A temporary suspension of marital sexual activity is permissible if both partners agree to it, if they use it for a spiritual purpose, and if they resume their normal relations soon. A temporary sexual abstinence was permissible, provided it met the stipulated requirements. But such a temporary sexual abstinence was never required. Paul specified that he was granting permission for a sexual fast, but he was not under any circumstances commanding it.

Critics of verbal inspiration sometimes appeal to verses that appear to disavow a divine origin for themselves. One such verse can be found in 1 Corinthians 7:6, where the apostle Paul writes, “But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment.” Read at face value and in isolation, this verse could be understood to imply that Paul, in writing Scripture, wished to insert certain of his own ideas that were not divinely inspired, and that God allowed him to express those ideas as his own, but not as God’s.
Such a reading of the text, however, is badly mistaken. In fact, it only seems possible if the reader ignores the context of the verse. Before citing the verse to disprove biblical inspiration, a thoughtful reader should first ask what the verse is doing within its context. As ever, context is the key to a right understanding of Scripture.
1 Corinthians 7 represents a pivot in the argument of the epistle. Evidently the church at Corinth had sent Paul a series of questions that they wanted him to answer. The letter that we call 1 Corinthians was his reply. Before responding to their question, however, Paul took advantage of the opportunity to correct several errors that he perceived within the church at Corinth. Among other topics, he wrote against factiousness and party spirit, carnality, lax church discipline, sexual immorality, and lawsuits among church members. At the opening of chapter 7 he had covered the subjects that he wanted to address, so he turned his attention to the questions that the church had sent him: “Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me…” (7:1).
The first set of questions from the church must have been about marriage and sexual relationships. Here Paul provided an answer that fit the chaotic and sometimes persecuted nature of the church in Corinth: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman” (7:1). This advice matches his counsel elsewhere in the chapter. In view of present distress, it is better to remain unmarried (7:25). Marriage comes with concerns and responsibilities that Christians might better avoid (7:32–35).
Paul recognized, however, that not being married can create distractions of its own. For many people, sexual temptation is one of these, and it would have been a genuine pressure in the pornographic city of Corinth. Consequently, the apostle provided practical advice: where sexual temptation is rampant, every man should have a wife and every woman should have a husband (7:2). One of the God-ordained functions of marriage is to provide a way for both men and women to deal with sexual temptation.
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The us-versus-them mentality misses people because it misses the loving heart of Christ. Whereas categorizing people ends in exclusion, Jesus offers invitations to come as we are (Matthew 11:28–30). Jesus welcomed sinners and associated with the people that we might exclude. He calls those other people his own. He didn’t come to save the healthy but the sick, (Mark 2:17).

“What do we need to do to help them?” “How do we love those kinds of people?” “How are we supposed to speak the truth to them?” Have you heard or asked these questions about people in your church dealing with sexual issues? As well-meaning as these questions might be, they can create barriers between fellow Christians, separating God’s people. They metaphorically paint a circle in which some people are included because their struggles are more acceptable, while others are relegated outside of the circle. When we do this, we allow an “us versus them” mentality to form.
As Christians, we need to be extremely careful with such categorization. When it comes to sexual struggles, an us-versus-them mindset places the emphasis on someone’s sin or behavior, not the individual’s heart. Instead of viewing a person through the lens of Christ, as the Bible directs us, we look only at what is visible.
Here are three ways to characterize the “us versus them” mentality:
It speaks of people as a group. There is a truth to this, as well as a danger. The truth is that groups of people often share a characteristic or are in some way associated with each. When Jesus said to his disciples, “You give them something to eat” (Matthew 14:16), he was recognizing that all the people gathered before him were united in a group by their common situation of being tired, hungry, and a long way from home. When he said of the Pharisees, “Let them alone; they are blind guides” (Matthew 15:14), he was merely recognizing the voluntary grouping with which they had identified themselves.
But there is also a danger. The danger is that we overemphasize the group’s commonality that we deny the variety and individuality within the group. This is “painting with a broad brush.” One example of this is generalizing the characteristics of a group so much that we unfairly stereotype every individual. For example, “Gay people have an anti-Christian political agenda.” Well, in reality there are many who don’t.
It emphasizes difference at the expense of commonality. The attitude we are talking about focuses on what separates “my kind” from “their kind” without recognizing our commonality. This works against humility because our sinfully proud hearts always tend towards positive descriptions of ourselves and easily identify faults in others. An “us versus them” attitude keeps us stuck on those differences rather than encouraging us to recognize how alike we all are.
It emphasizes conflict at the expense of relationship and reconciliation. “Us versus them” defines the relationship by conflict—either our opposition to them or their opposition to us. In so doing, it does not seek connection. It seeks to conquer. It seeks to defend. It seeks to circle the wagons, to protect “us.” An “us versus them” attitude reinforces what separates us from a group of people and does nothing to move us toward engagement, redemption, reconciliation, and unity.
In the Bible, we see a plethora of us-versus-them examples. The religious leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees, seemed quite certain that everyone outside of their own circle was a them. The self-righteous versus the sinners. The pious, mature adults against insignificant children. Powerful men as opposed to weak women.
One of the more prominent examples of this mentality was God’s chosen people, the Jews, pitted against the not-chosen people, the Gentiles. The division was so intense that Jews thought it was unlawful for themselves to associate with Gentiles. In Acts 10, we read about Peter and Cornelius, a commander of an Italian cohort. An angel of God visits Cornelius, a Gentile, and tells him to send men to Joppa and bring back Peter, a Jew. Cornelius obeyed. Then, starting in verse 9, Peter had a vision. Eventually, the men sent by Cornelius arrive, and, while Peter processed the meaning of the vision, he was told to go with the men without hesitation. Peter obeyed.
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The book was an apologetic exercise in harmonizing the position that creation occurred several thousand years ago with the presence of geologic structures that seemingly suggested a longer timeframe. Although the book is quite long, the central premise is easy to describe. Gosse’s observations led him to believe that the mature forms of all natural objects are dependent upon immature forms for their structures.

