First Corinthians, 7:8-16 Specific teaching concerning Christian marriage

Oh, good morning. Nice to see everyone here. Just a reminder. So if you are zooming in or you're in person, just come for the normal 1030 service. We'll have all the festivities we have for every 1030 service. Music, messages, fellowship. Okay. All right. So let's pray and we'll get into our message here for today. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for our time today, Lord.

We thank you for the blessings we have in our Savior, and we thank you for just being able to gather, and we pray for your protection for us, Lord. Thank you for taking and caring for us, and we thank you for your love for us that never ends. Thank you for the words of the Apostle Paul that we'll be hearing about marriage. We pray that would be helpful to those who are listening. In Christ's name, amen.

Okay, so we're going to continue on in Chapter 7 of 1 Corinthians. We're going to kind of move from the general teaching about marriage, as it's been called, to more specific information about marriage and actually this is rather unique I you know I've been through this you know Mike's taught this class and first Corinthians multiple times and I've taught it at least once before but it's interesting when you go through again for another time you have a chance to look at it and it's there's really just some marvelous things in here and I have a personal vine I have a personal story to share about this as well Okay, so I want to review what we did last week. So last week, I'll just put the whole thing up here, we talked about the first five verses in 1 Corinthians chapter 7. The first area is staying single and getting married. And we learned from that the first verse talked about not touching a woman, basically not having relationships with a woman. And that's a singleness route.

And Paul promotes that route. We're going to talk about Paul's life, too. Was Paul ever married? That's one question. Keep that in mind. I have a chart just on that. Was Paul ever married? So something to look forward to here in a little bit. And then we, in chapter, in verse two we talked about God's plan for marriage, be fruitful and multiply from Genesis and we're gonna look through that again. And then we had three areas that he talked about in verses three through five. Mutual indebtedness between a married couple, a Christian married couple. The surrender of independence between the couple and avoiding separation.

So I'm going to go back and I kind of repackage some of the charts a little bit and try to make it brief. Bonnie says, this is brief, Roger. How many charts are you going to do here for review? So anyways, it's brief, briefer than last week. I'll put it that way. Okay. So here we go.

But because of immorality, each man is to have his own wife and each woman is to have her own husband. So as I did last week, I want to cover God's plan first. Each man is to have his own wife and the tense is present tense, it's a command. It's let him go on having. This is to be a thing that starts when the marriage begins and it continues on. It's a permanent view of marriage. Pointing to the continuous action and continuous obligation, Macaulay says. And the direct object is his own wife. This also again points to the fact that it's one wife, it's one man and one woman, and it's unique to him.

And we saw in Genesis, this wonderful passage in Genesis, Genesis 2.24, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. And we're gonna see that through this again here about the importance of the one flesh message between a Christian man and woman. And then lastly here, the concept of monogamy is found in the idea of his own and her own unique to each of them, to her and to him. And basically it's the same for the husband and the wife. I'm not going to repeat the one for the husband. But the husband and wife have the same responsibilities here.

But it's because, the verse starts off with, it's because of immoralities. Because of the temptation to impurity and to avoid immorality. It's what the Amplified Bible says. Marriage, the marriage union is to guard against immoralities. That's one of the important reasons. But, you know, as we know from Scripture and many of Paul's teaching, it's a picture of Christ and His church. And there's wonderful truths to be looked at and gained from that. We're going to look at those a little bit right at the very end.

And immoralities here is porneia. It's fornication, lewdness, or any sexual sin. And we saw that, you know, in a couple of verses that we studied earlier about the immorality in the church at Corinth. And then also the one that Mike taught here, flee from immorality. The immoral man sins against his own body. It's an awful, unique sin. It's something that you may not think, many people don't think it hurts them, but it does. The immoral man sins against his own body. Okay, so that's verse two. This is a review. Verse three.

