Corinthians Marriage Quotes

In every possible instance Saint Paul begged Christians to restrain themselves to contain their carnal yearnings to live solitary and sexless lives on earth as it is in heaven. "But if they cannot contain " Paul finally conceded then "let them marry for it is better to marry than to burn." Which is perhaps the most begrudging endorsement of matrimony in human history.

Jesus commands us to love God first, with everything we have, not only because God deserves our love and is worthy of it, but because he knows how crucial it is to our long-term well-being. God knows that whatever we love the most will rule our lives. That’s why the Bible counsels us to let the love of Christ control us (see 2 Corinthians 5:14), not the love of lesser things.

Great marriages are not produced by people who never hurt each other, only by people who daily choose to keep “no record of wrongs” (1 Corinthians 13:5).

So when it’s all said and done, the romance, intimacy, and enjoyment of your marriage is greatly dependent upon your mutual commitment to allow no unforgiveness to exist between the two of you. Great marriages are not produced by people who never hurt each other, only by people who daily choose to keep “no record of wrongs” (1 Corinthians 13:5).

Self-centeredness is a havoc-wreaking problem in many marriages, and it is the ever-present enemy of every marriage. It is the cancer in the center of a marriage when it begins, and it has to be dealt with. In Paul’s classic description of love, in 1 Corinthians 13, he says,   Love is patient and kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. (verses 4–5) Repeatedly Paul shows that love is the very opposite of “self-seeking,” which is literally pursuing one’s own welfare before those of others. Self-centeredness is easily seen in the signs Paul lists: impatience, irritability, a lack of graciousness and kindness in speech, envious brooding on the better situations of others, and holding past injuries and hurts against others.

Outside of your relationship with God, the most important relationship you can have is with yourself. I don’t mean that we are to spend all our time focused on me, me, me to the exclusion of others. Instead, I mean that we must be healthy internally—emotionally and spiritually—in order to create healthy relationships with others. Motivational pep talks and techniques for achieving success are useless if a person is weighed down by guilt, shame, depression, rejection, bitterness, or crushed self-esteem. Countless marriages land on the rocks of divorce because unhealthy people marry thinking that marriage, or their spouse, will make them whole. Wrong. If you’re not a healthy single person you won’t be a healthy married person. Part of God’s purpose for every human life is wholeness and health. I love the words of Jesus in John 10:10: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” God knows we are the walking wounded in this world and He wants the opportunity to remove everything that limits us and heal every wound from which we suffer. Some wonder why God doesn’t just “fix” us automatically so we can get on with life. It’s because He wants our wounds to be our tutors to lead us to Him. Pain is a wonderful motivator and teacher! When the great Russian intellectual Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was released from the horrible Siberian work camp to which he was sent by Joseph Stalin, he said, “Thank you, prison!” It was the pain and suffering he endured that caused his eyes to be opened to the reality of the God of his childhood, to embrace his God anew in a personal way. When we are able to say thank you to the pain we have endured, we know we are ready to fulfill our purpose in life. When we resist the pain life brings us, all of our energy goes into resistance and we have none left for the pursuit of our purpose. It is the better part of wisdom to let pain do its work and shape us as it will. We will be wiser, deeper, and more productive in the long run. There is a great promise in the New Testament that says God comes to us to comfort us so we can turn around and comfort those who are hurting with the comfort we have received from Him (see 2 Corinthians 1:3–4). Make yourself available to God and to those who suffer. A large part of our own healing comes when we reach out with compassion to others.

We also wish warmly to affirm those sisters and brothers, already in membership with orthodox churches, who - while experiencing same-sex desires and feelings - nevertheless battle with the rest of us, in repentance and faith, for a lifestyle that affirms marriage [between a man and woman] and celibacy as the two given norms for sexual expression. There is room for every kind of background and past sinful experience among members of Christ's flock as we learn the way of repentance and renewed lives, for "such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:11). This is true inclusivity.

And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.” Matthew 6:7   Reincarnation Paul states, in 1 Corinthians 15, that to be a Christian one must believe in the physical resurrection of the body. This is impossible if you believe in reincarnation.   “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.”     1 Corinthians 15:13-14   Celibacy, Vegetarianism, & Jewish Festivals “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons… men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods…” 1 Timothy 4:1,3

Yes, Scripture does clearly and unequivocally condemn homosexuality as sin, despite baseless claims to the contrary. Leviticus 18:22, 1 Corinthians 6:9, 1 Timothy 1:10, and Romans 1:26–27 all prohibit homosexual relations and condemn them as inherently disordered. But even if these negative verses didn’t exist, the Bible’s positive definition of holy marriage and sexuality would be sufficient in telling us what Christians should believe and how we must live.

