Homily 19 — First Corinthians 7, verses 1 to 16

“Now concerning the things you wrote to me about: it is good for a man not to touch a woman. But because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.” [a]

He has now corrected the three heaviest charges against them: first, the divisions in the church; second, the case of the sexually immoral man; third, the case of the greedy man. From here on he uses a milder kind of speech. He puts in some encouragement and advice about marriage and virginity, giving his hearers a rest from more unpleasant subjects. In the second letter he does the opposite: he begins with the milder topics and ends with the more distressing ones. And here too, once he has finished speaking about virginity, he launches again into matters closer to rebuke. He does not set everything down in a fixed order, but varies his speech between the two kinds, as the occasion required and as the pressing needs of the matters in hand demanded.

That is why he says, “Now concerning the things you wrote to me about.” For they had written to him asking “whether it was right to abstain from one’s wife or not.” Writing back in answer to this and giving rules about marriage, he brings in the discussion of virginity as well: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” He says: “If you ask what is the excellent and far superior course, it is better not to have any relations with a woman at all. But if you ask what is safe and helpful for your own weakness, be joined in marriage.”

But since it was likely, as happens now too, that the husband might be willing and the wife not, or perhaps the other way around, notice how he deals with each case. Some people say that he addressed this discussion to priests. But judging from what follows, I could not say that it was so, since then he would not have given his advice in general terms. If he were writing these things only for priests, he would have said, “It is good for the teacher not to touch a woman.” But as it is, he has made it apply to everyone, saying, “It is good for a man,” not for the priest only. And again, “Are you released from a wife? Do not look for a wife.” He did not say, “You who are a priest and a teacher,” but spoke without any limit. And his whole speech goes on in the same tone throughout. And in saying, “Because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife,” by the very reason he gives for the concession he leads people toward self-control. [b]

Verse 3: “Let the husband pay the wife the honor due to her, and likewise the wife the husband.”

Now what does “the honor due” mean? “The wife does not have authority over her own body,” but is both the slave and the mistress of her husband. If you refuse the service that is due, you have offended God. But if you want to withdraw yourself, it must be with your husband’s permission, even if only for a short time. This is why he calls the thing a debt: to show that neither of them is master of himself, but that they are servants of each other.

So when you see a prostitute tempting you, say, “My body is not mine, but my wife’s.” And let the woman say the same to those who would undermine her chastity: “My body is not mine, but my husband’s.” Now if neither husband nor wife has authority even over their own body, much less do they have it over their property. Listen, all of you who have husbands and all of you who have wives: if you must not count your body your own, much less your money.

Elsewhere, I grant, God gives the husband a large precedence, both in the New Testament and in the Old, where he says,

“Your turning will be toward your husband, and he will rule over you” (Genesis 3, verse 16). Paul does so too, drawing a distinction in the same way and writing, “Husbands, love your wives; and let the wife see that she respects her husband” (Ephesians 5, verses 25 and 33). But in this place we hear no more of greater and lesser; it is one and the same right. Now why is this? Because his speech was about chastity. “In everything else, let the husband have the precedence; but not where the question is about chastity.” “The husband does not have authority over his own body, and neither does the wife.” There is great equality of honor here, and no precedence. [d]

Verse 5: “Do not defraud one another, except by consent.”

What, then, can this mean? He says: “Let the wife not practice self-control if the husband is unwilling, nor the husband without the wife’s consent.” Why so? Because great evils spring from this kind of self-control. Adultery, sexual immorality, and the ruin of households have often arisen from it. For if men fall into sexual immorality even when they have their own wives, how much more will they if you defraud them of this comfort?

And he puts it well: “defraud” here, and “debt” above, to show how strict is the right of ownership in question. For one of them to practice self-control against the other’s will is “defrauding”; but with the other’s consent it is not, any more than I count myself defrauded if you persuade me first and then take something of mine. Only the one who takes against another’s will and by force defrauds. Many women do this, working sin rather than righteousness. By it they become answerable for their husband’s uncleanness, and they tear everything apart. Yet they ought to value harmony above everything, since it is more important than all the rest.

