Christian Marriage Issues - some Consideration
1 Corinthians 7:25-40 · Roger Henderson · May 29, 2016
1 Corinthians, No. 21
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926533454646

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So like I said, this is the fourth week in chapter 7. We're going to finish up. There's a lot of verses today we're going to go through, but they kind of group into different sections. And last week we had the question of the status quo. That's going to come across again in this passage as well. OK, so I'm going to go back to my outline from Chester McCauley.

Verses 1-7 we saw basically general teaching on marriage, and that was in the realm of the husband and wife and their responsibilities one to another. Then we saw in 8-16, we talked about the unmarried, the widow, the married believer, mixed marriages. And then last week Randy covered what's called the doctrine, which I think Macaulay calls the doctrine of the status quo. Grass is always greener on the other side. Things always look better from here. That's the way we're made from Adam, it seems like. But many times that's not the case. The Lord wants to take us where we're at and build us up.

I don't know whether this is always brought across in counseling for people getting married, but it certainly is interesting. You would say, Paul is not a big proponent, you know, let's get married right away and do it. He'd say, step back, take a look, consider what you're getting into, consider the pressures you're going to have. He's very much step back and take a look. And his view is, many times singleness is underrated. The Lord can use you when you're single. A lot more than He can use you when you're married.

Okay, so the sections under this, 25 through 40, The nature of the material basically is going to be Paul's opinion. The first consideration in marriage he's going to talk about is the fact that there's pressures, there's distress, things are happening, and that's where I was alluding to the fact that it seems like those are physical things that are happening.

Physical things are going on and he's saying, like in time of war, It's interesting, you know, you watch a lot of the, I would think, my wife and myself always kind of chuckle, without a couple of the World Wars, Hollywood would be out of business, it seems like. World War II, if you count up the number of movies about World War II, it's just horrendous. And they're all about what's happened. I'm not saying it's not worthy of that, but I'm saying, and a lot of them about the stress.

Some people chose to marry before they go off to war. Some people chose to stay single. And Paul's going to make the case and he's going to say, actually you can do either. You haven't sinned if you decide to marry before a distressful time. You haven't sinned if you decide not to marry. Both ways are okay. But he says, think about it.

Consider the cost. We're going to talk about the shortness of time. In scripture, time is talked about as being short. The time for the Lord to come is a short time. In terms of eternity, it is a short time. And we all say, I wish it would be a little bit shorter. Today would be good. Today would be okay. I'd be fine with that.

In contemplating marriage, the added responsibilities, this is where we're going to talk about the fact that when you're married, your responsibilities are divided between your spouse and the Lord. You have divided responsibilities. And then lastly there's some other kind of clean up stuff toward the end, talking about having a daughter, a daughter who's going to be married. And at that time period there were things that the father was responsible for. He arranged the marriages. And so it kind of gives some instruction in that area. Okay, so that's kind of the outline there.

Okay, so actually can I get someone before we jump in here. This is quite a bit of reading. Would someone volunteer to read 25 through 40 in chapter 7? You get extra points if you do this, you know. Now concerning virgins, I have no commandment from the Lord, yet I give judgment as one whom the Lord in his mercy has made trustworthy. I suppose, therefore, that this is good because of the present distress, that it is good for man to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But even if you do marry, you have not sinned. And if a virgin marries, she has not sinned.

Nevertheless, such will have trouble in the flesh, but I would spare you. But this I say, brethren, the time is short, so that from now on even those who have wives should be as though they had none. Those who weep as though they did not weep, those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice, those who buy as though they did not possess, and those who use this world as not misusing it, for the form of this world is passing away. But I want you to be without care.

He who is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But he who is married cares about the things of the world, how he may please his wife. There is a difference between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. that she who is married cares about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. In this I say for your own profit, not that I may put a leash on you, but for what is proper, and that you may serve the Lord without distraction.

But if any man thinks he is behaving improperly toward his virgin, if she has passed the flower of youth, and thus it must be, let him do what he wishes. He does not sin, but then marry. Nevertheless, he who stands steadfast in his heart having no necessity, but has power over his own will, and is so determined in his heart that he will keep his virgin, does well. So then he who gives her in marriage does well, but he who does not give her in marriage does better.

A wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives, but if her husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. But she is happier if she remains as she is, according to my judgment, and I think I also have the Spirit of God. Lots to read there.

