I haven't been keeping up with the #biblejournal posts lately, but it's not because I'm not reading 1 and 2 Corinthians. In fact, I'm well into the second book now but have just had other stuff to post these past few days.
Again, while not on a schedule per se, I will be posting these journaling journeys throughout the week. And as always, I truly do hope these are a blessing to you as you go through them with me.
Let's dive into Chapter 7 of 1 Corinthians...
The bulk of the first part of this chapter is all about the marriage union. How important is this to God? If you look back to the creation account in Genesis, God created two institutions before sin ever entered into the garden of Eden. There was Sabbath on the seventh day and then...Marriage.
So wives and husbands are a big deal to God, and we see Paul go over quite a bit here. I highlighted verse 4, but if you read this without context, you might get a wee bit upset...
And if you see the highlight that I wrote down about the big picture for me in 1 Corinthians 7 is that, marriage is a team. Wives belong to their husbands, and husbands belong to their wives. But they both belong and are to worship, their Creator.
God made marriage to be the ultimate team sport. Two become one flesh, so this isn't just a title but a lifetime commitment to each other.
Sadly, we see marriage become something of an after thought in today's society and the destruction of traditional marriages and families are truly, the work of Satan.
This chapter is one of the longer ones in this book and it goes over a lot. I did highlight a few more verses that I'll go over...
This verse stuck out to me, mostly because of a study I did a few weeks ago on it. There is a popular thought within Christianity that the commandments of God have been done away with. Here we see the massive deal Paul makes about circumcision both here and other places throughout the New Testament.
If circumcision is something (or nothing) and is mentioned this much....I'd think the commandments that God wrote with His own finger would be a bigger deal if they were abolished. But here we see the clear statement by Paul himself....What matters is keeping the commandments of God.
There's much more detail that confirms this, but this wasn't the big takeaway for me in this chapter.
It still came down to marriage!
And how important it is to God. We aren't to 'control' each other, but to love each other. It's a union between two people but more importantly, it's a promise to God who instituted marriage at the beginning of the world.
I think that's a beautiful thing!