Marriage or singleness - What's best? (1 Cor 7:6-7)

But this I say by way of concession, not of command. Yet I wish that all men were even as I myself am. However, each man has his own gift from God, one in this manner, and another in that. (1 Cor 7:6-7)

A concession means that an exception is made to the general rule. An accommodation made necessary by extraordinary circumstances. The rule that the exception is made to is the one we see in verse 2: Each man is to have his own wife and each woman her own husband.

Of course when a single man like Paul says that every man should have his own wife, it’s natural to ask why he doesn’t have one himself. If singleness is not spiritually superior to marriage, then why doesn’t he, as their spiritual father, take a wife.

Paul deals with this question with tremendous wisdom. He says he wishes everybody was like him; single and satisfied living his life in celibacy. But he also recognises that that his ability to be satisfied without a wife is a special gift from the Lord that not everybody has. From his vantage point he sees many advantages to being single. In stead of focusing on a wife and children he is able to devote his life totally and completely to Christ in ways that no married man can do. He is able to travel the world, to dangerous places where Christians are persecuted for Christ’s sake. All his time and energy can be put into proclaiming the Gospel.

It is important for us not to miss the last sentence in verse 7, though. Each man has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that. Like the Corinthians we’re inclined to ask the question “What is best?” The answer is that what is best depends on your calling and gifting.

If you are going to travel like Paul to preach the gospel in places where it’s likely that you and your family will face severe persecution, and in addition God has gifted you in a way that allows you to be satisfied as a single man without facing any great temptations because of it, then it is probably best for you to remain single, in the same way that it was best for Paul to be single.

However, if God has called you to be a husband and a father, or a wife and mother, then it’s probably best for you to marry.

As we go through the rest of this chapter over the next weeks, that will be a reoccurring theme. How you apply this chapter to your life depends on your particular calling and gifting. We don’t get absolute answers. Just the right questions to ask, so that we can find the right answer for ourselves in our unique situations.