Let us look at it, if you like, in actual cases. Suppose there is a wife and a husband, and the wife practices self-control without her husband’s consent. Well then, suppose he then falls into sexual immorality; or, though he keeps from sexual immorality, he frets and grows restless and heated, and quarrels, and gives his wife every kind of trouble. Where is all the gain from the fasting and the self-control, once a breach has been made in love? There is none. What strange accusations, how much trouble, how great a war must follow! For when husband and wife are at odds in a house, the house will be no better off than a ship in a storm when the master is on bad terms with the man at the bow. [f]

That is why he says, “Do not defraud one another, unless it is by consent for a time, so that you may give yourselves to prayer.” He means here prayer made with unusual earnestness. For if he were forbidding those who have relations with each other to pray, how could “pray without ceasing” have any place? So it is possible to live with a wife and still give attention to prayer. But by self-control prayer is made more perfect. He did not simply say, “so that you may pray,” but, “so that you may give yourselves to it,” as though what he speaks of might bring about not uncleanness, but a great deal of busyness.

“And come together again, so that Satan does not tempt you.” So that this would not seem to be laid down as a strict law, he adds the reason. And what is it? “So that Satan does not tempt you.” And so that you may understand that it is not the devil alone who causes this sin (I mean adultery), he adds, “because of your lack of self-control.” [g]

“But I say this by way of permission, not of command. For I wish that all people were even as I myself am,” that is, living in self-control. He does this in many places when he is giving advice about difficult matters: he puts himself forward and says, “Be imitators of me.”

“But each one has his own gift from God, one of this kind and another of that.” Since he had charged them heavily by saying “because of your lack of self-control,” he comforts them again with the words, “each one has his own gift from God.” He does not mean that no effort on our part is needed for this virtue, but, as I was saying before, he says it to comfort them. For if it is a “gift,” and a person contributes nothing to it, how can you say, “But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am (verse 8); but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry” (verse 9)? Do you see Paul’s good sense? He shows that self-control is better, and yet puts no pressure on the one who cannot attain it, for fear that some stumbling block might arise.

“For it is better to marry than to burn.” He shows how great the tyranny of craving is. What he means is something like this: “If you have to endure great violence and burning desire, release yourself from your pains and struggles, in case you are overthrown.” [h]

Verse 10: “But to the married I give this charge, yet not I, but the Lord.” He is about to read them a law expressly laid down by Christ, about “not putting away a wife except for sexual immorality” (Matthew 5, verse 32; 19, verse 9; Mark 10, verse 11; Luke 16, verse 18). That is why he says, “Not I.” It is true that what he said before is also Christ’s decree, even though it was not stated in so many words. But this, you see, Christ had handed down in express words. So the words “I” and “not I” differ in this way. And so that you would not imagine even his own words to be merely human, he added, “For I think that I too have the Spirit of God.”

Now what is it that “the Lord commanded to the married”? “That the wife should not depart from her husband; but if she does depart, let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband” (verse 11). Separations were taking place, both on the grounds of self-control and on other pretexts, and because of petty tempers. It would be better, he says, that such things should not happen at all. But if they do happen, let the wife remain with her husband: if not to live with him, then at least so as not to bring in any other man as her husband.

Verse 12: “But to the rest I speak, not the Lord. If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is content to live with him, let him not leave her. And if any woman has a husband who does not believe, and he is content to live with her, let her not leave him.” [i]

When he was speaking about separating from the sexually immoral, he made the matter easy by the correction he added to his words, saying, “Yet not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world.” So too in this case he makes the duty very easy, saying, “If any wife has a husband, or a husband a wife, who does not believe, let him not leave her.” “What are you saying? If he is an unbeliever, let him stay with his wife, but not if he is sexually immoral? And yet sexual immorality is a lesser sin than unbelief.” I grant that sexual immorality is a lesser sin. But God spares your weaknesses to the utmost. He does the same about the sacrifice, saying (Matthew 5, verse 24), “Leave the sacrifice, and be reconciled to your brother.” He does the same in the case of the man who owed ten thousand talents. He did not punish him for owing him ten thousand talents; but for demanding back a hundred denarii from his fellow servant he took vengeance on him.

