274: Come Together | Tim Henderson

Introduction

All right, you guys, so if you've got a Bible, open it up. 1 Corinthians 7. We'll be looking at those first 7 verses of 1 Corinthians. As I said, this is going to be our last Sunday in 1 Corinthians for a little while. And then we may pick it up again down the road. Hope to.

If you've been kind of falling with us and paying attention to see what we're doing and, you know, chasing the argument here, today might seem like a little bit of whiplash. What we have seen is that Paul writes to the Corinthian Christians and he's telling them to act more like Christians and less like Corinthians, right?

The shocking and surprising and altogether unexpected nature of Christ's death is meant to be formative for us. Then in the same way that Jesus was shocking and surprising, we are to be an unusual people. It's a lot easier to just do what everybody else does, to go along with the crowd and follow into the natural state of things. But we're called to be different, to be distinct, to be surprising in our own ways.

And so far, what we've been seeing is one of the ways that we are to be unusual is that we are to be unusually, sexually wise. We've walked through a whole bunch of things that the Bible forbids, that we're not allowed to participate in. The Bible forbids all sexual immorality, including adultery and prostitution, homosexuality, and in particular, if you want to get really specific about it, you are not allowed to sleep with your stepmom. Okay? So there's that.

The Context of the Passage

What we're about to see here, as you kind of get into the text, is it's going to go in a rather opposite direction. Instead of discussing the things that we are not allowed to do, we're going to look, and Paul is going to talk about one thing that we are not allowed not to do. Which I suspect may distress an entirely different group of people than those that Quig has been aggravating for the last two weeks, okay? And if you happen to hear what I am sharing as fighting words, they're not. This is the kind intentions of a good God who loves you and invites you and your spouse into joy.

My wife once came across the writings of a rabbi who said that God will hold us accountable for every lawful pleasure forfeited. And our topic this morning concerns one of the most exquisite lawful pleasures that it is possible for a couple to share. And we are supposed to enjoy it, and we are supposed to extend it in its proper context. But I know, I'm very well aware that this is going to be tender for some of you.

And one of the difficult phenomena of talking about a tender topic is that you can't say everything first. There's necessarily a sequence to communication. So bear with me, let me get to the end. I just can't put it all down in the very beginning.

And what I'm going to do is we're going to walk through the passage. We're going to walk through exegete, first Corinthians 7, those first seven verses. And we'll just take it as it is, just what does it say, what do these words mean? And then after we've done that, then I'll take a few minutes to offer some thoughts on how broken people in a broken world might apply this in various circumstances.

And then finally, I'm going to offer a couple of thoughts to those who are not presently married, but wish they were, and I'll just have a couple of remarks there. And I know, I know that in 30 minutes, some of you are going to like me more than you do right now. And some of you are going to like me less. And that is okay. I like you just the same.

But I hope that you will believe me, that my motive towards you is good. And that my desire is to invite you deeper into a marriage that portrays Christ's great love for his church and his church's loving response to him. Marriage is supposed to be a place of mutual self-giving joy. God has reserved marriage for the most delightful pleasures possible because it's a picture of our union to him.

And when those pleasures are absent, in particular when they are unilaterally withheld or begrudgingly tolerated, the picture breaks and marriage ceases to be what it's supposed to be. So pray that the Lord might give his ears to hear and to rightly understand his word.

We're going to start in verse 1 and walk our way down. So take a look at your Bible, 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 1. Here's what it says:

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote, "It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman."

Okay. So right out of the gate, it's possible that this would be confusing, and I think it probably has confused people throughout the centuries, right?

You might be under the impression that Paul is saying, and therefore the Bible is saying, "It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman." Okay? That would be a reasonable thing for you to conclude, but you would be mistaken whether you're reasonable or not. Paul is not saying that. The Bible is not saying that.

What's happening is the Corinthian church had written Paul a letter, and in their letter, they said, "It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman." What Paul is doing in this letter is he's responding to them, responding to the things that they said. This is actually one of the markers in this letter — he will very often begin a topic and he'll say, "Now about food sacrifice to idols. Now about eating the food sacrificed to idols. Now about the collection for God's people. Now about this. Now about that."

