1 Corinthians 7

Today’s Passage: 1 Corinthians 7

Up to this point Paul has been answering reports that came to him by word of mouth, the quarrels and the scandals that other people had told him about. Now the tone changes. “Now for the matters you wrote about,” he says, and from here to the end of the letter he is working through a list of questions the Corinthians themselves had sent him. The first question is marriage, and it takes him a whole long chapter to answer, because the church had gone wrong on this subject in two opposite directions at once. Some in Corinth were living as though the body did not matter, and Paul has already dealt with them in chapter six. Others had swung hard the other way and decided that the truly spiritual thing was to have nothing to do with marriage at all, that a husband and wife should live as strangers under the same roof, that a believer married to an unbeliever should walk away, that the single ought never to marry. To all of that Paul answers with a calm and generous wisdom. He affirms marriage and its ordinary, God-given intimacy. He affirms singleness as a real gift and not a second-class life. He hands down the Lord’s own word on the permanence of marriage, he steadies the believer whose husband or wife does not share the faith, and he presses on every reader, married or single, the same great aim: that the time is short, that this world in its present form is passing away, and that a life is best spent in undivided devotion to the Lord.

As you read, hold this: Marriage and singleness are both gifts from God’s own hand, and each is given so that a life may be spent in undivided devotion to the Lord while this present world is passing away.

1 Corinthians 7:1–2 (BSB)

¹ Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good to abstain from sexual relations. ² But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.

Paul begins by taking up their own words. There were those at Corinth insisting that it is good to abstain, and Paul does not simply throw the sentence back in their faces, because there is a real truth buried in it, as the rest of the chapter will show. But he will not let it stand alone as a rule for everybody, and so he answers it at once with a plain and practical word: let each man have his own wife and each woman her own husband. Notice how carefully that is put. Each man, his own wife. Each woman, her own husband. One to one, and no other arrangement is so much as imagined. That is not Paul inventing a rule for a rough seaport. It is Paul standing where Scripture has always stood, on the word spoken in the garden before any of our troubles began: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Marriage is the covenant joining of one man and one woman, and the whole world’s confusions on the subject do not move that foundation an inch. And observe that Paul, who will spend most of this chapter commending the single life, does not begin by treating marriage as a sad concession for the weak. He begins by treating it as God’s ordinary, honorable, sufficient provision for a people surrounded by a world that has made a ruin of the body. Scripture says elsewhere, without a blush, “Marriage should be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.” Both halves of that sentence are one truth.

1 Corinthians 7:3–5 (BSB)

³ The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. ⁴ The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife. ⁵ Do not deprive each other, except by mutual consent and for a time, so you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again, so that Satan will not tempt you through your lack of self-control.

Here Paul speaks about the marriage bed with a directness that ought to teach us something. He is neither coy nor crude. He simply says what is true, the way a physician speaks or a father speaks, and then he moves on. And what he says would have astonished the first readers. In that world a husband held every right and a wife held almost none. Paul says the duty runs both ways and the authority runs both ways, and he says it twice so that nobody can miss it. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband; and, exactly balanced, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife. That is not a licence for anyone to take. It is a description of self-giving. Marriage is the one place where two people hand themselves over to each other and stop living for themselves alone, and the body is included in the handing over, because the body was never the shabby outer shell some in Corinth imagined. It belongs to the covenant.

So Paul says, do not deprive each other. If a husband and wife choose to set that ordinary intimacy aside, it must be by agreement and not by one imposing it on the other, it must be for a purpose worthy of the cost, which is prayer, and it must be for a time and not forever. Then come together again. That last instruction is as much a command as the rest of it. And the reason he gives is sober and kind at once: the enemy of our souls watches a marriage for gaps, and a husband and wife who have quietly drifted into living as strangers have opened a door they did not mean to open. Guard that door for each other. It is part of what you promised.

1 Corinthians 7:6–7 (BSB)

⁶ I say this as a concession, not as a command. ⁷ I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.

