1 Corinthians Chapter 7

Paul offers practical guidance on marriage, singleness, separation, and faithful service within each believer’s present calling.

1 Corinthians 7:1-7

Mutual Faithfulness in Marriage

1 Corinthians 7:8-16

Singleness, Marriage, and Separation

1 Corinthians 7:17-24

Faithful in Your Calling

1 Corinthians 7:25-35

Undivided Devotion in Troubled Times

1 Corinthians 7:36-40

Freedom to Marry or Remain Single

1 Corinthians 7:1

“Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote” begins Paul’s response to the Corinthians’ own questions. The sentence “It is good for a man not to touch a woman” probably repeats their wording, although Paul can affirm the goodness of singleness in appropriate circumstances. “Touch” is a familiar euphemism for sexual relations; the subject in verses 1–7 is abstinence within marriage, not a declaration that women or bodies are unclean.

The chapter is deliberative rather than systematic: Paul works through concrete situations and repeatedly distinguishes command, permission, preference, and circumstance. Reading every sentence as the same kind of universal rule produces contradictions Paul himself avoids.

The slogan may have appealed to believers reacting against the sexual disorder of chapters 5–6. Their instinct to pursue holiness was not enough; it needed biblical form. Rejecting immorality by rejecting marital intimacy would replace indulgence with a different misuse of the body. Paul answers both with covenant faithfulness.

Some Corinthians appear to have drawn an ascetic conclusion from the gospel: spiritual people should renounce marital sex. Paul immediately qualifies that conclusion with mutual obligations. He can value celibacy without treating it as a universal command or a holier substance.

The transition from “things whereof ye wrote” appears again at 7:25, 8:1, 12:1, and 16:1. Paul is working through a letter, though we hear only his answers. Reconstruction should therefore remain modest. Calling the opening line a Corinthian slogan is probable because of Paul’s immediate correction and similar slogans in 6:12–13, not because quotation marks survive in the manuscripts.

Roman marriage commonly involved family arrangements, property, status, and an unequal balance of power. Against that setting, Paul will address husband and wife in striking symmetry. The gospel neither dissolves marriage nor leaves its ordinary hierarchy untouched; it calls both spouses to covenant faithfulness under Christ.