Every time he does that, that's a clue that in their letter they had said something to him. They'd made an assertion or they asked a question. He said, "Okay, let's talk about that. Now let's talk about this. Now let's talk about this." So he is not saying this. They were saying this, and he is quoting them and correcting them. He's saying, "You said this, but you're wrong. This instead is the case."

Okay? So that verse one, you might take it and see it exactly in the opposite of what it's supposed to be. They're saying abstinence is the ideal estate to which one should aspire. And Paul says, "Nah-ah, that is not the case."

Look at it again in verse one:

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote, "it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman."

Do you see? Those aren't Paul's words — that's their words, and they're wrong. And the way that Paul responds to it is actually pretty stunning in its egalitarianism. The Corinthian set it up is what a man, a male person, should or should not do. But Paul's response is what men and women alike should do.

Every single thing that Paul says in this passage to men, he says the identical thing to women. And everything he says to wives, he says the same to husbands. There's perfect equality, perfect reciprocity at every point. He goes out of his way to be very clear about this.

Now what it is that he says, verse two:

But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.

Okay. A couple of things here. That "but" is specifically to contrast their claim. They've made this assertion, "Hey, abstinence is the ideal." He says, "No, no, it's not." He's contradicting them. He's contrasting them. And then he's going to give the reason that he's contradicting them — why they are wrong.

This letter essentially goes like this: "You said it is good for a man not to have sex with his wife, but I tell you, that's a terrible idea. Think about the inevitable sexual immorality that will flow out of such a foolish plan." That's how this thing begins. Paul knows, you guys, that when people don't get their needs met through legitimate channels, they will find a way to meet their needs illegitimately and ruin — so ruin, will ensue.

He's saying, "No, no, no, no. Don't do that. Stop. I don't want you to do that." Sexual immorality is a problem. It's a huge problem in many ways, right? For the last couple of weeks, we've been hearing about different expressions of that and all the bad that can come from it.

But the solution is not sexual frustration or sexual starvation. It is mutual sexual satisfaction in the context of a marriage. That is the prescription Paul is advocating for. It is frequent, joyful, self-giving, sexual fulfillment as two people who are living out the union between Christ and His church give themselves to one another.

So, when Paul says right here that each man should have his own wife, what he means is that he should have her — all of her. And when he says that each woman should have her own husband, she should have him — all of him.

To be clear, in this verse, Paul is not saying you should get married. He will say that in verse 9 and later on in verse 36, he's going to say you should get married. Rather, he's saying if you are married, you should act like it. You should have the wife that you already possess. You should have the husband who is already yours.

If you're married, you should act like it. That's what he's saying here. You belong to each other, and in verse 2, having your spouse means frequent, mutually joyful sex. If you don't believe me, keep going. Look at verse 3:

The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise, the wife to her husband.

For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

You hear the perfect reciprocity with this, right? He goes out of his way to say everything twice. He's saying husbands, your body is not yours alone. It also belongs to your wife. And wives, your body is not yours alone. It is your husband's. And neither one of you has the authority to withhold what is already belonging to the other, the promise that you made to give yourself to your spouse was made on the day that you were married.

It is inherent in your wedding vows. Now the top commentary on 1 Corinthians is written by a guy named Gordon Fee. You can look it up. It's a brilliant work, widely understood to be the most thoughtful, insightful exposition of 1 Corinthians 7. And in it, Gordon Fee says this — this is so key, I love the fact that he distills this so tightly.

He says, "Paul's emphasis, it must be noted, is not on you, oh me, but rather, I owe you." That is exactly right. He is not saying that his body or her body is what you can go take. He's saying your body is what you already promised to give. The transaction has been made. And marriage is about mutual self-giving love, not mutual self-taking love.

So consider the predicament in which you would leave your spouse. If you refuse them access to that which is already theirs, I don't know if this would be controversial to some of you, but it shouldn't be, because it's true. Sex is the central act of marriage. It is the defining act of marriage. It is the one thing that you cannot do with somebody else. And if you were to do it with somebody else, that would be so egregious of a break — such a violation of that trust — that that alone becomes grounds to dissolve an otherwise indissoluble union.