Now Paul lets us see his own heart. He was unmarried, and he had found in that life a freedom for the work of Christ so good that he wishes everyone could know it. But he catches himself before that wish hardens into a law, and he says something we should hold very carefully: “each man has his own gift (χάρισμα) charisma, pronounced KHAR-iss-mah. Strong's G5486, a gift of grace, freely given. The word Paul uses here is one of his favorites, and it is built straight on top of the word for grace. Charis is grace, the free and undeserved kindness of God; a charisma is what that grace hands over, a thing given for nothing and received for nothing. Paul uses it for the gift of eternal life in Christ, for the gifts of the Spirit distributed through the body, and here, remarkably, for the shape of a person’s ordinary life. That is a striking thing to say. The state a believer lives in, married or unmarried, is not merely a circumstance that happened to him. It is a grace-gift, apportioned by God, suited to him, meant to be used. And because it is a charisma, two things follow. It cannot be boasted in, because nobody earns a gift. And it cannot be despised, because the Giver chose it. A gift is not measured against somebody else’s gift; it is opened, and it is used for the One who gave it. Whatever your hands are holding this morning, it came from Him, and He does not give His children second-rate things. from God; one has this gift, another has that.” Read that slowly. Marriage is a gift from God. Singleness is a gift from God. They are not a first prize and a consolation prize. They are two different gifts handed out by the same generous hand, and the question is never which one is holier but which one has been given to you, and what you will do with it. Jesus said the same thing in His own way when His disciples suggested it might be better not to marry at all: “Not everyone can accept this word,” He replied, “but only those to whom it has been given.” Given. It is the same word again. So if you are married, that is not the failure of some higher calling; it is a grace God has laid in your hands. And if you are single, at twenty or at eighty, by choice or by circumstance or by grief, you are not standing in the waiting room of real life. You are holding something God Himself calls a gift, and He has work for it.

1 Corinthians 7:8–9 (BSB)

⁸ Now to the unmarried and widows I say this: It is good for them to remain unmarried, as I am. ⁹ But if they cannot control themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

Paul now turns to those who are not married, and among them he names the widows, which is a tender thing to notice. He does not lump them in and hurry past. He says plainly that it is good to remain as they are, and he offers his own life as the proof that such a life can be full and glad. But then he adds the honest other half, and he adds it without a trace of scolding. If a person cannot live that way, let them marry. There is no sin in it and no shame in it, and Paul will say so three more times before the chapter is out. He simply refuses to let anyone be pushed by other people’s opinions into a way of life God has not given them. “It is better to marry than to burn with passion” is not a grudging line; it is a pastor removing a burden. Some in Corinth were making singleness the badge of the spiritual elite, and Paul will not have it. The single life is honorable, and so is the marriage that keeps a person from being consumed. God is not served by anyone pretending to a gift he does not have.

1 Corinthians 7:10–11 (BSB)

¹⁰ To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. ¹¹ But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.

Here the tone lifts and hardens, and Paul is careful to tell us why. On the questions just behind us he has been giving apostolic counsel. On this one he is passing along a word he received: not I, but the Lord. Jesus Himself had spoken on this, and His verdict was, “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” So Paul does not soften it and neither should we. A wife must not separate from her husband. A husband must not divorce his wife. Marriage is not a contract to be dissolved when it stops being convenient; it is a covenant that makes two people one, and the church has never had authority to unmake what God has made.

And yet see how the apostle handles the hard case. He knows that separations happen in a fallen world, sometimes for reasons that would break your heart, and he does not pretend otherwise. If she does separate, he says, then two doors remain open and only two: remain unmarried, or be reconciled. Notice that reconciliation is still on the table. It is always on the table. Wherever a marriage lies broken, the word of the Lord is not primarily a rule to enforce but a door to walk back through, and the whole gospel stands behind that door, since it is the gospel of a God who took back a people who had left Him. Hold this passage the way Paul holds it, with the command unbent and the hope of reconciliation held open in the same breath.

1 Corinthians 7:12–14 (BSB)

¹² To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If a brother has an unbelieving wife and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. ¹³ And if a woman has an unbelieving husband and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. ¹⁴ For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his believing wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.

