ordinary christianity for the world.
Corinth, A Church Divided, 1 Corinthians 7:1-11
Poetic Praise
Relations
1 Corinthians 7:1-11
Having discussed the prohibitions of Christian morality regarding immoral sexual relations, Paul now provides counsel regarding proper Christian sexuality. Seven chapters into Paul's letter to the Corinthians Paul is still discussing the same subject, which suggests that it was a widespread and serious problem among church members. What subject? The confusion of worldly wisdom and biblical truth that was being expressed through sexual confusion.
All of their lives these Corinthians, who had only recently become Christians, had been under the influence of Greek culture. And, according to Scripture and history, Greek culture was saturated in sexual immorality and confusion. Because of the permissiveness or liberality of Greek culture, the proliferation of sexual perversions of every conceivable sort, Paul now turned his attention to some very basic and practical considerations regarding the exercise of sexual relations between husbands and wives. All sexual expression is reserved for biblical covenantal marriage. Scripture never speaks of sexuality between consenting adults as anything other than fornication and adultery.
The first thing to note is that the Corinthians had misunderstood something that Paul had said in a previous letter. That previous letter is lost, so we don't know exactly what he said, but we can piece together the misunderstanding from the issue raised in the first verse of chapter seven.
Immediately preceding this section Paul had been contrasting biblical beliefs with some of the popular beliefs of the time. And we noted that some of those popular beliefs were related to what Paul had taught to other Christians, namely to the Galatians. We noted previously that the Corinthians had taken what Paul had taught to the Galatians and applied it to their own Corinthian Libertine world view, when Paul intended it to apply only to the Gnostic worldview of the Galatians. And the result was that the Corinthians misunderstood what Paul said to the Galatians when they applied it to themselves. I mention this only because verse one of chapter seven falls into the same literary pattern Paul used earlier, which suggests that it was part of that earlier thought.
Except in this case they have taken Paul's prohibition against sexual immorality (against fornication) and tried to correct their own error by jumping to the opposite view. The Corinthians reasoned that since Paul had spoken so harshly against the widespread sexual immorality that he found in Corinth, against the Libertine practices that they had been taught by their misinformed leaders, they thought that Paul intended to teach the Gnostic view of withdrawal from the world and the abandonment of bodily concerns. Thus, they surmised that Paul was teaching that "'It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman'" (v. 1). Paul was quoting a concern that they had brought to him in a previous letter, a quote that they had taken out of context.
They wrongly believed that because Paul taught against sexuality as it was understood and practiced it in the permissive Greek culture of Corinth, that Paul intended to teach that all sexual activity should be avoided. Being Greek in their worldview, they jumped from one extreme (that of the Libertines) to the opposite extreme (that of the Gnostic Essenes). They jumped from the belief that everything sexual was okay to the position that nothing sexual was okay. Again, as we have seen before, their philosophical categories of analysis did not allow for a Trinitarian position. Their Greek philosophical training (whether implicit or explicit) meant that they could only create a false dichotomy, the choice between two equally wrong positions.
Roman Catholic theologians have played havoc with this section of Scripture. Early Roman Catholicism in an attempt to be all things to all people interpreted biblical Christianity in Greek intellectual categories in an effort to appeal to the Greeks. They made the same error that these Corinthians had made. They failed to understand Paul's correction, and that failure still permeates the Catholic Church.
Paul was not teaching that it is good not to have sexual relations. He was not teaching a Gnostic or Essene view of sexuality. He was correcting a misunderstanding. Greek thinking leads to the opposing positions that all sexual relations are okay or that no sexual relations are okay. The middle position that requires a covenantal relationship (covenantal marriage) was completely foreign to them. They could not understand how or why biblical covenantal marriage could make any real difference. Biblical covenantal marriage was not even on their radar screens. Our world today is awash in the same false dichotomy, the same foolish thinking. So, it is important for us to understand what Paul was trying so hard to get at.
