1 Corinthians 7:1-2
Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” 2 But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.
Paul here answers a comment or question from some of the Corinthians or an idea that was floating around cultural context of Corinth among the ascetics. This whole chapter takes up some difficult topics. Paul answers the issues with recollections of early Christian teachings likely handed down from Jesus, as well as uses some of his own logic, reasoning, and godly wisdom. This chapter begins with the idea of abstaining from sexual relations altogether. There is no reason stated in v. 1 why a person should do this, but it might be because people associated sex with sin, the fallen world, the culture around it. Our present day culture has so distorted God’s design, purpose, and blessing of sex that average person on the street thinks of it only as a way to pleasure oneself. Other people become objects of pleasure and not creations of God to be in loving and self-giving relationships.
How ought Christians to respond to our culture? Paul’s answer is found in v. 2: Preserve marriage and the beauty of the creation narrative from Genesis 1:27:
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
The way to avoid sexual immorality is to experience sexual relations according to God’s design. God purposed for humans to be in relationships, to reproduce with the opposite gender, to experience the pleasures of self-giving love, to know uninhibited companionship. There are exceptions to this, and Paul will describe some of them in this chapter. Some of what he says later in this chapter is not easy to work with but there are important things for consideration. As believers, we must promote strong marriages and encourage all our youth to make wise decisions about whom they will marry. There will be a lot to consider in this chapter in the next few weeks.
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