Posted on 02/01/2015 10:20:56 PM PST by Morgana
Must Bishops Be the Husband of One Wife? Tim Staples May 5, 2013 | 0 comments Share on twitter Share on facebook Share on email Share on print Share on gmail More Sharing Services
As both a guest and, at times, a host on our radio broadcast, Catholic Answers Live, I have spoken on many different topics over the years. Mostly, I do the “Open Forum Q&A” on Tuesdays, but my favorite hours have been our “Open Forum for Non-Catholics,” when we take calls only from non-Catholics or from people who are in the process of coming into full communion with the Church but who are not yet formally Catholic.
After a recent hour of “Open Forum for Non-Catholics,” I stayed late to take a call we couldn’t get to on the air for lack of time. In short order it became an adventure.
It was not just one caller but several who were sharing the phone, and it quickly became obvious they were calling on a lark. The laughing in the background was a dead giveaway. In a nutshell, they posed as Catholics but obviously weren’t, and they asked the question of how to deal with “crazy Fundamentalists” who “take God’s word literally and actually believe what St. Paul wrote in I Tim. 3:2":
Now a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, dignified, hospitable, an apt teacher, no drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and no lover of money.
“Notice,” they said, “it says a bishop must be the husband of one wife. And in verse 12, St. Paul will say the same about deacons. How does that square with the Catholic Church that says bishops can’t be married at all? I’m not saying I agree with it, but how do you answer these crazy people who actually believe the Bible?”
This conversation reminded me of my second formal debate I had as a Catholic in 1995 with an Evangelical pastor. He brought up this same text and made a similar argument. When it was my turn to respond, I said, “Man, I’ve got to give this guy credit for one thing. He’s tough! He wouldn’t allow either Jesus or St. Paul to be a bishop in his church! But I want you all to know that the Catholic Church welcomes Jesus not just as a bishop but as the bishop, as I Peter 2:25 says:
For you had gone astray like sheep, but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls (NAB).
The word translated guardian here in the NAB is actually not just a bishop; rather, the bishop (Greek, ton episkopon) of your souls. Jesus is the bishop of the Catholic Church. And he was and is celibate.”
Neither my opponent in that debate almost 20 years ago nor our friends who called into the broadcast two weeks ago really ever recovered from the obvious implications of that text. But there are a few more points we should consider when answering this point that I did not get to in either of these cases.
1. Even the Evangelical scripture scholar Dr. Ralph Earle, in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, says that St. Paul in 1 Timothy 3 is not requiring bishops to be married. In stating his reasons, he first offers the most ancient position—which we know as Catholics to be apostolic in origin and found in written form in the late second century—that would say this text is placing a limitation on the number of marriages a bishop could have in his lifetime. He could only have been married once. This is the position of the Catholic Church today. If a man has been married more than once, even if licitly, he cannot be admitted to the episcopacy.
2. Earle writes, “[M]ost commentators agree that [the text] means monogamy—only one wife at one time.” This interpretation is unlikely for reasons we’ll mention below, but we should first take note that both Catholic and Protestant scholars generally agree St. Paul is not making marriage a requirement for the bishopric.
3. In that same Bible commentary, this time commenting on Titus 1:6, which makes to both elders and bishops the same prohibition against multiple marriages, another Evangelical scholar, Dr. D. Edmond Hiebert, adds, “If Paul had meant that the elder must be married, the reading would have been ‘a’ not ‘one’ wife.” I would go further and say it would most likely simply say, “The bishop must be married.” The term one indicates that he is limiting the number, not mandating marriage.
For those who would be inclined to argue the position that St. Paul is simply prohibiting polygamy to the clergy, I would add these five points:
1. The lists of disqualifications to the ministry in both Timothy and Titus were not consisting of things that would exclude a person from being a Christian at all, like polygamy would. They were things that would ensure the candidate in question was living an exemplary Christian life. Illicit “marital” situations were condemned at the Council of Jerusalem in AD 49 and declared to be deal-breakers for one to be a Christian at all (see Acts 15:1-3; 24-28). Though polygamy is not mentioned there verbatim, it would certainly be condemned implicitly in the condemnation of illicit conjugal situations.
2. There was not a single place in the Greco-Roman world where polygamy was being practiced in the first century A.D. It is unlikely St. Paul would speak of something directly like this that was simply not a problem at the time.