The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise a wife to her husband. The verb here is must fulfill. The idea is to give, to do something necessary in fulfillment of an obligation. And the word render is a translation of this word. Many times and there's a one very well-known passage where Christ is talking and he said and he said to them Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar and to God the things that are God God's so it's it's a the husband and wife are to mutually fulfill one another then Macaulay points out the word fulfill is a Greek word that means to pay a bill or a debt in the present tense the meaning that the obligation is continuous and thus constantly being fulfilled so the marriage relationship is one of a continuous that goes on for their life.

But we're going to see, but God understands that there can be difficulties. He's going to address those as we get into the other verses here. So this mutual duty is shown in the direct object here. His or her duty. What is owed to one another. And this is a verse that uses both render and also both words here. Render to all what is due them, tax to whom tax is due, custom to whom custom is due, fear to whom fear is due, actually I'm adding in the do, it's not there, I apologize, I got kind of in the swing here, and honor to whom honor is due. And that boy just really spoke to me in terms of that's what a husband and wife should be rendering to one another, honor to one another, that's God's intent. Since the husband and wife are one flesh in the Lord, this is a mutual duty. It's not to be a burden.

And then the Amplified, actually, I'm not totally pleased with this one, but it's, is this the one? No, actually, there's another one coming up. This one's good, I like. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, goodwill, kindness, and what is due her as his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.

Okay, so that's verse three. We're moving pretty quickly here. Okay, so this is the one where I had my, let's see, this is the one, yeah, this is the one where I had my picture. Okay, so here we go. A picture with a verse. Okay. So it's important to think about, and I've kind of gone back and thought through this again a little bit more.

You know, the verse that we have here, the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise, also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. You know, that all hinges really, I think, on the fact that they are one flesh. and that they, as we know from verse 19 here, It says that, or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you're not your own? You know, when we become a believer in the Lord Jesus, we're not our own anymore. And in the same sense, when we marry, we're not our own anymore in terms of our body here.

And the picture I tried to draw here, we both are temples of the Holy Spirit, both husband and wife, a Christian husband and wife are both temples of the Holy Spirit. and they're one flesh, so the idea of giving your authority to your partner should not be a problem. You've given the Lord the authority to who you are as a believer, so he says when you join as husband and wife, you give the authority, and that authority is in love. So hopefully that picture helps.

So let's go to verse five. So verse five talks about maybe some problems that come up. It starts off, stop depriving one another. So to assume something, something's already going on, it's continuous action, something may have happened, you're depriving, you're defrauding one another. What are you defrauding each other of? And this is kind of my thought. What do a husband and wife, what can they deprive one another of?

Well, certainly of their time, of their attention, of their help. of their intimate interaction. And I'm not talking up here saying I have all these things covered. I speak from one that I learned a lot in studying this, and I learned a lot, and so it's interesting. You see a lot of, you look back and reflect on your life, your marriage, and I think we all do that as we look through scripture.

Except by agreement. And the agreement here is this idea of a symphony. It's a harmonious voice. It's to be in agreement. You are to be in agreement with this. Both of you to agree that this is the best course of action. And it's for a time. Time must be limited. And it should not be open-ended. And they kind of are kind of saying the same thing a different way. So hopefully that's helpful. Actually, I had a good comment about that after the service. Somebody said, well, that's good, that's good. So I'll plan to have an end to this, which I think is good.

So that you may devote yourself to prayer. May devote is the idea to have time or opportunity. Take time with the Lord to examine and reflect on your own personal condition. As I pointed out, this is not praying that your spouse will get his or her act together. It's praying about yourself. It's more introspective, I believe.

And come together again, the Amplified Bible has, and afterwards resume marital relation so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. Separation would involve sexual abstinence. and opens up the potential for temptation and resulting sin. So there is some danger there in separation. But in the context, Paul is presenting this, and he's gonna say in the next verse that really this is something that he has permitted or allowed, and he's an apostle, he's God's apostle, and so it's a wise instruction.

