We must be careful in reading the Corinthian letters. It is true, Corinth was a church with what seems to be more than its share of problems. Paul lays the blame on their lack of spirituality – the influence of the Spirit in their lives. But I think we must give the Corinthian christians some credit: They may have brought in a lot of worldliness in their evangelism, but at least they were being evangelistic!
The Corinthian letters remind us how fragile, immature, and imperfect the ancient Church was. And yet, Paul addressed them as “saints.”
As we discover in chapter seven, within their fellowship were christians with lots of struggles, and in this chapter, some of them have to do with marriage. People who had never married were wondering if they should get married. There were those who struggled sexually. Some had been married before, but now were widows or widowed. Some were contemplating divorce. All wanted to know how they should regard marriage.
Paul pictures, in chapter seven, marriage standing between purity and promiscuity. Some things are more important than marriage. But nothing is more important than sexual purity, and because sex is such a vital part of humanity, and because sex is only pure within marriage, marriage may be essential to purity.
It’s not enough just to tell people God intends marriage to be life-long. He does, but it isn’t always. When it is not, what’s important? The answer is always purity.
Within the church, there is a lot of brokenness.
First, there are worse things than being unmarried, specifically, being sexually promiscuious. There are worse things than being marrsingle (widowed or divorced), like being sexually promiscuious.lots of different types of people.