WWUTT 1532 Anxious About the Things of the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:32-35)

God said, it is not good for man to be alone. So when the Apostle Paul says that it is better to remain single than get married, he is not saying singleness is better than marriage, except in a certain context, when we understand the text.

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of 1 Corinthians chapter 7, as Paul has been talking about matters concerning marriage and singleness.

I'm going to begin reading in verse 32 and go to the end of the chapter. This is out of the

Legacy Standard Bible, the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. But I want you to be free from concern.

One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the

Lord. But one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and his interests have been divided.

The woman who is unmarried and the virgin is concerned about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit.

But the one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.

Now this I say for your own benefit, not to put a restraint upon you, but to promote propriety and undistracted devotion to the

Lord. But if any man thinks that he is acting unbecomingly toward his virgin daughter, if she is past her youth, and if it must be so, let him do what he wishes, he does not sin, let her marry.

But he who stands firm in his heart, being under no compulsion, but has authority over his own will, and has decided this in his own heart, to keep his own virgin daughter, he will do well.

So then both he who gives his own virgin daughter in marriage does well, and he who does not give her in marriage will do better.

A wife is bound as long as her husband lives, but if her husband has fallen asleep, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the

Lord. But in my opinion, she is happier if she remains as she is.

And I think that I also have the Spirit of God. So we come back again to verse 32 where Paul says,

I want you to be free from concern. Remember he's talking here in this section about remaining single and not getting married.

As we looked at this back in verse 25, he says, and then this kind of begins this section, now concerning virgins,

I have no command of the Lord, but I give an opinion as one who by the mercy of the

Lord is trustworthy. These are still Spirit -filled words that we are reading here.

This is by the guiding of the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul that he is writing these things. It's not like differentiating between Paul's opinion and Christ's word.

This is still the word of Christ as Paul is one who is an apostle of Jesus Christ.

It's just not given as a commandment. So it's not God saying, you must do this. Rather, this is being offered as general wisdom and saying,

I am of the Lord, one who is trustworthy. Paul says at the end of this section in verse 40 that he has the

Spirit of God. So this is coming from the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. Now if you're reading in a different translation, if indeed you have been following along with me in the

NASB or the ESV or some other translation, I'm reading from the Legacy Standard Bible. But here in verse 25 where it says, now concerning virgins, in the

ESV it says, now concerning the betrothed. That seems quite a different word, but it actually has the same implications to it.

So a virgin, as I said yesterday, is one who is unmarried, never consummated this union, has never taken a vow or an oath or a commitment.

Someone who is betrothed is someone who might be promised in marriage, but they themselves are still virgins.

So they could be on the verge of making that commitment in marriage and have not yet done so.

Or somebody who is looking for marriage. Either case, either way you're looking at it, this is a person who is still a virgin, has not been consummated in a one -flesh union in any way.

So Paul is addressing those who have never been married. Previously he had addressed the unmarrieds, those were the widows and the widowers.

The virgins or the betrothed are those who have never been married at all. And so Paul gives this opinion saying to them that because of the present distress, that was verse 26, it is good for a man to remain as he is.

Now in the section we're looking at today, Paul includes women in this as well. It was more directed at men yesterday, but he also includes women.

So this is not just men stay single, but even women considering the present distress, it is better for you to remain single.

Remember the statement that we have toward the end of this here, verse 38, both he who gives his own virgin daughter in marriage does well and he who does not give her in marriage will do better.

So it kind of sounds like singleness is better than being married. It is in a certain context.

We'll talk about that here in just a moment. But do not think that singleness is in and of itself a better state of a person than marriage, which

God has created and even called us to some to marriage, some not to marriage.

Jesus talks about that in Matthew chapter 19. The apostle Paul has talked about it here. Some have a gift of being single.

They don't even have a desire to be married, whereas there are others that are certainly called to marriage. And if they are going to be called to marriage, there's more that they are responsible for than a person who is not called to marriage.

But God's intention from the very beginning in perfect creation before sin had entered the world, his intention for man and woman was to be married.

That's the status of paradise. It is not good for a man to be alone.

Remember those words from Genesis chapter two, God causing a deep sleep to come upon Adam, taking a rib from his side and from that rib, creating

Eve, the first woman. And Adam sees this woman brought to him. And you have the first song of Scripture, him saying, this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.

A man shall leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife. And the two shall become one flesh.

This is how God intended man and woman to be in perfection, in the perfect paradise that was the

Garden of Eden. It is better than for a man to be married and have a family than for him to be alone.

But in the context in which Paul is speaking here, we have two things to consider.

First of all, the present distress. That was what we looked at yesterday with Paul saying because of the present distress.