Okay, so today's verses, the first set, part one is in two sets. So the first one, he's going to talk about this idea of way of concession. I won't read it again. And then he's going to talk about, he wished all men were like himself. And then the 8th through 11th is going to talk about, in two parts, it's going to address the unmarried and the widows, in 8 and 9. And then it's going to address, in 10 and 11, it's going to address the married. Okay so let's just get into the verses here.

But I say by way of concession. So here's where Paul, so what is this referring to? I believe it's referring back to the previous verse about the agreement to separate for a time. He's saying, Paul's saying that he's given this Paul did not command that this separation take place, but allowed it for a time period to address what was ongoing. And Constable says he did not command abstinence, but he viewed regular marital relations as a norm. So Paul realized that interrupting that danger, but he thought that it was wise to assess the situation, to be in accord.

And so here's where Paul, it's interesting, Paul's going to, we'll get into the point about was he married here shortly. But I wish that all men were even as I am. The word I wish introduces the desire of Paul that the single life be pursued. But he puts a caveat in that, he realizes that that's not for all men and women.

He says, each man has his own gift from God. And this is interesting that word gift, you know we're going to later on in chapter 12 we're going to be looking at spiritual gifts. And what's interesting is this gift, talking about each man has his own gift from God in terms of marriage, is not really usually listed in chapter 12. You know those are If you went to chapter 12 you'd see there'd be things like giving is a gift, evangelism, mercy, teaching, service, those are all gifts from God to the body. I thought well maybe this gift is more personal, it's not so related to the body, but it is in a way your singleness may be a gift that you can be one of these other things, you can be an evangelist and have full time to do that or whatever. So this is actually a gift from God, but each one of us has his own spiritual gift. one in this manner, and one in another.

So taking that, I'm not sure where I picked this up, but I got these two phrases. And maybe it's from Verne, I'm not sure why, being single is a gift from God, being married is a gift from God. We don't look at it that way often, we think, some people say, well, singleness is a burden. You know, I didn't find the person, a person to marry. But God in his word says that, you know, one in this manner and one in another manner, so singleness is a gift from God, and being married is a gift from God.

Okay, was Paul ever married? So actually I never, you know, up until this point, you know how you start, and all of a sudden I come across and I say, wow, was Paul ever married? I never thought much about that. And actually I didn't find a lot, but I did find someone that you all know. There's not exactly a verse, there's not exactly one verse that says Paul was married, There's one verse that kind of indicates that. So let's do some thinking here. And this is, J. Vernon McGee got me started on this.

So he says on his radio program, also it's down on all his written materials, he says, the position of many expositors is that Paul had been married and that his wife had died. And he based that upon the members of the Sanhedrin must be a married man, And that was one of the conditions of their membership. And Paul was a member of the Sanhedrin.

Also, the Mishnah, which is oral tradition, it's called the Oral Torah, I think, says that young men should be married at age 18. Actually, when I say 18, it sounds awful young. But life expectancy wasn't that long. So, 18 wasn't, you know, and girls were having babies, right? They were having babies, I don't know, as soon as they can, just about. So, things started early. So, anyway. So, both this gentleman, Farrah, F-A-R-R-A, and Jayver McGee both kind of point to the fact that Paul was most likely married. And apparently it seemed like at some point he talks about being single. So the assumption is that his wife possibly died.

So here's the one verse that you kind of ponder about. And we'll cover this verse, actually. Hopefully Mike gets this verse. I give all the hard verses to Mike. It says in a couple weeks here, a couple months probably. 1 Corinthians 9, 5. And Paul speaking here, it says, do we not have, with Paul speak, have the right to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles and brothers of the Lord and Cephas? So that kind of, we have, if we have the right to do it, did he have a, did Paul take along a believing wife for some time period? We don't see that in any place in Scripture, but it's something to think about. And the other point that Dr. McGee mentioned is that think about Paul's writing in Ephesians, in Colossians, other places, in other parts of Corinthians, about the wonderful, God's wonderful plan for marriage.

