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The Harvester Podcast is brought to you by the Florida School of Preaching. Listen weekly to take a dive into biblical topics and thoughtful studies on things that matter to our eternal souls.
Welcome to the Harvester podcast.
We are glad you are joining us today as we end our fourth season, and this season has been
entitled, The Expediences of Marriage, a Study of 1 Corinthians 7.
I am one of your hosts, Brian Kenyon, and with me is...
And we come to you from Lakeland, Florida...
Both of us are with the South Florida Avenue Church of Christ and we both teach at the
Florida School of Preaching.
And so as we have been uh speaking on this subject of 1 Corinthians 7 throughout this
season, we thought it would be good just to have a summary of the chapter for this final
episode in the season, episode 10.
And so when we think about marriage, and of course as we began the first two episodes, we
actually spent a lot of time in God's
foundational teachings of marriage found in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, 18-25, where God
realized that, well, of course, He didn't realize anything.
He knew all along, but He let us know that it's not good for the man to be alone, so I
will make a help meet for him.
And then in verses 19-23, He makes a help meet for Adam, and that help meet was Eve.
And then He summarized that in Genesis 2, 24.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and they too
shall be one flesh." And they were both naked, the man and the wife, in the garden.
And of course that was before sin came in.
So we spent some time looking at that and then going to Matthew 19, where Jesus addresses
that, and in Matthew 19, 3 through 12, in verse 7, Deuteronomy 24 comes up about Moses
commanding to give a writing of divorcement and then Jesus answers that and so we looked
at Matthew 19 as well as Deuteronomy 24 in episode number 2.
And so today again we're just going to summarize this.
Now Stephen, we do know that Paul, we've observed this before, that Paul just naturally
outlines this chapter as he writes.
Yeah, that's one of the neat things about this chapter in particular ah is that he would
give, you know, now to this person, now to this person, now to this to demonstrate, hey,
here's kind of a shift in focus.
I want to just for one second just backtrack and catch something that you pointed out in
the book of Genesis.
When chapter two closes, I love that verse because it ends with, were both naked in the
garden and they were not ashamed.
which demonstrates when God created marriage the way it was supposed to, there is no shame
to be found, there is no embarrassment to be found, there's nothing bad, nasty, wrong, any
of those things.
It's the perfect scenario.
You have a man, you have a woman, their relationship is ordained by God, you have the
right participants, you have the mind and union, they became one flesh together, neither
one of them, obviously they couldn't be, but neither one of them was fed to another
relationship or anything like that, and that is the scenario.
That is the prototype that you'll find exemplified throughout the rest of scripture.
So that's the prototype that you'll see Jesus and Paul kind of harken back to whenever
marriage is mentioned, that particular scenario where there is to be no shame found in
marriage.
I just love how that chapter closes.
and I think that's a good point too, that God's intent for the home, that there was peace
and harmony in that home.
And of course, the very next verse, we're introduced to the serpent that was more subtle
than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made.
And so the only thing that messes up the home is sin.
And so sin hadn't come on the scene yet in Genesis 2.25, it was soon to come in chapter 3.
But yes, God
created and ordained that marriage and he wants our homes to be at peace as well.
So that's a very good point.
And so as we go through these, we're just kind of going to summarize 1st Corinthians 7,
but we're going to make some practical applications as we go along.
And so Stephen, what is the first section that we're going to look at here?
In these first five verses or so, again as you mentioned, Paul gives ah kind of an
introduction if you will.
He says, concerning the things wherever I wrote unto you, it's good for a man not to touch
a woman.
it's kind of as though he said, okay, if you're going to choose marriage, here are some
parameters for you.
So initially it's like, okay, ah it's good not to touch a woman.
Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife.
And so he's
he kind of sets the stage initially with, here is how that relationship is supposed to
function.
If you're going to touch, which would be potentially a euphemism for the relationship, the
intimate, let's say, romantic relationship, here is how it's to be done.
It's not just arbitrary and for fun.
It's to be governed.
And the way he says it, let every man have his own wife and every woman have her own
husband, which is self-explanatory.
This is 224.
Goes right back to the beginning, yeah.
