A Work in Progress Post …
Thoughts that immediately come to mind that I have heard why marriage is better than celibacy and an exploration of 1st Corinthians 7. My thoughts are in italics. There are many verses to consider. I hope to do other posts on these verses. I have been studying these passages for 15 years, and find myself studying them again. This is a highly divisive subject at one that can lead to breaches in close friendships and tear churches apart. We must walk circumspectly and lovingly through this potential minefield judgement and self-righteousness.
My own position is not one I have heard others teach. I do think that God allows for divorce and remarriage under certain specific circumstances and that I am not qualified to judge anyone else in these matters. I also do not think that the scriptures are silent or that this is not spelled out in plain language that even a child can understand. I believe it is very much black and white but also that God in His perfect mercy and grace has bathed the matter in grace, mercy and compassion for the those who are victimized by bad marriages and sinful spouses. The goal is therefore not establish the LAW, the RULES, the ABSOLUTES of what is right and what is wrong but rather to attempt to understand God’s will, God’s good pleasure and the truth so that we can be in peace regarding the choices we make and our dear ones make in regards to this matter. In other words, to be able to view marriages and those who are married in diverse circumstances from the perspective of our Heavenly Father.
Something that I think I personally struggle(d) with is that God can hate something and yet permit it. God can hate something and yet do it Himself.
Fundamental Scriptures to my understanding:
God hates divorce.
“For I hate divorce,” says the LORD, the God of Israel. “He who divorces his wife covers his garment with violence,” says the LORD of Hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit and do not break faith.”
Jeremiah 3: 7 “I thought that after she had done all these things, she would return to Me. But she did not return, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it. 8She saw that because faithless Israel had committed adultery, I gave her a certificate of divorce and sent her away. Yet that unfaithful sister Judah had no fear and prostituted herself as well. 9Indifferent to her own infidelity, Israel had defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees.…”
And even though God gave Israel a writ of divorce that He actually never broke His end of the Covenant.
Deuteronomy 7:9 “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps His covenant of loving devotion for a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments.”
It turns out that my former understanding of marriage, divorce and remarriage was kind of a mash up of all these fragments instead of a systematic and cohesive set of laws and regulations that work seamlessly together, give clear and easy to understand instructions that never ever contradict one another. I therefore encourage everyone to explore the entire counsel of God on this matter and to study each verse in the full context of the text they are given in.
Here is what I can say, what the Bible teaches on marriage if read as a legal contract, which I believe it is and should be treated as, it most certainly spells out the clauses, loopholes, legally binding matters and consequences both eternal and temporal explicitly pertaining to marriage. I believe it is essential to understand at least the fundamentals to make wise choices in regards to this matter. I do not claim to be a lawyer or judge qualified to understand of these perfectly but I think a plain reading of the Word makes these accessible even to the childlike.
It is not good for man to be alone. What God said in the garden. Yet, Jesus calls other believers his mother and brothers and blurs line between relationship in Christ and relationship by blood. This is further blurred during the discussions regarding people being true heirs of Abrahams heritage by faith and other passages that stress our relationships to one another as brothers and sisters in Christ supercede our relationships by blood with one another. While blood may be thicker than water in the world, the Spirit is thicker than blood in the Kingdom.
Jesus sent out disciples 2 by 2, not husband and wife teams.
When one falls other there to pick up, this passage is not tied to husbands and wives. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
In the Kingdom no gender no race, neither Greek nor Jew, Male or Female Galatians 3:28
Marriage is not an eternal institution but rather an institution for mankind while in a natural, unglorified dust body. At some point between the Garden and the resurrection, marriage ceases. Procreation seems to be tied to creation. God created and then put in mankind seed to fill the earth with. But apparently at some point the Earth gets full and babies, more humans stop being added to the equation.
Will not be given in marriage in the new system Matthew 22:23–33 and Mark 12:18–27. Jesus answered that in the resurrection people do not marry but are like angels in heaven.
Paul’s writings in 1 Corinthians 7 (ARA) suggest that the time where marriage and procreation were the prominent way to fill the earth with children of God seems to have already shifted and that we are presently in a transition period. The Old is not yet fully passed away and the new is not yet fully come. Presently, teaching the gospel and spreading the good news seems to be the emphasized and more prominent means of growing the Kingdom and adding sons and daughters to the family of God.