And he speaks very eloquently about that and very passionate about that. So they were saying it seems inconsistent that he would not have experienced marriage. So that's a thought process here. So just one second here while we're thinking about that. So now you can talk around the dinner table. Was Paula ever married?

You can have discussions about that. And actually there's, you know, I started in, you know, once you get the Internet, you can just go crazy. You can, this guy Farah, I found his writings, and he just had page after page of all kinds of stuff, so it's interesting. You could spend a long time, and people have. Okay, so let's go on. Back to the text.

In verse eight it says, but I say to the unmarried and to the widows, so now he's gonna address a particular subset, the unmarried and the widows, that it's good for them if they remain even as I. So here he is saying, He's implying that he's single, right? This is group number one, I called it.

But interesting enough, the unmarried in this case refers to those who are not currently married, but is translated like in the inner linear, unmarried men. It has both a masculine article, definite article, and unmarried is masculine as well. So Macaulay says, these are bachelors. He takes that to call this unmarried being bachelors. And the widows are women who've lost their husband. He's dead.

So he says, they should remain even as I. But what's interesting is, and this happens not just in this verse but in a bunch of other verses, Paul will state something and then he will say, But oh, by the way, if that's not possible, you actually have another option.

And this is, as Macaulay points, this is highly unusual. You have God, through Paul, saying, do this, but if you can't do that, you can also do this. And it's interesting, it's not like, God understands marriage is not an easy thing. It's a wonderful thing, but there can be difficulties. So he gives options. So here's a case where he gives an option.

He says, it's good, even as I, so he makes his case for being single, but then in verse nine he says, but if they do not have self-control, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. Self-control is the idea to be tempted, temptation is involved. And it talks about how to be content. And if you look in later on where it states as well, it talks about the athletic competition and how athletes have to exercise self-control to run in the games. They have to push themselves. So if they're tired, they just can't stop. They have to keep going. So they have to exercise self-control. So this is the same word that's used later on for that. And we had the same message earlier in 7.2.

Have your own husband or wife to avoid immorality. So God has an option there. for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. And here's where I didn't, I put the Amplified translation down here, Amplified Bible translation, but I thought it may, it says, for it is better to marry than to be aflame, and then it has, their comment about that word is, with passion, tortured continually with ungratified desire. So I take that with a grain of salt. I thought it was interesting, but maybe a little bit, Passion and ungratified desire, but tortured continuously. I don't know, maybe, I don't know. Anyway.

But to the married, so here we go, he had eight here, eight and nine. So now with starting in verse 10, he's gonna change, it's group number two. He's gonna talk about the married. So we've gone from the unmarried, the bachelors and the widows. He now wants to talk to the, a group he calls the married, to the married, starting in verse 10.

So actually, here's a couple of points. You know, you'll see as you go through this, you'll see Paul will say, I'm saying this. And then sometimes he'll say like here, he says, it's not I, but the Lord saying this. So the, so, you know, you think, well, is it, is it less, is it less, let's say, important or is it what's the impact of what Paul says and he said I say this on my own or if he says the Lord said this and I'm repeating what the Lord told me and Constable kind of points out that the message that Paul The Holy Spirit guided Paul in writing the words of Scripture. His authority is equal to the words that we have from our Savior. He spent time with the Lord Jesus, three years with the Lord Jesus. So his message, whether he says, I did it, or this is the words of the Lord. In some cases, the Lord didn't cover, Christ didn't cover a topic, or it was not covered in other parts of Scripture. And Paul's saying something that was not covered elsewhere, and he will say, this is what I say.

So the word for married here is in the perfect tense with the idea of past completed action with abiding results. The emphasis is on permanence again, the permanence of marriage. That a wife should not, but to the married I say that the wife should not leave her husband. And so we see that in Matthew, we see it in quite a few places. It says, so they are no longer two but one flesh, what therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. So God's desire is that the wife stay with her husband. This is speaking of a Christian couple.

