1 Corinthians 7:35

Paul has already answered several of the church’s questions in 1 Corinthians 7. He has spoken of the duties of husband and wife (1 Corinthians 7:1–7), counselled the unmarried and widows (1 Corinthians 7:8–9), given the Lord’s charge to the married and guidance for a believer married to an unbeliever (1 Corinthians 7:10–16), and told each believer to remain in the state in which God called him (1 Corinthians 7:17–24). Now he turns to those who have never married, and the chapter closes with more counsel along the same lines (1 Corinthians 7:36–40).

Corinth was a busy port with a mixed population, so known for loose living that “to Corinthianize” meant to live dissolutely. The church there, made up of Jewish and Gentile converts, was pulled two ways. The city around them pressed its sexual habits on them, and some within the church may have thought celibacy holier than marriage, or even required for real devotion to God. Marriage was the expected path in that society, and a woman’s standing was often tied to being a wife and mother. Paul’s counsel keeps a steady course between the two pulls. He honours marriage, and he speaks of the single life with a warmth that was unusual in that world.

“Now concerning” picks up the church’s letter, as the chapter’s first words did: “Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me” (1 Corinthians 7:1). The virgins, parthénos, are the unmarried, both men and women who have never yet married.

“I have no commandment of the Lord” uses epitagḗ, an authoritative order or injunction. On divorce Paul could pass on the Lord’s own charge: “And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:10). On this question he had received no such word from Jesus, so he gives his gnṓmē, his judgment. The word comes from a root meaning “to know”, and it means a reasoned opinion or considered counsel. Paul marks his words with the same care elsewhere: “But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment” (1 Corinthians 7:6), and again in 2 Corinthians 8:8.

His judgment carries real weight. It is the counsel of an apostle, written into Scripture, and Paul rests its trustworthiness on God’s mercy: he speaks “as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful.” The verb eleéō means to have pity on, to show compassion, and pistós means faithful, trustworthy, reliable. The Lord had mercy on Paul, and that mercy made him a man whose counsel can be trusted. He tells Timothy the same story of his life: Christ “counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry”, and “I obtained mercy” (1 Timothy 1:12–16).

The distinction teaches us how to hear the chapter. Some of it is the Lord’s binding command for every believer in every place, and some is wise counsel fitted to the needs of a particular time and church. Both come to us as God’s word, and both are meant to lead us into fuller devotion to him.

“I suppose” translates nomízō, to deem or regard, and it gives Paul’s settled view. “Good” is kalós, and here it means good in the sense of what is fitting and wise for that time. “Distress” is anánkē, constraint or necessity, and by implication distress, a hardship that presses hard. The word behind “present”, enístēmi, means at hand, and it can also mean impending. So the phrase anankēn tēn enestōsan speaks of a hardship that was already on them or close.

Paul leaves the distress unnamed, and it may have gathered several troubles together:

• Persecution and social pressure. Believers met with being shunned, legal trouble and at times violence from Roman authorities and from hostile neighbours. A wife and children made a believer more exposed and made flight harder.
• Hardship. Famine, a failing economy, and the struggle to support a family in an unsettled world.
• The urgency of the last days. Paul often taught that the present age is passing: “now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed” (Romans 13:11–12).
• Trouble inside the church. The Corinthian church had its own divisions and moral failures, which made a pure and steady life harder.

On any of these readings, Paul is counselling what will best keep a believer steady and devoted to God in a hard and uncertain time.

“It is good for a man so to be” uses ánthrōpos, a human being, so the counsel is for women as well as men. “So to be” means to remain as one is. It applies to these unmarried believers the rule Paul has just given: “Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called” (1 Corinthians 7:20). Paul calls the single state good for the time because it helps a believer in that situation, and in two verses he will say that marrying is no sin.

