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Sex With Anybody or Sex With Nobody: The Truth Behind 1 Corinthians 7

It's Just My Imagination

Imagine a person who's been raised in a culture where the institution of marriage is highly respected, seen as ordained by God. It's a respected institution and most, if not all, of those who live in this community enter into the marriage covenant.

Also, imagine that this person's education includes, among many other things, a strong emphasis on the God-ordained aspect of marriage. And, eventually this education turns into educating. Again, among many other things, this person teaches his hearers that the union between a man and a woman is an important one within the body of Christ.

Now, imagine that this person, from out of nowhere, decides that marriage is an alternative — a last resort — to singleness. It's a relationship for wimps, those who can't hold their sexual drives in check.

Unfortunately, this person actually exists. Well, kind of. You may recognize him as the author of 1 Corinthians 7 — the Apostle Paul. The only problem is that the person that I just described is (unintentionally) based on a false impression.

Is Indoor Plumbing the Only Difference?

I don't say this to offend anyone. I say it because, for too long, many of us have read the Scriptures as if they have neither textual context (i.e. verses fit into a passage, which fits into a letter/book, which fits into a testament, which fits into a canon), nor a cultural context (i.e. when Paul uses the word "marry," is he thinking of a marriage in terms of Jewish tradition, Hellenistic influences, Roman practices, or some combination of these?). As Craig Blomberg has noted, "Few passages of Scripture have been more abused and ripped from their historical moorings than 1 Corinthians 7."¹ This means that it's extremely important that we restore these "moorings" if we are going to understand this great chapter that has so much to say in the area of relationships.

The reason for this chapter's abuse can be traced to an uncritically-held assumption on the part of most modern Christians that looks a little like this: The circumstances of the Corinthian church (if not, the whole first century Church) basically resembles those of a contemporary church, except without all the technology, advanced mathematics and indoor plumbing.

To say it like that may make it sound a bit absurd, I know, but the way we treat the Scriptures unfortunately exposes just these beliefs. Take this statement as an example "A wife must not separate from her husband … [a]nd a husband must not divorce his wife" (taken from vv. 10-11, NIV). We might conclude from this that men are allowed to legally divorce their wives, but wives are only allowed to leave their husbands to the point of separation. (Or, if we're trying to "protect" the Bible from sounding too patriarchal, we might speculate that Paul didn't think that this was fair for women, but his purpose here was not to overturn the law — or something to that effect.)

This route does look appealing at first glance, but when we take a step back and consider the whole context, both textual and cultural, we'll probably find that our approach wasn't much of an approach because our first step was in the wrong direction.

The Ascetics v. the Hedonists: The Battle That Missed the Point

What I'd like to do here is briefly note a few things about the first century Corinthian as a whole, and this chapter specifically, that will provide (I hope) a nudge in the right direction.²

First, we must be aware of at least two factions that make up Paul's Corinthian audience: the ascetics and the hedonists.³ Richard Hays notes that Paul addresses them sequentially, first treating "those who believe themselves free to do whatever they want with their bodies [the hedonists in chapters 5 and 6], then those who believe that their bodies should be kept from all sexual contact [the ascetics in chapter 7]."⁴

Sometimes interpreters have attempted to associate Paul with the ascetics because of statements such as those found in vv. 1, 7-9, 26. Based on the whole of chapter 7 (rather than isolated phrases taken out of context), however, this understanding is very difficult to sustain.

Stay, Corinthians, Stay. Good Church.

Second, it's important to note Paul's exhortation to "stay" or "remain," as in remain as you are, whether it be married, widowed or single (see especially vv. 8, 11, 17-24, 26).⁵ This is significant for several reasons, but one thing that must be observed is that he encourages both married and unmarried to stay put. Based on this alone, we should be skeptical of the view that sees Paul as being critical of marriage. The good-ness or bad-ness of marriage is probably not on his mind here. But then what is on his mind? At least two things.

First, because of its recurrence in 5-7, we can see that Paul is doing some damage control from a certain infiltrator (5:6-13): porneia. This is the word that is often translated as "sexual immorality" and can be found in 5:1; 6:13, 18 and 7:2. Thus, it seems that Paul's main concern is to impede the porneia that is resulting from both the hedonistic and ascetic groups.

While the relationship between the hedonists and sexual immorality is obvious, associating this immorality with the ascetics, however, is a bit more indirect. This is because it's the omission of sex that is resulting in porneia. Some of these Corinthians were depriving their spouses of sex, thereby giving Satan an opening to prey on their lack of self-control (7:5).

Thus, regarding sexual immorality, Hays sums up what is actually being said in these chapters: "Paul offers a single consistent position: celibacy is good, sex within marriage is good, and porneia is a disaster to the community."⁶

Having a Mid-Life Present Crisis?

The other thing on Paul's mind is related to eschatology (beliefs about the end times). You'll notice toward the end of the seventh chapter that Paul says something about a "present crisis" (v. 26) which is further defined as this: "this world in its present form is passing away" (v. 31).

Now, there are a few different ways to interpret Paul's comment here, and I'm not going to get into them. My purpose in pointing this out is to make you aware that, depending on which way you go here, your application will necessarily be affected. For example, consider verse 29:

What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none … (emphasis mine)

From this verse alone, there are several questions that come up:

• If we're still in the present crisis, does this mean that those who have wives should live as though they didn't?
• If the present crisis is over, is any of this chapter still relevant to my situation today (other than to satisfy my insatiable historical curiosity)?
• Even if we're still in the present crisis, what would this even look like and why would Paul say this in the first place?

I suspect that the list could go on for a bit, but you get the point. If we are going to make sense of what's going on here, we need to consider these questions and more. I'm not trying to make this complicated; I'm simply letting you know that there are important factors that should not be missed when entering into the worthy endeavor of understanding this chapter.

Come Again?

Because of my experience in the TrueU Coffee Shop and elsewhere,⁷ I decided to summarize what I was actually intending to communicate through this article. Hopefully, this will ward off a decent amount of between-the-lines readings that would otherwise show up in subsequent discussion.

C O F F E E  S H O P

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What issues have you wondered about in 1 Corinthians 7?

Join the discussion!

Basically, I think that before jumping into 1 Corinthians (and especially chapter 7 since it has been misread and therefore misapplied to many issues having to do with pre-marital, marital and post-marital relationships), we must consider the wider literary and cultural contexts that play an indispensable role in interpreting this epistle. A few (though not all) of those contexts include: the ascetic/hedonist factions within the Corinthian church and the "remain as you are" theme, which is further related to the sexual immorality that Paul was seeking to correct and prevent, as well as the eschatological qualifier found toward the end of the chapter. That's it. I'm hoping simply to provide a few pieces of the puzzle so that when you approach this chapter, you'll have more of a chance for successful interpretation and, therefore, application.

Happy interpreting!