In the last chapter we saw how the spirit of our times has made the matter of sexual immorality particularly problematic for us, not least because of the many ways in which that sin can be committed. Another area that is also of great concern, to which we come now in 1 Corinthians 7, is that of marriage. For this subject as well, it is another case of the church picking up the mindset and values of the world. Just as we have been seeing how the world was influencing the Corinthian church, so we also know that the same thing happens today. Too often the church reflects the changing patterns of the world around her, rather than acting as that holy city on a hill.
This is true, of course, with regard to any standard of morality that is opposed to that of the world. And yet, the particular issues of sexual immorality and marriage are prominent today because we live in such a sexualized society. Moreover, when you factor in the banishment of God from the public square and the connected belief in human autonomy, the problem becomes even greater. There are no moral absolutes left that can serve to help keep society in check. When everyone is left to do whatever he or she thinks is best for the individual, culture as a whole plummets to the very depths of human depravity.
We notice that as Paul begins to deal with marriage in chapter 7, for the first time in this letter he seems to be dealing with a question that the Corinthians had asked him. Up to this point, he had dealt with problems that he knew they had and needed to correct. He dealt with their pride and their wisdom. He talked about the divisions in the church. There was immorality in the case of a man who had his father’s wife. Paul brought up all those matters. But now he directs his attention to a subject they had written to him about. There were apparently a number of items that pertained to this general topic of marriage.
I think it is hard to handle this in an easy outline, but let me suggest the basic approach Paul is taking, using three categories. The first thing Paul talks about is marriage. We do not know the context in which the Corinthians asked their question. It seems that they asked Paul about marriage in the context of Christian ministry and service. For those who, as we might say, were on the front lines of the battle of evangelism, was it good for a person to be married in that kind of a situation or was it better for the sake of the Gospel that a person remains unmarried? Paul responds by saying that in his judgment it is good to remain unmarried, because, like Paul himself, it frees one from family cares and enables one to carry on a very effective ministry, perhaps including extensive travel.
We read that and conclude that Paul is making it sound as if the unmarried state is the state to be desired above all else; however, if you find that impossible because you cannot control your desires and are burning with passion, then it is better to get married than to have fornication. Yet, over in Ephesians 5 Paul presents a beautiful description of marriage, which he says God ordained in order to illustrate the most sublime of all spiritual truths, namely, the way the Lord Jesus Christ is the faithful husband and bridegroom of the Church and how we, the Church, are His bride.
Based on what Paul says in Ephesians 5, he is not saying something utterly different here. Paul is saying that marriage is good, but he is not saying that marriage is the only good. And this is where the difficulty comes, because the church today, at least that of evangelical Protestantism, does not regard the single life as an alternative way to practice one’s devotion and service to God. Rather the church too often views marriage as the only good, and that if one is unmarried he or she sometimes is treated, or at least regarded, as a second-rate Christian. This is why Paul’s teaching in this chapter is so important for us today. Marriage is good, but it is not the only good, if God calls one to that.
