Marriage

Since I am speaking to those who know the law, brothers and sisters, don’t you know that the law rules over someone as long as he lives?

For example, a married woman is legally bound to her husband while he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law regarding the husband.

So then, if she is married to another man while her husband is living, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law. Then, if she is married to another man, she is not an adulteress.

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you also were put to death in relation to the law through the body of Christ so that you may belong to another. You belong to him who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.

For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions aroused through the law were working in us to bear fruit for death.

Now in response to the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to use a woman for sex.”

But because sexual immorality is so common, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman should have sexual relations with her own husband.

A husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise a wife to her husband.

A wife does not have the right over her own body, but her husband does. In the same way, a husband does not have the right over his own body, but his wife does.

Do not deprive one another — except when you agree for a time, to devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again; otherwise, Satan may tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

I say this as a concession, not as a command.

I wish that all people were as I am. But each has his own gift from God, one person has this gift, another has that.

I say to the unmarried and to widows: It is good for them if they remain as I am.

But if they do not have self-control, they should marry, since it is better to marry than to burn with desire.

To the married I give this command  — not I, but the Lord — a wife is not to leave her husband.

But if she does leave, she must remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband — and a husband is not to divorce his wife.

But I (not the Lord) say to the rest: If any brother has an unbelieving wife and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her.

Also, if any woman has an unbelieving husband and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce her husband.

For the unbelieving husband is made holy by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy by the husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is they are holy.

But if the unbeliever leaves, let him leave. A brother or a sister is not bound in such cases. God has called you to live in peace.

Wife, for all you know, you might save your husband. Husband, for all you know, you might save your wife.

Let each one live his life in the situation the Lord assigned when God called him. This is what I command in all the churches.

Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be released. Are you released from a wife? Do not seek a wife.

However, if you do get married, you have not sinned, and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. But such people will have trouble in this life, and I am trying to spare you.

This is what I mean, brothers and sisters: The time is limited, so from now on those who have wives should be as though they had none,

those who weep as though they did not weep, those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice, those who buy as though they didn’t own anything,

and those who use the world as though they did not make full use of it. For this world in its current form is passing away.

I want you to be without concerns. The unmarried man is concerned about the things of the Lord — how he may please the Lord.

But the married man is concerned about the things of the world — how he may please his wife —

and his interests are divided. The unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But the married woman is concerned about the things of the world — how she may please her husband.

I am saying this for your own benefit, not to put a restraint on you, but to promote what is proper and so that you may be devoted to the Lord without distraction.

If any man thinks he is acting improperly toward the virgin he is engaged to, if she is getting beyond the usual age for marriage, and he feels he should marry — he can do what he wants. He is not sinning; they can get married.

But he who stands firm in his heart (who is under no compulsion, but has control over his own will ) and has decided in his heart to keep her as his fiancée, will do well.

So then he who marries his fiancée does well, but he who does not marry will do better.

A wife is bound as long as her husband is living. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to anyone she wants — only in the Lord.

But she is happier if she remains as she is, in my opinion. And I think that I also have the Spirit of God.

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord,

because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body.

Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her

to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word.

He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless.

In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church,

since we are members of his body.

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church.

To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.

Marriage is to be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, because God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.