To Marry or Not to Marry? (Part 1 of 4)

When we were growing up we probably expected that one day we'd be married.

We may have even looked forward to it, but actually marriage is not for everyone. The Apostle Paul identifies some clear benefits of being single. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg begins a series on marriage called We Two Are One. He begins by talking about singleness.

We're in 1 Corinthians chapter 7 verses 25–40. Of all the choices that any of us ever make in life, there can be little question that right up there among the top two or three is the whole decision as to whether we should marry and, if we decide that we should, who we ought to marry. And it's hardly surprising, therefore, that when Paul begins to address, as he has done in chapter 5, the whole issue of human sexuality and on in through chapter 6, that by the time he comes to the seventh chapter, he devotes the whole chapter to this most pressing of issues, to this state in life that is capable of the deepest sorrows if it goes wrong and is capable of the greatest joys when it has got right.

It's an intensely practical issue whether one is single and is able to live with the joy of singleness and whether one is married and is able to enter into all the benefits of marriage. Now, as I've gone through chapter 7, I confess to you that I haven't found it the easiest of chapters to study. But I do want you to know that as I've been going through it, I've been constantly searching to try and get a hold of what would be the central issue in the chapter that provides the key that opens up the totality of the instruction. There was an old song by Melanie, who would be a grandmother by now, but she had a song called, I've Got a Brand New Pair of Roller Skates. You know, you've got a brand new pair of roller skates, I've got a brand new key.

And the way I've been going through this, chapter 7, I felt like I had the roller skates, but I still didn't have the key. But I want to suggest to you that tonight, as never before in our studies in 1 Corinthians, I'm beginning to understand it. It is vitally important that we get to the heart of what Paul is saying. And so what we'll do tonight is we'll consider, first of all, the context of the instruction in a way that we haven't done before, and then the concern which he communicates in the instruction, and then actually the content of the instruction as it relates specifically to this issue of to marry or not to marry. First of all, then, let us look at the context of his teaching. We have noted before, as we began the book of 1 Corinthians, the broader geographical, historical, sociological frameworks in which Paul was writing, the religious factors which were present at the time, and that is not my concern.

We have already sketched in that, and if we've forgotten it, then we can go back and re-listen to it and think it through again. When I speak of context now, I'm speaking within the context itself of the seventh chapter, and the specific issues which I believe help to explain the nature and the emphasis of Paul's instruction. I think that contained right in this chapter are one or two phrases contextually which explain why he says these things about singleness, which are perhaps strange to our ears, and why he says these things about marriage, which are perhaps difficult for us to wrestle with. There are three statements in particular which I think shed light on the matter. The first statement comes in verse 26, where he refers to the present crisis. The present crisis. So we notice, first of all, in discovering the context of his instruction, that there was a crisis. Now, the word which is used here is a strong word. It is the word in Greek, anankē, which means a distress, a calamity, a violent, difficult circumstance.

It is the exact same word which Jesus uses when he speaks about what will be the characteristics towards the end of the age, and Luke records it for us in verse 23, where Jesus says, How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land. Megale anankē. Mega distress. Mega crisis. That's where we get our mega from.

It's a Greek word, just for those teenagers who use mega every so often. But nevertheless, Jesus said it would be a mega crisis. And Paul here says there is a present, dreadful, distressing, calamitous situation. Now, what does he mean? Well, we don't know, because he didn't tell us. We must know that the people who received the letter initially understood, because he would never have written about a crisis without giving explanation to it for his initial readers. It therefore was clear to them and unimportant ultimately for us in the sense that if it had been of essential information that the Holy Spirit would have communicated it to us.

Now, that does not mean that we should simply say, Well, we don't know, therefore let's forget it, because we have been given brains to use, and we've been encouraged to think about issues. And so, as you think about what he's referring to here, it will be helpful to remind yourself that fifteen years after he wrote the book of Corinthians, Jerusalem was destroyed. Jerusalem became virtually a ruin. And Paul himself had been the recipient of some of the most brutal persecution as he had been treated in the various cities as he'd gone around proclaiming the gospel. And it may well be that somewhere in the spirit of Paul there is just this notion of impending doom. There is this sense that things are going from bad to worse.

