While in days past a person who abstained from sexual intercourse would be considered fit to be a bishop, today things are different. Augustine famously prayed, "Lord, grant me chastity but not yet." Even though many a pastor may have prayed that the new position seems to be that anyone who actually is chaste is suspected of not being chaste and anyone who isn't married could be told he isn't fit to be a pastor. Earlier this year the Christian blogosphere had some debates about whether or not unmarried men were even fit to be pastors. 1 Timothy was, of
course,trotted out to show that Paul had this checklist and the various points of the checklist were non-negotiable. This means a pastor must be married, and married to one woman.
Well, maybe, but as Douglas Wilson put it, the "one woman man" criteria could also have been to differentiate between men who by virtue of being married to one woman were suitable for pastoral ministry and polygamists who, though practicing believers, were not. David, we all accept, was a believer, and he had many wives (and probably one or two envious Torgos, to indulge in an absurdly obscure inside joke). In fact David's propensity to form marriages as military and political alliances is something conservative Protestants disapprove of. Usually we're told David was an adulterer and a murderer just on the basis of Bathsheba. Well,maybe this was because polygamy was not the same as adultery in that time and place.
Now it happens that I've seen arguments that the Torah forbade polygamy and that laws pertaining to inheritance and treatment of second wives were, well, concessions. Yet I am not sure that the case is clear that the Torah actually forbade polygamy and rabbinic interpretation contended that, strictly speaking, a man couldn't commit adultery with an unbetrothed woman if he made her a second wife. Now that a strong inferential case against polygamy can be made from scripture is easily established but an explicit prohibition of polygamy in the Torah itself? I wonder about that.
David was a man after God's own heart despite having numerous wives. Not only this he was king and considered a prophet of the Lord. So how exactly do conservative Protestants square this incontestable facts from scripture with David's conduct, which today would bar him from even having a minor, volunteer role in a Sunday service? How could we discern that this wasn't a case of delusions of grandeur? When Saul was annointed king some men in Israel grumbled, "Can this man deliver us from our enemies?" They were considered to have the wrong attitude even
though Israel as a whole was sinful in asking for a king to deliver them from enemy kingdoms.
As for David, there were people who saw him as unfit to lead Israel because he was considered guilty of bloodshed. In a contemporary church setting David would probably be told he couldn't serve in the church unless he repented of his polygamy and joined an accountabiliity group and had an accountability partner and only had sex with one of his wives. Oh, and killing all those foreigners wouldn't necessarily be a problem because we have just war theory and all that. It would be better, though, if he went back to Michal and tried to make that marriage work because God hates divorce (and He does, but I don't know if He doesn't also hate marriages pursued for military and political convenience, too).
One reason I suspect American Protestants may find dispensationalism appealing is that it helps to establish a firm line of demarcation as to why a king and prophet of the Lord could be a murderous, philandering polygamist and neglectful father but still keep any of his divinely appointed jobs. Liberals just assume the books were cooked to make David seem better than he was, though considering how bad David is made to look I wonder about that explanation, too. It would seem that one of the constants throughout generations is that there are people who genuinely love the Lord who completely chunk this aspect of their lives. David's heart was toward the Lord even though he arguably had much bigger character flaws than Saul.
If you looked at Saul's ethics on marriage and family he was the better candidate than David. Saul seems to have been a one woman man who managed his household well and was well regarded by people. Of course there are tell-tale signs he had no real faith or trust in the Lord and he was particularly guilty of attempting to consolidate kingly and priestly roles. It's useful to bear in mind that Samuel apprenticed with a priest and grew into the priestly role. While it is certainly true Saul sinned by not heeding the words of Samuel as prophet it was also in arrogating to himself a priestly role that Saul was also guilty. David was guilty of a lot of things but he was not guilty of shirking the commands he was given with respect to the role of the king. He also did not attempt to claim for himself any priestly role (if memory serves). But I digress. These days instead of arguing whether or not the man who claimed to be divinely appointed by God ought to have four or five wives we have debates about why a person who wants to serve in a pastoral capacity has to actually be married before he's qualified. To that I shall turn presently.
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