There are five series in 1 Corinthians, and we are now starting our second series. Many of you will have heard the first series, so you know what is being addressed in the letter of 1 Corinthians. Some of you may have just jumped in on this particular series because of its topic.  

Recap and Background 

Paul is talking about marriage and divorce which he had to address when he was talking to the Corinthians. Paul had so many problems to deal with in the church in Corinth. He had received reports of many things going wrong in the church after he had left, having spent eighteen months building up the church. A year or two later, he found that the church was in great difficulty. Some of the things that we have discussed in Series One include problems with weak leadership, an issue of incest in the church, quarrels amongst believers and their disputes going to the law courts and, in the last episode, we looked at the question of men in the church using prostitutes and committing sexual immorality with prostitutes in the city of Corinth. That was a very difficult and painful issue for Paul to deal with. Paul is always very straightforward and clear in the way he deals with difficult problems. He doesn't avoid difficult issues. 

The Importance of the Body 

At the end of Chapter 6, Paul was explaining the significance of the human body in our Christian discipleship. Some people think that Christianity is just a spiritual change, something that goes on in your heart: you are set free from sin; you are born again in the spiritual realm; and one day you will go to heaven as a spirit. Paul explains in this book, particularly in Chapter 15, but he also refers to it in Chapter 6, that our physical body is very important in the process of being a Christian, of sanctification, and that our body will be raised from the dead physically on the Day that Christ comes again. The body is important, he said, because it is also the temple of the Holy Spirit. What we do with our physical body really matters: what we eat; what we drink; what we say; and how we relate to people physically. All these things are very important. What we do with our body sexually is also very important in terms of our relationships. 

Many Questions about Sexual Morality  

In Chapter 6, Paul was dealing with a very negative issue. He is just about to come to a very positive issue about human sexuality. The negative issue was dealing with the question of prostitution. During the passage in verse 16 of Chapter 6, he goes back to the book of Genesis, and he quotes the famous words in Genesis 2:24, ‘The two will become one flesh,’ to talk about the union of man and woman in marriage - something incredibly positive. The Corinthians had all sorts of unusual and unhelpful views about relationships, about sex, and about how they should live in their Corinthian society. There was a division in the church - some people went along with the way that the pagans lived, and said, ‘We can have sex with prostitutes. Other people do it; we Christians can do it. Anything is permissible.’ That was one attitude which Paul completely disagreed with and challenged as we saw in the last episode. But in this episode, we are going to see something different. Some of the Christians in the Corinthian church, were so horrified by the sexual morality in the pagan culture, which was full of immorality of all sorts, that they wanted to step away from it completely. They wondered whether a sexual relationship between man and woman in marriage was a good thing, or not. Some were quite concerned, and some people even proposed the idea that Christians who were married should not have sexual relations together, unless it was for children. 

This is a very strange idea in the minds of some modern people, but this was an idea in the Corinthian church. There was a complete difference of opinion between some who were going with the pagan sexual immorality and saying, ‘We'll join in’, and others who are saying ‘We don't want anything much to do with sexual relationships at all, not even in marriage.’ They were advocating the idea that those who are married should abstain from sex. Paul was dealing with these difficulties.  

In 1 Corinthians 7:1 he says, “Now for the matters you wrote about,” So, it is a very specific issue that he is dealing with. They also had written to him about widowers and widows - Should they stay single or should they get married? They wrote to him about when it is appropriate for Christians to get divorced, and what happens if a Christian is married to a non-Christian: can they divorce that person because they don't have their faith? There are a whole series of questions that Paul is responding to. In this episode, we are going to go through the specific questions one by one and see what Paul has to say. 

Sex Within Marriage 

“Now for the matters you wrote about: it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other, except perhaps by mutual consent, and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, then come together again, so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all of you were as I am, but each of you has his own gift from God. One has this gift, another has that.”  

1 Corinthians 7 :1 – 7 NIV 

The opening statement here in verse 1 is a quotation from the Corinthians’ letter where they say to him, ‘It is good for a man to not have sexual relations with a woman in marriage.’ This is the view that sex wasn't necessary to marriage; it wasn't really a good thing. Paul challenges this. He disagrees fundamentally. He says that sex is important in marriage, and that the husband and wife should be open to that sexual relationship as far as possible, as and when they have opportunity. They should only abstain from sexual relationship for a particular period of time, or a particular purpose, such as to pray. Paul gives a very positiveview of the relationship between a husband and wife in marriage, and the physical aspect of that relationship.  

Paul was single. He never got married. He never wanted to get married, as far as we can tell. He preferred the single life. Jesus also was single, but they both taught positively about marriage. That positive attitude is very important because Christianity is not against the body; it is not against the sexual relationship between man and woman. It is totally positive about that in the context of marriage. Christianity stands against sexual immorality - the inappropriate use of sex, such as prostitution that Paul dealt with in the last episode, which he strongly opposed because it damages us spiritually and physically, and it damages our relationship with God. Paul was in favour of strong marriage relationships with a strong physical relationship.  

He was thinking about one man being married to one woman. In some cultures, there exists polygamy, where one man is married to more than one woman, which in fact existed in the culture in Corinth. Paul is not dealing with that particularly here, because the Christian ideal is monogamy, one man married to one woman. But in the Early Church, sometimes people were converted to Christianity who had more than one wife, as we find in some cultures of the world today, for example, in sub-Saharan Africa, where you can find polygamous tribal societies and people come into the church with more than one wife. Paul’s approach to this was to allow those relationships to continue rather than breaking up the family units. All Christians were taught that only having one wife, one husband – monogamy - was the Christian normal life. If you were a disciple, you could only marry one person. Paul is positive about the physical aspects of marriage.  

Singleness and Widowhood 

“Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: it is good for them to stay unmarried as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.”

1 Corinthians 7: 8 - 9 NIV 

In this context, the Greek word the ‘unmarried’ probably means a widower. In some translations of the New Testament, the word ‘widower’ is used - a man who has lost his wife. Paul is addressing the question of those who have been bereaved; they were married, but they are no longer married. The Corinthians asked him the question, ‘What should a Christian do if they lose their marriage partner, should they stay single or should they marry again?’ This was a very important question in the ancient world, because many people who were widowed, especially women, were very poor. They lost the economic support of their husband, and they may not have had other economic support. Paul said that it was good to stay single because he believed a single life was very positive, but he said if a relationship was developing, and they fell in love a second time, that was fine, and they should marry. 

