"One Women Man"

"ONE WOMEN MAN"

TITUS 1:6

In doing research for this sermon I came upon some disturbing statistics. There are about 2,344,000 marriages preformed annually in the US. There are 1,150,000 divorces annually in the United States. That is just under half. The likelihood of a new marriage ending in divorce is over 43%. Not a good statistic.

Many of those divorces come when one of the spouses is unfaithful to the other. One author writes, "Most experts do consider the "educated guess" that at the present time some 50 to 60% of husbands and 45 to 55 percent of wives have an extramarital affair before they reach the age of 40."

Another author writes, "Conservative estimates are that 60% of men and 40% of women will have an extramarital affair." Since it is unlikely that all the men and women having affairs would be married to each other, we are looking at approximately 80% of all marriage one or the other spouse as had an affair.

That is an unbelievable statistic. What is frightening is that the numbers for those who claim to born again Christians is about the same for those who claim no relationship with God. In others words the church is imitating the world rather then impacting the world.

It was Frances Schaffer who said, "Look at what the world is doing today, in seven years the church will be doing the same." In the area of marriage, divorce and infidelity Mr. Schaffer is right on.

We live in a society where cheating on your mate is no big deal. Marriage has become somewhat like a bic lighter, once the flame dies you throw it away. When asked why we are have affairs one expect stated,

"Affairs are glamorized in movies, soap operas, romance novels and TV shows of all kinds. Public disclosure of public figures having affairs is headline news because we are fascinated by hearing of others affairs. People are bombarded with images of women as sex objects in advertising and marketing campaigns. Over and over, the messages to men is that the good life includes a parade of sexy of women in their lives. Women inadvertently buy into this image and strive to achieve it."

But folks, God has a different way. God’s way is faithfulness, God’s way is for a man and a women to remain married throughout their life time, and to be faithful to one another. That is what I want us to look at this morning.

Please turn with me to our passage today, Titus chapter 1:6. That would be page 1032 in your pew Bible. Remember verse 6 begin giving the qualifications of an elder in the church something we noted for 1 Tim 3:1 that all men should desire.

"if a man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of dissipation or insubordination."

Last week we looked at what it meant to be blameless. Not perfect but above reproach, above accusation. We are as stated in 1 Peter all called to be blameless.

Remember also that Paul begin his discussion on qualification by discussing ones home life. First elders are to be blameless, then Paul states, "the husband of one wife". That is the phrase I want us to focus on this morning. The Greek here literally reads, "one wife’s husband".

Now there are a couple of things that we can gather or learn from this one statement. First of all notice that Paul refers to elders as being men, being husbands of one wife. He does not allow for the interchanging of genders here. He is not saying elders can be the "wife of one husband" Or the "husband of one wife", eldership in the church according to the Word of God, is for men alone.

Now we live in a society that is big into women liberation. And I know many people who would be offended by what I just stated, and maybe you are. But whether people are offended or not the Word of God is quite clear that women should not be elders in the church, they should not be pastors in a church, in fact that should not hold any position of spiritual (key word there) authority over a men. Now if anybody has a problem with that, they need to take it up with God, because He wrote the rules not me.

Paul writing under the influence of the Holy Spirit states in 1 Tim 2:12; "And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence." Paul is speaking of Spiritual authority here.

Now I am in no way saying that women are not equal to men, because in God’s eyes we are all equal regardless of our gender, color, ethnicity, Gal. 3:28 tells us: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."