Why We Hate Paul: Sex (1 Corinthians 7:1-9)

Paul’s Thoughts on Love & Marriage

There are a lot of scripture passages that people choose to have read at weddings. The most popular one is 1 Corinthians 13, Paul’s “love” chapter. “Love is patient, love is kind, love never ends…” Sometimes something from the Song of Solomon is read. Sometimes a psalm, or some other scripture.

But no one ever reads 1 Corinthians, chapter 7. It comes from the same book of the Bible as the “love” chapter, and is, in fact, just a few chapters before the “love” chapter. But almost never do you hear 1 Corinthians 7 read at a wedding.

I can see why. If we were to paraphrase it, Paul’s message would be, “Well, when it comes to marriage, when it comes to sex… I guess, if you must, if you can’t control yourselves - since not everyone can be as perfect and self-controlled as I am - go ahead. Go ahead and get married, if you must, just so your passion doesn’t lead you astray, and cause you to slip into sexual immorality…”

It’s clear that Paul thinks people would be better off not getting married, and not having sex. At all. But since not everyone is capable of that, Paul gives in, and says, “Fine. Go ahead. If you must, you must.”

That’s not very romantic; but churches that try to enforce a very strict form of sexual morality use verses like these - often out of context, as we shall see - to back up their own ideas about sex.

There are other, similar statements in Paul's writings. Romans 13:14, for example - "Make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires…”

These verses, written by Paul, don’t play well with a lot of people, whether they’re married or not. As Eric Smith (the author whose book inspired this sermon series) points out, Paul comes across as a "prude and a scold." And for people who have been offended, hurt, or spiritually abused by the church, it's just another example of church trying to remove what little joy they have left in life.

And since a lot of this attitude toward sex comes from the writings of Paul, it presents yet another reason for many people to hate Paul.

Because of Paul - or at least, because of the way church leaders have often used Paul’s words - people get the impression that, as far as the church is concerned, there is nothing to celebrate regarding sexuality, there is nothing beautiful about sexuality, and there is certainly nothing holy about sexuality.

Which makes Paul the world’s biggest party pooper.

But…

It’s always important to put scripture in context. It’s especially important to put Paul’s writings in context. And it’s especially especially important to put Paul’s writings on sex and marriage into context.

2. Interlude: Worship in a Time of COVID

I want to set up this discussion by first talking about how the pandemic has changed the way we worship…

A year and a half ago, when the pandemic first started, things were happening so fast. One week we were gathered here for worship… and the next, we were confined to our homes, with me leading a shortened online worship service from my dining room. We had to make a lot of decisions very quickly, because circumstances were changing so fast.

A few weeks later, we switched to livestreaming worship from our sanctuary. Only a few of us were here, just enough people to present the service and get it online. Everyone else was still participating via the internet.

Then we had several outdoor, in-person worship services, in our parking lot and courtyard. These involved a bit of extra work to set up, but it was worth it, because we got to see each other face-to-face for the first time in many months.

Then, finally, we resumed having worship services here in our sanctuary. At first, you had to RSVP, and were assigned a specific spot to sit. But as more of us got vaccinated, we were able to relax those restrictions some. 

But even now, we still are doing things in a way that has been shaped by COVID…

At any point in the past 18 months, were we defining a style of worship for all time? No. Of course not. We were doing the best we could given the current circumstances. And that’s still what we’re doing: we’re doing the best we can, the best we know how, given our current circumstances. As circumstances change, worship will continue to evolve, bringing back some of the things from our past that we still haven’t brought back, or doing new things in a new way. 

So if a person 2,000 years from now were to look back and examine our worship practices, and try to figure out why we worship the way we do, they’d have to understand the circumstances in which we are living. They’d have to understand our context - otherwise, some of the things we do in worship won’t make any sense to them.

3. Paul & the Parousia

In the same way, to understand Paul’s writings about sex and marriage, one has to understand the circumstances Paul was in - Paul’s context.

Paul believed that Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection marked the beginning of a period of transition, in which the entire world was shifting from an old way of being to a new way of being. Paul believed this period of transition would conclude very soon, when the risen Christ came back to earth to finish the work of establishing God’s kingdom on earth.