It is rather revealing that we feel the need to offer special programs (and hire special staff) for single adult ministry in our churches. We struggle somehow to fit single adults into a kingdom plan that we have designed primarily for married folks. Perhaps the problem is with how we have framed the plan. Paul's concern in 1 Corinthians 7 was not to ask how singleness fits into God's kingdom plan. Paul was addressing the issue of how marriage fits into His kingdom plan. Single people are already with the program. They are "concerned about the things of the Lord" (v. 32). Married people are the ones who need help sorting out their priorities.

I remember meeting a man who gave sex seminars to students at various college campuses. To get people to come he passed out flyers that were entitled “How to Have the Best Sex on Earth.” Of course, his lecture attracted a huge turnout. He spoke about sex between two virgins on their wedding night being disease-free, guilt-free, comparison-free, and shame-free, as well as being pleasing to God. It is the best sex you can have on earth. He explained that many people fall short and that is why Jesus died on a cross. In Christ anyone can start over. As 1 Corinthians 6:9--11 says: “The sexually immoral…will [not] inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed…sanctified…[and] justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” The forgiveness found in Christ doesn’t take away from the fact that God’s way is always the best way for a marriage and our world. Hebrews 13:4 says: “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure.” That is exactly what Missy and I did.

People had always been told that the house at Skuytercliff was an Italian villa. Those who had never been to Italy believed it; so did some who had. The house had been built by Mr. van der Luyden in his youth, on his return from the "grand tour," and in anticipation of his approaching marriage with Miss Louisa Dagonet. It was a large square wooden structure, with tongued and grooved walls painted pale green and white, a Corinthian portico, and fluted pilasters between the windows. From the high ground on which it stood a series of terraces bordered by balustrades and urns descended in the steel–engraving style to a small irregular lake with an asphalt edge overhung by rare weeping conifers. To the right and left, the famous weedless lawns studded with "specimen" trees (each of a different variety) rolled away to long ranges of grass crested with elaborate cast–iron ornaments; and below, in a hollow, lay the four–roomed stone house which the first Patroon had built on the land granted him in 1612. Against the uniform sheet of snow and the greyish winter sky the Italian villa loomed up rather grimly; even in summer it kept its distance, and the boldest coleus bed had never ventured nearer than thirty feet from its awful front.

Missy and I became best friends, and soon after our first year together I decided to propose to her. It was a bit of a silly proposal. It was shortly before Christmas Day 1988, and I bought her a potted plant for her present. I know, I know, but let me finish. The plan was to put her engagement ring in the dirt (which I did) and make her dig to find it (which I forced her to do). I was then going to give a speech saying, “Sometimes in life you have to get your hands dirty and work hard to achieve something that grows to be wonderful.” I got the idea from Matthew 13, where Jesus gave the Parable of the Sower. I don’t know if it was the digging through the dirt to find the ring or my speech, but she looked dazed and confused. So I sort of popped the question: “You’re going to marry me, aren’t you?” She eventually said yes (whew!), and I thought everything was great. A few days later, she asked me if I’d asked her dad for his blessing. I was not familiar with this custom or tradition, which led to a pretty heated argument about people who are raised in a barn or down on a riverbank. She finally convinced me that it was a formality that was a prerequisite for our marriage, so I decided to go along with it. I arrived one night at her dad’s house and asked if I could talk with him. I told him about the potted plant and the proposal to his daughter, and he pretty much had the same bewildered look on his face that she’d had. He answered quite politely by saying no. “I think you should wait a bit, like maybe a couple of years,” he said. I wasn’t prepared for that response. I didn’t handle it well. I don’t remember all the details of what was said next because I was uncomfortable and angry. I do remember saying, “Well, you are a preacher so I am going to give you some scripture.” I quoted 1 Corinthians 7:9, which says: “It is better to marry than to burn with passion.” That didn’t go over very well. I informed him that I’d treated his daughter with respect and he still wouldn’t budge. I then told him we were going to get married with him or without him, and I left in a huff. Over the next few days, I did a lot of soul-searching and Missy did a lot of crying. I finally decided that it was time for me to become a man. Genesis 2:24 says: “For this reason [creation of a woman] a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” God is the architect of marriage, and I’d decided that my family would have God as its foundation. It was time for me to leave and cleave, as they say. My dad told me once that my mom would cuddle us when we were in his nest, but there would be a day when it would be his job to kick me out. He didn’t have to kick me out, nor did he have to ask me, “Who’s a man?” Through prayer and patience, Missy’s parents eventually came around, and we were more than ready to make our own nest.

