Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife.
1 Corinthians 7 belongs to teaching on marriage and home relations that takes up whether marriage is expedient in the church, separation from unbelieving partners, and the duties of those arranging marriages for women under their care, and its counsel belongs to a church set among a heathen and persecuting people and facing particular difficulties. Its counsel is for each person to apply individually to his own circumstances and is not warrant for a general campaign against marriage, and it must be read with its context, including the call to live for God's glory.
In the circumstances then present, one bound in marriage is not to seek release or to be loosed, and one loosed or free from a wife is not to seek a wife or a change of marital state. One who could lawfully marry would not sin by marrying, yet marriage could bring added anxieties and cares, especially in raising a family in time of trouble, in facing poverty, and in seeing loved ones suffer in fiery trials. Disregarding counsel on these matters can bring trouble even when the person was free to choose. A wife's departure by itself does not free her husband to remarry, for she remains his wife unless the marriage is ended on the stated ground of unfaithfulness.
One bound to wife or husband must not seek to be loosed or to separate, even where a believer is married to an unbeliever or husband and wife hold different beliefs, but must remain in the position where God called him and not seek a change of position. The Christian is to seek to influence the spouse toward the truth by good and consistent living and to labor and pray for the salvation of the unbelieving companion, for God is able to change the heart and the wife may save her husband or the husband may save his wife. Yet if the unbelieving companion wishes to depart because of unbelief, the believer is not to compel him to remain, for God has called to peace.
A wife bound to a husband must remain loyal in marriage even when her husband is unconverted and demands meat, tea, coffee, and everything contrary to health reform. This means cooking the food he requires out of self-sacrifice and loyalty, without being a conscience for him or compelling him to obey, because obedience is of the heart and not merely the act. Service compelled by duty to a husband, which would be sin if done for self, is counted as obedience and righteousness in the sight of God because of the motive in the heart. The verse carries consecration before God into married life, which was especially needed then because of the customs of the heathen on every side and is needed now because of the tendency to looseness on all moral questions.
As part of the plain teaching of the word of God on the marriage relation, bringing children into the world is right when done under proper conditions for their care, education, and training for immortality. Selfish yielding to appetite in marriage is the curse of the marriage relation ever since sin came into the world. Those who are candidates for translation must be delivered from that selfish indulgence before the close of probation.
1 Corinthians 7 belongs to teaching on marriage and home relations that takes up whether marriage is expedient in the church, separation from unbelieving partners, and the duties of those arranging marriages for women under their care, and its counsel belongs to a church set among a heathen and persecuting people and facing particular difficulties. Its counsel is for each person to apply individually to his own circumstances and is not warrant for a general campaign against marriage, and it must be read with its context, including the call to live for God's glory.
In the circumstances then present, one bound in marriage is not to seek release or to be loosed, and one loosed or free from a wife is not to seek a wife or a change of marital state. One who could lawfully marry would not sin by marrying, yet marriage could bring added anxieties and cares, especially in raising a family in time of trouble, in facing poverty, and in seeing loved ones suffer in fiery trials. Disregarding counsel on these matters can bring trouble even when the person was free to choose. A wife's departure by itself does not free her husband to remarry, for she remains his wife unless the marriage is ended on the stated ground of unfaithfulness.
One bound to wife or husband must not seek to be loosed or to separate, even where a believer is married to an unbeliever or husband and wife hold different beliefs, but must remain in the position where God called him and not seek a change of position. The Christian is to seek to influence the spouse toward the truth by good and consistent living and to labor and pray for the salvation of the unbelieving companion, for God is able to change the heart and the wife may save her husband or the husband may save his wife. Yet if the unbelieving companion wishes to depart because of unbelief, the believer is not to compel him to remain, for God has called to peace.
A wife bound to a husband must remain loyal in marriage even when her husband is unconverted and demands meat, tea, coffee, and everything contrary to health reform. This means cooking the food he requires out of self-sacrifice and loyalty, without being a conscience for him or compelling him to obey, because obedience is of the heart and not merely the act. Service compelled by duty to a husband, which would be sin if done for self, is counted as obedience and righteousness in the sight of God because of the motive in the heart. The verse carries consecration before God into married life, which was especially needed then because of the customs of the heathen on every side and is needed now because of the tendency to looseness on all moral questions.
As part of the plain teaching of the word of God on the marriage relation, bringing children into the world is right when done under proper conditions for their care, education, and training for immortality. Selfish yielding to appetite in marriage is the curse of the marriage relation ever since sin came into the world. Those who are candidates for translation must be delivered from that selfish indulgence before the close of probation.