Tag: pauline epistles

Directives For the Married and Divorced (1 Corinthians 7:10-16)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

To the married I give this command—not I but the Lord—that the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does separate, let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband) and that the husband should not divorce his wife.

To the rest I say—I and not the Lord—that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. And if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce the husband. 

For the unbelieving husband is made holy through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy through the brother. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so; in such a case the brother or sister is not bound. It is to peace that God has called us. Wife, for all you know, you might save your husband. Husband, for all you know, you might save your wife. (New Revised Standard Version)

Having specifically addressed questions about sex; and having directly talked to the Christians in Corinth who were single; the Apostle Paul then turned to the married persons in the church. He gave directions about their concerns of divorce and how to handle a spouse who does not share the believing spouse’s Christian beliefs.

Divorce

Divorce is one of those things that no one plans on happening when they are married; and yet, it happens. The Apostle was realistic about the situation. He upheld the sanctity of marriage, while recognizing that the ideal of two people remaining together and blessing one another doesn’t always happen.

I find it interesting, as well as gracious and understanding, that Paul neither condemns nor denounces the divorced person. He assumes that both spouses have responsibility, and both can take initiative as partners in a marriage.

A Christian married to an unbelieving partner, according to Paul, ought to remain married. As long as the non-believing spouse is willing to remain in such a marriage, then it should continue.

The Apostle’s rationale is that peace, not divorce, needs to be the controlling characteristic of both the marriage and of the Christian life.

“Mixed” Marriage

Furthermore, Paul believed that Christians are not defiled by pagan spouses. This is important when it comes to the children of a Christian and non-Christian marriage. The relationship is sanctified by the presence of both the believing spouse and the Holy Spirit.

In addition, the Apostle saw that the Christian spouse is in a special position for God to work through them to the unbelieving spouse. On this point, Paul is sanguine and optimistic. Instead of worrying about impurity for the Christian, he foresaw an opportunity for purity in the non-Christian.

The Apostle Paul’s realism reminds us that if we are looking for ultimate satisfaction through marriage (or singleness and celibacy) it will never be found.

That’s because, as Christians, contentment and peace comes through giving our lives to serve the Lord Jesus in love. To love another, and offer the gift of self-sacrificial service to them, is the ultimate path to the way of Christ.

In losing our lives, we find them; in being last, we are promoted to first.

Marriage is beautiful. Divorce is ugly. Sometimes, despite a believer’s greatest efforts at being peaceful and loving, a divorce occurs. It takes two to have a marriage. There are times when the believing person must let their spouse go, that is, if that spouse wants to go.

Although divorce can be ugly and sad, full of broken dreams, and littered with missed expectations, it doesn’t need to stay that way. The divorced person, becoming single, now has the opportunity to bring something beautiful out of the brokenness.

Kintsugi

“Kintsugi” is a Japanese term for the art of repairing broken objects. The word literally means to “join with gold.” This art form uses a particular lacquer to reattach broken pieces. Then the newly attached joints are decorated with gold (or silver) powder.

The working idea behind the art of kintsugi is to embrace the flaws and the imperfections. By doing so, the artist can create a beautiful piece of art, stronger than the original.

Applying this to relationships, people no longer have to simply live with the shame of a broken marriage. We can assign value to people who are divorced, and stop trying to hide the relational damage. Through intentional efforts on healing, the scars left behind can truly become a source of beauty – instead of permanent ugliness.

Ikigai

Another Japanese concept which can be relevant for us is “ikigai.” It refers to having a reason for living, a sense of purpose and meaning to life. The idea behind ikigai is to help people find what is truly important to them, and then to live a life full of joy and purpose. Notice the concept is based on that which is internal – fulfillment, satisfaction, joy, and meaning – instead of external factors such as money, fame, power, or position.

Jesus joyfully lived his life on this earth to serve others. He came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). If marriage was the ideal for everyone in this world, I’m quite sure Jesus would have modeled that for us by getting married. But he didn’t.

Neither marriage, nor singleness, is what really counts. Faith, expressing itself through love, is what actually counts. (Galatians 5:6)

And when Jesus was broken, the result became the salvation of the world. By his wounds, we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)

All of this demonstrates for us where and what we are to assign meaning. And just because things don’t work out like we want, and leaves us in a state of brokenness, our lives can be transformed into a beauty beyond what we could have imagined.

This is the strength and ability of Christianity. Methinks we ought to let it have its way in our lives.