Throughout the history of the church, Christians have tended to elevate the importance of one over the other. For the first 1,500 years of the church, singleness was considered the preferred state and the best way to serve Christ. Singles sat at the front of the church. Marrieds were sent to the back.4 Things changed after the Reformation in 1517, when single people were sent to the back and marrieds moved to the front — at least among Protestants.5 Scripture, however, refers to both statuses as weighty, meaningful vocations. We’ll spend more time on each later in the chapter, but here is a brief overview. Marrieds. This refers to a man and woman who form a one-flesh union through a covenantal vow — to God, to one another, and to the larger community — to permanently, freely, faithfully, and fruitfully love one another. Adam and Eve provide the clearest biblical model for this. As a one-flesh couple, they were called by God to take initiative to “be fruitful . . . fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). Singles. Scripture teaches that human beings are created for intimacy and connection with God, themselves, and one another. Marriage is one framework in which we work this out; singleness is another. While singleness may be voluntarily chosen or involuntarily imposed, temporary or long-term, a sudden event or a gradual unfolding, Christian singleness can be understood within two distinct callings: • Vowed celibates. These are individuals who make lifelong vows to remain single and maintain lifelong sexual abstinence as a means of living out their commitment to Christ. They do this freely in response to a God-given gift of grace (Matthew 19:12). Today, we are perhaps most familiar with vowed celibates as nuns and priests in the Roman Catholic or Orthodox Church. These celibates vow to forgo earthly marriage in order to participate more fully in the heavenly reality that is eternal union with Christ.6 • Dedicated celibates. These are singles who have not necessarily made a lifelong vow to remain single, but who choose to remain sexually abstinent for as long as they are single. Their commitment to celibacy is an expression of their commitment to Christ. Many desire to marry or are open to the possibility. They may have not yet met the right person or are postponing marriage to pursue a career or additional education. They may be single because of divorce or the death of a spouse. The apostle Paul acknowledges such dedicated celibates in his first letter to the church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 7). Understanding singleness and marriage as callings or vocations must inform our self-understanding and the outworking of our leadership. Our whole life as a leader is to bear witness to God’s love for the world. But we do so in different ways as marrieds or singles. Married couples bear witness to the depth of Christ’s love. Their vows focus and limit them to loving one person exclusively, permanently, and intimately. Singles — vowed or dedicated — bear witness to the breadth of Christ’s love. Because they are not limited by a vow to one person, they have more freedom and time to express the love of Christ to a broad range of people. Both marrieds and singles point to and reveal Christ’s love, but in different ways. Both need to learn from one another about these different aspects of Christ’s love. This may be a radically new concept for you, but stay with me. God intends this rich theological vision to inform our leadership in ways few of us may have considered. Before exploring the connections between leadership and marriage or singleness, it’s important to understand the way marriage and singleness are commonly understood in standard practice among leaders today.

I have promised you in marriage to one husband—to present a pure virgin to Christ. 2 Corinthians 11:2

We should be glad of success, but not overly glad, and saddened by failure, but not too downcast, because our true joy in the future is guaranteed by God. So we are to enjoy but not be “engrossed” (I Corinthians 7:31) in things of this world.

let’s commit to memorizing and meditating on 1 Corinthians 15:58: “Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.

Why didn’t you go after her?” His father’s deep voice confronted his cowardice. Michael stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, slumping his shoulders in the process as a child being scolded. He could not look at his father, he knew all too well the disapproving glare that was bound to chastise him. “Love isn’t easy, Son.” His father’s hand on his shoulder offered understanding and friendship, far from the reprove he expected. “But it is for you and mom.” “No, Son, it isn’t.” His father admitted. “I think we need to talk. How about ordering us a pizza, while I settle in.” Guiding his son back to the house, Joseph felt the prick of thorns from the guilt of past mistakes. “I can’t believe you and mom almost divorced.” Michael shook his head in disbelief at the story his father had shared with him. “We came very close. Thankfully, my father, your grandfather, sat me down and shared his own marital struggles with me. None of us are exempt from them. I know you and Abigail are not talking marriage yet, but I see the way you look at her and I know, that it is just a matter of time. Love is a commitment, Michael, not a contract.” Joseph sat his empty coffee cup down on the table and spoke honestly with his son. “Either you love her enough to fight for her, or you don’t love her at all.” “I do love her.” “Then fight for her, Michael. That includes forgiving her, not just once, but each time she messes up.” Standing, Joseph handed Michael his Bible. “I have marked two passages I want you to read. Start with Isaiah 53 and end with 1 Corinthians 13. I think you will find your answers there.” Reaching his hand down to his boy, Joseph pulled him up into his embrace. “Sleep well, Son. Your mom and I are praying for you.

