Bible Challenge 1 Corinthians 7: In this Chapter of the New Testament Paul differentiates between his advice and the Lord’s. Read 1 Corinthians 7 online or look it up in your Bible. Going Deeper Before you start your daily reading, say a prayer asking God to guide your thinking as you read, and then read the Bible with the aim of learning something new. After the reading, consider how it may affect your life and relationship with your heavenly Father and allow your increased knowledge of the Scriptures to shape your character and strengthen your trust in God. Discussion notes on 1 Corinthians 7 • How would you summarise (in a few sentences) this whole chapter? v10&12&25 What difference does it make when Paul tells us whether it was he or the Lord who gave such and such a command? More on 1 Corinthians 7 In weighing up the Apostle’s answers two facts must be kept in mind. One is that even in the first century the city of Corinth was a byword for vicious extravagance. In such a world strictness was a good fault. Undue care was better than undue laxity. The second is that in the mind of many believers – and without doubt in that of Paul also- the Lord’s return was at hand. The Apostle might at times have altered this emphasis had he been concerned with long term planning, though this does not invalidate any of the principles which he laid down. Though it may seem that celibacy was the Apostle’s ideal and marriage but a second-best, what Paul had to say about marriage as a partnership will carry our judgement. Both husband and wife have their rights. Mutual consideration and mutual respect must be the order of the day. It might even be said that neither the bully nor the shrew will inherit a place in that kingdom of ideal relationships – the kingdom of God. William Booth (the founder of The Salvation Army) was sixty-one when in 1890 his beloved wife Catherine died. They had been married for nearly forty years, and the influence of each on the other was incalculable. Theirs was a truly great love story. In a recently-published biography of Catherine Booth, her granddaughter, Catherine Bramwell-Booth observes: ‘Their (William and Catherine’s) eldest son Bramwell knew and loved them both better than any other being. He wrote of their love to each other: “…That love became a kind of element remote from the world, purer than the common air, in which they acted and reacted on one another to the comfort and joy of both.”’ How great may be the influence of a woman on her husband and a man on his wife! Paul suggests this in this reading and it is a thought we may extend to other human relationships. We must never underestimate our own influence on the people we meet. Again, the Apostle was no revolutionary. He accepted many of the social and economic conditions of his day. His thought was that a slave – for that is what the word ‘servant’ in the Authorised Version means- however hard his lot, could be a follower of Jesus. We might ask today whether a first century master, converted to Christianity, could continue to keep slaves. If Paul did not denounce the system on which the economics of his world rested, two facts should be remembered. One is that neither Greek nor Roman culture saw anything amiss with slavery. In the Roman empire of his day there could well have been sixty million slaves. The second is that slavery was acceptable to parts of the white world in the nineteenth century, and even now there are those who act as if people of a skin different in colour to their own are inferior to them. These human tensions cannot be resolved without divine wisdom and Christian charity. We ourselves have no small part to play so that all men everywhere may live ‘as God intended’. Scholars differ in their interpretations of vs. 36-38. Some suppose that v.36 could have referred to an engaged couple who had decided to postpone marriage in view of the widely accepted assumption of the Lord’s speedy return. If however, they found this arrangement untenable, they had better marry than enter into any irregular union. Another suggestion is that the passage refers to the practice of a man asking a young unmarried woman – both of them believers – into his care but each living a single life. So unusual a mutual agreement can perhaps be understood by us as a form of protest against the extravagance of the age. However, the Apostle gave the sensible advice that if this plan, however well-intentioned, proved unworkable, the two had better marry. What was all important was that believer should ‘please the Lord’ (v. 32).
Posted on: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 04:41:30 +0000
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