Sermon Tone Analysis

| *Reasons for Remaining Single **(1 Cor.

**7:25**–40)**Maranatha** **Baptist** **Church**.

**Sunday January 15, 2006**.

**10 am**.**This

week* you may have seen the *story of Maria Headley*.

Like many people, playwright *Maria Headley* had *had her fill of terrible dates*.

*Discouraged* and *looking for love*, she *decided* the time had come for her to *eliminate her own* (clearly not adequately discriminating) *taste from the equation*.

Instead -- as *she vowed* to her roommates one frustrated morning -- she would *date every person who asked her out for an entire year*, *regardless of circumstances*.

It would be her Year of Yes.Over the next 12 months, Maria *ended up dating most of NYC*: *a homeless guy* who thought he was Jimi Hendrix, *a subway conductor*, *a mommy-obsessed millionaire*, *a woman* who asked her to have her baby, a *70-year-old salsa dancer, a Colombian Cowboy~/Handyman*, *Her high school nemesis*, whom she’d spent seven years rejecting, and *THE MIME*: A man in the Marceau Mold who *proposed with hand gestures* and more.

In Her words, the Year of Yes is the story of how one woman *went looking for* a *new kind of love...*and *found* *a new kind of life*.

The people in *Corinth* had some interesting ideas about *being single* as well.

*Written* *from Ephesus* during the Apostle *Paul’s third missionary journey from 53-57 AD*,  1 Corinthians 7 commences the second part or division of this Epistle, or, “the discussion of those points which had been *submitted to the apostle in a letter* from the church at Corinth, for his instruction and advice.

A *strategic commercial center*, *Corinth* was *one of the largest cities* in the Roman world and *one of the most corrupt* (Acts 18:1).

Full of *false teachers*, *immature believers* and people of all kind of ideas, the Christians in Corinth got into a lot of difficult situations considering Marriage and singleness.Not much is different *today.*

Everyone seems to have an *opinion on marriage and singleness*.

The discussion from *friends and family*, the *talk shows and tabloids*, the efforts in *single bars* to  *books *in secular bookstores seem endless, and *being single* is almost *regarded as being odd* and a *problem to be rectified*.

*Weather we are single or married*, *how we view the single affects* our parenting, mentoring, friendships, but most importantly the role that single people have in God’s kingdom.

Is Singleness a *problem* we *do our best to solve for people *or is it an *opportunity* for a special group of people to *serve* *in God’s kingdom in a unique way*?   |   |

Continuing to answer the questions about which the Corinthians had written him (7:1), *Paul gives six reasons for remaining single:* *(1) the pressure of the system (vv.

25–27); (2) the problems of the flesh (v. 28); (3) the passing of the world (vv.

29–31); (4) the preoccupations of marriage (32–35); (5) the promises of bethrothed (vv.

36–38); and (6) the permanency of marriage (vv.

39–40).*

*1) The Pressure of the System** **(**7:25**–27**)*

*The principle* here is *that it is good … to remain as* [one] *is*, and those in view are *virgins*, including *both women and men* (*a man*).

Again (cf.v.

12) Paul points out that *Jesus* *gave no direct teaching on the goodness of singleness *(*I have no command of the Lord*), *although He alludes to it* in Matt.

19:12.

Yet the apostle’s teaching is *no less divine and authoritative*.

·        Is Paul just *shooting from the hip* here, with *not real guidance?*

*Opinion* (/gnōmē/) *can carry the ideas of “judgment, consideration, and conviction*.”

As an apostle *who by the Lord’s mercy is  trustworthy*, Paul’s conviction was that it is better for single Christians to remain single, if they have the gift from God.

But although this perspective is authoritative, it is not given as an absolute or as a command.

*It is an authoritative guideline*, thoroughly dependable advice, and is twice stated in verse 26 to be *good*.

Paul and the Lord are saying that *singleness makes good sense.*

*Please turn to 1 Tim.

4*

*The first reason Paul gives for remaining single* is *the pressure of the system*, the *world situation of that day*, that he called *the present distress*.

/Anankē/ (*distress*) means “a stress, calamity,” or sometimes “the means of calamity” (such as torture or violence).

Some suggest that the reference is to the violent *conflict between the new creation in Christ and the old cosmos, the world system*.

When a person becomes a Christian he immediately gets into some degree *of conflict with the ungodly system around him.*

·        *Should we avoid the institution of marriage altogether then?

Is it an out of date concept?

Since we may die at any moment and marriage is just for this earth why no just do away with it?*

* *

*1Ti 4:1*  Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 1Ti 4:2  through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, 1Ti 4:3  who *forbid marriage* *and require abstinence* from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

1Ti 4:4  For *everything created by God is good*, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.

