1 Corinthians 7:12-16

This passage came up in Sunday School this morning. I accepted the assignment of putting together a discussion on this passage for next Sudnay. I know what I think I want to say, but I would appreciate getting some ideas from ya'll.

Especially v.14 -- what does it mean that an unbelieving spouse is sanctified through the believing spouse?

Also -- in v.15 where it says that if an unbelieving spouse leaves, we are to let them. Does this include divorce? Thoughts, ya'll!?!?!?!

Darrell H Combs

-- Anonymous, February 13, 2000

Answers

IMHO we are not to be unevenly yoked together with unbelievers, and a divorce in such a case would be an "unyoking." However I think it is clear that the unbeliever must be the initiator in this case, that as Christians we are to strive as far as possible to maintain the union.

-- Anonymous, February 13, 2000

Bound - douloo (doo-lo'-o); to enslave (literally or figuratively): bring into (be under) bondage, become (make) servant.

1 Cor 7:15 But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace.

Darrell, seems that the same word "bound" is used in verse 39. Seems to me that it means that if the unbelieving spouse leaves, the believing spouse is absolutely no longer bound to the marriage and is also free to marry.?.

1 Cor 7:39 A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord.

Can we add this to your list of questions Darrell? What does this mean... 1 Cor 7:14 ...Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

-- Anonymous, February 14, 2000

D. Lee, thanks for backing me up with some good exposition. =)

-- Anonymous, February 15, 2000

I found this in "John Gill's Exposition of the Bible." It sounded very reasonable to me. The writer tried to make sense of the passage from the viewpoint of Jewish thought (always a good place to start imho!). After noting that in the Misnic, Talmudic, and Rabbinic writings, the word "sanctified" in this context almost always carries the connotation of legal espousal, he continues:

"... the true sense and even the right rendering of the passage is this: "for the unbelieving husband is espoused to the wife, and the unbelieving wife is espoused to the husband"; they are duly, rightly, and legally espoused to each other; and therefore ought not, notwithstanding their different sentiments of religion, to separate from one another; otherwise, if this is not the case, if they are not truly married to one another, this consequence must necessarily follow; that the children born in such a state of cohabitation, where the marriage is not valid, must be spurious, and not legitimate, and which is the sense of the following words:

else were your children unclean, but now are they holy;

"that is, if the marriage contracted between them in their state of infidelity was not valid, and, since the conversion of one of them, can never be thought to be good; then the children begotten and born, either when both were infidels, or since one of them was converted, must be unlawfully begotten, be base born, and not a genuine legitimate offspring; and departure upon such a foot would be declaring to all the world that their children were illegitimate; which would have been a sad case indeed, and contains in it another reason why they ought to keep together; whereas, as the apostle has put it, the children are holy in the same sense as their parents are; that as they are sanctified, or lawfully espoused together, so the children born of them were in a civil and legal sense holy, that is, legitimate; wherefore to support the validity of their marriage, and for the credit of their children, it was absolutely necessary they should abide with one another."

-- Anonymous, February 15, 2000