Because of the Present Distress<\/a>. My concern is that of the widow’s decision in I Corinthians 7:39-40. If Paul was not categorical about the term “only in the Lord” as to marrying only a Christian, contrasting your earlier lesson on marriage where you took to the background that God did not want the Israelites to marry other nations, wouldn’t it have been better to come to a compromise as to who a Christian should marry?<\/p>\nAlso, something was not taken into account in your analysis: Paul was replying to questions written in their letter where we have a newly converted spouse where one of them was converted and the other refused. So, carefully looking at this: Was Paul not trying to correct the situation by advising widows to marry “only in the Lord” as a means of remedying the earlier addressed situation of one of the spouses being converted?<\/p>\n
If the conclusion is not sound scripturally as to whom a Christian should marry whether brother or sister, then you have left a vacuum for individuals making a choice rather than a scriptural point of view.<\/p>\n
Thanks in anticipation.<\/p>\n\t
Answer:<\/h2>\n
We do not have the letter that the Corinthians wrote to Paul; therefore, to make a conclusion based on what the letter\u00a0might<\/em>\u00a0have contained is false. It is true that what Paul wrote would cover situations where a new Christian’s spouse did not convert to Christianity. However, Paul’s wording does not limit itself only to these types of situations. To add additional restrictions where God did not is to create a falsehood.<\/p>\nTo conclude that Paul was correcting a problem with the widows’ earlier marriages is again adding an assumption to the text. There is nothing in the text that indicates that earlier marriages were wrong. It is improper to draw conclusions based on your own assumptions.<\/p>\n
God only told Israel not to marry from seven specific nations. “When the LORD your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, and when the LORD your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the LORD will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly”<\/em>\u00a0(Deuteronomy 7:1-4). This did not apply to any other nations. Boaz was not wrong marrying the Moabitess, Ruth. Esther was not wrong marrying the Persian king, Ahasuerus. Moses was not wrong marrying the Ethiopian woman (Numbers 12:1). Therefore, you cannot conclude that Christians should not marry non-Christians from this.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Question: I want to thank you for the lesson Because of the Present Distress. My concern is that of the widow’s decision in I Corinthians 7:39-40. If Paul was not categorical about the term “only in the Lord” as to marrying only a Christian, contrasting your earlier lesson on marriage where you took to the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[64,76],"class_list":["post-41822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-marriage","tag-terminology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":19934,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/only-in-the-lord\/","url_meta":{"origin":41822,"position":0},"title":"Only in the Lord","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bob Buchanon Would you please explain the phrase \u201cin the Lord\u201d found in I Corinthians 7:39? Does this mean that if the widow chooses to remarry, she would only be allowed to marry one who is a Christian or \u201cin the Lord\u201d? The phrase \u201cin the Lord\u201d is prepositional\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19913,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/doesnt-the-lord-require-christians-to-marry-christians\/","url_meta":{"origin":41822,"position":1},"title":"Doesn’t the Lord require Christians to marry Christians?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: You said in \"What does a woman do when the Christian men around seem more interested in non-Christian women?\" \"While being married to a non-Christian often makes it more difficult for a Christian woman to remain faithful, there is no requirement that Christians -- male or female -- must\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20369,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-wrong-for-a-christian-to-marry-a-non-believer\/","url_meta":{"origin":41822,"position":2},"title":"Is it wrong for a Christian to marry a non-believer?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: In I Corinthians 7:12-14, it doesn't mean a Christian marrying an unbeliever. You need to see the background and the circumstances Paul wrote this letter. Actually the problem in Corinth is that after marriage a husband or wife accepted Christ. Because of the desire to serve Christ, the believing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25121,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-i-corinthians-79-a-command-or-a-recommendation\/","url_meta":{"origin":41822,"position":3},"title":"Is I Corinthians 7:9 a command or a recommendation?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I've always wondered about I Corinthians 7:9. \u00a0I'm unsure of how to take it: as a command or a recommendation? I read that \"let them marry\" is a better translation than \"they should marry,\" but I'm not sure how strongly it's intended to come across, or even the difference\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13242,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-right-to-marry-a-non-christian-if-she-is-willing-to-convert\/","url_meta":{"origin":41822,"position":4},"title":"Is it right to marry a non-Christian if she is willing to convert?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Is it right to marry a non-Christian girl if she is willing to convert? And can we marry a girl who is divorced? Answer: It is not wrong for a Christian to be married to a non-Christian. \"For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":79693,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-paul-imply-that-he-could-only-marry-a-christian\/","url_meta":{"origin":41822,"position":5},"title":"Did Paul imply that he could only marry a Christian?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 22, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, What is the meaning of I Corinthians 9:5? Is Paul implicitly stating he can only take a fellow believer as a wife? I know there are other verses for circumstances that touch situations where believers are married to non-believers. Answer: Here is something I wrote about the context\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}