QT 3/11/2025 1 Cor 7:1-7, The danger of sin outside of marriage

1 Corinthians 7:1–7 (ESV) —

1 Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” 2 But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. 3 The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5 Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

6 Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. 7 I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.

 

NOTE: So, it seems abstaining from sexual relations is good and having sexual relations is also good, since after creation, God said everything was good. But God's original classification of good was within the context of marriage. Paul says that there is a temptation to sexual immorality, and so marriage is protection from committing sexual immorality. In our day and age, as well as in ages past, Satan has used the temptation to sexual immorality to corrupt man. What is different now than before, is the ease of sexual sins brought about by technology: television, internet, computer, and smartphone. All sin corrupts and separates us from God in some way. We have the Holy Spirit within us, which is why our body is a temple. Sin grieves the Holy Spirit because it defiles the temple. In the earlier passage, Paul says that sexual sin does something to the body, not just our relationship to God. I think what it does is since sexual immorality is never satisfied, it ruins our good relationships and causes us to seek more and more perverse satisfaction.

 

PONDER:

Do I believe sex outside of marriage is sin? If not, then I am in conflict with God.

 

PRAYER: Father, this is such a dangerous sin. The culture has pretty much defined it as not being sin in order to entrap us. Protect us. Open our eyes. Deliver us.