1 Corinthians 7:27 – bachelor, engaged, married

You are bound to a wife? Do not seek to be loosed. You have been loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife. Yet if you ever should be marrying, also, you did not sin. And if the virgin should be marrying, she did not sin.

As from verse 25 Paul speaks of the virgins; Those who not (yet) have married. He makes out those who are engaged (“connected to a wife”), and those who are “disconnected of a wife”. Hence, not engaged. It’s surely not about divorce, that subject had already been completed. Moreover, Paul uses in this verse another verb as he used in verse 10-13 (leave).

Paul already put forward that he preferred ‘being unmarried’, if one had this gracious gift (: 7). But though he makes a passionate plea for the unmarried status, he is not rigid. His opinion is not that young people should end their dating or engagement. He says to the young men: “do not seek a wife”. Seeking a wife is or course something else than meeting a wife (or man). But also, then: not everyone is able to be unmarried. And Paul reassures: you don’t fail to achieve your aim (= sin) by a marriage. For also in that GOD can give His rich blessing!

Delen: