[Mrs. Don-o]

There's no outright on-the-nose proof whether Paul ever had a wife, but many think that Paul was in fact a widower at the time of his writing.

• Paul puts himself in the category of being “unmarried” in 1 Cor. 7:8 - “I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them if they remain even as I.”

• The word “unmarried” = agamos (Gr.), is only only used 4 times in the NT, and all four uses are in 1 Cor. 7 (v.8, 11, 32, 34).

• Paul uses the term agamos in one case, for a woman who has been separated from her husband: once-married. In another, it refers to a virgin: never-married.So although Paul identifies himself as agamos, he still could have at one time been married.

  (The later word in Greek that specified “widower”, cheros, does not appear in biblical or Koine Greek.)

• Elsewhere, Paul says that he was a Pharisee, a “Hebrew of Hebrews” (Philippians 3:5), and “extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions” (Galatians 1:14; cf. Acts 22:3). Marriage was the norm for Pharisees, so Paul could hardly have set himself forth as an example of a leading, zealous Pharisee had he never been married.

So it's probable that Paul was once married, but it was after becoming a widower that Christ called him and gave him gift of celibacy for the sake of the kingdom.

[BipolarBob]

Thank you for that post.

[metmom]

If I understand history correctly, marriage was the norm for ALL men.

However, the Levitical priesthood that God established included and allowed for parried men, although there were some restrictions on who they could marry.

Genesis 2:18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

Marriage was God's idea and He established it, performed the first wedding, and blessed it.