The most controversial chapter in the Bible

The most controversial chapter in the Bible is I Corinthians 7. Or at least it’s around the top of the list. For those who’ve really studied the Word, they’ll know what I mean. Basically Paul is tackling the subject of marriage, sex, abstinence and the whole gambit of human male/female relationships. And on top of that he was addressing the Corinthian body of believers, the group that’s become known as the most immature, broadly unspiritual group that Paul encountered.

I won’t even quote here what Paul confronted just two chapters before. You can read I Corinthians 5:1-5 to get an idea of how bad things were for the Christians in Corinth. As they post on some videos, pretty much the same can be said for those verses there: “Viewer discretion is advised”. Some would definitely give it an “R”.

But Peter Brown, considered the foremost writer on the Late Antiquities said that I Corinthians 7 did more to shape and form Christian viewpoints on marriage, sex and male/female relationships than any other passage in the Bible. Repeatedly this was the chapter quoted, claimed and exalted by ones like Augustine of Hippo and Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin, the Vulgate Bible.

Quoting from I Corinthians 7, the early church fathers, especially by 250 AD and onwards, felt that it was clear from I Corinthians 7 that marriage was not really God’s highest and best. After all, hadn’t Paul said that it was better to remain as he was? (I Corinthians 7:7) And everyone assumes he was single, as far as we know.

But then I’ve read some Christians writers, such as F. B. Meyer, who were convinced that at one time Paul must have been married, otherwise he never could have been part of the Sanhedrin. In I Corinthians 7, Paul wrote, “Are you loosed from a wife? Seek not a wife.” (I Corinthians 7:27) Are Paul’s writings here to be taking in the same league as the Ten Commandments of Sinai? Certainly and without question that’s how it became as the Early Church morphed over into the early Catholic Church.

By the 400’s AD it was taken for granted that Christians knew that celibacy was God’s highest will. If you just had to get married, well you still might be able to go to heaven. But you just better not have a nice time with your wife or husband! All that stuff is just only in order to have children! That’s all! Shame! Shame on you if you even think about anything pleasurable! That’s sin!

Well, I jest. But of course it wasn’t really funny. The Jewish idea of a husband and wife (“rejoice with the wife of thy youth” -Proverbs 5:18) was utterly replaced by what became the supposed Christian viewpoint of marriage: that is was this horrible, filthy thing that God will just barely tolerate and won’t necessarily send you to hell for. But you sure better be in complete fear and trembling and be as holy as you possibly can be since all that stuff is absolutely of Satan!

Or so it was taught by around 400 AD. And it was still taught that way when I was a child and teen growing up in the 1960’s. And, very sadly, most of that those people way back then and up to now got it from how they read I Corinthians 7.

Of course Paul repeatedly in that chapter gave rejoinders and caveats to make it clear he was not pronouncing “laws from Sinai” on the subject. He said in I Corinthians 7:12, “This say I, not the Lord.” What does that mean? Did he say that kind of thing in other place in his epistles? Really not much.

He says, “I have received no commandment from the Lord but I speak as one who has obtained mercy…”. (I Corinthians 7:25) That’s how you say that he was giving his personal opinion and experience on the subject, a second place in I Corinthians 7 where he puts a sense of personalization and hesitancy into the passage. And there are other place where he seems to really make it clear that this is his personal opinion as a brother in Christ, one who has obtained grace and is sharing his thoughts and experiences.

Sadly, I Corinthians 7 has passed into history as the most fundamental, dogmatically taught passage on human relationships in the New Testament. Some question if Paul wrote the book of Hebrews but it says there, “Marriage is honorable in all things and the bed undefiled…” (Hebrews 13:4) But it was too late for those who believed that an abstinent, ascetic lifestyle was a fundamental tenet of Christianity.

You may not believe this but much modern scholarship tries to say that Paul didn’t write all the epistles that are attributed to him. If you don’t believe me, Google it. One of the things put forward is that Ephesians 5 and his views on human relationships, marriage and sex in that chapter seem to some to be so opposed to I Corinthians 7. So modern Christian erudition says Paul wrote I Corinthians 7 but not Ephesians. Pitiful. Sad. Infuriating.

Folks, what can I say? If you’ve been taught that I Corinthians 7 is one of the highpoints of the New Testament and that verses cherry picked out of there by ones like Jerome, Augustine and many others prove that the wonderful creation of man and woman and the joy of married love is just something that God will barely tolerate and actually goes against His chosen plan and will, then you’re being fed something that is not the fundamental truth of the New Testament.

Go back and read that chapter again. Notice Paul’s repeated hesitancy to get overly dogmatic. Read Ephesians 5, as well as many passages in the Old Testament which are still completely relevant and show that God has “given us richly all things to enjoy” (I Timothy 6:17). That includes the joy of married love in all its forms, a reflection of our relationship with God.

OK, I’m glad I got that off my chest. I virtually swore (although I didn’t actually) that I’d never write about this subject or about a certain modern country in the Middle East which also is so very controversial. But I suppose these things do need to be addressed and the light of Scripture brought upon them. God bless you, I hope this was some help and that no one was offended or shocked by my expressing my thoughts on this (what is for some) sinister subject.

3 thoughts on “The most controversial chapter in the Bible

  1. I was hoping to read your thoughts on divorce & remarrage. It`s my understanding that it`s wrong. But if you can help me to see that it`s not I would be grateful, I have been divorced since 2001. It is hard to make ends meet and it gets lonely!

    • Hi dear Melissa,
      Ny husband and I separated when I was pregnant with my 5th child. We never got it together again and finally divorced. I suffered but especially also my children. We got married because we were sure that the Lord put us together but with the years we both made decisions that drifted us more and more apart. The children suffered from the separation yes, but they had also suffered by our arguing and “bad vibes” in the air.
      Since then, we both went the way we felt led by the Lord to go. My ex found a new partner that when learning to know her, I had to admit fit very well together with him (she could handle him the way I never managed to).
      I stayed alone, I just couldn’t find the right mate. But it was also on my heart to first of all learn to have Jesus first in my life-I am the type of woman that prefers to lean on others rather then to have to stay on their own feet and have to fight through life’s battles alone.
      What helped me personally was not to go by other people’s opinion on divorce, not even Paul’s, but to look entirely up to Jesus, to let Him be your all-in-all; that is from this communion song “Jesus Paid It All”:
      I hear the Savior say
      Thy strength indeed is small
      Child of weakness watch and pray
      Find in me thine all in all
      Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe
      Sin had left a crimson stain
      He washed it white as snow
      Lord, now indeed I find
      Thy power and thine alone
      Came and changed the lepers spots (my weaknesses ate at me like leprosy)
      And it melt the heart of stone.
      – that was my case too. I had hardened my heart because of hardships as I leaned on my husband instead of on Jesus and “obeying” “is: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
      I believe not to go to Jesus with what troubles you is in God’s eyes the real offence and not so much a divorce of a marriage that had become an offence because you two could just not go the same direction in harmony any longer.

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