3. In the case of St. Paul’s first letter to Timothy, he would go on to declare that a widow who was “enrolled,” or consecrated, as a celibate and married again to have sinned gravely. There is nothing wrong with a widow remarrying. That is licit and clearly so elsewhere in Scripture, specifically in St. Paul’s own writings (see Romans 7:2-3; I Cor. 7:27-28, 39-40). But it is wrong for the one who has been consecrated for service in the Church. It is interesting that St. Paul uses the same language of limiting the widow to having been the wife “of one husband.” Obviously this was not meant to say “one husband at a time”:
Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband. . . . But refuse to enroll younger widows; for when they grow wanton against Christ they desire to marry, and so they incur condemnation for having violated their first pledge (I Tim. 5:9-12).
It is more than fitting that those consecrated as bishops, elders, and deacons would make a similar commitment.
4. St. Paul’s repeated recommendations to all to remain celibate, remain single after having lost a spouse (I Cor. 7:1; 7-8; 25-28; 32-35; 38; 39-40), or even to live a celibate life within marriage (I Cor. 7:29), are consistent with his prohibition to remarriage to those called to holy orders. St. Paul seems to speak a great deal about second marriages but never about polygamy.
5. I find it interesting that the Protestant New International Version of the Bible translates I Tim. 3:2, “Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife.” While I do not necessarily agree with translating the text with the “but” in there, there is no doubt where the Protestant translators of the NIV stand on the question. St. Paul is limiting the candidate for the bishopric to "but" one wife.
I have no doubt that those three or so callers who called in to Catholic Answers were sincere. Maybe not in their masquerading as Catholics, but I am sure they sincerely believed the Catholic position of having celibate bishops to be just plain wrong. However, hopefully now they will re-think who it is that really takes St. Paul at his word; that is, his word taken in its proper context.
I think the better question is whether a minister, deacon or bishop should be forbidden to marry. Obviously, the answer to that is also no. Remember that even the priests of the Jewish faith were usually married, and that is what Paul and the Apostles all were familiar with. Paul obviously addressed in this Scripture the common practice of married men being leaders in the ministry, and was merely admonishing that men in leadership should not marry more than one woman.
The Catholic Church has decided that they do not want their minsters to be married. While that position is not prohibited by Scripture, neither is it commanded by Scripture. And I think making that a requirement has resulted in a lot of grief for the Catholic Church over the years.
This is nonsensical double talk.
Incredibly illogical, obtuse if it wasn’t purposeful obtuseness.
The simple fact is that the bible does not require nor mandate celibacy for bishops. It is clear throughout history of the early church the leaders were married, if they desired to be. And the church did not stop them from being married or require them not to marry in order to serve as leaders.
To say that becuase Christ was celibate so our leaders should, is reidiculous. God did not come in the flfesh to have sex with His creation. Can we agree it’s a terrible apples/oranges comparison in this particular instance?
IF Christ thought this was important He would have taught it and He would not have had Peter in the position he did as Peter was married.
There is no question that not being married saves a person a lot of time and energy off many of the things of everyday life. But Paul says it should be done voluntarily. Not mandatorily. Because it takes a special kind of person to control their sex drive. He never said that leaders only were to be made up of those such people. He wrote it’s good IF the person can hadnle it. If not it’s better to be married and not burn in lust. This was advice to ALL Christians, good, sound and true for both lay people and church leaders alike.
ANd since the criteria for leadership does not forbid marriage, but explicitly makes mention of the number of wives (ie how mant times) a person can be married, it is crystal clear that it never forbade leaders to marry, nor discouraged them from doing so. The best that it did was Paul recommending not to marry, but only if you could handle not having sex or lusting after people. Most people cannot. ANd as nowhere does the Bible say only the celibate can be leaders, you cannot twist Paul’s personal recommendation into some kind of requirement - not listed in CLEAR THE LIST of requirements speaking on the subject of leader qualifications - as some kind of mandate that the church spiritual leaders HAVE TO BE celibate.
Until very recently, the model of life for a man was to marry and have children. That follows the Biblical model for a head of household.
IMHO, this serves as the default that the Bible text assumes for men, the background against we must view 1 Timothy 3, etc.
In considering whether or not a man is chosen to serve as an elder, how well they manage their own household certainly provides valuable insights into the man’s character to consider. After all, he will be ruling over, teaching, etc., a congregation of other men who are heads of households themselves.
