1 Corinthians7chapter 7

1 Corinthians 7:1-2

It is good for a man not to touch a woman: Paul answers the church's own letter, likely a slogan the ascetic party at Corinth had written to him, since touch here is a common euphemism for sexual relations rather than a command against marriage itself. Verse 2 balances the maxim at once, because of fornications so common in a city whose very name had become a byword for vice, let every man have his own wife and every woman her own husband, marriage the ordinary and honored remedy Paul commends rather than a lesser concession. The bench reads the two verses as answer and qualifier in the same breath, the single life granted its value later in the chapter without ever denying marriage its own goodness and safety.

1 Corinthians 7:3-5

Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence, and likewise also the wife unto the husband: Paul states the marriage bed as a mutual debt rather than a one sided claim, the wife's authority over her husband's body named in the same sentence as his over hers, a symmetry striking against a culture that granted the husband far more claim than the wife. Defraud ye not one the other except it be with consent for a time guards the same mutuality, permitting a season set apart for fasting and prayer only by agreement and only briefly, and come together again lest Satan exploit the very self denial meant to serve devotion. The bench reads the whole unit as Paul correcting an ascetic impulse already circulating in the church, one that would turn marriage's ordinary intimacy into a spiritual liability rather than a covenant duty.

1 Corinthians 7:6-7

But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment: Paul marks the difference between what he has just allowed, the season of abstinence by consent, and a command binding on every conscience, a distinction the chapter repeats through its Pauline privilege language of I, not the Lord and not I, but the Lord. For I would that all men were even as I myself states his personal preference for the unmarried state without making it a rule, since every man hath his proper gift of God, charisma, one after this manner and another after that, marriage and singleness both named a gift rather than one being the deficient state. The bench treats this verse as the chapter's key, the distinctions of permission, judgment, and command marking Paul's own care to separate apostolic authority from personal counsel rather than any doubt about his authority itself.

1 Corinthians 7:8-9

I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I: Paul extends his own preference to those already single, without commanding it. But if they cannot contain, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn names the alternative plainly, burn read by the bench as the fire of unsatisfied desire rather than any threat of judgment, marriage the honorable answer to a real appetite rather than a lesser path for the weak. The unit continues the chapter's pattern of stating a preference and then guarding it at once against becoming a burden on those it does not fit.

1 Corinthians 7:10-11

And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, let not the wife depart from her husband: Paul now cites a command already given by Jesus during his ministry, the teaching against divorce recorded in the Gospels, and marks it apart from his own apostolic judgments by name. But if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband, and let not the husband put away his wife: the permission for separation without remarriage, and the standing charge against a husband's own divorce, both echo the dominical teaching rather than introduce a new one. The bench notes the care Paul takes to distinguish the Lord's own words, already authoritative, from the apostolic guidance he is about to add for cases Jesus did not directly address.

1 Corinthians 7:12-14

But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: if any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away: Paul now addresses a case the Lord's earthly teaching had not covered, a believer married to an unbeliever after conversion, and gives his own apostolic judgment under inspiration rather than a dominical saying. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband, else were your children unclean, but now are they holy: the sanctification named is relational and covenantal rather than personal salvation, the marriage and its children set apart under the believing spouse's standing rather than left common. The bench reads the verses against a Corinthian fear that mixed marriage defiled the believer, Paul reversing the direction of influence, the believing spouse a channel of blessing rather than a partner in contamination.

1 Corinthians 7:15-16

But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart, a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God hath called us to peace: where the unbeliever chooses to leave rather than remain, the believing spouse is freed from the marriage bond rather than obligated to pursue an unwilling partner, peace rather than perpetual strife the calling in view, a provision later theology names the Pauline privilege alongside the exception Jesus himself allowed. For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband, or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife, turns the hard case toward hope, the believing spouse's presence a possible means of the other's salvation rather than a wasted effort. The bench holds the two verses together as Paul balancing release with hope, neither commanding separation nor forbidding the believer's faith that the marriage might yet be won.

1 Corinthians 7:17-18

But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk, and so ordain I in all churches: Paul states the principle governing the whole chapter, that conversion does not require a change of earthly station, and applies it first to circumcision, is any man called being circumcised, let him not become uncircumcised, is any called in uncircumcision, let him not be circumcised. The bench notes the church wide force of the rule, not a Corinthian accommodation but Paul's standing instruction everywhere, aimed at believers who wanted their new faith to erase every mark of their old identity rather than sanctify the situation they already occupied.

1 Corinthians 7:19-20

Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God: Paul relativizes the very mark that had divided Jew from Gentile inside the church, neither sign carrying weight in itself, obedience to God the only thing that counts, a verdict that lands as hard on Jewish pride in the sign as on Gentile contempt for it. Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called restates the chapter's governing rule in its shortest form, calling here meaning the earthly condition a person held at conversion rather than a vocation newly assigned. The bench reads the pair as Paul stripping away every external badge Corinth might have used to rank believers against each other, circumcision included.

