Kathi,
But is that what the verse is affirming that women should not be bishops?
I find it too easy in the Western, traditional church to discard women in ministry and especially women bishops, based on verses such as 1 Tim 3:2 (ESV) . For an overview of some of the issues in 1 Timothy, I recommend a read of Gordon Fee's article, 'Reflections on church order in the pastoral epistles, with further reflection on the hermeneutics of
ad hoc documents'. See:
http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/28/28-2/28-2-pp141-151_JETS.pdf. All is not as easy as it looks to modern readers to interpret these pastoral epistles and the false teachings being refuted.
In his commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (1&2 Timothy, Titus), Gordon Fee provides this exposition of 1 Tim 3:2 (ESV) , 'the husband of but one wife' as a qualification for overseers/bishops. He wrote:
The husband of but one wife is one of the truly difficult phrases in the PE [Pastoral Epistles] (cf. 3:12; 5:9, of the 'true' widows, and Titus 1:6). There are at least four options: First, it could be requiring that the overseer be married. Support is found in the fact that the false teachers are forbidding marriage and that Paul urges marriage for the wayward widows (5:14; cf. 2:15). But against this is that it emphasizes must and wife, while the text emphasizes one, that Paul, and most likely Timothy, were not married, and that it stands in contradiction to 1 Corinthians 7:25-38 (NIV) . Besides, it was a cultural presupposition that most people would be married.
Second, it could be that it prohibits polygamy. This correctly emphasizes the one wife aspect; but polygamy was such a rare feature of pagan society that such a prohibition would function as a near irrelevancy. Moreover, it would not seem to fit the identical phrase used of the widows in 5:9.
Third, it could be prohibiting second marriages. Such an interpretation is supported by many of the data: It would fit the widows especially, and all kinds of inscriptional evidence praises women (especially, although sometimes men) who were 'married only once' and remained 'faithful' to that marriage after their partner died. This view would then prohibit second marriages after the death of a spouse, but it would also obviously - perhaps especially - prohibit divorce and remarriage. Some scholars (e.g., Hanson) would make it refer only to the latter.
Fourth, it could be that it requires marital fidelity to this one wife (cf. NEB: 'faithful to his one wife'). In this view the overseer is required to live an exemplary married life (marriage is assumed), faithful to his one wife in a culture in which marital infidelity was common, and at time assumed. It would, of course, also rule out polygamy and divorce and remarriage, but it would not necessarily rule out the remarriage of a widower (although that would still not be the Pauline ideal; cf. 1 Cor. 7:8-9, 39-40). Although there is much to be said for either understanding of the third option, the concern that the church's leaders live exemplary married lives seems to fit the context best - given the apparently low view of marriage and family held by the false teachers (4:3; cf. 3:4-5) (Fee 1988:80-81).
Because of these difficulties in exegesis and exposition of 1 Tim 3:2 (ESV) , I will not be too rigid to adhere to a view that excludes women from the ministry as an overseer/bishop. All is not as clear as it seems in this pastoral epistle. But it has been made to look clean cut by my traditional, evangelical background.
Works consulted
Fee, G D 1985. Reflections on church order in the pastoral epistles, with further reflection on the hermeneutics of
ad hoc documents.
Journal of the evangelical theological society, 28(2), June, 141-151. Available at:
http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/28/28-2/28-2-pp141-151_JETS.pdf (Accessed 27 July 2014).
Fee, G D 1988.
New international biblical commentary: 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus. W W Gasque (ed). Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers.
