Participants: J. D. Quinn (Host), Tom Shepherd
Series Code: HPOV
Program Code: HPOV000037A
00:16 Welcome to Heaven's Point of View.
00:18 My name is J.D. Quinn 00:19 I'm co-hosting today with Dr. Tom Sheperd. 00:23 Our topic, our series is Love, Marriage, 00:27 Sex and Divorce according to the New Testament. 00:30 Dr. Sheperd, he specializes in New Testament interpretation 00:35 so this is good stuff and so, 00:38 I think that where we left off last time Dr. Sheperd 00:42 was that we were dealing with sex outside of marriage, 00:45 now we're going to be dealing with sex inside of marriage, 00:49 Yes, and the passage that we're going to look at is 00:51 in the book of 1st Corinthians chapter 7 00:54 some people might think that, "Well sex is so powerful 01:01 that... maybe it's too powerful, 01:03 maybe the risks are just too high, 01:06 maybe because we're living in the last days, 01:09 even married people shouldn't have sex, 01:11 isn't it connected with passions 01:14 that are inconsistent with Christian holiness, 01:17 these could be some of the kinds of questions 01:20 that people in Corinth were thinking about 01:24 and that they wrote to Paul about 01:26 so, let's turn to 1st Corinthians 7 01:28 and read verses 1 through 7, 01:33 1st Corinthians chapter 7 verses 1 to 7. 01:38 Good and I'm going to be reading from the New King James Version, 01:45 "Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me: 01:48 It is good for a man not to touch a woman. 01:51 Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, 01:55 let each man have his own wife, 01:57 and let each woman have her own husband. 01:59 Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, 02:03 and likewise also the wife to her husband. 02:06 The wife does not have authority over her own body, 02:10 but the husband does. 02:11 And likewise the husband does not have authority 02:15 over his own body, but the wife does. " 02:18 Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, 02:22 that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; 02:25 and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you 02:29 because of your lack of self-control. 02:31 But I say this as a concession, not as a commandment. 02:36 For I wish that all men were even as I myself. 02:40 But each one has his own gift from God, 02:44 one in this manner and another in that. " 02:48 All right, Paul starts off here by saying, 02:52 "Now concerning the matters about which you wrote" 02:56 and so, it's obvious that the people in Corinth... 02:59 or some of the believers had written a letter to Paul 03:03 with a variety of questions, now unfortunately, 03:06 we don't have that letter anymore, 03:08 all we have is what Paul wrote 03:10 and so it's like listening to half of a telephone conversation 03:15 and trying to figure out exactly what the conversation was about, 03:19 and we've already seen that 03:23 there are some kinds of issues here 03:24 sometimes of deciding what... 03:26 is Paul talking or the people in Corinth talking? 03:30 So, that... we try to wind our way through that 03:34 and scholars think that carefully 03:35 and argue back and forth about what they find so 03:38 that's what we going to try and look at here, 03:41 to give some sort of background for this, 03:44 I want to give a sort of a rundown 03:48 on how the people in Paul's day thought of marriage, 03:52 how they thought of the family and things like that. 03:56 The Greeks had an axiom, now, you know, 03:58 an axiom is something you have... when you study math 04:02 and you're trying to figure out different things, 04:06 you have this axiom, it's like a principle, 04:11 that you're going to use, so their axiom was 04:14 marriage involved a man and weighty responsibilities, 04:18 that's a pretty good axiom actually, 04:21 you kind of wish more people thought about that today 04:23 but the Greeks thought, you know, 04:25 he's going to be a father, a householder, a citizen, 04:28 he's going to have an active social life, a political life, 04:31 an economical life so when you get married, 04:34 you've become a man, you've heard of this... 04:37 this is really... 