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May 31, 2022 4:00 am
Growing up probably expected that one day we'd be married forward to it. But actually, marriage is not for everyone. The apostle Paul identifies some clear benefits of being single today on Truth for Life. Alistair Begg begins a series on marriage called, we too are one. He begins by talking about singleness were in first Corinthians chapter 7 verses 25 through choices that any of us ever make in life, there can be little question that right up there among the top two or three is the whole decision as to whether we should marry and if we decide that we should who we ought to marry is hardly surprising therefore that when Paul begins to address as he has done in chapter 5 the whole issue of human sexuality and on into chapter 6 that by the time he comes to the seventh chapter he devotes a whole chapter to this most pressing of issues to this state in life that is capable of the deepest sorrows. If it goes wrong and is capable of the greatest joys when it is gone right it's an intensely practical issue whether one is single and is able to live with the joy of singleness and whether one is married and is able to enter into all the benefits of marriage. Now, as I've gone through chapter 7 I confess to you that I haven't found in the easiest of chapters to study, but I do want you to know that I have been going through it. I've been constantly searching to try and get a hold of what would be that the central issue in the chapter that provides the key that opens up the totality of the instruction was an old song by Melanie.
This would be a grandmother by now that she is yeah a song called I've got a brand-new pair rollerskates that you know you got a brand-new pair rollerskates.
I got a brand-new key and the way I've been going through this chapter 7.
I felt like I had a rollerskates, but I still didn't have a key, but I want to suggest to you that tonight as never before in our studies in first Corinthians.
I'm beginning to understand. It is vitally important that we get to the heart of what Paul is saying and so what will do tonight is will consider. First of all, the context of the instruction in a way that we haven't done before and then the concern which he communicates in the instruction and then actually the content of the instruction as it relates specifically to this issue up to marry or not to marry. First of all, then let us look at the context of his teaching. We have noted before, as we began the book of first Corinthians that the broader geographical, historical, sociological frameworks, in which Paul was writing the religious factors which were present at the time and that is not my concern. We have already sketched in that and if we forgotten it. Then we can go back and we listen to it and think it through again when I speak of context now I'm speaking with in the context itself of the seventh chapter and the specific issues which I believe help to explain the nature and the emphasis of Paul's instruction.
I think that contained right in this chapter are one or two phrases contextually, which explain why he says these things about singleness, which are perhaps strange to our ears and why he says these things about marriage, which are perhaps difficult for us to wrestle with their three statements.
In particular, which I think shed light on the matter first statement comes in verse 26, where he roof errors to the present crisis. The present crisis so we notice first of all, in discovering the context of business is instruction that there was a crisis. Now the word which is used here is a strong word. It is the word in Greek Anan K, which means I distress a calamity of violent difficult circumstance. It is the exact same word which Jesus uses when he speaks about what will be the characteristics towards the end of the age and Luke records and photos in verse 23 Jesus says how dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers. There will be great distress in the land Magalie K magna distress mega crisis is where we get our megaphone is a Greek word is for those teenagers who use mega every so often, but nevertheless, Jesus said it would be a mega crisis and Paul here says there is a present, dreadful, distressing, calamitous situation. Now what is he mean while we don't know because he didn't tell us we must know the people who received the letter initially understood because he would never have written about a crisis without giving explanation to it for his initial readers and therefore was clear to them and unimportant ultimately for rise in the sense that if it had been of essential information. The Holy Spirit would've communicated it to.
It's not that does not mean that we should simply say what we don't know. Therefore, let's forget it because we are being given brains to use and we have been encouraged to think about issues and so as you think about what he's resetting to hear it will be helpful to remind yourself that 15 years after he wrote the book of Corinthians.
Jerusalem was destroyed Jerusalem became virtually a ruin, and Paul himself had been the recipient of some of the most brutal persecution as he been treated in the various cities. Is he going around proclaiming the gospel, and it may well be that somewhere in the spirit of Paul. There is just this notion of impending doom.
There is this sense that things are going from bad to worse.
He knows it in his own expedience after always being beaten up and thrown out of cities all over the VM Mediterranean coastline and he perhaps senses that he has been expedience saying what others will also encounter as things continue to degenerate, and certainly the fury and the insanity of persecution which was unleashed under Nero, which happen very soon after Paul was writing this may well have been in his mind when he says there is a present crisis very hard for us even to read of these events and to realize it was true. As we said in the comfort of an evening like this, but Nero was a brute Nero was a bad man Nero to Christians and have them stolen in animal skins and then had the animals skins with the bodies inside the malign bodies of Christians inside have them thrown to the lions in the lion smelling the animal content would open the skins and then proceeded to rip apart the bodies of those who followed after Christ's that happened within a relatively short time. Indeed, the hourly historical records remind us of the fight at Corinth provided one of the early Christian martyrs. A man by the name of arrestor. Sue is mentioned in Romans 16 and in Fox's book of Christian martyrs arrest. This is one of the first people to die under cruel persecution. Now you say, well perhaps that is right, and perhaps it is right. Surely there is a sense in which this crisis extends far beyond that, while it certainly does.
