What should I do?
1 Corinthians 7:10-24 · Vern Peterman · Sep 27, 2009
1 & 2 Corinthians, No. 16
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926144245784

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. As we step into this passage here, one of the things to keep in mind was what we covered last week, the first nine verses of the passage, and basically what the Corinthians had presented in a question in a series of written questions, actually, to Paul, was this idea, it is better for a man not to touch a woman.

And so they had begun carrying out this kind of teaching and philosophy among the people in the church, and essentially this entire chapter is correcting that misunderstanding. Even here at Holly Hills, we've had people who have come from maybe churches where they've been taught what's better for man not to touch a woman, so they've stepped away from marriage or even wondered if they should be. And so that's a part of our perspective here. Part of what we looked at last week too was Paul's, in his correction of that, saying no, no, there is a gift of marriage and there is a gift of singleness and a place for each. And it is even possible, as we mentioned last week, that a person may have a gift of marriage at one stage in their life and then at another stage in their life be gifted with singleness. So that's possible. So this teaching here, as we step into these verses, had been carried forward to the next step. Well, if it's better for man not to touch a woman, then not only should we not get married, but the people who are married should get unmarried.

Click the undo icon was what they were all trying to do. Well, not exactly, but you get the idea. Everybody was heading for the X's, looking for, how do I get out of this thing? Because after all, it's better if a man doesn't touch a woman, right? And so Paul's response to this is, you know, yellow light, whoa, slow down. Wait a minute, we need to talk about this. And so that's what he's continuing to do in this passage here, is addressing this substantial misunderstanding that they had and trying to put everything in a context. We're going to be looking at some principles and perspectives. How do you look at things? How do you see things?

That's what he's trying to get them straightened around on. Their perspectives were not correct, so he's trying to give them a correct and biblical perspective on singleness and on marriage. And so that's what he's trying to balance. As he does so, he's also going to talk about the motives and the mindset that goes along with these considerations. as they had begun this idea of don't touch a woman and began to carry that out to unwinding all their marriage relationships. What he's doing here in these passages, he is talking about how one ought to view being married and being single, and even talking about our work and our living among unbelievers. So he's talking about perspective. One of the things we're going to notice as we step through this passage is he's going to use softer language than he often does. This is my opinion. I'm telling you this as Wayne read for us. I want you to understand.

I want you to have a full devotion to the Lord. That's what this is all about. It's not to give you a bunch of rules and regulations. I want you to be people of a heart that have a full devotion to the Lord. Paul encourages hearts, our hearts in particular through this passage, toward fellowship with the Lord and focus on Him. That's ultimately what this is pointed to. One of the things we pointed out last week too is keeping things in context.

I'll give you an example. It was brought up in the Revelation class this morning. I found 14 passages in the Bible, this is the last one, that say there is no God. So from that are you going to go around and say, well the Bible teaches there is no God. Is that what you're going to conclude? Probably not, especially when you see the context. He ends the verse here, we know that there's no such thing as an idol in the world and that there is no God but one.

So it'll be important to keep what Paul says in context, in the immediate context of what he is trying to answer. Remember, the problem they had was this one of, it's better for man not to touch a woman, therefore don't get married, therefore unwind your marriages. And others were looking at, well, those people are changing, maybe I should change some things too. As if change were the answer. But it's important we look at all of what he writes, and all of what Paul writes in all of his letters, and all of what Scripture says. The whole context.

He doesn't, in this passage, provide every little exception and possible detail. He does not answer every question that we might come up with. To do that, we need to look at the rest of Scripture. God's Word does provide a lot of answers to a lot of different questions. It's just not all in this passage, and that's important to keep in mind. We shouldn't take what he says here in isolation.

So Paul's principal point here One of the key themes we'll see in this passage is that believers are not to carry around the thought that just changing their circumstances is always the answer. Kind of use the analogy, it doesn't do any good to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. Christians should not be thinking, oh, a change in circumstances, that will fix it. And he's trying to cure that problem because the believers in Corinth are apparently carrying around that idea.