The first thing that Paul taught them was that all fornication is wrong, but that does not mean that all sex is wrong. It only means that all sex outside of marriage, outside of faithful adherence to God's covenant, is wrong. Greek dualism cannot conceive of the reality of the Christian Trinity. Within the categories of Greek philosophy, the Trinity makes no sense at all. It is foolishness to the Greeks. Greek analysis attempts to understand or define the Trinity in terms of its own duality, and necessarily confuses and obscures the role of God, His Holy Spirit and His Word in the lives and practices of human beings. On the one hand, God's covenant with humanity is the linchpin of Trinitarian Christianity, and on the other it is invisible to Greek thinking. Inasmuch as we think that the Trinity is a mystery, we are stuck in Greek categories of thought. Again, this is the central focus of Paul's message in chapter seven.
He went on to say that part of the reason for the institution of marriage was to provide an outlet for sexual desire. God knew that abstinence was beyond most people. God created both sexuality and marriage to go together for the sake of the health and stability of the family. Each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband. Notice that the language that Paul uses implies ownership, ownership of the wife by the husband and ownership of the husband by the wife. And that is exactly what he meant.
The next two verses (vs. 3-4) speak of the fact of that ownership. Not only does the wife "not have authority over her own body," but "the husband does not have authority over his own body." Previously Paul said that we are not our own but that we "were bought with a price" (6:20). We are owned by Jesus Christ through His covenant with God, and we are owned by our spouse through our marriage covenant. Husband owns wife, wife owns husband, and God owns them both. Note that ownership is a legal relationship.
Knowing the weakness of the flesh, Paul told husbands and wives not to "deprive one another" (v. 5). Sexual drives and needs are real, and cannot simply be ignored without serious consequences. And marriage is the place to deal with those concerns. Note that he also suggested that prayer would at times take precedence over the marriage bed "for a limited time" (v .5). Was Paul suggesting that husbands and wives engage in prayer with the same enthusiasm and commitment as they have for the marriage bed? I think so. Prayer in that venue would also help provide protection from Satan, who often uses sexual temptation to lure his victims into his den of iniquity.
Paul continues to provide marriage counseling in the verses that follow, and the counsel that he provides is not a biblical command, but a personal recommendation based on his understanding of both Scripture and humanity. The recommendation is based upon his observations about the Corinthians and the problems they were having in the church. The recommendation comes from the person who wrote much of the New Testament, so it deserves our serious consideration.
What is Paul's recommendation? He began by setting the context, "I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another" (v. 7). From very early in Christian history this verse was considered to refer to Paul's married life. But in spite of the fact that the Roman Catholic Church believes that he was not married, the evidence is not conclusive. He may have been married, or he may have been a widower when he wrote these words. There really isn't enough evidence to establish anything certain about his state of marriage.
Nonetheless, we note that the traditional understanding has been that Paul was not married, and that his celibacy is here spoken of as a "gift." But if we examine both the context and the implications of this idea, we will find that Paul was not speaking about celibacy at all. The idea that Paul was saying that celibacy is a gift is absurd for a couple of reasons.
First, he wished that "all" people were like he was with regard to whatever he was talking about. Do you think that Paul really wished that all people were celibate? Ridiculous! We know that Paul clearly understood that the gifts of the Spirit were many and diverse — and that their diversity was a strength. Paul celebrated the diversity of spiritual gifts (Romans 12:6; 1 Corinthians 12:1-12, 30). So, for him to want all Christians to have the same gift is ridiculous.
Secondly, Paul surely knew that if all Christians were celibate, they would die out. The Essenes believed that Paul wanted all Christians to be celibate, and they actually died out. Paul was not stupid. Celibacy is a strategy of death, not life. This all suggests that Paul was not speaking in this verse about celibacy as a gift of the Spirit. This misunderstanding has been read into the verse, not taken out of it. Even more, it suggests that he was not talking about celibacy as a lifestyle at all. Why not?
