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Pastoral Qualifications


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Its not Baptist tradition, its Bible teachings.

As for Paul, he was not a pastor, he was an apostle selected by Jesus Himself.

There were many great wonderful Christians prior to the founding on a single New Testament Church by Jesus Christ, and before the qualifications for being a pastor of one of Jesus' New Testament Churches, that would not qualify to be pastor of a New Testament Church.


Am I getting you right - Paul was qualified to start churches but not to serve as a deacon in them? The same Paul who penned what the qualifications for a deacon were?

Yes or no, please. Edited by Rick Schworer
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Compare scriptures to scriptures, and leave your guessing and reasoning out. I might add, some of the other apostles were pastors, but not Paul, and that takes no authority away from his apostleship.


You didn't answer me, brother. This is what I said:

Am I getting you right - Paul was qualified to start churches but not to serve as a deacon in them? The same Paul who penned what the qualifications for a deacon were?

Yes or no, please.
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Just as an addendum, turns out the Pastor was also remarried (both him and his wife were remarried). He used to be IFB but left the Church so he could Pastor (he was removed from an IFB Church as the Pastor when they found out). He joined and Pastored an evangelical church for awhile but I guess the Holy Spirit got the best of him and he had to leave under conviction.

He started out as song leader and has a wonderful voice...I hope he can get back to where God wants him.

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I ran into a man sometime back he was shopping for a church that would approve him to be a pastor, he had been divorce 2 times. He has move to 2 different cities attending churches that he thought would approve him yet they didn't, last I heard he was still shopping.

Edited to add.

He was Baptist, and he was trying to stay a Baptist, yet I feel sooner or later he will move to another one with hopes they will approve of him for that position.

Edited by Jerry80871852
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Interesting question and responses. A few items to add, just for understanding. Then some observations.

I heard a man once say "God does not call the qualified. He qualifies the called".

Also, in the culture of the day, physical virginity on the part of the female was so important that the sheets used by the newly married couple were publicly displayed the day after they came together. Fornication is before marriage, and is cause to not be married, because it would be known immediately (by way of the sheets) if she was or was not a virgin, and thus could be put away. But once the sheets were displayed, the consumation was considered final and complete, and a man was not suppose to put away his wife because the sheets 'proved' she had not fornicated.


Sin is sin. Man sometimes likes to think certain sins are worse than others. Except for blasphemy on the one end, and loving God and your neighbor at the other end, this is not the case. Sin is sin. Adultery, murder, stealing, and every other sin are just that - sin.
The consequences may be immediate or delayed, but they will be there.

When a man gets saved, he is a new creation. Old things (including adultery) are passed away. We are complete in Christ. After salvation, sins occur. Regardless of the sin, God can and will forgive him (I Jn 1:9). However, sometimes the consequences are still there. Perhaps divorce, STD's, heart problems, and the like. The man may be forgiven by God, by friends, by his wife, even his children, but consequences may still follow.

The real problem with willful sin is that ministers are stewards, and it is REQUIRED (not optional) in stewards that a man be faithful. If someone is not faithful in earthly things (marriage, money, time, work, etc.), that person will not be faithful in spiritual things. That will make any pastoral role difficult. But once the man has dealt with his sin and let God deal with his sin, when the man has honestly corrected the error and the issues which led to and followed it, and has established in his life the same principles as Timothy and Titus require, as well as other Scripture, then he may be ready once again to shepherd God's people.

Only the Great Shepherd never sinned. All the other shepherds are under Him, and all have sinned. God does not have degrees of sin, or rightousness.

Do the scriptures indicate if a person gets a divorce and marries another, that they are living in a state of sin? Where does it say that?

I Cor 7 is full of gems on this entire subject. 27b-28a "Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife. But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned;" If you have been loosed from a wife and married, you have not sinned. This is the age of grace, the rulebook, the canon, of today for the church of the body. We are not the church of Israel. And in the church which we are a part of, there is neither male nor female. God is no respecter of persons. In today's venacular, what is good for the goose is good for the gander, or put another way, If you were loosed from your husband and remarry, you have not sinned.
This is no contradiction to what Jesus said.

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It is funny that one believes that God can and will forgive those who have remarried after divorce, yet still believes they are in an adulterous marriage.

