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Text: 1 Corinthians 7
Among carnal people, normal relationships get messed up. The gospel is all-encompassing in life. The gospel is not that you pray to Jesus so you can go to heaven. The gospel affects a person’s entire life because sin affects a person’s entire life. And Jesus Christ’s instructions covered the marriage relationship as well as whether a person has eternal life or not.
Mutual submission is a guard against bringing sin into the marriage (vss 1-6)
- Paul says marriage as an answer to fornication.
- Since fornication is a perversion of the original creative order of life and therefore it is sin. Then turning from darkness to light would look like returning to the original order of God’s creation. Abandon your fornication and enter into a marriage.
- Don’t touch if there’s not a marriage.
- Don’t use the bedroom as punishment. Don’t withhold necessary affection from her because you don’t feel like it.
- If the needs aren’t met for him or her, then Satan gets an opportunity through the flesh to destroy the relationship and possibly the people through sin.
There is no sin in marriage for widows or unmarried folks (vss 7-9)
- …to the unmarried and widows…
- Paul’s desire is that everyone would be single and free to serve the LORD as he is, but there is no sin in marriage
- There are few passages in the Bible like this where the prophet offers his opinion but ultimately yields to God’s judgment.
Two married believers remain married (vss 10-11)
- …unto the married…
- Stay married or be reconciled.
Married to unbelievers, stay married if you can (vss 12-24)
- Don’t try to be something you’re not, be content (vss 18-24).
- Uh oh, Paul said keep the commandments of God?!
Expedience and urgency in the marriage relationship (vss 25-31)
- Paul lays out an urgency, but also freedom. You must participate in this world, but don’t be bound by the elements and basics of the world.
The cares of this world (vss 32-35)
- You must be aware that marriage can become the care of this world (vss 32-33). See Mark 4:19.
- Recent example of well-known preacher.
Unmarried is preferred, but marriage is not wrong (vss 36-40)
