As often happens, three completely distinct sources fed me an idea I cannot get out of my head. Track one: I am preparing for a sermon on the passage in I Corinthians where Paul advises unmarried people to stay unmarried and married to stay married. Track two: a student working on an analysis assignment asked if she could challenge the writer's assumption that marriage was all about sex. Track three: a book I am reading for a study group suggests most of us in modern western society have much, much more than we need in many areas.
How can these possibly coincide, you ask. The answer will follow. First, Paul was trying to get believers to see the importance of blooming where they were planted, if I can borrow a cliche. Elsewhere in the same letter, Paul counsels believers not to rashly divorce unbelieving spouses as the believer may positively influence the unbeliever. In another place he says that unmarried people have more time to commit to ministry. More generally, he admitted to the Philippians that he had learned to be content in whatever state he found himself.
I had been thinking of the college-age young people I deal with regularly, and I wondered if they would happily hear Paul's advice to stay single. I wonder if the woman who desperately wants to have children or the young man with naturally raging hormones would consider service to the Master worth the sacrifice. Sex and procreation (or the avoidance thereof) may not be the only thing on young peoples' minds, but it is a big thing, constantly drummed into them by popular media (as if natural urges weren't enough).
For believers, the concepts of sex and marriage are inextricably linked. Sound biblical teaching insists that physical intimacy between a man and woman is appropriate only within the bond of marriage. Secular society has assaulted this exclusivity on two fronts. First, obviously secularists ignore the Bible injunction and promote sexual relationships of all kinds with no restraints. Second, by hammering on the already highly tuned hormonal proclivities of young people, sex is sold as the ultimate product in any relationship. This is false advertising.
While the pleasures of physical intimacy are a beautiful thing when contained within the construct of marriage, those pleasures are the icing on the cake, not the cake. The emotional and spiritual intimacy which ideally accompany the physical pleasures are the cake. Continuing the food metaphor, if I were offered all the flavors of a delicious Thanksgiving feast but deprived of any nourishment, I might consider enjoying the pleasure. However, if every meal I "ate"was similarly empty, I would starve to death.
We are bombarded with the message that sex is everything and made to feel we never have enough so that we are not satisfied with what we have. (That sentence finally conflates the three ideas I started with.) The most important thing we get in marriage is a companion; the Bible calls it a "help mate" in the older translations. It means a complement: a completer. A spouse is the ultimate friend. She knows me best and loves me anyway. Good friends are the same thing, minus the "one flesh" part.
If I were to contemporize Paul's remarks I might say true friends are a true treasure. Don't let the world "squeeze you into its mould" (as Phillips has it) by insisting that friends "with benefits" are the ultimate relationships. And to married believers: cultivate the rich possibilities that exist within the marriage you have. And in every situation or relationship, keep Christ primary. That means submitting everything to the demand of the Great Commission to make disciples. Developing friendships that encourage and strengthen our relationship with God may not be sexy, but the reward lasts beyond the moment, even beyond the season. Like to eternity and beyond.
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