes
Thank you, Pr. Mayes. I would disagree that the man ceases to be married in the Lord's eyes just because the divorce was permissible in those circumstances. Those passages reinforce the sanctity of marriage as a permanent earthly institution that has made a husband and wife one flesh. What the exceptions are allowing is for the innocent party to be remarried, but I don't see any loophole for an innocent yet divorced pastor to be remarried and remain in the office.
Yes, cases must be carefuly, wisely and gently handled because the termination of a marriage is ghastly and has profound multi-generational effects that can persist longer than a century (I use my own family's history of divorce as the example).
I would counsel the wise men to also speak with the plain men in these situations. I don't think the clergy understand how unsettled the laity are by the divorce casuistry, which blunts our Christian witness in so many areas.
To quote a faithful man who has suffered the indignity of divorce that has obliged him to leave the ministry, "So long as we continue to make little exceptions and loopholes, we will continue to diminish the Office of the Ministry and the Institution of Marriage."
Grace + Truth,
Tim
I would include wise, learned laymen among the "wise men" who should help to adjudicate such cases. I have several chapters on this my forthcoming book from CPH (likely 2026): "Divorce and Remarriage: Ecclesiastical Discernment and Pastoral Care."
Thank you, look forward to it. Our prayer is that the DPs dealing firsthand with these issues would keep it simple. The folks in the pews are desperate for things that only require the faith of a child.
Thank you. That was a clear presentation of the truth. I pray that our districts would follow that same chart.
Perhaps I'm too harsh and emphasizing 1 Timothy 3 on managing your household well, but I would think the flowchart is simply "Pastor's divorce finalized -> Resign call". Likewise, I've heard it many times that sin has temporal consequences, even for those who may be innocent victims of the sin. Perhaps the pastor is a completely innocent victim, but it still may be what is best for him and the congregation that he resigns. The position is not one to be coveted or sought to be maintained apart from consideration of the congregation, even one that may, at the time, be sympathetic to the pastor. He may one day be called upon to call a woman leaving her husband to repentance, and it may not be received as well from someone with his past. These things should be considered, even if a pastor is nothing more than a victim of his poor choice in a wife.
It is a very reasonable position to go from divorced straight to no longer qualified for the OHM. What I presented is really a rehabilitation proposal to get us out of the current state of affairs, which has a hundred branches, e.g. how long without conjugal relations becomes abandonment, but is there a medical issue, and on it goes.
My hope is that men thinking about entering the ministry would see this flow sheet and take to heart that marriage should not be entered into lightly.
Likewise, James 3:1 should be meditated on day and night before a man commits to a seminary.
Justin, I agree that "Perhaps the pastor is a completely innocent victim, but it still may be what is best for him and the congregation that he resigns." But on 1 Tim. 3:4, if that would exclude an innocent, divorced pastor from the ministry, then it surely excludes a pastor whose child has fallen away from the faith. But we all know cases where parents raise their kids the right way, but the child still rebels and rejects the true faith. A pastor should not be removed from office due to the sins of others against his will and outside of his control.
Pr. Mayes, can we agree that the household is constrained to the family under the man's management? He is not accountable for adult children outside the home who have decided to switch teams. However, he is responsible and accountable for his wife and the minor children living under his roof. Example, if the wife and kids attend the local Joel Osteen knockoff on Sundays instead of his, then he is disqualified. If adult children are living dissolute lives, then he is not disqualified unless he encourages it or affirms it (e.g. attending or participating in the homosexual marriage ceremony/celebrations of an adult child).
Rev. Mayes, I would like to get away from comments like, "we all know cases where". Yes, we do. We all know far too many cases of infidelity, divorce, apostasy, and more. And it is more so in this present age with a lot of ink spilled about the causes (feminism, no fault divorce, etc.). Accommodating the fall out of these cases might not be the best approach to hopefully getting to a place where they aren't so commonplace.