And he also lets us know in this section that uh in that relationship we have a uh
scenario where we owe one another something.
You know, we're bound to each other and there's something that we owe and so, and I love
the way it's phrased, very poetic for King James, know, let the husband render due
benevolence and also the wife to her husband.
And then noting that, um
neither one has power over their own body.
We belong to each other being one flesh together.
And when we use, uh I'll just use the term, romantic intimacy, when we weaponize it and we
try to withhold that, then we are, he uses the term uh defraud in verse five.
We are literally cheating our spouse out of that which they're owed.
And so he kinda helps us to see if we're gonna be, if we choose to accept and
take part in this relationship of marriage, there are regulations for it.
You know, we're not our own and we owe each other something.
Yes, and that's one thing we pointed out with 1 Corinthians 7, it's really not so much who
to marry as it is when to marry.
And of course, we'll talk about there's a present distress going on in Corinth at the time
when Paul writes this, that his advice is God-inspired advice and instruction is to remain
single.
But, you know, even if you choose to marry, you have not sinned.
But he says it's better to remain single.
In fact, uh we just mentioned
Verse 2, nevertheless, because of sexual immorality or to avoid fornication, some
translations have, he says, get married.
In verse 9, if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry.
And then also in verses 28, but even if you do marry, you have not sinned.
And if a virgin marries, she has not sinned.
And then verse 36, at the end there, he does not sin, let them marry.
and then at the end of verse or the beginning of verse thirty eight he who gives her in
marriage does well and then in verse thirty nine the widow she is at liberty oh to be
married to whom she will and so there are situations even in this context where paul says
marry even though he says better to choose not to marry at the time because of the present
distress and so you marriage is a choice and uh...
you know not everyone
is built internally for remaining single.
Verse 6 he says, "'But this I say as a concession, not as a commandment, for I wish that
all men were even as I myself, but each one has his own gift from God.'" And so it seems
to indicate here that Paul is speaking of his ability to remain single as a gift from God,
one in this manner, another in that manner.
So not everybody has the gift, and that doesn't
excuse us to go ahead and sin, just because we're not set up for that, but it does say
that some people are more suitable to um remain single than others.
I just thought quickly of Matthew 19 and 11 where Jesus said for the sake of the kingdom
some men would become eunuchs and so some people will choose to withhold themselves ah so
that they can inherit the kingdom.
ah Another thing that I just thought about as we reading this, again going back to
Genesis, you have this beautiful, perfect, utopian style situation and what assaults the
marriage?
I know it's kind of a large-scale scene that we're looking at, but it's an assault on the
marriage.
Sin comes in.
There's a temptation.
And in this text, where does Paul start?
Nevertheless, to avoid sin, fornication.
At the end of verse 5, he says that Satan tempts you not for your incontinency.
And so in these situations, I think just for the application's sake, if we're listening to
this and we're saying, hey, how can I take these verses and apply them to my marriage?
There's going to be internal stuff that we have to deal with.
I've got
my personalities and all those things, my wife has her own and we're trying to work them
out.
But also, man, there's external stuff.
There are things that can just happen to the marriage.
There are some factors that we have to be careful of and cautious about.
He says avoiding fornication, Satan, temchinat.
There we've got to be so careful and prayerful in our marriages to not allow uh lust or...
even incontinency as he's saying, know, depriving one another, even if it's saying for
prayer's sake.
I can't even do that.
That is such an important aspect of the relationship.
I can't even say, you know what, I'm gonna read my Bible every night to my wife, you know,
I can't tell her I'm gonna read my Bible every night, so I'm not going to, you know,
engage in relations with you for a year because I'm gonna read my Bible, you know.
That's where Satan comes in.
the, the fast, all of the facets of marriage.
love, unity, forgiveness, encouragement, everything you can think of, including the
intimacy that belongs in marriage.
They have to be there in place because without all those building blocks there, according
to the scriptures, Satan can come in.
Which also means that, or at least I think it may imply that he's watching and lurking
around marriages.
You've got to be careful.
Yep, if he can destroy the home, he can destroy a lot of things at the foundation of that.
And I was thinking of the passage that's three times in uh Song of Solomon, you know, do
not awaken love before it's time.