In the ancient world, many women experienced being widowed because men died much younger than women. The men often had injuries from work, or they travelled or were in the Army; there were many circumstances where men’s health could be compromised. Women could become single when they were quite young, having been married; they might be widowed in their thirties. They wanted to ask Paul what he thought about it.  

Divorce 

In verses 10 and 11, Paul begins to deal with another very sensitive and important question. It is an important question in the modern world, just as it was in the ancient world. What about divorce? He gives a very clear opinion about two Christians who are married together who both have faith. This is important because later, in verses 12 to 16, he will talk about a Christian married to a non-Christian and that is a slightly different situation. What happens if two Christians are married together and there are difficulties in that relationship? This is a very common situation.  

Let us remind ourselves of what Jesus said about this which is recorded most clearly in Matthew 19: 8 - 9, where Jesus allows one reason why Christians may divorce their partner - if that partner has been sexually unfaithful and had a sexual relationship with somebody else. Jesus permits that person to divorce and then potentially to remarry. Keep that in mind as we read Paul's words, because Paul would have discussed that issue with the Corinthian church, but he doesn't specifically mention it in this passage.  

 “To the married I give this command, not I, but the Lord. A wife must not separate from her husband, but if she does, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.”  

1 Corinthians 7: 10 and 11 NIV 

Notice a number of things about this passage. First of all, “Not I, but the Lord,” Paul means here that this command originated with Jesus. ‘The Lord’ means Jesus. He is linking back to the teaching that Jesus gives on marriage and divorce. I have dealt with that teaching much more fully in the ‘Life of Jesus’ Collection on Word Online. Do have a look at the passages there, in Matthew 5 and Matthew 19 that describe Jesus' teaching. Essentially Jesus taught that divorce should not take place amongst Christians unless there is sexual unfaithfulness. 

Paul was following on from Jesus. He advised that if there were difficulties in the marriage, the husband and wife should try and stay together and maintain the marriage. But he acknowledged that sometimes divorce and separation will take place because of a breakdown of the relationship. ‘If they do separate’, he says, in verse 14. He knows that sometimes it will happen, perhaps out of necessity, because of violence or abuse, or perhaps because the relationship is just breaking down. But what does he say? If you divorce for reasons other than a sexual relationship of your partner, a great challenge to the church, don't look for another marriage partner, remain unmarried or single. If there is an opportunity to be reconciled to your marriage partner, then seek that path. It may happen. It may not happen. It may be possible. It may not be possible for all sorts of reasons. Paul's advice to the Corinthians is don't just move from one marriage to another because that relationship didn't work out too well. 

You and I would love to sit down with Paul and ask him a lot more questions about this, because he doesn't say very much here. We can think of all sorts of scenarios and situations and think, what would Paul say about this, or that, or the other? Unfortunately, we can't ask him. So, we have to think about what we do know.What we do know is that, like Jesus, Paul teaches clearly that divorce, apart from in the case of sexual unfaithfulness to the partner, is not a good Christian option. If separation is necessary, and Paul acknowledges that may be the case sometimes, but he argues that Christians should not be moving on to other relationships, but rather remaining single, or seeking reconciliation. This is a very challenging teaching, and many Bible teachers would not be willing to explain and develop this teaching too much in their churches, because it might be unpopular because Christians sometimes take different options. I want to explain it as clearly as I can in its original context and leave you to think about the actual implications. What we see here, and in the teaching of Jesus, is a very high a view of marriage. Marriage is very significant to Paul and to Jesus; Christian disciples are committed to invest in their marriages. This is not so popular in many cultures in the world today. It is not popular in the Western world where I live. It is not popular in some traditional cultures as well, where people consider, in some cases, that men can just divorce their wives easily and move on to another simply because of their social status. Paul is not supporting either of those views. He has a view of marriage, which is based on a very high level of commitment - a very high level of sacrifice on behalf of your partner. We see this particularly in Ephesians 5, when Paul talks about husbands and wives in marriage, and he particularly calls the husbands to lay down their lives for their wives. 

Christians Married to Non-Christians 

“To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord.) If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she's willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. 
Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or sister is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. How can you, wife, know whether you will save your husband? Or how can you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?” 

1 Corinthians 7: 12 – 16 NIV 

Here Paul deals with another very important question. What happens if you are married to a non-Christian and you become converted to Christianity whilst your partner does not? Paul's advice is that although there may be tensions in the marriage due to your faith, the Christian partner should not initiate divorce with their unbelieving partner. However, if the unbelieving partner initiates divorce, then you can allow this to happen without resisting it and you are called to live at peace. Let that partner go and move on with your life. This is a very big issue in many societies and an important piece of advice. Paul points out that being married to a non-Christian does not make you spiritually unclean. In fact, the power of the Holy Spirit working in you will influence them and your children, even if your partner is not a believer. Take a positive view of that situation: act in faith and trust God. But if they decide to divorce you, then you are free to leave that marriage.  

Reflections 

We have raised some huge questions that are often painful, complex, and challenging for Christians. We have realised how important marriage is in Christian discipleship, and the investment in that relationship that we need to make. Paul gives some very clear answers to specific questions. We see here, and in Jesus' teaching, that there are two circumstances where God allows Christians to consider divorce as a necessary and sometimes positive thing. The first is when their partner is sexually unfaithful, and the second is if their partner is an unbeliever who initiates divorce. We have also seen that sometimes we end up in the painful situation where Christians are divorced because the relationship is not working out for some reason other than sexual unfaithfulness. Paul recognises that this will sometimes happen, but he encourages people in that situation to remain unmarried or single, or to be reconciled to their partners. 

To follow Christ is challenging in many ways. One of the most challenging ways is in your personal relationships, in your family relationships, in your sexual relationships, and in your marriage relationships. The last episode, and this episode, have highlighted the significance of this, but we must notice that Paul does not back away from difficult issues. He calls Christians to high moral standards in all the situations that he addresses, in the knowledge that we will be blessed as we follow the path of obedience, even though it might be a difficult road for us. 

Thank you for listening to this episode. Do join us again as we continue these themes in the next episode. 

  

  

  

  

 

 
 

 

There are five series in 1 Corinthians, and we are now starting our second series. Many of you will have heard the first series, so you know what is being addressed in the letter of 1 Corinthians. Some of you may have just jumped in on this particular series because of its topic.  

