1 Corinthians 7 1 thru 7

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1 “The Basics of Marriage,” 1 Corinthians 7:1-7 (February 2, 2014) Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” 2 But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. 3 The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5 Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6

Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. 7 I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. PRAY We are starting our marriage series today – several churches in town, other gospelpreaching, Bible-believing churches – have come together for the month of February to teach on marriage from 1 Corinthians 7. The main reason we decided to do that is to display Christian unity to the city of Oxford; all of the churches are different, we all disagree at some level on theological issues and stylistic issues, but on the main things – the gospel of Jesus Christ, the authority of the Bible as the Word of God, and on marriage – we agree. We want to do something to proclaim our unity on the essentials to Oxford, and this four-week marriage series is what we came up with. And I want to apologize at the outset for the lame title – “the basics of marriage.” Usually try to lift a sermon title from the text I’m preaching on, but I couldn’t find one this week – I didn’t think “The wife should give her husband his conjugal rights” had quite the ring to it I was hoping for. Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 introduces marriage in the context of his instructions on sex in 1 Corinthians 6 – he gets to marriage only through sex. So you can’t talk about marriage in its context in 1 Corinthians 7 without talking about sex, so that’s what we’ll do today. There were basically two competing views of sexuality in antiquity, in ancient Corinth, that Paul had to deal with. The first view said that sex is just an appetite. Sex is just an appetite of the body. Therefore, when you feel like having sex, you should go out and have sex. When you feel hungry, you go and eat. When you feel sexy, you go and have sex. We see that view articulated at the end of chapter six by the Corinthians. But there was another group in Corinth who took an opposite approach. 1 Corinthians 7:1: “Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: ‘It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.’” Very helpfully the ESV, the version of the Bible out of which we preach on Sundays here at Grace, very helpfully this version sets off the “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman” in quotations because a © 2014 J.D. Shaw

2 lot of the scholarship suggests that Paul here is quoting a Corinthian argument back at them – Paul is not the one saying it’s good that a man and a woman have sex, some faction in Corinth was saying that. And by the way, in this context the man and woman would be a husband and a wife – there was a group of people in Corinth who argued for sexless marriages, for husbands and wives to abstain completely from all sexual relations. Now you may ask, “Why in the world would anyone argue for that?” Because for some people in the ancient world, sex was considered as dirty, as defiling. It was never viewed as a positive good but only as a necessary evil which served the purpose of the propagation of our species. And these two views are still around today. Obviously the first view is around – the sex is just an appetite view. Our greater American culture, Hollywood-influenced culture, sex is an appetite and it should be satisfied however two consenting adults feel like satisfying it (or maybe more than two consenting adults). And if you disagree with that view then at the very least you’re old-fashioned and completely and unrealistically outof-date in your views of sexual morals, or you have some kind of psychological issue – you’re sexually repressed, you carry around this unnecessarily and unhealthy sexual guilt, and you need treatment for that. Just Friday I read a review in the New York Times of the movie “Labor Day,” in our theaters here in Oxford, starring Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin, and the reviewer was really disappointed in the movie because there was no graphic depiction of sex in the movie, which he thought was unrealistic. He wrote that “Labor Day” is an “absurdly prim” movie. “The only visible sex in [it] … consists of two less-than-sizzling kisses; the real hanky-panky takes place discreetly and silently behind closed doors.” You can just hear him saying: “Come on! Sex is just an appetite; give us what we want to see!” But the second view – sex is dirty and defiling, it’s not proper – you’ll find it lurking around too, and much of it comes from an incorrect interpretation of this passage. For centuries the traditionally accepted view is that Paul in verse 1 is setting forth his own view of marriage – many pastors have taught that Paul thought it was good for a man and woman not to have sex, and therefore not to get married. As if singleness and lifelong abstinence from sex, according to Paul, was the desired state because sex is in and of itself kind of dirty, kind of embarrassing, we shouldn’t talk about it, we shouldn’t desire it. The most spiritual Christians, the mature Christians, might engage in sex out of some kind of duty to their spouse, but they won’t enjoy it. For centuries in many of our churches this view has been taught. There’s a pamphlet that’s in lots of books on marriage, it’s dated 1894 that was published under the name of Ruth Smythers, wife of the Reverend L.D. Smythers, entitled: “Instruction and Advice for the Young Bride on the Conduct and Procedure of the Intimate and Personal Relationships of the Marriage State for the Greater Spiritual