It's the big, big deal. And it is the one thing that your spouse cannot seek from anyone else on the face of the earth. Your spouse can, they could choose to, wanted to, outsource all sorts of things. They can pay somebody else to cook their meals or to change the oil in their car. Your spouse can pay someone to listen to them, share their deepest secrets in a counseling appointment. They can hire a tax accountant to file their taxes. You can both choose to outsource the education of your children to others. You can even, this is kind of weird, but you can have a surrogate give birth to your children, right? All of these things are permissible or doable.

You could do any of these things. Your husband or wife can pay somebody to cut the grass or to clean the house. But you cannot outsource this. And if you refuse to be sexually attentive and sexually available to your spouse, they have no recourse — none at all. Which likely means that you are leaving them with an inconsolable pain. You leave them in a terribly vulnerable position, and you thereby leave your marriage in a terribly vulnerable position.

There is no righteous solution for a married person whose spouse is not sexually available to them. Take a look at verse 5. In fact, we'll start with just one word in verse 5. Paul says:

Do not deprive one another.

The Greek word there behind "deprive" shows up five times in the New Testament. Mark uses it. It's in Paul's letter to Timothy, it's in James, a couple times in Corinthians. And curiously, every time it gets rendered into English, we translate it differently. That word for "deprive," okay? It shows up. It's translated like this: defraud, cheat, deprive, rob, and fail to pay.

Do not defraud — do not cheat, do not deprive, do not rob, do not fail to pay your spouse by not being sexually available to them. There is to be a mutually pleasing, joyful, self-giving love expressed through regular sexual fulfillment.

Now, take a look at the rest of verse 5. This is what Paul is about to do here — he's going to go as far as he can to accommodate the Corinthian perspective. They're like, "You know what? We feel like abstinence is the ideal of a state." He's like, "Okay, you're wrong. It's not. No." However, let me go as far as I can to just give you some aspect of what you want. Maybe.

Look at what he says:

Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time that you may devote yourselves to prayer, but then come together again so that you may not be tempted by your lack of self-control.

Do you guys hear all the qualifiers in this? He says, "Okay, perhaps," meaning maybe. I'm not even sure about this, but maybe. There's a situation in which by agreement. The only possible way I’d sign off on this is if you're both on the same page, right? If not, there will be no unilateral decisions to this effect.

Perhaps by mutual agreement for a limited time — he says. "Listen, this is to be short-lived. Don't stretch this out. We're talking days, not months, that you may devote yourselves to prayer." This is a very specific case.

If you were to go any length of time without having sex with your spouse, it should only be because you're praying through some difficult circumstances you're in and need to be single-minded in your dedication to it. And finally, and then come together again, basically saying, "As soon as this special time of prayer is over, get back in bed." In Jesus' name, amen. Let's go, right? That's what he's saying.

This is strong language, don't you think? Question is, why is Paul so reluctant to grant married couples a time off in their sexual relationship? According to Paul, it is because sexless marriages are Satan's playground. Look at what he says:

But then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Some of you know this through bitter experience. Satan is just the worst. He is a liar, and he hates you, and he wants to ruin things. In every situation he's going to apply the strategies most designed for your ruin.

And so outside of marriage, his strategy is to urge you to get together, right? To ruin the holiness that is yours in Christ. Outside of marriage, there's all kinds of temptations and tricks that he'll do. But within a marriage, he's going to say, "Stay apart," and he's going to get you away because he knows that if he can drive a wedge between you, if there will be a sexlessness in your marriage, then that just makes everything else he wants to do so much easier, right?

And Paul says, "We know this. We're aware of his schemes. So don't go along with it." Your marriage should be a place filled with lots and lots of joy. It is a picture of Christ's love for his bride, the church — and our loving response to him. And as such, marriages are to be filled with joy and delight, vulnerability, pleasure, happiness, and wonder.

There have been countless times in my own marriage where I have marveled that such a pleasure is even possible. Never mind that it's mine and that on repeat. And that was the plan all along. The marriages would be a place of joy.

