November 24, 2008
Vetting Candidates
Having just gone through the presidential election most of us have become more educated on the process of vetting a candidate. As believers, Scripture tells us that we too must vet men for the position of elder and deacon. Even though Timothy and Titus give us some specific qualifications, some of those qualifications are a matter of interpretation. I think the stickiest qualification is that a candidate must be the husband of only one wife. For some people, that stipulation disqualifies a man who has been divorced and remarried. However, others might accept a man who has remarried because he was married to only one woman at a time. I wish Paul had been more definitive, but he wasn’t. It appears to me that the only way a congregation can properly vet an elder or deacon candidate is for him to inform the membership if he has ever been divorced and remarried. It will then be up to individuals to accept or reject the candidate.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Gail;
-----I wish Paul had been more clear, too. I tend towards the one-wife-now interpretation, while considering certain caveats concerning previous divorces. I also recognize that Paul wrote this in a time and a culture where some men were married to more than one wife. I don’t like to say that too loudly. But even more, I get the drift that husband-of-one-wife is different than wife-of-one-husband. The church Char and I attend have some women elders. Though I fellowship with them, I don’t participate in that error, if indeed it is an error.
-----The Word basically communicates to us more by principle than by point. But the fact that so much of it is principle does not nullify that some of it is point. I still debate within myself whether this qualification is point or principle. But one principle that I have learned is that this life is so fuzzy around the edges, so dimly seen as through a mirror, that the Lord is served better when we back off points to meet our brethren on principles.
-----I believe this confusion won’t end until the Lord clarifies it in person. I also believe our unity should not be ended by our confusion.
-----Totally as an aside, do you get the feeling that some of our political candidates think the ‘Vetting process refers to a way of acquiring a really cool set of wheels?
Love,
Steve Corey
Steve,
I have yet to see a political type driving a Vet, but I do see a lot of folks polishing their resumes similar to the way they would polish a prized Corvette!
Gail
Post a Comment