Because there is one element of our thinking, which is accurate when we say that this crisis to which it affairs covers the whole state of affairs between the first coming of Jesus and the second coming of Jesus. There is a sense in which the whole church lives in crisis mode that we recognize that when Jesus came and intervened in our time, space Shall revolutionize things. As a result of his death and resurrection, and pointed forward to the fact that he would make a reentry that in the interim, the Christian lives in crisis. Now the fact of the matter is that he provides absolutely no details but nevertheless it is important for us to realize that the things that he says about whether you should get married or whether you shouldn't get married or whether singleness seems like a good idea. He says within a context and part of the context is that it is if you like a war zone knife you think about that for just a minute. I don't want to run ahead of myself. Imagine that you're sending your boy out to war. He's dating a girl do you advise them to marry before he leaves or not.
After all that is on more than even chance that he will not return from the crisis to which he goes. Therefore, because of the crisis singleness may be a far better option.
And then that kind of way. Paul is thinking as he writes the second phrase to provide context for as is in verse 29.
If you notice it, he says, is in an explanatory way. What I mean brothers is that the time is short.
Or as JB Phillips paraphrases it all our futures are so foreshortened, what is either a fair is he simply referring to the fact that life is brief that James is accurate when he says that our lives are like a vapor like the morning mist. It's here and it's gone. Or as Peter writes that all flesh is like grass and the glory like the flower of the field. It may be that that's what he's resetting to bribes. John Calvin is correct in suggesting that what Paul refers to is the impending approach of death, although it seems unlikely insofar as the instruction which he gives doesn't seem to suggest that they're going to die immediately. That's why he's giving them advice about how they ought to live. Although, who am I to cross question Calvin's ability to expound the text. Perhaps when he says the time is short.
It is a reference to the imminence of the return of Jesus Christ.
Because Paul certainly use the fact of the return of Jesus as an inspiration to those to whom he wrote nowhere more clearly than when he wrote to the Thessalonians, and also the Philippians he urge them to blameless conduct and to zealous evangelism.
Once again the phrase is the time is short presumably was understood by the Corinthians, but Verizon is merely conjecture. The word which he uses here for time is the word Kyra Ross is the same word that he uses in Ephesians 5 where he urges the believers there to make the most of every opportunity make the most of these Kairos moments sees the D what he is suggesting here is that because the time is short. The way we make decisions is influenced by that timeframe. I think about that we do that all the time. So Mrs. what would you like to do such and such and we take our watches and we look at them and one of our questions is how much time do I have so time becomes a factor in many of our decisions. Time is a factor in the decision as to marriage and singleness as Paul there is a crisis and that should influence us. There is a brevity about what's going on and that must influence us to Michael Greene the New Testament scholar, explains this phrase by paraphrasing these are his words, God's time has been foretold, foretold, like a sale. The Lord has come in the midpoint of time in the cross and the resurrection, and we live in between that far old time and the second coming. We do not know how much wind is going to be opening that sale. But we do know that we are in fertile seal time FST as opposed to GMT or ESD or whatever else it is we are living in far old sale time and Paul is acutely aware of that and it influences his instruction.
The third phrase which provides context for us is in verse 31 is the final sentence of verse 31, in which he says this world in its present form is passing away. The scheme of things. A word in Greek is schema which means scheme or fashion or form or manner of life for mode of existence. This, as Paul is fading out the world's resources and its opportunities are on the way now.
Loved ones do you want to be a biblical Christian, yes, then you must submit to what the Bible says about our world, there will be a new heaven and a new era. Therefore, those who misuse and abuse are planetary are in the wrong because God has given to us and we are his stewards. Therefore, it is wrong to abuse it. Those who are tempted to hold onto planet air as if this was all that we have are also in the wrong because this world in its present form is passing away. John the apostle writing in first John chapter 2 makes the statement with great clarity.
Let me read it for you.
One John 250 do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him for everything in the world. The cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does comes not from the father but from the world. Now here's the key verse 17 the world and its desires pass away, the world scheme, its fashions, its plans, its ambitions, it is this integrated this world is on the way out. That's what he say the temporal scheme of things are tying space environment will explode and disintegrate there for eternity is a more pressing consideration than the affairs of time. Therefore, when we introduce eternity into the affairs of time and specifically into the issues of marriage or singleness, and we allow eternity to provide the jurisdiction as to the way we deal with the crisis.
