1 Corinthians Ch7 pt1

1 Corinthians 7 

7 Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me: 

It is good for a man not to touch a woman. ² Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. ³ Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. ⁴ The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. ⁵ Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. ⁶ But I say this as a concession, not as a commandment. ⁷ For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that. 

⁸ But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; ⁹ but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. 

This is a very interesting chapter. If Romans is Paul’s magnum opus in theology the two letters to the Corinthians are a master class in Christian living or ground-level Christianity.  Chapter 7 is all about marriage, it’s, I think, the longest discussion on marriage in the New Testament.   

He starts off the chapter with a big left hook to our postmodern world, “It is good for a man to not touch a woman”. Bam! left hook right to the nose.   

This is a controversial statement in the Christian world and in our hyper-sexualized secular society this statement is a bizarre combination of blasphemy and absolute law. Between the 4^th wave feminists who have, at times, declared all sex between a man and a woman rape and the porno and hookup culture this statement would get some mixed reviews.  

     We could add that some things in this chapter are contextualized as we see in chapter 29 Paul reminds them that he is saying some of these things because “the present form of the world is passing away”. However, at first, we’re not given any real context except that they had written previously and asked a question and we don’t know what that question is.  

      As I mentioned this is a controversial statement in our time It would have been one in pagan Corinth as well. This statement seems to be the thesis for the rest of the chapter. Chastity and celibacy are good and Godly things, however, it’s not the only good and Godly way to live.  

     He continues to explain because of sexual immorality a man should have his own wife and women her own husband. This also kind of goes against many of the things that we hear in the culture and even in the Christian milieu. We often hear that marriage is not a solution to sexual immorality but Paul says it is.  

Why would marriage be a solution for immorality? Marriage is a union of two people, not just spiritual or social but a physical union and you might even argue that the physical union is not just for children as some argue but for pleasure as well for both the man and the woman.  

     This whole chapter is an uncomfortable conversation in our modern culture. It’s often seen that women are the gatekeepers of sex even between a married couple Usually it goes she should get sex when she wants and likewise the men only get sex when she wants it this type of thing is so prevalent in our culture that we don’t even think about it. But here we see that this gatekeeping should not be. Paul paints a picture of mutual submission to each other’s needs. This mutual submission to each other’s needs is one of the things that is going to be a remedy for sexual immorality.   

Is this a foolproof solution? No people are sinful but this mutual submission to each other in the bedroom is what is prescribed by Paul, in fact, he goes on to say that depriving each other except for a limited time so that you can focus on God is a window that Satan can crawl into bed with you.  How many couples have experienced this, deprivation by one or the other leading to a fracturing of the marriage? Though often deprivation is a symptom of a deeper issue.  

He also says that he wishes everyone could be as he is. Paul was a single, possibly widowed, man who had devoted himself to the Gospel.  He even advised to those unmarried and widowed to stay unmarried if possible but then concedes this may not always be helpful.  

So what do we make of his talk of being single and wishing people could just stay single. There is a lot of contextualization to this. His wish is for those who are single to stay single so that they may be wholly devoted to God and to the gospel. When you get married there are a lot of other things that are added to your life that can distract from that.  

Now, the singles here that Paul advocates is not a singleness to be able to sit in your mom’s basement and play WoW. It’s a singleness to service so like him you may be of service without worldly worries. There are also other things going on at this time that he mentions later that contextualize his instructions. 

¹⁰ Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. ¹¹ But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife. 

¹² But to the rest I, not the Lord, say: If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. ¹³ And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. ¹⁴ For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. ¹⁵ But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace. ¹⁶ For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife? 

So we start off with Paul’s message from the Lord and we can see Jesus saying this in the Gospels (Matthew19:8-10, Mark 10:2-12) but in the next verse we see Paul differentiate his words from the LORD’s, something we don’t see often in scripture.  

He’s continuing to answer their questions and while he doesn’t tell us what the question was, I’m sure it was something to the effect of I’ve become a Christian and now my significant other wants a divorce. That’s really pretty easy to get from the text. But his answer is actually kind of a hard one.  

If the non-believing spouse wants to go. Let them. However, if they don’t want to go there is no imperative to get a divorce and he goes even further to say that the unbelieving spouse is sanctified by the believing spouse. That’s quite a statement, really an unbeliever is made holy by being married to a believer. What an unbelievable grace that God gave in, not only that but if a man has children with an unbelieving wife, they are made holy as well!  

This is an amazing grace. Now does this mean that the unbelieving spouse is saved while they stay with the believer? You could say that the marriage is still legitimate because they are married to a believing spouse, that their vows aren’t nullified but does that track? He also says that the children of one of these marriages is holy. So, there is more to this than just the vows not being nullified.  

Peter tells us that we are a Royal priesthood and a Holy nation. Does that mean that both the children and the unbelieving spouse on account of the believing spouse are counted at least outwardly as part of this holy nation?  

At least as far as the unbelieving spouse is concerned, we know that this doesn’t guarantee salvation because in the last verse, we’re told that if the unbelieving spouse wants to leave you should allow them to keep the peace because there is no way to know that if they stay that they will be saved. The believing spouse is released when they leave.  

The children on the other hand, it says no more than that they are holy, but isn’t that enough? Believers shouldn’t treat their children as common unbelievers.  I think this refutes the idea that we need to look at our children as common unbelievers who need to be converted. We should look at them as little Christians who need to be taught and disciples because they are holy. 

 I also think this might be one of the stronger verses for baptizing the children of believers. If they are holy, are they not part of the holy nation or is their holiness outside of the holy nation somehow and isn’t the sign of that holy nation baptism? If they are holy and if they are part of the holy nation, why would we withhold the sign of the holy nation from them? Of course, baptism is more than just this, but it certainly doesn’t mean less.  

The last two verse in this section is hard for multiple reasons. Paul tells us that if the unbelieving spouse wants to leave. Let them and that the believing spouse isn’t under bondage. You’re not in bondage if your unbelieving spouse wants to leave because we are called to peace. Often times this type of situation will not be peaceful, darkness and light don’t mix very well but how much more will the peace be disturbed by one party hanging on to something the other doesn’t want anymore, but as Paul said the believing spouse shouldn’t seek this. Marriage is still a God-ordained institution that was enshrined in creation and in the law of God and we should treat it that way.