  

Recap and Background 

  

Paul is talking about marriage and divorce which he had to address when he was talking to the Corinthians. Paul had so many problems to deal with in the church in Corinth. He had received reports of many things going wrong in the church after he had left, having spent eighteen months building up the church. A year or two later, he found that the church was in great difficulty. Some of the things that we have discussed in Series One include problems with weak leadership, an issue of incest in the church, quarrels amongst believers and their disputes going to the law courts and, in the last episode, we looked at the question of men in the church using prostitutes and committing sexual immorality with prostitutes in the city of Corinth. That was a very difficult and painful issue for Paul to deal with. Paul is always very straightforward and clear in the way he deals with difficult problems. He doesn't avoid difficult issues. 

I get that Martin’s style is difficult to write up as he says the same thing twice for emphasis. Using prostitutes and committing sexual immorality with prostitutes is really the same thing and doesn’t add much to the argument. But taking all these out may be to take Martin’s style out of it?   

The Importance of the Body 

  

At the end of Chapter 6, Paul was explaining the significance of the human body in our Christian discipleship. Some people think that Christianity is just a spiritual change, something that goes on in your heart: you are set free from sin; you are born again in the spiritual realm; and one day you will go to heaven as a spirit. Paul explains in this book, particularly in Chapter 15, but he also refers to it in Chapter 6, that our physical body is very important in the process of being a Christian, of sanctification, and that our body will be raised from the dead physically on the Day that Christ comes again. The body is important, he said, because it is also the temple of the Holy Spirit. What we do with our physical body really matters: what we eat; what we drink; what we say; and how we relate to people physically. All these things are very important. What we do with our body sexually is also very important in terms of our relationships. 

  

Many Questions about Sexual Morality 

  

In Chapter 6, Paul was dealing with a very negative issue. He is just about to come to a very positive issue about human sexuality. The negative issue was dealing with the question of prostitution. During the passage in verse 16 of Chapter 6, he goes back to the book of Genesis, and he quotes the famous words in Genesis 2:24, ‘The two will become one flesh,’ to talk about the union of man and woman in marriage - something incredibly positive. The Corinthians had all sorts of unusual and unhelpful views about relationships, about sex, and about how they should live in their Corinthian society. There was a division in the church - some people went along with the way that the pagans lived, and said, ‘We can have sex with prostitutes. Other people do it; we Christians can do it. Anything is permissible.’ That was one attitude which Paul completely disagreed with and challenged as we saw in the last episode. But in this episode, we are going to see something different. Some of the Christians in the Corinthian church, were so horrified by the sexual morality in the pagan culture, which was full of immorality of all sorts, that they wanted to step away from it completely. They wondered whether a sexual relationship between man and woman in marriage was a good thing, or not. Some were quite concerned, and some people even proposed the idea that Christians who were married should not have sexual relationship together, unless it was for children. Relations rather than relationship? 

  

This is a very strange idea in the minds of some modern people, but this was an idea in the Corinthian church. There was a complete difference of opinion between some who were going with the pagan sexual immorality and saying, ‘We'll join in’, and others who are saying ‘We don't want anything much to do with sexual relationships at all, not even in marriage.’ They were advocating the idea that those who are married should abstain from sex. Paul was dealing with these difficulties.  

  

In 1 Corinthians 7:1 he says, “Now for the matters you wrote about,” So, it is a very specific issue that he is dealing with. They also had written to him about widowers and widows - Should they stay single or should they get married? They wrote to him about when it is appropriate for Christians to get divorced, and what happens if a Christian is married to a non-Christian: can they divorce that person because they don't have their faith? There are a whole series of questions that Paul is responding to. In this episode, we are going to go through the specific questions one by one and see what Paul has to say. 

  

Sex Within Marriage 

  

“Now for the matters you wrote about: it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other, except perhaps by mutual consent, and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, then come together again, so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all of you were as I am, but each of you has his own gift from God. One has this gift, another has that.”  

1 Corinthians 7 :1 – 7 NIV 

  

The opening statement here in verse 1 is a quotation from the Corinthians’ letter where they say to him, ‘It is good for a man to not have sexual relations with a woman in marriage.’ This is the view that sex wasn't necessary to marriage; it wasn't really a good thing. Paul challenges this. He disagrees fundamentally. He says that sex is important in marriage, and that the husband and wife should be open to that sexual relationship as far as possible, as and when they have opportunity. They should only abstain from sexual relationship for a particular period of time, or a particular purpose, such as to pray. Paul gives a very positive view of the relationship between a husband and wife in marriage, and the physical aspect of that relationship.  

  

Paul was single. He never got married. He never wanted to get married, as far as we can tell. He preferred the single life. Jesus also was single, but they both taught positively about marriage. That positive attitude is very important because Christianity is not against the body; it is not against the sexual relationship between man and woman. It is totally positive about that in the context of marriage. Christianity stands against sexual immorality - the inappropriate use of sex, such as prostitution that Paul dealt with in the last episode, which he strongly opposed because it damages us spiritually and physically, and it damages our relationship with God. Paul was in favour of strong marriage relationships with a strong physical relationship.  

  

He was thinking about one man being married to one woman. In some cultures, there exists polygamy, where one man is married to more than one woman, which in fact existed in the culture in Corinth. Paul is not dealing with that particularly here, because the Christian ideal is monogamy, one man married to one woman. But in the Early Church, sometimes people were converted to Christianity who had more than one wife, as we find in some cultures of the world today, for example, in sub-Saharan Africa, where you can find polygamous tribal societies and people come into the church with more than one wife. Paul’s approach to this was to allow those relationships to continue rather than breaking up the family units. All Christians were taught that only having one wife, one husband – monogamy - was the Christian normal life. If you were a disciple, you could only marry one person. Paul is positive about the physical aspects of marriage.  

  

Singleness and Widowhood 

  

“Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: it is good for them to stay unmarried as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.” 1 Corinthians 7: 8 - 9 NIV 

  

In this context, the Greek word the ‘unmarried’ probably means a widower. In some translations of the New Testament, the word ‘widower’ is used - a man who has lost his wife. Paul is addressing the question of those who have been bereaved; they were married, but they are no longer married. The Corinthians asked him the question, ‘What should a Christian do if they lose their marriage partner, should they stay single or should they marry again?’ This was a very important question in the ancient world, because many people who were widowed, especially women, were very poor. They lost the economic support of their husband, and they may not have had other economic support. Paul said that it was good to stay single because he believed a single life was very positive, but he said if a relationship was developing, and they fell in love a second time, that was fine, and they should marry. 