Thus the demand for signs becomes the prototype of every condition human beings raise as a barrier to being open to God. I will devote myself to this God if he heals my child. I will follow this Jesus if I can maintain my independence. I will happily become a Christian if God proves himself to me. I will turn from my sin and read the Bible if my marriage gets sorted out to my satisfaction. I will acknowledge Jesus as Lord if he performs the kind of miracle, on demand, that removes all doubt. In every case, I am assessing him; he is not assessing me. I am not coming to him on his terms; rather, I am stipulating terms that he must accept if he wants the privilege of my company. “Jews demand miraculous signs.

Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. (1 Corinthians 16:13, NIV)

As for how you can know that you should not marry them, the number one reason is if one of you is not committed to fully following Christ. That is the “unequally yoked” problem from 2 Corinthians 6:14 (see our discussion of compatibility in chapter 6). You should break up if the person you are dating is not fully devoted to following Christ. This will be apparent by what they talk about, what they focus their life on, and how they behave, which includes how they treat you (and the other people around them). If they say one thing with their lips but their actions say something different, believe their actions. Some people know all the right answers and can “talk the talk,” but it is all a con—sometimes one they are even playing on themselves. A person’s actions over time will show what they truly believe. One obvious example of this is whether they are committed to purity in your relationship. If someone is willing to have sex with you outside of marriage, they are clearly not committed to following God, because they are actively disobeying his commands. They are saying, by their actions, that they don’t really fear God. They follow their own desires; that is their god. You should break up if either of you is not following God. That includes you, not just the person you are dating. Really, dating or marriage should be of little concern to you if you don’t have your eternal destination figured out. The smart thing to do would be to work on your relationship with the One who offers eternal life and who loves you more than any imperfect human ever could.

Father, don’t let us grow apart or become comfortable in going our own ways, but bring unity between us so that we may be like-minded toward one another (Romans 15: 5). I lift our marriage to You, asking that You refine us to be “perfectly united in mind and thought” (1 Corinthians 1: 10).

Marriage God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16) Two people become one through marriage (Mark 10:2-12) Angels do not get married (Mark 12:25) Married partners should meet each other’s needs (1 Corinthians 7:2-5) Married partners are united to each other for life (1 Corinthians 7:39) A Christian wife can witness to her non-Christian husband (1 Peter 3:1-6)

In order to appreciate Paul’s meaning here, we must know something about Jewish marriage practices at that time. The act of betrothal was legally binding in a way that engagement in our society is not.[2] Once it was agreed that a woman was betrothed to a man for marriage, it was her father’s legal responsibility to safeguard her virginity until the time when she left her parents’ house to move in with her husband—usually a period of one year. Notice that Paul refers to himself once again as the spiritual father of the Corinthians (1 Cor 4:15; 2 Cor 6:13; 12:14–15). In founding the church in Corinth, he betrothed the community to Christ as their “husband.” It is now Paul’s obligation to protect the Corinthians from paramours and other suitors so that he can present them “as a chaste virgin to Christ.” The consummation of this marriage will take place when the risen Lord returns in glory.

He was probably never married. Some suppose that he was a widower. Jewish and rabbinical custom, the completeness of his moral character, his ideal conception of marriage as reflecting the mystical union of Christ with his church, his exhortations to conjugal, parental, and filial duties, seem to point to experimental knowledge of domestic life. But as a Christian missionary moving from place to place, and exposed to all sorts of hardship and persecution, he felt it his duty to abide alone.357 He sacrificed the blessings of home and family to the advancement of the kingdom of Christ.358 His "bodily presence was weak, and his speech contemptible" (of no value), in the superficial judgment of the Corinthians, who missed the rhetorical ornaments, yet could not help admitting that his "letters were weighty and strong."359  Some of the greatest men have been small in size, and some of the purest souls forbidding in body. Socrates was the homeliest, and yet the wisest of Greeks. Neander, a converted Jew, like Paul, was short, feeble, and strikingly odd in his whole appearance, but a rare humility, benignity, and heavenly aspiration beamed from his face beneath his dark and bushy eyebrows. So we may well imagine that the expression of Paul’s countenance was highly intellectual and spiritual, and that he looked "sometimes like a man and sometimes like an angel."360 He was afflicted with a mysterious, painful, recurrent, and repulsive physical infirmity, which he calls a "thorn in the flesh, " and which acted as a check upon spiritual pride and self-exultation over his abundance of revelations.361  He bore the heavenly treasure in an earthly vessel and his strength was made perfect in weakness.362  But all the more must we admire the moral heroism which turned weakness itself into an element of strength, and despite pain and trouble and persecution carried the gospel salvation triumphantly from Damascus to Rome.

