Were any of the disciples married?

Again, we gather that many of the apostles were married men (1 Cor. 9), but we have no hint in either the Acts or the Epistles of anything their wives did. They were surely a comfort and help to their husbands as they laboured; but both apostles and elders were discharging duties in which they could not share.

Only two of our Lord's apostles appear to have had the unspeakable honour of welcoming Him under their own roof — Matthew (or Levi) and Peter. Matthew's home was a place of feasting on that occasion (Luke 5:29); Peter's home was rather a place of mourning. His wife's mother lay sick of a fever — "a great fever," adds Luke the physician. Peter's home appears to have been shared, not only by his mother-in-law, but also by Andrew his brother (Mark 1:29-31). A pious family circle, we may be assured.

It was an evil day for Christendom when the idea took possession of men's minds that Christ's servants should remain unmarried. Not only has frail flesh been exposed thereby to the gravest moral peril, but apostolic precedent and the plain injunctions of Holy Scripture have alike been defied by the idea. In 1 Cor. 9:5, where Paul the apostle insists that he had the same right to a wife as to eat and drink, he cites the example of "the other apostles," and expressly names Cephas (Peter). In his first epistle to Timothy (1 Tim. 3), which is occupied largely with ecclesiastical order, he lays it down authoritatively that both Bishops and Deacons should be married men. If the question be raised, "Why then did not Paul take a wife for himself?'' the answer must be that he was called to a life of incessant itineracy, and that over a very wide area. The devoted apostle felt that, under these circumstances, it would be better for him to be absolutely free. But this did not touch his right, upon which he insisted, while putting it aside in self-sacrifice for the furtherance of the work of the Gospel.

It was natural that Peter and Andrew should tell the Lord of their sick relative. He had come down from heaven "to bind up the broken-hearted" (Isa. 61:1). and He was in fact moving up and down amongst men sympathetically taking their infirmities and bearing their sicknesses. Matthew's paraphrase of Isa. 53:4, here alluded to, means that He took up men's woes as a burden upon His own spirit (Matt. 8:17). His sympathy with men in life is the point. It is a mistake to refer Isa. 53:4 to His atoning death. He had not long entered upon His ministry of healing, and He had just cast a demon out of a man in the midst of a Sabbath-day gathering in the synagogue. Such a marvel filled Peter and Andrew with desire for the poor sufferer at home, "and anon they tell Him of her."

No second appeal was necessary. Attended by James and John, the former partners of Peter and his brother, the Saviour went at once to the fisherman's house. "He came, and took her by the hand, and lifted her up; and immediately the fever left her, and she ministered to them."

The author of the epistle introduces himself as “Peter, (an) apostle of Jesus Christ” (chap. 1:1). His proper name was Simon (from the Hebrew Simeon meaning “hearkening”). He got the name Peter (Greek: “stone”, Aramaic: Cephas) from the Lord Jesus (John 1:41-42). Peter was one of the first disciples of the Lord (Mark 1:16-18). He was a fisherman from Bethsaida (John 1:44) living in Capernaum (Mark 1:21, 29). Peter was married and later on his wife accompanied him when he was travelling as an apostle (Mark 1:30; 1 Cor. 9:5). Peter was brought to the Lord through his own brother Andrew and soon he belonged to the inner circle of the Lord's disciples together with James and John (John 1:42; Mark 5:37; Matt. 17:1; 26:37). All four enumerations of the apostles list Peter first (Matt. 10:2; Mark 3:16; Luke 6:14; Acts 1:13).

Then again, Peter was the only Apostle of whom we have the record that he had a wife. This is unfortunate, seeing that wives are denied to his supposed successors, as the Popes claim to be. The Epistle to the Galatians cannot be pleasant reading to Roman Catholics, for in it we find the record of the Apostle Paul withstanding Peter to the face because of his cowardice and dissembling (see Gal. 2:11-12).

THE next thing we find in the Gospel narrative, as we pursue Peter's history, is that the Lord enters his house at a most opportune juncture. He comes out of the synagogue, where He had just been casting an unclean spirit out of a man, and forthwith (a characteristic word of Mark's Gospel) He goes to Peter's house, and "Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever," and they tell Him of her. It was most natural that they should tell the Lord of the sick woman, and He heals her with a word.