But in his grace, he allows the following verse. And here's what I'm talking about. It seems like he makes one statement, but then he allows an option. But if she, the wife, does leave, so this is where Macaulay kind of goes through, and I kind of paraphrased this earlier.

This verse shows that God's standard, He has a highest standard. Marriage, His highest desire is one man for one woman, and they remain married for life. That's His desire. But He realizes the frailty of man. And Macaulay points out this is the only area in Scripture where God says, If you don't do that, you can do this. He gives further instructions about, and here are the further instructions. Option A, she must remain unmarried. Option B, she can be reconciled to her husband. and he has the same thing for the husband.

So, maybe to help this a little bit, I was studying this out, and I thought about, well, you know, Vonnie and I have a story similar to this, and it's something that we don't often talk about with people, but we thought it was appropriate. So, Vonnie's parents were divorced when she was a teenager. And at the time, her mom was a Christian, but her dad was not. They both remained single for many years after their divorce, but when her father was dying in the hospital of pancreatic cancer, he finally accepted Christ as his savior.

Now, did I, oh, I actually missed the big point here, Roger. I skipped over the biggest point. Terrible. Before that happened, they got married again. I apologize, I didn't know. Anyway, let's start that over again. Okay, so they were single for a number of years. And just, you know, just some personal notes.

So all, Vonnie is one of five children. All their children know the Lord. and they know the Lord to this day and they're serving him. So her mom and dad got back together again after being separated and they remarried again and then her father got ill and Prior to his death, he accepted that Christ is his Savior.

So anyway, these things, you know, and I was thinking about this is exactly what we're talking about here. Here's, not quite, because he was an unbeliever for a while. But those options do make sense, and I think God honors those options. So hopefully that's helpful. So let's go on.

So now, in 12 through 16, the remaining verses, he's gonna talk about, he says, to the rest. And to the rest means, It's where we have a situation where what has been claimed, a mixed marriage where there's a believer and an unbeliever in the same marriage. So he's going to talk about that in 12 and 13. Then he's going to talk about the sanctification that occurs because of a believer in the household. And then he's going to talk about if one of them leaves, if one of the unbelievers leaves the marriage. And then he's going to talk about their salvation, lastly. So let's look at verse 12.

But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she is content to live with him, he must not divorce her. And the woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, she must not send him away.

So the rest has been labeled the mixed marriage. So, and his authority, you know, I mentioned before, I kind of covered that idea. So we have two cases here. So if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents, so the idea is that what God has put before us here, he says, you know, the believer is to welcome his mate to be with him. the unbelieving mate. But if that mate decides to leave, that's kind of their decision, that's not your decision. He says you must not divorce her, she must not divorce him, the husband. So in both cases, it's the unbeliever's decision that they separate.

So I thought that was interesting. It appears that one party has become, and what Macaulay says, and it kind of fits with the Corinth Corinth there they had a large you know Paul came to Corinth and preached the gospel and many were saved and what might happen in a family one member of the family might be saved and the other might not be saved so then you have a what you could term a mixed marriage one believer and one unbeliever in the family so now he talks about Let's go back here. Okay. So that's 12 and 13. So now he's going to kind of switch topics a little bit.

He says, for the unbelieving, for the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife. And he repeats that, and it's the same for the, if it's the opposite case. And the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her husband. It's the same for both the husband and the wife. They're sanctified by the believing partner.

So it all hinges upon what does sanctified mean. So if you're a good Holly Hillite, you know this already. You already know what this means. So sanctified is, the root word is holy or hagios. It's to set apart for a purpose. So it literally means you were set apart in the past and continue to be set apart into the present and on into the future. It speaks of permanence.

So what is the unbelieving spouse set apart to? So, you know, I like Macaulay's answer here. The answer seems to be that he or she is set apart to a Christian influence by the believing partner. And we see that, you know, to some extent, if you turn over to 1 Peter 3, it talks about the wife being submissive to her husband, and it says that they may be one without a word by the behavior of their wives. So it's Christ's life lived out through the believing partner that's going to set them apart. They're going to sanctify them. Otherwise, your children are unclean, but now they are holy.