04:38 It's a big step. 04:39 It's a big step, yeah, 04:41 now, there were different philosophical traditions 04:43 that looked at marriage in different ways, 04:45 one was called "Stoicism," we still, even today, 04:49 we speak of kind of... "he is stoical," you know 04:54 the "Stoics" were a group that was started 04:59 hundreds of years before Jesus, by a man named Zeno 05:02 and for them, they... virtue was the highest good 05:06 and they based their life on... this was based on knowledge 05:10 and you would live in harmony with divine reason or fate, 05:15 and you were supposed to be indifferent to pain or pleasure, 05:19 that's where we get the concept of "Stoical. " 05:23 Well basically, they just went forward, not complaining, 05:26 "This is the way it is... and this is... 05:28 and so live our life accordingly. " 05:30 There's a story that I've heard of somebody who grabbed a Stoic 05:34 and put his arm behind his back, you know, 05:36 because they're supposed to reject pain, you know, 05:38 and the guy was saying, 05:41 he wanted him to recognize the pain, 05:43 he said, "If you push too hard, it will break" 05:46 and the guy kept pushing and his arm broke 05:48 and he said, "I told you it would break. " 05:51 Oh my goodness... 05:54 Yeah, so they viewed marriage, 05:56 the Stoics viewed marriage positively 05:57 it contributed to the welfare and stability of Society, 06:00 on the other hand there were the Cynics, 06:03 and this was another philosophical school, 06:06 they also believed in life based on virtue 06:09 but rigor and "reject desires" was important to them 06:13 they lived a simple life without possessions. 06:15 So, they believed in strong individualism 06:20 and that marriage and the household, the city-state, 06:22 all had their origin in human convention 06:26 and so they denied the importance of these, 06:29 they accepted the Greek axiom that I mentioned 06:32 but they denied the importance of the city-state, 06:34 so Paul's statements in 1st Corinthians 7 06:37 come across to some of us as we read it 06:41 as rather negative on marriage, 06:44 rather negative on sex and people kind of get this feeling 06:46 but he has "if" and "but" 06:50 and concessions and things like that, 06:52 but actually if we see the this... what he says... 06:57 in the light of the debate that was going on 07:00 between the Stoics and the Cynics, 07:03 those debates among them had the same kind of pattern 07:06 of appeared ambivalence or qualified, positive attitudes 07:10 that was something that was going on 07:12 in the Hellenistic world so we ought not to judge Paul's 07:16 words too quickly... without recognizing the background 07:19 type of context. 07:21 Which I guess would lead us to think, 07:22 "What did the Romans think, 07:24 well, how did they look at the 07:26 expressions of love and marriage?" 07:27 Yeah, all right, so we want to think about 07:30 their structure of the family and the home. 07:32 The Roman system of marriage and the home, 07:35 was patriarchal in structure, the Roman family had... 07:40 the oldest male was called the "Pater familias" 07:43 and he was very powerful in the family, 07:47 his power over the family was extensive, 07:50 it was... and they had a name, 07:51 they called it, "Patria Potestas" 07:53 and this Potestas... this Patria Potestas did not end 07:58 when his children grew up nor even when they left home. 08:02 So... he was... 08:03 The Patriarch was the Patriarch for as long as he lived 08:07 and then, if he passes away, 08:10 then I'm assuming the eldest son... 08:12 The eldest son and other... will take on power. 08:14 And so this was a legal concept 08:17 which gave the head of the family 08:19 almost omnipotent position, 08:21 almost omnipotent power over the family, 08:23 he controlled finances, he controlled children, 08:26 even when they were grown, 08:29 they couldn't do financial transactions 08:30 without his approval, 08:32 they couldn't get married without his approval, 08:33 so, how do you suppose young men dealt with this issue? 08:36 Well, they would move farther away from Dad. 08:41 Go someplace... he's over the mountains, you know, 08:45 he's still the Pater familias, 08:47 sure, he's still got the Patria Potestas 08:49 but, you know, he's far away and so... 08:51 Now, do we assume that they had lots of children back then? 08:55 Yeah, that would probably be common to have lots of children. 08:59 So, it's like, they probably need workers 09:01 and several like that in the family. 09:02 Yeah, a large family would be... 09:05 And so, there are certainly going to be those that 09:08 there were disagreements 09:09 and so they would even move farther and farther away, 09:11 they wanted their independence. 