This ties up the section I mentioned on marriage. First of all, he starts off with, now concerning virgins, I have no command of the Lord, but I give an opinion as one who by the mercies of the Lord is trustworthy. So virgins, as I think we actually may have defined this before, it's a word that talks about an unmarried maiden, basically. and is used in a variety of places. I listed a whole bunch here.

There's a whole bunch of the occurrences we're going to cover today. The one in Matthew is the one about the parable of the 10 virgins. We're not going to read these today. And then the one in Acts is about talking about this man had four daughters, or four virgins. So sometimes they'll just say virgins, which just means an unmarried maiden.

He makes this statement, I have no command of the Lord. So basically what he's going to say here is that this is apostolic opinion, if you will. Paul is going to say, I'm a trustworthy servant of the Lord. This is my opinion. I've been asked. Remember, the whole context of 1 Corinthians is that there are questions that have come at Paul, letters that we don't have, and we're seeing the answers. We didn't necessarily see the questions, so we kind of have to somehow infer what the question was. Apparently, a lot of questions about the treatment of daughters and and the father, what he should do in terms of that, treatment in terms of marriage, and that kind of thing. In the background, they somehow got off on the idea that either staying unmarried or married and have no intimate contact with one another, that was preferable, possibly because of the state of the Corinth, how bad it was.

So Paul is trying to correct a lot of those things. So he's going to say this is not I didn't get these, this wasn't something that was revealed to me by the Lord, this is just something that I know the Lord and the Lord is guiding me through this and he gives his opinion, apostolic opinion. But I give an opinion as one who by the mercies of the Lord is trustworthy or faithful. Opinion again is just a judgment in reference to oneself. Let's look at one of these.

Now one we're going to see later on, let's look at 1 Corinthians, let's go back to 1 Corinthians 1.10.

Could someone read that 1 Corinthians 1.10?

Because it's translated judgment, at least in my translation here. Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. Right. So here it's translated judgment rather than opinion.

And then we're going to see in the passage later on in verse 40, the very last verse we're going to study today, he talks about my opinion again. So it's this personal idea of this is my opinion, my opinion as an apostle. The Macaulay has a comment about this which I thought was appropriate. The advice he's about to give is not derived from any teaching or command of the Lord, of Christ. nor is it framed as a command as an apostle.

I think that's why he's going to basically say, he'll give his opinion, and then he'll say, well, in reality, what is right for you, you're going to have to go to the Lord to figure that out with your daughter. with your virgin daughter, you're going to have to figure out whether she should marry.

It seems like the concern was, and this is just kind of reading between the lines, that the father might marry the daughter off at a very young age. I don't know, maybe because he'd get a bill, I don't know, would the dowries go to the, who got the, I guess the father had to provide the dowry, maybe he didn't have the money, I've forgotten about how that worked out. Maybe Randy and Mary. With the dowry, it would be the family that has the son. The son would pay that to the father? And maybe, I'm just kind of thinking here, maybe he thought, hey, if I marry my daughter off early, I get all this cash and we're in good shape. I don't know. But it seems like treating your daughter in an unbecoming manner is you do it improperly, you're not looking out for her best interest.

We're going to see that down the road here a bit. So that's part of what's kind of behind the scenes and part of this. OK, so now we're going to look at verses 26 through 28 with the overarching idea, I think then, that it is good in view of the present distress. So he's going to talk about this present distress. Present is the idea that it's at hand, it's impending. Distress is something that is a compelling force, a necessity. Let's look at the one in Luke first. The one in Luke 2, 21-23.

This is going to talk about the tribulation period and the distress there. Paul is not referring to the tribulation period in the Corinthians passage, but this word is used there. So in Luke 21-23, can someone read that? But woe unto them that are with child, and to them who gives us no stage. For there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. Right. So this talks about the great distress, the coming of the tribulation period, and so on.

And then the one in 2 Corinthians 12.10, let's look at that.

So 2 Corinthians 12.10, and maybe I'll just read that one. So this is Paul basically talking about his condition.

Actually, right after the thorn in the flesh, if you go back to 9, the Lord says that my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I would rather boast about my weakness, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. He says, therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties. For Christ's sake, for when I am weak, then I am strong. This is the same word distress that we have in our passage. Paul got comfortable, but he accepted the distresses he had both physically with a thorn in the flesh and outside that.

