The Church, Culture & Marriage And Singleness

The Church, Culture, & Marriage and Singleness | 1 Corinthians 7:1-40

Have you ever noticed that we can tend to over-spiritualize certain things? One of the things we can tend to over-spiritualize the most in Christian circles is marriage and singleness.

Maybe you’ve been part of a church where being married, and especially being married and having kids, felt or even was communicated as being more complete, more ideal, more spiritual than being single? Single Christianity felt like second-class Christianity.

Maybe you’ve ben part of a church, Christian organization, or campus ministry where being single was seen as the more godly, committed, spiritual thing to do, while being married was somehow being less committed to the mission and less spiritual in some way?

This is the kind of over-spiritualization about singleness that many Christians in Corinth are making.

There are two, unique, contextual reasons, but they are making the over-spiritualization nonetheless.

The first unique, contextual reason for this over-spiritualization is a famine that’s happening in that part of the world. More marriages means more babies, and more babies means more people to feed during the famine.

This is why they are saying: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” (1 Corinthians 7:1 ESV)

They are taking this truth, and taking it to extreme, to over-spiritualize their singleness.

This famine feeds into the second unique, contextual reason for this over spiritualization. Christians in this part of the world have experienced extreme persecution, there are wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and now, famine. So, some, including Paul, believe the end of the world could be near.

This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. (1 Corinthians 7:29-31)

In Corinth, this over-spiritualization is getting so bad that Christians in Corinth are not only avoiding marriage, but breaking off engagements and even ending their marriages through divorce.

So what does Paul do to address this over-spiritualization of singleness that has crept into the church?

Like a wise, loving father, he gives them TWO PIECES OF WISDOM:

(1) Be CONTENT with the gift of your marriage or the gift of your singleness.

This is what Paul calls both marriage and singleness—A GIFT ….. a present ….. a prize—GOD’S GRACE to them.

Gifts In Marriage (v.3-5):

• A level of intimacy that you can’t find in any other human relationship. Those of you who are newlywed’s are just figuring that out. Those of you who have been married for decades, you know that better than anyone.
• A context for sanctification that you can’t find in any other human relationship.
• A human relationship that pictures the relationship of Jesus to His Church.

Gifts In Singleness (v.3-5):

• A level of freedom that you can’t find in a marriage relationship.
• A freedom from anxiety that is not possible in the same way in marriage.
• A capacity for complete devotion to Jesus that is harder in marriage.

Contentment: satisfaction with what one is or has

This is what Paul is calling the Corinthian Christians to in their marriages and singleness. In fact, in verses 17-24 he says it three times in three ways:

Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. (1 Corinthians 7:17)

Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. (1 Corinthians 7:20)

So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God. (1 Corinthians 7:24)

Do you see your marriage as a gift from God?

Do you see your singleness as a gift from God?

The second piece of wisdom that Paul is giving the Corinthian Christians on singleness and marriage is this:

(2) Be COMMITTED to your marriage or your singleness

In whatever place you find yourself, be completely committed to the place you find yourself.

Let your contentment in your marriage or singleness naturally, by God’s grace, give way to commitment in your marriage or singleness.

There are many things to be committed to in your marriage. Paul speaks to just a few of them here in 1 Corinthians 7:

1. Be COMMITTED to SEX in your marriage

The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. (1 Corinthians 7:3-4)

That’s because when you’re committed to sex you’re not only committing to pleasure in your marriage, you’re also committing to reflecting something of the nature of the way Jesus is connected to His Church. This is what Paul tells the Ephesians:

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:31-32)

Are you committed to God-honoring sex in your marriage?

2. Be COMMITTED to PURITY in your marriage

This is one of the main reasons Paul tells them to get married:

But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. (1 Corinthians 7:2)

But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. (1 Corinthians 7:9)

Maintaining our sexual purity is hard – this goes back to the way we were created as sexual beings and the way we related to one another as male and female, especially after the Fall. And part of God’s grace to us in marriage is the grace to maintain our sexual purity. This is part of the gift of marriage.

This is important because the purity of our marriage says something—it is a picture of the purity of the relationship between Jesus and His Church.

Are you committed to purity in your marriage?

3. Be COMMITTED to EVANGELISM & DISCIPLESHIP in your marriage

For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. (1 Corinthians 7:14)

There are many contexts for evangelism and discipleship, but marriage is perhaps the best context for evangelism and discipleship, because marriage is the place you spend most of your time with people, and evangelism and discipleship take time.

Are you committed to evangelism and discipleship in your marriage?

The Contingency of Divorce

One of the greatest threats to complete commitment in marriage is the contingency of divorce that hangs over so many marriages.

What does Paul say about divorce as a contingency in marriage?

1. Divorce is not the first or best option

To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife. (1 Corinthians 7:10-11)

Divorce was never meant to be an option for Christians, so it definitely shouldn’t be the first option—mostly because marriage is meant to be a picture of the intimacy God has with Himself in the Trinity. This is what Jesus said:

But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Mark 10:6-9)

Divorce is not the best option. Reconciliation is the best option—mostly because it is a picture of the way we are reconciled to God through Jesus.

To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife. (1 Corinthians 7:10-11)

2. Divorce is AN option in just two circumstances

Abandonment by An Unbelieving Spouse:

But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? (1 Corinthians 7:15-16)

Adultery – Breaking of The Marriage Covenant:

But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. (Matthew 5:32)

A word to those who have been divorced outside of one of these two reasons:

DIVROCE IS NOT THE UNPARDONABLE SIN – UNBELIEF IS.

Like with any other sin, you will feel certain consequences of your sin if you have been divorced for an unbiblical reason – perhaps in a heavier way than many sins you could commit. BUT, like with any other sin, you can also feel and know the grace of God over your sin – where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more.

Paul not only wants the married Corinthians to be committed to their marriage, he wants the single Corinthians to be committed to their singleness:

Be COMMITTED to your SINGLENESS

There are many things to be committed to in your singleness. Paul speaks to just one here in 1 Corinthians 7:

1. Be COMMITTED to COMPLETE DEVOTION TO CHRIST in your singleness

We might be thinking that this should be true of the married person as well—and it should. But Paul is saying it can be easier, in very practical ways, for the single person—and this should be celebrated.

I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. (1 Corinthians 7:32-34)

I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord. (1 Corinthians 7:35)

Paul is saying, there is no obligation here, only opportunity. There is no obligation to remain single—only an opportunity to walk in complete devotion to Jesus in a UNIQUE WAY for a UNIQUE SEASON or part of your life.

Are you committed to complete commitment to Christ in your singleness?

Marriage & Singleness—they are both a GIFT FROM GOD.

Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. (1 Corinthians 7:6-7)

But both of these gifts are meant to point us to the greatest gift—THE GIFT THAT GOD HAS GIVEN US IN HIMSELF.

Good News: Jesus was content with and committed to the cross, so that we can find our contentment in Him—whether single or married.