09:13 Yeah, and I imagined that 09:15 quite a few people lived closer to home and so forth, 09:18 but the other thing to remember is that life expectancy 09:22 was not what it is today, and so, most men, 09:25 if they've judged over the age of 30, 09:29 probably didn't have a living father, 09:32 so, if you got to 30 years of age, 09:35 you were more... on your own. 09:37 So, that was kind of some of the experience there, 09:40 now, the role of women in this kind of a situation, 09:44 as you can probably imagine was not very easy, 09:48 they were subordinate, 09:52 interestingly in this System, 09:54 they were not subordinate to their own husbands, 09:56 they were subordinate to the Pater familias 09:59 and so, there would be a linkage there, 10:02 of course, if you moved away, if your father had died, 10:05 then, there'd be some other kinds of issues, 10:09 there is actually an interesting situation where 10:13 when the Pater familias, a lady's father just died, 10:18 she would become, they call it, "Sui juris" 10:21 she would be on her own right 10:23 and she could undertake financial transactions, 10:26 she could be pretty much financially independent, 10:28 and, in fact, some women, controlled large fortunes 10:31 and it's interesting when we read... 10:34 when we think of that idea, 10:36 and we compare it with the stories of Jesus, 10:39 because if you read, particularly the gospel of Luke, 10:42 you find that there are certain women 10:45 that would travel with Jesus' group of disciples, 10:49 but also, who supported Jesus 10:51 and his disciples from their wealth 10:53 and so, I mean, Jesus had to live somehow, 10:58 He had to be able to... 10:59 they had to have some food, somehow, 11:01 and so, there were, probably 11:03 some of these wealthy women, 11:05 were involved with supporting the mission of Jesus 11:08 and his disciples... by linking others... 11:11 so, when you learn some of the background information 11:14 it just kind of throws a little more light 11:17 on the sacred page and helps you to see things 11:20 in a little different... you know, 11:22 a little better light. 11:23 The Stoic by the name of Musonius, 11:27 argued that sexual and erotic desire 11:31 could be justified within marriage, 11:35 only for the purpose of begetting children. 11:37 So, this was kind of an idea of sex is only... in marriage... 11:42 is only for having children. Mr. Quinn: No pleasure. 11:46 Yeah, the... Ovid, the Latin poet, 11:49 believed that there... this is interesting, 11:51 he believed there could be no erotic pleasure 11:53 between husband and wife 11:55 because it was a relationship of duty, 11:58 so, these people would have sex outside of marriage, 12:03 they would have prostitutes, or they'd go to... 12:07 they would have a... someone else that they would go to, 12:12 they have slaves they might sleep with, 12:13 but, for the wife, 12:15 the big principle for the wife was... 12:18 she was the bearer of legitimate children 12:20 that would be his heirs, 12:21 so their whole view of sex and of its use 12:26 and of the role of the family and sex within marriage 12:30 was quite different from what we read in Scripture, 12:34 what we read from Paul. 12:35 Paul, interestingly, in this whole passage here, 12:39 he does not mention procreation at all 12:42 when he talks about sex, all right, so, 12:45 he talks about people participating 12:47 in sexual relations, 12:49 but he doesn't describe it in terms of procreation. 12:52 So, that's a contrast from some of these other people 12:56 and what they were saying, "it's only for having children," 12:58 now, Paul is not, of course, opposed to having children 13:02 or anything like that but he doesn't focus on that, 13:05 so, it's interesting that he says 13:08 that you should have sexual relations in marriage 13:11 and we'll have more to say about that 13:13 as we go on into looking at this passage, 13:16 but, the whole idea that sex was only for procreation, 13:20 no, and... there's also an interesting thing that 13:23 what we've already studied about 1st Corinthians 6, 13:26 and what we studied about here in 1st Corinthians 7, 13:29 is in sharp contrast, one to the other, 13:33 and so we'll unpack that some more. 13:36 One seems like it's more from a "strictly pleasure seeking" 13:42 to "mutuality between husband and wife. " 13:46 Right, the way Paul describes it in chapter 6, 13:50 you have more of that 13:51 pleasure-seeking kind of libertine, anything goes, 13:54 actually, in