Some *Gnostics* argued that since the *material world was evil*, the spiritual individual should avoid it.

*Many now* seem to claim a *secret knowledge* likewise, and proclaim the *uselessness of marriage* and have *abandoned or redefined the concept*.

Mention of *the present* distress, however, *may also indicate* that Paul had a more *specific and severe type of conflict in mind*.

Countless Christians had been *arrested, beaten, imprisoned, and even killed because of the gospe*l.

Jesus had warned the disciples that they would be made “outcasts from the synagogue,” and that

Joh 16:1  "I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away.

Joh 16:2  They will put you out of the synagogues.

Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will *think he is offering service to God.*

Paul seemed to sense the coming terrible Roman persecutions, the first of which would begin under *Nero* some *ten years after Paul wrote 1 Corinthians*.

That emperor *refined torture to a diabolical art*, and *his name became synonymous with sadistic cruelty.*

·        He had Christians *sewn up in animal skins* and *thrown before wild dogs* to be torn apart and eaten.

·        Other believers were *dressed in clothes soaked in wax, tied to trees*, and *set on fire into become human candles for his garden.*

*Family has often been used as a leaver in persecution*

·        *Firearms in German and Children.*

*Corinth** itself* would furnish *one of the early Christian martyrs*.

According to Foxe’s /Book of Martyrs,/ *Erastus, the treasurer of that city* (Rom.

16:23) and probably a convert of Paul’s, *was martyred*.

Persecution is difficult enough for a single person, but the problems and pain are multiplied for one who is married.

*If Paul had been married*, his *suffering would have been magnified* by *his worry about his family* and *knowledge of their worry about him.*

*They would have suffered every time he was beaten or stoned or imprisoned* and would have been *constantly fearful for his life*.

·        Who would have *taken care of them* in his absence?

Who would have *taught his children* and *comforted his wife*?

*Those who are already married*, however, must *not seek to be free*.

*Marriage* is *a lifelong bond* that can *be broken only by death, adultery, or divorce by an unbelieving spouse.*

Other problems, no matter how severe, are never grounds for divorce.

*For those who have the gift of singleness*, therefore, it is *much wiser to remain* *single.*

*Are you free from a wife?

Do not seek a wife*.

“*Cherish your singleness as a blessing from God*,” Paul is saying.

“*Take advantage of its many advantages*.”

God still gives the gift of singleness to some of His children.

And many *signs* point to *times of increasing conflict* and even persecution for Christians in our world.

In *Matthew 24* Jesus vividly pictured *the turmoil and terror of the end times*.

It would be *characterized by wars, apostasy, persecution, false prophets, and universal tribulation*.

*We can already see* *overpopulation, pollution, rampant crime and immorality, false prophets and cults, apostasy, and increased threat of global war.*

The turn of the century could produce widespread warfare, civil strife, revolution, famine, disease, persecution, despotism, natural disasters, and economic stagnation and depression.

1) The Pressure of the System* *(7:25–27)

*2) The Problems of the Flesh** **(**7:28**)*

Paul again makes it clear that it *is not a sin for single believers to get married,* *as long as it is to another believer* (v. 39; cf. 2 Cor.

6:14).

Even those with the gift of singleness do not sin if they get married.

So *if you do marry*, for whatever reason, *you have not sinned*.

The point is that *marriage is a legitimate option*, but it is good to consider first the option of singleness.

*Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that*.

*The apostle is giving practical advice, not* *a moral or spiritual command*.

*Believers* are *still sinful* and *subject to* *limitations and weaknesses of the flesh*.

It is hard enough for a sinner to live with himself, let alone with another sinner.

*When two people are bound together in marriage* the problems of human nature are multiplied.

*Close living* *allows us to see our partner’s faults more clearly*.

and *vice versa*.

*Children of Christian parents* are born *sinful just as is every child*, and they do not become sinless when they are saved.

They will have some measure of conflict with each other and with their parents.

It is not that marriage is not rewarding, or that family life is uninterrupted trouble.

*A loving, devoted, spiritual family* not only is *a great joy* and strength to its members but also strengthens and *blesses those around it*. Paul is simply pointing out that marriage may cause some problems while it solves others.

It is *not intended* by God *to resolve all personal, emotional, or spiritual difficulties*.

*It definitely intensifies* some of them.

*Trouble* (/thlipsis/) literally means *EXTERNAL* SITUATIONS where one is  *“pressed together*, or *under pressure*.”

*Marriage presses two people together in the closest possible ways*.