Oh, I just need a change. I just need to have this circumstance instead of that one. If I can just get out of the circumstance I'm in and get into the other circumstance, then everything will be fine. He wants to correct that and to get them to understand, no, no, the Lord may well indeed want you to remain where you're at.

Certainly, there are times when we do need to change circumstances. And certainly, that's what we ought to do when it's the appropriate time. But the difficulty comes when people place their hope in just changing the circumstance. Once we move here, that will fix it. Once I do this, that will fix it. Once I get out of this situation, that will fix it. And there may indeed be good and valid reasons to make changes.

But he's saying, wait a minute, wait a minute. Just be careful that we're not placing our hope in just changing things, just changing the circumstances. And by the way, I'm not making any political comment. Okay. Our ultimate hope is to be in the Lord. Okay?

Our ultimate hope is to be in the Lord, not in circumstances. Our ultimate hope is to be in the Lord. What Paul spells out to Timothy, excuse me, Titus, he talks about the blessed hope, the blessed hope when we see him, when he calls us home and takes us to be face to face with him. That's the blessed hope. Face to face.

Our ultimate hope is to be in the Lord, not in, ah, when this circumstance is better, then everything will be OK. When this circumstance is changed to the way I like it, then I'll have peace. If we can just change the circumstance, then I'll love that person. He says, no, that's not the answer. Just changing the circumstances is not the quick fix.

As we step into verses 10 through 16, He tells them that the believers ought to remain in their marriages. Because remember the mindset that they had, if it's better for a man not to touch a woman, and I'm sure it was vice versa, if it's better for a man not to touch a woman, then let's get out of the marriages because those are no good. And he says, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, not so fast. God did indeed establish marriage from the very beginning. He says that they ought to remain in their marriages even if one is married to an unbeliever. Even if one is married to an unbeliever, remain in the marriage. Both Paul and Christ address when a divorce is allowed. Notice I use allowed, but not commanded. They both give instruction on that. I think there's very little of that kind of instruction in this letter.

One of the reasons for remaining in the marriages with an unbeliever is for the sake of the children, he spells out in this passage, and that the unbeliever might be saved. The way he puts it in this passage, there is a special grace in the marriage relationship and in the family if there is but one believer in the family. Just one. Just one. There's a special grace upon that family. Certainly there is this.

There is the opportunity that the others in the family might see the Lord and come to the Lord because of the one believer. So he says, just because you're the only believer in the family, and certainly that creates some issues. He says, that's not time to bail. Stick it out for the sake of them. The Lord has a special grace in that situation where there is but one believer in the family.

In the culture of the Roman Empire, certainly a pagan culture, divorce was common and it was easy. We have one account, for example, of a Roman general who was getting a divorce and all his friends said, what are you getting a divorce for? She is a gorgeous woman. She is very nice.

And he says, He pulled off his shoe, and he said, see this shoe? You don't know where it pinches me. So, no, I'm going to make a change. And he put his shoe back on. It was very common, and it was just, I want a different situation. And it was easily done.

Even among the Jews, a man was expected, it was considered obedient to the law, to divorce his wife if she did not bear children. This is another one of those Jewish traditions where they took the Be Fruitful and Multiply as a law, and as we see happening in the Bible, the tendency was to build traditions that favored the man and leaned against the woman. The woman was the one who was to be rejected because they hadn't had a baby yet. That was the Jewish pattern. In the pagan culture, it was expected that the wife would follow the religion of the husband, and certainly in the Jewish culture as well.

Anything else was considered a domestic rebellion. What? You're not going to follow the same gods I decided to follow? That's terrible. It's like an insurrection. It was the expectation, and failure to do so would be thought of as basis for divorce. Paul, however, counseled them to live by biblical principles and not cultural norms. The Jews' tradition of, she must get pregnant within a certain period of time, and I think the rule of thumb was about 10 years or less, or else you need to divorce her and find someone who will help you be fruitful and multiply. Assuming that the woman is the problem. Wrongfully so. Or, among the Romans, if anything didn't please them, they would just say, I'm out of here. I'm done.