It's strong, especially that intimate relationship is really strong.
And so that's why verses three through five are so important that we fulfill that, husband
and wife fulfill that in each other so that the marriage can be stable and peaceful as God
intended it to be.
Alright, so the next section we have here.
where he goes now is, I think you already touched on it, though he talks about being
unmarried in like seven, really, six or seven, going through verse nine.
And verse nine actually, as you mentioned, kind of calls back up to where we began, where
it's better to marry than to burn.
It's okay to be single.
There are blessings in singing.
He says everybody would be just like me.
ah But again, he knows everybody's not going to be able to do that.
So if you can't, that's fine.
ah But it's good if you can abide like him.
But if you can't, then go ahead and marry him.
And then he switches gears after that.
So there's this idea, if you choose to be married, you know, those first five verses, then
what about if I choose to be unmarried?
There's some things that I need to be aware of.
But I love how even at the end of choosing to be unmarried, it's kind of this reminder.
But know yourself.
and go ahead and get married if that's what you need.
ah And so I love that it's inspired instruction, but it's inspired instruction that seems
to give the heart of the psychology of mankind.
Romantic intimacy is important to a lot of people, and it's something that got designed
for us to uh care about and to desire, and it has a place.
Now some of us may be able to kind of put the reins and the bridle on the horse, so to
speak, but some of us cannot, and so if that's the case, it's okay.
take care of it the proper way and go ahead and get married.
So he kind of gives us uh the blessing of being single, but also the out if we can't
handle it.
And that's a very good point.
And again, marriage is just so important, the foundation of human existence in a lot of
ways.
All right, so the next area then.
In verse number 10, ah what about departure?
So what happens if the marriage, I guess, may begin to deteriorate?
What do we do in that case?
We have verses 10 and 11 where he says, to the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord,
let not the wife depart from her husband.
But, and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband, and let
not the husband put away his wife.
So here he kind of uh regulates departure, and this kind of goes uh
kind of hand in hand where God wants marriages to maintain.
He wants us to stay married.
But then knowing that that won't always be the case, there's regulation on it.
And this kind of goes hand in hand with Jesus talked about in Matthew 19, there are
regulations even on departure.
You can't just do whatever you want when you want how you want.
And, uh, of course he says, let, let her depart.
Uh, well, verse 11, if she departs, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her
husband.
And a husband is not to divorce or put away his wife.
And so, you know, departure does happen.
And of course, in that case, they only have two options.
The departing spouse has two options remain unmarried as if you're unmarried or be
reconciled to your husband.
And then the husband, uh, this.
that remains in the marriage, he is not to divorce his wife or put her away.
And so we see that the mere departure of a spouse is not giving grounds for a divorce.
Now of course, if fornication is involved, then other passions would kick in, like Matthew
19, but that's not contemplated here.
That's where he, where he kind of starts his new section, he introduces another category
where he says, but to the rest speak I and not the Lord.
Yeah, and the rest from the context is a Christian married to a non-Christian.
Christian with an unbeliever because again, it's as though Paul is looking at the culture
of the world, culture in Corinth, maybe some of the questions that were asked him and he's
giving some instruction.
Hey, what about these groups?
What about those groups?
Because there would have been people who maybe one spouse would have uh obeyed the gospel
and the other had not.
Timothy's parents seem to fall into that category also.
One uh Christian, one Gentile.
And so that would have needed to be talked about, understood so people could know, how
should we handle this?
Yes, and verse 12 also, notice he says, to the rest I not the Lord say, if a brother or
sister.
And so the Lord, and we addressed this in one of the earlier podcasts in episode number
five, but the Lord, uh you know, didn't say, didn't teach anything about people who were
separating, you know, separating.
And of course, here it's uh Christians married and non-Christian,
But notice the wife, for example, in verse 12, if a brother has a wife who does not
believe.
And then in verse 14, or excuse me, verse 13, and a woman who has a husband who does not
believe.
But in both those verses it says if that unbeliever is willing to stay in the marriage,
then no separation needs to take place.
Because, you know, marriage is marriage, whether one's Christian, one's a non-Christian,
it's still marriage.