And when that happened, nothing, nothing, would be the same. Life as we know it would be utterly and completely transformed. It would be the end of one world, and the beginning of another. And we would be no longer earthly, worldly beings, but made into new beings, new creations, just as Christ had been made into a new kind of being at his resurrection.

And Paul believed this was happening very soon. He even writes, just a few verses later here in chapter 7, that "the appointed time has grown short."

And because it was all happening so very soon, Paul was 100% focused on getting the word out, letting people know. It’s all so urgent! There’s absolutely no time to waste, because it’s all about to happen.

Because of these circumstances, Paul didn’t understand why anyone would bother with things like marriage, and starting families. It just didn’t make sense to him. Everything was about to change, including our very being, our very existence. Why would anyone get married and start a family right now, under these circumstances?

But this parousia - this second coming of Christ, during which all things would be transformed - didn’t come as soon as Paul thought it would. He thought it would come before those in his generation would pass on. Obviously that didn’t happen. 

2,000 years later, we’re still waiting.

If Paul had believed that life would go on, generation after generation after generation, he probably would have said things differently. If Paul had believed that people 2,000 years later would be looking to his letters for guidance, for instruction, he certainly would have said things differently.

Paul didn’t think he was writing instructions for people in every generation, for many centuries to come. These instructions were given for a specific set of people in Corinth at a specific time in history, dealing with specific circumstances, probably in response to some specific questions they had previously asked Paul, in the context of an expected end-of-the-world which was going to happen any day.

In fact, we already see in the New Testament the bewilderment of people who wondered why it hadn’t already happened. Some people in their communities had died - weren’t these things supposed to happen before those living passed away?

And we see in the Bible, in Paul’s response, that his thinking had to evolve, given these changing circumstances. OK, things weren’t happening as quickly as Paul thought they would, but they were still going to happen, and it’s all OK, don’t worry…

And we can see Paul’s thought evolve, and we can see his instructions start to evolve, based on the changing circumstances of his situation.

If Paul was writing for us today - if Paul knew that Christians for 2,000 years would look to his letters for guidance on sex and marriage - I do think his writings would speak more favorably about marriage and about the possibility that sex can be a good and beautiful thing. 

Reading Paul in the 21st Century

So that explains why Paul wrote the things he did about sex and marriage. And it makes sense, doesn’t it? Given his circumstances, and given that he was writing for specific people living in a specific community at a specific time, it all makes sense.

And it’s probably not a reason for us to hate Paul.

We know, now, after our study of Paul, that Paul’s comments on sex and marriage aren’t the best guide for us today...

So what should be our guide - we who live in the 21st century - when it comes to sex and marriage?

I’d say: Love. The Bible talks about love a lot. In fact Paul talks about love a lot. Love, and respect, and honor, and mutual caring. 

The love Paul writes about in 1 Corinthians 13 - the love chapter - isn't about marriage, or even romantic love, but there's a reason it's used so often in wedding ceremonies. Paul understood that people were vulnerable to being hurt, and we know that vulnerability is certainly present in marriage and sex.

 So to engage in sex is to trust, and to be worthy of trust.  

And even though the love chapter isn't specifically about romantic love, it does describe the care, the kindness, the patience, and the commitment that should characterize any relationship, including a relationship that involves sex or marriage. 

If you're not ready for that level of love and commitment, then you're not ready for marriage. If you’re not ready for patience, kindness; if you’re not ready to give up insisting on your own way; if you’re not ready for a love that never ends, as it says in 1 Corinthians 13, then you’re not ready for marriage.

And because sex can have long-term consequences, if you're not ready for that level of love and commitment, then you probably shouldn't have sex, either. 

But if you are ready for that level of love and commitment; if you are ready to love another person in a special way as much as you love yourself, and do unto them as you would have them do unto you, as the golden rule states; then you're ready to discover just how beautiful and holy sex and marriage can be.

And I think - I don’t know for sure, but I think - that if Paul were alive today, living in the 21st century, he’d agree.

The Amazing Story of Thecla (1 Corinthians 7: 1-16)

Over the past year, our women’s groups have been studying various women of the Bible, and a few months ago one of our members suggested to me that perhaps a sermon or two on some of the women in the Bible might be of interest to the entire congregation.

I thought it a good idea. But which of the Bible’s many women should I choose?

