Sermon Tone Analysis

A husband and wife went for counselling after 20 years of marriage.

When asked, by the male counsellor, what the problem was, the wife went into a passionate, painful tirade listing every problem they had ever had in the 20 years they had been married.

She went on and on and on: neglect, lack of intimacy, emptiness, loneliness, feeling unloved and unlovable, an entire laundry list of unmet needs she had endured over the course of their marriage.

Finally, after allowing this to go on for a sufficient length of time, the counsellor got up, walked around the desk and, after asking the wife to stand, embraced and kissed her passionately as her husband watched with a raised eyebrow.

The woman shut up and quietly sat down as though in a daze.

The counsellor turned to the husband and said, "This is what your wife needs at least three times a week.

Can you do this?"

The husband thought for a moment and replied, "Well, I can drop her off here on Mondays and Wednesdays, but on Fridays, I play Golf."

Marriage and Singleness

Date: 10-11-19 845 Echuca

A husband and wife went for counselling after 20 years of marriage.

When asked, by the male counsellor, what the problem was, the wife went into a passionate, painful tirade listing every problem they had ever had in the 20 years they had been married.

She went on and on and on: neglect, lack of intimacy, emptiness, loneliness, feeling unloved and unlovable, an entire laundry list of unmet needs she had endured over the course of their marriage.

Finally, after allowing this to go on for a sufficient length of time, the counsellor got up, walked around the desk and, after asking the wife to stand, embraced and kissed her passionately as her husband watched with a raised eyebrow.

The woman shut up and quietly sat down as though in a daze.

The counsellor turned to the husband and said, "This is what your wife needs at least three times a week.

Can you do this?"

The husband thought for a moment and replied, "Well, I can drop her off here on Mondays and Wednesdays, but on Fridays, I play Golf."

- There are a number of important questions that can be asked of this passage

- There are a number of important questions that can be asked of this passage

Q.

Does the apostle think singleness is better than being married?

Q.

What led married couples to abstinence in favour of prayer?

Q.

What does it mean that the man and woman have authority over each other’s body?

Q.

What does it mean not to touch a woman – which many Bibles have?

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- This last question is answered by the ESV Bible where it says, “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman”

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- It’s a typical Jewish way of lessening the graphic nature of the statement – they call this figure of speech, a euphemism

- The “eu” on the front means “good” - indicating a good way of saying it

- A nicer, less graphic way of putting it

- He passed away is way softer than he’s dead

- Unfortunately, euphemisms can also take away the accuracy & the literal nature of what has happened

- He’s been laid off rather than fired!

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- But the ESV puts it right out there by saying what the Corinthians are literally meaning...

“It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.”

- This church has written to Paul asking him a number of questions & he is familiar with their situation

- As I have mentioned before, he quotes either words of the Corinthians or of the sayings of their town community

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- Last week, we noted two of their sayings

6:12 “All things are lawful for me”

6:13 “Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food”

- If you weren’t here last week, then I encourage you to go to our website & listen to the message which will explain these sayings

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- Again, we confront another of their sayings…

7:1 —1 Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.”

- That is what they think

- But hang on – some of these men are going to the local shrines to be with prostitutes – that’s a bit of a strange contradiction isn’t it?

- On the one hand, off to prostitutes, on the other, “good not to have sexual relations with a woman” (like make up your mind)

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- To understand this, you best understand what “dualism” is

- I dealt with this last week, but again in this passage, we confront the impact dualism has on earthly behaviour

- Dualism is the philosophical teaching which radically splits the spiritual realm off from the physical or material realm

- Dualism teaches that the soul or spirit is superior to matter

- What you do with the body, then, is matter is of no consequence to your relationship or standing with God – only the spiritual counts

- As we go through this passage, we will see the affect this has on the Corinthian church in how they were living

- Let me list off some of the consequences that dualism has had on the progress of church traditions...

- Asceticism – you treat the body with disdain/hatred – you place a savage discipline on the body in order to bring about some spiritual good.

You put the body down - punish it - to elevate the spiritual

- Deny yourself the pleasures of the body

- It led to vows of chastity & poverty – deny yourself the pleasurable things like marriage & material things because these things are of a lower order

- This led to the practise of celibacy by priests and nuns & caused the rise of monasteries where the higher calling was to be quite & live a life of prayer & contemplation - the upper or spiritual realm being of more value

- You’re familiar with the Monk who took a vow of silence aren’t you

- Well, if you’re not, let me tell you about him...

A monk joined a monastery and took a vow of silence.

After the first 10 years his superior called him in and asked, “Do you have anything to say?”

The monk replied, “Food bad.”

After another 10 years the monk again had opportunity to voice his thoughts.

He said, “Bed hard.”

Another 10 years went by and again he was called in before his superior.

When asked if he had anything to say, he responded, “I quit.”

“It doesn’t surprise me a bit,” said the superior, “You’ve done nothing but complain ever since you got here.”

- With time, missionaries & ministers were considered to have higher value before God because they do “spiritual” or holy work

- But if you set aside dualism, then the work of farmer or trade person or kitchen hand, by a Christian, is equally spiritual work

- Another impact from this philosophy of matter being considered bad or evil is that a new born child was considered foul or tainted before God & this was part of the thinking that led to the practice of Christening – they weren’t innocent because they were born with a body – they became matter

- By the time we come to Augustine in the 5th C., we find him applying Platonic ideas to the church & merging Plato with Christianity...

He [Augustine] made a great distinction between “contemplative life” and “active life”.

Prayer, meditation, and the study of Scripture were “contemplative,” while cleaning the kitchen floor or engaging in trade was “active.”

Contemplative life, to follow Augustinian thought, was more important.

It was of a higher order, and certainly a higher calling.

The eventual outcome of such thinking is that all of life becomes categorized into two distinct realms: the sacred and the secular.

The sacred part of life comes to be equated with traditionally church-related concerns, such as prayer, Bible study, preaching, and evangelism.

These become the truly spiritual matters of life.

The secular part of life has to do with other things.

Augustine so exalted the spiritual life and minimized the material world that poverty became a virtue.

Being temporal, material goods were of no ultimate value or worth anyway.

Augustine’s Platonic ideas further led him to a very negative view of sexuality, which he saw as shameful, even within marriage.

Such thinking no doubt contributed to the notion that a vow of celibacy was a noble choice and the mark of a truly spiritual man..

-- Christian Overman “Different Windows”, 111.

1. Marriage Is Good & Ordained by God

- By minimising the value of the body, the Corinthians were claiming that the better way was to deny bodily pleasures & give yourself to the spiritual side of life

- This was even happening in their marriages – they were abstaining from sexual relations in marriage because disciplining the body by denial led to the elevation of the spiritual & that is the only true worth according to this view

- So it’s great that husband & wife want to commit to prayer, but not great that they abstain from marital relations that God created, within the confines of marriage, to be good

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- This isn’t the only place that Paul has to address the error of dualistic thought

—1 But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, 3 men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.

4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; 5 for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.

- Far from being a means of achieving a truly spiritual life, abstinence in marriage would have led them to a far worse state - & it did

- As Paul says, as there is so much immorality in the world, you should stick to your wife or husband

- Proof certain that immorality was in the world was that some of the Corinthian men themselves were going off to prostitutes

- Likewise, they were proud about the guy who was in a relationship with his step mother

- Proud over the freedom they thought was afforded them as Christians

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- Marriage is God-ordained & is a holy & virtuous relationship