Because again, as we said before,
Marriage is not a Church of Christ thing or a Law Moses thing.
It's a human institution.
It's for all humanity.
Right.
And this also, we went into a little bit more depth in this, and I think it was episode
five where we talked about this section, when he says to the rest speak, I am not the
Lord, this is not Paul being presumptuous.
This is Paul acknowledging that this was something Jesus just didn't address specifically
and precisely in his public preaching and ministry.
But inspired speakers don't speak presumptuously, not even the Holy Spirit.
Jesus even said the Holy Spirit will not speak of himself.
And so there were no inspired writers who had the
kind of the maverick sort of card they can play and go out on their own and say the things
they want to say.
Yep, and so it does show here that there is authority, Bible authority, for Christians to
be married to non-Christians.
But sometimes uh departure occurs, and so in verse 15 of that, and we had a whole episode
on that, episode number six, dealing with that so-called Pauline privilege, that in verse
15, if the unbelieving departs,
let him depart, a brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called
us to peace." And we notice there that the under bondage here is not giving, you know,
another reason for divorce and remarriage, as some teach in what they call the Pauline
privilege.
And we notice that under bondage here is from a totally different Greek word than what we
find, for example, in verse 27.
where Paul says, you bound to a wife?
Or verse 39, where he says, a wife is bound by the law as long as her husband lives.
Or even in Romans 7, verse 2, where a similar statement is, a wife is bound by the laws as
long as her husband lives.
Under bondage in verse 12 is the word for enslaved.
And I believe the New American Standard translates it that way in verse 15 here.
A brother or sister is not enslaved in such cases.
The word deo is the word used in the other passages referring to the marriage bond, and
that word means to be bound together like with straps or something.
And we have an expression in our culture, tying the knot.
It may go back to that very thing that, know, bound, marriage is a bond.
It's a tied knot between a husband and a wife.
This section just kind of going back up just a little bit when he talked about being with
your spouse in verses 12 and 13, going into this a little bit farther, the Christian, his
dedication to God and his dedication to marriage,
should not be fickle.
you know, as you look at this, okay, being married to an unbeliever, yes, you can still be
devoted to God, but it shouldn't be that you're looking to just jump out of the marriage
just because the person is a Christian.
I love how the responsibility is on the believer to acknowledge what the unbeliever does.
So if the unbeliever is like, hey, you know what, I'm gonna stick it out with you, then
the believer's responsibility is to continue to honor God as best they can in that
marriage they chose to be in, ah whether you're the husband or the wife.
if you've got an unbelieving spouse ah and that spouse is happy to stay in that
relationship, then you still honor God the best way you can even in that relationship,
which is, I guess can be challenging perhaps for some, but it's still an evangelistic
opportunity.
And I love that he says, listen, your job is not to depart and to leave.
You're not under bondage to that spouse to either force them or to leave with them or any
of sort of thing.
But God has called us to peace.
And in that last,
part of this section that we're kind of how we've outlined it and looking at it in verse
16 he's saying listen by staying in here by being peaceful by honoring God in the marriage
by being the husband and wife that you should be according to God that we can read about
in other passages how you live as a husband and how you live as a wife you might just help
to convert that soul which shows the value of the marriage also it is also to be
evangelistic
Yes, and in 1 Peter 3, of course, he talks about that quite extensively, that the woman
can, without a word being spoken, can win her husband over just by her actions.
And so that's a very good point as well.
And I might just throw this in there that even after a spouse is converted, and if both
spouses are Christians, it's still evangelistic in nature.
We should still be seeking to build up and encourage our spouses so they can stay the
course.
That doesn't stop when the person hits the water.
It should continue every single day throughout the marriage.
Yeah, in fact, one of the important things about marriage is each spouse is to help the
other one get to heaven.
And that doesn't stop until death do us part.
That's it.
I try to every time I have, you know, facilitated a wedding to mention that.
That, you know, it's not just better, worse, poorer, sickest health, you know, those sorts
of things.
Though those are important, you know, the job, the role, the responsibility is to help
your spouse get to heaven.
That's one of the things, you know, is to love Jesus before you even love your spouse.
To love the Lord more and more fervently than you love the spouse.
