F. Lead the life God assigns (7:17–24)
F. Lead the life God assigns (7:17–24)
Paul turns from marriage to the wider question of living contentedly in whatever state God has set us. He relates this on the one hand to the equipment and call God gives us, and on the other to circumcision and to slavery, the great religious and social distinctions which divided the world of his day. Becoming a Christian means bringing what one is into the service of God, circumcision, uncircumcision, slavery, freedom, or whatever. Each has its own importance in the service of God. The slave, for example, can show how the believer can serve God under the limits imposed by slavery (as the free man cannot), while the free can show how to submit himself to voluntary service to God. Paul’s point is that one can serve God in a variety of places and it is not necessary to leave one’s station in life simply because one is converted.
17. Nevertheless (ei mē, ‘but’, BDF 376) is unexpected. Probably we should understand it as setting what follows in contrast to the preceding. Paul has asserted the freedom of the Christian (v. 15), but freedom is not licence. Over against the liberty the believer has in certain marriage situations Paul sets the maintenance of one’s present state as the normal Christian practice. Barrett points out that throughout this paragraph Paul ‘is not thinking primarily of a vocation to which a man is called, but of the condition in which a man is when the converting call of God comes to him’. Most modern translations paraphrase ‘so let him walk’ (AV), but we should not miss the point that walking is a favourite metaphor with Paul for the living of the Christian life with its idea of steady progress. Twice in this verse Paul has each in an emphatic position (NIV omits the second): he is stressing the duty of the individual. The verb memeriken (assigned) is often used of dividing things among people, though usually the things divided are mentioned. Here it points to our divine endowment; God has given some gift to each of us. Called (the Greek has no to which) reminds us of the priority of the divine call in salvation. We do not choose God; he chooses us. When he gives certain gifts and calls us in a certain state, we should live the life thus set before us, using the gifts God has given. This is no novelty produced for the special benefit of the Corinthians, but the rule in all the churches.
18–19. This has importance for the great religious division into the circumcised and the uncircumcised. For the Jews circumcison was of paramount importance, especially since the Maccabean struggle. They saw the uncircumcised as outside the covenant of God, people cut off from the blessings God has for his own. In a sense for them circumcision was everything. But for many of the Gentiles circumcision was a matter for scorn; it was the mark of a despised people. They saw it as a sign of enlightenment when a Jewish youth, by undergoing a surgical operation, tried to efface the marks of his circumcision in order to take his place in the wider world of Hellenistic culture (see 1 Macc. 1:15; Josephus, Ant. xii. 241). But Paul says firmly that these distinctions do not matter in the slightest. Both circumcision and uncircumcision are nothing; they do not matter at all (cf. Gal. 5:6; 6:15). Thus a man should not seek to change his state whatever it is. Over against both Paul sets keeping God’s commands. No ritual observance can be set alongside the keeping of God’s commandments.
20. The principle of v. 17 is stated again. Paul speaks of the divine call and relates it to the external circumstances of those called. People should serve God in that place in life in which it pleases him to call them. Remain is present imperative, with the thought of continuance.
21. Paul turns from religious to social divisions. The one called when a slave should not let that trouble him. If God has called him as a slave he will give him grace to live as a slave. The second part of the verse is something like ‘But if also you can become free, rather use (it)’, and the pundits are divided as to what this means. Some, impressed by the evidence throughout the paragraph on remaining in one’s state, think Paul is saying, ‘Even if you can gain your freedom, make the most of your present condition instead.’ This is a possible understanding of the Greek, but against it is the aorist imperative, which more naturally signifies the beginning of a new ‘use’ than the continuance of an old one. It is also difficult to think that Paul, who held that marriage introduced difficulties in the way of Christian service, could have thought otherwise about slavery, which introduced much more serious difficulties. Paul seems to be saying: ‘Your state is not of first importance. If you are a slave do not worry. If you can be made free, then make use of your new status. It is your relationship to the Lord that matters most.’
22. Paul employs paradoxical language to emphasize the point that the outward state does not matter. The slave who is called has entered the glorious liberty of the children of God. He has been freed from slavery to sin and this divine liberty matters so much more than his outward circumstances that he should see himself as the Lord’s freedman (freedman means one set free from slavery; free man one who has not been a slave). Called by the Lord is better ‘called in the Lord’, i.e. called to be ‘in Christ’. The addition is unusual (called is generally enough); it emphasizes the intimate relationship of the believer to the divine Lord. It is not without its interest and importance that Paul says this of the slave, the least esteemed of people in the first century. With this goes the complementary truth that he who was a free man when called is Christ’s slave. Once more the point is that outward circumstances matter little. The important thing for the free man is his relationship to Christ; his whole life is to be lived in lowly service to his Master. Nothing matters alongside this.
23. Paul repeats You were bought at a price from 6:20 (where see notes). Believers have been bought by Christ’s blood. They belong to the Lord. They should not then be the slaves of men. Deissmann reminds us that it was specifically provided in many documents of manumission (see note on 6:20) that the person who had been bought by a god to be the god’s freedman should never again be brought into slavery (LAE, p. 325). Paul may have had this in mind. No-one could compel the Corinthian believers to be slaves again; let them then not put themselves into slavery. It is highly unlikely that he is speaking of literal slavery. But to live as free people demands a special temper of mind and spirit. It is easy to accept unquestioningly what others lay down, to subject oneself to some man-made system, and thus display the mentality of a slave. This is not the Christian way.
24. The section concludes with a reiteration of the principle already twice laid down (vv. 17, 20), that each man (note the individual application) should remain in the state in which God called him (NIV’s to is unwarranted). This does not forbid a man to better himself. But it cautions him against seeking a change simply because he is a Christian. Conversion is not the signal to leave one’s occupation (unless it is plainly incompatible with Christianity) and seek something more ‘spiritual’. All of life is God’s. We should serve God where we are until he calls us elsewhere. As throughout the passage, the aorist called looks back to the time of God’s call. Remain is present continuous. Paul rounds it all off with ‘with God’ (apparently NIV’s as responsible to God). He is not counselling an attitude of passive resignation, an acceptance of the established order at all costs. He is reminding his friends that they are not alone as they try to live the Christian life. God is with them, whatever their circumstances. Let them, then, seek first and always to remain with him.