Section 39
This was the perspective of almost all earlier commentaries, but for any number of reasons it was simply not an adequate understanding of the various data of 1 Corinthians itself. See the introduction.
Cf. M. M. Mitchell (“Concerning περὶ δέ in 1 Corinthians,” NovT 31 [1989], 229–56), who makes a similar observation.
As one might suspect, this analogy has been drawn from real life, when our (at that time) teen-age daughter was in a phone conversation with a mutual friend.
It should perhaps be noted also that the degree of competing opinions also increases incrementally at this point, evidenced by the proliferation of literature over the past twenty-five years on the first matter up in chap. 7, where quite diverse options can be found in the following representative studies (listed chronologically): M. Y. MacDonald, “Women Holy in Body and Spirit: The Social Setting of 1 Corinthians 7,” NTS 36 (1990), 161–81 (extending freedom in the social realm to “ordinary women”); J. M. Gundry-Volf, “Celibate Pneumatics and Social Power: On the Motivations for Sexual Asceticism in Corinth,” USQR 48 (1994), 105–26 (opened the door to social gains for noncelibate ordinary women); G. J. Laughery, “Paul: Anti-marriage? Anti-sex? Ascetic? A Dialogue with 1 Corinthians 7:1–40,” EvQ 69 (1997), 109–28 (root problem an “overrealized eschatology”); J. E. Ellis, “Controlled Burn: The Romantic Note in 1 Corinthians 7,” PRS 29 (2002), 89–98 (affinity with ancient Greek romantic novels, celebrating sex and marriage); D. Zeller, “Der Vorrang der Ehelosigkeit in 1 Kor 7,” ZNW 96 (2005), 61–77 (“marriage clearly an inferior good”!). See esp. the long, typically even-handed introduction to this material in Thiselton (487–97), with its considerably diverse range of options (evidence in itself of how little we really know with certainty). The one consistent that would appear to need to be retained is Paul’s overall pattern of alternating between men and women, which will come into play esp. regarding vv. 8–9.