1Cor 7:10-11 - Estate Keeping - Part 1

The Duty of Christian Couples.

10 To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband 11 (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.


This is addressed to those in relationships where both parties are believers. The next verses deal with imbalanced relationships, where one party comes to faith while the other remains a pagan.

Those couples who both become Christians should keep to their estate. If they were married when they converted then they should remain married. In our day and age this might seem a tad obvious. Why even make the point? I can think of three reasons right off the bat:

1) Conversion can be a powerful experience. People can get so full of zeal that they utterly marginalize the considerations of physical life. They fall so in love with Jesus that they cannot immediately contextualize Him in the daily routine of living. They are captivated. It is not a bad thing. Nor is it a good thing for everyone. Most people are called to Christ in order to bring Him into those aspects of everyday life that are uniquely assigned to them - their work and their families and their circle of acquaintances and friends. But new converts sometimes think that they are called to a life which is not their own - a life of missions and ministry in some far-off place, instead of in the place where they are already found.

For most of these people time, good fellowship and support help them to channel their zeal closer to home. It is, after all, most often the one who is not looking for it to whom the call comes.

2) A part of initially misplaced zeal in the early church arose from the belief in the imminent return of Christ. People sold their goods and shared them in common because they honestly believed that Jesus was coming back at any moment. We can argue all we like about the implications of that, and about the necessity of belief in the imminent return for all believers in all ages, but the point here is that these people actually believed it to the point where they acted to rid themselves of encumbrances. (Oh, how very un-American!)

Some considered the commitment and duties of marriage to be encumbrances. Some who were already married thought this way so they were separating from each other in order to devote themselves more completely to Christ in what little time remained before the parousia. Perhaps some did so out of genuine (but misplaced) devotion and others out of the seeds of monastic, legalistic asceticism. Who but God knows for sure?

Paul, however, is quick to point out the honourable institution of marriage as confirmed by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself during His ministry. One man married for life to one woman. Faithful, lifelong monogamy. This is what Paul means when he reminds us that this ordinance is from the Lord.

3) The most commonly accepted and most likely explanation, however, is that the Corinthians themselves have simply asked Paul a question, or a series of questions, about marriage for Christians, which Paul’s discourse is answering, point by point. So it could be a straightforward reiteration of God’s revealed will for adult human relationships. Is divorce allowed? This is hardly a foolish question for people raised in and living in an immoral society. And Paul reminds them that Jesus Himself said that it was not, except on account of adultery.