And then Paul gives one more clarifier, one more little addition. Take a look at this. He says in verse 6:

Now as a concession, not a command, I say this.

This could be confusing because it might not be clear what the concession is, what he's talking about or what's not a concession — what's the command, what's the thing? Basically, you have two options. It could be that Paul is saying this temporary timeout, that's a concession, not a command, or it could be that the whole passage, the idea that marriages should be filled with happy, mutually joyful sex, is a concession and not a command.

There's two possibilities. The correct answer is this temporary timeout is the concession. That's what he's saying. Everything else is direct instruction.

What he's saying here, in that thing in verse 6, he's like, "You know what? Even with all that I've said, this idea, all these qualifiers — limited time, mutual agreement for the purpose of prayer — then get back at it. That's even still against my better judgment."

Even still, I think Satan could use that. So maybe if you do it, follow the rules. But better yet, maybe don't. I'm barely granting this to you out of some reluctant concession, because I think Satan will use even that. So maybe you don't even do that.

Verses two to four, the thrust of this argument is not a concession. It's direct instruction. Have each other. Give to each other. Don't deprive. Graciously, those are all imperatives. They're not concessions. Those are commands.

And that, my friends, is what this text means. That's just straight exegesis — what God has said to us in his word, in 1 Corinthians 7, 1 to 7.

Application

So, having heard that, let's talk for a minute. Okay? What do I do with this? How do I take this?

First thing, my email address is Tim@chsrono.com, okay? You can write me there, love letters, hate mail, or sincere questions about how do I apply this in my particular context. I figured I would just save you this step. So there it is. You just skip quick. Just write me directly. It'll be fine.

Second thing, second thing, what if I don't know the particulars of your painful marriage, your painful trauma, your painful medical condition — because I don't. I absolutely don't. But I do know that life is hard. And for a million reasons and a million different circumstances, life is genuinely difficult.

You may have faced things that make this a very painful passage of Scripture. I get that. I hear that, right? My sermon might put a finger on an open wound and you're like, "Ah, I don't like talking about this." Right? I get it. My life has things that are painful too. There are places where the Word of God speaks into my life and I'm like, "Man, I really don't need that right now."

I get it. I understand. Probably those are the places that I do need to hear it. But I am generally sorry. This could be difficult and I'm sure it is. It's difficult for some of you.

But here's what I have to offer you: the promise that God is good and His purposes are good, and that if you will walk the sometimes painful path of obedience, life will result.

Now it would not be possible and it wouldn't be desirable to suddenly conduct — like live marriage counseling with a hundred couples simultaneously. We can't possibly do that. So I don't intend to do that. But what I do intend to do, what I hope to do, is to spawn a conversation, to invite you to begin to dialogue with one another or continue a conversation with one another.

When you came in this morning, you should have gotten a slip of paper. I forgot to grab mine, but you know what it looks like. It's a piece of paper. I just got a bunch of questions on it. What this is, it's a suggested set of questions that you and your spouse could ask one another in a conversation that perhaps you'll have this afternoon, maybe this evening.

But I would encourage you, don't put it off. I think today could be a great day to start this conversation. But the goal that I would urge each of you to have in this conversation is to listen to understand. That's an incredibly helpful habit.

If each of you will have, as your primary goal, seeking to understand rather than to be understood, I think those conversations will go so much better. So take turns, take turns, and when it is your spouse's turn to answer the questions, when it is your spouse's turn to speak, it's your job to listen, lean in, take notes. Don't defend yourself, don't argue, don't belittle, don't criticize — receive. Listen to understand, seek to know what's important to them. And then trade, take turns. And then the other, the new party, now it's your job to listen to understand.

Make turns, empathize with one another. Now, for some of you, the questions on this sheet will be the right starting point, okay? They're good on-ramp to intimacy, to safety, to joy. For others, though, there might be prior steps. There may be some circumstances that as gentle as I try to make this, it's still too abrupt of a starting point, and you need more help to get started. That's okay. No problem. But do get started.

