The Single Life (1 Cor. 7:25-40)

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  1. Paul gives advice, rather than issues commandments – 7:25, 35, 40. Usually Paul writes with apostolic authority – 14:37.
  2. Meaning of ‘the present distress’ (7:26). Famine? Persecution?
  3. 7:36-38. To an engaged couple (ESV, Bruce Winter) or to parents and their virgin unmarried daughter (NASB, Calvin).
  1. God honours the single life.
    • 1 Cor.7:7-8. Note Matthew 19:12. Paul assumes that most overseers/elders will be married with children (1 Tim.3:2, 4-5).

    Henry Martyn (missionary in India, Persia and Arabia, left his prospective wife, Lydia Grenfell, in England. Martyn: ‘My dear Lydia and my duty call me different ways; yet God hath not forsaken me.’

  2. Marriage has its trials.
    • 7:28. Much of this advice is related to the present distress (7:26); note Matthew 24:19; Jer.16:1-2; Francis Bacon said that ‘children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.’
    • Martin Luther once wondered how many arguments Adam and Eve had in their 930 years of marriage. Compare 1 Corinthians 7:39-40 and 1 Timothy 5:14. Why the difference?
  3. Sit loosely to this world.
    • 7:.29-31; Mark 4:19; Matt.22:30. Augustine overdoes this: ‘We cannot love what is eternal unless we cease to love what is temporal … Leave to dismiss it before you are dismissed by it.’
  4. The single person has more time for the Lord.
    • 7:32-35. This is not a matter of sin and holiness – 1 Tim.4:1-3. It is a matter of claims on our time – like Luke 10:38-42. Keep it in perspective. Most of the apostles were married – 1 Cor.9:5. Be holy.