chapter 7, as we will see, 13:57 there seem to be people who were Ascetics, 14:00 that is, people who lived in a very... 14:02 they believed in a very tough, harsh lifestyle 14:05 and maybe to the point where there would say, 14:09 "You know, you shouldn't even have sex at all 14:12 even if you're married," because, like we said, 14:15 "it's just too dangerous, too powerful 14:17 and you should stay away from it 14:18 and after all, we're living in the last days," 14:20 kind of an idea. 14:21 And so, obviously that would bring up 14:23 maybe there was some... 14:24 in their thinking there was some distress signals 14:27 or something like that, that they... 14:28 Yeah, and Paul refers to that, if we read in the same chapter 14:32 just read verse 26, 14:34 1st Corinthians chapter 7 verse 26, 14:37 Verse 26, okay, 14:42 "But this I say, brethren, 14:43 the time is short: so that from now on 14:46 even those who have wives 14:48 should be as though they had none. " 14:49 Interesting, okay. 14:51 That was verse 29... Oh, that was verse 29... 14:53 Yeah, "I suppose, therefore, 14:55 that this is good because of the present distress 14:58 that it is good for a man to remain as he is. " 15:01 You know, it's interesting that you had read verse 29 as well 15:04 because verse 29 has kind of a eschatological feel to it, 15:07 but verse 26 talks about the present distress 15:10 and people wonder, 15:12 so, what is this present distress, anyway? 15:16 Well, we have some historical evidence 15:20 that during the reign of Claudius the Emperor, 15:23 he was the Emperor from 41 to 54 AD 15:27 that there were various famines in Greece, 15:30 you know, of course, Corinth is in Greece, 15:32 and so Paul is writing to them. 15:34 One of the famines can actually be dated to 51 AD, 15:39 and it's alluded to by one of the Roman historians 15:43 they were food shortages and these would have 15:47 a serious effect on the population, 15:49 you know, you could kind of make a parallel for us today 15:53 with the great recession in the United States in 2008, 15:57 and it became very difficult for people, 16:01 we know that young people were having difficulty 16:04 in getting on their own, living with their parents still, 16:08 and so, getting married becomes more challenging 16:11 and if there was a famine going on, 16:13 Paul's reticence about them getting married, 16:17 may be related to this issue of present distress going on now. 16:23 So it could be a valid point. 16:24 Yeah, oh yeah, oh sure, 16:27 that he wants to keep them from trouble and so forth, 16:31 it could also be eschatological linkages that you've mentioned 16:34 that were down in verse... down in verse 29. 16:38 "Troubled times ahead," Yes, yeah... right... yeah... 16:42 Well, now, let's look at, this is really interesting to me 16:49 in chapter 7 verse 1, okay, 16:54 "It is good for a man not to touch a woman. " 16:58 Right... 16:59 Let's kind of... Get into that... 17:01 Yeah, because that's kind of a different direction. 17:05 There are two different questions 17:06 that we have to answer when we look at this question 17:09 and that is, first, is Paul... 17:12 Are these Paul's words? 17:15 We've seen before that sometimes Paul will quote 17:19 from slogans of the Corinthians, 17:22 here he has actually mentioned... a letter 17:25 and so the question is, when it says, 17:28 "It is good for a man not to touch a woman," 17:32 are those his words or the Corinthian words? 17:36 Then the other question is, 17:37 what does he mean by "touch a woman" 17:40 it's a euphemism and a lot of people think that 17:45 what Paul is talking about is sexual relations, 17:49 it's just a euphemism for sexual relations... 17:52 In other words, it is good for a woman 17:57 not to have sexual relations? 17:58 Yeah, it is good for a man 17:59 not to have sexual relations with a woman, 18:01 see, in fact, when I read the ESV, 18:04 chapter 7 verse 1 reads like this, 18:07 "Now concerning the matters about which you wrote," 18:08 and then they put it in quotes, 18:10 that they interpreted it as something that they wrote 18:13 in the letter, the Corinthians wrote it, 18:14 "It is good for a man not to have 18:16 sexual relations with a woman" 18:17 they're interpreting the word, "touch" there 18:20 to mean "sexual relations," 18:22 just the general kind of concept for sexual relations, 18:26 well, interestingly there... just not so long ago, 2009, 18:30 Roy Ciampa, a Scholar, wrote