Almighty and everlasting God, the One who makes us whole in our brokenness, calls us to deeper faith, and delivers us from all things that hinder our devotion to you: Hear our prayer, Lord, and break open all we hold back from you, so that we may see a vision of your helping and healing presence in our lives and in our world, through Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Questions About Sex (1 Corinthians 7:1-9)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

Now regarding the questions you asked in your letter. Yes, it is good to abstain from sexual relations. But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband.

The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs. The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife.

Do not deprive each other of sexual relations, unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so you can give yourselves more completely to prayer. Afterward, you should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I say this as a concession, not as a command. But I wish everyone were single, just as I am. Yet each person has a special gift from God, of one kind or another.

So I say to those who aren’t married and to widows—it’s better to stay unmarried, just as I am. But if they can’t control themselves, they should go ahead and marry. It’s better to marry than to burn with lust. (New Living Translation)

After getting into several issues of interpersonal relations within the church, the Apostle Paul turned his attention to matters the Corinthian congregation had questions about. Primary among them were issues of sex and marriage.

Within an ancient port city that was rife with all sorts of sexual practices and immorality, it was inevitable that the Corinthian Christians would wonder about the nature of sex and the marital relationship. Is it okay to have sex? Is sex good? What’s sex supposed to be like in marriage? How am I to treat my spouse when it comes to sex?

It seems every culture in every era has plenty of questions about sex and marriage.

The Apostle’s answer to the Corinthian believers is that sex is a good thing, that is, within a proper context. Sex is similar to fire. They’re both good, but they both have an incredible potential for destruction if there are not some solid boundaries and limits to them.

And that’s where marriage comes in and has a significant role for us as sexual beings. Marriage is also a good thing; it’s good to have a marital partner to share life with and to consummate a loving relationship with the intimacy of sex.

Our sexual drives are strong. After all, we were created with both the desire and the bodily equipment for sex. And marriage is a sacred institution which is strong enough to provide those boundaries and limits that we need to enjoy sex without harming others and ourselves.

In a world full of all manner of sexual deviancy and disorder that destroys many people, the marriage relationship is, ideally, a safe place for sexual expression and enjoyment.

For that good to happen, it is most necessary for the marriage bed to be a place of mutual love, of equal acceptance and sharing. Sex always turns bad when it is forced or coerced. It must be an agreed upon activity, or it moves into the place of covetousness, greed, and selfishness.

Again, ideally, marital relations are an opportunity for the marriage partners to think about and satisfy one another. In other words, the best sex happens when each partner considers what is best for the other.

The marriage bed is not the place to insist on your way. Rather, marriage, at its heart, is a deliberate and volitional decision to serve the other person – whether in bed, or out of bed.

It’s not uncommon for individuals who come to Christ out of a culture awash in unhealthy sexual practices to question if sex is good, or not; and whether one ought to abstain from sex, even if already married.

The Apostle Paul’s counsel is that abstinence from sex between two married partners is good – but only for an agreed upon period of time, and only for the purpose of prayer and fasting. In other words, if and when a couple agrees to forego sex for a time, spiritual practices must replace sexual practice. Without a clear plan, married couples can cause one another more harm than good.

Always know when to come back together again. That’s because our old adversary, Satan, is far too crafty in arranging temptations to derail us from the good gift of sex, and the good institution of marriage.

Paul made it clear that he was not pronouncing some ex cathedra instruction concerning abstinence for couples; he was only answering a question and providing some helpful counsel in order to maintain legitimate relations with each other. Nobody is under obligation to abstain, let alone be celibate.

However, the Apostle, an unmarried and celibate person himself, wanted to point out that there are advantages to the celibate life. I must say, I cannot disagree with Paul’s observation that life is whole lot simpler being single than married!

Yet, Paul also understood that the celibate single life is not for everyone. He gave the sage teaching that both marriage and celibacy are gifts from God. One is not necessarily better than the other.

Unmarried persons are not in a lesser class of people simply because they are single. And if they have the ability to manage their desires and emotions when it comes to sex and relationships, then Paul would say, more power to them. There is no need to be married, just to be married.

Conversely, however, there is certainly no need to be single and celibate, as if this were some superior spiritual situation. Believing that singleness is necessary for spiritual commitment, or mandating that an entire group of people must be single and celibate in order to serve Christ, is completely foreign to the Apostle Paul’s line of thinking.

Any single person who discovers they are swimming in sea of sexual desire ought to marry, rather than be frustrated and struggle with self-control. Imposing unnecessary suffering on oneself is not at all spiritual or preferable – it’s masochistic, and helps no one.

The reality of married and non-married relationships is that they both have their advantages and their disadvantages. Both marriage and singleness are good. Both sex and celibacy are gifts to receive with gladness and joy.

So, make sure to unpack your gift well.