But
Ultimately, it's not just my job isn't just to make sure that my wife is happy, though
that's part of it.
Or to make sure she's got flowers every week, though that's at least part that I take on.
Or the garbage is out and all that kind of stuff.
if she never has a big ring or never goes on a vacation or never has a pretty dress, but
she makes it to heaven and we get there together, then it has all been worth it.
Absolutely, absolute victory, that's perfect word.
Alright, then we have these verses 17 through 24, which at first glance kind of seem out
of place.
It doesn't mention anything about marriage in those verses.
However, when you look at how verses 15 and 16 play out, that if an unbeliever departs,
let him depart.
A brother or sister is not enslaved in such cases, but God has called us to peace.
You know, there, and I've seen this in my observation of some brethren in some areas of
the country, that
you know, person whose wife has left him, they almost like get treated like second
citizens of the kingdom.
And so they are kind of shunned, maybe not allowed to participate in public worship
anymore or whatever.
And I'm talking about the innocent of fornication spouse sometimes, where a spouse has
left out and committed fornication and even scripturally divorced people.
uh You know, things are getting better, I think, over the years, but uh
these verses it seems like address that, that just because somebody's spouse has left
doesn't mean that he or she cannot glorify God in that state.
Now of course we have to qualify that, you know, just, you know, any marital state, but as
long as he is following God's Word, even divorced people can glorify God in their lives.
And so he starts out, you know, as
God has distributed each one as the Lord has called each one so let him walk.
And of course this is not saying that sinful activities are acceptable.
not just saying, well I mean, the total teaching of the Bible put together, it's not just
saying a person can be a homosexual and remain a homosexual or a thief and remain a thief,
but the examples that he gives here, know, person who's uncircumcised versus circumcised.
He can serve God whatever capacity, whatever his situation is there.
Yeah, these are, as you mentioned, this is not talking about whether you're righteous or
unrighteous.
These are, as we might use the terms, these are more social and cultural uh statuses where
a person will find themselves.
uh you know, some might try to extrapolate this to mean all kinds of things.
Well, since he said this, you know, that means I can have a throuple marriage or, you
know, I can be married to four people or, you know, whatever.
But this is not that.
He's talking about some social things.
Look at some of the things he mentioned.
ah circumcised or circumcised, those things don't mean anything.
Are you a servant or are free?
So if you're a servant, socially, you can still have a perfectly fine marriage.
You can still honor God through your marriage.
Or if one is a cultural Jew and one is not, you can still honor God through your marriage.
And so those uh kinds of lines of separation that you might find socially or culturally,
those don't...
determine whether or not a marriage can still honor the Lord as long as you're fulfilling
what he has determined to be right.
Yes, and that's another beautiful thing about marriage that we kind of mentioned at the
beginning, that, you know, God's law in marriage allows for all kinds of different
situations.
Of course, we still have to follow God's Word, but I mean, there's no situation in a
marriage as long as we're following God's Word that we cannot glorify Him.
And that, think, is why these verses are here in the middle of this discussion about
marriage.
Absolutely, and I love how verse 22 and 23 read, because you might say, well man, look,
I'm a slave and my spouse is free, or I'm free and they're a slave, but says, for he that
is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's free man.
You think about that, well, socially I am a slave, but in Christ I'm set free from sin.
But then he says, likewise also he that is called being free is Christ's servant.
You may say, well look, I'm not socially a slave, I'm not in.
I do anything to yeah, but I am Christ's bond servant.
And so whatever the case, there's no way to look up or down on your social status.
It's what am I in Christ?
And I can still honor Christ no matter what.
Yes, and there's also a key in verse 23 as well where he says, were bought at a price, do
not become slaves of men.
And that becomes slaves is, you know, that's a good commentary on verse 15 where he says,
if an unbeliever departs, let him depart.
A brother or sister is not enslaved, is not under bondage in such cases.
And so that, you know, just because one spouse leaves doesn't mean the other spouse is
enslaved to that decision to
for him also to get out of the marriage any more so than he says there in verse 23, you
were bought at a price, do not become the slaves of men.
