Marriage and abstinence
1 Now I will answer the ques tions in your letter. It is good for a man not to touch a woman.
2 Yet to avoid immorality, every man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.
3 Let the husband fulfill his duty of hus band and likewise the wife.
4 The wife is not the owner of her own body: the husband is. Similarly, the husband is not the owner of his own body: the wife is.
5 Do not refuse each other, except by mutual consent and only for a time in order to dedicate yourselves to prayer, and then come together again, lest you fall into Satan’s trap by lack of self-control.
6 I approve of this abstention, but I do not order it.
7 I would like everyone to be like me, but each has from God a particular gift, some in one way, others differently.
8 To the unmarried and the widows I say that it would be good for them to remain as I am,
9 but if they cannot con trol themselves, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
Marriage and divorce
10 I command married couples – not I but the Lord – that the wife should not separate from her husband.
11 If she separates from him, let her not marry again, or let her make peace with her husband. Similarly the husband should not divorce his wife.
12 To the others I say – from me and not from the Lord – if a brother has a wife who is not a believer but she agrees to live with him, let him not separate from her.
13 In the same manner, if a woman has a husband who is not a believer but he agrees to live with her, let her not separate from her husband.
14 Because the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband who believes. Otherwise, your children also would be apart from God; but as it is, they are con sec rated to God.
15 Now, if the unbelieving husband or wife wants to separate, let them do so. In this case, the
16 Besides, are you sure, wife, that you could save your husband, and you, husband, that you could save your wife?
17 Except for this, let each one continue living as he was when God called him, as was his lot set by the Lord. This is what I order in all churches.
18 Let the cir cumcised Jew not remove the marks of the circumcision when he is called by God, and let the non-Jew not be circumcised when he is called.
19 For the important thing is not to be circumcised or not, but to keep the commandments of God.
20 Let each of you, therefore, remain in the state in which you were called by God.
21 If you were a slave when called, do not worry, yet if you can gain your freedom, take the opportunity.
22 The slave called to believe in the Lord is a freed person belonging to the Lord just as whoever has been called while free, becomes a slave of Christ.
23 You have been bought at a very great price; do not become slaves of a human being.
24 So then, brothers and sisters, continue living in the state you were before God at the time of his call.
Marriage and virginity
25 With regard to those who remain virgins, I have no special commandment from the Lord, but I give some advice, hoping that I am worthy of trust by the mercy of the Lord.
26 I think this is good in these hard times in which we live. It is good for someone to remain as he is.
27 If you are married, do not try to divorce your wife; if you are not married, do not marry.
28 He who marries does not sin, nor does the young girl sin who marries. Yet they will face disturbing experiences, and I would like to spare you.
29 I say this, brothers and sisters: time is running out, and those who are married must live as if not mar ried;
30 those who weep as if not weeping; those who are happy as if they were not happy; those buying something as if they had not bought it, and those enjoying the present life as if they were not enjoying it.
31 For the order of this world is vanishing.
32 I would like you to be free from anxieties. He who is not married is concerned about the things of the Lord and how to please the Lord.
33 While he who is married is taken up with the things of the world and how to please his wife, and he is divided in his interests.
34 Likewise, the unmarried woman and the virgin are concerned with the service of the Lord, to be holy in body and spirit. The mar ried woman, instead, worries about the things of the world and how to please her husband.
35 I say this for your own good. I do not wish to lay traps for you but to lead you to a beautiful life, entirely united with the Lord.
36 If anyone realizes he will not be behaving correctly with his fiancee because of the ardor of his passion, and that things should take their due course, let him marry; he commits no sin.
37 But if another, of firmer heart, thinks that he can control his passion and decides not to marry so that his fiancee may remain a virgin, he does better.
38 So then, he who marries does well, and he who does not marry does better.
39 The wife is bound as long as her hus band lives. If he dies, she is free to be ma r ried to whom soever she wishes, provided that she does so in the Christian way.
40 However, she will be happier if, following my advice, she remains as she is, and I believe that I also have the Spirit of God.
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Comments 1 Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 7
• 7.1 In this chapter Paul begins to answer some of the questions put to him by the Corinthians in writing. The first are about marriage and chastity.
Christian life encouraged the esteem for chastity. That esteem could be inspired as well by other non-Christian motives. Many doctrines in the Greek world considered evil and unclean whatever came from the body; and so, for some Christians, perfection meant living like angels, condemning among other things, marriage.
Paul does not teach everything on marriage, but only clarifies the relation between chastity and marriage. Spouses belong to Christ with all their being, consecrated by baptism. Therefore they cannot become slaves to the demands of their bodies. Love rather than sex guides them.
But the appeal of sex is there (v. 2). Paul says precisely: Because of “porneia” let each one take… This “porneia” has many meanings: prostitution, illegitimate unions, and many other things that go along with the word “porno.” Paul is probably refer ring to sexual attraction, a force that rebels against our moral projects (similar to the revolt of the flesh in Rom 7:21). He does not say a person should marry “in order to” avoid misconduct but “because” sex is a reality strong enough to impose its demands.
