Controversy and stubborness

       If I told you a lie but it sounded so good you believed it and repeated it for years and years, even though it could destroy the careers of many a good man and prevent the careers of countless others, why would you continue to believe that lie after being presented with the truth?  Well, it seems many people do that very thing. 
    It's such a simple little lie.  I Timothy 3: 2 sates "A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach. 
    No, the whole verse isn't a lie and the verse means what it says and says what it means.  The lie comes in the interpretation thereof, i.e.,   "the husband of one wife".   The hurt comes when a preacher is fired from his job because his wife dies, or  a man is denied a pastorialship because   he once was married or he had remarried.  "Oh, the bible says a man can only be married once" people claim.   Some even interpret the verse to mean that a man must be married in order to be a preacher. 
   I know of a man that started a bible study in his home and soon had to move to a building.  The building had to be enlarged 5 times and even at it's largest people were standing outside looking in the windows to hear this man preach.  yet, after twenty years of preaching, when the man's wife died, the deacons came to him and asked for his resignation.  Oh my, the devil sure is a sly one, isn't he. 
   Please, please, read the verse.  It plainly says the husband of one wife.  The verse says absolutely nothing about marriages.  It does not say a man can only be married once, it says must be the husband of one wife.  It does not say a man must be married, it says the husband of one wife.  Please do not substitute the word marriage for one wife.  They may seem the same but there is a vast difference. 
    Everyone has said something sometime that was exactly what they wanted to say yet the hearer of the r words took it the wrong way.  One has to be careful to fully understand why the speaker uttered the words that he did. If we could go back to the time that Paul penned those words "the husband of one wife" and ask him exactly what he meant he would quickly tell you the truth, making it clear so as to there being no misunderstanding. 
    In the days that Paul wrote this letter to Timothy polygamy was a common practice in Israel.  it was legal for women as it was for men.  For a woman who had two husbands, if one husband objected to the other, the woman had to divorce both men and was forbidden to have a relationship with either ever again.  If a man had two wives and one objected then the man did not have to divorce either one of them but even if he divorced one she was forbidden to remarry.  Polygamy, even though legal, was not socially acceptable like it is among certain segments of the Mormon Church.   
   Paul was only cautioning Timothy to not ordain a man who had multiple wives.  His statement had nothing to do with marriages but the number of women a man could be married too at the same time. 
   If people could understand that then many a good man  who has been cast aside would still be proclaiming the gospel and  leading churches.  Many a young man who has not married would be allowed to follow God and preach God's word. 
     But alas, some will reject the truth and still insist that the verse says that a man cannot be divorced or cannot have a wife that died and cannot be single and stand in the pulpit, even though the verse never mentions marriages at all.