Now Paul reaches the question that must have been burning in Corinth. The gospel had come into houses where only one person believed. Was the Christian defiled by staying? Should a believer flee a pagan household to keep clean? Paul’s answer runs exactly opposite to what they feared. Stay. If the unbelieving spouse is willing to live with you, do not be the one who leaves. And then he gives the reason, and it is one of the most comforting sentences in the letter: the unbelieving husband is sanctified (ἁγιάζω) hagiazō, pronounced hah-ghee-AD-zoh. Strong's G37, to make holy, set apart as sacred. The verb here does not first mean “to make morally pure.” It means to set apart, to mark something off as belonging to God and no longer available for common use. Hagiazō is the word for what happened to the tabernacle furniture, to the priests, to the Sabbath day: ordinary things lifted out of ordinary use and stamped as His. That is why Paul can use it of a spouse who has not yet believed without teaching that the man is saved by his wife’s faith. The marriage is not common ground. God has laid His hand on it. The same verb stands behind the noun the New Testament uses for believers themselves, the hagioi, the saints, which never meant a special class of extraordinary Christians but simply the people God has set apart for Himself. So when Paul says the children are holy, he is not pronouncing them converted; he is saying they are inside, not outside, growing up on ground God has claimed. There is real courage to be had in that word for anyone praying for a husband, a wife, a son, a daughter who does not yet believe. The house is not neutral territory. It is marked ground, and the God who marked it is not finished there. through his believing wife, and the unbelieving wife through her believing husband, and the children are holy.

Understand what Paul is and is not saying. He is not saying that an unbelieving spouse is saved by marriage, for two verses later he will ask how a wife could know whether she will save her husband, which settles it. Salvation still comes one way, through faith in Christ. What he is saying is that holiness, in this house, is the stronger thing. In the old covenant, uncleanness spread by contact; a clean thing touching an unclean thing became unclean. Here the current runs the other way. The believer does not catch defilement from that home. That home is claimed and set apart by the presence of the believer in it, and the children born there are not outsiders but stand inside the circle of God’s covenant dealings, growing up where the name of Christ is spoken and prayed. Any believer keeping a lonely faith in a house that does not share it should hear that and take heart. You are not being slowly contaminated. You are the one God has stationed there, and He counts that household as touched by His holiness for your sake.

1 Corinthians 7:15–16 (BSB)

¹⁵ But if the unbeliever leaves, let him go. The believing brother or sister is not bound in such cases. God has called you to live in peace. ¹⁶ How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

But what if the unbeliever will not stay? Paul answers with a mercy that is almost startling after the firmness of verses ten and eleven. If the unbeliever leaves, let him go. The believer is not to chase, not to cling, not to bind a conscience in chains over a departure he did not choose and could not prevent. In such cases, Paul says, the brother or the sister is not bound, and centuries of careful readers have understood him to mean that the deserted believer is not held guilty for a marriage another person tore up. And then he gives the sweetest reason: “God has called you to live in peace.” Peace. Not a life spent litigating a wound, but peace, because the God who called us is Himself the God of peace and He did not call us into endless torment over what someone else has done.

Then verse sixteen turns the whole thing gently around. How do you know whether you will save your wife, or your husband? The question can be read two ways, and honest readers have taken it both ways. It may be a reason to stay if they are willing, since who can say what God may yet do through a quiet and faithful life at close quarters, exactly as Peter says of a wife whose husband will not believe the word, that such men “will be won over without words by the behavior of their wives.” Or it may be a reason not to hold on desperately to one who insists on leaving, since no one can guarantee the outcome, and salvation was never in our hands to force. Either way, the humility is the point. You do not know. God does. Do your part in peace and leave the rest with Him.

1 Corinthians 7:17–19 (BSB)

¹⁷ Regardless, each one should lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is what I prescribe in all the churches. ¹⁸ Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man still uncircumcised when called? He should not be circumcised. ¹⁹ Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commandments is what counts.

