In One of Your Replies, You Said a Minister Should Marry a Virgin. in Another of Your Replies, You Said There Is No Restriction Binding the Minister?
1) Direct answer
There is no New Testament law that binds a minister to marry a virgin. But because he is to be an example, the safest, cleanest counsel is: if he marries, he should seek a pure, never‑before‑bound woman. Still, if she is not a virgin, yet is not bound to a living husband and walks clean in Christ, he is not disqualified from marrying her.
2) Scriptural explanation
- Ministerial qualifications: The Bible says a bishop must be blameless, the husband of one wife, ruling well his house (1 Timothy 3:2–5; Titus 1:6). Notice, it does not command that his wife be a virgin.
- Marriage bonds: The Bible says a wife is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives; but if he is dead, she is free to be married only in the Lord (Romans 7:2–3; 1 Corinthians 7:39). And, “whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery” (Luke 16:18). So a minister must not marry a divorced woman whose first husband is living.
- Purity pattern: Now notice, the high priest was to take a wife in her virginity (Leviticus 21:13–14), and Christ presents to Himself a chaste virgin Bride (2 Corinthians 11:2; Ephesians 5:27). This shows the ideal of purity for those who serve at the altar and represent Christ to the church.
- Grace and new life: If a person’s past is under the Blood, “old things are passed away… all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). But new birth does not cancel the marriage bond while a former spouse lives (Romans 7:2–3).
3) Simple clarifying logic
- There is a difference between a binding command and wise counsel. The New Testament commands one wife, a clean testimony, and no union that violates the marriage bond. It does not legislate virginity for a minister’s wife.
- The ideal counsel follows the Bible’s purity pattern: a minister, if he marries, should choose a woman with no former marital bond and a clean life, so there is no reproach on the ministry.
- Yet if she is not a virgin but is free to marry (single or a widow) and lives upright in the Lord, Scripture does not forbid that union.
4) Reinforcing statement
So the two statements harmonize this way: “should marry a virgin” speaks to the ideal; “no restriction binding” affirms there is no New Testament law making virginity a requirement—only the clear boundaries of one wife, a clean life, and no marriage that violates an existing bond.
To get the full context and background as well as proper understanding, you MUST read the following answers also:
https://truebibleteachingsai.org/answers/in-the-new-testament-is-there-a-requirement-that-a-minister-of-the-5-f-11636dc
https://truebibleteachingsai.org/answers/in-the-new-testament-is-there-a-requirement-that-a-minister-of-the-5-f-a71db34
https://truebibleteachingsai.org/answers/if-a-minister-should-marry-a-virgin-then-what-was-the-blood-of-jesus-s-1d59d71
https://truebibleteachingsai.org/answers/if-a-minister-of-the-5-fold-ministry-can-marry-a-widow-the-widow-is-no-e5ccd10
https://truebibleteachingsai.org/answers/is-it-true-that-the-widow-of-a-minister-can-only-remarry-a-minister-9af3c0d
https://truebibleteachingsai.org/answers/in-one-of-your-replies-you-said-a-minister-should-marry-a-virgin-in-an-bdc33ea
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
Respects
61-1015E §56
I remember a certain young girl one night, Tennessee, when I was going out the door (preaching in a big Baptist church), was going out the door. And I felt led that night to call her to come to Christ. Well, she laughed in my face when I called her to come to Christ. She happened to be one of the deacon's daughters. And standing at the door that night, she waited for me. When I come out, she said, "I want you to know something right now, don't you never embarrass me like that again." I said, "God was calling you."...
Questions and Answers, Part 2
64-0823E §18
QUESTION: Very urgent. Brother Branham, knowing that time is ending and eternity setting in, what would be your advice for a couple planning marriage? Go right ahead and get married, see. Go right on just like if you was going to live for another hundred years here on earth. Just go right on; keep your heart set on Christ, not your hearts on these things of the world, but on Christ, see. Go right on; get married, children. God bless you in your wedding.
The invisible union of the Bride of Christ
65-1125 §29
The prophet Paul, here, is saying that a woman cannot remarry until her first husband is dead. She cannot remarry as long as her first husband is living. She, by no circumstances at all. She must remain single as long as her first husband is living. And if she should do such a sin, she shall be called an adulteress. I am speaking of the natural now, to type it with the spiritual. If this woman would commit such a sin, then she is marked an adulteress---if she has two living husbands at the same time. Therefore, she...
Oneness
62-0211 §73
A woman wrote me a question the other day; she said, "Brother Branham..." Or, no, it was a man, a minister. He may be standing here this morning. He's just from Ohio. And he said, "We want to say the same thing you do, but we found something on your tapes that's not right." So Billy brought the letter to me. Said, "Something on your tapes," says, "is very contradictory, Brother Branham, to the Word of God. And we want to--we want to say the same thing." Said, "One question I want to say to you; that's I Corinthians...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 7:E-41
If there was ever a time of denominational zeal it was at this tragic time. The words of Comenius describe much of this era. Comenius wrote the "ONE THING NEEDFUL." He compares the world to the labyrinth, and shows that the way out is by leaving what is needless, and choosing the one thing needful--Christ. The great number of teachers, he says is the reason of the multitudes of sects, for which we shall soon have no names left. Each church reckons itself as the true one, or at least as the purest, truest part of it...