In his letters, Paul discussed several times questions of the religion in its relation to the spiritual life. A summary of these discussions can be reduced to a simple formula: for the Kingdom, the religiosity of man has no basic value, and thus, it has either value also for the Church...
In his letters, Paul discussed several times questions of the religion in its relation to the spiritual life. A summary of these discussions can be reduced to a simple formula: for the Kingdom, the religiosity of man has no basic value, and thus, it has either value also for the Church. And the religious man can take his religion with him in the Kingdom, if it is organic for him, quite as he can take it with him in the Church, provided that he will not set it up as a rule and impose it to the brothers. But it was impossible for the apostle not to see of course in religion the spiritual component.
In fact: there are people, for whom religion is inseparable of their relationships with God and with the neighbor, and consequently, and of the spiritual life in the proper sense of the words. And here everything is already defined by the measure of the sincerity of a concrete person. For someone religion is a means of spiritual self-affirmation, a means to influence the spirits and the souls, and sometimes also a means of manipulating others. Paul considers such a religiosity, what is not surprising, of completely unacceptable for the Kingdom, and thus, and for the Church.
If the religiosity of man is such, one cannot speak about a normal spiritual life. But what, if the religiosity is only a form, the protective shell of the spiritual life? Although it does not occur quite often, but it arrives all the same, and the apostle finds inadmissible to destroy this protective shell: because man can simply be still not firm enough, to do without it.
Such a religiosity is usually proper to people who have recently embarked on the spiritual way, and religious restrictions and prohibitions, remaining external and not replacing what was called in the time of Paul the internal Torah, are really necessary for them and allow them not to get lost on the spiritual way. The destruction of such a religiosity would still be one and, probably, useless experience for his owner.
Of course, sooner or later everyone, who goes on the spiritual way, the way of righteousness and the way of the Kingdom, should part with his religiosity if it is not for ever, then at least to push it to the second plan. But here, as in life in general, everything takes place at the appropriate time. And the apostle suggests not to precipitate things: because, for the one, who is not yet ready to part from the usual religious shell, its violent destruction can turn in a serious spiritual crisis. And the apostle suggests not to risk, but to give to each to grow spiritually until this stage, when the separation with his own religious form will become for him organic.
7
7:1 It is good for a man - Who is master of himself. Not to touch a women - That is, not to marry. So great and many are the advantages of a single life.
7:2 Yet, when it is needful, in order to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife. His own - For Christianity allows no polygamy.
7:3 Let not married persons fancy that there is any perfection in living with each other, as if they were unmarried. The debt - This ancient reading seems far more natural than the common one.
7:4 The wife - the husband - Let no one forget this, on pretence of greater purity.
7:5 Unless it be by consent for a time - That on those special and solemn occasions ye may entirely give yourselves up to the exercises of devotion. Lest - If ye should long remain separate. Satan tempt you - To unclean thoughts, if not actions too.
7:6 But I say this - Concerning your separating for a time and coming together again. Perhaps he refers also to Co1 7:2.
7:7 For I would that all men were herein even as I - I would that all believers who are now unmarried would remain "eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake" St. Paul, havingtasted the sweetness of this liberty, wished others to enjoy it, as well as himself. But every one hath his proper gift from God - According to our Lord's declaration, "All men cannot receive this saying, save they," the happy few, to whom it is given," Mat 19:11.
7:8 It is good for them if they remain even as I - That St. Paul was then single is certain and from Act 7:58, compared with the following parts of the history, it seems probable that he always was so. It does not appear that this declaration, any more than Co1 7:1, hath any reference at all to a state of persecution.