Message: In 1 Corinthians 7 Paul was talking
about celibacy and marriage. It seemed he was addressing people who were on one
extreme or another and because they were setting rules there was a lot of
sexual immorality going on. Paul was setting the record straight that married
people need to stay married and single or widowed people should stay that way
as long as they have the ability to do it without struggling with sexual
temptation. Otherwise they need to just get married. He acknowledged that it’s easier
for a single person to serve God without distraction, but we shouldn’t leave a
spouse in order to serve God without distraction. Married people need to serve
God as if we were single, but also commit to the sexual needs of our spouse so
that sexual immorality doesn’t creep in.
Command: Serve God and don’t allow our current
life situations to become a distraction from our devotion to God, but also don’t
neglect the needs of a spouse.
Promise: View our status as a blessing
regardless of what it is, and we can have intimacy with God without distraction.
Warning: Having a spouse can distract us from
serving God just as easily as a sexual desire in an unmarried person can. We
shouldn’t try to solve either distraction by changing our current life status.
Application: Reading this made me realize that whether people are married
or single there will be a struggle. I’ve noticed that married people think
about their freedom while single dream of being married. For married people the
distraction is to get so caught up in the desires (or frustrations) of a spouse
that our time and obedience to God is divided. For the single person the struggle
may be in a desire for intimacy and partnership. We need to embrace the
situation we are in and serve God as if we have no distractions while also
making ourselves available for intimacy if we are married.