Many are shocked by Paul not speaking of the positive aspect of sexuality at the service of love, but we must not forget that twenty centuries are between him and us. In Paul’s time the Greeks considered the sharing of themselves to be an ideal: a spouse for children, a friend for love, and prostitutes for pleasure. Here, on the contrary, Paul presents sexual life as a commitment of the whole human person (6:13) and not the “work of the flesh”: something that is very important.
Christianity was to reveal the dignity of marriage and conjugal love; but only in the twelfth century in Christian countries would there be an awareness of the great beauty of a couple’s love. What is here revolutionary is the reminder of the equality of rights of husband and wife according to the teaching of Jesus (Mk 10:1-12).
Lest you fall into Satan’s trap (v. 5). We should recall these words when speaking about Christian birth control. Paul says that, except in special cases where a special grace is given, it is not good for husband and wife to abstain from intimate relations for a long time.
• 10. I command married couples (v. 10). We read after a while: To the others I say (v. 12), referring again to married persons. It is almost obvious that in v. 10Paul addresses married couples recognized by the Church; and in v. 12, all those married before they were baptized, but whose partners do not yet belong to the Church.
If she separates… (v. 11). Paul stresses a teaching of Jesus (Mt 5:32and 19:5). This fundamental law of marriage as a commitment lasting to death is a divine law: not I but the Lord (v. 10). See also Eph 5:22.
If the unbelieving… (v. 15). Paul makes an exception for those who at the time of their conversion and baptism were married. In this one case the new Christian, starting a new life, obtains freedom from the marriage ties if his or her partner does not want to accept his (or her) conversion. Even while praising the desire of the believer to convert his spouse, Paul’s advice is that sometimes it would be better to separate, notwithstanding the possibility of a new marriage in the new faith. It is important to remember that Paul was living in a pagan world where separation and divorce were legal and constantly practiced.
Your children also would be apart from God (v. 14). Paul says precisely: “your children would be unclean”, using this word with the meaning that Jesus gave it: children who do not yet share the privileges of God’s people. Would it be right to think that children of Christian parents are alien to God as long as they have not been baptized? Grace has already touched them through the tenderness, the care and the prayers of their parents. We must not use false arguments when we invite Christian parents, (and rightly so) not to delay the baptism of their children.
• 17. Let each one continue living as he was (v. 17). Paul responds to the thirst for improvement of social conditions that are always real. Free people and slaves lived side by side, often in the same houses; and it was not always a distinction between rich and poor. Paul simply wants to put in its right place ambitions that devour the lives of many people, causing them to forget all the rest. Paul puts interior freedom above recognized liberty and he sees possessing Christ as supreme riches.
Yet if you can gain your freedom, take the opportunity. There are conditions of work and of social life that prevent us from doing God’s will and being truly free. However one quickly forgets that each social situation has its element of slavery. The quality of life is not to be confused with better-paid employment, especially if judged according to the criteria of the Gospel. In a world we call inhuman, our slavery largely depends on our whims and our ready response to advertising.
We translate: If you can gain your freedom, take the opportunity. It could also be translated as: Even if you could gain your freedom, take advantage of the present situation, that is, instead of being concerned so much for the advantages of becoming free, live your life fully today.
• 25. A new question to which Paul must reply. In Corinth, a city with a bad reputation where thousands of prostitutes lived in the vicinity of the temple of Aphrodite (as was the custom with pagans) the new community was discovering the way of virginity.
Choosing chastity “for the kingdom of God” is not a way of gain ing time and freedom for apostolic work: it is taking a direction that opens to the love of God with new possibilities. Paul defends this choice he himself made. If Christ, to whom we are consecra ted by bap tism, is a living person, present to us, if he is the Spouse (Mk 2:19), the choice is valid, even if for most people it looks as strange as voluntary poverty.
Paul’s response goes further than the question of the Corinthians when he adds: time is running out. He points to much more than a prompt return of Christ, familiar to the first Christians. The coming of Jesus has shortened time in a figurative way: we can no longer settle down in the present world as we did before when we could see no further than the present. We are entirely turned towards what is to come. A Christian lives in the present, but all that matters most for him comes in the “after.” Let us not argue with Paul as if he were reasoning on the consequences of a certain coming of Jesus Christ: he is not theologizing but speaks like someone already possessed by Christ.
Paul then points out that all Christian commitments are likely to cause division for those who wish to live according to the logic of their baptism, seen as a total consecration to Christ. Married life or family life can present many obstacles to spiritual freedom and apostolic desires: see the words of Jesus in Mark 10:29.
• 36. If anyone is not sure (v. 36). This can also be interpreted as: “if anyone feels he cannot behave correctly with his young virgin.” In this case Paul would be referring to a spiritual trial that in fact took place in the primitive church. Some Christians shared their house with a girl who could have been their girl friend, both consecrating their virginity to the Lord. Paul, in this case, would invite them not to persevere in this commitment if they did not feel capable of keeping their virginity.