Now Paul widens out from marriage to a principle that governs everything, and he says he teaches it in all the churches, so he means it to stick. Each one should lead the life the Lord has assigned him and to which God has called (καλέω) kaleō, pronounced kah-LEH-oh. Strong's G2564, to call, to summon by name. Kaleō simply means to call, to summon, to name aloud, the plain word you would use for calling a child in from the yard. But in Paul’s letters it carries the weight of God’s own summons, the voice that reached out and named a person and brought him to Christ. What is remarkable in this chapter is how Paul uses it. He does not say God called you away from your situation; he says God called you in it. The slave was called. The free man was called. The married were called and the single were called. That means the call of God did not come to some idealized version of a person standing in better circumstances. It came to the actual man in the actual house on the actual street. And this is the same verb that stands behind the word ekklēsia, the church, the called-out assembly, so that every believer’s ordinary station is now part of what the called-out people of God look like scattered through a city. There is no waiting for a better platform. The voice that called you knew exactly where you were standing when it called, and it called you there on purpose. him. There is a restlessness in the human heart that is forever certain the spiritual life is somewhere else, in some other station, some other arrangement, some other set of circumstances. Paul cuts the root of it. The place you were standing when God called you is not an obstacle to the life of faith. It is the field He has given you to work.

He proves it with the sharpest example a first-century church could imagine. Jew and Gentile sat side by side in Corinth, and the mark of circumcision was the great dividing line of the ancient world, the badge over which men had killed and died. And Paul says: it is nothing. Uncircumcision is nothing too. Do not go trying to acquire the badge, and do not go trying to erase it. What counts is keeping God’s commandments, which is to say a life actually surrendered to God rather than a life arranging its credentials. Sit with that for a moment, because it flattens a great deal of what we are tempted to measure ourselves by. The markers that seem to rank us, whether we are married or single, whether our background is respectable or ruinous, whether we came to Christ early or late, are not nothing to us, but they are nothing to Him as a measure of worth. He is looking for obedience, and obedience is available today, exactly where you are.

1 Corinthians 7:20–22 (BSB)

²⁰ Each one should remain in the situation he was in when he was called. ²¹ Were you a slave when you were called? Do not let it concern you—but if you can gain your freedom, take the opportunity. ²² For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord’s freedman. Conversely, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ’s slave.

Paul now presses the same principle into the hardest place in his world. Corinth was full of slaves, and many of them were in that church, sitting at the Lord’s Table beside their own masters. To such a man Paul says two things at once, and we must not let go of either. First, do not let it consume you; your standing before God is not diminished by it for a moment. Second, and immediately, if you can gain your freedom, take it. He does not tell a slave that his chains are good or that he should love them. He tells him to take the door if the door opens, and in the same breath he refuses to let the man’s dignity depend on whether it ever does.

Then comes the sentence that turns the whole order of the world upside down. The slave who was called by the Lord is the Lord’s freedman, legally and truly free where it matters most and forever. And the free man who was called is Christ’s slave, bound now to a Master he is glad to belong to. So in that congregation the man in chains was the freest person in the room, and the man with a household of servants had a Master of his own. Christ does not merely comfort people inside the world’s rankings; He reverses them, and He does it so thoroughly that the two men end up meeting in the middle, each one belonging wholly to Him.

1 Corinthians 7:23–24 (BSB)

²³ You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men. ²⁴ Brothers, each one should remain in the situation he was in when God called him.

“You were bought at a price.” Paul has said it once already in this letter, at the end of chapter six: “you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body.” He says it again here because it is the ground of everything. Every believer in that room, slave or free, husband or widow, Jew or Greek, had been purchased, and the price was not silver. It was the blood of the Son of God. Think of what that means for the way a person carries himself through this world. If Christ paid that for you, then you are not for sale to anyone else. Do not become slaves of men. Do not let the opinions of the crowd set the shape of your life, or the pressure of a church faction, or the fear of what people will say about the way your household looks. You have an Owner, and He bought you dearly, and no one else has a claim on you that can override His. Praise God for a redemption so complete that a slave in Corinth could hear it and stand up straight. And then, for the third time, the steady refrain: remain where you are and serve Him there. Not because circumstances never change, but because the Christian life does not begin when they do.