And I mentioned all kinds of persecution that was coming upon the church in the early days of the church, how this was going to go on for a couple of centuries before you finally had

Constantine accepting Christianity as like an official religion of Rome. There would be heavy persecution upon the church until then, which would be in the fourth century.

So all of this that was to come upon the church, the destruction of the temple in 70

A .D. Diocletian's heavy persecution upon the church and other Roman emperors as well.

The present distress is a reason why it would be wise for you not to get married. You only have to be concerned about yourself.

You don't have to be concerned about watching spouse or children torn away from you or those you love being put to death.

You can commit yourself only to the ways of the Lord. And if you know that you should pack up and go in a mission or some sort of evangelism work, you can do it and not have to worry about bringing along spouse and children or making sure they're taken care of while you go on to do some other kind of work or something like that.

So because of those conditions, those things that were happening in the world, that is why Paul advises it's better for you to remain single.

Now, certainly any of these evangelists, these missionaries, pastors and even apostles, they could all be married.

In fact, the only one of the apostles that we're aware of or two, I guess the only two apostles that we're aware of that were not married are

Paul and John. And we had talked earlier about how Paul probably was previously married.

You'd have to go back to a few episodes to catch that. But it's while we've been here in First Corinthians, Chapter seven,

John was not married. But church tradition, church history holds that the rest of the apostles were married.

We read about Peter being called to follow Jesus. And and we read about Peter's mother in law.

That was very sick. Jesus coming in, healing Peter's mother in law. And then she gets up and serves everyone in the house.

So for Peter to have a mother in law, he had to be married. Peter himself was married.

Paul talks about this even with the Corinthians. When we get to First Corinthians, Chapter nine, verse five, he says, do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the

Lord and Cephas? Cephas is Peter. So Paul is arguing there.

It's perfectly fine for Peter to have a wife. Any apostle or pastor can be married and have children.

And there's they are not less serving of the Lord just because they have a wife and kids.

That's something that Paul is going to bring up a little bit later on. So just because they're married, just because they have children does not make them less capable of the ministry work that God has called us to.

But when it comes to the present distress, when it comes to what is going on, Paul is advising the church as a matter of wisdom.

It would be better for you to remain single. And as you are called to serve the Lord, you're able to take up and do that.

And you don't have to, you know, talk to your spouse about that. I do that. I have to do this all the time. Just the other day, somebody said, hey, can we meet for lunch this week?

And I had to reply, well, let me check with Becky on that and see if our schedules line up to do that before I commit to that.

See, when you're married, you have to think about those kinds of things. You're two people who are one flesh, but you're still two minds about things.

And so what one plans, you have to make sure that the other one's plans line up together.

These are things you don't have to think about when you're not married. The more kids you have, the more your schedule is going to pile up.

Right. Because your kids have activities. And now you have to think about, well, I can't do this that night or that day of the week because my child has this activity and I need to go to that.

So the the more the bigger the family you have, all of those things are very, very good. But the less likely it's going to be that you're able to be that you're mobile in the work of the

Lord that you're called to do becoming a missionary. It's going to be more expensive for you and your whole family to be able to transport together to another part of the world to do this mission's work.

That's even harder in these days, in these covid days. See, we're we're hitting a certain present distress even in our days where because of covid, you have to be vaccinated in order to travel.

Well, your kids probably have to get vaccinated, too, in order to go to that country that you want to go to and and share the gospel.

The covid vaccine is riskier for kids than it is for adults. Do you really want to subject your children to that?

It's something you have to think about before you just up and move to another place in order to spread the gospel.

But when it's just you, you only have to think about decisions for yourself.

You don't have to think about it regarding your whole family. That's the context that Paul is speaking into here. So it has to do with the present distress, number one, and it has to do with serving the

Lord. Number two, you are you are more likely to be able to respond to those kinds of mission calls if you just have to think about doing it yourself rather than making decisions with your spouse and with all of your children in mind.

So once again, in verse 32, I want to free you from concern, Paul says.

One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the

Lord. But one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife.

Now, that does not mean that husbands and wives or having a spouse is something worldly.

That's not what that means. But it is something that exists only in this age and not in the next.

It's in the present earth, but not in the new heavens in the new earth. Jesus said in Matthew twenty to thirty four in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven, like angels in the sense that in our resurrected bodies we don't procreate.

So there's no marriage and being given in marriage in the age to come. It's only for the present age.

Hence why Paul expresses it here as the one who is married is concerned of the things of the world and how he may please his wife.

You're concerned about these things in this present age. Now, that doesn't mean that you don't ever think about the age to come.

If you're married, you're just bound to this age and you don't think about the age to come. I, as a husband and a father, think about how

I might sanctify my wife, because that's an instruction that's given in Ephesians five to husbands, that I am to love my wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, having sanctified her by the washing of the water through the word.

