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Chapter 7 begins with a reference to the Corinthian church's letter to Paul: "Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me" (1 Corinthians 7:1). Paul used a key phrase whenever he began to answer a question: "now concerning." The first question they asked him was in relation to marriage and chapter seven is about marriage. It is a very difficult chapter, it is very controversial and widely misunderstood. Most of the misunderstanding comes from a lack of understanding the historical context.
I hope that this message will not offend the sensitivities of anyone here. This is part of the Word of God and we need to teach it. Areas like this are a little sensitive in a public service. I hope that you will be able to learn and benefit from our study of God's Word.
In chapter 6, Paul dealt with the libertines who argued that everything was permissible, and who believed that sexual license was a matter of ethical indifference. They came from the Epicurean viewpoint that the body was evil and might as well be indulged. They didn't view fornication as sin. In chapter seven, he deals with those who are coming from the opposing Stoic viewpoint that the body was to be deprived of all pleasure. They argued that sexual relations of every kind were to be deprecated, that Christians who were married should henceforth live as though they were unmarried, and those who were unmarried should remain so.
There were those in Corinth that were teaching that a believer ought not to marry. These ascetics taught that celibacy was a higher spiritual state than marriage. They could have been over reacting to the sexually loose situation in Corinth. The Corinthian believers had many questions on marriage, so they wrote to Paul to get some answers. In 1 Corinthians 7:1-7, Paul gave them the basic general principle in relation to marriage. He used the rest of the chapter to address some specific segments in the church. In verse 8 he wrote to the unmarried and the widows. In verse 10 he wrote to the married. In verse 12 he wrote to the rest, that is those in mixed marriages, the saved married to the unsaved. In verse 25 he addressed virgins.
As 1 Corinthians 7 begins, Paul seemed to agree with the ascetics when he said, "It is good for a man not to touch a woman." The phrase "not to touch a woman" does not refer to holding hands or putting arms around a woman. Touch is the Greek word "haptomai" which means to attach oneself to, to apply oneself to. It directly relates to the sexual relationship within marriage. This is a euphemism for a sexual relationship. We see it used this way in Genesis 20:6 (NKJV):
"And God said to him in a dream, "Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart. For I also withheld you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her."
God told king Abimelech that He was the one who kept him from touching or having a sexual relationship with, Sarah. The same thing is found in the book of Ruth; when Boaz exhorted Ruth to go out into his fields and to glean, he told her that he instructed the men not to touch her (Ruth 2:9). We see this also in Proverbs 6:27-29 (NKJV)
"Can a man take fire to his bosom, And his clothes not be burned? Can one walk on hot coals, And his feet not be seared? So is he who goes in to his neighbor's wife; Whoever touches her shall not be innocent."
When Paul said that it is good for a man not to touch a woman, he had in mind the physical relationship within marriage. Paul refered to marriage using metonymy which is the use of the name of one thing for that of another associated with it. For example, we use the White House to refer to the President. Biblically, the blood of Christ is a metonymy for His sacrificial death. So "to touch a woman" is a euphuism for a sexual relationship which is a metonymy for marriage. The Scripture uses the word "touch" to refer to a union such as marriage. 2 Corinthians 6:14-17 uses touch in this way.
"Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will dwell in them And walk among them. I will be their God, And they shall be My people." Therefore "Come out from among them And be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, And I will receive you."
Paul said, "Do not bind yourself to an unbeliever". The basic meaning of "haptomai" is to attach oneself to or bind. In 1 Corinthians 7:1, he is saying, "It is good not to marry." This is best seen as a quotation from the letter that the Corinthians wrote to him. They could have asked, "Is it good not to marry?" Paul answered, "Yes, celibacy is good but with qualifications."
That seems to suggest that Paul had a very low view of marriage and as we read through this chapter we might be convinced of it. Verse 9, 28, and 38 could easily lead us to conclude that Paul had a low view of marriage. Is Paul saying that celibacy is a higher state spiritually than marriage? Is he saying that for a Christian celibacy is the rule and marriage is the exception? No! Elsewhere in 1 Corinthians 7 Paul explained that marriage is the general rule not the exception. His other teaching bear this out also. In first Timothy 4 Paul says:
1 Timothy 4:1-3 (NKJV) "Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth."
One of the teachings of those who depart from the faith is that they forbid marriage. Paul certainly did not forbid marriage in these verses. He is not an apostate. Paul knew that marriage is a divine institution and that God Himself said, "It is not good for man to be alone." What an incredible statement for God to make! Man was not alone in the truest sense: not only was he surrounded by all of creation but, more importantly, he had a perfect relationship with God! Yet, in spite of those realities, God said it was not good for him to be alone; Adam needed a wife. All through the Bible, marriage is considered very highly. For example, Hebrews 13:4 says that "Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled." In the Old Testament, marriage pictured the relationship between God and his people, and in the New Testament, between the Lord and his church: we are the bride of Christ.