Then, so that the woman would not be afraid that she became unclean through relations with her husband, he says, “For the unbelieving husband is made holy in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy in the husband.” And yet, if “he who is joined to a prostitute is one body,” it is quite clear that the woman who is joined to an idolater is also one body with him. Well, it is one body; nevertheless she does not become unclean. Instead, the cleanness of the wife overcomes the uncleanness of the husband; and again, the cleanness of the believing husband overcomes the uncleanness of the unbelieving wife. [k]

How is it, then, that in this case the uncleanness is overcome, and so their relations are allowed, while in the case of the wife who plays the prostitute the husband is not condemned for putting her out? Because here there is hope that the lost member may be saved through the marriage, but in the other case the marriage has already been dissolved. There, besides, both are corrupted; here the fault lies in only one of the two.

I mean something like this. The woman who has committed sexual immorality is utterly abominable. So if “he who is joined to a prostitute is one body,” he too becomes abominable by having relations with a prostitute, and all purity flies away. But in the case before us it is not so. How, then? The idolater is unclean, but the woman is not unclean. If she were his partner in the thing that makes him unclean (I mean his ungodliness), she herself would become unclean too. But as it is, the idolater is unclean in one respect, and the wife shares with him in another, in which he is not unclean. For their sharing consists in marriage and the union of bodies.

Again, there is hope that this man may be won back by his wife, for she has become completely his own. But with the other it is not at all easy. How will she, who dishonored him before, became another man’s, and destroyed the rights of marriage, have the power to win back the man she wronged, a man who, what is more, remains a stranger to her still?

Again, in that case, after the sexual immorality the husband is no longer a husband; but here, although the wife is an idolater, the husband’s rights are not destroyed.

However, he does not simply recommend living with the unbeliever, but only on the condition that the unbeliever wishes it. That is why he said, “And he himself is content to live with her.” For tell me, what harm is there, when the duties of godliness remain unimpaired and there are good hopes for the unbeliever, if those already joined stay as they are and do not bring in occasions of needless warfare? The question now is not about those who have never yet come together, but about those who are already joined. He did not say, “If anyone wants to take an unbelieving wife,” but, “If anyone has an unbelieving wife.” That means: if anyone, after marrying or being married, has received the word of godliness, and the other party, who has remained in unbelief, still wants them to live together, let the marriage not be broken off. “For,” he says, “the unbelieving husband is made holy in the wife.” So overflowing is your purity.

What, then, is the Greek holy? Certainly not. He did not say, “He is holy,” but, “He is made holy in his wife.” And he said this not to indicate that he is holy, but to free the woman as completely as possible from her fear, and to lead the man to desire the truth. For the uncleanness is not in the bodies in which they share, but in the mind and the thoughts. And here follows the proof. If you remained unclean and had children, the child, being not of you alone, would of course be unclean, or half clean. But in fact it is not unclean. To this effect he adds, “Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is they are holy,” that is, not unclean. Yet the apostle calls them “holy,” casting out once more, by the strength of the word, the dread that arises from that kind of suspicion. [l]

Verse 15: “Yet if the unbeliever departs, let him depart.”

For in this case the matter is no longer sexual immorality. But what does “if the unbeliever departs” mean? For example, if he orders you to offer sacrifice and take part in his ungodliness because of your marriage, or else to part company, it is better for the marriage to be dissolved and for no breach to be made in godliness. That is why he adds, “A brother is not under bondage, nor a sister either, in such cases.” If day after day he beats you and keeps up quarrels over this, it is better to separate. This is what he hints at when he says, “But God has called us in peace.” For it is the other party who has given the grounds for the separation, just as the one who committed uncleanness did.

Verse 16: “For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband?”