“Art thou bound unto a wife?” uses déō, to tie, bind or fasten, and gynḗ, which means woman or wife. Both “bound” and “loosed” are in the perfect tense, which speaks of a settled state. “Seek not to be loosed” joins zētéō, to seek or pursue, with the negative mḗ, and “to be loosed” is the noun lýsis, a loosening, used especially of divorce. It comes from the verb lýō, to loosen, which stands behind “Art thou loosed from a wife?” A man loosed from a wife is free of the marriage bond, whether he has never married, has been widowed, or has been set free in a way the chapter allows.

To the married man, Paul upholds the permanence of marriage, as Jesus did: “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matthew 19:6). To the single man, “seek not a wife” lifts the pressure, from society or from himself, to marry. He gives this in the setting of the present distress, and the next verse makes plain that marriage remains open to him.

“But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned” uses gaméō, to marry, and hamartánō, to miss the mark and so to sin. Paul says it of the man and then of the virgin, so that no one in Corinth could think marriage a fall from holiness. Scripture says the same plainly: “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled” (Hebrews 13:4). Paul has already told those who cannot contain themselves that “it is better to marry than to burn” (1 Corinthians 7:9).

“Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh.” The word for trouble is thlîpsis, from thlíbō, to press. It means pressure, and in the New Testament tribulation, affliction and distress. “In the flesh”, sárx, places it in bodily, earthly life in a fallen world, where the troubles of life are made heavier by the shared burdens of a marriage. Paul names none of them, and they may include money worries, the work of raising children, quarrels, illness, shared grief, the divided attention he describes in verses 32 to 34, and the greater danger a family faced in persecution. Jesus said the same of all his people: “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Paul writes elsewhere of a creation that groans while it waits for redemption, and of present sufferings that “are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18–25).

“But I spare you” is a tender word. Paul stops short of listing the hardships, sparing the Corinthians a discouraging catalogue of woes. Those who do carry such troubles have the Lord’s own promise: “My grace is sufficient for thee” (2 Corinthians 12:9–10).

“But this I say, brethren” marks a weighty statement, and the word “brethren” keeps it within the family. “The time is short” is ho kairos synestalmenos estin in Greek. Kairós is an occasion or a set time, and systéllō means to draw together or contract. It was used of furling a sail and of winding a body for burial. The season has been drawn together and cut short, and the present age is moving toward its end at the coming of Christ.

“It remaineth” renders loipón, “for the rest” or “from now on”, what follows from that truth. “That both they that have wives be as though they had none” uses échō, to have, hold or possess, and the same verb comes back in “had none”. Paul has already told husbands and wives to give each other what is due (1 Corinthians 7:3–5), so this striking line speaks of the heart’s grip on what it has. A believer loves his wife and serves her, knowing that their marriage belongs to a world that is passing and that his first allegiance is to Christ. Paul puts it as sharply as he can so that even the dearest earthly bond is seen in its place under the Lord. Jesus said the same in other words: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33).

Verse 30 carries the “as though not” pattern, hōs mē, into three more parts of life. To weep, klaíō, is to grieve aloud, the open sorrow of mourning. To rejoice, chaírō, is to be glad, a word used of every kind of gladness, the world’s as well as the believer’s. “As though they possessed not” uses katéchō, to hold fast or keep, the word for owning what one has bought.

Each clause leaves the activity in place. Mourners still weep, the glad still rejoice, and buyers still buy. What changes is the hold these things have on the heart. Grief is real and is carried within hope. Joy in earthly things is received gladly and held lightly, because it passes and lasting joy is in Christ. Goods are bought and used as a steward uses what belongs to his master. Jesus said, “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:19–21), and Paul had learned, “in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content” (Philippians 4:11–13).

“They that use this world” uses chráomai, to use, and “as not abusing it” uses katachráomai, to overuse or misuse. Believers will use the world. They work, trade, marry and fulfil their duties in it. The warning is against being swallowed by it, so that its goods take over our time, our strength and our affections or lead us into sin. The word for world, kósmos, first means an orderly arrangement or an adornment, and so the world with all its order and all who live in it. Here “this world” is the present order of life with its goods and dealings.