The Bible holds marriage on a very high level. Paul did not have a low view of marriage, and he did not denounce marriage. He simply said it is good not to marry: celibacy is a good state and not to be depreciated. Paul gave two reasons why it is good not to marry. 1 Corinthians 7:26 says it is good not to marry because of the present distress, which was a time of intense persecution. The second reason is in verse 32: marriage responsibilities limit service for the Lord.
Contextually, Paul said, "Considering your present circumstances and considering the responsibilities within marriage, it is good not to marry." That first principle, which is "celibacy is good", must be balanced with the second principle which Paul developed in verses 2-6. Simply stated the second principle is, "It is natural to marry. Paul's general rule is laid down in verse 2 when he says, Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.
Although there may be exceptions, marriage is undoubtedly the norm. This verse makes it clear that God does not approve either of polygamy or homosexual "marriages."
Paul's basic principle is that every man is to have his own wife and every woman is to have her own husband. The problem that people have with this verse is that the principle is prefaced with the phrase, "Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality". Is this why a person marries? Is the only reason to marry to avoid immorality? To avoid fornication is not the only reason for marriage, but it is one reason.
There are six biblical reasons for marriage:
1. Partnership: Genesis 2:18 (NKJV) "And the LORD God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him."
2. Provision: 1 Timothy 5:8 (NKJV) "But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."
3. Procreation: Genesis 1:28 (NKJV) "Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
4. Pleasure: Proverbs 5:18-19 (NKJV) "Let your fountain be blessed, And rejoice with the wife of your youth. 19 As a loving deer and a graceful doe, Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; And always be enraptured with her love." (see 1 Corinthians 7:4)
5. Picture: According to Ephesians 5:22-33, marriage is a picture of Christ and the church.
6. Purity: 1 Corinthians 7:2 (NKJV) "Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband."
1 Corinthians 7 was not written to explain Paul's doctrine of marriage. He is speaking of the danger of sexual sin for those who are single. Paul's doctrine of marriage is laid out in Ephesians 5; there he places marriage on an extremely high level. As Christ loves the church, so is the husband to love his wife. As the church is subject to Christ, so the wife is to be subject to her own husband in everything. Paul places the marriage relationship on the highest possible level. In 1 Corinthians 7 Paul answered a specific problem in relation to a specific situation existing in Corinth at that time. Fornication was rampant in the city of Corinth. Temptation abounded on every turn. A man could not walk down the streets of Corinth without being propositioned. Paul's solution to the situation in Corinth was "let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband". God instituted marriage as the safeguard against such evil. Marriage is not the lesser of two evils; it is the God-ordained safeguard against such immorality that existed in Corinth.
A publisher once offered a prize for the best answer to the question, "Why is a newspaper like a good woman?" The winning answer was this: "It's like a good woman, because every man should have one of his own and not look at his neighbor's!" Paul's purpose was to stress the reality of the sexual temptations of singleness and to acknowledge that they have a legitimate outlet in marriage. Although celibacy is good, it is not superior to marriage, and it has its dangers and temptations that marriage does not have.
In 1 Corinthians 7:2, Paul gave his general rule. In verse 3 he continued by stating the obligation that exsists in a marriage relationship.
Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband.
In other words, let the husband fulfill his duty, or let him pay his wife what he owes her and likewise the wife unto the husband. The word affection is the Greek word eunoia which means kindness, conjugal duty, benevolence, good will. And the Greek word translated due means to owe, to be under obligation, to be bound. When a believer marries, he becomes obligated to meet the physical needs of his spouse. Marriage is no place for celibacy. A person is not more spiritual if he abstains from sex in his marriage; he is in fact in sin.
The majority of marriage problems and divorces can be directly traced to this verse. This verse clearly teaches that the responsibility of the husband is to pay what he owes to his wife. And the responsibility of the wife is to pay what she owes to her husband. They are to pay their debts to each other. Almost all marriage problems can be traced to marriage partners demanding their rights rather than meeting their obligations. This commandment is not obeyed by many husbands and wives.
What is the duty of the husband? Paul tells us very plainly in Ephesians 5:25 (NKJV):
"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,"
Paul did not say that the husband is to be willing to die for his wife. Christ was not just willing to die for his church--he died for the church, and the husband is to die for his wife. That is, he is to lay down his life for her, he is to seek her good. He is to sacrificially give of his life for her. Men, that is loving our wives. The debt that you owe to your wife is to give your life to seek what is her highest good.
