***The fabrication of the priesthood that you guys have concocted based upon this passage is beyond the pale. The elders were husbands of one wife (so the Vatican takes up celibacy as an appropriate understanding of this)***
The text reads that an elder can only be the husband of a single wife; plural wives are forbidden. Further, the Church understands (as St. Paul did) that when one pledges one’s life to the Church, that celibacy is often a better way so that one is not distracted and diverted by non spiritual things.
***able to teach (so the Vatican takes up transubstantiation as a an appropriate understanding of this), etc.***
Could you restate this in a less than incoherant fashion?
***The Catholic Church has so screwed up the normal understandings of the text that, of course, they need the traditions they have cooked up to counter the text...otherwise everyone would say, “Hey, wait a minute. That’s not what it says!”***
The Catholic Church (given authority by Jesus Christ Himself) is the only authorized interpreter of Scripture. Everyone else is only guessing.
Oh, that’s coherant enough, but you Vatican supporters cannot tolerate the truth. Re read it carefully, Mark, and you will get the drift that the believers not enslaved by Rome see these passages for what they are...evidence that the Priesthood is a figment of your imagination.