1 Corinthians 7:25–28 (BSB)

²⁵ Now about virgins, I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy. ²⁶ Because of the present crisis, I think it is good for a man to remain as he is. ²⁷ Are you committed to a wife? Do not seek to be released. Are you free of commitment? Do not look for a wife. ²⁸ But if you do marry, you have not sinned. And if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. But those who marry will face troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this.

Paul turns to those who have never married, and he is scrupulously honest about what kind of word he is giving. He has no command from the Lord on this, and he says so rather than dressing his own counsel up as revelation. What he offers is the seasoned judgment of a man whom the Lord in His mercy has made trustworthy. There is something worth learning in that carefulness. A pastor who will tell you the difference between “thus says the Lord” and “here is my best judgment” is a pastor you can trust with both.

His judgment is shaped by two things, and the first is “the present crisis.” Some hard pressure was already on that church, and in a storm you do not add sail. But hear how he guards the advice on every side. If you are committed, stay committed. If you are free, he counsels you not to go looking. And then, twice over, so that no anxious conscience can twist it: if you do marry, you have not sinned; if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Paul is not laying down a law, and he will not let his own preference become a chain around anyone’s neck. His only reason is affection. Those who marry will face troubles in this life, the ordinary weight of loving people in a broken world, sickness and shortage and grief multiplied by the number of people you have bound your heart to, and Paul says simply, “I want to spare you this.” That is not a low view of marriage. That is a man who loves his people and does not want to hand them more sorrow than they must carry.

1 Corinthians 7:29–31 (BSB)

²⁹ What I am saying, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none; ³⁰ those who weep, as if they did not; those who are joyful, as if they were not; those who make a purchase, as if they had nothing; ³¹ and those who use the things of this world, as if not dependent on them. For this world in its present form is passing away.

Here the chapter lifts off the ground. Paul has been giving practical counsel about households, and suddenly he is standing on a height with eternity in view, and everything below looks different. The time is short. The word he uses is the word for a sail drawn in, a space folded up small, and he means that the whole age has been shortened and the end of it is in sight. So live accordingly, he says, and then he gives that string of hard, strange phrases: those who have wives as though they had none, those who weep as though they did not, those who rejoice as though they did not, those who buy as though they owned nothing.

Do not mistake him. He has just spent twenty-eight verses insisting that husbands and wives owe each other real love and real presence, so he cannot now be telling anyone to neglect his family. He is telling us where the center of gravity belongs. Every good thing in this life is to be held with an open hand, held gratefully, held fully, but never held as though it were the last word, because it is not. Grief is real and it is not final. Joy is real and there is far more of it coming. What you buy today will belong to someone else soon enough. This world in its present form is passing away, and a man who has grasped that can enjoy his life more freely than the man who is clutching at it, because he is no longer asking any of it to be his salvation. Hold the gifts loosely and hold the Giver with everything you have.

1 Corinthians 7:32–35 (BSB)

³² I want you to be free from concern. The unmarried man is concerned about the work of the Lord, how he can please the Lord. ³³ But the married man is concerned about the affairs of this world, how he can please his wife, ³⁴ and his interests are divided. The unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the work of the Lord, how she can be holy in both body and spirit. But the married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world, how she can please her husband. ³⁵ I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but in order to promote proper decorum and undivided devotion to the Lord.

Now Paul gives the real reason for everything he has been commending, and it is not that marriage is inferior. It is arithmetic of the heart. A married man rightly gives himself to pleasing his wife, and a married woman to pleasing her husband, and that is not a failing, it is faithfulness to a covenant God Himself established. But it does mean the attention is divided, and Paul says so without apology, because it is simply true. The unmarried have something the married do not have, which is an undivided line of sight, and Paul wants them to know what a treasure that is rather than spending their years grieving over what they lack.