Holy God, in the midst of our sexualized world of insanity and disordered loves, I ask for your mercy and grace to be pure and holy, just as You are holy. Enable us all to live into healthy forms of sexual relations, without succumbing to the sexual immorality all around us.

Almighty God, I thank you for the gift of sex and marriage, as well as the gift of singleness and celibacy. May Your healing love meet us in our sexual brokenness, and Your compassion overflow to the sexually oppressed.

Blessed God, I am grateful for Your blessing upon us, for never shaming nor humiliating us, but making us pure and holy in Jesus Christ our Lord, through the enablement of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Spiritual Wisdom and Power (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
By Bible Art

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the testimony of God to you with superior speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were made not with persuasive words of wisdom but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God. (New Revised Standard Version)

When it comes to proclaiming the gospel – the good news of Christ’s person and work – both the message and the messenger are important.

The Apostle Paul was dialed in and focused on the Cross of Jesus Christ. Although he could have used various methods of persuasion, he was determined to set aside all other means of proclamation, and declare Christ’s Cross as the message and method itself.

This means that Paul also deliberately faded himself into the background, in order to have the Cross of Christ in the foreground. He emphasized his own weakness, his fear and trembling, in order to highlight the strength and majesty of God.

Paul wanted the messenger to point to the message – which meant that all of his speaking allowed God’s Spirit and power to show itself through him, rather than in spite of him.

The Corinthians came to believe the message not because of a big showy demonstration of Paul’s strength, intellect, and wisdom. Instead, they embraced Christian belief because of spiritual power and effort.

If it is spiritual wisdom and power centered in the message of Christ’s Cross which saves us, then it is also more than good enough to sanctify us, as well, and be the core from which all of the Christian life emanates from.

The Apostle understood that he is God’s agent, God’s ambassador, but that God alone is the One who saves humanity and delivers them from sin, death, and hell.

Christ Carrying the Cross, by Martin Schongauer, c. 1480 C.E.

Paul’s argument doesn’t have anything to do with making sure that the word “cross” is said in every sermon and conversation, or that Christians have only one thing to talk about.

Instead, the Apostle wanted the Corinthian Church to distance themselves from their typical of use of worldly philosophical wisdom, in favor of a distinctly spiritual wisdom which demands a certain kind of ministry:

The cross of Jesus Christ is to be the central event in which all of Christian life and ministry revolves around. In other words, the shape of Christianity is cruciform.

And since the cruciform nature of Christianity is our reality, our wisdom is to be received and flow from the Cross of Christ. To do less is to rely upon a different power other than the distinctive spiritual power of Christ’s death.

It isn’t any one of us which breaks through to another’s spirit; the power of God compels a person to listen, receive the message, and be given faith to believe, grow, and spiritually mature.

When the good news of Christ’s person and work takes root and develops within us, then what comes out of us is spiritual power, and not our own homespun worldly human wisdom.

“Wisdom” is the ability to take a body of knowledge and apply it to concrete situations in life.

So, when it comes to spiritual wisdom, Christians mature in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus; then, they learn to take this important body of knowledge and apply it to all of the various circumstances and situations they are faced with every day.

This isn’t to say that worldly wisdom has no merit or significance, or that it is misguided. Rather, it means that this sort of wisdom doesn’t have the ability, the strength, or the power to move and change us, or others, toward deliverance and new life. We need the wisdom of the Spirit for that. And Paul insisted that this wisdom comes from the Cross of Christ.

The crucifixion of Christ is the wise guide for all of the Apostle Paul’s theology, message, and ministry. That singular event was like a massive meteor hitting the ocean of humanity, with a powerful tsunami of spiritual power and grace still making waves up to this very day.

Indeed, the Cross of Christ impacts all of creation, the entire universe. The person and work of Jesus Christ has cosmic implications for the salvation and deliverance of everything from the grip of evil.

On the practical daily level of things, none of this is about trying to do or be better, to somehow work harder at being a Christian or doing Christian mission and ministry. The fact of the matter is that we can only give to others what we have received from God. This means that:

  • The Holy Scriptures are to be received with reverence and fear, as a message given for us to learn and know so well that it becomes as familiar to you as the backdoor of your house.
  • The Christian life is about dying to self, taking up one’s cross and following Christ. If we desire the power of the resurrection, then this will first require embracing and allowing the powerful suffering of the cross to do its work.
  • Faithfulness is at the heart of living. Our task is to show up, pay attention, and speak the truth in love, and let God use this to accomplish the Divine holy will. Being married to outcomes and consequences will likely lead to reliance upon worldly wisdom, and eventually disappointment.
  • The Cross of Christ is what everything and everyone hinges upon. The world does not revolve around you nor me. So, let’s get in sync with the Spirit of God and rely upon the cruciform power provided for us by means of Christ’s death.

