Is it wrong to hire a preacher who has been divorced?
Question:
There's a congregation in town that just hired a young preacher who is divorced and it wasn't for adultery. This was told to me by a sister who knew them well. Is it okay for them to hire a preacher who is in this circumstance?
Answer:
Neither you nor I know what happened. According to the Lord through Paul, there are some circumstances that allow a person to be divorced, so long as they don't remarry a different person. "Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife" (I Corinthians 7:10-11).
With today's "no-fault" divorces, a man can find himself divorced with no ability to stop it. That doesn't necessarily mean he sinned or is in sin.
I would hope the congregation where he was invited to preach had looked into the matter thoroughly and found that he had acted properly. What wasn't proper was for a woman to be telling things about a man to someone who isn't a member of the congregation he belongs to and who isn't in a position to help right a wrong if one really did exist. If she has a problem with his past, she is required to talk to him. If she thinks he was asked to this congregation under misleading pretenses, she should be talking to the elders of that congregation. As it stands, she involved in gossip. "And besides they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle but also gossips and busybodies, saying things which they ought not" (I Timothy 5:13).