Paul says, no, you need to recognize that marriage is something that God instituted. And it's a relationship that you should not bail out of without due thought and reason. Now we have a question. Should a believer marry an unbeliever? Should they? What do you think? Should we take a vote? Well, maybe not. Paul does address the case here where a believer is married to an unbeliever, but we have this question. Is it ever biblical for a believer to marry an unbeliever?

Nancy was in a gathering of ladies from a church where I think there was something like 10 ladies sitting around the table. And she took the stand that no believer should not marry an unbeliever. And all the ladies, though Christians, disagreed with her. She was the only one that took the stand.

Christians will sometimes justify it on the basis of, see this person married an unbeliever and the person who they married became a believer later on. So does that make it right? Well, I believe not. And the reason is because God is gracious does not justify the initial action. The cases where a believer is married to an unbeliever that are discussed in scripture are from marriages where there were two unbelievers and one of them becomes to believe in Christ.

Paul says, however, this is 2 Corinthians 6, Lord willing we'll get there, not to be bound together with unbelievers. And the literal meaning, as is carried out in the King James Version, is don't be unequally yoked. It was a term used for taking animals of two different kinds or sometimes even just two different sizes that have a different gait and a different pattern to their walking so that the animals would frequently struggle with one another and chafe one another and in some cases injure one another and have a difficult time getting along. Paul says, don't be bound together that way. Don't be unequally yoked. with unbelievers.

Even in this very passage in verse 39, he writes this, A wife is bound as long as her husband lives, but if her husband is dead, she is free to marry to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. What does he mean by only in the Lord? He's saying there that she may only marry a believer. Only marry those who are in the Lord.

So this is another instance that fits well with the don't be unequally yoked passage. Now, one of the things that Paul is telling them is to stay. And a lot of times we hear stay, stay, we might think of somebody training a dog. He's not doing dog training here, believe me, but he is telling them stay and he's telling them stay repeatedly. Verses 17-20, Paul tells the believers to stay in the marital status and role that they were in when they were called. Stay there. Don't bail on it. Stay in that relationship.

Now, that isn't to say that believers shouldn't change anything. There is sometimes a good basis for making changes. but rather that believers should not view change as the golden key. Just because something changes doesn't mean it's better. But we have a question that comes up here.

This passage here talks about the commandments of God. What matters, and he says, is not circumcision but the commandments of God. So what's Paul writing about? Since Paul says that keeping the law of circumcision, which was given in the law of Moses, isn't something that matters, and he even gives instances of Jews trying to become uncircumcised, and in fact we have record of that happening. Jews, because they would get into public places like the bath houses and gymnasiums where the Greeks would frequently do their bathing and athletics in the nude. So Jews walking into that circumstance in order not to be seen as odd, would actually go through various kinds of anything from operation to apparatus to appear uncircumcised. But he's not talking about that. He says circumcision doesn't matter. That's not the issue.

What Paul is saying and what does matter for those in the church is not the law of Moses here, but the guidance revealed by the Lord's Apostles and those who the Apostles sponsored, for example, Luke, who are in the Church. It's those things directed to those of us in the Church.

One of the ways we've talked about these in the past is we've used the word imperatives, things that are a must, things that have to be done. These are things that are to be motivated by grace. We've used the example of describing somewhat similar to what you'll hear on some of these police and law shows. We'll talk about means, motive, and opportunity. The believer has the means by the Holy Spirit, the motive by grace, and motive by mercy, and the opportunity to listen to these things that come from the apostles, the directives from them.

Here later on in this very same book, what's Paul going to say? If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord's commandment. He is writing scripture. He is writing what God is saying to the church. And you all need to recognize that. In verses 21-24, he deals with the slaves. Now, you can imagine what had been happening.