But the fact that it happens frequently isn't an argument about whether a man is, according to Scripture, fit to be a pastor. Instead, I see it as feeding into a sort of idolization of the role of pastor (or maybe borne out of the pastor shortage fear) to where the goal seems to be to maintain the man in the office. That's not the goal though.
I did say I might be too harsh though, so I am interested in a Scriptural analysis of when a pastor should resign (I hope it doesn't come to removal simply because he wants to hold on to the title) from the office. And to your point it should bring in the concept of when a pastor would be held responsible for the sins of others against his will. I think of Numbers 30, 1 Cor. 7, and so on. It should also note that simply because there might be some exception that applies to Christians does not mean it applies to pastors in the same way. Because I would once again emphasize that the pastor plays a role within the church, and that role might impose requirements on him that aren't normally imposed on Christians generally. That's just part and parcel to pursing that vocation, and part of what demands my respect for those in that position. If my children leave the faith, I don't get kicked out of the congregation and neither would the pastor, but it might mean that we are now both not fit to be pastors. That might be a bummer, but in the grand scheme it is fine because we'll still end up in the same place at the end.
Even Herman Otten once printed in his publication (which I read with great interest, having been cheated on by my first wife and an employee from the church Benefit Plans) that “pastors undergoing divorce on account of an adulterous woman need extra grace. They should not marry for a time, probably 3-5 years, but they can remarry if no reconciliation is sought by the other party.” After approaching my adulterous wife one more time two years after I uncovered the affair, she said no, and on advice and counsel of friends and DPs, I remarried 3 years later.
So… you would compound the hurt and confusion of being cheated on by also stripping away my vocation? Ouch, man. I may have lost complete sanity had you been my DP.
No, pastor, I would not compound your misery by stripping away your vocation, I would apply what scripture sets as the standard. I understand the extra grace arguments and justifications, but I don’t see it anywhere in the requirements for an elder to be the husband of one wife. Extra grace has a very long tail when it becomes the subjective opinion of a DP.
Interesting. I’m not sure if you agree or disagree with me, and I know it doesn’t matter per se, and we are just conversing on a public forum. But I’d like to think you agree and that it should all be handled pastorally, every time, for every individual case.
This also brings to mind how each District office needs to have a more robust Reconciliation staff in place; pastors or trained laymen who are ready to go to a place and visit a pastor going through a separation or divorce. We need help when things first get ugly!
You seem to have taken away the words of 1 Cor. 7:15 from your chart, as well as our Lord Jesus explaining to the 12 disciples how some will ἀφῆκεν their wives for his name's sake in Mark 10:29 (see also, Matthew 19:29, Luke 18:29-30) this is clearly explained in Apology XXVII 41.
Not to say that some in the church's history haven't held your position but the denial of a man (including pastors) to remarry in cases when he is the innocent party is neither in line with Christ's teaching of marriage, the Apostle's explicit instruction and our Lutheran Confessions.
I think that is an implausible case to make for clergy remarriage. If you build out the decision tree on this logic, you get to have as many wives as you like.
:+:1 Corinthians 7:15
“But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace.”
St. Paul permits separation only when an unbelieving spouse deserts a believer. Not enslaved (οὐ δεδούλωται) can't be turned into permission to remarry. It is confined to addressing a release from marital cohabitation because of desertion.
:+:Mark 10:29 / Matt 19:29 / Luke 18:29–30
“There is no one who has left (ἀφῆκεν) house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time…”
Jesus is talking about the sacrifice that discipleship will exact. ἀφῆκεν (has left / has forsaken) is a generic leaving, not the right to void a marriage because the spouse is an unbeliever.
:+:Apology XXVII:41
“Christ teaches that not all men are fit for celibacy. … Therefore, those who are not fit for celibacy ought to marry; for vows cannot remove the commandment and ordinance of God. … This commandment of God cannot be removed by any human law or vow. Hence Paul says (1 Cor. 7:2), ‘To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife.’”
This is dealing with monastic vows of celibacy only, not divorce. The whole point is that the Apology is refuting the RC determination to overturn what God declared good (marriage).