Then I discovered the stories concerning Thecla. These stories are parabolic in nature. To what extent they are based on historical events is hard to say. But the stories of Thecla do shed light on how the early church in the first and second centuries viewed women and their role in the church.

The story of Thecla appears in a book called the Acts of Paul and Thecla, which was written sometime in the second century, and the story goes like this:

Thecla was a young woman, about 13 or 14 years old, and recently engaged to be married to a man named Thamyris. That seems young to us, but it wasn’t then. Mary was probably about the same age when she was engaged to Joseph, and when she became pregnant with Jesus.

One day, Thecla was sitting by her window when she heard from outside, in the city, the preaching of the Apostle Paul. For several days she sat and listened, and became so in love with what she was hearing that she decided to leave her well-to-do life – and leave her fiancé – and become a disciple of Paul.

The only problem is that, in the ancient Roman world, women just didn’t do such things. Women weren’t supposed to associate with men at all, other than their husbands. That’s why Thecla was listening from her window.

Remember Martha’s embarrassment when her sister Mary goes into the room to sit and listen to Jesus, as if she were one of his disciples? Remember the disciples’ embarrassment when they discover Jesus engaged in a one-on-one conversation with a Samaritan woman beside a well? A man just didn’t talk with a woman in that way in ancient Rome.

Strangely, though, Jesus himself didn’t seem to mind the presence of women. He was not embarrassed to count them among his followers, to talk with them, to teach them.

But what about the apostle Paul? According to the story, it was his preaching that inspired Thecla. Paul gets a bad rap these days when it comes to women’s rights and roles in society. How is it, then, that Thecla found what he said to be so empowering?

Let me say again: it went against the norms of society for a man to welcome women into one’s presence and to associate with women. In patriarchal Rome, only men had a role in public life.

So any talk or act that even suggested a public role for women is one that many would find hard to swallow.

And yet that is exactly what the Apostle Paul suggested.

Now you might be saying, “What? I thought Paul was against women…” Let me explain…

In the Bible, there are many letters attributed to the apostle Paul, but as I’ve mentioned in the past, only some were actually written by Paul himself. Others were written later, after Paul, by people who wanted to carry Paul’s thought and teachings to new times and places. It was actually an acceptable practice in those days to attach the name of a famous teacher to one’s own writing, as a way of saying, “If Paul were around today, this is what he would have said.”

Thus, some of the letters in the New Testament have Paul’s name attached to them, but were actually written by someone else.

Generally speaking, the letters that scholars agree were written by the authentic Paul himself all describe a role for women in the public life of the church. In the book of Romans, Paul mentions several apostles who were women; in his letter to the Galatians, he says there is neither male nor female in the body of Christ.

In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, a part of which we heard as our scripture reading this morning: did you notice how Paul gives equal attention to men and women when teaching about marriage? The fact that he even addresses women at all is radical. Again, in a patriarchal society, one was not supposed to address a woman directly, but only through her husband…yet Paul does it anyway.

Then later in First Corinthians, Paul gives instructions for how both men and women are to properly preach, teach, and prophesy.

Now when later writers used Paul’s name to write what they believed Paul would have said to their own community had he been around, they followed through on most of his teachings… But some of Paul’s teachings were just too radical. The actual, authentic Paul advocated freeing slaves. Well, that was too radical. The actual, authentic Paul advocated equality for women. Again, that was too radical for later writers.

On these issues, the later writers presented teachings that were more in line with what was acceptable in society, even if they strayed from the radical teachings of the apostle Paul. Thus, we get in Ephesians: “Slaves, obey your earthly masters.”

And in First Timothy we read, “Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She is to keep silent.”

That’s not Paul; that’s a later writer who found Paul’s teachings on the subject too radical.

When Thecla sat by her window, and felt herself empowered by the words of the apostle Paul, do you think these were the words she heard?

I really think not.

So even though the story of Thecla is a mixture of history and parable, it still helps us understand more fully just what the actual Paul thought about women in the church and in society. If Paul was as anti-woman as we often think, then Thecla would have found no inspiration in what he said.