“For the fashion of this world passeth away” gives the reason. “Fashion” is schēma, the outward form or appearance of a thing, which has been set beside morphē, the word for a thing’s essential form. The world’s trends and ideas, its markets and its pursuit of wealth, its governments and powers, its status and reputation and its pleasures are all outward forms, like a stage set that will be taken down. “Passeth away” is parágō, to go along, pass by or go away, so the whole present order is already on its way out. John writes, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world”, and “the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” (1 John 2:15–17).

“But I would have you without carefulness.” The word is amérimnos, free from anxious care, unburdened. Paul at once uses the verb from the same root, merimnáō, to care, to be anxious or concerned, for the care that is right: the unmarried man “careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord.” He wants the Corinthians free of distracting worry, and he points to a concern worth having. The unmarried person, ágamos, literally “without marriage”, is free to give that concern to the things of the kýrios, the Lord: his will, his kingdom, his people and his glory. “How he may please” joins pōs, “how”, with aréskō, to please, and pleasing the Lord is the aim of it all. Paul tells the Philippians, “Be careful for nothing” (Philippians 4:6–7), and Jesus said, “Take no thought for your life” (Matthew 6:25–34), in both places using the same verb for the anxious care that God lifts from his people.

“But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.” He is the man who has married, gaméō, and he cares, merimnáō, for the things of the kósmos. Here these are the practical affairs of life in this age: running a household, earning a living, managing money and keeping up the family’s place among its neighbours. These are right and necessary demands. His concern to please his wife, aréskō again, is to make her content and to care for her well-being, and Scripture commands it: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Ephesians 5:22–33). “Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them” (Colossians 3:19), and husbands are to “dwell with them according to knowledge” (1 Peter 3:7). Paul is describing honestly how a married man’s attention is shared between the Lord and his wife.

Verse 34 gives the same pattern for women. “There is difference also between a wife and a virgin” uses merízō, to divide or distinguish, so the two differ in where their attention goes. The unmarried woman, ágamos again, takes in the virgin and the widow alike. She “careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit.” The married woman “careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband”, and the word “but”, dé, sets the two side by side.

Verse 35 tells us why Paul has said all this. He speaks “for your own profit”, for the Corinthians’ real good. “Not that I may cast a snare upon you” uses bróchos, a noose or loop, the kind of cord thrown over an animal to catch it. Paul’s counsel on singleness is offered in freedom and puts no rope around anyone’s neck, so no one’s conscience should be bound by it.

He aims at “that which is comely”, euschḗmōn, a word built from “well” and “form” that means seemly, honourable and fitting, a life in good order that does honour to the gospel. And he aims “that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction.” To attend upon, euprósedros, is to sit close beside and to give oneself constantly to someone, and aperispástōs means undistractedly, free from competing cares. This is the goal of the whole passage, for the married and the unmarried alike. The account of Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38–42 sets the same two kinds of care side by side.

Jesus lived the undivided devotion this passage commends. As a boy he said, “wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49). Later he said, “I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29), which is the very care Paul gives the unmarried, “how he may please the Lord.” He came “not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me” (John 6:38). He had “not where to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20, Luke 9:58). He never married, and his life shows that a life given wholly to the Father is a whole life.

He also held nothing back for himself: “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9), and he humbled himself and became obedient unto death (Philippians 2:5–8). He “was faithful to him that appointed him” (Hebrews 3:2), and the faithfulness Paul received by mercy is a share in his. For the married, he is the Bridegroom whose love sets the pattern for a husband’s care, for “Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2). The single and the married both look to him.

This passage shows us a God who has mercy on his servants and makes them faithful, and whose counsel through them is given for our good. Through Paul he speaks gently to the unmarried and the married alike. Marriage is honourable and singleness is a gift, and each brings its own cares. He tells us plainly that the time is short and that the form of this world is passing, and he shows us what lasts: the Lord himself, and the life that is hid with Christ in God.

Our marriages, our griefs, our joys and our possessions are real, and they belong to a God who means us to hold them as his. Christ has overcome the world, so trouble in the flesh is met by his peace and his sufficient grace. The aim of all Paul’s counsel is the thing God desires for his people in every state of life: that we may sit close to the Lord and attend upon him without distraction.