See, the slaves were not actually given a legal recognition of marriage in the Roman Empire. So if you wanted to have a situation where you could be married or unmarried, you had to stop being a slave. And so what Paul says, well wait a minute, if you get the chance, if you get the opportunity to be freed from being a slave, then certainly do so.

But just stopping being a slave is not somehow the answer. Again, it's not just changing one's circumstances. Certainly one of the points he makes is that one's social and economic standing is not a matter that a believer ought to be deeply concerned about. from a spiritual point of view, it's not a spiritual issue. In biblical times, most slaves did not have the option of becoming free, although some did. Frequently, a slave would be freed as a reward for good service to the master. And so the possibility was there. So basically what Paul says is, if the option is there available to you, by all means, take freedom.

Choose that. But in the end, you need to discern what counts. Whatever position the Lord has called you to, whatever place the Lord has called you to, discern what really matters. Discern what counts. What really makes a difference spiritually? One of the things that's been asked of me at a few different times when someone is considering a job, particularly when they think about a job and maybe it's a move to a different location, they will ask, well, what should I do? And the first question I have is what will be the spiritual consequence of that move? What will be the spiritual consequence of taking that job? What will happen spiritually to yourself or if you're in a situation where you have a family involved, what will be the spiritual consequence to the family as a result of making this change?

And so that's, I think, the question he's really getting to. Christians need to discern what counts, what will be the consequences, and particularly what will be the spiritual consequences of making a move. So he says, essentially, it's the spiritual matters that matter. The current set of circumstances may have an influence on the decisions that we make. Yeah, and they should be considered.

And that's fine and that's right. And when Paul was writing, this was a distressing time for believers. A tough time to be a believer. We've been through a period of time where it's not been that tough in our culture to be a believer. It seems like that's starting to change though. So Paul says here, that this distressing time for believers may be one of the considerations to think about in terms of, you know, what status do I choose?

So the circumstances, yeah, consider them, but it's not the ultimate thing. The main thing that he brings out, however, is, yeah, there are circumstances that you should consider or might consider. But in the end, the big consideration is, are you making a decision with eternity in view? You see, if this life is all there is, if life is defined from birth to death and this is all there is and nothing else is going to happen and nothing else matters, then that's one set of perspectives to make decisions in this life, isn't it?

However, If what time we're spending here compared to eternity is really, really short, then better figure eternity in the picture. Right? Better figure eternity in the picture. Do you realize how short a period of time we're here compared to eternity? We're here for a very short period of time compared to eternity. What's the song when we've been there 10,000 years? Well, that's a tiny part of eternity, 10,000 years. And I don't expect to live 10,000 years. The time we have here is short.

He says, make the decisions with eternity in view. Make the decisions with the understanding of how's that going to measure when eternity is counted? When I get beyond heaven's gates, what's going to matter? When this life is over, and it'll be short, when this life is over, how's that going to impact forever?

That's the kind of question to be asking. He spells out in verses 32 through 35, those are the ones that Wayne read for us. He started talking about the motivations and the mindset of the one who is single and the one who's being married. Each of those states, if you will, singleness or marriage, have a mindset and a perspective and a motivation that go along with them. And that's just what he's trying to get people to understand. When making that choice, you're making a choice as to, for life, or for some period of years, however long the Lord has you married, there is a perspective that goes with it. Or if you're going to be single, there's a perspective that goes with that. And what he spells out here is the married believer will have more concerns about a spouse and the children and earthly circumstances than the single believer. I need to provide for my wife. I need to provide for my family. provide for this. I need to plan on that. I need to look forward to this thing and that event. And there's all these different concerns.

And does that make it bad? No. But just recognize that. One of the things I think is critical, and we've brought it up here as we've talked about marriage, is as believers As believers, those in a marriage relationship look upon, or ought to look upon, from Ephesians 5, that the marriage is the living out of the eternal romance between Christ and the Church. Having that perspective, my earthly concerns have a different weight to them.

It is possible even for the marriage to draw me to the Lord. As a matter of fact, it does. Paul is writing about the advantages of the one who is gifted with being single. We had a supplement available last week and we sent it out via email about the advantages of being single for those who are gifted with the gift of singleness.