We have already determined that Paul was trying to correct a Greek misunderstanding that lead to confusion about the nature of biblical sexuality, that the Bible taught neither that all sex was okay, nor that all sex was to be avoided. Rather, the Bible teaches covenant responsibility with regard to sex — covenant responsibility, or marriage. And celibacy is an avoidance of covenantal responsibility. But don't jump to the false conclusion that this means that unmarried people are unfaithful. It doe's not mean that. The point is simply that the whole idea that Paul was talking about celibacy is a Greek misunderstanding about what the Bible teaches.
So, what did Paul mean? Actually, his words are not perfectly clear. He assumed that his audience knew exactly what he meant, and it is likely that they did. The subject that Paul was talking about was assumed rather than stated. But it is nonsense to think that he wished that all Christians were celibate. It just doesn't fit with anything that Paul taught anywhere, and especially not here in First Corinthians.
So, what was Paul talking about? Earlier Paul urged Christians to "be imitators of" him (1 Corinthians 4:16). In all likelihood, Paul was referring to this idea. It is more likely that Paul was referring to his commitment to Jesus Christ, to the fact that he had been waylaid by the Holy Spirit on the Road to Damascus, to the fact that he had been born again by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, and to the fact that his regeneration had actually changed his life. This is what Paul wanted for every Christian. Paul was referring to the gift of regeneration, not celibacy. Paul wanted every Christian to be born again, to enter into a covenantal relationship with Jesus Christ and with the fellowship of saints.
Paul went on to speak about the variety of gifts that are given by the Spirit, which means that he knew that all Christians could not be individually gifted as he was. Not every Christian was called to be an apostle. All he was saying was that he was so committed to Christ that the sins of fornication and adultery were simply non-issues for him. He understood and embraced his covenantal relationship with other believers. And that covenantal relationship protected believers from abuse of every sort from one another. He simply wished that fornication and adultery were non-issues for everyone, that everyone would come to a full understanding of the implications and responsibilities of the covenantal responsibilities they had with one another in Christ.
But he also realized that many — perhaps most — Christians were not as mature as he was in this regard. Paul was well aware that many people are tempted to sexual sin. So, he gave some practical advice. "To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am" (v. 8). This verse puts Paul in the same category as the unmarried and the widows. This is the verse that Catholic Priests cite to defend their celibacy because it suggests that Paul was unmarried.
But it equally suggests that Paul was a widower. It was far more common for Jewish Rabbis to be married than unmarried. The Jews have always had strong family values. So, it is more likely that Paul was a widow than that he was simply unmarried.
In fact, Paul had such strong family values that he told those Christians wives who did not have Christian husbands that they should do everything they could to remain married — "the wife should not separate from her husband" (v. 10). Maintenance of the family structure was so important that Christian wives should do all they can to preserve their families. Don't divorce your unbelieving husbands, Paul said. Hang in there!
In addition, Paul said that, should a divorce ensue, she (the Christian wife) "should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband" (v. 11). Why does Paul not want the Christian divorcee to not remarry? Here Paul holds out the hope that the unbelieving husband will eventually be converted, and that the Christian wife should simply wait for and work for the conversion of and reconciliation to her estranged husband. Again, we see how important the family is to Paul. It is more important than the so-called happiness of the Christian wife — or of the husband, should the roles be reversed. Paul knew that the family is not an obstacle to happiness, but is the true engine of human happiness and fulfillment.
Clearly, for Paul marriage is not centered in sexual expression, but in family life. Paul understands God to have created marriage, not simply to contain the destructive power of illicit sexual relations, but rather Paul understands God to have created marriage for the sake of healthy and happy families. For Paul the strength and health of the family is more important than sex and more important than the happiness or unhappiness of the individual. Why? Because Paul knew that covenantal relationships are the foundation of cultural stability and joy in Christ that are much greater than mere self-satisfaction. Self expression and individual happiness are to take a backseat with regard to the covenantal relationships in Christ that bring joy, strength and health to the families of believers.
In reality, Paul understood that family strength and health will serve the true happiness of individuals — sustainable happiness over a lifetime and beyond. Paul believed that when Christians put the desires of God and the needs of the family before their own personal desires, they will work toward a sustainable social structure that will deliver more peace and happiness than could ever be imagined.
