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? Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife - The word εξουσιαν is to be understood here, as above in 1 Corinthians 9:4, as implying authority or right; and authority, not merely derived from their office, but from Him who gave them that office; from the constitution of nature; and from universal propriety or the fitness of things.
When the apostle speaks of leading about a sister, a wife, he means first, that he and all other apostles, and consequently all ministers of the Gospel, had a right to marry. For it appears that our Lord's brethren James and Jude were married; and we have infallible evidence that Peter was a married man, not only from this verse, but from Matthew 8:14, where his mother-in-law is mentioned as being cured by our Lord of a fever.
And secondly, we find that their wives were persons of the same faith; for less can never be implied in the word sister. This is a decisive proof against the papistical celibacy of the clergy: and as to their attempts to evade the force of this text by saying that the apostles had holy women who attended them, and ministered to them in their peregrinations, there is no proof of it; nor could they have suffered either young women or other men's wives to have accompanied them in this way without giving the most palpable occasion of scandal. And Clemens Alexandrinus has particularly remarked that the apostles carried their wives about with them, "not as wives, but as sisters, that they might minister to those who were mistresses of families; that so the doctrine of the Lord might without reprehension or evil suspicion enter into the apartments of the women." And in giving his finished picture of his Gnostic, or perfect Christian, he says: εσθιει, και πινει, και γαμει - εικονας εχει τους Αποστολους, He eats, and drinks, and marries - having the apostles for his example. Vid. Clem. Alex. Strom., lib. vii., c. 12.
On the propriety and excellence of marriage, and its superiority to celibacy, see the notes on 1 Corinthians 7:1, etc.