Since St. Paul's teaching on celibacy had not been around long enough to create an entire generation of Christians raised to respect celibacy, it stands to reason that bishops would be drawn from sober adults who had already come of age before they knew Jesus.
There was no existing pool of celibates to draw on for the episcopal office at that time.
The problem in that line of argument is two-fold.
First it reads something into the next, namely that the Apostle Paul's thoughts on the issue are conditional ie "What I have to say is only good for a while until there are enough like me..."
Second the undivided Church understood this passage to mean that Clergy could be married because they continued to be so for a number of centuries in the West and continue to be so in the East. So clearly the earliest thinkers in the undivided Church understood that marriage was an option for clergy. Later councils shaping canons on the issue also affirm that marriage was an option by the very act of their attempting to regulate clerical marriage. All of this is completely in line with a passage in 1 Corinthians where the Apostle Paul (9:5) indicates that the Apostles, including Peter (Cephas) traveled in their ministries with their wives and the even earlier tradition of Levitcal Priests being married.
Quite frankly the idea that MANDATORY celibacy for clergy is ancient, apostolic, and the general rule of the Church simply does not have the textual or historical evidence to stand. Even the Roman Church does not define the mandatory celibacy of clergy as a dogma but rather as a discipline. It is the same in the East where the mandatory celibacy of Bishops is a rule born not of antiquity but rather of practical discipline and most would not claim otherwise.
In reviewing some of the posts it may help for me to clarify something, namely that I do not oppose celibacy as an option for clergy.
I am a Priest in an Eastern Orthodox jurisdiction and I simply believe that we have handled this issue better than our counterparts in the West. In the East the state of a person at their ordination to the Diaconate or Priesthood is "frozen" for lack of a better word. If they are married prior to ordination they can continue to be married. If they are single they remain celibate. The remarriage of clergy following a spouse's death or divorce is extremely limited and handled on a case by case basis. Only the most extraordinary circumstances would merit consideration for a possible second marriage.
We believe that this is in line with both the letter and spirit of St. Paul's writings where he indicates his personal preference for celibacy but does not make it mandatory for everyone in all situations unless that person is not in a heterosexual marriage.
Now there are good reasons for celibacy and it can offer a certain freedom for people to serve that does not exist when one is married. The rub is that by making it not simply an option but a mandate for all places and times it flies in the face of the clear teaching of Scripture and apostolic precedent. After all Jesus ordained the Apostles by breathing on them and granting the Holy Spirit to them to vest them with Priestly and Apostolic authority while they were still relatively young married men. Why is what was good enough for Jesus not good enough for the Vatican?
The point is this. We in the Eastern Church have lived with married Priests since day one. We have also had celibate clergy. The faith has not suffered because both of these options ARE the teaching of the faith. The question is are the men we ordain faithful to the Gospel? If they are whether they are married or not the Church will thrive. The Roman Church does have the ability to revisit this issue because it is not dogma, not infallible, not something essential to salvation but rather a discipline of the Church
which can and does change.