When one examines the qualifications stipulated by the Holy Spirit for elders of the Lord’s church, one encounters the expression “having faithful children” (Titus 1:6). Some have suggested that the plural term “children” mandates that elders have two or more children. Consider the following assessment of this suggestion.
Very often in the Hebrew Bible, the term translated “children” is the normal word for “sons,” but so translated since the clear intent of the language is to include both male and female progeny (Genesis 3:16; Exodus 21:5; 22:24). For example, though the term “children” in the expression “children of Israel” (used some 630 times in the Old Testament) is the Hebrew word for “sons,” it is the entire nation—composed of both males and females—that is designated. Hence, the ASV renders the expression “people of Israel” while the RSV and NIV render it “Israelites.” Compare “sons of Ammon” in Genesis 19:38, rendered “children of Ammon” (KJV, ASV, WEB), “Ammonites” (ESV, RSV, etc.), and “people of Ammon” (NKJV).1
The plural use of this term for “children” may be used generically to include those who have only one child—as in the case of Sarah (Genesis 21:7). Using a Hebrew idiom, Rachel declared concerning Bilhah, “she will bear a child on my knees, that I also may have children by her” (Genesis 30:3). One might argue that Rachel meant that Bilhah would bear more than one child. However, in verse 6, after the birth of the first child, Rachel declared God had vindicated her, suggesting that only one child fulfilled her originally stated intention of having “children.” Likewise, when the Law of Moses insisted that the indentured Israelite was to be released from subservience at Jubilee and allowed to depart “along with his children,” obviously, the injunction also applied to those indentured Israelites who had only one child (Leviticus 25:41; also vs. 54). For more instances, see also Numbers 3:4; 5:28; 1 Chronicles 2:30,32.
Moving to the New Testament, in Matthew 22:24, the Sadducees said to Jesus: “Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.” The original law in Deuteronomy 25:5 has the singular “son” instead of “children.” The word “offspring” is the Hebrew word for “seed” (zera), though most English translations render it “offspring” (cf. Genesis 38:8). “Seed” is a plural noun that can be understood in the singular or plural, but the context shows that producing a single child would have fulfilled the intention of the requirement. However, the word that the Sadducees used when they quoted the Deuteronomy passage is rendered by the inspired apostle Matthew by the Greek term tekna—which is plural for “children.” Obviously, the original legislation intended to refer to a man who had not fathered even one child. The term rendered “offspring” in the NKJV in the quoting of the original legislation is sperma, the Greek word for “seed.” Obviously, the birth of only one child would have fulfilled the intention of the Law and, hence, the father with only one child is reckoned as having “children.”
Yet another New Testament example is seen in Luke 20:29 which reads: “Now there were seven brothers. And the first took a wife, and died without children.” “Without children” is a translation of ateknos which is singular and means “childless,” i.e., without a child (singular). Verse 31 reads “and they left no children.” “Children” is from tekna which is plural. In both of these instances, the plural notion of “children” applies even to the man who fathered only one child. Likewise in 1 Thessalonians 2:7,11, tekna (“children”) is used to refer respectively to a mother who cherishes her “children” and a father who comforts his own “children.” Obviously, both verses use the plural term “children” to include parents who have only one child.
It is evident that the Bible repeatedly uses the plural term “children” generically to include those who have only one child. It would seem that one must exercise caution in concluding that an otherwise qualified man may not serve as an elder solely on the basis of the fact that he has only one child.
Endnotes
1 See Francis Brown, S.R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs (1906), The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004 reprint), pp. 119ff.; Elmer Martins (1980), “ben,” Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason Archer Jr., and Bruce Waltke (Chicago, IL: Moody), 1:113ff.
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