1 Corinthians 7:1-11 | Episode #987

July 22, 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

1 Corinthians 7:1-11

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

If you would like to revisit today’s Bible study, please visit our website at https://hopealive.buzzsprout.com/ to download the transcript. 

If this podcast ministered to you, please subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Reviews help us reach more people and spread the wisdom of God. 

Please follow us:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopealivewithgod/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/hopealiveministry/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LakeComChurch/ -Lake Community Church

Transcript

This is Chad Harrison and you're listening to Hope.

Applying God's word to your daily life.

As we finish Faithful Finance, we want to produce our winter Bible study done at Lake Community Church on First Corinthians.

It'll be a fairly long Bible study.

We will break it up into different parts and so you will get a really good, really fast study through the book of First Corinthians before we move on to the book of Joshua.

Is,

is. Is Paul actually.

He's answering a question, and that's what it starts out with. He says, now, concerning the things of which you wrote me. Wrote to me. What he's saying is, I'm fixing to answer a question y' all wrote me about.

I'm fixing to give you an answer to a.

That is.

That is important now. He says, and, and remember, we've been dealing with lust of the flesh and, and some of the struggles of the fleshly desires. We've been deal dealing with that pretty heavy.

And the Corinthian church really had that struggle. And so when, when you're talking about that, when you're working your way through that,

it's important to, to understand the context that we get. Seven with chapter seven, he says it is good for a man not to touch a woman.

What he's saying is, is if you don't indulge the sexual desires, the sexual desires that are innate to the human body and innate to.

Into the human nature, if you don't indulge those things,

you're probably better off. Now, we all know who. Who we. And we all know who we are.

If you didn't have it,

you probably would be better off. You might even be a lot more happy he didn't have the desire,

the sexual instinct.

We probably would be.

We probably would be better off.

And that's what Paul says. He says it'd be good if you didn't touch a woman.

Nevertheless,

because of sexual immorality, meaning because there is a right forum for sexual relationships. And what is that? That's the confinement between a and a woman in the holy union of marriage.

Marriage being an eternal contract,

a contract that is made between a man and a woman. And it is a covenant contract,

which means that it's based off of something that is much deeper than just the flesh.

And that covenant contract between a man and a woman has an eternal nature to it.

And so there is a right way,

there's a right way to express your sexual desires. And that was. Is within the confines of that relationship. The confines of a relationship between an adult male and an adult female.

Now I say that because there's all kinds of deviations from that, okay? There's all kinds of variations from that and any variation from that context.

The Bible quite clearly indicates, not only here in this book, not only in the book of Romans, not only in multiple books in the Old Testament,

not only in just this epistle, but a couple of other epistles that deal with sexual immorality outside the confines of those,

this relationship,

sexual indulgence, indulging yourself into sexual,

into sexual desires is wrong.

There's just no way to get around it. It's wrong for me, it's wrong for you, it's wrong for anyone, okay?

And if you say you were born,

born a certain way, you were, you were born with sexual desires and we all were,

and you may,

you may have a desire to express those in different ways, and we all do. I will say this. I don't know of any, any person who does not.

I don't know of anybody who does not have sexual desires that will deviate from the right path.

We all do,

okay? Just because you have that and just because,

just because it seems so strong in your life doesn't mean that it's right,

okay? And doesn't mean that it's God's plan or God's way,

okay?

If, if I see a good looking woman and I, I think she's really good looking and I begin to think about sexual things with her,

if I don't touch her, that still doesn't alleviate me from the problem. I indulged it in my mind.

And Paul says it'd be better off that you not indulge it at all.

But because of sexual immorality,

let each man have his own wife. Meaning notice one man, one woman, okay? Let each man have his own singular wife.

And let each woman have her own singular husband,

okay?

So multiple partners in a relationship is not right either,

okay? He's saying,

all right, if we're going to do this, if we're going to have sexual desires and we're going to indulge those sexual desires because they were given to us for a reason and that's to propagate the species and,

and bring about godly offspring. If we're going to do that, we need to do it in the context of the biblical model, which is one man and one woman, a husband and a wife.

Let the husband river render to the wife the affections do her and likewise also wives to her husband. Now what he's saying is, is if you're going to get married and you're going to enter into this sexual union.

You don't need to be withholding the sexual needs of your spouse.

I mean, that's really what he says there.

And it's kind of right there in open, isn't it?

Let the husband render to the wife affections, do her and likewise also the wife to her husband.

You need to be sexually affectionate with each other if you're married. Listen to me. You need to be sexually affectionate with each other. Now there's, you know, sickness and illness and, and issues that happen in.

Especially the older we get and life goes on and it makes you not as, you know, amorous toward other in a sexual sense.

That happens, that goes on the older you get. The, you know, I mean, it's not as much. It's still there.

It's just not as crazy as it was when you were 17.

I mean, 17. I mean,

I don't know if I could live through 17 again, you know, it's just. You can't.

It at least God get. Lets it ease off. I remember my grandfather talking about that. He says, it eases off, son. Don't worry about it. And he was right.

But when you're married, you need to. You need to meet each other's needs for sexual fulfillment, sexual union. You do.

The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does.

Oh, that's sexist.

No, no. He says, and likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. I want you to notice, you know, many people say that, you know, the Bible is, is.

Is chauvinistic word. It's a chauvinistic writing. It's a chauvinistic book. It's not what he's saying here.

It's quite obvious he's not.

Jesus was a rabbi for his. For the ages.