Well said.
The Bible makes some common sense assertions that a man who has a grasp of what it is to being a spiritual head of a household makes more sense as a teacher/priest/pastor. The bit about celibacy is an opinon and not something that was given by the Holy Spirit - he even makes that disclaimer that it is his opinion and not of the Spirit. Instead of twisting things to make them agree, one should just take what the Bibles \says and be sure to keep it in context - it would solve many of the areas of contentions between the Christian religions and put members more in tune with Christ and less apt to beat each other about the heads and shoulders over which religion is right. All religions are affected by mortals and therefore have areas where error becomes “fact”. If Christ thought we all needed to be theologians to understand His message, we would have the ability to grasp the untold variations and arguments without special help. The Bible is clearly worded for those who want to know Christ and not have to worry about what the “brilliant” minds have decided on all the sundry nuances.
Exactly on point and well said!! I’ve known elders/overseers who lost their wives to death that resigned their office, believing themselves to no longer meet the requirement of I Timothy.
That's why married priests are the norm in most of the Eastern Rite Catholic churches, and why a few married ex-Protestant ministers have been to trained to the priesthood in the Western church.
It's a matter of prudential judgement, not dogma. The point of the article is that that prudential judgement is not contrary to Scripture.
In the original Greek, the passage can be translated four possible ways:
1) Husband of (a) wife
2) Husband of (a certain) wife
3) Husband of (only one) wife
4) Husband of (at least one) wife
#1 would mean that they be married
#2 would not make sense
#3 would mean that they never remarry after divorce
#4 would mean that they were at least married once and possibly have more than one wife either by marriage then death or possibly polygamy
I’ve heard it said also that even if these passages are saying that a bishop should be married “to one wife” in order to be a bishop (that is he should have a wife before being a bishop) then the Catholic system still doesn’t violate the Scriptures in question because it can also be said, in a certain sense, a bishop (being a priest) is already married but not to a woman rather to the bride of Christ the Church.
I have since abandoned this apologetic however in favor of what Staples says here. It just makes more clear sense to me. That’s not to say the above isn’t valid too. I just prefer it as explained here.
It is quite clear that compulsory clerical celibacy is a Church discipline, not a Biblical requirement.
And if you study the history of this policy, you also see quite clearly that it was implemented many centuries after the founding of the Church and for reasons which have nothing to do with anything that can be found in the Bible.
While I am not a fan of the current Pope, he has recently stated that:
1) That clerical celibacy is a discipline, not a dogma or a doctrine.
2) That compulsory clerical celibacy was put into place many centuries after the Church was founded.
3) That the policy of clerical celibacy is subject to change.
All true, of course.
The Lord commands us to be fruitful and to multiply. The Lord created Eve because He did not want Adam to be alone. Physical intimacy between a husband and a wife is a gift from God which should be denied to no one. Priests were married men in the Bible in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Many popes were married as were most priests and bishops for at least the first ten centuries of Church history. Compulsory clerical celibacy was implemented in the Middle Ages largely to fight corruption among the clergy, primarily nepotism and simony. There is no Biblical basis for such a draconian policy. Surely it should at the very least be open to debate and discussion.
not all denominations view it that way and they will not have leaders who do not take a celibacy vow. they can forget about being leaders if they don’t take that vow, so it becomes a requirement for some churches.
This guy Staples continues to wrongfully us scripture. What’ up with that? I Cor. 7:29 doesn’t say anything about living a celibate life within marriage. And that’s only one example.
That passage say nothing about leadership in the ekklesia. His letter to Timothy is specifically addressing the requirements for leadership.
Fair enough, but I don't think you can read the passage in 1 Timothy to require a bishop to be married - merely that a bishop cannot be married to more than one woman. That may refer to a prohibition on divorce and remarriage, or on a prohibition against polygamy (both reasonable requirements, in my opinion).
Here's the words in order from the Greek.
1 Timothy 3:2 it behoves therefore the overseer above reproach to be of one wife the husband sober self-controlled respectable hospitable able to teach
I think that eliminates your points 2 and 4.
The passage goes on to say.
1 Timothy 3:4 his own household well managing children having in submission with all dignity
Is there some scenario whereby Catholics can insert their unmarried celibate priests into that?
So you would totally disregard 1 Timothy 3:4?
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