The wife is to fulfill her duty to her husband, she is to pay her debt to him. What is her debt to her husband?
Ephesians 5:22 (NKJV) "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord."
The wife is to be voluntarily subject to her husband in every area of the marriage. She is to reverence her husband even as Sarah did when she called Abraham Lord. That is the debt that she owes to her husband.
So many marriages are a mess because the spouses are not paying to each other what they owe. We are not to be concerned with our rights. No one should ever say, "She is not paying me what she owes me." This text doesn't give anyone any rights as a husband, nor does any other text. As a matter of fact, a believer doesn't have rights. He simply has responsibilities. This text puts the emphasis on the rights of the other partner. If we can grasp the general obligation in marriage we will have a blessed marriage. We don't have rights, we have debts. The Bible is written to tell us what our responsibilities are, not to let us know what our rights are. No one can force someone to do what the Bible says; each person is to make sure that he is living it out. We always seem to want to tell others how the Bible says they are to treat us, instead of applying its teaching in our own lives.
A person's general obligation in marriage is to pay to his spouse what he owes. We are to fulfill our duties as a spouse. Paul gave a specific obligation in 1 Corinthians 7:4&5. It can be stated very simply, "Do not deprive one another" (7:5). The word deprive is the Greek word, apostereo which is a compound verb that comes from "apo,"which means "from," and "stereo" which means to deprive, or keep back. The compound word means to deprive another of what belongs to him or her. The verb deprive is in the present tense and could be translated "Stop depriving one another." The object is the body which belongs to the spouse in the marital union. Paul said that no one has the right to deprive his marriage partner of conjugal rights. It is not enough for us to say that sex is a marital privilege. It is that, but it is also a sacred responsibility, it is a debt that we owe.
Apparently within the church at Corinth, this was a real problem. They had reacted to the sexual immorality within their culture by abstaining from sex even in marriage. They viewed celibacy as a higher moral state and marriage as a morally evil state. As a result, they were abstaining from physical relationships within the marriage relationship. They thought it was the height of spirituality to abstain from any physical relationship within marriage. This belief has frequently appeared in the Christian Church. Church fathers like Chrysostom and Jerome spoke demeaningly of sex, even in marriage. Origen taught that sex was inherently wrong and Augustine taught that sex was part of the original sin of Genesis 3.
A well known teacher today says that you can gain a greater amount of spirituality by abstaining from physical relations in marriage. (He's single.) I was sharing the Gospel with a man and he asked me, "If I get saved, do I have to stop having sex with my wife?" Why would anyone ask such a thing? He didn't get that idea from the world. That idea comes from some Christian teachers who have an unbiblical view of sex. Some even today are teaching that sex is only for procreation. Mary Pride in her book The Way Home makes this statement, "All forms of sex that shy away from marital fruitfulness are perverted." She says that "what Onan did was perverted because he debased sex. He used Tamar for his selfish pleasure, but refused to give her children." Does this mean that if a couple is unable to have children that they shouldn't have sex? Or that when a woman is pregnant all sex is to stop for nine months or so? Her view of sex is perverted. She's wrong! Sex is for pleasure as well as procreation. ( On the whole this is an excellent book and would greatly benifit the reader).
Paul gives his reason for their needing to pay their debts in verse four:
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.
That is, a married person does not exercise authority over his own body, but his spouse does. Men will tend to use this verse to have more sex, but a woman can also use this verse to get her husband to accomplish chores around the house. A single person has authority over his own body, and he decides how to use it, with the understanding that it is God's temple. But once he is married, the right of authority is given over to the marriage partner.
In light of the authority that marriage partners have over each other's bodies, Paul said, "Do not defraud one another". Paul taught that conjugal rights are to be maintained within marriage. Conjugal are part of the debt that a person must pay to his partner. Secondly, conjugal rights are to be maintained because when a person entered marriage he forfeited his right to exercise authority over his own body. And thirdly, not to exercise conjugal rights is fraud and it defrauds his marriage partner. Thus, it is a sin to sexually reject your marriage partner.
In light of what God's word says, what do you think of the contemporary term "spousal rape." Can your spouse rape you if your body belongs to them? There was an article in the Virginian-Pilot, on Thursday February 22, 1996 entitled, "Man sues to share bed with his paralyzed wife": CINCINNATI- Barry Belinky says he only wanted to spend one night a week cuddling with his wife of 31 years. But the long-term care hospital (Drake Center) where she lives, paralyzed and barely able to speak, refused. The hospital fears that if the couple has sex, it could be considered rape because Diane Belinky cannot give her consent. So Belinky sued.
