The Corinthians had apparently written Paul a letter of their own, full of questions, and chapter 7 is his answer to the first of them: what should marriage, singleness, and devotion to Christ actually look like for a church that expects the Lord to return soon? Paul’s answer refuses two easy extremes at once — neither treating marriage as something inferior to celibacy, nor treating either state as more spiritual than simply serving God faithfully wherever a person already stands.
A study in 1 Corinthians 7 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 17 min read
To Avoid Fornication
“Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.”
1 Corinthians 7:1-2
“Whereof ye wrote unto me” is a clue easy to miss but important for reading the whole chapter correctly — Paul is answering a specific question the Corinthians asked, not laying down an unprompted new law. Given chapter 5’s incident and chapter 6’s warnings about fornication, it makes sense that Corinth’s own question involved whether marriage itself was something the truly spiritual should avoid altogether. Paul’s answer is immediate: marriage is not a lesser concession for the weak, but a genuine good, and in this fallen world, a needed safeguard.
“Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.”
1 Corinthians 7:3-4
Verse 4 states something genuinely radical for its own time and place: authority within marriage runs both directions equally. A culture built almost entirely around a husband’s rights over his wife is told, in the same breath, that the wife holds exactly the same claim over her husband. Neither partner is free to withhold what belongs, by mutual right, to the other.
“Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.”
1 Corinthians 7:5
Even a season set apart for prayer is not permitted to become permanent or one-sided; it requires mutual consent, has a clear time limit, and ends with a deliberate return to the marriage’s ordinary shape. Paul’s concern here is entirely practical — a prolonged, unagreed absence within marriage creates exactly the vulnerability to temptation the rest of this letter has already spent so much time warning about.
“But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment. For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that.”
1 Corinthians 7:6-7
Paul is careful to distinguish his own preference from a binding command, and then goes further still — his own gift of singleness is not held up as the superior path for everyone, but simply as one gift among several, distributed by God differently to different people. Neither marriage nor celibacy, in this chapter, is treated as the more spiritual option in itself.
“I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.”
1 Corinthians 7:8-9
“Better to marry than to burn” is blunt, practical wisdom rather than romantic idealism — Paul is not describing the ideal reason to marry, only naming a real one. A single life devoted entirely to Christ is genuinely good, in his own stated preference; but forcing that life onto someone consumed by unmet desire serves no one, least of all the person struggling against constant temptation.
Let Not The Wife Depart From Her Husband
“And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband: But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife.”
1 Corinthians 7:10-11
Paul is explicit about his source here — not his own apostolic opinion this time, but the Lord’s own teaching, almost certainly the same instruction Christ gave in Matthew 19. Divorce between two believers is not the answer this chapter offers; where separation has already happened, reconciliation or remaining unmarried are the only paths Paul allows.
“But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.”
1 Corinthians 7:12-13
This is a new situation Christ never directly addressed — a marriage where one spouse has since become a believer and the other has not — so Paul, again identifying this as his own apostolic guidance rather than a direct word of the Lord, gives the church its answer: conversion is never itself a reason to abandon an otherwise willing spouse.
“For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.”
1 Corinthians 7:14
“Sanctified” here does not mean the unbelieving spouse is personally saved by marriage to a believer; it describes a household set apart, brought within reach of God’s covenant blessing, rather than treated as ritually foreign. The children of such a marriage are not written off as outsiders to the faith simply because one parent does not yet believe.
“But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace. For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?”
1 Corinthians 7:15-16
If the unbelieving partner chooses to leave, the believer is released — “not under bondage” — because God has called believers to peace, not to a lifetime of contested captivity to someone unwilling to remain. And yet Paul closes the point with real hope rather than resignation: the believing spouse who stays, for as long as staying remains possible, may yet be the very means by which the other is saved.
Ye Are Bought With A Price
“But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk. And so ordain I in all churches. Is any man called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God.”
