Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them. (1 Corinthians 7:17, NIV)
I hope you’re not married to the game. It’s an expression we mostly use facetiously, but it can certainly be applied in all seriousness. A golfer whose first love is golf and whose time and attention are given over to it has made a commitment that eliminates other pursuits and priorities.
For all the golf talk we do around here and the connections we make between the game and the Scriptures, we want to be careful in what we say. No flimsy metaphors. No trite readings of God’s holy words. Maybe that’s why we don’t take up the topic of marriage too often. The metaphors are harder to find. If we made them in the sense of one married to the game, we would be linking something sad with something beautiful—because biblical marriage is certainly that: beautiful.
But here may follow a surprise. Biblical singleness beautiful, too. So equal were marriage and singleness in the apostle Paul’s mind, that he found himself writing to the Corinthians—whose questions were many in these matters—that they should live as they were living. Generally speaking, married people shouldn’t look to become single; single people shouldn’t look to become married.
If you dig into 1 Corinthians 7, you’ll find specific variations on this theme, according to particular circumstances (and definitely room for the single to get married!). You’ll also find Paul’s background reasoning, not the least of which were two conditions of the time: the persecution of the church and the prevalent thought that Christ’s return was quite imminent.
Paul didn’t choose sides. Instead he put the cross in the middle.But exceeding both of these reasons was the greatest of all: the cross. All believing men and women, married and unmarried, lived in the shadow of the cross.
When the commentator Alan F. Johnson considered the course of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he wrote this: “Each problem at Corinth is addressed from a theological premise directly or indirectly related to this theology of the cross whereby Paul promotes a new way of being and living in the world.”
As this pertained to marriage, those on the ascetic side of the argument were contending that marriage (and sexual relations within marriage) was not holy enough; marriage to a spouse caused lapses in one’s devotion to God. But those who were more pragmatic realized that the unmarried were often tempted via sexual passions and that those passions could be met in a healthy marriage.
Paul didn’t choose sides. Instead he put the cross in the middle. Married couples, he was saying, live together for Christ; unmarried individuals live singularly for him. There is no shame in either—and indeed, there is great possibility in both!
So, 21st Century friend, if you are married, you and your wife are never alone; you live out your covenant to one another before the Lord. And if you are not married, neither are you alone; you live out your “undivided devotion” unto the Lord. But let’s go one step further, for we all do this together, married or unmarried, in the body of Christ, bringing glory to our Father as a united family.
—
Jeff Hopper
May 6, 2019
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
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