If God has forgiven them, casting their sin in the depths of the sea, (Micah 7:19) how can they still be in the same sin?

If they are in continual adultery, then how could God forgive them as long as they are in that state?

I do not believe it is continual adultery.

And if God has truly forgiven them, how is the husband disqualified from being a pastor? Once God forgives, He cleanses from all sin. (1 John 1:9)

Edited by Standing Firm In Christ
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As has been pointed out, there are often consequences, sometimes lifetime consequences, for sins we have committed even though we have repented of them.

It could be argued that if a person comes to Christ and their spouses divorces them, the Christian is not guilty of sinful divorce.

Those who divorce otherwise, and are not reconciled with their spouse or refuse to remain unmarried, do sin, as Scripture declares. There is no "perpetual sin", yet as long as the couple refuses to repent they are considered to be living in adultery. If they repent, the Lord will forgive them. Even so, the fact they divorced and remarried in direct violation of Scripture, has lasting consequences.

How many of us would consider it good to place a repentant pedophile in charge of the nursery or tending to the kindergarten age children? Would we want our children in this persons care, even though they have repented and been forgiven?

We all have our weaknesses, areas where we are more vulnerable to temptation, and just as we take such into consideration, so does the Lord.

Certain sins, even if they have been forgiven, carry lifetime consequences. That doesn't mean God can't or won't use us, but it does mean God can and will use us in other areas while keeping us from some.

Consider how, in First Timothy 2:11-14, God hearkens back to the sin of Eve as part of the reason women are not to teach or usurp the authority of men. Women today are constrained by the consequences of the sin of Eve. Is it beyond reason to see that certain sins, while they can be forgiven, sometimes hold lifetime consequences for us?

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Certain sins can hold lifetime consequences, yes.

But should they?

In the case of the repentant pedophile, if the person has truly repented he/she is no longer a pedophile. Would it not be sin on our part to continually look on that person as a pedophile if they have repented?

If that person said they repented, and showed signs of repentance, who are we to show unforgiveness toward that person? Constantly reminding them that we still believe them to be a pedophile?

Jesus told the Disciples in the Gospel of Luke:

Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. (Lu 17:3)

It was stated earlier that we cannot truly see if one repents of a sin or not but from the above verse Jesus knew we can see and know those who are truly repentant... and He said to forgive such.

How is saying, "You can't be pastor because you married a divorced woman" showing forgiveness? It doesn't. It says, "because you sinned, ..." The sin is ever before them... but not in God's eyes.

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Certain sins can hold lifetime consequences, yes.

But should they?

In the case of the repentant pedophile, if the person has truly repented he/she is no longer a pedophile. Would it not be sin on our part to continually look on that person as a pedophile if they have repented?

If that person said they repented, and showed signs of repentance, who are we to show unforgiveness toward that person? Constantly reminding them that we still believe them to be a pedophile?

Jesus told the Disciples in the Gospel of Luke:

Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. (Lu 17:3)

It was stated earlier that we cannot truly see if one repents of a sin or not but from the above verse Jesus knew we can see and know those who are truly repentant... and He said to forgive such.

How is saying, "You can't be pastor because you married a divorced woman" showing forgiveness? It doesn't. It says, "because you sinned, ..." The sin is ever before them... but not in God's eyes.

An ex-felon is barred from certain jobs no matter how repentant he is. In the same way, God has given specifics for certain things as well.

This has nothing to do with forgiveness. In the case of a pedophile, they obviously had a serious problem with resisting the temptation to have inappropriate contact with children. How wise would it be to place someone like that in the midst of temptation? The former pedophile should desire to flee any such possible temptation before such could occur. Could the former pedophile resist the temptation and work well with children...perhaps, but it would only take one stumble to possibly land that person in prison for years or life and devestate one or more children and their families and bring reproach upon the church.

We all sin, we all have certain sins we are more challenged with. We should all recognize such and take precautions to avoid temptation in that area.

If a saved man chooses to marry a sinfully divorced woman, especially knowing what Scripture has to say about this, then he is deliberately choosing to rebel against God. He may repent at some point in the future yet that decision to rebel comes with a lifetime consequence.
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