This again refers back to the words “let her not leave him.” That is, he says: “If he makes no disturbance, stay. There is profit even in this: stay, and advise, and counsel, and persuade.” For no teacher will have such power to prevail as a wife. On the one hand, he does not lay any necessity on her or demand the thing of her absolutely, so as not again to do something that would be too painful. On the other, he does not tell her to despair. He leaves the matter open, because the future is uncertain, saying, “For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?”

And again, verse 17: “Only, as God has assigned to each one, as the Lord has called each, so let him walk. Was anyone called when he was circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised. Was anyone called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God. Let each one remain in the calling in which he was called. Were you called as a slave? Do not let it trouble you.” These things contribute nothing to faith, he says. So do not be contentious, and do not be troubled; the faith has cast all these things out.

“Let each one remain in the calling in which he was called. Were you called when you had an unbelieving wife? Keep her. Do not put your wife out for the faith’s sake. Were you called as a slave? Do not let it trouble you; remain a slave. Were you called in uncircumcision? Remain uncircumcised. Were you circumcised when you became a believer? Remain circumcised.” For this is the meaning of “as God has assigned to each one.” These things are no hindrance to godliness. You are called as a slave; another, with an unbelieving wife; another, circumcised. [m]

Astonishing! Where has he put slavery? Just as circumcision does not help and uncircumcision does no harm, so neither does slavery, nor yet freedom. And to show this with surpassing clearness, he says, “But even if you can become free, make use of it rather,” that is, rather remain a slave. Now on what possible ground does he tell someone who could be set free to remain a slave? He means to show that slavery does no harm, but is rather an advantage.

We are not unaware that some say the words “make use of it rather” are spoken about freedom, taking them to mean, “If you can become free, become free.” But if this were what he meant, the expression would be very contrary to Paul’s manner. When he was comforting the slave and showing that he was not harmed in any way, he would not have told him to get free. For perhaps someone might say: “What then, if I am not able? I am wronged and degraded.” So this is not what he is saying. But, as I said, he means to show that a person gains nothing by being set free, and so he says: “Even though you have it in your power to be set free, rather remain in slavery.”

Next he adds the reason as well: “For the one who was called in the Lord as a slave is the Lord’s free man; likewise the one who was called as a free man is Christ’s slave.” He says: “In the things that concern Christ, both are equal. Just as you are Christ’s slave, so is your master.” How, then, is the slave a free man? Because Christ has freed you not only from sin, but also from outward slavery, while you remain a slave. He does not allow the slave to be a slave, even though he is a man who remains in slavery. And this is the great wonder.

But how is the slave a free man while remaining a slave? When he is freed from passions and the diseases of the mind; when he looks down on riches and anger and all the other passions like them. [n]

Verse 23: “You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.”

This saying is addressed not only to slaves but also to free men. For it is possible for one who is a slave not to be a slave, and for one who is free to be a slave. “And how can someone be a slave and not a slave?” When he does everything for God; when he pretends nothing, and does nothing merely to catch people’s eye. That is how one who is a slave to men can be free. Or again, how does one who is free become a slave? When he serves men in some evil service, whether for gluttony, or out of desire for wealth, or for the sake of office. Such a man, though he is free, is more of a slave than anyone.

And consider both these points. Joseph was a slave, but not a slave to men; and so even in slavery he was freer than all who are free. For instance, he did not give in to his mistress; he did not give in to what the woman who owned him desired. She, on the other hand, was free; yet no one was ever so like a slave, courting and pleading with her own servant. But she could not persuade him, the free man, to do what he did not want. So this was not slavery; it was freedom of the most exalted kind. What hindrance to virtue did his slavery put in his way? Let people hear this, both slaves and free. Which was the slave: the one who was begged, or the one who did the begging? The one who pleaded, or the one who scorned her pleading?

