Paul’s Advice to Married Couples

Last year we introduced you to the writing of Don Merritt at The Life Project. He’s currently working his way through 1 Corinthians. The Apostle Paul begins talking about family life in chapter seven. For an introduction to that, click this link. For today’s piece, click the title below. At the end is a link to a third part in the series.

If you are married

1 Corinthians 7:1-7

¹ Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” ² But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. ³ The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. ⁴ The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. ⁵ Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. ⁶ I say this as a concession, not as a command. ⁷ I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. (NIV)

Paul addresses himself to married couples in these verses; that is something that becomes clear as we read through it, and even more clear when we get to verse 8 and he addresses the unmarried. Essentially, his message to the married is that they should restrict themselves to sexual activity within the marriage, and that in this, neither partner should deprive the other of marital comfort except by mutual consent for a time of prayer (7:3-5), and then to come together once more so that Satan cannot exploit human weakness to lead them away from righteousness.

This seems to me to be in general accord with Paul’s teachings for husbands and wives elsewhere in the New Testament (see Col. 3:19 ff. and Eph. 5:29 ff.). It has a practical component in that he recognizes the fact that humans are sexual creatures, and that a man or woman who is unfulfilled in that area is more likely to be tempted to stray than one who is not. There is also a deeper recognition, although Paul seems reluctant to mention it here as he did in Ephesians 5: The physical union of husband and wife is illustrative of the union between Christ and His Church, and thus it must be respected by everyone.

Now we come to something quite interesting which may explain Paul’s general attitude toward this issue:

I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. (7:6-7)

Verse 6 tells us that nothing in the preceding verses is a command, for it is a concession. Whenever I read this chapter, I get the impression, rightly or wrongly, that Paul takes a rather dim view of sexuality. I ask myself why he would do that, and I never have a satisfactory answer, not even enough to be sure that he had the view I think I see, so I always just move on…

Yet my vague impression remains.

Look at the last verse: Paul concludes his thought by making the issue revolve around spiritual gifts, as so much of this letter does later on. Sex is not a spiritual gift, but celibacy is, so when Paul says that he wishes everyone could be like he is,(which is celibate) doesn’t it seem that he is telling us, between the lines, that he has the spiritual gift of celibacy?

I tend to think so.

Spiritual gifts are given by God at His sole discretion, so we can’t run out and get one on our own, and if we could choose our gifts, I doubt that most people would choose celibacy. Yet for Paul it was different, for I highly doubt that he could have served God the way he did if he had a wife and family back home to support.

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Continue to part three from this chapter: Comments About Family Life

Song of Songs (Song of Solomon): What’s it ‘Really’ About?

“I am the rose of Sharon,
The lily of the valleys.”

“He has brought me to his banquet hall,
And his banner over me is love.”

~Song 2:1 & 4 (NASB)

Remember the old Certs commercial? “It’s a candy mint. It’s a breath mint. No, it’s two, two, two mints in one.”  Do we apply this logic to the book of Song of Solomon? Can it be about the love relationship between a man and a woman and be about the relationship between Christ and his bride, the church?

I’ve always leaned toward the latter view. The best explanation is that within the Godhead we have a relational model — God is three in one — and we see dynamics of that relationship in various parts of both the old covenant and new covenant scriptures.

But lately, it seems like every radio, TV, internet and megachurch speaker is doing a sermon about sex.  Someone has observed that the church needs to talk more about sex, but pastors need to talk about it less.  Suddenly a host of subjects that would never be mentioned in the church gym on a Thursday night are getting addressed from the pulpit on Sunday morning; and books that Christian bookstores might not have carried a few years ago are being displayed front and center. The sex pendulum is currently swinging away from the place of balance, leaving people asking, “Why can’t the pastor just speak about Galatians like he used to?”

So how do we interpret this book which our forebears chose to include in the canon of scripture?   I was glad to see Dave Bish address this a few days ago…

Six reasons for a Christological reading of the Song of Songs

I’m persuaded that The Song of Songs has a BOTH-AND meaning. It has much to say about marriage and also much to say about the True and Greatest Marriage, the Typical Marriage, the Real that all marriages echo and shadow – the marriage of Christ and his people. Because:

#1 Marriage is really about Christ.
This is Paul’s argument in Ephesians 5. Really, he’s talking about Christ and the church, though he’s talking about marriage. That doesn’t mean husband’s and wives don’t apply Ephesians 5 to their marriages, but that they’re meant to finally look to Christ and his church. The greater and eternal marriage sets the stage for our smaller and temporal human marriages.

#2 History
By far the dominant reading of this book historically is to take it Typologically, pointing to Christ. This is to say we’ve got really got to it’s meaning, intention or application if we’ve not heard it speak of Christ’s love for his people. We might draw a true word for human relationships but the road goes further. Sometimes Typological commentators slip into fanciful allegory – but those who leave the song in the human bedroom do the same! To say it’s *just* about human marriage a popular view today, but is the minority view in the story of the church. The Reformers, Puritans and Church Fathers, Edwards and Spurgeon were not bad handlers of the Bible. They were persuaded that Christ casts his shadow over all of it.

#3 The Language of The Song
This isn’t just love poetry it’s love poetry about a Shepherd King and the one he loves, with wilderness and myrrh, about ‘the lover of my soul’ and love that’s strong as death. The Song is written in the language of the Pentateuch, the language of the LORD’s relationship with his people.  It’s not just any old poetic language and imagery, it’s gospel-laden.

#4 The Beauty of Christ
Christ is beautiful and we need the wasfs of The Song, the love poems that call us to dwell upon the beauty of Christ, to let our hearts sing of him. Human marriage needs the intense contemplation of poetry too, but so does the church’s relationship with her Saviour.

#5 He loves us
Some are reluctant to speak of this, suggesting it’s not substantial enough or is subjective etc. The Love of Christ for his people, demonstrated at the cross, won at the cross, flowing from the eternal love of the Trinity is unmatched and has to be sung of forever. The Song gives words for this relationship – and we do sing it even when we might not realise it. “For I am his and he is mine”, “Altogether lovely”. The Song serves, in this, as an antidote for individualism because it invites our first thought to be of Christ and the church, though Galatians 2:20 tells us he also loves ME, leading careful exegetes to say that The Song does speak of the church but also of each of her members.

#6 The Divine Romance
Martin Luther lifts his language for the gospel from the genre of The Song, Hosea and Ezekiel to speak of the King who marries a prostitute. Why should divine romance OK from Hosea, Ezekiel and Psalm 45 but then not The Song? Jesus is the husband to the church, who has a divine jealousy for us – whose love burns when we’re seduced away, whose love laid down his life for us, whose love is our hope. Human marriage has union between husband and wife because there is union with Christ through the gospel…

~Dave Bish

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*Note, the word wasfs in Dave’s 4th point is not a typo, see here and here.  It refers to an enumeration of the physical traits of a bride and groom. 

Looking for more of this type of article?  Here’s six approaches to the story of Joseph; there are more “six” articles at Dave’s blog.