So the question is, we really don't have information. What is the present distress? We don't really know. We're not told that. There's some speculations. Macaulay has his particular speculation. What is the particular What were these distresses? We don't really know.

He talks about Acts 18. I looked at Acts 18 a little bit. It talks about the Lord came to Paul in a vision and said, don't be afraid, I'm with you. Read Acts 18 and see what you think. We really don't know what the distress was. But apparently it was something that in the response to the letter of the Corinthians, There was some distress that he was concerned about and that comes into play in his advice or in his opinion. Okay, so now I kind of rearrange this section. The last part of 27, the B part of 26.

So first of all, Hill State, I think it was Randy probably covered last week. I didn't get a chance to listen to your message Randy, I apologize. Thanks for last week. What's really cool is, just a little diversion for a second. My daughter's husband's brother has been coming with us a couple of times and so I went to pick him up last week and it worked out really great and so we're excited about that. So basically it says, I think what Randy kind of covered last week, it's good for a man to remain as he is, the status quo. And he says, okay, he gives some examples. Are you bound to a wife? Are you married?

Don't seek to be released. So that was a no-brainer. If you've been awake reading Paul's letters, if you haven't gotten that message, you've been asleep. So that was an easy one. But if you marry, you've not sinned. So he's given an opinion. He says, you can stay in the condition you're at. If you're a virgin, unmarried, and you marry, that's fine too. You've not sinned. So he states his opinion, and he gives you options here, so to speak.

But then he says, but don't forget, oh by the way, yet such will have trouble in this life and I'm trying to spare you. So he's trying to give counsel that will help them and reduce the stress in their lives, if you will. He's trying to give them counsel. In the midst of the stress going on, Don't do something that's not very smart. That's what he's saying. Things are already bad. Don't do something that just is going to compound it. And then he talks about there'll be trouble.

This is kind of a cool word. Philipsis, I think that's pronounced. And it's this idea. I remember our brother, Hal Malloy, had this great picture. He had this man in this kind of container. It was kind of like Star Wars, it's going to get pressed in or pressed down in some way. That's this word, pressure. You're going to be squeezed in. That's what this word is. I always remember that illustration. It's this word for being pressed or squeezed in.

There will be pressure in this life. OK, so let's look at one of these verses. The first one we'll skip. Let's look at 2 Corinthians 6.4. So this is going to talk about this pressure. And we're going to see this is, in Paul's case, this is much of it's physical pressure, physical trials. 2 Corinthians, could someone read 6.4 and 5 in 2 Corinthians?

But in everything, commending ourselves in service of God, in much endurance, and afflictions and hardships and distresses and beatings and imprisonments and tumults and labors and sleeplessness and hunger." Good. So, just look at that list. That's something you wouldn't sign up for. Say, I want to be an apostle. Here's what's going to happen. It doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun. Afflictions is in the last part of verse 4. Afflictions and hardships. Paul talks a lot about physical difficulties in these passages. Physical difficulties for himself, and physical difficulties that are in view of his advice to the Corinthians.

So thoughts or questions? We're just going to keep rolling along here. Roger? Yeah, go ahead. One of the things I think that's interesting from the pressure perspective, and I hope I'm not stealing from the center of your lesson here, but when you're dealing with marriage and you look at trials and suffering and pressures in life that come with that in a marriage you're taking your family with you through those things and there's a value in considering that if you've got the gift of singleness you may get to suffer through things in a different way I listen to Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret which is He was reformed so I don't recommend all this theology.

But one of the things that fascinated me about that biography is he got married. And his wife had four kids and then she passed away. Or six kids? Yeah, six kids. Then she passed away and then he got remarried. And they were getting sick all the time.

The burden of the mission process in China was tremendous. Just physically. And so his spouse and children had to be accommodated for in that context. It was not a trivial undertaking. So those pressures, God uses those to draw us to himself. But when you're married, I can't just think of myself all the time. I have to think about my wife and children. And if I get a whim and I decide, hey, I want to go be a missionary in South America. I can't just abandon my wife.

There's an industry impact on those things as well as non-ministry oriented things. Right, well that's good. I like that. So then verse 28 says, however, this is kind of However, such as these shall have tribulation in the sphere of one's physical existence. This is what got me thinking about the fact that he's focused mostly on physical things that are going on, whereas what we tend to have And he's recommending in marriage that there's going to be the pressures of marriage, the pressures of children. But there's a lot of physical things that are going on. And he wants to spare you. Treat you with tenderness is kind of the literal translation of that. So his desire is to listen to my advice and to benefit by that in making your decisions about marriage.