In fact, God himself has set limits for slaves, and how far one ought to keep within them has also been settled; to go beyond them is wrong. That is, when your master commands nothing that displeases God, it is right to follow and obey; but no further. This is how the slave becomes free. But if you go further, even though you are free, you have become a slave. At any rate, that is what he hints at when he says, “Do not become the servants of men.” [o]

But if this is not the meaning, and he told them to leave their masters and fight to become free, in what sense did he urge them, saying, “Let each one remain in the calling in which he was called”? And in another place (First Timothy 6, verses 1 and 2): “Let all who are servants under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor; and let those who have believing masters not despise them, because they are brothers who share in the benefit.” And writing to the Ephesians and to the Colossians as well, he lays down and requires the same rules. From this it is plain that it is not this slavery that he abolishes, but the slavery that is caused by vice and that befalls free men too. This is the worst kind of slavery, even if the one in bondage to it is a free man.

What good did their freedom do Joseph’s brothers? Were they not more servile than any slaves, lying to their father, using false pretenses with the merchants, and with their brother as well? But the free man was not like that; everywhere and in everything he was truthful. Nothing had the power to enslave him: not chains, not bondage, not his mistress’s love, not his being in a foreign land. He remained free everywhere. For this is freedom in the truest sense, when it shines through even in bondage.

Such is Christianity: in slavery it gives freedom. A body that is by nature invulnerable proves itself invulnerable when it is struck by a dart and suffers no harm. In the same way, the one who is truly free shows it when, even under masters, he is not enslaved. That is why his instruction is, “Remain a slave.”

But if it is impossible for someone who is a slave to be the kind of Christian he ought to be, the Greeks will charge true religion with great weakness; whereas if they can be taught that slavery does no harm at all to godliness, they will admire our teaching. For if death does not hurt us, nor whips, nor chains, much less will slavery. Fire and iron, countless tyrannies, diseases and poverty and wild beasts, and countless things more dreadful than these have not been able to injure the faithful; no, they have made them even stronger. How then will slavery be able to hurt them?

It is not slavery itself, beloved, that hurts. The real slavery is the slavery of sin. If you are not a slave in this sense, take courage and rejoice. No one will be able to do you any wrong, since you have a spirit that cannot be enslaved. But if you are a slave to sin, then even if you are ten thousand times free, your freedom does you no good.

For tell me, what good is it if you are not in bondage to a human being, but lie down in subjection to your passions? People, after all, often know how to spare; but those masters are never satisfied with your destruction. Are you in bondage to a human being? Why, your master is also your slave: in arranging your food, in taking care of your health, in seeing to your shoes and everything else. And you are not as afraid of offending your master as he is afraid that one of those necessities might run short for you. “But he sits down, while I stand.” And what of that? The same can be said of you as of him. Often, at any rate, when you are lying down and sleeping sweetly, he is not only standing but putting up with endless discomforts in the marketplace, and he lies awake in more pain than you do. [p]

Take Joseph. What did he suffer from his mistress to compare with what she suffered from her evil desire? He did not do the things she wanted to put on him; but she carried out everything her own mistress ordered — I mean her spirit of unchastity, which did not let up until it had put her to open shame. What master gives orders like these? What savage tyrant? “Beg your slave!” That was the order. “Flatter the man you bought with your money; plead with the captive. Even if he turns from you in disgust, lay siege to him again. Even if you speak to him again and again and he does not consent, watch for a time when he is alone, and force him, and make yourself a laughingstock.” What could be more dishonorable, what more shameful, than these words? “And if even by these means you get nowhere, then accuse him falsely and deceive your husband.”

See how mean, how shameful these commands are, how merciless and savage and frantic! What command does a master ever lay on his slave like the ones her loose living laid on that royal woman then? And yet she did not dare disobey. But Joseph suffered nothing of the kind. Everything he went through was the opposite, and brought him glory and honor.