  

In the ancient world, many women experienced being widowed because men died much younger than women. The men often had injuries from work, or they travelled or were in the Army; there were many circumstances where men’s health could be compromised. Women could become single when they were quite young, having been married; they might be widowed in their thirties. They wanted to ask Paul what he thought about it.  

  

Divorce 

  

In verses 10 and 11, Paul begins to deal with another very sensitive and important question. It is an important question in the modern world, just as it was in the ancient world. What about divorce? He gives a very clear opinion about two Christians who are married together who both have faith. This is important because later, in verses 12 to 16, he will talk about a Christian married to a non-Christian and that is a slightly different situation. What happens if two Christians are married together and there are difficulties in that relationship? This is a very common situation.  

  

Let us remind ourselves of what Jesus said about this which is recorded most clearly in Matthew 19: 8 - 9, where Jesus allows one reason why Christians may divorce their partner - if that partner has been sexually unfaithful and had a sexual relationship with somebody else. Jesus permits that person to divorce and then potentially to remarry. Keep that in mind as we read Paul's words, because Paul would have discussed that issue with the Corinthian church, but he doesn't specifically mention it in this passage.  

  

“To the married I give this command, not I, but the Lord. A wife must not separate from her husband, but if she does, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.”  

1 Corinthians 7: 10 and 11 NIV 

  

Notice a number of things about this passage. First of all, “Not I, but the Lord,” Paul means here that this command originated with Jesus. ‘The Lord’ means Jesus. He is linking back to the teaching that Jesus gives on marriage and divorce. I have dealt with that teaching much more fully in the ‘Life of Jesus’ Collection on Word Online. Do have a look at the passages there, in Matthew 5 and Matthew 19 that describe Jesus' teaching. Essentially Jesus taught that divorce should not take place amongst Christians unless there is sexual unfaithfulness. 

  

Paul was following on from Jesus. He advised that if there were difficulties in the marriage, the husband and wife should try and stay together and maintain the marriage. But he acknowledged that sometimes divorce and separation will take place because of a breakdown of the relationship. ‘If they do separate’, he says, in verse 14. He knows that sometimes it will happen, perhaps out of necessity, because of violence or abuse, or perhaps because the relationship is just breaking down. But what does he say? If you divorce for reasons other than a sexual relationship of your partner, a great challenge to the church, don't look for another marriage partner, remain unmarried or single. If there is an opportunity to be reconciled to your marriage partner, then seek that path. It may happen. It may not happen. It may be possible. It may not be possible for all sorts of reasons. Paul's advice to the Corinthians is don't just move from one marriage to another because that relationship didn't work out too well. 

  

You and I would love to sit down with Paul and ask him a lot more questions about this, because he doesn't say very much here. We can think of all sorts of scenarios and situations and think, what would Paul say about this, or that, or the other? Unfortunately, we can't ask him. So, we have to think about what we do know. What we do know is that, like Jesus, Paul teaches clearly that divorce, apart from in the case of sexual unfaithfulness to the partner, is not a good Christian option. If separation is necessary, and Paul acknowledges that may be the case sometimes, but he argues that Christians should not be moving on to other relationships, but rather remaining single, or seeking reconciliation. This is a very challenging teaching, and many Bible teachers would not be willing to explain and develop this teaching too much in their churches, because it might be unpopular because Christians sometimes take different options. I want to explain it as clearly as I can in its original context and leave you to think about the actual implications. What we see here, and in the teaching of Jesus, is a very high a view of marriage. Marriage is very significant to Paul and to Jesus; Christian disciples are committed to invest in their marriages. This is not so popular in many cultures in the world today. It is not popular in the Western world where I live. It is not popular in some traditional cultures as well, where people consider, in some cases, that men can just divorce their wives easily and move on to another simply because of their social status. Paul is not supporting either of those views. He has a view of marriage, which is based on a very high level of commitment - a very high level of sacrifice on behalf of your partner. We see this particularly in Ephesians 5, when Paul talks about husbands and wives in marriage, and he particularly calls the husbands to lay down their lives for their wives. 

  

The ands and buts get a bit ungrammatical in the sentence starting “if separation is necessary’ might it read more smoothly without the ‘but’?   

Christians Married to Non-Christians 

  

“To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord.) If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she's willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. 

Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or sister is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. How can you, wife, know whether you will save your husband? Or how can you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?” 

1 Corinthians 7: 12 – 16 NIV 

  

Here Paul deals with another very important question. What happens if you are married to a non-Christian and you become converted to Christianity whilst your partner does not? Paul's advice is that although there may be tensions in the marriage due to your faith, the Christian partner should not initiate divorce with their unbelieving partner. However, if the unbelieving partner initiates divorce, then you can allow this to happen without resisting it and you are called to live at peace. Let that partner go and move on with your life. This is a very big issue in many societies and an important piece of advice. Paul points out that being married to a non-Christian does not make you spiritually unclean. In fact, the power of the Holy Spirit working in you will influence them and your children, even if your partner is not a believer. Take a positive view of that situation: act in faith and trust God. But if they decide to divorce you, then you are free to leave that marriage.  

  

Reflections 

  

We have raised some huge questions that are often painful, complex, and challenging for Christians. We have realised how important marriage is in Christian discipleship, and the investment in that relationship that we need to make. Paul gives some very clear answers to specific questions. We see here, and in Jesus' teaching, that there are two circumstances where God allows Christians to consider divorce as a necessary and sometimes positive thing. The first is when their partner is sexually unfaithful, and the second is if their partner is an unbeliever who initiates divorce. We have also seen that sometimes we end up in the painful situation where Christians are divorced because the relationship is not working out for some reason other than sexual unfaithfulness. Paul recognises that this will sometimes happen, but he encourages people in that situation to remain unmarried or single, or to be reconciled to their partners. 

  

To follow Christ is challenging in many ways. One of the most challenging ways is in your personal relationships, in your family relationships, in your sexual relationships, and in your marriage relationships. The last episode, and this episode, have highlighted the significance of this, but we must notice that Paul does not back away from difficult issues. He calls Christians to high moral standards in all the situations that he addresses, in the knowledge that we will be blessed as we follow the path of obedience, even though it might be a difficult road for us. 