So that was 26 through 28. So now we go to 29 through 31. And kind of the theme here, this one is, the time has been shortened. So we first of all had there's present distresses, so now we have the time is shortened. So kind of similar things in terms of maybe your decision. There are distresses, like think of war or whatever, and time is shortened. We don't have a lot of time. I want to spend my time wisely. The time has been shortened. Shortened is the idea to draw together.

And it's in the perfect tense, which means... Scripture always amazes you. Everything is short in terms of the Lord's eyes. Well, He's looking at eternity, and we're looking at right now. So, in the perfect tense, it was short in the past, it continues to be short in the present, and short on into the future. So we're in a permanent statement of being shortness of time. The time is short. He said that in Paul's time, he said it in our time. It kind of hurts our head a little bit, but that's the way God views things. So time is short.

So let's look at Romans 13.11 for a second here. I'll just read that.

If you go back to verse 10, it says, Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the law. And this love, I believe, do, knowing that the time knowing the time that is already the hour for your awakening from sleep. For now salvation is nearer to us than when you believe." I think it's salvation in the sense of the complete package of salvation when we go to be with the Lord.

So actually McCauley here says, Paul's warning at this point means that we should make maximum use of every moment that we have In order to do this, we should avoid excessive involvement in the details of life. I'm going to share a story a little bit later on about that. Now we're going to carry on. The time has been shortened. Here's his opinion, his advice about this. Some of it is going to contradict other parts of Scripture, which makes it kind of I appreciate your thoughts on this. The time is shortened, so from now on, those who have wives should be as those who have none.

He's already told us to stay together. You're bound to your wife. Now he says, Does that just mean you just take a picture of me? You say, I'm not going to talk to you anymore. The Lord says time is short. I want to get busy here and do something. Back to Macaulay's point. We make the most of our time.

You still have to consider your wife. He's going to tell us later on that your interests are divided. It seems at first you think, wow, boy. Those who have wives should be as though they had none. There's some, and he's going to have other ones that are just as hard. Go ahead. Do you have more notes on that? No, I don't.

So one of the things I think that happens in the case of a believing husband and wife is if they're abiding and they're setting their minds on things above, their interests are not selfish, but their interests become heavenly. And so the focus from a carnal perspective, when you get married, suddenly you've got a responsibility and a relationship you have to pay attention to politically, I guess you might say, where there's now, instead of just one, there's many, right? At least two.

You've got a group. So, now your shift becomes one to where, like, listen, we don't know when the Lord's gonna return. We have to be preaching the gospel. We need to be living out the truths that we can find out later on. in chapters 12 through 14 that are body directed. And so this thing here where your wives as though you have none, the burden of the marriage is removed because Christ is the focus.

I think that's the idea here. This is an ideal. Paul's talking about this true north concept like it's here, but you're not going to Kind of building on that thought, it kind of occurs to me that when you're both focused on the Lord, then maybe the term, I have a high maintenance wife or I have a high maintenance husband, I don't know. People say that and that's true in many cases.

It becomes a burden. In this case, you're both focused on the Lord, then maybe you're not so worried about, I have to be taken care of or I have to be attended to. You're more focused on the Lord so that you can operate almost in this mindset. I don't have to be burdened by My wife is so in tune with me and we're so focused on the Lord that I don't have to worry.

We're together and we're one, so it's okay. That's kind of where you're headed. Our friends, the Rivera-Perez's that used to come here, they had somebody ask them, why is your marriage so much smoother than mine? And they said, well, we're both in love with the same man. And of course everybody thinks, oh, it's about him. But it's about Jesus. They're both in love with the Lord. It comes across as a joke, right? But they're both in love with the Lord. And so that, he's the focus. And so the tensions go away. Right. And I think that's what, we're going to see that again in these other things here.

They're going to say things that seem contradictory. but they're not in the fact that if you're focused on the Lord, this can be the case. And I put some verses in here which I'm not sure they're all that great. Those who weep as though they did not weep. I was thinking, time is short, we don't have time for weeping. I don't know, does that make any sense?

It's sort of like, in the heat of battle, I'll weep later. Bad things have happened. Maybe you've lost a love. Maybe something bad has happened. I'll weep later. Right now, I've got to keep my nose focused. And that's kind of the idea here, I think. And I'm not sure that passage I have is all that great, so I'm not going to go to it at the moment. Those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice.