Would you like to see another man under harsh orders from a hard mistress, without the spirit to disobey any of them? Think of Cain, and the commands his envy laid on him. She ordered him to kill his brother, to lie to God, to grieve his father, to cast off shame; and he did it all, and refused her in nothing. And why be surprised that this mistress has such power over a single person? She has often destroyed whole nations. The women of Midian, for example, captured the Jews and all but led them away in chains: their own beauty kindled desire, and that was how they conquered that whole nation. [q]

It was to cast out this kind of slavery, then, that Paul said, “Do not become slaves of men”; that is, “Do not obey people who command unreasonable things; no, do not even obey yourselves.” Then, having lifted up their minds and made them soar on high, he says, in verse 25: “Now concerning virgins, I have no command of the Lord; but I give my judgment, as one who has obtained mercy from the Lord to be faithful.”

Going forward in regular order, he next speaks about virginity. After he had exercised and trained them in what he said about self-control, he moves on to what is greater, saying, “I have no command, but I consider it good.” For what reason? For the very same reason he gave about self-control. [s]

Verse 27: “Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be set free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife.”

These words do not contradict what he said before; on the contrary, they agree with it completely. There too he says, “Except by consent,” just as here he says, “Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek separation.” There is no contradiction in this. For it is doing this against the other’s consent that dissolves a marriage; but if both, by consent, live in self-control, that is no dissolution.

Then, so that this would not seem to be laying down a law, he adds (verse 28): “But if you marry, you have not sinned.” Next he points to the way things stand: “the present distress,” “the shortness of the time,” and “the trouble.” For marriage brings many things along with it, which he has in fact hinted at both here and in the discussion of self-control: there, by saying, “the wife does not have power over herself,” and here, by the expression, “You are bound.”

“But if you marry, you have not sinned.” He is not speaking about the woman who has chosen virginity; for if it comes to that, she has sinned. If widows are condemned for entering into second marriages after they have once chosen widowhood, how much more the virgins! [u]

“But such people will have trouble in the flesh.” “And pleasure too!” So you will say. But see how he cuts this short with the shortness of the time, saying (verse 29), “The time has been cut short” — that is, “We are urged to leave now and go out, and you are running further in.” And even if marriage had no troubles, we ought still to press on toward the things to come. But when it brings trouble as well, what need is there to draw an extra burden on oneself? What reason is there to take up such a load, when even after taking it you must use it as though you did not have it? For “even those who have wives,” he says, “must be as though they had none.”

Then, having put in something about the future, he brings his speech back to the present. Some of his points are spiritual, such as that “the one cares about the things of her husband, the other about the things of God.” Others concern this present life, such as, “I want you to be free from cares.” Yet with all this he still leaves it to their own choice. For someone who proves what is best and then falls back on compulsion seems not to trust his own arguments. That is why he draws them instead by making allowances, and holds them back as follows.

Verse 35: “I say this for your own benefit, not to throw a snare over you, but for what is fitting, and so that you may attend upon the Lord without distraction.” [v]

Let the virgins hear that virginity is not defined by that one point alone. For a woman who is anxious about the things of the world cannot be a virgin, or live as is fitting. So when he said, “There is a difference between a wife and a virgin,” he added this as the difference, the thing by which they are distinguished from each other. And in laying down the definition of a virgin and of one who is not a virgin, he names neither marriage nor self-control, but freedom from business on the one side and a multitude of business on the other. For the evil is not in living together, but in the hindrance it puts in the way of a strict life.

Verse 36: “But if any man thinks that he is behaving improperly toward his virgin.”

Here he seems to be talking about marriage; but everything he says relates to virginity; for he allows even a second marriage, saying, “only in the Lord.” Now what does “in the Lord” mean? With chastity, with honor. For this is needed everywhere and must be pursued, since otherwise we cannot see God.

Now if we have passed lightly over what he says about virginity, let no one accuse us of carelessness. We have in fact written a whole book on this subject, and since there we went through every part of it with all the precision we could, we thought it a waste of words to bring it in again here. So, referring the hearer to that work for these matters, we will say this one thing here: we must pursue self-control. For he says, “Pursue peace, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” [w]

So that we may be counted worthy to see him, then, whether we are living in virginity, or in a first marriage, or in a second, let us pursue this, so that we may obtain the kingdom of heaven, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory, power, and honor, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.