1 Corinthians Chapter 7

vs 29

It's little wonder that people said that Paul and the Christians were turning the world upside down. But Paul of course is not saying that you should ignore your wife, or that you should be looking for another wife and ignore your first wife. He' saying that there are more important matters than marriage afoot, and so you should focus on those and not on the worldly things happening around you.

vs 30

Paul's not saying that we shouldn't be happy or we shouldn't mourn, and he's certainly not saying to laugh at mourning people and be sad at happy people. That's for goths to do. No, what he is saying is that we are going to be living by a different mindset that, once again, does not conform to the worldly pattern. Time is running out - we don't have time to be stuck in the regular things of men. Even when you buy something, rather than thinking of it as an investment or something to pass on to the kids, we just think of it as something we won't be keeping. After all, we aren't going to be here all that long.

vs 31

There's a bit of a sting in this one - as if the Corinthians were a little materialistic, and Paul is saying to them that he would hope a realisation of the shortness of time would help them to stop being engrossed in all their stuff. A new world, a new kingdom, is coming, and we should be getting prepared for it.

vs 32

This is entirely true. Single people can focus on God-stuff a whole lot more. The whole celibacy thing that the Catholic church spawned is wrong, but that doesn't necessarily make it right for every pastor and preacher to be married either. Paul wasn't - whether he was widowed or divorced or whatever - and he did lots of great work. Paul's rule is that if you can handle being single, then do it. And there are people out there who aren't always thinking lustful thoughts and who are capable of living on their lonesomes. And their focus is usually much greater.

vs 33-34

Married people must divide their interests. Paul accepts that, and we can't neglect our spouses even for the sake of God. Even Billy Graham said his biggest regret from his whole ministry was not spending enough time with his family. We've got to understand that our service to our spouses is part of God's work, it just so often revolves around day-to-day earthly things.

Paul includes unmarried women here as well. An unmarried woman would have had a lot more problems in greek society, but even still Paul thinks they could focus more on the work of the church if they are single - assuming they can be content with their living standards, I guess.

vs 35

Paul's aim isn't to stop people from marrying - merely to show them that, despite their culture's enormous pressure to get married, they don't have to to please God. And in fact, singleness might even make you better at pleasing God.

vs 36

Paul wants to make this painfully clear, and so he has tried to cover every base in this matter - the married, the divorced, the widows, and now those yet to be married - so even if you are arranged to marry some little girl, and you think it would be wrong of you to break it off, then do it and marry her!

vs 37

But in the same way, if you're sure that you shouldn't marry her, then don't! And there's nothing wrong with that either. God will look after her I'm sure.

vs 38

The reason Paul words it this way is because the cultural imperative here would be that it is right to marry a virgin to whom you are arranged, but that it would be wrong to break off such an engagement because it is against the rules of the culture.

Paul flips this and says yes, it is right to do what the culture says and to marry the girl, but it is even better not to, because then you'll be able to focus solely on God!

vs 39

All these arguments about whether you can marry a non-Christian or not, and whether being "yoked with an unbeliever" is a business term or a marital term is a bunch of crap. Right here Paul makes it clear - marry whoever you want, but only if they're a believer. That's not even the point of this verse (Paul is instead pointing out that the laws of marriage only last as long as the married people are alive - when one dies the other is free) but you can easily extrapolate the other from this verse.

vs 40

She'll be happier if she stays single (Paul could be speaking from experience), but Paul doesn't then put his experience as the rule over everyone. I think we could all learn something from that.