Lot of biblical suggestions, but no requirments.
Still looking for a biblical requirement that all church leaders be celibate.
As a person that believes and trusts in the Bible, I need biblical references, not references extra- biblical.
I'm stilling looking for a biblical requirement that all Christian religious belief and practice must come from the Bible.
As a person that believes and trusts in the Bible, I need biblical references, not references extra- biblical.
Belief and trust in the Bible is not the same as Bible only.
there are no biblical references that all clergy be celibate. none.
The western part of the Catholic Church has always interpreted St. Matthew 19.27-29 ("everyone who has left house ... wife, children ... for my name's sake", etc.) as obliging celibacy on the clergy. See also St. Luke 18.28-30.
Similarly, 1 Corinthians 7.7-8 ("I would that all men were even as myself ... I say to the unmaried ... it is good for them if they so continue, even as I"), 1 Corinthians 7.32 ("He that is without wife is solicitous for the things of the Lord", etc.), Romans 8.8-9 ("They who are in the flesh cannot please God" etc.)
The Catholic Church interprets 1 Corinthians 9.5 ("Have we not power to bring about a woman, a sister" etc.) to refer to woman about whom there could be no suspicion of scandal if travelling or living with a priest. Thus the Council of Nicea decreed in its 3rd Canon which officially interprets this verse: "This Great Council has strictly forbidden any bishop, priest or deacon, or any member of the clergy from having a subintroduced woman unless she be a mother, sister, aunt or person who is above suspicion." Notice the absence of a "wife" being mentioned.
Similarly, the Church has interpreted 1 St. Timothy 3.2 and St. Titus 1.15 ("The husband of one wife" etc.) as imposing celibacy, as the requirement in the verse was not that the man be married, but rather, that being married only once he would be able to observe continence after ordination, whle diagamists were automatically disqualified by their remarriage after the death of the first spouse, which indicated an inability to control and master their sexual desires.
In the Old Testament, the Levites were compelled to stay away from their wives during their time of service in the Temple. The Christian Priest has an indefinitie and permanent appointment of service to the Church, not a temporally punctuated one. Therefore, he should always abstain from sexual intercourse.
Please give me the names of the wives of the 12 Apostles?