Psalm Genesis 2:18,22; Matthew 8:14,15; 1 Timothy 4:1-3
The LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him…And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
When Jesus was come into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother laid, and sick of a fever. And he touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them.
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry.
MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): The popish doctrine “forbidding to marry” is by the apostle Paul determined to be a doctrine of devils.
J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): Let us not fail to observe here, that Peter, one of our Lord’s principal apostles, had a wife. Yet he was called to be a disciple, and afterwards chosen to be an apostle. More than this, we find Paul speaking of him as a married man, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, many years after this.
H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): Paul specifically asked, “Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?” I Corinthians 9:5. That means James, Jude, and Cephas―Simon Peter―were married men.
J. C. RYLE: How this fact can be reconciled with the compulsory celibacy of the clergy, which the Church of Rome enforces and requires, it is for the friends and advocates of the Roman Catholic Church to explain. To a plain reader, it seems a plain proof that it is not wrong for ministers to be married men. And when we add to this striking fact, that Paul, when writing to Timothy, says, that “a bishop should be the husband of one wife,” 1 Timothy 3:2, it is clear that the whole Romish doctrine of clerical celibacy is utterly opposed to Holy Scripture.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): The prophets do not appear to have been called to a life of celibacy. Isaiah was a married man, Isaiah 8:3, and so was Hosea, Isaiah 1:2―and that the sons of the prophets had wives, we learn from 2 Kings 4:1. And from this, as well as from the case of the apostles, we learn that the matrimonial state was never considered, either by Moses or the prophets, Christ or His apostles, as disqualifying men from officiating in the most holy offices; as we find Moses, Aaron, Isaiah, Zechariah, and Peter, all married men, and yet the most eminent of their order.
H. A. IRONSIDE: The idea that those who preach the gospel should live the celibate life was unknown in apostolic days, as already noted; that was a superstitious fiction of later years when men came to believe that the unmarried monk and the childless nun were holier than the Christian father or mother.
MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): I am told that I began in the spirit under the papacy, but am ending up in the flesh because I got married. As though single life were a spiritual life, and married life a carnal life. They are silly. All the duties of a Christian husband―to love his wife, to bring up his children, to govern his family, etc.―are the very fruits of the Spirit.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Now, if any one inquire about the vows of Papists, it will be easy to show that they derive no support from the Word of God.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Not a syllable is uttered concerning celibacy or monasticism! Not a breath about vows of perpetual chastity and poverty!
JOHN CALVIN: If those things which they highly applaud and reckon to be lawful, such as the vows of monks, are unlawful and wicked, what opinion must we form of the rest?
C. H. SPURGEON: Peter had a wife, you see. Romanists say that he was the first pope, therefore the first pope had a wife; and, mark you, if other popes had had wives, there would not have been any declaration of papal infallibility, for there is no man who will believe himself to be infallible if he has someone near enough to remind him that he is not. But one evil usually goes with another.
GEORGE OFFOR (1787-1864): “Marriage is honourable in all,” Hebrews 13:4―Vows of celibacy are from beneath, from the father of lies―contrary to the order of nature, and the expressed will of God, “It is not good to be alone.”
JOHN CALVIN: They vow perpetual celibacy, as if it were indiscriminately permitted to all; but we know that the gift of continence is not an ordinary gift, and is not promised to every one, not even to those who in other respects are endued with extraordinary graces. Abraham was eminent for faith, steadfastness, meekness, and holiness―yet he did not possess this gift. Christ Himself, when the apostles loudly commended this state of celibacy, testified that it is not given to all, Matthew 9:11. Paul states the same thing, 1 Corinthians 7:7.
But what is done in the Papacy? Monks, and nuns, and priests, bind themselves to perpetual celibacy, and do not consider that continency is a special gift; and thus whilst none of them has regard to the measure of his ability, they wretchedly abandon themselves to ruin, or envelop themselves in deadly snares.
H. A. IRONSIDE: To attempt such a life is to place yourself in a position of great temptation, and therefore to do so is not only unwise, but also thoroughly opposed to the divine institution of marriage.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): The Papists, who forbid marriage to their priests under a pretence of purity and holiness, at the same time allow them to live in all manner of debauchery and uncleanness―the most shocking iniquities are committed by the members of the Church of Rome―“they please themselves in the children of strangers,” Isaiah 2:6; the priests vowing celibacy and virginity, and contenting themselves with the children of others: or they love “strange flesh,” delighting in sodomitical practices, and unnatural lusts with boys and men.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Marriage is designed as a preventive of immorality: “To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband,” 1 Corinthians 7:2.
J. C. RYLE: “Forbidding to marry” is a doctrine of Antichrist, not of Christ.
ADAM CLARKE: This is God’s judgment. Councils, and fathers, and doctors, and synods, have given a different judgment; but on such a subject they are worthy of no attention. Nunneries and monasteries have ever, from their invention, contributed more to vice than virtue; and are positively point blank against the law of God.
A. W. PINK: Any teaching that leads men and women to think of the marriage bond as the sign of bondage, and the sacrifice of all independence, to construe wifehood and motherhood as drudgery and interference with woman’s higher destiny―or to substitute anything else for marriage and home, not only invades God’s ordinance, but opens the door to nameless crimes and threatens the very foundations of society.
