It's Your Choice, To Get Married Or Stay Single (1 Corinthians 7:25-40) Series

Let's start today by reading 1 Corinthians 7:1:

"Now concerning the things about which you wrote: "It is good for a man, a woman/wife not to touch."

Paul here is quoting a Corinthian slogan. And what he's been doing, throughout chapter 7, is interacting with this slogan from different perspectives. Up to this point, his focus has been on married people. But the slogan could also be read about singlehood.

Is it good for singles "not to touch"? Are singles better off staying single, or getting married? Paul has sort of talked about this, but he has done so up until now with an eye more toward married people. Here, if you are single, he directly, specifically, addresses you.

(25) Now, concerning the virgins, a command from the Lord I don't have.

Now, a considered judgment I give,

as one having been shown mercy by the Lord, for the purpose that I would be faithful.

What Paul is about to say, he says apart from a clear command from the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus said nothing that you can simply point to, and say, "Obey the red letters in the Bible on this issue."

But this doesn't mean that Paul is helpless here. Paul has thought about this issue. He's lived this issue, as one who is single. He has a carefully considered opinion on the matter.

And Paul, having described it that way, immediately makes it clear that his considered opinion has weight. Paul writes as someone who was personally shown mercy by the Lord Jesus because Jesus wanted him to be his faithful servant.

Let's turn to Acts 26:12-18. Here, Paul tells King Agrippa why Jesus appeared to him:

12 “In this connection I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. 13 At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, that shone around me and those who journeyed with me. 14 And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language,[a] ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ 15 And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. 16 But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, 17 delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you 18 to open their eyes,

so that they may turn from darkness to light

and from the power of Satan to God,

that they may receive forgiveness of sins

and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

Jesus showed Paul mercy, revealing himself to Paul, for the purpose that Paul would become his faithful servant. Paul is Jesus' envoy ("apostle") (1:1), and he determined to be a faithful and trustworthy servant (1 Cor. 4:2). So when he speaks, you are supposed to listen.

Verse 26:

(26) Therefore , I consider this good to be because of the present distress:

that good for a man thus to be/remain.

What is this "present distress"? There's no evidence that the church in Corinth was suffering persecution. It's really, really likely that the problem Paul alludes to here is a famine. Corinth suffered three severe famines around the time Paul may have written his letter. Life was very difficult. Food was scarce, and expensive. When a city (or country) is in a severe famine, or recession, or war, that's not a good time to be getting married. These are times of distress. It's hard to think about marriage, or children, in these times. So, big picture, Paul says that this is not a great time to become married.

Verse 27-28:

(27) Are you bound to a wife? Don't seek release.

Are you released from a wife? Don't seek a wife.

(28) Now, if you marry, you haven't sinned,

and if the female virgin marries, she hasn't sinned.

Now, affliction in the flesh such ones will have.

Now, I would spare you.

Paul is very clear here. He is not commanding people to marry, or not to marry. The choice is entirely up to you. What he says, he says because he cares about them. He's trying to spare them "affliction in the flesh."

If you are engaged, you enter into marriage focused on the positive. You love your fiance. You can't wait to spend the rest of your life with them. And no amount of marital counseling-- no amount of wise counsel-- can fully prepare you for the affliction that is waiting for you. And I say that, not really trying to be amusing. Marriage is hard. And it's hard in ways that you don't anticipate. So Paul writes this, with your best interests in mind.