forbidding marriage and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.
Jesus further testifies that celibacy is not the expected or general choice of men (Matthew 19:10-12), though such a voluntary choice is not wrong provided one lives a life above moral reproach. Paul counsels men to marry in order to avoid fornication (1 Corinthians 7:1-2). (Hendriksen provides some appropriate material concerning the emergence of second century Gnosticism, its basis, and its modern forms in his New Testament Commentary: Exposition of the Pastoral Epistles, page 147.)