© 2014 J.D. Shaw

3 Sanctity of This Blessed Sacrament and the Glory of God.” And in her pamphlet this is what Mrs. Smythers wrote: “To the sensitive young woman who has had the benefits of proper upbringing, the wedding day is ironically, both the happiest and the most terrifying day of her life. On the positive side, there is the wedding itself, in which the bride is the central attraction in a beautiful and inspiring ceremony … On the negative side, there is the wedding night, during which the bride must ‘pay the piper,’ so to speak… “At this point, dear reader, let me concede one shocking truth. Some young women actually anticipate the wedding night ordeal with curiosity and pleasure! Beware such an attitude! … One cardinal rule of marriage should never be forgotten: GIVE LITTLE, GIVE SELDOM, AND ABOVE ALL, GIVE GRUDGINGLY. Otherwise what could have been a proper marriage could become an orgy of sexual lust.” Now, who all feels sorry for all the wives who have taken this kind of advice to heart? And who feels sorry for the Reverend L.D. Smythers? Now, full disclosure, if you do a little internet searching you’ll find that probably this pamphlet is a hoax, that there was no Ruth Smythers who wrote this. But the very reason it’s still floating around today after decades and decades, the reason it still gets published in books all over the place, is because there is much truth in it – there are many in our culture, especially our religious sub-culture, who confuse chastity with holiness – sex is dirty, and defiling, it’s might be necessary on your honeymoon but it’s never proper. What does the Bible say about sex? To understand that, you must understand what is says about marriage. And Paul, in verses 1-7 of 1 Corinthians 7, gives us a great introduction to the basics of marriage. Three points: first, what marriage is. Second, why Paul encourages it. Third, how you can be married. First, what marriage is. 1 Corinthians 7:4: “For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” Now this verse doesn’t use it explicitly, but it’s certainly referring to the principle behind the most significant phrase in the Bible when it comes to marriage. That phrase is “one flesh.” It’s all over the Bible. Genesis 2:24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Jesus quotes it (Matthew 19:3-5): 3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? Paul quotes it (Ephesians 5:31): 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” © 2014 J.D. Shaw

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It’s the most important, most descriptive phrase in the Bible when it comes to what marriage. But what does “one flesh” mean? Now before I go any further, acknowledge debt to Tim Keller. I highly recommend his book The Meaning of Marriage, available in our bookstall. One flesh – what does it mean? It means that when you get married, you give yourself emotionally, psychologically, financially, physically, spiritually, completely to another person until death do you part. In marriage, you become in a very real way a part of something different – in a real way, a husband and a wife in marriage are no longer individuals, but one flesh with one another, giving themselves to one another, so much so that Paul can say the husband’s body belongs to the wife, and the wife’s body belongs to the husband. And when you give yourself like that to one person in marriage, what you find is that marriage is a lifelong, very intense, very personal, ministry to one person. The essence of marriage is commitment – you cannot do marriage without this kind of radical commitment. In weddings I officiate, I generally don’t let couples write their own vows, and when with great rarity I do I police them very closely, because you never know what you’re going to get. But the traditional wedding vows work very well to express the kind of one-flesh commitment marriage requires: “Do you take this woman for better for worse, for richer and poorer, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, be faithful only to her, for as long as you both shall live?” In marriage, you are committed to another person of the opposite sex until death do you part, and you are to be completely united – same goals, same faith, same vision for life, same knowledge, same hopes, same hurts. One flesh – that is the most basic “basic” of marriage. Now, because for Paul sex is so intimately bound up in marriage, we have to, if we’re going to be faithful to the text, explain sex’s role in marriage. Inside of marriage, sex is used to communicate your lifelong, one-flesh commitment to one another. Sex is God’s ordained way for a husband to tell his wife or for a wife to tell her husband this: “I am completely yours; I belong to you, and to no one else. I give myself to you, and to no one else. I am committed, until death do we part, to you and you alone. I am one-flesh with you.” This is so view of marriage and sex, as commitment and communication, is so radically countercultural in America today. Because in our society, we’re taught it makes sense to be promiscuous with your body – have sex with whomever you want, it’s just an appetite so satisfy it, because it won’t change who you are on the inside – but be conservative with your money. Don’t give your money away too much – maybe $10 in the offering plate at the church but that’s it. © 2014 J.D. Shaw