He knows it in his own experience. After all, he's been beaten up and thrown out of cities all over the Mediterranean coastline, and he perhaps senses that he has been experiencing what others will also encounter as things continue to degenerate. And certainly the fury and the insanity of persecution which was unleashed under Nero, which happened very soon after Paul was writing this, may well have been in his mind when he says there is a present crisis. Very hard for us even to read of these events and to realize it was true as we sit in the comfort of an evening like this, but Nero was a brute. Nero was a bad man. Nero took Christians and had them sown in animal skins and then had the animal skins with the bodies inside them—the live bodies of Christians inside them—had them thrown to the lions. And the lions, smelling the animal content, ripped open the skins and then proceeded to rip apart the bodies of those who followed after Christ. That happened within a relatively short time.

Indeed, the early historical records remind us of the fact that Corinth provided one of the early Christian martyrs, a man by the name of Erastus who is mentioned in Romans 16, and in Foxe's book of Christian martyrs, Erastus is one of the first people to die under cruel persecution. Now, you say, well, perhaps that is right, and perhaps it is right. Surely there is a sense in which this crisis extends far and beyond that.

Well, it certainly does. Because there is one element of our thinking which is accurate when we say that this crisis to which he refers covers the whole state of affairs between the first coming of Jesus and the second coming of Jesus. There is a sense in which the whole church lives in crisis mode—that we recognize that when Jesus came and intervened in our time-space capsule, revolutionized things as a result of his death and resurrection, and pointed forward to the fact that he would make a re-entry that, in the interim, the Christian lives in crisis. Now, the fact of the matter is that he provides absolutely no details, but nevertheless, it is important for us to realize that the things that he says about whether you should get married or whether you shouldn't get married, or whether singleness seems like a good idea. He says within a context, and part of the context is that it is, if you like, a war zone. Now, if you think about that for just a minute—and I don't want to run ahead of myself—imagine that you're sending your boy out to war.

He's dating a girl. Do you advise him to marry before he leaves or not? After all, there is a more-than-even chance that he will not return from the crisis to which he goes.

Therefore, because of the crisis, singleness may be a far better option. And in that kind of way, Paul is thinking as he writes. The second phrase to provide context for us is in verse 29, if you notice it. He says in an explanatory way, what I mean, brothers, is that the time is short.

Or as J. B. Phillips paraphrases it, all our futures are so foreshortened. So what does he refer? Is he simply referring to the fact that life is brief, that James is accurate when he says that our lives are like a vapor, they're like the morning mist, it's here and it's gone? Or as Peter writes, that all flesh is like grass and the glory like the flower of the field?

It may be that that's what he's referring to. Perhaps John Calvin is correct in suggesting that what Paul refers to is the impending approach of death, although it seems unlikely insofar as the instruction which he gives doesn't seem to suggest that they're gonna die immediately. That's why he's giving them advice about how they ought to live. Although who am I to cross-question Calvin's ability to expound the text? Perhaps when he says the time is short, it is a reference to the imminence of the return of Jesus Christ. Because Paul certainly used the fact of the return of Jesus as an inspiration to those to whom he wrote, nowhere more clearly than when he wrote to the Thessalonians and also the Philippians.

He urged them to blameless conduct and to zealous evangelism. Once again, the phrase, the time is short, presumably was understood by the Corinthians, but for us it is merely conjecture. The word which he uses here for time is the word kairos.

It is the same word that he uses in Ephesians 5, where he urges the believers there to make the most of every opportunity, make the most of these kairos moments, seize the day. And what he is suggesting here is that because the time is short, the way we make decisions is influenced by the time frame. Now, think about that. We do that all the time.