  

Thank you for listening to this episode. Do join us again as we continue these themes in the next episode. 

  

  

  

  

 

 
 

There are five series in 1 Corinthians, and we are now starting our second series. Many of you will have heard the first series, so you know what is being addressed in the letter of 1 Corinthians. Some of you may have just jumped in on this particular series because of its topic.  

  

Recap and Background 

  

Paul is talking about marriage and divorce which he had to address when he was talking to the Corinthians. Paul had so many problems to deal with in the church in Corinth. He had received reports of many things going wrong in the church after he had left, having spent eighteen months building up the church. A year or two later, he found that the church was in great difficulty. Some of the things that we have discussed in Series One include problems with weak leadership, an issue of incest in the church, quarrels amongst believers and their disputes going to the law courts and, in the last episode, we looked at the question of men in the church using prostitutes and committing sexual immorality with prostitutes in the city of Corinth. That was a very difficult and painful issue for Paul to deal with. Paul is always very straightforward and clear in the way he deals with difficult problems. He doesn't avoid difficult issues. 

I get that Martin’s style is difficult to write up as he says the same thing twice for emphasis. Using prostitutes and committing sexual immorality with prostitutes is really the same thing and doesn’t add much to the argument. But taking all these out may be to take Martin’s style out of it?   

The Importance of the Body 

  

At the end of Chapter 6, Paul was explaining the significance of the human body in our Christian discipleship. Some people think that Christianity is just a spiritual change, something that goes on in your heart: you are set free from sin; you are born again in the spiritual realm; and one day you will go to heaven as a spirit. Paul explains in this book, particularly in Chapter 15, but he also refers to it in Chapter 6, that our physical body is very important in the process of being a Christian, of sanctification, and that our body will be raised from the dead physically on the Day that Christ comes again. The body is important, he said, because it is also the temple of the Holy Spirit. What we do with our physical body really matters: what we eat; what we drink; what we say; and how we relate to people physically. All these things are very important. What we do with our body sexually is also very important in terms of our relationships. 

  

Many Questions about Sexual Morality 

  

In Chapter 6, Paul was dealing with a very negative issue. He is just about to come to a very positive issue about human sexuality. The negative issue was dealing with the question of prostitution. During the passage in verse 16 of Chapter 6, he goes back to the book of Genesis, and he quotes the famous words in Genesis 2:24, ‘The two will become one flesh,’ to talk about the union of man and woman in marriage - something incredibly positive. The Corinthians had all sorts of unusual and unhelpful views about relationships, about sex, and about how they should live in their Corinthian society. There was a division in the church - some people went along with the way that the pagans lived, and said, ‘We can have sex with prostitutes. Other people do it; we Christians can do it. Anything is permissible.’ That was one attitude which Paul completely disagreed with and challenged as we saw in the last episode. But in this episode, we are going to see something different. Some of the Christians in the Corinthian church, were so horrified by the sexual morality in the pagan culture, which was full of immorality of all sorts, that they wanted to step away from it completely. They wondered whether a sexual relationship between man and woman in marriage was a good thing, or not. Some were quite concerned, and some people even proposed the idea that Christians who were married should not have sexual relationship together, unless it was for children. Relations rather than relationship? 

  

This is a very strange idea in the minds of some modern people, but this was an idea in the Corinthian church. There was a complete difference of opinion between some who were going with the pagan sexual immorality and saying, ‘We'll join in’, and others who are saying ‘We don't want anything much to do with sexual relationships at all, not even in marriage.’ They were advocating the idea that those who are married should abstain from sex. Paul was dealing with these difficulties.  

  

In 1 Corinthians 7:1 he says, “Now for the matters you wrote about,” So, it is a very specific issue that he is dealing with. They also had written to him about widowers and widows - Should they stay single or should they get married? They wrote to him about when it is appropriate for Christians to get divorced, and what happens if a Christian is married to a non-Christian: can they divorce that person because they don't have their faith? There are a whole series of questions that Paul is responding to. In this episode, we are going to go through the specific questions one by one and see what Paul has to say. 

  

Sex Within Marriage 

  

“Now for the matters you wrote about: it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other, except perhaps by mutual consent, and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, then come together again, so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all of you were as I am, but each of you has his own gift from God. One has this gift, another has that.”  

1 Corinthians 7 :1 – 7 NIV 

  

The opening statement here in verse 1 is a quotation from the Corinthians’ letter where they say to him, ‘It is good for a man to not have sexual relations with a woman in marriage.’ This is the view that sex wasn't necessary to marriage; it wasn't really a good thing. Paul challenges this. He disagrees fundamentally. He says that sex is important in marriage, and that the husband and wife should be open to that sexual relationship as far as possible, as and when they have opportunity. They should only abstain from sexual relationship for a particular period of time, or a particular purpose, such as to pray. Paul gives a very positive view of the relationship between a husband and wife in marriage, and the physical aspect of that relationship.  

  

Paul was single. He never got married. He never wanted to get married, as far as we can tell. He preferred the single life. Jesus also was single, but they both taught positively about marriage. That positive attitude is very important because Christianity is not against the body; it is not against the sexual relationship between man and woman. It is totally positive about that in the context of marriage. Christianity stands against sexual immorality - the inappropriate use of sex, such as prostitution that Paul dealt with in the last episode, which he strongly opposed because it damages us spiritually and physically, and it damages our relationship with God. Paul was in favour of strong marriage relationships with a strong physical relationship.  

  

He was thinking about one man being married to one woman. In some cultures, there exists polygamy, where one man is married to more than one woman, which in fact existed in the culture in Corinth. Paul is not dealing with that particularly here, because the Christian ideal is monogamy, one man married to one woman. But in the Early Church, sometimes people were converted to Christianity who had more than one wife, as we find in some cultures of the world today, for example, in sub-Saharan Africa, where you can find polygamous tribal societies and people come into the church with more than one wife. Paul’s approach to this was to allow those relationships to continue rather than breaking up the family units. All Christians were taught that only having one wife, one husband – monogamy - was the Christian normal life. If you were a disciple, you could only marry one person. Paul is positive about the physical aspects of marriage.  

