Therefore, a bishop must be irreproachable, married only once, temperate, self-controlled, decent, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not aggressive, but gentle, not contentious, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, keeping his children under control with perfect dignity; for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he take care of the Church of God?
Isabel and I were talking about yesterday's reading, when Paul advises Timothy on what makes a good bishop, and the previous line came up. One of the things that I think is awesome about the Catholic Church is that she takes lines like this and makes them daily readings, even though it's blatantly obvious that it's going to confuse half the people in the pews. Seriously. A less Divinely-inspired Church would have quickly extricated these lines from every lectionary and Bible by now in an effort to make the religion seem more consistent and unchanging (I cringe whenever I hear about the textual history of the Koran). We understand that the passage has to be read in a literary and historical context; and we can even recognize the ideal of celibacy already becoming manifest in these lines (and, of course, some non-Roman rite Catholic Churches are still permitted to marry before ordination to this day).
So, on the one hand, a lay person who doesn't know their history might be startled to hear that bishops were once married; on the other hand, it shows the confidence of the Church that she can continue to present Biblical text that could be startling.
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