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The Bible, though, says, “Be promiscuous with your money – give much, give often, give to the poor, give to the ungrateful, give to those who won’t appreciate it, give as much as you can away because then you’ll know what Jesus meant when he said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ Be promiscuous with your money. But be conservative with your body – give it only to your spouse.” Two applications, particularly for younger people: first, almost every Christian looks for love among all the wrong people. Here’s what most people do before they look for a relationship. First of all, we rate ourselves as to how attractive we think we are – on a scale of one-to-ten, you might say, I’m a seven. Then we walk into a room with twenty people of the opposite sex, and when you go in there you’re not looking for fours. You’re looking for a good deal – you’re looking for sevens or better. And you find an eight or a nine who smiles at you and is willing to talk to you, you say, “Oh, I hope she’s a Christian!” Now, if marriage is indeed about a lifelong commitment to another person, if it’s about one-flesh, then it makes absolutely no sense to make physical attractiveness the first filter you run people of the opposite sex through! Supermodels are not more likely to be better at this one-flesh thing than just attractive people are – and that’s what marriage is, oneflesh. Now, guys, is it a sin to marry a supermodel? Of course not. Girls, do you have to go find the homeliest-looking guy at Ole Miss and get married to him in order to follow Jesus? No, but so many Christians are automatically ruling out so many other Christians would make great spouses based on superficial, non-biblical judgments. Second, almost every Christian looks for love in all the wrong places. If marriage is what I’m saying it is – a lifelong commitment to the good of another person, one-flesh – then almost certainly the place, the location, where you’ll find a critical mass of other young people with the same views on marriage won’t be a bar on the Square on a Saturday night. Are they not there? No, they may be there – but there will also be a ton of people there who will not have a Christian view of marriage and there will probably be at least one or two guys who won’t have a Christian view of sex. You don’t go to bars to find Christian spouses, you don’t go to date parties sponsored by Greek organizations to find Christian spouses. I’m not saying they aren’t there, I’m not saying you can’t be happily married if you first met at a bar. My first date with my wife was to a party sponsored by the Greek organization I was involved with in college. I am saying it’s not a good plan. Where do you go to find a critical mass of people of the opposite sex who have a Christian view of sex and marriage? The church (look around). I’m not naïve enough to think that everyone here this morning has these views, but it will be at a healthy church or through a healthy campus ministry that you will find a critical mass of people of the opposite sex who have a Christian view of marriage. © 2014 J.D. Shaw