an article 18:34 dealing with this question 18:36 and he reviewed a lot of ancient literature, 18:40 that makes use of this euphemism of "touching a woman" 18:45 and he found that the euphemism was used 18:49 actually to describe a variety of sexual encounters, 18:54 so, if I quote from his article, it goes like this, 18:59 "... using people for one's own sexual gratification 19:03 such as slaves, defenseless women, 19:05 a virgin in a man's care, a wife during her menses, 19:09 a pederast's lover, 19:10 other 'unnatural' homosexual relations, 19:13 incest, rape or adultery... " 19:15 this is along the lines of what he put in his articles, 19:23 not a direct quote, I don't think here, 19:25 there were other terms and euphemisms 19:26 used in the Greco-Roman world to describe sexual relations, 19:30 but interestingly, this idea of "touching," 19:33 was not used of sexual relations, in general, 19:36 but, for that based on pleasure or passion 19:40 not appropriation or friendship, the term was used, 19:43 when the writer wanted to disapprove of what was going on, 19:48 so, this terminology, "touch a woman" 19:51 or "touch your object of desire" was something that... 19:55 was a common kind of idiom that they would use 20:00 to refer to sex for this kind of... 20:04 well, you could say, "not just sex for pleasure" 20:07 but it wasn't for procreation 20:09 and it was actually for self-gratification. 20:13 Self-gratification... Yeah... 20:14 "So, it was one of those things 20:16 that I really don't want to talk about, 20:18 so I'm just going to throw a term out there for... 20:21 in general... rather than being specific. " 20:24 Yeah, but you see, they had... 20:26 they had another term that they would use 20:28 for sexual relations, 20:29 illicit sexual relations, in general, 20:32 it was the word, "porneia" 20:34 which we get the word "pornography" from 20:36 this term, "porneia," could be used in a variety of ways, 20:41 but this idea... this euphemism of "touching a woman," 20:45 was... or... or "touching a man," 20:48 was... it had a certain connotation to it, 20:52 let me read what... this is from his article now, 20:55 his conclusion on page 336 in this article, 20:59 he says, "The fuller examination of the sexual euphemism 21:02 of touching, suggests that the statement, 21:05 'it is good for a man not to touch a woman' 21:08 should not be taken as rejection of sex in general, 21:12 but more likely reflects a rejection of recreational 21:16 or hedonistic sex, sex for pleasure, 21:20 or motivated by passion, 21:22 the idiom might be best translated as 21:24 'it is good for a man 21:26 not to use a woman for sexual gratification. '" 21:30 "The line quoted from 1st Corinthians in 7 verse 1, 21:35 may be taken as a criticism by some Corinthian Christians 21:41 against certain men in the church 21:44 who continued to look for sexual gratification 21:46 as they did before converting to Christianity: 21:49 with prostitutes, courtesans 21:52 and household slaves, among other people. 21:53 If this touching would come close to being 21:58 a Hellenistic equivalent for Jewish and Christian use 22:02 of porneia, the word for sexual immorality, 22:06 although the former term, the touching, 22:09 could be applied broadly even to sex for pleasure 22:12 or out of passion even within marriage, 22:14 in a way that the latter term, porneia, might not. 22:18 Also, while men and women may both practice porneia, 22:22 'touching' is something that only men do. 22:26 It is remarkable that while touching is unidirectional 22:31 people do not touch each other, 22:33 one male touches the object of his sexual desire, 22:36 the rest of Paul's language, in contrast, 22:39 clearly emphasizes mutuality in marital relations. " 22:45 Right, so this is related to... today... 22:48 to our world today, or what we would say, 22:51 "it's through using somebody else 22:53 as a sexual object," 22:55 and this is everywhere in our Society, 22:59 I mean, the biggest example of it is pornography. 23:01 Yeah. 23:03 Where looking at that is just a means to an end, 23:07 is all focused within self, 23:09 and it's not about the other person at all, 23:13 it's all about "me," or all about that... 23:16 Which has grave consequences. 23:18 It does, it changes, actually, the way you think 23:22 of... 23:23 of that other person, 23:25 and of course, pornography tends to be a... 23:26 a major problem more for men, I think, than for women, 23:29 and so, men then tend to think of women as sexual objects. 