1 Corinthians 7:32-35

Scripture: 1 Cor. 7:32 I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord.

1 Cor. 7:33 But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife,

1 Cor. 7:34 and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband.

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

Teaching: Paul continues his point from the previous verses on the spiritual and worldly advantages of not marrying. As we saw last week, Paul isn’t saying marriage is bad nor that one should leave a spouse to serve the Lord. Rather, he is expressing a reality of when two become one in marriage – they don’t agree automatically on everything, but yet, are bound together. Paul is plain in his language in verses 32-24. These are generalities that apply as much to the worldly Corinthians as they do to us Westerners today. A single man or woman’s needs are basic, and it is easier to focus one’s attention on the Lord. A married man or woman’s needs become more complex, and even more so when children are born. These are wonderful and blessed things, but if we are not purposeful in focusing our attention on the Lord daily, they will take over as the most important things in your life. In that event, pleasing them becomes your idol, rather than pleasing the Lord, as Paul teaches in these verses.

In verse 35, Paul exhorts his audience to listen carefully to what he is saying and what he’s not saying. The purpose of this teaching is “to promote good order and secure your undivided devotion to the Lord” not to “lay any restraint upon you.” Keep first things first, and understand how easy it can become to substitute devotion to the Lord with devotion to family. We all need reminders like this from time to time.

Takeaway: The Protestant Reformation was begun chiefly by Martin Luther, a monk devoted to a life of devotion, study, teaching, and preaching, when he protested against the teachings and practices of the Catholic Church in 1517. In that time, priests were all expected to remain celibate, stemming from teachings like this in the Bible. However, what is plainly evident is that was not Paul’s intention in writing 1 Corinthians 7. Luther would end up marrying a former nun named Katharina von Bora in 1525, and as Luther was viewed as the ultimate leader of the newly forming Protestant church, he was also looked to provide the example for how a Protestant household should operate. It was a massive shift from looking to celibate priests, monks, and nuns as the exemplar of holiness to now looking towards families for the same. But for Luther, it was a hard transition, as he had lived his entire life up to that point in relative silence, solitude, and devotion singularly to the Lord. Author Michael Massing wrote of the first year of Luther’s marriage, “In the years before his marriage, Luther had led a spartan and solitary life. Working himself to exhaustion, he would fall into bed ‘oblivious of everything,’ as he later put it. For a full year before his wedding day, his bed had not been made, and the straw was rotting from his sweat. Now he suddenly found his life joined to that of another. In the first year of marriage, he observed...a man ‘has strange thoughts.’ When sitting at the table, he thinks, ‘Before I was alone; now there are two.’ When waking up in bed, ‘he sees a pair of pigtails lying beside him which he hadn’t seen there before.’” It was a hard transition for Luther, and as Paul wrote in these verses, Luther certainly experienced his share of anxieties. But history shows that while he wouldn’t be nominated for husband of the year by our present day standards, he found a way to enjoy the blessings of marriage while remaining devoted first to the Lord. He would later say of Katharina and his marriage, “It is the pleasantest kind of life to have a moderate household, to live with an obedient wife, and to be content with little.” Martin called marriage “the divine institution from which everything proceeds and without which the whole world would have remained empty.” Marriage is important and is a fundamental part of life for married people. But, as we see here in these verses from Paul, our devotion to the Lord supersedes all earthly bonds. In God’s amazing grace though, by serving the Lord first, all our other relationships benefit. As Jesus said in Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

*excerpts from Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind by Michael Massing.