"She's confuse and scared, and it was my opinion that... it would be helpful for me to be able to stay over," Belinky said from his home in Finneytown, a Cincinnati suburb. The couple's marriage therapist wrote to the hospital, recommending that Belinky, 53, be allowed to spend the night in his wife's bed.
In a memo to the therapist, Kendra Shearer, Drake's vice president of nursing, indicated the request was rejected because of the possibility the couple might have sex. "Case law in this area is very clear: any type of sexual relations in the absence of consent is rape," Shearer wrote. That in turn, could open the hospital to a lawsuit.
Should a man have to sue in order to be able to sleep with his wife? I would think that when the woman said, "I do" she gave her consent. We're so consumed with our rights today that we are neglecting our responsibilities. Please understand me, I am not saying that a husband has a right to abuse his wife; I have already said that he is to love her as Christ loved the church.
Someone is probably wondering, "Is there no exception to the giving of conjugal rights." How about headaches? There is one exception but it's not headaches. Paul said in verse 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.
Abstaining in a marriage relationship is legitimate under three conditions.
1. There must be mutual consent: it must be something that both partners agree on. It cannot be a unilateral decision of one partner.
2. It is only temporary, so as not to allow Satan to tempt either partner. Depriving a partner could cause him to start coveting his neighbor. Given the numerous opportunities in our modern world to gratify sexual desires illicitly, Paul's concern to guard against temptations remains appropriate. Sexual abstinence can become a tool of Satan.
There is a teaching going around that says that married couples should abstain from sex for 14 days a month. But the Nes Testament says we are to give ourselves to one another. Fourteen days of abstinence won't bring spiritual development, but it will bring Satanic temptation. ( This teacher is single.)
3. Abstinence is to be for a spiritual purpose: "that you may give yourselves to prayer". A husband and wife at times face crises that call for special prayer. When financial, social, spiritual, or physical problems appear to overwhelm them, they flee to God in prayer. At such times, they may voluntarily and temporarily abstain from marital intimacy.
Paul said that if it is by mutual consent, if it is temporary, if it is for a spiritual purpose, abstinance is legitimate. Otherwise conjugal rights are a debt to be paid to the marriage partner. Physical love is to be a normal and regular experience shared by both marriage partners alike, as a gift from God.
In verse 6 Paul said, "But I say this as a concession, not as a commandment". What is by concession? Marriage? Or abstaining? The demonstrative pronoun "this" could refer to the exception to the rule of marital rights in verse 5b. Paul could be saying that temporary abstinence is permitted, not commanded. But I think it is better to understand "this" to refer to verse 2, indicating that though marriage is desirable and is according to God's creation plan, it is not mandatory.
Paul's comments were not meant as a command for every believer to be married. Paul's meaning is evident from verse 7 where he says he really wishes all men were single like him:
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."
Paul implied that all Corinthians knew who and what he was. They knew that Paul was unmarried. Though Paul was unmarried at this time, we can be fairly certain that at some time Paul had been married. He must have been married for he says that he gave his vote against the Christians (Acts 26:10) which indicated that he was a member of the Sanhedrin. It was a requirement that members of the Sanhedrin must be married men.
Paul's personal preference was that they remain single as he was because of the present distress and because of the greater opportunities single people have for Christian service. Whether a person should marry or not is more than a matter of weighing alternative benefits; it's dependant upon the gift that God has given to a believer. Some people have the gift of singleness. It is a grace gift of God. There is an advantage of singleness, but everyone does not have this gift. Jesus told his disciples,
Matthew 19:12 (NKJV) "For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it."
If you feel that you can handle singleness without it being a temptation to you, and if your desire is to give your whole attention to the advancement of the kingdom, then maybe you have the gift of singleness (1 Corinthians 7:32 & 33). But if you don't have the gift of singleness, you need to be looking for a spouse.
The attitude among Christians today about singleness is similar to the Jewish tradition in Paul's day which looked at singleness as a second-class condition. If singleness is God's gift to a person, it is God's will for that person to accept and exercise the gift. If that person is submissive to God, he can live in singleness all his life in perfect contentment and happiness.
Paul said that it is good not to marry, but it is natural to marry. It all depends upon your spiritual gift. Some people should never get married, and others ought to get married as soon as they can.
If we would live by the principles outlined in this section, we would begin to enjoy marriage as God intended. May God help to be consumed with our duties and not our rights.
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