Deal with a brevity and deal with a world which is fading out must revolutionize everything and you see that is why I think many of us have been wrestling with this instruction because we been using the wrong context. We've been reading first Corinthians 7 from such a vantage point of family values and family is everything in family is this and my wife is that my singleness is my major preoccupation on what we been missing. Are these contextual keys. There is a crisis. The time is short and the world is on the way there is nothing ultimately stable or solid about our world. It's a facet the molecular structure of our world can be reduced to nothing you could take the Matterhorn in making the size of an armchair and moments you couldn't got terms of all that proton electron Jasmine, about which I know very little. Our world is like a Hollywood set. It has a front doesn't have a back and it is going to be folded up and put away.
It's like going to a plea and when the curtain falls everyone in the previously held our gaze as we said in the audience is immediately swept away from our site and we have no control to open the curtain again.
It is gone now.
I've taken time on this deliberately and I'm trying as best I can.
Not to apply it over with difficulty.
What I want you just to begin to note is the connection between his advice on staying single or getting married and living married in relationship to the crisis. Verse 26 the short time. Verse 29 and the passing world. Verse 31. That's the context know what is the concern of his teaching. If you had a chance to sit with Paul by himself in your family room and he said Paul first Corinthians chapter that you wrote is your what was the concern of your heart.
This is what he say did you read the chapter we said yes. So will you find it right there in the chapter, let's look at it together again, and he would open up first Corinthian savages and we both sit and look at it and this is what he would say my concern in writing. First Corinthians 7 was for your protection for your provision and for your devotion. First of all the protection that he longs for in their life's notice verse 35 I am saying this, he says, for your own good and not to restrict you now to verify the points that I is an indication of the Vita. Many people would probably begin to think that that is exactly what he's trying to do know know.
He says my concern is that I want to protect you. I want to protect you from the trouble that you might face because there is a lot of trouble. He says wrapped up in this marriage thing. The word which he uses the word… Which means tribulation or pressure or affliction.
Verse 28. Those who marry will face many troubles in this life. I want to spare you this so you're married and is cool right but there's a lot of trouble involved.
There's a lot of concern involved in being married if you're single tonight you're going home to talk about what what is like for you to go on. I'm just gonna tell you're going home.
If you want to go to Dunkin' Donuts that your choice if you want to spare to 1 o'clock in the morning. That is your choice as well. If you want to read the whole of the plain dealer do whatever you choose to do and when you go home you will be on your own. But guess what you have no one to answer to. If you happen to be the father of four, number one, you better go home because your wife is looking for you if you stop to Dunkin' Donuts you better take at least a dozen home then you're going to have to adjudicate over who gets the chocolates and who gets the glazed and go through all that hassle. They have to be involved in the disciplinary procedures over those who took more than they should initial goes on and on and on lesson. Single folks from where I stand. It doesn't look that bad to me. It doesn't look that bad in Paul's concern in telling them say, listen, there's a lot of trouble if you get married. There's a lot of distractions there's a lot of divisions there's a lot of stuff I mean you go to a restaurant as a single person, you got enough money in your pocket to pay for one. Okay, you may want to pay for two but I go, I have enough money to pay for five and had to be concerned about why three of the five didn't really like one what we chose never to be ticked off about that in trouble and concerned and discussion.
Whatever might be.
So he is writing he says I want you to know that when I see these things I've made clear my context. He says now my concern is that you might be protected protected from trouble and protected from distraction and protected from concerns not because of the pragmatics that I'm suggesting to you so that you can be a happy single but as we are about to see, so that you can give your undivided attention to the Lord and to his kingdom. But what I'm mentioning is just a little byproduct is so number one there is protection number two there is provision like a good Shepherd. He is seeking not only to protect them from harm, but also seeking to benefit from the third matter is that they would be men and women of devotion in a time of crisis. In a time that short in a world that is passing away my great concern for you.
He says, is that you would sell out for Jesus Christ. Now when we begin to understand. You see this context and this concern then it begins to make sense how he longs to see men and women given over to the service of God and without any distraction.
There are some real advantages to being single when you're trying to live a life of study devotion in a world that is in crisis listing to Truth for Life. Alistair Begg with part one of a message titled to marry or not to marry up today is the last day that we are offering a book called mirror evangelism and insights from CS Lewis to help you share your faith. This is an excellent book that will help you overcome any fears you might have about sharing the gospel. CS Lewis was a well-known writer and a gifted evangelist who was used by God in the conversion of many people including the author of this book you will learn from some of his most effective methods so that you can become more confident introducing others to Jesus.
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Just like Alister Sherman, all of them are free to share your five most recent articles Truth for Life.org/article about Lapine. Thanks for listening. Tomorrow will discover how an internal perspective will change our view of everything including our culture sessions are happiness, even death. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life learning is