We need to continue to serve God and be the slaves of God.
know, Romans 16 through 18, you were made from the heart, that form of doctrine, you've
been made free from sin, having become the servants of righteousness.
So as long as we're serving righteousness, then, you know,
we will not be slaves of men.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I like that how you talked about there'd be a perfect commentary on that term,
bondage, in verse 15.
I don't guess I'd ever noticed that until you just now mentioned that.
But we are all indebted to Christ, and ultimately when we look at these verses,
They all should kind of call us back to what is our responsibility, know, married or
unmarried.
My ultimate responsibility is to my Lord.
Whether I'm married to a believer or an unbeliever, my responsibility is to the Lord.
Whether I've been divorced or not, my responsibility is to the Lord.
And all these things, if a person were to say, okay, let's sum all this up, I'm walking
away, what do I walk away with from these sections of scripture is no matter what my
marital situation is and why it is and all those sorts of things, I have to honor God.
that's my first allegiance.
And so if I'm honoring God, I won't put away my wife for any reason except if it be for
fornication, I could do that.
If I'm honoring God, I won't withhold myself.
If I'm honoring God, I won't look down on whether or not he or she, or a woman, or man,
she, or their spouse, is in any kind of social or cultural situation in those next
sections.
And so all of it is just how can I honor God through marriage or singleness for that
matter?
Yep, very good.
And then the next section here, verse 25 through 28, at least 25 through 28, and, you
know, going to some other things, but here it's concerning virgins, those who have never
been married.
And of course, Paul again stresses the presence of stress in verse 26, and that's why he
would say, you know, I give my judgment as one whom the Lord
in his mercy has made trustworthy.
That is, Paul's judgment in this situation is to remain single in this present distress,
but if you're already married, do not seek to be loosed.
You know, do not divorce.
But he's just simply saying it's better to put off marriage in the present circumstances
than to have to deal with a wife and then later on family in these circumstances.
And of course, I like to compare it to preaching school as I did in uh earlier episode.
It's a lot easier for a single student without a wife or children to raise support and to
concentrate on school than it is a married person with children.
And of course when I came I was married with two small children and it was very difficult.
Of course we made it through alright by the grace of God and we're thankful for that.
But just a comparison, you know, if you're just going through something yourself and you
have only your mouth to feed and your
back to put clothes on, it's a lot easier.
so with marriage, and in this section he does talk about cares of the world, et cetera,
and as we looked at this in the episode, that term there is talking about earthly temporal
concerns.
And of course marriage is just a this world relationship, but yet, even though it's a this
world relationship, it's still to track sometimes in our spirituality.
Yeah, everything.
a spouse, a husband or wife, being a parent is just like bandwidth.
You know, if you think about with the TV or radio or, you know, water coming from a hose,
if you divert some of that water coming out of a hose, you still have a lot going the
other way, but then it's not 100 % of what it was.
And so some of the attention is just going to be diverted.
Very good, yes.
And that's a good illustration, the bandwidth.
I like that bandwidth illustration.
And then we have another situation in verses 36 through 38 about fathers who have
daughters that are of marriageable age.
And we talked about this in earlier episode, episode number eight, about some translations
have this as a fiance in verse 36, but if any man
thinks he is behaving improperly toward his virgin.
They'll have that fiance, but in the first century setting, you know, it was the fathers
of these women who made the decisions.
And that's true in some places of the world, even to date.
as you mentioned, there are some cultures that exist today that still have someone to kind
of be a spokesperson in relationships.
As I mentioned, think last week, I don't if this was before we started or after we
started.
a couple of episodes ago where I have a peer who lives in Nigeria and when he wanted to
approach a young lady, he had to talk through her family.
And I believe the father was deceased, and so he wrote letters to her uncles, and they
presented him with a dowry list.
And I think I showed it to you, we talked through it.
And it was a very extensive list, but it went through those men.
And they had to kind of give their stamp of approval for her to be able to be married.
So this likely is kind of right along those same cultural lines.
Yeah, I was in Africa one time and uh we were talking to a lady.
She was a sister in Christ.
We were just talking, just trying to find out the culture on marriage and stuff.
And even though she was 51 years old at the time, 51 years old, she still had to check
with her dad or uncles.