O God, who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; who lives and reigns now and forever. Amen.

We Are All In the Same Boat (Romans 3:9-20)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written:

“There is no one righteous, not even one;
    there is no one who understands;
    there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
    they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
    not even one.”
“Their throats are open graves;
    their tongues practice deceit.”
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
    “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
    ruin and misery mark their ways,
and the way of peace they do not know.”
    “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin. (New International Version)

Whenever there is division, separation, and polarization between two groups of people, it’s important that someone has the ability to come back to what is true and common to all of us.

And that is what the Apostle Paul did in addressing the two differing groups of people in the ancient Roman Church of both Jewish and Gentile believers in Jesus.

The Jewish Christians, Paul argued, did not have a leg up on the Gentiles, just because of their long history with God. They tended to see themselves as better than their Gentile brothers and sisters in Christ. After all, the Jewish believers reasoned, we don’t have such a background of sinful pagan practices and estrangement from God.

Well, actually they do, however the Apostle did not rehearse his own people’s long history of stubborn rebellion and waywardness from God. Instead, he went back to the scriptures, and reminded the Jewish Christians of something they seemed to have lost sight of:

To be a human being is to be intimately familiar with sin and godlessness, guilt and shame, no matter the group nor the individual. We are all in the same boat.

In saying this, the Apostle Paul was not implying there is not anything good in anyone. Quite the contrary. For what is also true of humanity is that every individual person is a good creature, created from a good Creator, with the divine stamp of God’s image and likeness. There are no exceptions to this.

With all the mudslinging within the church, Paul simply pointed out that there is more than enough blame to go around. All the things that one group accuses another of is also true about they themselves.

And when it comes to sin – all those actions, words, and attitudes we have done and failed to do in loving our fellow humanity, and God – every one of us is in the same boat of guilt before God. There are no exceptions to this.

The power and ubiquity of sin is everywhere. Sin is like a nasty weight which continually burdens the world, and like an acrid fog that is always hanging in the air. We all feel the heaviness; we all breathe the same air.

All of our puny attempts at dividing one another into star-bellied Sneetches, and Sneetches without stars upon thars, is only proof positive of our sinful predilections to acquiesce to sin’s power on this earth.

This means that none of us can claim to take the moral and spiritual high ground. Nobody has an advantage on another. Therefore, it is ridiculous to ever try and implement policies of favoritism, cronyism, or prejudice. Such thinking itself is sinful, and ought to be jettisoned at the first awareness of it.

Whether we know what is right, or not; and whether we have the law and a covenant code, or not, isn’t really the issue. Obeying the law and doing what is right and just, with a good heart, is the real issue for all of us.

But it’s rather difficult to truly embrace justice and righteousness if the heart is no good. In truth, all of us have some rather dark places in our hearts. And until these are addressed, we will keep having all of our humanly contrived divisions and separations based upon a supposed superiority of the other.

The very fact that it is so easy to point out the sin in another, and label them as sinner, ought to tell us that “It takes one to know one.”

All Jews and Gentiles are under the accusation of God’s law, without exception. Everyone is accountable to God and the law. Proper observance of the law is to love God and neighbor – and thus, condemnation under the law is to ignore and disobey God, and to ignore and hate one’s fellow humanity.

What’s more, neither Jew nor Gentile can be justified by the law. Not a one of us can undo our guilt by ourselves.

No amount of work can satisfy the breadth and depth of that guilt. Pledges of perfectionism cannot help us, namely because we don’t even have the ability to follow through on them. Sheer hard work will not do the trick, because it would be like trying to empty the ocean with a kid’s sand toy bucket.

Only grace can reverse things. We need a pardon, and a new heart, which can sync and beat with the holy rhythms of divine love and justice. We need Jesus.

The Apostle Paul eventually got to that point later in his letter. Yet, here, he needed to establish everyone’s commonality of sin, so that they would embrace Jesus together as the one people of God who are in desperate need of his saving work, and the Spirit’s sanctifying work.

Therefore, the proper place to begin in being at peace with God and the world is to confess our own complicity in sin. Let us, then, offer this prayer of confession:

Lord Jesus, we have sinned times without number, and been guilty of pride and unbelief, and of neglect to seek you in our daily lives. Our sins and shortcomings present us with a list of accusations, but we thank you that they will not stand against us, for all have been laid on Christ. Deliver us from every evil habit, every interest of former sins, everything that dims the brightness of your grace in us, everything that prevents us taking delight in you. Amen.