"not all men are fit for celibacy" is not a license for unrequited sexual desire to be the norming norm when it comes to remarriage. Yes, sexual desire is very powerful and dangerous (hormones are pretty much undefeated in all human history), and if you cannot bear it, then get remarried, but resign your call if you are a pastor.
The article does not have any mention of an“innocent party” in a divorce.
Your interpretation of 1 Cor. 7:15 is not in line with the rule of faith. For "what has a believer to do with an unbeliever"?
2 Cor. 6 14-18 "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”"
Yet you are saying that the believer must remain forever bound and yoked to the unbeliever even after the unbeliever has already abandoned them! According to Scripture the abandoned believer has already been released and is free to remarry (only in the Lord).
Your idea that abandonment is not dissolving of a marriage is also incorrect. As the Ambrosiaster Corinthians commentary says, "Paul maintains the religious principle that Christians should not desert their marriage partners. But if the unbeliever leaves out of hatred, the believer is not to be blamed for having dissolved the marriage, for the claim of God is greater than that of the marriage." Ancient Christian Texts Commentaries on Romans and 1-2 Corinthians Ambrosiaster p. 151
You are arguing against Luther as well, "Here [1 Cor. 7v.15] the apostle releases the Christian spouse, once the non-Christin partner has separated himself or will not permit his mate to lead a Christian life, giving the former the right and authority to marry another partner... If this were not permitted, the Christian spouse would have to follow after the non-Christian mate or live a life of chastity without the will and capability to do so, and he would thus be the prisoner of another's caprice and live in danger of his soul." LW vol. 28 p. 36
Luther explicitly says that not being enslaved IS freedom to remarry. "But if someone is not bound, he is free and released. If he is free and released, he may change his status, just as though his spouse were dead." "If he wants to wait for his mate that is up to his good will... he is not obliged to wait for his mate but may change his status in the name of God." LW vol. 28 p.37
*If you build out the decision tree on this logic, you get to have as many wives as you like.* that's what Luther does, take a look at Luther's Works vol. 28.
reread Luke 18 verse 29 AND 30. (see also the parallels: Matt. 19:29, Mark 10:30) Our Apology does apply this passage to monastic abuses, but you cannot deny that it is clearly dealing with marriage principles for all Christians.
Does not Jesus promise to THE DISCIPLES (read, clergy) that the man who suffers a "Christ-approved forsaking" i.e. he whose unbelieving wife (et al.) deserts him, he will receive [house, faithful spouse, believing siblings and parents] many more times {one hundred-fold} in this age and eternal life in the age to come? That is to say, Christ acknowledges that some disciples will be forsaken by their unbelieving spouses, and some will receive in this age believing spouses.
Mark includes "with persecutions" Mk. 10:30. Indeed, with persecution, when men like you are devoted to forbidding marriage to men and pastors whose unbelieving spouse has deserted them.
If you had a pagan marriage, that might be an excuse, but if you had a Christian marriage, then the case you are not.
You are welcome to get remarried, but you are not welcome to remain a pastor. The meaning of St. Paul's instruction is clear, whereas the hoops you are jumping through are the opposite.
I would say, take some time, review the references I gave you, read the Scriptures quoted and pray on it because "NUH UH" is not a very convincing rebuttal.
As Paul clearly says, an unbelieving spouse deserting a believer is not a binding Christian marriage. No hoops.
"And he [Jesus] said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.” Luke 18:29-30
"...the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace." 1 Cor 7:15
You are disregarding and dismissing the Scriptures before you, and binding consciences as you ought not do, sowing discord in line with the monastic, papist abuses, not sharing Christ's truth and peace.
I do wish that you would talk to some wise senior men in your circuit and district instead of hashing out a very sensitive and troubling issue in public. You are making the case for bigamy and polygamy by willfully ignoring that 1 Cor 7:15 does not grant a universal right to remarry while the other spouse lives.