Someone says, Well, would you like to do such and such? And we take our watches and we look at them, and one of our questions is, How much time do I have? So time becomes a factor in many of our decisions.

Time is a factor in the decision as to marriage and singleness, says Paul. There's a crisis, and that should influence us. There is a brevity about what's going on, and that must influence us too. Michael Green, the New Testament scholar, explains this phrase by paraphrasing it.

These are his words. God's time has been furrowed, furrowed like a sail. The Lord has come in the midpoint of time, in the cross and the resurrection, and we live between that furrowed time and the second coming. We do not know how much wind is going to be opening that sail, but we do know that we are in furrowed sail time.

F-S-T, as opposed to GMT or EST or whatever else it is. We are living in furrowed sail time. And Paul is acutely aware of that, and it influences his instruction. The third phrase, which provides context for us, is in verse 31. It's the final sentence of verse 31, in which he says, This world, in its present form, is passing away. The scheme of things—the word in Greek is schema, which means scheme or fashion or form or manner of life or mode of existence—this, says Paul, is fading out. The world's resources and its opportunities are on the wane. Now, loved ones, do you want to be a biblical Christian?

Yes? Then you must submit to what the Bible says about our world. There will be a new heaven and a new earth. Therefore, those who misuse and abuse our planet earth are in the wrong, because God has given it to us, and we are his stewards.

Therefore it is wrong to abuse it. Those who are tempted to hold on to planet earth, as if this was all that we have, are also in the wrong, because this world, in its present form, is passing away. John the apostle, writing in 1 John chapter 2, makes the statement with great clarity.

Let me read it for you. 1 John 2.15. Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. Now, here's the key verse, 17.

17. The world and its desires pass away. The world, its scheme, its fashions, its plans, its ambitions, it is disintegrating. This world is on the way out.

That's what he's saying. The temporal scheme of things, our time-space environment, will explode and disintegrate. Therefore, eternity is a more pressing consideration than the affairs of time. Therefore, when we introduce eternity into the affairs of time, and specifically into the issues of marriage or singleness, and we allow eternity to provide the jurisdiction as to the way we deal with the crisis, deal with the brevity, and deal with a world which is fading out, it must revolutionize everything. And you see, that is why I think many of us have been wrestling with this instruction, because we've been using the wrong context. We've been reading 1 Corinthians 7 from such a vantage point of family values, and family is everything, and family is this, and my wife is that, and my singleness is my major preoccupation.

And what we've been missing are these contextual keys. There's a crisis, the time is short, and the world is on the way out. There is nothing ultimately stable or solid about our world.

It's a façade. The molecular structure of our world could be reduced to nothing. You could take the Matterhorn and make it the size of an armchair. In a moment, you couldn't, but God can. In terms of all that proton-electron jazz, about which I know very little, our world is like a Hollywood set.

It has a front, but it doesn't have a back. And it is going to be folded up and put away. It's like going to a play. And when the curtain falls, everyone that previously held our gaze, as we said in the audience, is immediately swept away from our sight, and we have no control to open the curtain again.

It is gone. Now, I've taken time on this deliberately, and I'm trying as best I can not to apply it, although with difficulty. What I want you just to begin to note is the connection between his advice on staying single or getting married and living married in relationship to the crisis, verse 26, the short time, verse 29, and the passing world, verse 31. That's the context. Now, what is the concern of his teaching? If you had a chance to sit with Paul by himself in your family room, and you said, Paul, you know that 1 Corinthians chapter that you wrote?

What was the concern of your heart? This is what he'd say. Didn't you read the chapter? And we said, yes. He said, well, you found it right there in the chapter.

Come on, let's look at it together again. And he would open up 1 Corinthians 7 to us, and we'd both sit and look at it, and this is what he would say. My concern in writing 1 Corinthians 7 was for your protection, for your provision, and for your devotion. First of all, the protection that he longs for in their lives. Notice verse 35. I am saying this, he says, for your own good and not to restrict you.