1 Corinthians 7:21-22

Art thou called being a servant? care not for it, but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather, applies the same rule to slavery, the most consequential earthly condition in the Roman world, Paul neither commanding revolt nor forbidding a legitimate path to freedom where it opens. For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman, likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant: the reversal is total, the slave's true freedom and the free man's true bondage both located in Christ rather than in civil status, a claim that leaves neither condition superior in the church's own eyes. The bench reads the verse as gospel logic applied to social rank exactly as it was applied to circumcision, spiritual reality overriding rather than abolishing the visible condition.

1 Corinthians 7:23-24

Ye are bought with a price, be not ye the servants of men: the price is Christ's own blood, named already at 6:20 in almost the same words, and the command follows directly from it, a believer's ultimate ownership belonging to the Lord who purchased him rather than to any human master, whatever his outward condition. Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God closes the whole unit, the phrase with God added to calling here for the first time, turning a merely social instruction into a spiritual one, every legitimate earthly station lived out in conscious fellowship with God rather than escaped from. The bench treats the refrain, repeated across circumcision, slavery, and marriage alike, as the chapter's true subject, contentment with one's calling read as a mark of grace rather than resignation.

1 Corinthians 7:25-26

Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord, yet I give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful: Paul again marks a case Jesus had not directly addressed, offering his own apostolic counsel rather than a dominical command, and grounds his right to give it in the mercy that has made him faithful rather than in personal preference alone. I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress, I say, that it is good for a man so to be: the present distress is read by the commentators as the pressures, whether persecution, poverty, or the unsettled conditions of the church's earliest years, that made the unmarried state practically wise for that hour without binding every later generation. The bench treats verse 25 as clarifying rather than undermining Paul's authority, a judgment given under inspiration and offered as counsel rather than as one more command laid on the conscience.

1 Corinthians 7:27-28

Art thou bound unto a wife, seek not to be loosed, art thou loosed from a wife, seek not a wife: the counsel of the present distress is applied concretely, married men urged to seek no release and single men urged toward no new bond, the same contentment principle from earlier in the chapter now applied to marital status itself. But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned, and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned, nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh, but I spare you: Paul is careful to remove any shadow of sin from marrying, his counsel a matter of practical wisdom under pressing conditions rather than a moral verdict, the trouble in the flesh named honestly as the ordinary hardship marriage adds without becoming a prohibition. The bench reads I spare you as Paul's own tenderness, unwilling to lay a hard requirement on those already facing a hard hour.

1 Corinthians 7:29-31

the time is short: But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none: Paul widens from marriage alone to every ordinary attachment, weeping, rejoicing, buying, using the world, each named and each relativized, not because the attachments are wrong but because none of them is final. For the fashion of this world passeth away gives the reason, schema, the world's outward shape and arrangement rather than its substance, already passing even as Paul writes, and the bench reads the whole unit as urging a loosened grip on every present circumstance rather than withdrawal from any of them. The section is commonly read alongside Paul's expectation of the Lord's return, whether soon or simply certain, without the text itself fixing a date.

1 Corinthians 7:32-33

But I would have you without carefulness: he that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord, but he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife: Paul names the practical trade the single state offers, an undivided attention that marriage rightly and necessarily divides, without condemning the married state for the care it requires. The bench is careful to read careth here as the ordinary and legitimate concern a spouse owes the other, not a fault, Paul's point being the arithmetic of attention rather than a judgment on marriage's worth.

1 Corinthians 7:34-35

There is difference also between a wife and a virgin: the unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit, but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband: the same undivided attention argument is stated for women in their own right, a notable move in a letter otherwise occupied with women's place under male headship. And this I speak for your own profit, not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction: Paul again removes any binding force from his counsel, aiming at the Corinthians' own good and at undistracted devotion rather than at a rule imposed on the unwilling. The bench reads distraction, aperispastos, as the chapter's real concern throughout, marriage good and singleness good, each weighed by how it serves single minded attention to the Lord.

1 Corinthians 7:36-38

But if any man think that he behaveth himself uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the flower of her age, and need so require, let him do what he will, he sinneth not, let them marry: the verse is among the letter's hardest to translate with certainty, and the commentators name at least two readings, a father deciding whether to give his engaged or dependent daughter in marriage as she passes marriageable age, or a man in a betrothal deciding whether to proceed to marriage. Nevertheless he that standeth stedfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well, so then he that giveth her in marriage doeth well, but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better: whichever relationship is in view, Paul again refuses to make either choice sinful, ranking one course as good and the other as better without condemning the first. The bench leaves the identity of the virgin and the man's relation to her a question the commentators divide on, rather than a settled fact of history.

1 Corinthians 7:39-40

The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth, but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will, only in the Lord: Paul closes the chapter where marriage law is plainest, the bond dissolved only by death, and remarriage permitted freely to a widow with the single qualification that the new marriage be in the Lord, a believer to a believer. But she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment, and I think also that I have the Spirit of God returns to Paul's own preference stated at the chapter's opening, offered again as judgment rather than command, and closed with a claim to the Spirit's guidance the bench reads as confidence in his apostolic authority rather than any doubt of it. The chapter that began by weighing marriage against singleness ends exactly as it proceeded throughout, preference stated, freedom preserved, and no snare cast on either path.