Good day dear friends.
Yesterday Pastor Leslie spoke on Marriage and Divorce from 1 Cor. 7:2-16. Here is that passage in the version known as The Message:
1 Cor. 7:First, Is it a good thing to have sexual relations? 2 Certainly - but only within a certain context. It's good for a man to have a wife, and for a woman to have a husband. Sexual drives are strong, but marriage is strong enough to contain them and provide for a balanced and fulfilling sexual life in a world of sexual disorder. 3 The marriage bed must be a place of mutuality - the husband seeking to satisfy his wife, the wife seeking to satisfy her husband. 4 Marriage is not a place to "stand up for your rights." Marriage is a decision to serve the other, whether in bed or out. 5 Abstaining from sex is permissible for a period of time if you both agree to it, and if it's for the purposes of prayer and fasting - but only for such times. Then come back together again. Satan has an ingenious way of tempting us when we least expect it. 6 I'm not, understand, commanding these periods of abstinence - only providing my best counsel if you should choose them. 7 Sometimes I wish everyone were single like me - a simpler life in many ways! But celibacy is not for everyone any more than marriage is. God gives the gift of the single life to some, the gift of the married life to others. 8 I do, though, tell the unmarried and widows that singleness might well be the best thing for them, as it has been for me. 9 But if they can't manage their desires and emotions, they should by all means go ahead and get married. The difficulties of marriage are preferable by far to a sexually tortured life as a single. 10 And if you are married, stay married. This is the Master's command, not mine. 11 If a wife should leave her husband, she must either remain single or else come back and make things right with him. And a husband has no right to get rid of his wife. 12 For the rest of you who are in mixed marriages - Christian married to nonChristian - we have no explicit command from the Master. So this is what you must do. If you are a man with a wife who is not a believer but who still wants to live with you, hold on to her. 13 If you are a woman with a husband who is not a believer but he wants to live with you, hold on to him. 14 The unbelieving husband shares to an extent in the holiness of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is likewise touched by the holiness of her husband. Otherwise, your children would be left out; as it is, they also are included in the spiritual purposes of God. 15 On the other hand, if the unbelieving spouse walks out, you've got to let him or her go. You don't have to hold on desperately. God has called us to make the best of it, as peacefully as we can. 16 You never know, wife: The way you handle this might bring your husband not only back to you but to God. You never know, husband: The way you handle this might bring your wife not only back to you but to God.
Remember the sermon series is entitled, "First Century Christians with Twenty-First Century Problems," and does this text speak of the same thing we face today. The Corinth church was no different from any other church of today. There were married and unmarried people in the church. There were happily married people and there were married people. There were divorced people and there were people about to divorce. And the question was about sexual relations. Apparently, as it says in verse one, Paul received a letter from this church asking that question. The reason the question was being asked was certainly that people were having sexual relations both inside and outside the marriage covenant, and the church leaders said, "We've got to ask Paul about this!" and they did. Paul answers back by basically saying that sex, like money, and possessions and every other thing, is a spiritual matter. If done within the context of marriage it is a beautiful gift from God and it can be a spiritually rewarding blessing to the married couple. Done in any other context and it remains a physical act initiated and completed by physical urges, not spiritual ones. Paul sees having sexual relations within marriage as that which God ordained for all marriages.
The other part of the question may have asked, "Is it right for couples to abstain from sex for any reason?" This may have been asked by one of the marriage partners about their own relationship. For some reason one or the other of the spouses was not fulfilling his or her conjugal duty and may have given a spiritual reason for it. Paul knew that perhaps the real reason was not a spiritual one and so he instructs that if done for a spiritual reason such as fasting and prayer, that was okay, but only for a time. In verse five he says, "then come back together."
The other part of the letter containing questions for Paul may have asked about divorce. Since Moses' time, the issue of divorce was a touchy subject. Can anyone spiritually justify a divorce? And if so, when are those allowed and for what reasons? In the case of Corinth, it may have been that one of the two in a marriage became a believer and thus the reason for the question. It may have been a wife who becomes a follower of Jesus Christ and cannot convince her husband to become one as well. She attends worship alone and feels bad because her husband does not know the saving love of her Lord. She then begins to wonder if she should begin divorce proceedings against him and if doing so because of their spiritual differences would be allowed. In these cases Pauls says stay together. His thinking is that one never knows that perhaps in this relationship salvation might come both to the marriage and to the soul.
Is it any different today? Do married men and women attend worship alone? Do they feel bad about their spouses? You know the answer as well as I. But we leave it to God about what God can do in all cases. The real question is how are you dealing with your situation? If you're married, how is your marriage? If sex still a wonderful blessing or is an area for prayer and/or counseling? Don't be afraid to seek assistance if needed. Is it a medical issue? Seek a doctor's advice. If you're single, how are you handling singleness? Is sex "tormenting" you? Again, through prayer, spiritual guidance and any other assistance that you can seek, might be what saves your soul.
PRAYER: Come, wonderful God of good gifts and visit me today. Bring me wisdom, courage and counsel to what I face and need. Help me in my situation to be Your child, an example to others. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!
e.v.