Now, the very fact that he points that out is an indication of the fact that many people would probably begin to think that that is exactly what he's trying to do. No, no, he says, my concern is that I want to protect you. I want to protect you from the trouble that you might face. Because there is a lot of trouble, he says, wrapped up in this marriage thing. The word which he uses is the word flipsis, which means tribulation or pressure or affliction.

Verse 28. Those who marry will face many troubles in this life. And I want to spare you this. So you're married, and it's cool, right? But there's a lot of trouble involved.

There's a lot of concern involved in being married. If you're single tonight, you're going home. I'm not going to talk about what it's like for you to go home. I'm just going to tell you you're going home. If you want to go to Dunkin' Donuts, that's your choice. If you want to stay there till one o'clock in the morning, that's your choice as well.

If you want to read the whole of The Plain Dealer, do whatever you choose to do. And when you go home, yeah, you'll be on your own, but guess what? You'll have no one to answer to. If you happen to be the father of four, number one, you'd better go home, because your wife is looking for you. If you stop at Dunkin' Donuts, you'd better take at least a dozen home. Then you're going to have to adjudicate over who gets the chocolates and who gets the glazed and go through all that hassle.

Then you'll have to be involved in the disciplinary procedures over those who took more than they should, and so it goes on and on and on. Listen, single folks, from where I stand, it doesn't look that bad to me. It doesn't look that bad. And Paul's concern in telling them, say, listen, there's a lot of trouble if you get married. There's a lot of distractions. There's a lot of divisions.

There's a lot of stuff. I mean, you go to a restaurant as a single person, you've got enough money in your pocket to pay for one, okay? Now, you may want to pay for two. But I go, I've got enough money to pay for five.

And then I've got to be concerned about why three of the five didn't really like what we chose. Then I've got to be ticked off about that and troubled and concerned and disgusted and whatever it might be. So, he's writing, he says, I want you to know that when I say these things, I've made clear my context. He says, now, my concern is that you might be protected, protected from trouble and protected from distraction and protected from concerns, not because of the pragmatics that I'm suggesting to you so that you can be a happy single, but as we're about to see, so that you can give your undivided attention to the Lord and to his kingdom.

But what I'm mentioning is just a little byproduct as it happens. So, number one, there is protection. Number two, there is provision. Like a good shepherd, he is seeking not only to protect them from harm but also seeking to benefit from them. And the third matter is that they would be men and women of devotion. In a time of crisis, in a time that's short, in a world that is passing away, my great concern for you, he says, is that you would sell out for Jesus Christ. Now, when we begin to understand, you see, this context and this concern, then it begins to make sense how he longs to see men and women given over to the service of God and without any distraction.

There are some real advantages to being single when you're trying to live a life of steady devotion in a world that is in crisis. You're listening to Truth for Life. That's Alistair Begg with part one of a message titled To Marry or Not to Marry. Now, today is the last day that we're offering a book called Mere Evangelism, Ten Insights from C.S. Lewis to help you share your faith. This is an excellent book that will help you overcome any fears you might have about sharing the gospel.

C.S. Lewis was a well-known writer and a gifted evangelist who was used by God in the conversion of many people, including the author of this book. You'll learn from some of his most effective methods so that you can become more confident introducing others to Jesus. If you've not already requested your copy of Mere Evangelism, do so today when you give a donation at truthforlife.org slash donate. If you'd rather mail your donation along with your request for the book, write to Truth for Life at P.O.

Box 398000, Cleveland, Ohio 44139. On our website, there are more than 3,000 audio and video messages available for you to access for free. In addition, you can read articles that are drawn from Alistair's teaching. New articles are posted each week. They cover a variety of topics and just like Alistair's sermons, all of them are free to share. You'll find the most recent articles at truthforlife.org slash articles. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening. Tomorrow we'll discover how an eternal perspective will change our view of everything, including our culture, our possessions, our happiness, even death. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.