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Kathy Keller, co-author of the book The Meaning of Marriage, was so frustrated that more people in their church in New York weren’t getting married, so she has often said that she wanted to get all the single people in her church into one room, put the guys on one wall and the girls on the other, and tell them, “I’m giving you three weeks – cross the room, and go and find a spouse.” I’m not suggesting we do that here at Grace, but what I am saying is this: a lot of Christian young men and women would be better served by trying to find a spouse that way than to keep going down the paths they have been. What matters most in a potential spouse is that they are ready to be involved in a one-flesh relationship, forsaking all others, until death do you part, because that’s what marriage is. You may think, “J.D., that doesn’t sound very romantic – what about love at first sight and getting swept off your feet and having your breath taken away? This one-flesh stuff, this lifelong commitment, this meeting your spouse at church, – that’s not romantic! Where’s the romance in that?” I admit – up to this point Paul’s view of marriage doesn’t line up with the world’s view of romance. And it gets worse. Second, why Paul encourages it. Look back at verse 1: Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” Now, remember, Paul here is responding to some in Corinth who are arguing for sexless marriages. These Corinthians thought that sex was dirty and defiling, so even the married people were opting out of sex. In response Paul gives his reason for marriage: 2 But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. 1 Corinthians 7:2. Paul says, “Because there is so much immorality in the world, because there’s so much temptation to sexual sin, it’s probably best if all you single people in Corinth go ahead and get married.” And you say, “How inspiring! You mean that’s the reason the Bible gives to get married – get married so that you’ll be less likely to commit sexual sin outside of marriage?” And the answer is: yes … that’s one of them. In other places the Bible does talk about the beauty of marriage in and of itself – Song of Solomon is one of them. In other places the Bible does talk about the companionship that coms with marriage – that’s Genesis 2: “It is not good for man to be alone.” But here Paul says, “Go, get married, because if you don’t you’re going to be so much more likely to commit immoralities that will harm you and dishonor God.” Then, 1 Corinthians 7:3-5: “The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 For the wife does not have authority over her own © 2014 J.D. Shaw

7 body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5 Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” A couple of things about these verses. First, remember the context. Some Christians in Corinth are saying that in marriage you should never have sex, that sex is dirty and defiling, never proper. Paul rebukes that view. He says, “Of course, sex is good and right and should be frequent in marriage.” But to the extent these verses are used today, how are they used? They are much more likely to be used in a context where the husband goes to his wife and badgers her, nags her, and says, “You owe me.” A situation where he wants sex three times per week and the wife once, not in a context where the wife resolves to never have sex again. Please, husbands, do not go home and write these verses on a note card and put it on your wife’s bathroom mirror. Please don’t be obnoxious about this – these verses are not for husbands to use to badger or guilt their wives into more frequent sex. I almost want to impose a churchwide moratorium on the use of these verses by men – women you are free and encouraged to use these verses with one another, but men are under the ban. As one commentator put it, the context of verses 1-7 is not “you owe me” (and that’s how too many husband are tempted to view it – they go to their wives and say, “you owe me my conjugal rights”) but “I owe you; I love you and I of my own accord want to serve you.” Paul’s not sentimental about marriage, is he? Any time you start talking about conjugal rights in marriage you’re way past sentimentalism, aren’t you? Paul’s very clear and purposeful about marriage. Why isn’t Paul more romantic? The better question I think is this: why are we so sentimental about marriage? It’s because of the age in which we live. Ernest Becker, a cultural anthropologist, not a Christian, wrote a great book back in 1974 called The Denial of Death. He wrote it actually as he was dying of cancer. Becker noted that up until the 19th century almost no one took a romantic, sentimental view of marriage. If anything it was rational. Everyone understood that marriage served certain purposes such, as Paul said, keeping people from immorality, raising families, transmission of values from one generation to the next. Marriage had always been a useful tool. But beginning in the late 19th, early 20th century, more and more people in the West began to deny the possibility of an afterlife. The dominant culture began to detach itself from a Christian understanding of life and death. When that happened, people could no longer look to heaven for meaning in life; they could only look to their lives on earth. And all of the sudden the relationships and institutions of this life aren’t just useful anymore – marriage isn’t just a good, useful tool. Marriage must be your savior. © 2014 J.D. Shaw

