A Sermon Series on 1 Corinthians: Sex, Marriage, and Divorce in the Corinthians Context (Part 7)

1 Corinthians 7:1-39

Context of the Corinthians church: There was a married couple. She wanted to devote her life to Christ and be Holy so she refused to have a sexual relationship with her husband and they decided to divorce. They thought it was not good for a man to have sexual relations with a woman. What are the guidelines we can apply?

• Wife or husband should not refuse to have a sexual relationship with their spouse due to their desire to be devoted to God: if they want to spend time praying, it should be short and not forever.

• Who has control over the wife’s and husband’s body?

  • Their spouse.

  • In this context Paul wrote in the letter to the people at Corinth church, husbands had control over their wives’ bodies but wives didn’t. The Bible says it is not right. Marriage life is a neutral submission to each other. We should express what we want and respect the other partner’s desire, and likewise.

• Because of the desire to be devoted to God, the people at Corinth church encouraged everyone not to marry. Having sexual desires and sexual relationships in marriage is not a sin. What is sin? Whether we can put our sexual desire in control or not. If we can’t, then we should get married to avoid committing sexual immorality. If we can control it, then it is good for us to remain single, but not everyone has this gift or the ability to put sexual desire under their control.

  • There is something good in a single life: devote our undivided heart to God (the gift of singleness).

  • Good things about married life: having sexual pleasure.

• In marriage, we will be tempted, we will be anxious living our life trying to please our spouse and our devotion to God will be divided. We need to make extra effort to devote our life to God in marriage.

• The general rule of divorce in the Bible is NO! However, in the 1 Corinthians 7 context: If one of the spouses is an unbeliever, the believing spouse cannot divorce their unbelieving spouse because the unbelieving spouse might be saved/holy through the believing spouse. If the unbelieving spouse wants a divorce then let it be so, in this case.