Now, it has often been taught that a man must remain unmarried in order to fully follow the Lord; but here we learn that Simon was a married man, and he was a man who had affections large enough to take in his wife's mother, not only into his heart but into his house. We live in a day when mothers-in-law are often at a discount; not so here, and God has not recorded this in the pages of His Word for nothing.

A. It is, "Why should I not have a sister as a wife?" It would not do for him to have an unconverted person. He was at liberty to marry, though an apostle. Cephas had a wife, we know; for Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever. That is one of the things that puzzle Roman Catholics. In A.D. 324 it began that they were not allowed to have wives — that is, the priests — so that it came in early.

But there was not only the subjection of Satan and of demons to Him, but we find even more in connection with His works of mercy. After this, we see sickness coming before Him, and sickness in an individual case, and then a number of cases of disease brought together, what we might call a considerable company of impotent folk. Now why is this special peculiar case presented here? It is the very scripture which lets us into the understanding of the mind of God — that Peter, who was supposed to have been the founder of the Papacy, and to have been at Rome for that very purpose, was really an apostle who was a married man. That is the object, I believe, of its being brought in here specially. It is an instance of the mercy and power of our Lord Jesus Christ; but it so happens that it was Peter's wife's mother who was sick of a fever. It is not said what the nature of the fever was; Luke 4:38, with the exact diagnosis of one who was a physician, still guided by the Holy Ghost, calls it a great (megaloi) fever. It is enough for us that it was a severe sickness, and that all sickness and feebleness of disease are part of the fruit and misery of sin in this world. But this I do know — and that is what I think is so blessed, however grievous the case might be, and however difficult, or as men would say hard, there was no case that was not all easy to Him. And therefore we find what might be called the most extreme cases, the most severe cases presented where His works of mercy and of power are before us, to show the blessedness and the might, as well as the grace, and the love of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But there are two little touches here that are peculiar to Mark, which I should like to dwell upon for a little. "Anon they tell him of her." O how sweet that is! I know nothing more precious than the holy familiarity that existed between the Lord Jesus and poor things like ourselves in this world; and not only that, beloved friends, but His precious accessibility. A man has a sick mother-in-law, or a sick child, or a daughter dying, and they are all welcomed to the most accessible of men here. They can all go to Him; there was nothing about Him that repelled, I say it with all holy reverence, there was no cold distance or reserve about our precious Lord Jesus Christ. Truly He was, even in His human nature here, in its perfection, very man amongst men, a solitary man as well, yet was He the most accessible of all, who were by this, as it were, attracted to Him, all were made to realise how welcome they were to Him; there was that confidence which I am convinced was impressed upon them by the perfection of His own nature and love, so that they could go and pour out their plaint into His gracious ear: "Anon they tell him of her." Now I would ask our hearts here to-night, if we are practised in that holy confidence in Him now? Do we know what it is to tell Him of our sickness and our weakness, of our sorrows and our trials, of our pains and pressures? Do we bring them to Him, as far more interested in them than even we are. It may be that we might think, who could be so interested in a dying wife, or a sick child, or an aged father, as a husband, or a father, or a son, or a daughter? Ah! there is One more interested, and that is our Lord Jesus Christ. "Anon they tell him of her." O the beauty of those words! Do they not remind the heart of another portion of this blessed book, which has been such a prop and stay to many an anxious and sorrowing heart, namely, that precious passage in the Epistle to the Philippians, where the apostle by the Spirit says, "Be careful for nothing;" difficult words we often think, as many a time we have looked at them, "Be careful for nothing." Now, perhaps, I may be speaking to some poor afflicted heart here to-night. There may be just such a pressure as I have described hanging upon your poor heart, or you may have a greater sorrow than that pressing you down perhaps, God only knows. But I am conscious of this, that there are numbers of people in this great city to-night whose circumstances are such as at any rate humanly speaking to cause them abundant anxiety, and yet if they belong to Him, here is His word, "Be careful for nothing." Then, do you ask, how can that ever be brought about? What panacea is there that can discharge that load of care from my heart? Here it is, beloved friends, "In everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." I think "made known" there is exactly like "anon they tell him of her" here. There is a heart up there in heaven to whom you can communicate it all, and all you need is, in the confidence of the love that is there, just go and tell Him of it. Remember this, He knows it long before. Do not be under any deception as to that. You are not informing Him as to anything; He knows it. But yet tell Him of it, He loves to hear, make it known to Him, pour it out to Him. O, beloved friends, we would encourage one another a little more in those holy exercises. O, that we knew what it was in our distress, and wants, and needs, just to turn to Jesus in the first place! How often we think of human aids, and human helps, and human arms. Alas! these are the first things that come into our mind oftentimes, If we are in distress, and difficulty, and sorrow, we think of what we can do, and how we can get help, and we run here and there and everywhere else; but how blessed: "Anon they tell him of her." Now that is peculiar to Mark, and I earnestly call your attention to it.