Some of you have delayed and obfuscated and put off — and if we're being honest, you have intentionally raised the cost of this conversation so that your spouse will just drop it and move on. If so, can I just tell you, this would be a good day to turn from that strategy. There may be real barriers to intimacy in your marriage, but are you actively working to overcome them? Are you urgently working to address the underlying issues? Are you working? Are you willing to have the conversation, extend forgiveness, ask for forgiveness, seek counseling, discover the activities you can enjoy together? Or are you hiding behind the problem, as if your refusal to do the difficult work of healing gives you permission to disobey what God says in his word, in which, by the way, he said because he loves you and because he loves your spouse.

I hope, I really hope this afternoon, this evening, you might get out this sheet and say, "Hey, can we talk about these questions?" I really want to understand your responses to them. Listen to each other, seek to understand each other, and love each other.

Third thing. What if you're single? Okay. So Paul has a whole lot more to say about singlehood in chapter 7, but as I said, we're stopping our series here. I do intend to resume it, and we'll unpack it.

What he offers here, in particular in chapter 7, is a very sophisticated argument, a very complex case that fits in his broader theological perspective. And I'd love to walk through this — I'd like to do that, we will do this, just not today.

Another one of the peculiar things about communication is not only can you not say everything first, but you can't say everything at all, right? You've got to focus on one thing and not do it all. So we'll address it at another time. But Paul's view briefly on singleness is that it is a glorious state and that it's incredibly important because it allows single-minded devotion to Christ. He goes so far as to say, "I wish that all people were as I am."

And he, by the way, people think that Paul is just single. Probably not true. Paul is almost certainly a widower, and he's content to be such. He has been married, he's no longer married, and he's content in his new state in life. I can prove that to you at another time, okay?

He didn't have time for a wife. Paul was on mission, and every moment counted. And Paul is saying, "It would be good for the world if more people that are single embraced the singlehood, were fully devoted to the Lord because it's an honorable state." For crying out loud, Jesus was single, and he did all things well, right? Jesus is the model.

But Paul also admits that some people are single and they don't want to be, right? And to you, he gives full freedom to enter into that relationship and embrace it with joy. It is a good thing. It is a right thing for you to cry out, "God, I want a spouse. Lord, give me a husband, I'm tired of waiting for a wife." And if that's you, I really hope he will meet you in that longing. I am very similar. I hate waiting for anything.

There's a proverb that I memorized a long time ago. This says, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life," and that is absolutely so. And I really do hope that God will grant you deepest longings and bring you into a union with another where there will be, among other things, lots of mutually joyful, happy sex.

I expect that we are going to resume our first Corinthians study, and when we do, we'll kind of dig more into that and unpack this argument that he makes. Not just about singleness, but about whatever estate God has placed us in. Paul has very thoughtful remarks about whatever your circumstance is, and we will unpack that at another time, okay?

Conclusion

And then final thing, you've got a little sermon, you've got this paragraph in the text, and you've got these handful of questions. But my wife and I have read lots of books on marriage and sex. Kelly, in particular, has read tons of things. I'm grateful to her that she has. She would tell you that this is the best book she's ever come across on sex. It's called A Celebration of Sex by Doug Rosenau, and we have given this thing away like a dozen times. It's a fantastic book.

I'm not going to give you one, so just buy your own, okay? But it's a great book, and we encourage you to read it and apply it in your life. Normally this time, you guys, we invite you to come forward, and we always hope that God's word will compel in us a response and that we'll move to him in it.

This morning, I'm not going to do that. And the reason is that if there is some energy of a desire to respond, what I'd rather you do is turn to one another and respond to one another. You're always welcome to come forward. By all means, feel free to come, and if you want to come and meet with the Lord here, that'd be great.

But if you are married, I hope that you will take as the primary application of this passage of Scripture to go home and to ask and answer these questions, to listen to understand, to show great empathy to one another, and to love one another.

I'll pray to that end, and then we'll go to the table.

Lord Jesus, we love being married because it's a picture of the way you love us and the way we ought to respond to you. And I pray for those that are here today where the picture is cracked or it's not been working and there are barriers. Would you graciously help them overcome those barriers so that the most intimate place in their marriage would be increasingly joyful, increasingly self-giving — that perhaps there has been deprivation, but there might be abundance and generosity and love.

We love you. Amen.