8 Marriage now has the burden of carrying all these ultimate hopes and dreams of people that it was never designed to carry. You count on marriage to make you happy and bring you fulfillment – and no human being in marriage can begin to do that for you. Do you know what Paul would say to that? I’m pretty sure I know. First of all he’d say this: marriage is hard enough as it is – don’t weigh it down with all that extra freight. It’s so hard that Paul writes this (1 Corinthians 7:6-8): “Now as a concession, not a command, I say this [about getting married]. 7 I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. 8 To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am.” What’s Paul saying? He’s saying that he has a very specific gift – he does not have the pressing desire that the vast majority of the people on earth have – the desire for sexual fulfillment and a family of his own. He has what is known as the gift of celibacy. And Paul wishes all people could be like him, because marriage is just so stinking hard. Again, I don’t want to get ahead of myself too much here but later in chapter seven Paul writes this: 27 Are you married? Do not seek a divorce. Are you unmarried? Do not look for a wife. 28 But if you do marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this. 1 Corinthians 7:27-28 (NIV 1984). Marriage is hard – it is very, very hard for two sinners to share a bedroom, bathroom, and bank account. Paul says, “I want to spare you from that – but I can’t spare you. You need marriage – you don’t have the gift of celibacy, so you’re prone to sexual immorality – but just know that marriage is hard.” Second, and most importantly, Paul would say, “Marriage is no savior. There is only one savior.” Third, how can we do marriage. Ephesians 5 is another place where the apostle Paul talks about marriage, it may be the most famous place where he talks about marriage. And there he writes this beginning in verse 28: 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it…” Up until now, it just sounds like Paul is talking about the one flesh relationship between a husband and wife, how we are supposed to live for and serve each other, what we’ve already said. But then Paul says this: “… just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

© 2014 J.D. Shaw

9 The way you can do marriage and be “one flesh” with your spouse is by continually remembering how you are already one flesh with Jesus. Marriage is not your savior. Marriage is a horrible savior. If you take a sentimental approach to marriage and put all your hopes in getting swept off your feet by your spouse, for it to always be romantic like in the movies, for your spouse to meet all your needs – emotional, psychological, physical, sexual – it will crush your marriage. Your marriage can’t handle it. Your spouse can’t handle that. But if you see that Jesus is your savior, then you can do marriage – you can do this one flesh thing. How? Here’s what you do: if you’re a Christian, then you simply look at how you are one flesh with Jesus. You know that over and over the Bible uses marriage as a metaphor to describe God’s relationship to his people. In the New Testament, we read that Jesus is the bridegroom and the church is his bride. Friends, if you’re a Christian, you’re already a part of his body because you’ve trusted him with your lives, you’ve repented of your sin, and you are following him. So what you do is look at how you are one flesh with Jesus, and when you are tempted to make marriage your savior, and get angry with your spouse for not being everything you want him or her to be, you ask: “How did I become one flesh with Jesus?” And then remember the answer: because Jesus died for me. I was a sinner, wretched, wicked rebel, but Jesus died for me. He chose to love me, and not because I was lovely (because I’m a sinner, I’m not a nice person) but to make me lovely. Remind yourself: Jesus loves me. So much so that in Romans Paul says that neither death nor life, nor angels nor demons, nor the present or future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is found in Christ Jesus our Lord, our bridegroom. Then ask, “Does Jesus ever sin against me?” And of course he doesn’t – he feeds and cares for and loves me. Then ask, “Does Jesus ever get angry at me and bitter toward me when I sin against him?” And remember the answer: never. All the anger God had for my sin Jesus bore on the cross, he bled so that I could be part of his body, Jesus bled so that he could care for me. When you see how Jesus loves you, even though you are sinful, even though you are unlovely, when you see how Jesus feeds and cares for you, when you see how Jesus chose you in spite of how you rebelled against him – when you see how Jesus is the perfect spouse, then can do marriage. Then you’ll have the ability to keep your wedding vows.” I love the old hymn: “If thou but suffer God to guide thee, and hope in him through all thy ways, he’ll give thee strength, whatever betide thee, and bear thee through the evil days: who trusts in God’s unchanging love builds on the Rock that naught can move.” © 2014 J.D. Shaw

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I pray for Oxford that through this month of messages on marriage more and more men and women would build their house on the Rock of Jesus Christ, and if we do not even the angry powers of hell will be able to shake it. Amen. Let’s pray together.

© 2014 J.D. Shaw