Verses 4-6. "Have we not power to eat and to -drink?" etc. If, then, he is an apostle, he has a just title to the rights attaching to this office, which are here expressed summarily as a claim to free maintenance for themselves and families, if they had them. He does not assert simply a right to marry, but that if he were married, or took a wife, she also, as well as he, might look to the Church for maintenance. Not all the twelve were single men. Nor were the Lord's brethren after the flesh.4 The others claimed and enjoyed immunity from secular toil, that they might give themselves entirely to prayer and to the ministry of the word.5 And were Paul and Barnabas less worthy of this exemption? This coupling with his own name that, not of Apollos, who was well known to the Corinthians, but of one who is not elsewhere mentioned in connection with them, is remarkable. Not many years before, these devoted fellow-labourers had parted angrily asunder on a point of godly expediency,6 and from that moment all further historic notice of Barnabas and his labours ceases from the inspired record. But it was not in Paul's heart to cease from remembering with affection his first7 and fastest friend in Christ. And now that attempts were being made, under false Jewish influences, to disparage his own claims in comparison with those of the original apostles, he comprises, as it were instinctively, in his vindication of his rights, the name of that one among his fellow-labourers in the gospel who from the first had been the quickest to acknowledge and rejoice in the extension of the grace of God to the Gentiles.8 If, as appears from verse 6, he only among these early labourers in God's husbandry emulated his former associate in his boast that his gospel should be burdensome to none, the fact should not be unrecorded, both for the praise of his devotedness, and to bring before these quick-witted but slow-hearted saints a second practical example of what the truth they gloried in could make of men of like passions with themselves.

The "disciple whom Jesus loved," spoken of in the Gospel attributed to John the Apostle, is generally supposed to be a designation of himself (see, further, note on John 13:23). To the disciple so described our Lord when dying bequeathed the care of His mother (John 19:26). This Apostle is, besides, spoken of as one of the "pillars" of the Church at Jerusalem (Gal. 2:19; cf. Acts 15, A.D. 51). The last glimpse we have of him in the New Testament is as an exile in the island of Patmos during the reign, Eusebius (ii. 18) states, of Domitian. Before that time, according to Tertullian (Præscr. Hæret.), while the Apostle was in Rome, he was cast into a cauldron of boiling oil, from which he emerged unhurt. Ecclesiastical tradition carries on the story of his life, when released from Patmos, by representing him as prominently connected with the churches of Asia Minor, with Ephesus in particular (Irenæus). Zahn supposes that he removed from Palestine during the fatal Jewish war of the year 69, whilst Blass, comparing Acts 15 with John 21 there, considers that he must have finally left Jerusalem by at least the year 54. His residence in Asia Minor has been questioned, on insufficient grounds, by Keim, Scholten, H. Holtzmann, Harnack, Bousset, and Schmiedel, from its not suiting their theory as to the authorship. Amongst other familiar incidents related of that period of his life are the stories of his reclaiming a notable backslider (Eusebius iii. 33), and of his meeting a Gnostic in a public bath, when he at once rushed out of the place. Irenæus's account (iii. 3, 4) gives Cerinthus as the name, but Epiphanius (xxx. 24) says that it was Ebion. The last-named writer states that the Apostle remained unmarried. John is generally reported to have passed away in Ephesus by a natural death soon after the year 98 — i.e., after the accession of Trajan (so Irenæus, ii. 22, 5). Eusebius (vii. 25) states that his grave was shown there, another account is that two graves were shown at Ephesus connected with the name John (see, further, note on John 21:22 f.).

Ver. 12. Paul was an instance of the case last mentioned in this verse. If we read 2 Cor. 11 and see what Paul went through (because of the naughty ways of the Corinthians it was that he was obliged to allude to it) it shows how he would not have been free to pursue such a path had he had a wife and family. Peter was married before his conversion.