The start of this chapter has an interesting comment from Paul, “Now concerning the matters about which you wrote...”; so we can see that Paul was actually writing in response to them. And, we’ve already learned that this letter is actually likely to be the second letter that Paul wrote to them rather than the first (we just don’t have that first one)...so there was some on-going coaching going on here. In antiquity, some people had a deep admiration for certain practices, often legalistic in nature, including celibacy, and authors seem to think that is the nature of the question. Paul makes every concession to their point of view. He agrees that celibacy is ‘good’, and he points to some of its advantages. But he regards marriage as ‘normal’, and though there are some advantages in celibacy, there is a greater completeness in marriage in Paul’s mind. The other question that appears plausible to have been asked is about sexual relationships and whether a married man and woman are allowed to engaged in that manner...Paul obviously feels so.
And then the rest of this section really comes out of the one-ness, the wholeness, that a married husband and wife share together. I don’t see this as much a teaching on the topic of divorce as I see this a teaching of the picture of marriage. Look, we are sinners and divorce was destined to happen from the beginning, and I don’t by into the legalistic viewpoint that people are bound to stay together, or to never remarry, or to really much of any...Paul says it here, that we each have our own calling. It think this is a picture of the implications of marriage, that a husband and wife have come together and that there is some extent to which that almost can’t come apart, or at least it isn’t meant to be that way.
For me, the question that comes to mind as I am reading this is this - “Am I really ‘all in’, meaning, have I really given myself completely to the needs and the desires and the visions that my wife has?” If I am being honest, I can’t say ‘yes’ to that...I have work to do. And, Paul is clearly getting at this idea that a husband and a wife have that as their commitments to each other - completeness, and selflessness.
Another morning of strong words from Paul...there is plenty to come in this application section of our reading of 1 Corinthians.