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  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: 2 Cor 6.14-7.1/1 Cor 7
  • Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 19:59:52 -0500


Dear Doug,
The prohibition in 1 Cor 7:14 is a simple prohibition. It would
include the idea of stopping unions with unbelievers already in progress,
but a marriage was a special case, God honors the marriage vow that two
people made. The coming to faith of one partner should not nullify those
vows; what God puts together, let not man separate (Matt 19:6). But 2 Cor
7:14-16 surely does apply to marriage. God does not want us to go into
marriage with an unbeliever, for just the reasons given in 2 Cor 6:14-16.
If 2 Cor 6:17 calls for separation for from worldly or ungodly people,
why would a believer contract a marriage with one? Doing that is asking for
conflict. That is what I was taught in church, and that is what I have seen
in life.
You are not convinced that 1 Cor 7:39 is advice for a widow only to
marry in the Lord:

>I am not convinced of this. The last phrase in 7.39 which begins with
>"only" is an
>adverbial phrase, indicating the manner in which the widow was to remarry,
>not whom.
>I can be corrected if I am wrong. So I am not really sure what is meant.
>ONLY has to
>modify HOW, not WHOM. And why would only the widow have to remarry a
>believer?

I have seen your opinion in commentaries; John Gill is an example below.
Yet I think that this understanding is a weaker interpretive option because
it goes without saying that the widow should act in a godly way. Most of
the commentaries that I have seen take 1 Cor 7:39 to refer to the widow
marrying a believer. Paul said that if her spouse died, she was free to
marry whom she liked. Paul limits that general permission by stipulating
that the husband should be a believer. You see a similar use of the phrase
EN KURIWi ("in the Lord") to refer to someone as a Christian in Rom 16:8,
12-13. Closer at hand, that is the sense in 1 Cor 7:22.

Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown: 39. bound by the law--The oldest manuscripts
omit "by the law."
only in the Lord--Let her marry only a Christian (2 Corinthians 6:14).

The NIV Study Bible: Death breaks the marriage bond, and a Christian is
then free to marry another Christian ("he must belong to the Lord").

John Gill's Exposition of the Bible:

only in the Lord;
not that it is absolutely necessary that her husband should be in the Lord,
a converted person, a believer in Christ; though such an one should be most
desirable and eligible: but either that she should continue in the
possession of her faith in Christ, and not relinquish it for the sake of an
husband; or that she enter into this state in the fear of the Lord, calling
upon him, and consulting him in such an important affair; and take care
that whom she marries is not within the line prohibited by the Lord.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard






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