Well, this kind of flies in the face of Philippians 4.4, which basically says, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice. Again, it seems like the task is in a hand and you say, Lord, yes, I rejoice in you, but I'm going to save that for tomorrow because I'm focused right now. Even though it says rejoice in the Lord always, again, I say rejoice.

I don't know. You've got to sort your way through this. Interesting statements. Then he has two more here. So from now on, in view of the fact that time has been shortened, Those who buy as though they did not possess. Constable had basically that everything we own, what we buy, we're not buying, I'm buying this for myself, this is my new toy, and I get to play with that, which is fine sometimes, that's okay. But God has given you all that you have, money and resources, so what you buy is for Him basically. And you don't possess it in that sense. And those who use the world as though they did not make full use of it, for the form of this world is passing away.

Macaulay basically had something about the cares of this world being choked out. But I was thinking about, I was just going to do a little diversion here on this one. I was kind of thinking, it kind of struck me here that In this world, you can try to maximize everything. You can try to get every drop of what I deserve.

This is the old man's view. I deserve this. I deserve that. I deserve not to get this. I was thinking about traffic tickets. Occasionally, I've gotten some. I thought about, well, I could go there and take pictures, and I could do this, and I could prove that I'm right. I said, is that a good use of my time? No. There was some fault there, the other was. Why not just accept that, pay the fine and go on? You can try to engineer every little part of your life, but is that worth the time? Is that worth your time?

When the time is short? That's kind of what I think is being said here. So we're going to move on to the time being short. Any last things about the time being short? Given the Corinthian hedonism, the physical pleasure and distraction were a really key part of the culture. So having a perspective that time is short means that okay, I cannot just be seeking pleasure all the time because that's not the full value of my redemption. Because the Corinthians would have been all about, your time is short on this earth.

The Stoics taught that. Your time is short, so max it out with pleasure. Live, drink, and be merry. Now we go to the section 32-35. I've kind of grouped this. I saw a pattern in here. So I group the unmarried male or man with the unmarried woman or virgin. So I group those kind of together. And then I group the married with the married.

So his banner here, if you will, this is the third point, I want you to be free of concern. This is the third point he's going to make here. Be free of concern. Free from concern is a word that is free from care or anxiety. It's used in that Corinthian passage there. And this one that talks about Paul's distresses is another one of his lists in 28 there. It's that long list of his distresses that he was going through.

In fact, let's just turn there for a second. And this is where it kind of got me off thinking about 2 Corinthians 11, let's say 24 through 28. And I'll read that. So I just want to point out a few things. And this is where I kind of got the thought that, boy, he's talking about his physical things where we're more focused upon our relationship and family things. So this is starting verse 24.

Five times I received from the Jews 39 lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked at night. And a day I spent in the deep. So I assume I've seen these in the water, right? I spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys in danger from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren. I have been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights and hunger and thirst, often without food and cold and exposure Now he's going to get to the one we're talking about here.

He went through all that list. Apart from such external things, there is a daily pressure upon me of concerns, that's our word right here, for all the churches. So I was thinking, you know, we all feel and we all, you know, the trials that we go through in our life, we all think, boy, this is, you know, this is difficult, Lord. And we, you know, But when you read his list, you think, shouldn't he be complaining day and night? Shouldn't he just be in the Lord's face saying, Lord, I'm your number one guy. I'm the guy that's going to write all these epistles, and look at the treatment I'm getting. Shouldn't I get a better treatment than this?

I'm being a little bit sarcastic here, but really. So it helped me to say, OK, Lord, when I feel that maybe the difficulties I'm having are maybe over the top, And each person, I think we all, whatever we go through, for us it may seem over the top, but in perspective of what scripture talks about in terms of Paul's life, not everybody's going to be a Paul, certainly. Not everybody's going to go through all those things.

But it's just pretty amazing. So I think the Lord tells us that to kind of settle us down and say, OK, you're going to have trials. And it's OK. I'm going to take you through. You'll be with me for all eternity. It's going to be OK. I love you, I care for you. I was just going through Paul's list of distresses. It's just incredible. It gets down to the concerns here.

