Bible Synapse
Is marriage good, or better avoided?
Hard question · Acts and the letters · raised by 4 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
“It is not good that the man should be alone”.
And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
“Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing”.
Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord.
Replying to the Corinthians’ letter: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman”; yet let each have his own spouse.
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.
Paul wishes all were as he is, but each has his own gift from God; it is better to marry than to burn.
For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that. I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.
Because of “the present distress” it is good to stay as one is; but whoever marries has not sinned.
I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress, I say, that it is good for a man so to be. Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife. But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you.
“Marriage is honourable in all”.
Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.
The objection
Genesis says it is not good for the man to be alone, Proverbs that whoever finds a wife finds a good thing, and Hebrews that marriage is honourable. But Paul writes, “It is good for a man not to touch a woman”, wishes that everyone were unmarried like himself, and says the unmarried do better. Is marriage good or not?
The answer
Paul does not say that marriage is bad; he says that in some circumstances singleness is better for some people. He insists that whoever marries “hath not sinned” (1 Corinthians 7:28; compare 7:36), says that each has his own “gift of God”, “one after this manner, and another after that” (7:7), and elsewhere names “Forbidding to marry” as a mark of false teaching (1 Timothy 4:3).
1 Corinthians 7 begins Paul’s reply to questions the Corinthians had sent him: “Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me”. Many scholars think ‘It is good for a man not to touch a woman’ was a saying of some in Corinth who prized abstinence, which Paul quotes in order to qualify it, and translations such as the NIV print it in quotation marks. Either way, his first instruction is that husbands and wives should each have their own spouse and not deprive one another (7:2–5). His preference for staying single rests on “the present distress” (7:26), a time of pressure and persecution, and on the freedom of the unmarried to serve the Lord “without distraction” (7:35).
Genesis 2:18 states God’s general purpose for mankind, which Jesus reaffirmed (Matthew 19:4–6); Paul speaks of a particular gift and calling, as Jesus also did (Matthew 19:11–12). ‘Good’ and ‘better’ here are not ‘good’ and ‘evil’.
Other answers Christians give
Paul’s own words
Older commentators such as Gill and Jamieson-Fausset-Brown took 7:1 as Paul’s own advice: abstaining is ‘good’ in the sense of expedient, for those who have the gift of self-control, in a time of distress. On that reading too, marriage is not wrong.
From the classic commentators
good—that is, ‘expedient,’ because of ‘the present distress’ … But these are exceptional cases, and in exceptional times, such as those of Paul.Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary, on 1 Corinthians 7:1 (1871)
The apostle's meaning is not that it is unlawful to marry, or that it is sinful to lie with a woman in lawful wedlock; but that it is much better, and more expedient on several accounts, to abstain from the use of women, when persons have the gift of continency.John Gill, Exposition of the Bible, on 1 Corinthians 7:1 (1746–1763)
Sources
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary: 1 Corinthians 7 (1871), at Bible Hub
- John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: 1 Corinthians 7 (1746–1763), at Bible Hub