1 Corinthians 7 “1But concerning those things of which you wrote to me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman, 2But because of fornication, (other versions say because of the temptation for fornication referencing the established precept that so long as we are in a non glorified flesh body, the mind of the flesh can be tempted and is at war against the Spirit of God, once a man is no longer tempted by the sin of fornication, the need to take a wife or a woman to take a husband becomes unnecessary according to what Paul is saying here. He seems to be saying because the new system has been inaugurated but not yet consummated, that each person is somewhere on the spectrum between being a person who is subject to the mind of the flesh and to the Holy Spirit by degrees and that whether or not to be married now depends on if one’s flesh is tempting them to sin beyond what they can resist or not) let a man take a wife and a woman take her husband. 3Let a man bestow to his wife the love * that is owed; in this way also, the woman to her husband. 4A wife is not authorized over her body, but her husband is. In this way also a man is not authorized over his body, but his wife is. 5Therefore do not deprive one another except when you both agree in a time which you devote to fasting and prayer, and you shall again return to pleasure *, lest Satan tempt you because of the desire * of your bodies. (Again, Paul has reframed what position the marriage institution has in this present stage by saying sexual gratification in marriage in essential LEST Satan tempts us through the appetites of our flesh) 6I say this as to the weak, (Paul labels those who can not resist the temptation of the flesh as being weak indicating this is a concession to the accepted understanding that until Christ comes back individuals will be saved in varying degrees from the temptation of the flesh and that being weak in this particular area is not counted against people but that our Loving Father created an appropriate and righteous way to quench that hunger while our bodies remain subject to these longings) not by commandment. 7For I wish that all people might be like I am in purity, but every person is given a gift from God, one in this way and one in that way. Paul labels the ability to be pure as a gift.
8But I say to those who do not have a wife and to widows, that it benefits them if they should remain as I am. Paul is either contradicting God’s commandment to be fruitful and multiply or something fundamental shifted after Christ’s resurrection regarding marriage. 9But if they do not endure, Same language again, if they cannot resist the appetites of the flesh, then let them marry. It is beneficial for them to take a wife rather than to burn with lust. Again marriage presented as a pre-emptive measure against the sin of lust
10But those who have wives, I command, not I but my Lord: A wife should not depart from her husband. 11And if she does depart, let her remain without a husband or let her be reconciled to her husband and let not a man forsake his wife. (Now Paul has just preached a message saying it Is better to be single to a mixed crowd including married people. He clears up any confusion and temptation to divorce from or separate from ones spouse by saying if you are already married when you hear this message, do not separate or divorce your spouse)
12But to others I am saying, not my Lord, if there is a brother who has a wife who is an unbeliever and she is willing to stay with him, let him not leave her. 13And whichever wife has a husband who is not a believer, and he is willing to stay with her, let her not leave her husband. 14That man who is an unbeliever is sanctified by the wife who believes, and that fwho is not a believer is sanctified by the husband who believes, otherwise their children are defiled, but now they are pure. 15But if he who does not believe separates, let him separate. A brother or sister is not in bondage in such cases. (This portion of scripture is prefaced by Paul saying he is saying what follows, this is not a commandment, this is not a thus says the Lord, but Paul’s best understanding of what God intended, therefore we must weigh this portion of scripture as Paul being it’s source and not God. Paul clearly views being married as a form of bondage that limits our energies and focus in serving the Kingdom wholeheartedly. This passage says that once you are married, you cannot simply walk away from the enslavement, obligations you have entered into under oath but should an unbelieving spouse leave, you become unencumbered from this bondage. This does not actually say that you also become free to marry again. This is in direct contrast to what Paul states later on that once a spouse is dead, then there is liberty, freedom to marry whomever you choose. We must not lose track of the fact that Paul is presenting marriage as enslavement and bondage to a party other than God and that marriage positions us to have competing masters, our spouse and the calling of God. God has called us to peace. 16For what do you know, woman, if you will save your husband, or you, man, if you will save your wife?