So back to the story of Thecla:

She left her family and her fiancé to follow the apostle Paul. As she was preparing to do so, her mother – Theoclia – pleaded with her to reconsider. Her mother summoned Thamyris, the fiancé, and asked him to talk some sense into Thecla. But Thecla had made up her mind.

Well, this was not only an offense to Thecla’s family; it was an offense to the whole Roman way of living. It was seen as an act of rebellion against all of society. And Thecla’s mother was furious.

According to the Acts of Paul and Thecla, “Theoclia her mother cried out, ‘Let the unjust creature be burned! Let her be burned in the midst of the theatre for refusing Thamyris, so all women may learn from her to avoid such practices.’”

Thecla was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death.

Now you see why later writers changed Paul’s teachings on equality. Equality is dangerous! Society just does not tolerate teachings of such a radical nature. Look what happens when you upset the laws of society! Better soften some of those radical teachings, so we don’t bring down society’s wrath upon us.

Even today, there are those who try to rewrite the Bible’s teachings on equality, or on helping the poor, or on caring for creation. They rewrite the Bible’s teachings because those teachings are too radical. They demand that society pay more attention to the poor and the oppressed, and even re-orient society so that those who are last become the first priority.

The words of Jesus and the prophets, in particular, emphasize over and over the importance of justice, of a fair sharing of wealth, and yet we see our nation’s leaders passing laws that allow the wealthy to gain an ever greater share of wealth while the poor are given increasingly heavier burdens. Our leaders have created a society where the inequality between the rich and the poor is obscenely large, and continues to widen… and while our leaders do this, they talk about how this nation is founded and based on Biblical principles!

It continues today, this practice of taking scripture, and changing it and distorting its message to suit one’s needs, because the real message of scripture is just too hard to swallow.

…

There is no doubt that what Thecla heard from her window was the teaching of a man who truly believed that in Christ, there is neither male nor female, that all are welcome to participate in the full life of the church. Thecla believed it, and she followed that teaching… and ended up condemned because of it.

But the story’s not over. Thecla was tied to the stake, and the fire was set, but as the story goes, a storm came up and quenched the fire. Society may have been against her, but God was on Thecla’s side, and saved her.

So since that didn’t work, Thecla was thrown into the arena with wild animals, and again, God saved her: the female beasts in the arena protected her from the male beasts. And the women of the arena – whether they were Christians or not – all cheered for Thecla, but all the men were rooting for the beasts.

According to the Acts of Paul and Thecla, “Among the beasts, a lioness ran to her and lay down at her feet. And the crowd of women raised a great shout. Then a bear ran upon her, but the lioness ran and met it, and tore the bear asunder. Again a lion trained against men… ran upon her, and the lioness grappled with the lion and perished with it. And the women mourned, since the lioness which helped her was dead.”

But Thecla, miraculously, was spared.

Now in those days, it had not yet been decided which writings would be considered holy scripture and which would not. A couple of centuries later, these things were decided… and when they were, The Acts of Paul and Thecla obviously did not make the cut.

Now you could say that the reason that The Acts of Paul and Thecla was not included in the Bible is that it is a mixture of parable and history, that much of it cannot be said to have actually happened the way it is described. But, you could say the same thing about many of the books that did make it into the Bible.

You could say that The Acts of Paul and Thecla was written too late, later than any of the books that did make it into the Bible.

But you could also say that the Acts of Paul and Thecla contains in its pages the most vivid portrayal of the radical equality of men and women, and that it bases that equality on the teachings of the apostle Paul… and that this was just too much for people to accept. Notice this ancient painting of Paul and Thecla: both are shown in the same position, with the same posture – the posture of teaching and authority. But look closely: some ancient person came in and vandalized the painting by defacing Thecla’s image, obscuring her eyes and her hand raised in an authoritative gesture. They are scratched out. This ancient portrayal of a woman apostle was just too much to accept. Maybe that’s why it was kept out of the Bible, while those writings that insisted on women keeping silent made it in.

Nevertheless, in those days, the story of Thecla had a huge following. I’ve read that she was more important than even Mary, the mother of Jesus, and devotion to her was widespread.

That didn’t last. But even today, the Catholic church does consider her a saint; and her inspiring story continues to shed light on what Paul actually thought about women in the church, and her story can continue to inspire the church today when it talks about biblical interpretation, the role of women, and the Biblical call for equality.