To Marry or Not to Marry

Series on I Corinthians

IV Marriage

A Dangers Surrounding Marriage, Text: 7:1-9

Title: To Marry or Not to Marry

Introduction

The apostle Paul probably teaches us more about the marriage relationship than anyone else in the Bible. The women’s liberation movement when it pays any attention to the Bible, which is rare, likes to paint a picture of Paul as a cranky old misogynist who belittled women and had no appreciation for the institution of marriage. First of all, Paul appreciated the opposite sex. He wrote the most dramatic statement in the Bible about gender equality. He said, In Christ their is neither male nor female. Secondly, everything Paul writes about marriage is based on the fact that marriage is instituted and regulated by God, and far from inventing his own viewpoint, he constantly refers back to the Old Testament to prove his point. In the third place, there is a high degree of probability that Paul at some point had been married. In general Jewish men married about the age of 18. If they did not the rabbis said they had slain their posterity or they had lessened the image of God. In fact, on a list of people excluded from heaven, they put first a Jew who has no wife. Celibacy was very remote from the Jewish mind. Specifically, Paul says in Acts 26:10 that before he was converted he cast his vote on the Sanhedrin for the death of Christians whom he had imprisoned. It was a regulation that members of the Sanhedrin must be married men. Paul’s possible marriage may be speculation, but it is clear that he was not culturally predisposed to the single state. So let’s move on to what Paul has to say about certain dangers surrounding marriage.

I Follow Your Savior

Verses 1 and 2 are a general statement in response to an inquiry, Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry. But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. The Corinthians had suggested to Paul that it was better to be unmarried. Unfortunately they believed this for the wrong reasons. As we have already learned in our study of this letter the Corinthian Christians were inclined to follow a Greek view of the world which taught that the body was nothing, and the soul was everything. This could lead either to license where a man said the deeds of the body don’t matter because the body is unimportant, or to asceticism where a man said that the body is evil and must be denied with all its instincts and desires. I am constantly surprised by how much our world resembles the one in Corinth. We face the very same extremes today. Either people regard sex as a meaningless bodily function which can be indulged at whim, or they react violently against it and purpose to be forever celibate as many priests and monks do. Paul’s reply is this: celibacy is good, meaning it’s not necessary, but it can be a good choice. This he explains further on in the chapter. The time is short and their is much to be done. But he quickly adds because of immorality marriage is good too. Paul is saying that the solution to the problem is neither fornication or denying the body. The solution is marriage. He says this because he’s following Christ. In other words unless you are willing to put Christ first in your life, there isn’t much point in talking about the problems of being married or being single. You can’t deal with either of these problems until Christ is Lord of your life and his Word is law. Through this whole passage Paul’s main point is doing God’s will.

II Face Your Weakness

Paul is utterly realistic and down to earth in his assessment here in verses 3-5, The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. Often as believers we’re off in the clouds someplace pretending to be something we aren’t or even worse hoping the other person is something they aren’t. This is straight talk. He deals first with married folks facing their weakness. The marital duty of which he speaks is physical union. Notice he speaks of the body belonging to the spouse in verse 4. He adds that if you discontinue your physical relationship it should only be temporary. Get back together so that you will not be tempted. In Puritan New England there was a law that required settlers to bring their wives in a reasonable time. If they did not, they were shipped back to England. It’s not that Paul has a low view of marriage as if this were the only reason to be married. He is simply being honest and practical. This has implications for all of life. Nobody can afford to overlook their weaknesses or to pretend that they are impervious to temptation of any kind. Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. We need to understand the radical nature of sin that remains with us throughout our earthly lives. The person you think you are marrying may not be the person you end up married to. Dr. James Dobson wrote in his book “Love Is for a Lifetime,” “The key to a healthy marriage is to keep your eyes wide open before you wed – and half closed thereafter.” A surgeon stood by a young woman’s bed. Her face postoperative featured her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A facial nerve had to be severed. The surgeon had done his best, nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, the nerve had to be cut. My wife’s sister had a similar operation. The surgeon sees her young husband in the room by her bed. In their isolation their devotion is patent. Who are they, he thinks this man and this wry mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily? The young woman speaks. “Will my mouth always be like this?” she asks. “Yes,” he says “it will because the nerve was cut.” She nods, and is silent. But the young man smiles. “I like it,” he says. “It is kind of cute.” All at once I know who he is. I understand, and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with Jesus. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works. This is marriage God’s way. But Paul goes on in verses 8 and 9 to address those that are unmarried, Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. Whether single people who have never been married or those whose spouses have died, all need to seriously appraise their need and to recognize that the only godly, divinely ordained legitimate answer is marriage. I’m not suggesting, nor is Paul, that you should marry the first person that comes along. But, the implication here is that if you’re using the right criteria to choose a mate, ordinarily you’ll find someone. Some people use the wrong criteria and are too concerned about things that do not matter. In the USA people are inclined to be idealistically romantic instead of spiritually realistic. This is not instruction in, “How to Marry a Millionaire” or marry Miss America. It deals with practical spirituality. This is a sinful world and there are no perfect mates. If you’re already married, you didn’t marry the wrong person. You’re putting self first and not God, which is common in our culture. Please God and the other things will follow. Face your weakness. And the third thing you need to do is to fulfill your destiny.

III Fulfill Your Destiny

We have been talking about knowing your weakness, but it is also important to know your strength. This is not pride, not vanity, and not boasting. Paul is talking about the gifts of God in verses 6 and 7, I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. He expands this at great length in I Corinthians 12. If you look there you will notice how consistent Paul’s teaching is. he says the same thing there as he does here. He begins with the Lordship of Christ. He also mentions weakness in 12:22. He says those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. So there is no place for pride. indeed in Chapter 12 Paul reminds us, in verse 11, that all the gifts are the work of the Holy Spirit who gives them as he pleases. Here in chapter 7 the reason that Paul is different from the Corinthians is that he has the gift of continence, or chastity. Many of them do not and yet they are trying to act like they do. Concession not command means neither marriage nor the single state is good in itself. What is good is doing God’s will. The solution is marriage in the Lord. If you do not have his gift then you should marry in the Lord. To do otherwise is to court trouble. On her wedding day a young woman prays “Dear God. I can hardly believe that this is my wedding day. I know I haven’t spent much time with You lately, with all the rush. I’m sorry. I guess that I feel a little guilty when I try to pray about all this, since Larry still isn’t a Christian. But oh, Father, I love him so much, what else can I do? I just couldn’t give him up. Oh, You must save him, some way, somehow. You know how much I’ve prayed for him, and the way we’ve discussed the gospel together. I’ve tried not to appear too religious, I know, but that’s because I didn’t want to scare him off. Yet he isn’t antagonistic and I can’t understand why he hasn’t responded. Oh, if he only were a Christian. Dear Father, please bless our marriage. I don’t want to disobey You, but I do love him and I want to be his wife, so please be with us and please don’t spoil my wedding day.” That sounds like a sincere, earnest prayer, does it not? But if it is stripped of its fine, pious language, it is really saying something like this: “Dear Father, I don’t want to disobey You, but I must have my own way at all costs. For I love what You do not love, and I want what You do not want. So please be a good God and deny Yourself, and move off Your throne, and let me take over. If You don’t like this, then all I ask is that You bite Your tongue and say or do nothing that will spoil my plans, but let me enjoy myself.” Let me take you back to chapter 6 where Paul talks about our bodies belonging, first of all, to the Lord. Your destiny. is in verses 19 and 20, Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. Our bodies belong to Christ and we must not give them to anything that he forbids. The Bible, the Word of our Lord only gives two alternatives. They are abstinence or marriage in the Lord.