17But as THE LORD JEHOVAH distributes to each man, howsoever God calls him, let each man walk; and so I command all the churches. 18And if a man was called when circumcised, let him not return to uncircumcision. And if he was called in uncircumcision, let him not be circumcised. 19For circumcision is not anything, neither uncircumcision, but the keeping of the commandments of God. 20Let every person continue in the calling in which he was called. I do not believe that Paul is changing subjects but further illustrating this issue of marriage. Those who are circumsized spiritually have removed the fleshy bit and those who are not circumsized have not. I believe he is stressing that we cannot simply cast off our responsibilities that we vowed to honour until the death of our spouse. Once married, we are commanded to fulfill our duties to our spouse. These verses say that marriage is a calling that cannot be ignored or discarded. New wording/thinking for me in all this is celibacy and marriage are callings that those who are unmarried can choose. Callings from God, not things we can flippantly take up or lay down according to our own good pleasure. See Romans 11:29 New King James Version “For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”
21If you have been called as a Servant, let it not concern you, but if you can be freed, choose for yourself to do service. 22For whoever is called as a Servant is God’s Freeman in Our Lord. So also whoever is called as a Freeman is a Servant of The Messiah. 23You have been bought with a price; you should not be Servants of people. 24Let every person continue with God in that in which he is called, brethren. In the context of this conversation, this might seem like a sudden divergence from Paul’s focus on marriage, but if you are reading what is on the page. These 2 analogies are I believed a continued illustration of the difference between having only God has your master vs having God and a spouse to serve. He says we are free to choose if we have not already bound ourselves to a a human master. He is saying we can choose to use this liberty to serve
25Concerning virginity, I do not have a commandment from God, but I give my advice as a man who has received favor from God to be faithful. 26And I think that this is fair because of the distress of the time, that it is useful for a man to be so. 27Are you bound with a wife? Do not seek a divorce. Are you divorced from a wife? Do not seek a wife. 28And if you take a wife, you will not have sinned, and if a man shall keep a virgin, she will not be sinning, but there has been physical suffering for those who are so, and I have pity for you. 29And I say this brethren: the time now is short, for those who have wives shall be as if they were without them, 30And those who weep, as if they did not weep, and those who rejoice, as if they did not rejoice, and those who buy, as if they did not acquire. 31And those who use this world, not apart from the right usage, for the form of this world is passing away. This further clarifies Paul’s position. The present form of this world is already passing away. We are in a transition period from God’s original plan in its corrupted state due to the fall now being in a season of partial restoration and redemption until such time as Jesus returns. Therefore there are concessions and practices that apply to right now that were not in place in the beginning, that did not exist under the fall, and will not exist in the new system. Marriage is clearly directly impacted and Paul is describing in detail to the best of his knowledge and understanding how to walk that out in the mean time..
32Because of this, I want you to be without care, for whoever does not have a wife thinks upon what is of his Lord and how he may please his Lord. 33Whoever has a wife cares for what is of the world, (choosing to marry is by degrees choosing something of this world over the Kingdom, see Galatians 5:17, verses regarding cares of this world, Matthew 6:24) how he may please his wife. 34But there is a distinction between a wife and a virgin. She who has not ever had a husband thinks upon Our Lord that she may be holy in her body and her spirit, and whoever has a husband thinks of the world so that she may please her husband. 35But I say this for your benefit, not that I may cast a noose onto you, but that you would be faithful to your Lord in a beautiful way, while you are not attending to the world. (choosing to marry in this present form of the Kingdom is binding ourselves to care for what is of the world).
36But if a man thinks he is disgraced by his virgin who is past her time and he has not given her to a man, and it is fitting to give her as he chooses to do, he does not sin; she may be married. 37But he who truly determines in his mind and is not pressured to pleasure and has power over his will, judging in this way in his heart to keep his virgin, he does well. 38And he therefore who gives his virgin does well, and he whoever does not give his virgin girl does all the better. Paul’s language is consistent through this whole passage, he who remains a virgin and unbound to a spouse will be more free to put all of their energies into serving God.
39A wife is bound by The Written Law to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband should fall asleep, she is free to be whosever she will, only in Our Lord. 40But she is blessed if she remains in this way, according to my mind, but I think also that The Spirit of God is in me.” Paul finishes this teaching by saying again, it is better for her to be single than to remarry but that she is genuinely free to choose to marry again if that is her desire or to remain unfettered and serve the Lord in freedom from the cares of this world that we sign up for when we take on a spouse. Paul does clearly say, this is according to his mind but also that the Spirit of God within him prompts this. Paul clearly has the gift of celibacy but also encourages others to weigh the responsibilities that marriage constrains them to as well as to consider honestly their own ability to resist the temptations of the flesh.
Galatians 5:24-25 24 BSB Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25Since we live by the Spirit, let us walk in step with the Spirit.…
Luke 9:23 22 BSB “The Son of Man must suffer many things,” He said. “He must be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” 23Then Jesus said to all of them, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. 24For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.…