So really at first you think, boy, I don't know, you kind of scratch your head. And I kind of scratched my head too for a while. But the idea of unclean is the idea that they don't have access. They would be an unbeliever, unable to inherit the Kingdom of God.

So what are the children set apart to? They're going to be sanctified. And actually the reason they are sanctified is because it says, but now they are holy. They are also set apart. They are set apart to the Christian influence in the home by the believing spouse. And I also believe, this is my little part in this, the nature of the Christian influence for a child should be the telling of them about the salvation through Jesus Christ. That's part of the influence that the believing spouse has in the family. Now, that could be opposed by the unbelieving spouse, but, you know, those are the two areas that I saw the life of Christ being lived out by the believing partner, and that influences both the spouse and also the children.

So now he's going to consider, well, what happens if one of the partners wants to leave, if the unbeliever wants to leave? And at first it sounds a little bit harsh maybe, yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave. So at first it seems don't you want to kind of go after them so to speak and try to persuade them? And we're going to kind of see that at the last verse here.

So Macaulay says it's important to note that the command of this passage are directed to the believer and not to the unbeliever. He's not saying God's Word is for the believer. The unbeliever is to recognize his need for salvation. That's his message. The believer is to recognize to live the life of Christ.

The brother or sister in the Lord is not under bondage in such a case. So actually that word bondage kind of picks up on that. That word for bondage is the idea of to make a slave. The brother or sister, the believing brother or sister is not in a position of slavery, namely, they're not bound to this.

If this person wants to leave, in grace they're allowed to leave. That doesn't mean they don't talk to them about leaving, what the implications of that is, but they are to allow them to leave. For God has called us to peace. Tranquility within the home is important, not only for the husband, but for the wife and for the children.

Okay, so the last verse here kind of, I think, addresses the desire of the believing spouse. It says, for do you not know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or do you not know, O husband, whether you will save your wife? So it's the same message, you know, will you save, you know, You desire to save them, you want them to know the Lord, but we find, as Macaulay points out here, and we know from looking at Scripture, there's no promise in Scripture, there's no promise in Scripture of the salvation of a marriage partner. If you're a believer and they're an unbeliever, there's no guarantee from Scripture that they'll believe. You desire that they will, and they have every opportunity because they have Christ, the life of Christ being displayed before him, but there's no guarantee of this.

So I just thought of some verses that talk about salvation. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourself is a gift of God. But as many as received him, to them he gave their right to become the children of God, even those who believe in his name. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life. in Christ Jesus our Lord. So these are many, many verses that talk about the salvation of every man or woman.

And the point here that you have a desire that your unbelieving partner come to know the Lord and it's a very strong desire. I know it was in Bonnie's mom's case. She desired and the Lord answered that prayer. So that was pretty amazing. So it does happen. So lastly here, my final thought just consists of some verses here. And I thought about, you know, I've gone through this kind of heavy part about, well, if you're this category, this happens. If you're this category, that happens.

Well, what about just God's wonderful description through Paul of marriage? And he just starts off, it mostly puts the responsibility on the husband, where I think it should be. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. So husbands ought to also love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of his body.

Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband." So God has, God through Paul and many of his writings describes what marriage is like. especially Ephesians and Colossians talk about that.

And this section kind of has a lot of the difficulties and what do you do in this situation? What do you do in that situation? And it is kind of amazing that God in no other area is so specific about how he wants his believing children to act in relation to their spouse. And if there's trouble within that relationship, how they should act.

He's really quite specific about that. And I think we should take that to heart. And I think he will honor that. Thanks, everybody, for great music. And thank you for attending today. And whether you're here in person or on Zoom, we'll continue on in Chapter 7 next week. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for our time today. just for safety as you travel home. In Christ's name, amen.