23:34 The Advertising does this... 23:37 It seems like, in some of the surveys that I've seen, 23:41 is that, there is... it's not reversing 23:44 but women are getting caught up into this... also. 23:48 They may be... Yeah... 23:49 But that's not what we're talking about here. 23:51 Treating of another person as simply... as a sexual object 23:56 so, Ciampa goes on to give a paraphrase 24:00 of these two verses and it's kind of... 24:03 it's kind of useful to have this paraphrase in front of us 24:07 because it helps to fill out some of the background 24:09 so, with all the background we've been talking about... 24:11 about what the Greeks thought about the home, 24:14 about how they treated women, 24:16 about how they thought of sexuality, 24:18 Paul's words start to 24:21 carry a little different understanding for us, 24:24 as we try to piece it together, so, here's what he says, 24:27 here's his paraphrase, 24:29 Paul's argument in 1st Corinthians 7 verses 1 to 2, 24:32 may thus be paraphrased as follows, 24:34 "Regarding the things about which you wrote to me 24:37 in complaining about those men 24:40 who continue to visit prostitutes 24:42 or sleep with the household slaves, etc.), 24:44 'it is good for a man 24:47 not to use a woman for sexual self-gratification,' 24:52 but since porneia is so ubiquitous, 24:56 and to keep from falling into it yourselves, 24:59 each man should enjoy 25:00 regular sexual relations with his own wife 25:03 and each woman should do so with her own husband. " 25:07 So, in a sense... what happens is... 25:11 Paul agrees with these Corinthians 25:14 who are complaining about the people 25:17 who like those in chapter 6, maybe, 25:19 have been going to the prostitutes, 25:22 have been using their slaves for sex 25:24 and things like that and Paul says, 25:26 "You know, you're right, but, don't go too far with that" 25:31 you know, "don't get the idea that 25:34 sex is just too powerful, just don't have any sex at all," 25:39 he says, "rather, there is a temptation to sexual immorality" 25:45 so he's not agreeing with them to the sense 25:47 to say that sex is bad, 25:49 he says, "but because of the temptation 25:51 to have sexual immorality, 25:53 everybody should be married, you should be married, 25:56 and you should have regular sexual relations 25:59 with your wife" and then notice, he says, 26:01 "and each woman with her own husband. " 26:04 So he's starting this emphasis 26:06 on mutuality, that he's been talking... 26:10 that we're going to see as a good portion 26:13 of what he has to talk about in this passage, 26:16 so, to go back and answer the very first question, 26:20 it seems that Paul is quoting the conservative Christians 26:24 in his church, who are shocked 26:27 by what the libertines are doing, 26:29 he agrees with them about the sin of touching a woman 26:35 but he differentiates himself from those 26:39 who think sex is so powerful, it's just so strong, 26:43 it's bad... that you should leave it aside all together, 26:48 so, he's carefully... we can say, 26:51 he's carefully winding his way in between a group of people 26:55 who are free-sex people, 26:57 who are just going anywhere, getting sex any place they want, 27:00 and another group of people who are so negative on sex 27:05 that they think that you shouldn't use it at all, 27:09 and Paul is somewhere in between those two... 27:12 saying that... well, that's bad certainly, 27:14 but what you're saying isn't what we should do either, 27:17 you should also... 27:19 you should all have this mutual relationships 27:21 of love and that involves sexual expression within marriage. 27:24 So, he's saying here, 27:27 I mean, you normally think Paul is just so strong 27:30 and then you're facing forward 27:33 but here... he's... he's walking a thin line. 27:37 Yes, he's walking a thin line. 27:39 He's trying to juggle both balls. 27:41 And he's done it in a very nice way. 27:43 Yeah, well once again, 27:46 these 30 minutes go by in a hurry... 27:48 It does... 27:50 But what a topic! you know, 27:51 I've wondered for a long time on that 1st Corinthians 7:1 27:55 and so you certainly helped explain it. 27:57 Praise God. 27:59 I just want to thank you so much for being with us again, 28:01 we just love each and every one of you, 28:04 thank you for sharing this time with us, 28:06 God bless you, see you next time. |
Revised 2016-03-23