“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
The Basket Case Chronicles #61
“Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband” (1 Cor. 7:2-3).
When Paul says that it is good for a man “not to touch a woman,” he is talking about the time of “present distress” only. But even there, he is clear that while it would be tough to go through a time of persecution with a wife and kids (v. 33), it would be even tougher to go through such a time as a fornicator.
Paul knows that he has a peculiar gift, that of celibacy (v. 7). He also knows (and tells us) just how rare that gift is. In these verses, he assumes that “every” man should have his own wife. He assumes that “every” woman should have her own husband. If the occasional one-off gift of celibacy doesn’t keep Paul from saying that everybody should be married, still less would the mythical and very modern “gift of singleness” keep him from saying it. Many men who celebrate the gift of singleness are actually celebrating the luxuries of irresponsibility. Mark Driscoll says, rightly, that men are like trucks. They drive straighter and smoother when they have a load.
Paul is saying that fornication is an important thing to avoid, so much so that a man should be willing to take on a great deal of responsibility rather than fall into such sin—and I am talking about an amount of responsibility that many today with the “gift of singleness” appear to be allergic to. Such responsibility is God’s answer to computer porn. Both the husband and the wife are instructed to render themselves freely to the other, with the possible temptations of the other in mind. In a godly marriage, the existence of such temptations is not resented, but rather addressed in a very earthy and practical way. God’s solution to sexual temptation is sex, and a goodly amount of it.