1 Timothy. 4:3

[Sirach14]

Protestants like to tell me that because the Catholic Church forbids priests to marry The RCC is an apostate Church. They come to this conclusion by citing 1 Timoty 4:3; not realizing that Timothy is speaking of early heresies such as the Albigensians.

 

[Tanais]

This is a common attack against Catholicism. The verse in question is taken to the extreme and would be rather hard to explain if it wasn’t read in context. However if you read some other things Paul says, he does applaud celibacy and encourage many to be celibate. There are numerous instances in his letters stating that.

 

[copland]

According to the protestant translation of the NASB, it say’s this,

1 Tim 3:2 An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, If you take the passage literally and with the same approach, it would mean you have to be married to one wife. What happens if she died? Does he then lose his position as bishop/overseer?

 

[Lance_O]

Sirach14:

Protestants like to tell me that because the Catholic Church forbids priests to marry The RCC is an apostate Church. They come to this conclusion by citing 1 Timoty 4:3; not realizing that Timothy is speaking of early heresies such as the Albigensians.

Sirch14…what a great point you are making my friend.

When St Paul wrote the first letter to Timothy, he could NOT have been saying the celibacy was evil since he himself was celibate (1Cor 7:8). I find what St Paul had to say in **1Cor 7:25-35 ** very interesting. From reading that, I don’t think that he thought celibacy was wrong. In Mattew 19:11-12 Jesus is letting us know that there is place for voluntary celibacy in service of God’s Kingdom.

We must remember that the Catholic Church doesn’t forbid anyone to the rite of marriage. Men ARE NOT forced into the priesthood; they DO have choice to make BEFORE being ordained if they want to be celibate or not. I sometimes get the impression that people think the situation is like this: “It’s the day before ordination and the Bishop gets up to make an announcement. The Bishop says: Sorry, I forgot to tell all of you fine seminarians something…priest can’t be married.” Besides if the Catholic Church is ‘apostate’, then that would mean that Jesus was wrong in Matthew 16:18 when he said that “the gates of hell would not prevail against it”.

Not to stray from the point of topic, but I love the first to lines of 1Timothy! St Paul just refered to himself as a spirital FATHER.

 

[phatcatholic]

i have always read that this verse is to be understood not as requiring bishops to have a wife, but instead requiring them to have only one. as in, if you have a wife, be devoted to her and no other–instead of having mistresses or other wives.

 

[boppysbud]

You might also remind your friend that clerical celibacy is a discipline of the church, not a dogma.

Eastern Rite Catholic priests have always been married, and now there are a number of ex-Anglicans and Lutherans who have been ordained to the priesthood with the wives and children.

 

[princejeremy_17]

actually it says, if you will read the verses before that we need to beware because in latter times(times to come) some shall depart from the faith giving head to seducing doctrines(or those who were bishops would change things.

we can see this in baptism… why would jesus christ trave so far to the river Jordan if he could be sprinkled, or could have been sprinkled as a baby? because imersion is important. There was also a time when the RCC forbade anybody to read the Bible. Many were brutally d for reading or being caught with the bible in there posession. why? because they didn’t want anyone to read it. When the bible was made pubically you can see how many left the RCC because the found stuff wrong with the RCC. Take martin Luther for example. He posted 95 things that the RCC was practicing but was wrong according to what the Apostles had written.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

There was also a time when the RCC forbade anybody to read the Bible. Many were brutally d for reading or being caught with the bible in there posession. why? because they didn’t want anyone to read it. When the bible was made pubically you can see how many left the RCC because the found stuff wrong with the RCC. Take martin Luther for example. He posted 95 things that the RCC was practicing but was wrong according to what the Apostles had written.

There was also a time when the RCC forbade anybody to read the Bible. Many were brutally d for reading or being caught with the bible in there posession.
Absolutely, uncategorically false statements. The Church NEVER forbade reading the Bible. I don’t know what “brutally d” is, but since prior to the invention of the printing press in the 15th century (yes, that is over 1000 years from the time the first Bible in WRITTEN FORM appeared, compiled by–the Catholic Church) all Bibles had to be HAND WRITTEN, a process which took YEARS, and since such Bibles were extremely valuable, very, very few people had them. Sorry, there were no “Gideons” in every hotel room.
The charge of “forbade” refers to ONE incident in the 12th century where a HERETIC group made their own “false Bible” and so the people in the area where these heretics lived were forbidden to own that FALSE BIBLE. Big difference, right? Or do you want to be forbidden to read your KJV and forced to read the Douay Rheims? I guess you don’t. So maybe you’ll understand that the “false” Bible then not only WASN’T the KJV, it wasn’t a real Bible at all, so no poor Catholics were FORBIDDEN to read the BIBLE.

When Protestant versions of the Bible, like Luther’s (only surprise! His wasn’t the KJV either) appeared, they were the ones who took away books from the Bible, because they didn’t want the truth. It wasn’t Catholics who changed the Bible, but Protestants (and I thought that changing scripture wasn’t allowed, silly me).

Your understanding of Luther and the 95 Theses posted in Wittenburg is laughable. Why don’t you at least google it and examine it from both the Protestant and the Catholic perspective? At least that way you could make a semi-informed decision. If you choose to believe wrongly, at least you’d have been exposed to the truth as well.

Have a nice day. God bless.