But you will struggle and ultimately fail to attain this kind of marriage unless you first allow God to begin establishing and growing His love within you. Love that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7) does not come from within. It can only come from God (1 John 4:7–16).

Thankfully, you’re not in this alone. If you can first accept God’s plan for marriage, then you can receive God’s help to make the marriage work. God wants to help you and your husband build a family that honors him; his help is more than sufficient for your needs: “[Christ] is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you” (2 Corinthians 13:3). My wife and I have the same goal for our home that Paul has for the church: “And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22). How do we become such a dwelling? I need to faithfully discharge the duties of a husband, while my wife needs to faithfully fulfill the duties of a wife. We intend to witness to the beauty of God’s life and God’s church in our own house and neighborhood.

Wayne Mack advises that if he is truly repentant, he will manifests the following: • He is willing to call it—sin. • He is willing to accept personal responsibility for all his sinful and unbiblical thoughts, choices, and actions. • He understands the seriousness and horrendous nature of his sin. • He shows a concern about heart sins (his attitudes, desires, motivations) as well as behavioral sins (Matthew 5: 27-32; James 4: 8). • He is willing to turn to Christ for the forgiveness of his sins and is willing to be saved by the grace of God alone. • He displays a sincere desire to be free from sin itself, not just the problems caused by sin. • He is willing to commit himself to obeying and serving God rather than self, and he takes the Lordship of Christ seriously. • He is willing to work on changing the things in his life and marriage that are displeasing to God (Luke 3: 7-14; 2 Corinthians 7: 9-11; 1 Thessalonians 1: 9-10).

Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NLT)

Going on and on about his faults wouldn’t serve any purpose, but that’s what I did. I took count of his faults and kept track of each one. I had forgotten what 1 Corinthians says about love: “It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs” (13:5 NIV). Record keeping damages our hearts and feeds the root of bitterness within us, while love heals

When We Want God to Breathe New Life into Our Marriage Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. ISAIAH 43:18-19 WE ALL HAVE TIMES when we know we need new life in our marriage. We feel the strain, the tension, the sameness, or possibly even the subtle decay in it. When there is so much water under the bridge over what seems like a river of hurt, apathy, or preoccupation, we know we cannot survive the slowly and steadily rising flood without the Lord doing a new thing in both of us. The good news is that God says He will do that. He is the God of new beginnings, after all. But it won’t happen if we don’t make a choice to let go of the past. We have been made new if we have received Jesus. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). But in a marriage, it is way too easy to hang on to the old disappointments, misunderstandings, disagreements, and abuses. It becomes a wilderness of hurtful memories we cling to because we don’t want to be hurt, disappointed, misunderstood, disregarded, fought with, or abused again. Hanging on to old patterns of thought and negative memories keeps them fresh in your mind. And you don’t let your husband forget them, either. You remain mired in them because you don’t feel the situation has been resolved—and it still hurts. Only God can give you and your husband a new beginning from all that has gone on in the past. Only He can make a road in the wilderness of miscommunication and misread intentions, and make a cleansing and restoring river to flow in the dry areas of your relationship. Everyone needs new life in their marriage at certain times. And only the God of renewal can accomplish that. My Prayer to God LORD, I ask that You would do a fresh work of Your Spirit in our marriage. Make all things new in each of us individually and also together. Dissolve the pain of the past where it is still rising up in us to stifle our communication and ultimately our hope and joy. Wherever we have felt trapped in a wilderness of our own making, carve a way out of it for us and show us the path to follow. If there are rigid and dry areas between us that don’t allow for new growth, give us a fresh flow of Your Spirit to bring new vitality into our relationship. Help us to stop rehearsing old hurtful conversations that have no place in any life committed to the God of new beginnings. Sweep away all the old rubble of selfishness, stubbornness, blindness, and the inability to see beyond the moment or a particular situation. Only You can take away our painful memories so that we don’t keep reliving the same problems, hurts, or injustices. Only You can resurrect love, excitement, and hope where they have died. Help us to forgive fully and allow each other to completely forget. Help us to focus on Your greatness in us, instead of each other’s faults. Holy Spirit, breathe new life into each of us and into our marriage today.