So here in verse 35, as Wayne read for us here, this I say for your own benefit. He's telling him, here's why I'm writing this. I say this for your own benefit, not to put a restraint upon you, but to promote what is appropriate and to secure undistracted devotion to the Lord. He's telling him, I'm not writing this just to, you know, put restraints on you and make life difficult and give you a bunch of rules to live by. He says, I'm writing this for your benefit.

I'm writing this for your spiritual benefit. And I think also even emotional benefit. You need to have these perspectives in place here to promote two things. Promote what is appropriate. And then secondly, along with that, to secure undistracted devotion to the Lord. He's telling about his own motivations here, particularly as a single person. In verses 36 through 38, there's a circumstance that I would say probably for most of us doesn't hit us directly.

In biblical times, the first marriage of a son or daughter, and this is true whether you're talking about a Jewish or a Gentile wedding, typically involved the father in the arrangements for whom to marry and when to marry. And the parents would be responsible for arranging a marriage and selecting the bride or the groom and making sure that that match-up went well.

In these verses here, Paul is telling the father that it's okay for the daughter to remain unmarried or for her to be married. Both of those are good. Both of those are good choices. The Lord has a gift for each. This is to include the father in Paul's consistent marriage. Marriage and singleness are each gifts from the Lord. Either one is okay. It's a good choice. Either one. Then Paul spells out something he began earlier.

A widow is free to remarry or to remain single again. Both these are good choices and options, you just need to look at what's the motivation and the thought behind each. Earlier in the passage, what we looked at last week, he says, But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it's good for them if they remain even as I. But if they do not have self-control, let them marry, for it's better to marry than to burn with passion.

So he's spelling out the biblical fulfillment. of the passion. Then here in these final verses, a wife is bound as long as her husband lives. But if her husband is dead, she is free to be married to whom she wishes. Again, only in the Lord. She is married to whoever she wishes, but a believer. But in my opinion, she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I also have the Spirit of God. In other words, the Spirit of the Lord also laying that out as an advantage of being single. As we look at this, I come back to verse 35.

Why is he laying all this out? Why is he spelling this out? He hasn't answered all of our questions. We've got to say, yeah, but what about this? But in this circumstances, you know, he hasn't answered those. But one of the things he's trying to do in laying out these principles, laying out these perspectives, is to secure undistracted devotion to the Lord. Ultimately, what's all this spelled out for?

He says there are marriage relationships and God will grace them and bless them. There are single people and God will grace them and bless them in that state. But in the end, what really matters, what really counts, is our beholding the Lord. What really counts is our looking to Him. What really counts is our relationship with the Lord.

What's going to be the spiritual consequence of the decision that you make? Whether for singleness, or for marriage, or for moving, or anything else. What's the spiritual consequence? What's the spiritual outcome from the decision? It may be that by making a certain move or taking on a certain job, that your income could be improved. But what's the spiritual outcome? What's the spiritual consequence?

That's what needs to be thought through, right? Ultimately, he wants us to behold the Lord, to look to the Lord in these things. He wants believers to be walking in fellowship with the Lord. He says, that's really what's going to matter. And whether a person is married or single or any other issue that comes up in life, what's going to be the consequence in our fellowship with the Lord, in our relationship to Him? Let's pray. Lord, as we look at As we look at this passage, it does boil down to this one thing that counts, and that is our relationship with you. Our fellowship with you, Lord, is what counts here.

It's what counts 10 years from now or 10,000 years from now or on into eternity. And it's that fellowship with you that's going to matter. And whatever choices are before us, whether singleness or marriage or other choices in life, what will be the consequence spiritually if I do this? What will be the consequence spiritually if I don't do that? All these things, Lord, are in the end to ask the question is, how's our fellowship with you? How will it impact our fellowship with you? We pray for wisdom in these things and insight and ask that you would draw our hearts to walk in close fellowship with you. In Jesus' name, amen.