In 1857, Philip Gosse, a respected naturalist, released a book entitled “Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot.” The book was an apologetic exercise in harmonizing the position that creation occurred several thousand years ago with the presence of geologic structures that seemingly suggested a longer timeframe. Although the book is quite long, the central premise is easy to describe. Gosse’s observations led him to believe that the mature forms of all natural objects are dependent upon immature forms for their structures. He concluded that an instantaneous creation must come into existence with a type of backstory. That is, an earth only a few minutes old would possess things like multiple geologic layers and fossils and such.
The near-universal response to Gosse’s proposal has been scorn. The late Steven Jay Gould appraised the book as “spectacular nonsense”, “illogical”, and “it smacks of plain old unfairness.” This reaction interests me almost as much as the idea that prompted it. Why is the response so strong?
Gould objects that Gosse’s proposal would mean God has deceived us, or that nature is simply a joke. Neither complaint strikes me as having much weight. In regards to potential deception on God’s part, well, if the Lord tells us how old creation is (which was indeed Gosse’s position) then it’s difficult to see how any deception could be in play. But, even if there was, Gould fails to recognize that Scripture does indeed present several examples of the Lord deceiving those who reject His word (1 Kings 22:11, Ezekiel 14:6-11, 2 Thess. 2:9-12). Gould may dislike the idea that God would make a fool of him, but such is the Lord’s prerogative.
Is nature then a joke? The question points towards Gould’s underlying concern. Near the end of his review of the book, the notion that logic or reason is driving his objection begins to fade:
But what is so desperately wrong with Omphalos? Only this really (and perhaps paradoxically): that we can devise no way to find out whether it is wrong – or, for that matter, right. Omphalos is the classical example of an utterly untestable notion, for the world will look exactly the same in all its intricate detail whether fossils and strata are prochronic or products of an extended history. When we realize that Omphalos must be reject for this methodological absurdity, not for any demonstrated factual inaccuracy, then we will understand science as a way of knowing, and Omphalos will serve its purpose as an intellectual foil or prod. Science is a procedure for testing and rejecting hypotheses, not a compendium for certain knowledge.
So here is the real reason Gould dislikes Gosse. He feels the foundations of his knowledge starting to shake. If Gosse is right then we are revealed to not be in control of our world. Our methods are exposed as hollow. And if we are not firmly at the wheel, then everything must be a joke.
But what a wonderful joke it is. The Lord has used the weak things of the world to shame the wise. All our best attempts pale in the light of His glory and wisdom. Like Job we must say “Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”
Gould finishes his review with a picture of Gosse as a broken man, rejected by the worldly wise. He spends his evenings in gloom, entertaining discussions of murder-cases with his young son. The great traitor to Science has been brought low. Let me end with a different picture. It is the Judgement, and the Lord has set a table before Gosse in the presence of Gould. Gosse stands to toast the One whose plans are formed in inscrutable beauty. Gould stands as well, and from him comes an admission that reveals which of the men is the true traitor.
Sean McGinty is a member of Providence Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Scottsdale AZ.
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