If her dad was deceased, still had to check with them to get permission to even date or
see a guy.
And of course, Western influence has gone over there quite a bit, but out in the villages
and stuff, it's still that way.
And so here is a man.
He behaves improperly toward his version, if she is past the flower of youth, that
expression there, and that's the idea of being of marriageable age, and thus it must be,
let him do what he wishes.
He does not sin, let them marry.
And I think there's tremendous application here to parents that sometimes we can be too
overbearing on our daughters that we can do more damage than good.
However, he does mention a second person in verse 37, Nevertheless, he who stands
steadfast in his heart, having no necessity, but has power over his own will, and has so
determined in his heart, let him keep his virgin, he does well.
And then he summarizes this, and we spent some time on this in the episode before, episode
eight.
So he who gives her in marriage does well, but he who does not give her in marriage does
better.
And so there is a well and a better.
Both are scriptural, but again, the expediency of marriage is in play here.
And both of them are good options.
That's the part, you went into a little bit more detail in the other episode, but neither
one these are bad.
It's just a good and a better option.
And so we should not look down on a person for taking the good.
ah That is an option that is scriptural, that's authorized by God, ordained by God, and
approved by God.
Yep, and then he closes out in verse 39 and 40, and this is probably the second most
controversial verses in the chapter besides verse 15, and that is the widow marrying who
she will only in the Lord.
And as we looked at that last episode, know, in the Lord is one thing, and it, you know,
can mean a Christian, can refer to an adverb about commandments, you know, children obey
their parents in the Lord.
and it's not saying that only for parents are Christians, but it's saying obey them only
if their commands are within scripture.
But the word only in this phrase makes a difference.
Only.
It's not just in the Lord, but only in the Lord.
one lexicon tells us, and others do as well, but I didn't check on all of them, but uh the
adjective, usually an adjective, the word only is in the neuter case,
but the whom she wishes is masculine and so Bauer, Art and Gingrich say that when a
Adjective is in the neuter, but there's no neuter antecedent Then it is being used as an
adverb Modifying in this case the act of marriage rather than the whom of marriage and so
a widow Can only marry someone who is eligible in God's eyes for marriage and that would
be a single person
person whose spouse has died or a person who is innocent in a instant of fornication in a
scriptural divorce Those are the only kind are the only types of people that God allows to
to marry
Yeah, if there's an individual who's curious about this section or this phrase in verse
39, I would strongly encourage you to go back.
Was that episode seven or eight?
Nine.
Episode nine.
Go back to episode nine and listen to that where Brian went into a lot more detail.
I think that was really neat that you were able to bring out some of the nuance in the
language that kind of restricts
Certain things I mean the language only means what the language means and so based on some
of the nuance of the Greek It helps to understand that a little bit more So if a person's
kind of curious about that would really really really recommend going back where you went
into a lot more detail about that good stuff
Alright, so that's the summary of 1 Corinthians chapter 7, and again we spent uh several
episodes talking about this, and this is sure to be uh a good resource to go back and
listen to over and over again, especially as you study 1 Corinthians 7.
Because there's a lot of things that we hear taught from this chapter, but yet as we see
from the context, they just don't square with the context and or the total teaching of the
Bible.
Well, we've enjoyed
this season for a kind of a shorter season just ten episodes in this season be looking for
us ahead of time we're gonna start a series or a season number five on practical lessons
from the minor profits and we look forward to that
That's good stuff.
I'm really looking forward to that.
I would encourage everybody to go back to this season and go back and listen.
If you have questions and things like that, we'd be happy to hear it.
But these chapters need to be discussed, need to be studied, need to combed through so you
can have a good understanding.
And also, I like what you said that if we're going to try to understand a doctrine, we
should look at what the Bible teaches as a whole.
Because usually there's more in the context of the Scriptures as a whole.
And so just grabbing a verse and up.
know everything about it based on this one verse only.
So go back and look at the total teaching of the Bible on a particular topic ah and then
you can get a better handle on what the Bible teaches on it.
Yep, very good.
So we appreciate your listening.
And again, we look forward to hearing from you.
Your feedback will be much welcome.
And so look for us for the next season, season number five, and we'll see you there.