GOD’S WILL
1 Corinthians 7 and 8
“Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak.”
In chapters 7 and 8, Paul shares his mind with us to help us think through matters where there are no clear lines between right and wrong.
In the matter of sex and marriage he clearly confines sex to within the bounds of marriage and advises marriage partners to respect each other’s sexual needs, among other marital obligations. Those whose sexual needs are strong should then seek relief within these permitted confines. However, Christian marriage must be between believers.
In the matter of status, whether married or widowed, circumcised or uncircumcised, slave or free, Paul advises the goal of pleasing God rather than being troubled by status. It would seem that God is not preoccupied with status. In the special situation where a spouse is an unbeliever, he advises to keep the status quo, yet respecting the unbelieving spouse’s wishes.
In the matter of food offered to idols he advises prioritising the spiritual wellbeing of weaker brethren even though there is nothing really wrong with food offered to idols; food is just food.
In all these situations he makes it clear that the commands of God in terms of our obligations and actions are few and clear. We do well to abide by them and let other issues flow around their compliance. The next priority is that we should seek to reduce the pressure to compromise and give in to sinful behaviour, both in ourselves as well as in our brethren. Finally we should seek to expand our opportunities to serve and please God.
When we understand the way Paul helps us to work through these specific situations we can see that God’s will is not in terms of status—married or not, this job or another, circumcised or not, right or wrong, rights and privileges, even slave or free—but in terms of holiness, goodness and love.
Perhaps, and this is my own thinking as I worked through these two chapters, our notion of how we receive God’s blessing and protection and the joy that we seek by ensuring that we live within God’s will—the reason we seek to know God’s will for us in job and marriage and even location (this or that country) is to have assurance that things will go well for us with the status we choose—is fundamentally flawed. If God’s will is our holiness, goodness and love then our status and circumstances and location is secondary; even rights and wrongs are not that important in the final analysis. We should only care that they help and enable us (and one another) to pursue God’s will.
We are free to choose how we will live and God gives us the freedom to do so but our focus is to love God in holiness, goodness and love.
“What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away. I would like you to be free from concern. … I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.”