“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.”
Paul covers quite a controversial topic in 1 Corinthians 7: Marriage. He has spent the last few chapters criticizing the Church of Corinth for their immoral behavior, immoral members, divisions in the church and called them to be servants of Christ; but now he is specifically addressing the questions they sent him. Some of these questions were about marriage.
Paul prescribes a balance: If you are led by the Lord to remain unwed it may very well be because, in your case, you can serve the Lord much better without a spouse and family. Some preachers or theologians who travel a lot may be hindered from obeying the Lord’s calling if they have a family. On the other hand, sometimes having a spouse and family can help you serve the Lord, or at least remain in obedience to him.
As Paul says, “I wish that all men were as I am [unmarried]. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. 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.” (1 Cor. 7:7-9) Paul does not set an immovable rules about whether or not marriage is the best choice. It all depends on which route God wants you to take and which route allows you to glorify God the most. As Paul pointed out, he wishes that all people could be unwed individuals to devote themselves solely to God’s purposes, some people are called to do different things.
After this, Paul addresses the topic of divorce. First he looks into marriages where one is a believer but the spouse is an unbeliever. (While Paul later states in 2 Corinthians 6:14 that, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” It is not at all unusual for a person to become a believer after they have been married while the other spouse is still not a believer.) Paul instructs the believer not to divorce their spouse if their spouse is willing to live with them. (1 Cor. 7:12-13) If the spouse of the believer decides to divorce the believer there is not much that the believer can do. But in all cases, divorce must be avoided.
When the Pharisees asked Jesus, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” In Matthew 19, He answered, “‘Haven’t you read,’ he replied, ‘that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.’” (Matt. 19: 4-6) Thus, divorce is not at all what God intended. It is the duty of the believer to minister to the unbelieving spouse in order to avoid a divided house.
But there’s a problem: According to Pew Research Center, 4 in 10 Americans believe marriage is “obsolete.” Interestingly enough, more than 4 in 10 children are born to unwed mothers. Two thirds of single mothers would be almost immediately lifted out of poverty if they married the actual father of their child. Also, the idea that marriage is becoming obsolete is not just something people are saying but it is also being demonstrated. In the year 1960, 7 in 10 adults were married. In 2008, 5 in 10 adults were married.
The National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) found that the percentage of teenage males who agree with the statement, “It is OK for an unmarried female to have a child,” has gone up from 50% to 64% since 2002. And the percentage of teenage females who agree with that statement is even higher, almost 71%. But what does the NSFG mean by “okay”?
A child growing up in a divorced family is four times more likely to try an illicit drug by the age of 14 than a child brought up in an intact family. The annual Partnership Attitude Tracking Study (PATS) shows alarming rates of abuse of alcohol and drugs among teenagers.
This is why God forbids adultery. This is why God forbids sexual immorality. This is why so many societies crumble into pieces. This is why God wants marriages to remain intact.
God doesn’t just make this stuff up. Children brought up in intact families are not only much less likely to smoke, drink or use drugs, have behavioral problems, engage promiscuity and be unwed parents themselves; but intact families also lead to less poverty, make them less likely to end up in jail and more likely to be upstanding citizens. Intact families also lead to increases high school graduation rates, grades, literacy and future marital success.
So what are we doing? Where have all the Christians gone? I thought America was supposed to be a “Christian nation”? The society is going to kill itself around you if you don’t proclaim the truth of God. Apparently living in your own little “comfortable” world and trying to obey God “for yourself” is not enough. We must proclaim the truth.
-Ben
Devotional: 1 Corinthians 7
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