The Bible Is Full of Hypocrites It’s not just modern people who struggle to live consistently with what they believe. The Bible reveals again and again the timeless tension of humanity grappling with hypocrisy. Moses, the prophet of Israel, doubted God and resisted God’s call on his life. Abraham and Isaac, two of the three great patriarchs of Israel, both put their wives in harm’s way in order to protect themselves. Jacob, the third great patriarch, was a liar. Joseph, who would later save Israel from ruin, arrogantly taunted his brothers. David, the man after God’s own heart and author of most of the Psalms, committed adultery and murder. Solomon, the son of David and the wisest king of his time, was a womanizer. Rahab, a hero of the faith who protected and hid the Israelite spies, was a prostitute. Many of the great kings such as Asa and Hezekiah, who “did right in the eyes of the LORD,”[8] flirted with idolatry and finished poorly. That’s just the Old Testament. I can allow my hypocrisy to be brought into the light by God and others. In the New Testament, we also see plenty of hypocrisy. Thomas initially refused to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Paul admitted to “all kinds of covetousness.”[9] Peter had an abrasive personality. Peter and Barnabas fell into old patterns of elitism and exclusion, retreating relationally from their Gentile brothers and sisters. The Corinthian church, affectionately referred to by Paul as “saints” and daughters and sons of the Father, also bore some rotten fruit. They judged one another, created major divisions over minor doctrines, committed adultery, filed lawsuits against one another, had more divorces than healthy marriages, paraded their “Christian liberty” before those with a sensitive conscience, and slighted the poor, disadvantaged, and disabled in their midst.

When We Seek Protection from Sexual Immorality Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. 1 CORINTHIANS 6:18 SEXUAL SIN IS WORSE than other sins because it has consequences in our own body. Being that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, that means sexual sin of any kind—even in the mind—causes great conflict within us, for how can dark live alongside light? One of the ways to avoid sexual temptation is to stay close to God and His Word. The other is not to neglect the sexual needs of your spouse. Sexual intimacy is an important way to bring unity into your marriage. Joining your hearts, minds, and bodies breaks down any stronghold of separation between you and reaffirms your oneness. Your husband most likely is out working in the world where a spirit of lust is everywhere. He needs your prayers for protection and the strength to resist it when it presents itself. The same is true for you too. It is dangerous to think that sexual failure cannot happen to you or your husband in a moment of weakness or vulnerability—even if it is only in the mind. Thoughts have consequences, and that’s why God tells us to take every thought captive. We have to take charge of our mind in order to stay undeceived. There is no safe place where infidelity, or the idea of it, cannot reveal itself as an option. If infidelity has already happened to one of you, ask God for His healing and restoring power to work a miracle of deliverance, forgiveness, and restoration in both of you. And get help. This is too big an issue to go through alone. Ask God to enable you and your husband to see to it that this important area of your life is not polluted by neglect, selfishness, busyness, or the inability to keep your eyes from evil. Seek God for the strength to flee sexual sin—even if you think this can never happen to you. That story is way too familiar. My Prayer to God LORD, I pray You will help my husband and me to resist sexual temptation of any kind, even in the mind. Strengthen us so we will not surrender to the lust of the world that strives to keep us dissatisfied with what we have. Protect us from being lured to look and wonder, or to succumb and wander. Help us to flee at the first sign of any possibility of sexual sin and run immediately to You. Give us eyes to see what is truly happening even before it happens so that we can avoid the deception of immorality. Teach us how to maintain control over our own body, mind, and soul so that we are ever mindful of the purity You want us to live in (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5). Where either of us has fallen into sexual immorality in the past—even if only in the mind—I pray You would set us completely free from the severe bondage of that. Work a miracle of restoring trust and forgiveness between us. Only You have the power to free us from the debilitating sense of betrayal and can restore us to a new beginning. Keep us both strong in faith, in self-control, in Your Word, and in Your presence so that sexual sin is never a part of our future. In Jesus’ name I pray.

The Bible describes love in First Corinthians thirteen. It talks about all the positive things that love is, you know, kind, patient, not proud or rude. What we learn in marriage is that love does not stop you from wanting to walk out and never come back. It doesn’t stop you from sometimes feeling some type of way because you are on the giving end and not on the receiving. Love is not fair. Sometimes it forces you to give seventy-five percent when your partner is only giving twenty-five percent. Now, this should not always be the case, but sometimes, it is. The beautiful thing about joining your lives together is that you can bear each other’s burdens, so when all you have in you is twenty-five percent, she adds her seventy-five, and you are still at one hundred percent. Love does not guarantee that marriage lasts. That’s the problem a lot of people encounter. They say well, I’m just not in love anymore. Guess what, sometimes you won’t feel love. That’s why you have to commit yourself to the partnership and the friendship. Keep the communication open and always be willing to listen before you speak.

