I have been studying in 1 Timothy for a while now and I stopped in chapter 3 to review qualifications for elders. 1 Timothy 3:2 has one of the most ambiguous (and therefore controversial) qualifications: "husband of one wife"
Understandably, various interpretations are offered:
The elder should be married; the elder should not be a polygamist; the elder should not have been divorced; the elder should be faithful to his current wife.
What is NOT understandable is the variety of offerings on the historical background used to defend or argue against a position. For example, when referring to the polygamy position, I found these different historical backgrounds concerning first century polygamy in some of the commentaries in my office (all of which claim to be factual):
John Calvin, defending the polygamy position:
"(Paul) expressly condemns polygamy, which
at that time Jews almost reckoned to be lawful. This corruption was borrowed by them partly from a sinful imitation of their fathers (Abraham, Jacob, David) and partly from neighboring nations...However that might be,
polygamy was exceedingly prevalent among them and...a bishop should be free from that stain."
John MacArthur, defending the faithful to your current wife position:
"Further,
polygamy was not an issue in Ephesus. It was
uncommon in Roman society...
Nor was polygamy a feature of first-century Jewish society."
Donald Guthrie, not defending any position:
"Others have suggested that they enforce monogamy for Christian ministers as opposed to the
polygamy often practised in the contemporary heathen world."
Gordon Fee, defending the faithful to your current wife position:
"...but
polygamy was such a rare feature of pagan society that such a prohibition would function as near irrelevancy"
Bill Mounce, defending the faithful to your wife position:
"However, while
polygamy was common in Judaism it was
not common in Christianity, so it seems unlikely that Paul would have thought to prohibit something that rarely occurred."
Not only is there little agreement over Gentile polygamy in Roman culture, there is little agreement over Jewish polygamy in the first century!
I can understand differing interpretations, but either polygamy was prevalent in the first century or it was not. Knowing the historical facts is essential to the interpretation. There should not be differing facts.
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