Can A Pastor's Wife Work Outside The Home?

This has been a question that I have been in debate with a few Christians because I know a few pastors where their wives work outside the home and other do not. This question was addressed in the recent mailbag from 9 Marks which is written by Jonathan Leeman:

•The office of elder belongs to the elder, not to his wife. As such, there are no extra requirements that fall on her that don’t fall on any other wife in the church, at least formally speaking.

•I don’t understand Titus 2:5 (“working at home” ESV; “homemakers” HCSB; “busy at home” NIV) to teach that a woman must work exclusively at home. If it did, it would seem that that paragon of womanly virtue in Proverbs 31 is not such a Proverbs 31 woman after all. She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard (v. 16). She makes linen garments and sells them, and supplies the merchants with sashes (v. 24). I suppose it’s possible she does her real estate speculation and market trading sitting in her front porch rocking chair with baby at breast. But that strikes me as both unlikely and arbitrary.

•I do believe that Titus 2:5, Proverbs 31, 1 Timothy 5:14, and such passages teach that a woman should have a general orientation toward the home and to household management. As the womb has been assigned to her, so has the household. Notice that the Proverbs 31 woman is buying fields and trading garments for the sake of her household. What this looks like, I assume, will differ from family to family.

•I believe it’s a luxury of modern economies and Christendom that we expect pastors to do anything other than bi-vocational ministry, and perhaps for their wives not to work. Do you think churches in Pakistan today or pre-Constantine Europe could afford to pay one or several pastors enough money that they could devote themselves to pastoring full-time, while their wives do or did nothing to help fill the pantry with food?

•I’ve never heard of people complaining about wives volunteering at church or in some sort of community event. It would seem strange to say she can participate in such volunteer activities so long as they don’t pay her.

If a (pastor’s) wife is working so that the couple can afford nicer cars while the kids are in daycare, I have a problem with that. If a husband is being neglected in some way because she has career ambitions independently of him, I have a problem with that. Every wife, pastoral or otherwise, should work to ensure that her husband and children are cared for with the quality of care that she alone has been gifted by God to give them, assuming there is freedom to do so. For many wives, this might mean working exclusively in the home. For others, it might mean working outside the home, assuming it does not compromise her primary duty but assists in it


Source: Mailbag #6: Pastors’ Wives, Taking Oaths, Pastors & Administration Work