Most rabbis never taught women. Jesus did most,

most writings at this time period treated women as if they were property. Notice,

he says, when you're a husband and a wife,

you don't. You don't own your own body.

You don't.

It's yours and your wife's. You're one flesh.

And your wife doesn't own her body. It's your body too. Y' all both are each other's.

And let me tell you something, that's how it's made to be. If we're going to be one flesh, we need to be holy. One flesh.

He says. He says, do not deprive one another except with consent for A time that you may give yourselves to fasting, prayer, say, well, now, if you're not gonna, if you're gonna, if you're gonna,

you're gonna hold each other out. If you're gonna,

if you're gonna become abstinent with each other for a season for prayer and fasting, he says, that's okay, but otherwise don't be abstinent.

He says, if you're married,

abstinence out. He already said it's good for you not to touch a woman. In verse one, he said, if you're gonna be abstinent, that's fine,

be abstinent. But if you're, if you're, if you're going to get married, you can't be abstinent anymore. Can't be married and abstinent,

he says, But I say this,

he says, and come together again. So Satan does not tempt you because your lack of self control.

What he's saying is, is if you're indulging each other sexually because you're married, he says, you can't, you can't be separate for too long because you're giving Satan an open door.

But I say this as a concession, not as a commandment. For I wish that all men were even as myself. Now, Paul was celibate and he,

he was unmarried, all right? And a lot of people want to attribute the, you know, all kinds of other sexual sin to him because of that and that he had sexual desires that were wrong.

I will say this about the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul, I'm almost.

Well, I am 100% sure that he had sexual desires that were not godly because every human being I know has them.

Everyone I know has them.

But just because he decided to be celibate and not take a wife does not mean that he was indulging in sexual desires, either proper or improper.

He was not. He's saying, I wish that all men were even as myself. But each one has his own gift from God. What he's saying is celibacy,

or the ability to be celibate, it's actually a gift from God.

And there are people who do not need to be married. They don't want to be married, they don't have a desire to be married.

It just is not a part of who they are. I have known several people that way.

Okay.

You know, really, to tell you the truth, they probably are more blessed than any of the rest of us. They really are. They don't have those needs and desires, and oftentimes they're great Servants of God.

And they do great things and they don't, they don't have anything else holding them back from it. That's what Paul's saying here. He's saying, you know, I don't have anything holding me back and I wish you would all do it.

And it's a gift that God has given me, but if you don't have it, then you need to do it the right way.

Makes sense. Makes a lot of sense,

he says, but each one is his own gift from God. One in this manner and another in that.

He says, we all got gifts in different manners. But I say to the unmarried and to the widows, and it is good for them that they remain even as I am.

But if they cannot exercise self control,

let them marry. Meaning God has given us a proper conduit, avenue, a proper context for sexual relation, and that is marriage.

For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. It is better to get married than to burn.

And he's saying if you've got the passion, if you have sexual desires, strong sexual desires, you need to,

you need to, to relieve those desires in the context of marriage.

Wow, that's just pretty much straightforward, isn't it? It is and it's true.

And it doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter.

What the world says is the proper context. Remember,

God gives us the proper context. And the proper context is scriptural. And this on the money.

And that proper conte.

Sexual relations is the context of a marriage between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife.

Now to the married I command. Now he's going to get into marriage here,

yet not I, but the Lord. Now he's saying, I'm telling you this is from God.

A wife is to not depart from her husband.

But even if she does depart,

let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband.

As a husband is not to divorce his wife.

Okay, now during this time period there was,

there were a lot of cultures, especially the Greek culture, where a woman couldn't divorce her husband. Okay?

So that's why he's saying she shouldn't run away from him.

And he's saying, he's also saying that her husband shouldn't divorce him. God hates divorce. Bible clearly teaches us that. Okay, now remember, he doesn't hate divorcees. He hates the idea of divorce.

And why? Because you've got this super close,

super personal,

super intimate relationship that is destroyed. And God's in the business of relationships. He really is.

And when a relationship of marriage is destroyed,

it is a,

it is a Destruction of the holiness of God. It's a, it's an affront to his holiness.

And it is. And what I mean by that. Well, he,

He. He even describes our relationship with Jesus as we're the bride and he's the bridegroom.

And so when you have that relationship,

he doesn't want that relationship to be marred in the world by, by divorce or by a woman leaving her husband.

All right, now, are there reasons why a woman might leave her husband that would be okay?

Yeah. You know, if there's, if there's physical abuse,

if there's sexual immorality that maybe he's involved in with a bunch of other women, that's putting her in a dangerous position.

There are reasons not to be together in the context of a, a fully functioning whole sexual relationship. There is.

And he says,

he says a wife is not to depart from her husband,

but if she does depart,

let her remain unmarried. What he's saying is do everything you can to reconcile the relationship and fix each other.

Do that. Do everything you can to do that. But if you can't.

And the husband. And, and he's definitely saying this about the husband.

He says, but if the husband,

you know, can't act right and she's got to get away from him because he's, you know, he's going to kill her.

He says, don't get remarried,

but take every opportunity to see if you can reach some reconciliation. Allow God to change that person's heart. Now, remember, we're talking about believers here. And, and he's going to deal with that.

We're talking about two believers. If we got two believers, they need to learn to work it, work. They need to work this out. And the husband's got a problem that's causing the wife to have to get away.

Then, then, then he needs to get that fixed. And you need to give him the every, every chance to get that fixed.

Now then he says about husbands, don't divorce your wives.

Don't divorce them.

What he's saying is divorce. Leave them, Leave them be as you go today. I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.