  

Singleness and Widowhood 

  

“Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: it is good for them to stay unmarried as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.” 1 Corinthians 7: 8 - 9 NIV 

  

In this context, the Greek word the ‘unmarried’ probably means a widower. In some translations of the New Testament, the word ‘widower’ is used - a man who has lost his wife. Paul is addressing the question of those who have been bereaved; they were married, but they are no longer married. The Corinthians asked him the question, ‘What should a Christian do if they lose their marriage partner, should they stay single or should they marry again?’ This was a very important question in the ancient world, because many people who were widowed, especially women, were very poor. They lost the economic support of their husband, and they may not have had other economic support. Paul said that it was good to stay single because he believed a single life was very positive, but he said if a relationship was developing, and they fell in love a second time, that was fine, and they should marry. 

  

In the ancient world, many women experienced being widowed because men died much younger than women. The men often had injuries from work, or they travelled or were in the Army; there were many circumstances where men’s health could be compromised. Women could become single when they were quite young, having been married; they might be widowed in their thirties. They wanted to ask Paul what he thought about it.  

  

Divorce 

  

In verses 10 and 11, Paul begins to deal with another very sensitive and important question. It is an important question in the modern world, just as it was in the ancient world. What about divorce? He gives a very clear opinion about two Christians who are married together who both have faith. This is important because later, in verses 12 to 16, he will talk about a Christian married to a non-Christian and that is a slightly different situation. What happens if two Christians are married together and there are difficulties in that relationship? This is a very common situation.  

  

Let us remind ourselves of what Jesus said about this which is recorded most clearly in Matthew 19: 8 - 9, where Jesus allows one reason why Christians may divorce their partner - if that partner has been sexually unfaithful and had a sexual relationship with somebody else. Jesus permits that person to divorce and then potentially to remarry. Keep that in mind as we read Paul's words, because Paul would have discussed that issue with the Corinthian church, but he doesn't specifically mention it in this passage.  

  

“To the married I give this command, not I, but the Lord. A wife must not separate from her husband, but if she does, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.”  

1 Corinthians 7: 10 and 11 NIV 

  

Notice a number of things about this passage. First of all, “Not I, but the Lord,” Paul means here that this command originated with Jesus. ‘The Lord’ means Jesus. He is linking back to the teaching that Jesus gives on marriage and divorce. I have dealt with that teaching much more fully in the ‘Life of Jesus’ Collection on Word Online. Do have a look at the passages there, in Matthew 5 and Matthew 19 that describe Jesus' teaching. Essentially Jesus taught that divorce should not take place amongst Christians unless there is sexual unfaithfulness. 

  

Paul was following on from Jesus. He advised that if there were difficulties in the marriage, the husband and wife should try and stay together and maintain the marriage. But he acknowledged that sometimes divorce and separation will take place because of a breakdown of the relationship. ‘If they do separate’, he says, in verse 14. He knows that sometimes it will happen, perhaps out of necessity, because of violence or abuse, or perhaps because the relationship is just breaking down. But what does he say? If you divorce for reasons other than a sexual relationship of your partner, a great challenge to the church, don't look for another marriage partner, remain unmarried or single. If there is an opportunity to be reconciled to your marriage partner, then seek that path. It may happen. It may not happen. It may be possible. It may not be possible for all sorts of reasons. Paul's advice to the Corinthians is don't just move from one marriage to another because that relationship didn't work out too well. 

  

You and I would love to sit down with Paul and ask him a lot more questions about this, because he doesn't say very much here. We can think of all sorts of scenarios and situations and think, what would Paul say about this, or that, or the other? Unfortunately, we can't ask him. So, we have to think about what we do know. What we do know is that, like Jesus, Paul teaches clearly that divorce, apart from in the case of sexual unfaithfulness to the partner, is not a good Christian option. If separation is necessary, and Paul acknowledges that may be the case sometimes, but he argues that Christians should not be moving on to other relationships, but rather remaining single, or seeking reconciliation. This is a very challenging teaching, and many Bible teachers would not be willing to explain and develop this teaching too much in their churches, because it might be unpopular because Christians sometimes take different options. I want to explain it as clearly as I can in its original context and leave you to think about the actual implications. What we see here, and in the teaching of Jesus, is a very high a view of marriage. Marriage is very significant to Paul and to Jesus; Christian disciples are committed to invest in their marriages. This is not so popular in many cultures in the world today. It is not popular in the Western world where I live. It is not popular in some traditional cultures as well, where people consider, in some cases, that men can just divorce their wives easily and move on to another simply because of their social status. Paul is not supporting either of those views. He has a view of marriage, which is based on a very high level of commitment - a very high level of sacrifice on behalf of your partner. We see this particularly in Ephesians 5, when Paul talks about husbands and wives in marriage, and he particularly calls the husbands to lay down their lives for their wives. 

  

The ands and buts get a bit ungrammatical in the sentence starting “if separation is necessary’ might it read more smoothly without the ‘but’?   

Christians Married to Non-Christians 

  

“To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord.) If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she's willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. 

Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or sister is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. How can you, wife, know whether you will save your husband? Or how can you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?” 

1 Corinthians 7: 12 – 16 NIV 

  

Here Paul deals with another very important question. What happens if you are married to a non-Christian and you become converted to Christianity whilst your partner does not? Paul's advice is that although there may be tensions in the marriage due to your faith, the Christian partner should not initiate divorce with their unbelieving partner. However, if the unbelieving partner initiates divorce, then you can allow this to happen without resisting it and you are called to live at peace. Let that partner go and move on with your life. This is a very big issue in many societies and an important piece of advice. Paul points out that being married to a non-Christian does not make you spiritually unclean. In fact, the power of the Holy Spirit working in you will influence them and your children, even if your partner is not a believer. Take a positive view of that situation: act in faith and trust God. But if they decide to divorce you, then you are free to leave that marriage.  

  

Reflections 

  

We have raised some huge questions that are often painful, complex, and challenging for Christians. We have realised how important marriage is in Christian discipleship, and the investment in that relationship that we need to make. Paul gives some very clear answers to specific questions. We see here, and in Jesus' teaching, that there are two circumstances where God allows Christians to consider divorce as a necessary and sometimes positive thing. The first is when their partner is sexually unfaithful, and the second is if their partner is an unbeliever who initiates divorce. We have also seen that sometimes we end up in the painful situation where Christians are divorced because the relationship is not working out for some reason other than sexual unfaithfulness. Paul recognises that this will sometimes happen, but he encourages people in that situation to remain unmarried or single, or to be reconciled to their partners. 