And then he tells us plainly what he is after, and he tells us what he is not after. He is not laying a noose on anybody: “not to restrict you.” The picture behind that phrase is a rope thrown over an animal to hold it, and Paul says that is not what he is doing. What he wants is a life ordered rightly and given to undivided devotion (ἀπερισπάστως) aperispastōs, pronounced ah-peh-ree-SPAS-toce. Strong's G563, without distraction, undistractedly. This adverb appears only once in the whole New Testament, right here at the end of Paul’s argument, and it is beautifully built. It is the word for being dragged about, pulled this way and that, with the negative prefix in front of it: aperispastōs, undistractedly, without being tugged in pieces. The same root shows up in Luke’s account of Martha, who was “distracted by all the preparations to be made” while her sister sat at the Lord’s feet, and the picture is of a person pulled in so many directions that she can no longer attend to the one thing that matters most. Paul’s whole aim, then, is not to reduce anyone’s life but to gather it. Not fewer loves, but one center strong enough to hold all the others in their places. And notice that he does not say the married cannot have this, only that the single have fewer ropes pulling. Every believer can ask the question this word puts to us: what is actually pulling at me, and is the Lord at the center of it or somewhere out at the edge? A gathered heart is a restful heart, and it is the heart most useful to God. to the Lord. That is the aim for everyone in the room, married and single alike. The single believer pursues it by pouring an undivided life into the work of Christ. The married believer pursues it by loving a husband or a wife as unto the Lord, so that the household itself becomes the service. Both are aiming at the same target. Paul only wants each reader to see clearly what his own life is for, and then to spend it.

1 Corinthians 7:36–38 (BSB)

³⁶ However, if someone thinks he is acting inappropriately toward his betrothed, and if she is beyond her youth and they ought to marry, let him do as he wishes; he is not sinning; they should get married. ³⁷ But the man who is firmly established in his heart and under no constraint, with control over his will and resolve in his heart not to marry the virgin, he will do well. ³⁸ So then, he who marries the virgin does well, but he who does not marry her does even better.

These three verses take us into the customs of a world long gone, where betrothals were arranged and a family’s decisions were binding, and honest readers have not all agreed on the details of the situation Paul has in mind. But the shape of his counsel is clear enough, and it is the same shape as the whole chapter. To the man who is engaged and finds that pressing on toward marriage is the right and honorable thing: marry, and know that you are not sinning. To the man who is settled in his own heart, under no compulsion from anyone, with his will under control and his mind made up: he does well to remain as he is.

Hear the two verdicts side by side. He who marries does well. He who does not marry does even better. Paul’s “better” is not a comment on the moral quality of the two men; he has already said three times that marrying is no sin. It is a comment on the undivided freedom he has just described, given the shortness of the time and the pressure of the present crisis. And notice that he leaves the decision exactly where God has left it: with the person before God, settled in his own heart, under no constraint. He does not hand the church a lever to pry anyone one way or the other. He lays out the truth, he tells you what he thinks, and then he trusts a Christian conscience under the Lord to decide.

1 Corinthians 7:39–40 (BSB)

³⁹ A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, as long as he belongs to the Lord. ⁴⁰ In my judgment, however, she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God.

The chapter closes where it has stood all along, holding two things together with a steady hand. Marriage is for life. A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives, and that word “bound” is the language of covenant, not contract. But death ends the covenant, and the widow is genuinely free, and Paul does not shame her for wanting to marry again or hint that a second love would be a betrayal of the first. She is free to marry anyone she wishes. There is only one condition, and it is not negotiable and not small: as long as he belongs to the Lord. Whatever else a believer weighs in choosing a husband or a wife, that comes first, because two people are about to become one flesh, and the deepest thing about a person is Whose he is.

Then Paul closes with his own preference, offered as a preference and not a command, and with a gentle touch of humor. In his judgment she is happier if she remains as she is. And then, perhaps with a sideways glance at those in Corinth who were so confident of their own spirituality: “And I think that I too have the Spirit of God.” The man who wrote this chapter had the Spirit, and knew it, and still would not turn his own judgment into a chain for anyone’s conscience. That restraint is itself a kind of pastoral glory. He gives the command where the Lord has commanded. He gives his judgment where he has none, and labels it. And he leaves every reader free before God.