I believe this particular part of 1 Corinthians 7 is an important practical resource. Each partner in marriage is to be most concerned not with getting sexual pleasure but with giving it. In short, the greatest sexual pleasure should be the pleasure of seeing your spouse getting pleasure. When you get to the place where giving arousal is the most arousing thing, you are practicing this principle. When I was doing research for this chapter, I found some old talks that Kathy and I did together. I had forgotten some of the struggles we had in our early days, and some of the notes reminded me that in those years we started to dread having sex. Kathy, in those remarks, said that if she didn’t experience an orgasm during lovemaking, we both felt like failures. If I asked her, “How was that?” and she said, “It just hurt,” I felt devastated, and she did, too. We had a great deal of trouble until we started to see something. As Kathy said in her notes:   We came to realize that orgasm is great, especially climaxing together. But the awe, the wonder, the safety, and the joy of just being one is stirring and stunning even without that. And when we stopped trying to perform and just started trying to simply love one another in sex, things started to move ahead. We stopped worrying about our performance. And we stopped worrying about what we were getting and started to say, “Well, what can we do just to give something to the other?” This concept also has implications for a typical problem that many couples experience in their marital relationship—namely, that one person wants sex more often than the other. If your main purpose in sex is giving pleasure, not getting pleasure, then a person who doesn’t have as much of a sex drive physically can give to the other person as a gift. This is a legitimate act of love, and it shouldn’t be denigrated by saying, “Oh, no, no. Unless you’re going to be all passionate, don’t do it.” Do it as a gift. Related to this are the differences that many spouses experience over what is the most satisfying context for sex. While I am not saying this is universal, I will share that, as a male, context means very little to me. That means, to be blunt, pretty much anytime, anywhere. However, I came to see that that meant I was being oblivious to something that was very important to my wife. Context? Oh, you mean candles or something? And, of course, Kathy, like so many women, did not mean “candles or something.” She meant preparing for sex emotionally. She meant warmth and conversation and things like that. I learned this, but slowly. And so we learned to be very patient with each other when it came to sex. It took years for us to be good at sexually satisfying one another. But the patience paid off. Sex

The spiritual problem behind men who mistreat women and children is often rooted in a deep-seated issue of: 1. Lack of self-control and submission to God (Proverbs 25:28) 2. Pride and arrogance (Proverbs 21:24) 3. Unforgiveness and bitterness (Matthew 6:15) 4. Unrepentant heart and refusal to seek help (Proverbs 29:1) 5. Disconnection from God's love and grace (1 John 4:8) 6. Satanic influence and deception (Ephesians 6:12) 7. Unhealed trauma and pain (Psalm 34:18) 8. Misunderstanding of masculinity and strength (Matthew 20:25-28) 9. Rebellion against God's design and authority (Romans 8:7) 10. Blindness to the value and dignity of women and children (Psalm 139:13-14) These spiritual issues can lead men to perpetuate harm and abuse, causing destruction and pain in the lives of those around them. However, with repentance, seeking help, and surrender to God, healing and transformation are possible (2 Corinthians 5:17).

A calling applies to a particular way God invites us to live in the world. One may be called to the law or to the classroom, to singleness or to marriage (1 Corinthians 7), to child-rearing or to childlessness. The call—and reasons for it—are Christ’s alone.

But for the Apostle, marriage is a †charism, a gift of God (7:7), as much as celibacy is. The one who marries does well (7:38). As the context indicates, Paul is telling married couples that they should not abstain from relations lest they be tempted to seek satisfaction outside of their marriage. Origen sees this caution not merely for one’s personal benefit but especially as a loving service to the other, lest the other be tempted to adultery.[47]

declaring that the spouses do belong to each other, he establishes an approach to marriage in which each spouse should be entirely devoted to the good of the other. This mutuality is detailed in the reciprocal duties of both husband and wife. Paul’s teaching here is revolutionary. It

But that is precisely what the Christian does who unites himself with a prostitute. Stealing from Christ, he makes himself a member of the prostitute, her property. And for one who has been freed by Christ through belonging to him, this is an enslavement, a “falling under the power of,” the type of thing that Paul excluded in verse 12. Union with a prostitute is not the only type of fornication, but Paul uses it here as the most typical and that which the city of Aphrodite presented as the most common temptation to the male converts to the new faith. [16]    The fornicator becomes one body with her, for “the two,” it says, “will become one flesh” (Gen 2:24). Sexual union, whether within marriage or not, involves the whole person of each partner. It leaves an imprint on the soul as well, because of the partners’ psychosomatic nature. The libertines cannot say that in giving the body what it lusts for, the soul remains free and unengaged. Today this still is no small matter, given the currency of casual sex in our society. Sex is not a merely biological activity: it is a communion of persons.

Stiff as the competition is, the Church has the truth of God. It knows the beauty of biblical manhood, biblical womanhood, biblical marriage, biblical sexuality, and biblical creation order. We are not playing from behind or with a weak hand. We have the very mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). Furthermore, as our culture and society grow increasingly evil, God will use that encroaching darkness to draw people to the light. He is a saving God, and He loves to turn evil purposes to divine ends.

Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband” (1 Corinthians 7:3). There is “a time to embrace,” the Bible says (Ecclesiastes 3:5). When you’re married, it’s definitely the time. Affection isn’t at the top of a man’s priority list because men often see sex and affection as being the same. A woman’s greatest need is for affection. If you are in a marriage that lacks it, pray for the Holy Spirit’s transformation.

Paul flatly stated in Romans 12:1 that worship is offering our bodies as a living sacrifice. In 1 Corinthians 10:7–8, Paul made this connection between sexual sin and idolatry, explaining what sounds like a rousing night at the ancient club: “Do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.’ Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did.” Sex is deeply spiritual.

Corinthians 5:14–15 says about the fundamental nature of sin, but I think it is particularly helpful here. The passage reads, “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” (NIV). The apostle Paul summarizes here what sin does to all of us. Sin turns us in on ourselves. Sin makes us shrink our lives to the narrow confines of our little self-defined world. Sin causes us to shrink our focus, motivation, and concern to the size of our own wants, needs, and feelings. Sin causes all of us to be way too self-aware and self-important. Sin causes us to be offended most by offenses against us and to be concerned most for what concerns us. Sin causes us to dream selfish dreams and to plan self-oriented plans.

Love is supposed to be convenient. It’s supposed to be easy. Don’t they say that in First Corinthians?” He held me close against him again. “It’s real. It’s convenient. It’s perfect

Summing Up While the Old Testament envisions occasional short-term avoidance of sex for the purposes of holiness, it does not envision celibacy as a lifelong calling. The ancient world generally tended to view the question of whether to marry or remain single as a pragmatic matter. Marriage was considered primarily in terms of the responsibilities and duties required to sustain a household. Cynics and Stoics differed on the relative importance of marriage for the fulfilled life. Jesus, in his commendation of those who have “made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19: 12), recognized that God calls some, but not all, to a single life. Paul addresses this question extensively in 1 Corinthians 7 in a carefully balanced way, recognizing some circumstances under which married people might avoid sex for brief periods of time, but discouraging married people from avoiding sex altogether. Paul invites single people to remain unmarried, but clearly recognizes that not all people are gifted with lifelong celibacy. The modern awareness of the persistence of sexual orientation thus raises an important question: Are all gay and lesbian Christians whose sexual orientation is not subject to change necessarily called to a celibate life? If so, then this stands in some tension with the affirmation—of both Jesus and Paul—that lifelong celibacy is a gift for some but not for all.

Christ is the name of the holy soul that was imparted to Mary’s womb before she was married to Joseph, which holy soul waited patiently until Mary’s marriage to Joseph was consummated, and the embryo that was to become Jesus of Nazareth, was formed.

While the death of a spouse gives a person the legal, biblical right to remarry, there is one condition. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7:39, “A wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.” A believer can remarry, but he or she must marry another believer. Paul will write further on this topic in 2 Corinthians 6:14 and say that we are not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. This includes business partnerships, marriage relationships, and other binding commitments. We can marry whomever we want, as long as that person is a believer.

A man may not be a vocational theologian, but in his home he must the resident theologian. The apostle Paul, when he is urging women to keep silent in church, tells them that "if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home" (1 Corinthians 14:35). The tragedy is that many modern women have to wonder why the Bible says they should have to ask their husbands. "He doesn't know." But a husband must be prepared to answer his wife's doctrinal questions, and if he cannot, then he must be prepared to study so that he can remedy the deficiency. This famous passage is not such a restriction for wives as it is a requirement for husbands. If he doesn't know, he must find out.

[God] said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9–10)

The views of St. Paul on marriage are set forth in I Corinthians VII 1-9: 1. Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. 2. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. 3. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence; and likewise also the wife unto the husband. 4. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband; and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. 5. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. 6. But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment. 7. For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man has his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that. 8. I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them to abide even as I. 9. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn. ...one wonders what would have become of, our race if all women had carried St. Paul's teaching, "It is good for them if they abide even as I," into practice. Bertrand Russell, in his "Marriage and Morals," has gone to the root of the matter when he states, "He does not suggest for a moment that, there may be any positive good in marriage, or that affection between husband and wife may be a beautiful and desirable thing, nor does he take the slightest interest in the family; fornication holds the center of the stage in his thoughts, and the whole of his sexual ethics is arranged with reference to it. It is just as if one were to maintain that the sole reason for baking bread is to prevent people from stealing cake.

. seeketh not her own” (1 Corinthians 13:4–5). I have heard prophets and other leaders teach publicly and privately that most problems in love and marriage ultimately start with selfishness. In outlining ideal love in which Christ, the most unselfish man who ever lived, is the great example, it is not surprising that this scriptural commentary starts here.