To be free from these concerns, he says, the one who is married, and this guy, I believe, is a male man, is concerned about the things of the Lord how he may please the Lord. So the unmarried man can be singularly focused. He can be singularly focused, focused on the Lord. He doesn't have a divided mindset. He's focused on the Lord and how he may please the Lord. We're going to define pleased here in just a second. Here's a woman. The woman who is unmarried and a virgin is concerned about the things of the Lord. So we're going to see a contrast here.

The things of the Lord and the things of the world. So the person who is unmarried, he can be, if you will, 24-7 on the things of the Lord. The people that are married, they don't have that luxury. Not that they don't focus on the Lord, but they have other things that they have to attend to as being a married person. And it talks about that she may be holy.

Remember, holy is this idea of set apart. Set apart in body and spirit. So he'll add a couple of other little things in here. In some cases, other little words to kind of... So this is the unmarried man, the unmarried woman. And so their focus can be singularly on the Lord.

This concern is a verb in this case. That was an adjective back up there, free from concern. This concern is more to take care of. And that verse in Philippians there, for I have no one else of kindred spirit, I think it's talking about a brother, who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare. I think Paul's talking about, I forgot who it was there. But this is a tender care being concerned.

So they're concerned for the things of the Lord. They're focused on the Lord. In this passage, we're going to look at the married folks here. The one who is married, the husband, is concerned about the things of the world. So remember, it was the things of the Lord before for the unmarried. Now it's the things of the world.

How he may please his wife. and his interests are divided. So he has two focuses here. Things of the world are in view, and that's defined as how he may please his wife. And I really like that fact, how he may please his wife. And we're going to define that in just a second here. And then the wife, The one who is married, the wife, is concerned about the things of the world, same phraseology, how she may please her husband.

So they're both trying to please each other. And we've seen this pattern before in the relationship back in the early verses. They're concerned about each other, not themselves. And that's the way God intended it. The marriage is to be one that I'm concerned about my spouse, not about myself. And please here is that to make one inclined to, to actively please in behavior. And let's look at the passage in Timothy.

Can someone read 2 Timothy 2.4? No man that woreth and tangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who has chosen him to be a soldier. The focus here is that you're pleasing your spouse. The husband is pleasing his wife and the wife is pleasing her husband.

So both their interests are divided. The wife's interests are divided and the husband's interests are divided. And then if you think about it, when children come along, you've got another whole thing that your interests get divided again. It's challenging, right? I don't have to explain that to any of you, right? They're married. It's challenging.

But the Lord, marriage is His institution, and this is His counsel, so this is good stuff. Alright, so in the last verse here, so what I basically did here, I just kind of put in, I kind of expanded the translation, if you will, I added some additional stuff in there. So, what was said before, He says, for your own benefit, benefit of welfare or profit, not to put a halter of restraint upon him. So he says, I'm not giving you this to kind of weigh you down, but to promote what is appropriate of high standing, honorable, noble, and to secure undistracted, undivided devotion to the Lord. So his goal here is not to burden you with his opinions and his counsel, but to keep your focus on the Lord, understanding where you are and the constraints that you have, and your divided attention that you have to have in marriage. This next section is going to talk about this situation where a father has a daughter The fathers were involved in the marriage process. They were involved in whether the daughter got married or didn't get married.

So this is kind of counsel to that man. kind of a strange way. I mean, you read that first of all, and it's funny, until I studied this passage, I read that and thinking, well, he's warning about something else. And I got kind of off base. But you read it carefully, he's concerned about her marriage, when she should marry, and that kind of situation.

But if any man thinks that he is acting unbecomingly toward his virgin daughter. So it helps to write a way to define unbecomingly. And it's used here, and it's used In 1 Corinthians 13, 4 and 5, we'll look at that just shortly. It says, so the idea is unbecoming is to behave unseemly, so as to run the risk of bringing his virgin daughter into danger or disgrace.

And the other place it's used, it's a love chapter. We won't have to turn there. This is a chapter that says love is patient, love is kind. And it says love is not unbecomingly. It's not this. It's not unbecomingly. It's not unseemly. God's love is patient, is kind, is unbecomingly.

So option one. This is opinion again. So Paul gives options here. Option one. is she is past her youth. So she's of an age that she can marry. And if it must be so, let him do what he wishes. And this is in the context of marriage, of getting married. He does not sin, let her marry.