So I have that responsibility as a husband to sanctify my wife with the word of God.

We read the word together. We pray together that she may grow in holiness and in Christ likeness herself.

So I'm helping to prepare my wife for the age to come. And I'm also doing that for my children as well.

I am raising up children in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord that they may know

Christ and they too may be sanctified. They come to faith, they grow in holiness, and my children are souls that I will be able to present to Christ on that day and say that I was faithful with these.

And so these are the responsibilities we have as parents. We do think about the age to come in this way, but you just can't devote yourself as quickly or as readily to missions or evangelism work when you are married and have children.

And that's kind of the context that Paul is talking about here. This is the expansion of the church in the first century that's going on, plus the present distress of the persecutions that were coming upon the church.

And we've seen throughout this age how there have been periods of persecution that have afflicted the church.

It's a lot harder to keep a marriage together. It's difficult to have children. You know, we've heard stories of different people living in different contexts where childbirth was even really hard.

John Owen was one who did not have many children. In fact, most of his children died in childbirth or in infancy.

And so there have been periods in history where it just was not easy to be able to have a family and grow a family.

But it is important for Christians to do that. We should be giving in marriage because that's a good thing, because God created marriage and created it to be good and said it is not good for man to be alone.

We should likewise be having children because the scriptures tell us that children are a blessing from the

Lord and the fruit of the of the womb is this heritage that God has blessed us with.

So it is great to have families to grow those families. But just consider the present context in which

Paul is speaking here concerning these issues regarding singleness here in First Corinthians chapter seven.

It may be something that you need to consider for yourself not to get married, but to remain single and devote yourself entirely to to the missions work or the evangelism work of Christ.

There are others, as Paul had said earlier in First Corinthians seven, to keep yourself from temptation, you should get married.

Previously, Paul said in verse two of this chapter, because of sexual immoralities, each man is to have his own wife and each woman is to have her own husband.

The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife and likewise also the wife to her husband.

The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise, also, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

So as we had talked about in that particular section, a husband and a wife help to keep one another accountable, help to sanctify each other, help to satisfy in each other some of those physical appetites that you have between a husband and a wife.

That's a very good thing. And God created that to be good. But if you can discipline yourself away from sexual immorality and devote yourself entirely to the things of Christ, perhaps

God is calling you to do something more missional or evangelical. Verse thirty four.

Well, let me read thirty three again, because thirty four comes in the middle of a sentence, so we'll just keep going. But one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife and his interests have been divided.

The woman who is unmarried and the virgin is concerned about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit.

But one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.

Now, understand that as Paul is talking about women being holy there, he's not saying that women who are virgins are therefore more holy than women who are married and have a husband and children.

She's not more holy just because she's a virgin. And we've we've talked about this before as well.

But rather, if she's going to remain unmarried, then she needs to keep her mind on things that are holy, being set apart from the world and devoted fully unto

Christ, that her body belongs to the Lord. Since her body does not belong to a husband, it cannot belong to anybody else.

She must purify herself and be sexually pure, committed only to God.

In verse 35, Paul says, now this I say for your own benefit, not to put a restraint upon you.

So again, this is a matter of opinion. I'm not saying to you that you cannot get married.

I'm not saying that it is a command that you must not get married. I'm not trying to restrain you, but to promote propriety and undistracted devotion to the

Lord. And we'll stop there for now. We'll pick up the rest of chapter seven tomorrow in all things, whether we're married or single, may we devote ourselves fully unto

Christ for, as it says in Romans 12, one in view of God's mercies.

My brothers present your bodies as a living sacrifice unto the

Lord, holy and acceptable. And this is your spiritual act of worship.

Married or single, we all must commit even our very bodies unto

Christ for purification. I'm currently writing a Sunday school lesson that is coming up for our classes here at First Baptist Lyndale, and it's out of First Thessalonians chapter four, where we read in verse three, for this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the

Gentiles who do not know God, that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the

Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you, for God has not called us for impurity, but holiness.

Therefore, whoever disregards this instruction disregards not man, but God, who gives his

Holy Spirit to you. It is not a command for you to remain single. It is a command for you to be holy, and true holiness comes by faith in Jesus Christ.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this good word today. Keep us holy as you are holy.

May we desire purity and perfection in Christ Jesus, and we strive for those things.

The Apostle Paul said to the Philippians, not that I am already perfect, but I desire to make it my own, because Christ has made me his own.

So, whether I'm talking to somebody who is married or unmarried, we make holiness our priority as we live in these bodies in this world.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus, looking forward to your perfect kingdom in which we will dwell in this glorious perfection forever.

It's in Jesus' precious name we pray. Amen. Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers, and offering commentary on the church and social issues.

You can find a link to the blog through our website www .utt .com. Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's Word, when we understand the text.