1 Corinthians 7:17-19
Paul widens the marriage discussion into a general principle covering every kind of circumstance a believer might be converted into. Neither ethnic identity nor social status is the point of genuine spirituality; obedience to God’s commandments is, and that obedience is equally available whatever a person’s starting circumstances happen to be.
“Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather. For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord’s freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ’s servant.”
1 Corinthians 7:20-22
To a slave in the Corinthian church, this is a genuinely liberating reversal — spiritually, that person is already “the Lord’s freeman,” regardless of legal status, while the socially free believer is, in the very same verse, called “Christ’s servant.” Earthly rank has been quietly emptied of the ultimate significance the surrounding culture assigned it.
“Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.”
1 Corinthians 7:23
“She should, in a tender, kind manner, remind him that God has the first and highest claim upon her entire being, which claim she cannot disregard, for she will be held accountable in the great day of God. ‘What! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? for ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.’ … ‘Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.’”
Ellen G. White · A Solemn Appeal, p. 175
This same verse, written originally about literal slavery, is applied by this study’s own source to a far more intimate setting: a wife’s obligation to God’s own ownership of her body outranks any demand, even a spouse’s own demand, that would require her to disregard it. “Bought with a price” turns out to reach further than any single relationship a believer stands inside — it is the standing claim behind every other claim.
“Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God.”
1 Corinthians 7:24
“The businessman may conduct his business in a way that will glorify his Master because of his fidelity. … The mechanic may be a diligent and faithful representative of Him who toiled in the lowly walks of life among the hills of Galilee. Everyone who names the name of Christ should so work that others, by seeing his good works, may be led to glorify their Creator and Redeemer.”
Ellen G. White · Steps to Christ, p. 82
“Abide with God” closes the whole discussion of calling with a promise rather than a restriction — not a demand to stay trapped in an unwanted circumstance, but an assurance that God’s own presence is fully available inside whatever circumstance a believer is actually in, married or single, free or bound, tradesman or scholar.
The Time Is Short
“Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord: yet I give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful. I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress, I say, that it is good for a man so to be.”
1 Corinthians 7:25-26
“The present distress” almost certainly points to genuine hardship the Corinthian believers were already facing, whether persecution, famine, or simply the ordinary difficulty of living as a small, suspect minority inside a hostile city. Paul’s counsel toward remaining single is explicitly tied to that specific, temporary pressure, not offered as an unconditional rule for every generation everywhere.
“But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none; And they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; And they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away.”
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Four ordinary human experiences — marriage, grief, joy, possession — are each told to be held loosely rather than abandoned, “as though” not fully what they appear. Paul is not asking believers to stop marrying, weeping, rejoicing, or owning things; he is asking them to hold every one of those things with a grip light enough that losing it would not devastate a hope actually anchored somewhere else.
“But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.”
1 Corinthians 7:32-33
Paul’s honesty here is refreshing — he does not pretend marriage carries no cost to undivided devotion. A married believer genuinely does, and rightly should, care about pleasing a spouse; Paul’s point is simply that this real and legitimate care is a different care than the undistracted focus available to someone with no such competing claim.
“And this I speak for your own profit; not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction.”
1 Corinthians 7:35
“Not that I may cast a snare upon you” is Paul explicitly guarding against the very misreading this chapter risks — that singleness is a trap, a rule imposed for its own sake. His actual aim, stated plainly, is the Corinthians’ own profit and undistracted devotion, not a restriction dressed up as spirituality.
“The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord. But she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment: and I think also that I have the Spirit of God.”
1 Corinthians 7:39-40
“Only in the Lord” quietly narrows an otherwise open freedom — a widow may remarry whomever she chooses, with exactly one restriction, that the marriage remain within the faith. The chapter that opened by refusing to make either marriage or singleness the more spiritual choice closes the same way: real freedom, held inside real boundaries, offered by an apostle confident enough in his own counsel to say so plainly, while still leaving the actual choice to the believer standing in front of it.