So that's option one. Option two. But he who stands firm in his heart, being under no constraint, but has authority over his own will, has decided this in his own heart, to keep his own virgin daughter, he will do well." Paul always gives the answer of not doing something, or staying where you're at. He says in this case, she doesn't have to get married. But then he's going to say, So then, both he who gives his own daughter in marriage does well, option one, and he who does not give her in marriage, option two, will do better. So, the poor girl, is she ever going to get married?

I don't know. Randy? Well, one of the things that is interesting, at least to me, to think about this from a cultural perspective is If you've got a father who is being selfish, I don't think we can describe unbecomingly as selfish. King James translated it as seeking. They're seeking their own. If they're doing that, and let's hope that the daughter's a believer, and she's going to be another believer that she's going to get married to, then there's selfishness. and that's an unfortunate situation.

I know that when a song got buried, there was a dowry expected. And there was a certain number of cows and chickens. And if I'm not mistaken, Holly Hills helped fund that. We did temporarily own some livestock. But the thing is, if you are greedy, I've got two daughters, so I can understand. You'll be right in this position pretty soon. I think she's a six-cow kind of a girl. But the thing is, if you're greedy, you could be harming the body. There's other believers who will be impacted by your selfishness. Now you guys are going to call me six-cow Randy. This is not good.

Okay, that's good. Okay, so I borrowed something from Macaulay here. He tries to give us some cultural background here. Basically, in the times of Paul, the father arranged the marriages of his daughter. Now obviously that's not happening today, right? If I propose that to my daughter, she probably wouldn't speak to me ever again. But in thinking about it, it might not be a bad idea, right Randy? How much research have you done on arranged marriages?

I have a bunch of Indian co-workers. I've actually asked them long questions and they're probably tired of it. But I love my daughters dearly. Absolutely. And I only want the best for them. So in an arranged marriage what happens is that the parents of the son or the daughter are passionately caring for their children in such a way that you want the best possible spouse. Exactly.

So that it's not just like in the movies, the Disney movies, or whatever, you're like, oh, you know, it's for land. You know, we're marrying for land. No, no. No, you care about your daughter, and so you go get married. You say, I'm ready to get married, and then the parents go out, and they lovingly search out, diligently, who is available and what are their characteristics and qualities and attributes.

But as we know, as our children tell us, well dad, you don't have to live with that person, I do. You may like that person, you may get along well with that person, but you don't have to live with that person, I do. So anyway, that's another whole, anyway. Okay, so basically there are three conditions.

The father must be convinced that her continual single life is inappropriate. So it seems like he didn't want her to become a spinster. He didn't want it to go too far. So he said, at some point, we're going to get on this and we're going to get you married.

So that's a good thing. So that's the unbecomingly part. Second, she must determine if she's old enough. That's good. And she must desire to get married. So those are the three things. OK, so let's wrap it up here. So last two verses. So this is going to be kind of a little bit of a summary. And we've kind of seen this before.

A wife is bound as long as her husband lives. The same message is in Romans 7, 2. For the married woman is bound by law. In this case, it speaks of the law to her husband while he is living. In the second part, if the husband is dead, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. And Romans 7b says, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning her husband. And then verse 40, in the Amplified Bible it reads, but in my opinion, In my opinion, a widow is happier and more blessed and to be envied if she does not remarry.

I also think I have the Spirit of God." So he's saying that even though these are opinions, I believe the Lord is working through me. So it seems like there's more counsel on young widows in other parts of scripture. I didn't actually go there. There's actually some other counsel on this. A young widow is recognized to be something that needs to be addressed, and that's talked about other places. But in this place, Paul always seems to come down, at least in these 40 verses, he comes down the side of the status quo. Single life is preferable many times. And if you lose your spouse, just stay where you're at.

That seems to be his overriding opinion. Anyway, all this is interesting. It's all the first contents is pretty, pretty amazing. And I think one other observation on this, because you mentioned that the apparent contradiction. And I think what's interesting also is to go back and look at proverbs. There's a lot of that same idea that you have. of the extremes, what's the extreme in those cases.

They're not there for contradiction. They're there to present a spectrum that might be applicable because it's not necessarily just a black and white law or rule. You do this. It's contextual. It makes us reliable. It becomes our source of direction. Not just, this is the rules. We follow the rules of Roger, or the rules of Randy, or whatever.

And that's what Paul, he gives options here, and he basically says, in a sense, seek the Lord in this. Where you find yourself, seek the Lord in that. So next week we'll start into chapter 8. Alrighty? Let's close in prayer then. We thank you, Father. We thank you for this day, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.