  

To follow Christ is challenging in many ways. One of the most challenging ways is in your personal relationships, in your family relationships, in your sexual relationships, and in your marriage relationships. The last episode, and this episode, have highlighted the significance of this, but we must notice that Paul does not back away from difficult issues. He calls Christians to high moral standards in all the situations that he addresses, in the knowledge that we will be blessed as we follow the path of obedience, even though it might be a difficult road for us. 

  

Thank you for listening to this episode. Do join us again as we continue these themes in the next episode. 

  

  

  

  

 

 

Recap and Background

Paul is talking about marriage and divorce which he had to address when he was talking to the Corinthians. Paul had so many problems to deal with in the church in Corinth. He had received reports of many things going wrong in the church after he had left, having spent eighteen months building up the church. A year or two later, he found that the church was in great difficulty. Some of the things that we have discussed in Series One include problems with weak leadership, an issue of incest in the church, quarrels amongst believers and their disputes going to the law courts and, in the last episode, we looked at the question of men in the church using prostitutes and committing sexual immorality with prostitutes in the city of Corinth. That was a very difficult and painful issue for Paul to deal with. Paul is always very straightforward and clear in the way he deals with difficult problems. He doesn’t avoid difficult issues.

The Importance of the Body

At the end of Chapter 6, Paul was explaining the significance of the human body in our Christian discipleship. Some people think that Christianity is just a spiritual change, something that goes on in your heart: you are set free from sin; you are born again in the spiritual realm; and one day you will go to heaven as a spirit. Paul explains in this book, particularly in Chapter 15, but he also refers to it in Chapter 6, that our physical body is very important in the process of being a Christian, of sanctification, and that our body will be raised from the dead physically on the Day that Christ comes again. The body is important, he said, because it is also the temple of the Holy Spirit. What we do with our physical body really matters: what we eat; what we drink; what we say; and how we relate to people physically. All these things are very important. What we do with our body sexually is also very important in terms of our relationships.

Many Questions about Sexual Morality

In Chapter 6, Paul was dealing with a very negative issue. He is just about to come to a very positive issue about human sexuality. The negative issue was dealing with the question of prostitution. During the passage in verse 16 of Chapter 6, he goes back to the book of Genesis, and he quotes the famous words in Genesis 2:24, ‘The two will become one flesh,’ to talk about the union of man and woman in marriage - something incredibly positive. The Corinthians had all sorts of unusual and unhelpful views about relationships, about sex, and about how they should live in their Corinthian society. There was a division in the church - some people went along with the way that the pagans lived, and said, ‘We can have sex with prostitutes. Other people do it; we Christians can do it. Anything is permissible.’ That was one attitude which Paul completely disagreed with and challenged as we saw in the last episode. But in this episode, we are going to see something different. Some of the Christians in the Corinthian church, were so horrified by the sexual morality in the pagan culture, which was full of immorality of all sorts, that they wanted to step away from it completely. They wondered whether a sexual relationship between man and woman in marriage was a good thing, or not. Some were quite concerned, and some people even proposed the idea that Christians who were married should not have sexual relationship together, unless it was for procreating - for children.

This is a very strange idea in the minds of some modern people, but this was an idea in the Corinthian church. There was a complete difference of opinion between some who were going with the pagan sexual immorality and saying, ‘We’ll join in’, and others who are saying ‘We don’t want anything much to do with sexual relationships at all, not even in marriage.’ They were advocating the idea that those who are married should abstain from sex. Paul was dealing with these difficulties.

In 1 Corinthians 7: 1 he says, “Now for the matters you wrote about,” So, it is a very specific issue that he is dealing with. They also had written to him about widowers and widows - Should they stay single or should they get married? They wrote to him about when it is appropriate for Christians to get divorced, and what happens if a Christian is married to a non-Christian: can they divorce that person because they don’t have their faith? There are a whole series of questions that Paul is responding to. In this episode, we are going to go through the specific questions one by one and see what Paul has to say.

Sex Within Marriage

“Now for the matters you wrote about: it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other, except perhaps by mutual consent, and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, then come together again, so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all of you were as I am, but each of you has his own gift from God. One has this gift, another has that.”

1 Corinthians 7:1-7, NIV

The opening statement here in verse 1 is a quotation from the Corinthians’ letter where they say to him, ‘It is good for a man to not have sexual relations with a woman in marriage.’ This is the view that sex wasn’t necessary to marriage; it wasn’t really a good thing. Paul challenges this. He disagrees fundamentally. He says that sex is important in marriage, and that the husband and wife should be open to that sexual relationship as far as possible, as and when they have opportunity. They should only abstain from sexual relationship for a particular period of time, or a particular purpose, such as to pray. Paul gives a very positive view of the relationship between a husband and wife in marriage, and the physical aspect of that relationship.

Paul was single. He never got married. He never wanted to get married, as far as we can tell. He preferred the single life. Jesus also was single, but they both taught positively about marriage. That positive attitude is very important because Christianity is not against the body; it is not against the sexual relationship between man and woman. It is totally positive about that in the context of marriage. Christianity stands against sexual immorality - the inappropriate use of sex, such as prostitution that Paul dealt with in the last episode, which he strongly opposes because it damages us spiritually, and physically, and it damages our relationship with God. Paul was in favour of strong marriage relationships with a strong physical relationship. He was thinking about one man being married to one woman. In some cultures, there exists polygamy, where one man is married to more than one woman, which in fact existed in the culture in Corinth. Paul is not dealing with that particularly here, because the Christian ideal is monogamy, one man married to one woman. But in the Early Church, sometimes people were converted to Christianity who had more than one wife, as we find in some cultures of the world today, for example, in sub-Saharan Africa, where you can find polygamous tribal societies and people come into the church with more than one wife. Paul’s approach to this was to allow those relationships to continue rather than breaking up the family units. All Christians were taught that only having one wife, one husband – monogamy - was the Christian normal life. If you were a disciple, you could only marry one person. Paul is positive about the physical aspects of marriage.

Singleness and Widowhood

“Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: it is good for them to stay unmarried as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.”

1 Corinthians 7:8-9, NIV

In this context, the Greek word the ‘unmarried’ probably means a widower. In some translations of the New Testament, the word ‘widower’ is used - a man who has lost his wife. Paul is addressing the question of those who have been bereaved; they were married, but they are no longer married. The Corinthians asked him the question, ‘What should a Christian do if they lose their marriage partner, should they stay single or should they marry again?’ This was a very important question in the ancient world, because many people who were widowed, especially women, were very poor. They lost the economic support of their husband, and they may not have had other economic support. Paul said that it was good to stay single because he believed a single life was very positive, but he said if a relationship was developing, and they fell in love a second time, that is fine, and they should marry.

