‘I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content’ (Phil.4:11).
- Be faithful where you have been assigned.
- 7:17, 20, 24. He emphasises that this the rule he has taught in all the churches (7:17b). Essentially the idea is ‘Bloom where you are planted.’
- Spurgeon tells of an engine driver in the old steam locomotives who came to see him about being an evangelist. Spurgeon asked him if his fireman was a Christian. The man replied that he did not know. Spurgeon told him to evangelise him first.
- Be content in circumcision or uncircumcision.
- 7:18-20. Imagine you are a Jewish male who read Galatians 5:2, 4. Or say you were a Gentile man who had never been circumcised, and you read the Old Testament (Lev.12:1-3; Gen.17:10-14.
- 1 Cor.7:19; see too Gal.5:6; 6:15. With the coming of the Messiah, the commandments are the commandments of Moses as we receive them through the blood-stained hands of Christ.
- two American Roman Catholic priests, one in Detroit and the other in Oklahoma, found that their baptisms were invalid because the formula used was ‘We baptize you …’ and not ‘I baptize you …’ ‘What matters?’ says Paul.
- Be content as a slave or as a free man.
- 7:21-24. It is estimated that about one-third of Corinthians were slaves. See Col.3:22-25. We are free in Christ and slaves to Christ. What matters is not who we are, but whose we are.