1 Corinthians 7 | One Question for Every Decision
How Will This Decision Impact My Devotion to the Lord?
If you read 1 Corinthians 7 on your own for the first time, you might come away feeling like this emoji 😵💫. Paul covers marriage, singleness, divorce, mixed faith households, circumcision, and widows, all in one chapter, with a level of detail that feels oddly specific and more than a little awkward to read out loud.
But underneath all of it is something that changes the way you look at every decision you face. And as we continue working through this letter together at Redemption Gilbert, it turns out that once you understand what was happening in Corinth, the whole chapter starts to make sense.
There Was a Famine Going On
Here is the context that unlocks the chapter. The word famine appears in verse 26 as Paul mentions a present crisis, and most scholars believe that is exactly what he means. Roman historians writing at the time describe food shortages so severe that in the capital city of Rome there were only two weeks of food remaining. The emperor Claudius was mobbed in the forum by people desperate for grain.
Corinth was even more vulnerable. The city sat on cliffs and rocky terrain with no land to grow its own food. Everything was imported. In the middle of a widespread famine, with costs through the roof and uncertainty everywhere, people in the church were asking real, practical questions. Should I get married in this environment? Should I start a family? What do single people in the church do? What about those of us who are already married to someone who does not share our faith?
Paul is not writing a theology textbook. He is writing policies and procedures for a church navigating a crisis in real time.
Singleness Is a Superpower
Paul opens by saying he wishes everyone could be like him, single and intentionally celibate. That is not a throwaway line. He means it. And then he immediately clarifies: it is a gift. Not everyone has it. But those who do have access to a kind of undivided devotion to God that marriage, by its very nature, divides.
If you are single and the church has ever made you feel like you are somehow less than, or stuck in a waiting room until real life begins, Paul would push back on that hard. Pastor Sam Albury, who has written extensively on this, puts it plainly: singleness is not a waste of a life. It is a gift given not to restrict but to free a person for a unique kind of devotion.
That does not make singleness easy. Paul is not pretending it is. But he is saying it is not a consolation prize. It is a calling. And for those who have it, it is worth embracing rather than escaping.
Stay Put When Everything Feels Urgent
Paul's consistent advice throughout this chapter is to resist the urge to make drastic changes the moment you come to faith. If you are married, stay married. If you are single, do not rush to change that. If your spouse is not a believer and is willing to stay, stay together. Even his strange references to circumcision make sense in this light: when life shifts dramatically, the wise move is often to stay where you are and let God work.
This is not passive advice. It is prudent. Pastors often give the same counsel to people in grief, that major life decisions made in the middle of upheaval rarely look as good a year later. Paul is saying the same thing to a church in crisis: do not burn your life down in a moment of passion or panic. Stay faithful. Stay put. See what God does.
For those in a household where faith is mixed, Paul's words carry particular weight. A believing spouse or parent brings the holiness of God's presence into their home. Who knows what can happen in that environment over time? As the sermon put it, God writes long stories. You want it fixed today. God works in decades and generations.
The One Question That Changes Everything
Paul wraps the chapter by distilling everything into what he actually wants for the church: to be free from concern, with undivided devotion to the Lord. That is the heart of it. And it produces one question that applies to every decision you will ever face, big or small:
How will this decision impact my devotion to the Lord?
Not: will this make me happy? Not: is this what I want? Not even: is this wrong or right? The first question, the one that cuts deepest, is whether this thing will pull you closer to Jesus or slowly, quietly pull you further away. Should I take this job? How will it impact your devotion? Should I spend money this way? How will it impact your devotion? Should I pursue this relationship? How will it impact your devotion?
It is not always an easy question to answer. But it is the right one to ask.
A Personal Reflection
Paul is not handing down eternal principles from a mountaintop. He is a pastor writing to people he loves who are confused and scared, trying to figure out how to be faithful in a world that feels like it is falling apart. His answer is not a rule. It is a posture. Hold your life loosely. Do not get so attached to the gifts that you forget the giver.
Questions to sit with:
Is there a decision in front of you right now that you have not yet run through the question: how will this impact my devotion to the Lord?
Where have you been holding a gift so tightly that it has started to compete with the giver?
Spiritual practice: Take one thing you are currently attached to, a relationship, a plan, a outcome you are chasing, and physically open your hands as you pray over it this week. Ask God to help you hold it as a gift rather than a possession.
Go Deeper
There is a lot more in 1 Corinthians 7 than this post can hold, including some of the harder pastoral moments in the chapter. You can watch the full sermon in the Redemption Gilbert Sermon Library or on YouTube.
And if you are navigating a hard decision right now and need people around you to think it through, that is exactly what a Community Group is for. People who are committed to the same question, working it out together.