1 Corinthians 7:33-40 I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife— and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord. If anyone is worried that he might not be acting honorably toward the virgin he is engaged to, and if his passions are too strong and he feels he ought to marry, he should do as he wants. He is not sinning. They should get married. But the man who has settled the matter in his own mind, who is under no compulsion but has control over his own will, and who has made up his mind not to marry the virgin—this man also does the right thing. So then, he who marries the virgin does right, but he who does not marry her does better. A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord. In my judgment, she is happier if she stays as she is—and I think that I too have the Spirit of God.
In the above focus Paul is encouraging people to be of one mind: devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. For Paul, such an intense devotion to God is not very difficult, for he had a supernatural encounter with Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. With that experience, he knows the spiritual world is real; he knows Christ is real, not an illusion or trick of the mind. With this encounter with Christ, he knows serving God is not just obedience to the laws given on Mount Sinai; there is much more than that to knowing God. Paul now knew Jesus was the Messiah. The apostles knew Jesus as the Messiah too. They had walked with Jesus, heard his teaching and watched his miraculous deeds. Jesus was not an illusion or hallucination: He was real flesh and blood. For them to know Jesus as the Christ brought an urgency about fulfilling Jesus’ commission to them: to go into the world and preach the Good News, saving many from perdition. We see Paul passing on this Good News to the Corinthians, letting them know that Jesus is real and that they should devote themselves to him. Paul believed Jesus would be returning soon, so he desired the Corinthians to stay in whatever situation that they found themselves in at the present time. They should live with undivided devotion to Christ. Christ was real; He was not the product of some sort of collective hallucinations. The apostles had walked with Jesus, had watched Jesus functioning completing as a human, with all the biological necessities of a human. But for them to believe Jesus was someone beyond a natural man took time for them. Peter when he experienced Jesus filling up a net with fish after he and his friends had fished all night and caught nothing said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8) When the disciples were in the midst of a storm on a lake, they were astonished that Jesus who was with them could control the wind and the waves. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!” (Matthew 8:24-27) John the Baptist had a strong witness of the Holy Spirit that Jesus was the Lamb of God, sent by God to redeem his people from their sins. But even John had some questions about Jesus' divinity and his mission on earth. Was this nondescript man he baptized truly God’s Messiah? He knew Jesus was someone special, for the Holy Spirit remained on Jesus when Jesus was baptized in the river Jordan. Nevertheless, John sent two of his disciples to check on Jesus’ ministry. When the men came to Jesus, they said, “John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. (Luke 7:20-23) Jesus' ministry was full of miraculous deeds as Jesus revealed to John’s disciples. He was truly God, but He also was truly the son of man, the son of every man. Isaiah tells us how common he was, He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. (Isaiah 53:2) But the disciples knew him as Christ; Paul knew who he was, the Son of the Living God, for he had encountered him on the road to Damascus. Now Paul wanted his converts to realize this man, Jesus, is God’s Son, and that their lives should be given totally to serving the Christ.
For Paul, Christians should be singleminded in their lives, living for Jesus, elevating in every way the Good News embedded in their lives. For him, no other life was worth living. He desired the Corinthians to go beyond the daily duties and obligations of life. He wanted their lives to be fruitful and honored by God. To be fruitful, they should be uncoupled as much as possible of the demands of life, living their lives in the right way, in undivided devotion to the Lord. Because marriage could impede a life for Christ, he wished the Corinthians would stay single, living entirely for the purposes of God. He knows if marriage enters the picture of their lives, they are now bound to their mate as long as they live. The cares and needs of the mate must be met to have a happy union. Their focus in life naturally becomes divided between God and their companion. To be married is not a sin but it can hamper a devotion to God only. Paul, in his discourse with the Corinthian church about providing for him financially, mentions the marriages of prominent leaders in the Christian world, Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas? (1 Corinthians 9:5) These leaders were spreading the Good News to the world successfully, yet they were married. So Paul knows it is not a sin to be married and that God’s message of Good News is not necessarily hampered by the unity of two in a marriage. If the union is secure and focused on the purposes of God, they will act as one in revealing the Good News to the world. Paul is concerned about sexual activity in the Greek world, for much deviant sexual behavior is part of the Greek society. Therefore, he wishes the Greek Christians to be focused on serving God and not on relationships in marriage or outside of marriage. If they are virgins, stay as virgins. If they need to marry, do so without guilt, for they still can serve the Lord in that unity. But once bound to the other in marriage, it is permanent until death separates one from the other. From the very beginning of time, God meant for a man and woman to be bound in marriage permanently. Jesus clarifies this issue in his ministry to the people. “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Matthew 19:3-6) Marriage is a permanent state, they are no longer two, but one flesh. By being one flesh Christians must function for the benefit for each other. This oneness might interfere with serving God completely for the obligation to the other are part of the necessities in life.
When Christians commit their lives to Christ, they become born again. Their focus in life shifts in reality from living their lives for themselves to living their lives for Christ. Paul is expressing this theme in his writing to the Corinthians about marriage. The focus on Christ is a matter for the Corinthians to understand completely. They are no longer citizens of this world; they are aliens and strangers in this world of sin and diversions. Abraham and the patriarchs, even in Canaan, knew they were not citizens of Canaan: they were just moving through, living in tents, always ready to move on. The Greeks in Corinth vicariously were abiding in tents, living lives of faith, knowing the Promised Land is in the future. Therefore, Paul wanted them to keep this focus; he did not want them to bed down in this life, losing their purpose for living. Paul chose not to live for himself, but for Christ. He was called to do God’s will and not his own. For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. (2 Corinthians 5:14-15) He wanted the Corinthians to no longer live for themselves, even in their marital status. He believed their lives would be better if they lived in singleness. Because of his own dedication to God, his view of life was skewed toward living a life untangled with marriage. For him, a single life dedicated to God was not an aberration but a calling from God. Peter said he left everything to follow God, but he still had a wife, still had obligations to his union with his wife. But Jesus told him that God will honor him for his willingness to follow him. God will honor people who are single and people who are married if they consider this world as not their home, working every day to lifting up the Good News in actions and words. God sees the heart; he knows the deepest intentions of the heart. He knows our prayer life; he knows our thought life. Nothing is hidden from him. Paul understood well that these Corinthian Greeks were coming out of a very chaotic world, one where secular norms were not the same as the Jews who were under Moses’ law. He knew that relationships could interfere greatly in their dedication to God. For them promiscuity should be left behind, singleness or marriage should be a stable existence in serving God. Our friends around this breakfast table, no matter what state we find ourselves in, we should be focused on doing the will of God in our lives. We are but aliens, this life is not our home. Jesus puts our lives as the redeemed into focus when he said, For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? (Matthew 16:25-26) Married or not, let us seek the will of God in our lives. Someday before all the angels and principalities in heaven, we will be honored for living lives dedicated to Jesus, the Christ. Let us be sure that we honor him in all things.
No comments:
Post a Comment