1. You have pitted Paul against Paul. You are not holding to regula fidei, but to some Bible, some tradition, some reason, and some experience. You have misused 2 Cor. 6 to turn it into nullifying marriage in God's sight when it actually deals with making deals with non-Christians. "Paul warns the Corinthians of the danger of being intimately connected to the false teaching of counterfeit apostles." (LSB notes, p. 1989)
2. 1 Cor. 7:15 says "not enslaved" rather than "The marriage bond is dissolved and remarriage is authorized." I refuse to pit 1 Cor. 7:15 against 1 Cor 7:39 or Rom. 7:2-3. The full context of all the marriage passages is clear, but you have imported to 1 Cor. 7:15 a whole new category: “still-living spouse, but no longer married in God’s eyes.”
3. Ambrosiaster is not Scripture, not in our Confessions, and not a unanimous early-church voice. He has an opinion, and it cannot be squared with 1 Cor 7:39 or Rom. 7:2-3.
4. Luther’s marriage and divorce counsel is not canon law, and the bigamy episode of Philip of Hesse is instructive. If Luther was confident in his position he would not have proceeded in secret. We don't rest on permissive and speculative Luther dealing with hard-edge cases (imagine treating Table Talk as gospel!) to create binding doctrine.
5. You are again importing things into Luke 18:29–30. It says absolutely nothing about the permissible dissolution of marriage, the rules for remarriage, or the qualifications of the pastoral office. This is not how Lutherans exegete. The Apology uses that text against monastic vows that forbid marriage where the right exists. Who forbade you to marry because you were a monk?
6. Men like me are not forbidding marriage, we are guarding the OHM and the people in the pews. You have chosen to conflate 1 Timothy 4:3 with 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. The church can confess that marriage is a good gift, and allow remarriage for the laity (in hard and exceptional cases). The church can simultaneously confess that a pastor with two wives disqualifies himself from being in the pulpit.
The NT never suggests that marital desertion automatically creates widow(er) status. The bar for pastors is much higher than for the laity. The pastor must be *above* reproach. You are arguing for a standard *below* reproach.
I will not comment further. Please discuss with your supervisors. Alternatively, I can put you in touch with an outstanding man who had to resign his call due to abandonment.
Lastly, if anyone can demonstrate that my understanding of Scripture is faulty or false in these examples, I would be glad to hear it, and repent.
Grace + Truth
Tim
I think your right about God's standards on this topic. But even God gave concession for sinful behavior for civilities sake due to the hardness of our hearts. Does this extend to the pastoral ministry where the standards and protections of the office should be guarded more then what is typical for our hard hearts. I think there maybe more nuance and clarity in the subject then what you have provided here.
My concern is 2 things.
1. Do we as a synod have a clear and executable policy that can guide us much like your flow chart.
2. Standards should not change once they are codified based on Scriptural direction, but it appears your strict standards could gut our pastoral roles. If your standards are found scripturally correct then so be it and the consequences are what they are, but are your standards correct?
Thank you, Mathew.
To be clear, God is not making concessions to excuse sinful behavior; he is offering peace to the innocent party.
Our highest priority is to guard pure doctrine. That starts by recruiting men and holding them to *all* the standards of the preaching office (https://www.datawrapper.de/_/DhoD4/?v=3 scroll through all four pages using the top right arrow). One of the reasons Missouri is suffering a drought of the Word is because we have slackened the standards to be and remain a pastor. There is no nuance in the Biblical standards for a man ordained to the OHM.
To answer your specific questions:
1. No. Each district will do what it believes is right. A district like Wyoming has the highest standard (divorce ➔ resign), while others will add many branches to the flowsheet to find a way to leave a man in the office.
2. So far, nobody has accused me of false doctrine or demonstrated that the flowsheet violates St. Paul's requirement that a pastor has but one wife. The only criticism that has stood up is that it should be as simple as divorce ➔ resign. Returning to a faithful application of St. Paul's instruction will not gut the OHM, it will strengthen it.
Again, these are not my standards. I have littered the chart with references to Scripture and the Confessions for everyone to test whether these standards for clergy marriage are true or not.
Grace + Truth,
Tim