In the ancient world, many women experienced being widowed because men died much younger than women. The men often had injuries from work, or they travelled or were in the Army; there were many circumstances where men’s health could be compromised. Women could become single when they were quite young, having been married; they might be widowed in their thirties. They wanted to ask Paul what he thought about it.

Divorce

In verses 10 and 11, Paul begins to deal with another very sensitive and important question. It is an important question in the modern world, just as it was in the ancient world. What about divorce? He gives a very clear opinion about two Christians who are married together who both have faith. This is important because later, in verses 12 to 16, he will talk about a Christian married to a non-Christian and that is a slightly different situation. What happens if two Christians are married together and there are difficulties in that relationship? This is a very common situation.

Let us remind ourselves of what Jesus said about this which is recorded most clearly in Matthew 19: 8 - 9, where Jesus allows one reason why Christians may divorce their partner - if that partner has been sexually unfaithful and had a sexual relationship with somebody else. Jesus permits that person to divorce and then potentially to remarry. Keep that in mind as we read Paul’s words, because Paul would have discussed that issue with the Corinthian church, but he doesn’t specifically mention it in this passage.

“To the married I give this command, not I, but the Lord. A wife must not separate from her husband, but if she does, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.”

1 Corinthians 7:10-11, NIV

Notice a number of things about this passage. First of all, “Not I, but the Lord,” Paul means here that this command originated with Jesus. ‘The Lord’ means Jesus. He is linking back to the teaching that Jesus gives on marriage and divorce. I have dealt with that teaching much more fully in the ‘Life of Jesus’ collection on Word Online. Do have a look at the passages there, in Matthew 5 and Matthew 19 that describe Jesus’ teaching. Essentially Jesus taught that divorce should not take place amongst Christians unless there is sexual unfaithfulness.

Paul is following on from Jesus. He advises that if there are difficulties in the marriage, the husband and wife should try and stay together and maintain the marriage. But he acknowledges that sometimes divorce and separation will take place because of a breakdown of the relationship. ‘If they do separate’, he says, in verse 14. He knows that sometimes it will happen, perhaps out of necessity, because of violence or abuse, or perhaps because the relationship is just breaking down. But what does he say? If you divorce for reasons other than a sexual relationship of your partner, a great challenge to the church, don’t look for another marriage partner, remain unmarried or single. If there is an opportunity to be reconciled to your marriage partner, then seek that path. It may happen. It may not happen. It may be possible. It may not be possible for all sorts of reasons. Paul’s advice to the Corinthians is don’t just move from one marriage to another because that relationship didn’t work out too well.

You and I would love to sit down with Paul and ask him a lot more questions about this, because he doesn’t say very much here. We can think of all sorts of scenarios and situations and think, what would Paul say about this, or that, or the other? Unfortunately, we can’t ask him. So, we have to think about what we do know. What we do know is that, like Jesus, Paul teaches clearly that divorce, apart from in the case of sexual unfaithfulness to the partner, is not a good Christian option. If separation is necessary, and Paul acknowledges that may be the case sometimes, but he argues that Christians should not be moving on to other relationships, but rather remaining single, or seeking reconciliation. This is a very challenging teaching, and many Bible teachers would not be willing to explain and develop this teaching too much in their churches, because it might be unpopular because Christians sometimes take different options. I want to just explain it as clearly as I can in its original context and leave you to think about the actual implications. What we see here, and in the teaching of Jesus, is a very high a view of marriage. Marriage is very significant to Paul and to Jesus; Christian disciples are committed to invest in their marriages. This is not so popular in many cultures in the world today. It is not popular in the Western world where I live. It is not popular in some traditional cultures as well, where people consider, in some cases, that men can just divorce their wives easily and move on to another simply because of their social status. Paul is not supporting either of those views. He has a view of marriage, which is based on a very high level of commitment - a very high level of sacrifice on behalf of your partner. We see this particularly in Ephesians 5, when Paul talks about husbands and wives in marriage, and he particularly calls the husbands to lay down their lives for their wives.

Christians Married to Non-Christians

“To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord.) If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she’s willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or sister is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. How can you, wife, know whether you will save your husband? Or how can you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?”

1 Corinthians 7:12-16, NIV

Here Paul deals with another very important question. What happens if you are married to a non-Christian, and particularly if you become converted to Christianity whilst your partner does not? Paul’s advice is that although there may be tensions in the marriage due to your faith, the Christian partner should not initiate divorce with their unbelieving partner. However, if the unbelieving partner initiates divorce, then you can allow this to happen without resisting it and you are called to live at peace. Let that partner go and move on with your life. This is a very big issue in many societies and an important piece of advice. Paul points out that being married to a non-Christian does not make you spiritually unclean. In fact, the power of the Holy Spirit working in you will influence them and your children, even if your partner is not a believer. Take a positive view of that situation: act in faith and trust God. But if they decide to divorce you, then you are free to leave that marriage.

Reflections

We have raised some huge questions that are often painful, complex, and challenging for Christians. We have realised how important marriage is in Christian discipleship, and the investment in that relationship that we need to make. Paul gives some very clear answers to specific questions. We see here, and in Jesus’ teaching, that there are two circumstances where God allows Christians to consider divorce as a necessary and sometimes positive thing. The first is when their partner is sexually unfaithful, and the second is if their partner is an unbeliever who initiates divorce. We have also seen that sometimes we end up in the painful situation where Christians are divorced because the relationship is not working out for some reason other than sexual unfaithfulness. Paul recognises that this will sometimes happen, but he encourages people in that situation to remain unmarried or single, or to be reconciled to their partners.

To follow Christ is challenging in many ways. One of the most challenging ways is in your personal relationships, in your family relationships, in your sexual relationships, and in your marriage relationships. The last episode and this episode have highlighted the significance of this, but we must notice that Paul does not back away from difficult issues. He calls Christians to high moral standards in all the situations that he addresses, in the knowledge that we will be blessed as we follow the path of obedience, even though it might be a difficult road for us.

Thank you for listening to this episode. Do join us again as we continue these themes in the next episode.