[PetroniusMaximus]

"Your understanding of this passage seems to be belied by the lives of the men who actually held the office"

I'll let Paul answer...

"This is my defense to those who would examine me. Do we not have the right to eat and drink? Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living?"
- 1 Corinthians 9

Many of the NT Church leaders were married - including Peter.

[Claud]

Many of the NT Church leaders were married - including Peter.

Oh, no one denies that one bit! Peter, on the way to his martyrdom, is said to have said to his wife "Remember the Lord".

But what we cannot say is that all of them were married. We cannot take that passage about having one wife as a mandate, as if the bishops *had* to take a wife in order to be bishops.