Be Wise about Christian Marriage

Scripture

Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.

1 Corinthians 7:1–2 KJV

Big idea

Summary

Responding to a letter from the church, Paul first addresses believers married to believers. He affirms that celibacy is a good and honorable calling for those gifted for it, but insists it is not a higher spiritual class than marriage — each is a gift, and neither should be treated as mandatory. Within marriage, he urges spouses not to withhold physical intimacy from each other except by mutual, temporary agreement, since doing so invites temptation rather than spiritual advantage.

He then turns to believers married to unbelieving spouses — a situation many in the young church faced. Conversion does not dissolve an existing marriage; a believing spouse should remain if the unbeliever is willing, trusting that their presence can be a means of grace to the household. Only if the unbelieving partner insists on leaving is the believer released from the obligation to hold the marriage together, and Paul is careful not to turn this into a blanket license for divorce and remarriage.

Finally, addressing the unmarried and their families, Paul weighs present hardship, the pull of divided attention that marriage brings, and the seriousness of a lifelong commitment. His counsel throughout is not a rule for every case but a call to weigh circumstances honestly, choose with eyes open to real responsibility, and remember that marriage — wherever it is entered — is meant to be permanent, “only in the Lord,” and built on something more durable than romance alone.

Key points

• Both marriage and singleness are legitimate, gifted callings; neither is inherently more spiritual than the other.
• Married believers are called to mutual, generous physical intimacy rather than using abstinence as leverage or false piety.
• A believer married to an unbeliever should not seek to dissolve the marriage on the grounds of conversion alone, since the believing spouse’s presence carries real spiritual influence in the home.
• If an unbelieving spouse chooses to leave, the believing partner is not bound to force the marriage to continue, though reconciliation remains the preferred outcome.
• Anyone weighing marriage should honestly consider present circumstances, the practical demands of shared life, and the fact that marriage is meant to be a lifelong, not provisional, commitment.

Illustrations & analogies

• Paul notes that just as a body given to one spouse in marriage belongs mutually to both, withholding intimacy without agreement effectively invites Satan to exploit the resulting frustration.
• He observes that if a believing spouse’s conversion automatically ended the marriage, any children of that marriage would be left in an anomalous position — evidence that conversion changes the believer, not the marriage bond itself.
• He warns against the modern instinct to treat a change in circumstances as the automatic solution to a marriage problem, insisting that “the heart of every problem is the problem in the heart.”
• He describes marriage as a fortress God builds walls around — not to imprison a couple, but to protect and secure what grows only within committed boundaries.

Notable lines

The heart of every problem is the problem in the heart.

Warren W. Wiersbe Be Wise, ch. 6

God has put ‘walls’ around marriage, not to make it a prison, but to make it a safe fortress.

Warren W. Wiersbe Be Wise, ch. 6

For reflection and discussion

1. Why might Paul have needed to say plainly that singleness is not spiritually inferior to marriage, given how the church sometimes treats it even now?
2. If you are married, how do Paul’s instructions about mutual, generous intimacy challenge or affirm how you approach that part of your relationship?
3. What present-day “circumstances” do you think are worth weighing honestly before marriage, the way Paul urged the Corinthians to do?