Tag: widower

  • Commandments of Relationships in the Church 1 Corinthians 7

    Commandments of Relationships in the Church 1 Corinthians 7

    The Apostle clearly states both his authoritative advice AND commandments from the risen Christ Jesus.

    I say this to give you permission. It is not a command.

    1 Corinthians 7:6 ICB

    Commandments for Christians from the Lord

    Now I give this command for the married people. (The command is not from me; it is from the Lord.)
    A wife should not leave her husband.

    1 Corinthians 7:10 International Children’s Bible

    Paul previously has already conceded to those who are single, ‘..because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.’ – 1 Corinthians 7:2 NKJV

    The New King James Version HEADS this section of Paul's Epistle: Keep Your Marriage Vows

    NOW Paul must address how a corinthianized saint of Christ’s Church in Corinth ought to apply such commands of the Lord.

    ‘Do NOT be unequally yoked’ is good pre-marital advice from the Bible.

    Roger@talkofJesus.com

    – referring to Paul’s Second letter to the Corinthians 6:14

    Divorce

    A wife is not to depart from her husband. 11 But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband.

    And a husband is not to divorce his wife.


    Let’s be clear on this command:

    • For most of history ONLY the HUSBAND could sign a certificate of divorce.
    • In this Common Era a WIFE is JUST AS LIKELY to sue her husband for divorce.

    OR a ‘liberated‘ woman may simply leave (or evict) the husband of her vows, rather than seeking to reconcile their marital relationship as commandments of the Lord and scripture clearly state.

    Any Exceptions or Advice?

    (In deference to our own vows before the Lord, sometimes the hardness of a heart is that of our spouse.)

    12 To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her.

    13 If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.

    The Apostle also makes clear his desire for fidelity in marriage between a CHURCH MEMBER and an unbeliever.

    Scripture is clear: DO NOT commit adultery applies to HUSBAND and WIFE alike.

    What about the kids?

    The husband who is not a believer is made holy through his believing wife.

    And the wife who is not a believer is made holy through her believing husband.

    If this were not true, then your children would not be clean. But now your children are holy.

    1 Corinthians 7:14 International Children’s Bible

    Sanctified, the King James Version instructs.

    ἁγιάζω – Strong’s G37 – hagiazō – From ἅγιος (G40) the same word scripture uses for ‘Holy’ and for ‘saint,’ the name identifying members of Christ’s church.

    • to separate from profane things and dedicate to God
    • to purify by expiation: free from the guilt of sin
    • to purify internally by renewing of the soul

    MARRIAGE is HOLY, ITS TWO SAINTS ONE with each other and with CHRIST.

    The saints of the church are Christ's SANCTIFIED ones, yet are our christian MARRIAGES a HOLY witness of CHRIST?

    The Good News About Marriage also reveals the divorce rate among those active in their church is 27 to 50 percent lower than among non-churchgoers.

    Jeff Feldhahn, husband of Shaunti Feldhahn, marriage researcher in 2019 CBN interview


    Which spouse claiming to be christian while embracing adultery is NOT ACTIVE in worship in their local church?

    So they divorce, often calling themselves, ‘single mom’ or ‘single dad,’ as if they had never been bound to any vow.

    And they witness falsely to the world that they are ‘christians‘ (though in name only) who DIVORCE as FREELY and frequently as the rest of the world, those who vilify Christ our Lord, His Church and every Christian family.


    but IF the ..

    ἄπιστος apistos(note some meaning from various translations)

    [departs, insists on leaving, leaves, separates, wants a divorce],

    χωρίζω chōrizō – let him depart

    .. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace.

    1 Corinthians 7:15b KJV


    ἄπιστος apistos

    And what does the Bible call this person breaking their vows of marriage by divorce?
    • unbelieving or unbeliever, KJV & NKJV
    • the husband or wife who isn’t a believer, NLT
    • unbelieving one, LSB
    • unbelieving partner, AMP & RSV
    • infidelis, VUL
    In fact, since 
    they trouble Christ,
    divide the saints and
    cast chaos into the world of witness in Jesus Christ,
    those church members who DIVORCE become anti-Christs in the eyes of the world.

    Let it be so. – 7:15b NIV

    Concerning Change of Status

    Marital Status form Single, Married, Widowed, Divorced. hand checking Married box - Abide

    When this happens, the brother or sister in Christ is free. God called us to a life of peace. 16 Wives, maybe you will save your husband; and husbands, maybe you will save your wife. You do not know now what will happen later.

    1 Corinthians 7:15c International Children’s Bible

    This is the rule I lay down in all the churches.

    Each of you should continue to live in whatever situation the Lord has placed you, and remain as you were when God first called you. This is my rule for all the churches.

    1 Corinthians 7:17 New Living Translation

    Paul addresses the men - Jewish saints of the church as well as Greek or Roman converts to Judaism, now also saints adopted into Christ.

    Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts. 20 Each person should remain [abide] in the situation they were in when God called them.


    This, of course, opens another relational question for women, as well as questions of status of Jews the circumcision, Greek Corinthians and Roman Corinthians, both the uncircumcision.
    Slaves – δοῦλος –doulos

    Rome had slaves.

    (Most Bible translations prefer the less-offensive word, servants), but even employee labor is bought by your employer.) Some are slaves to their work. Others, slaves to

    Lose a war, as the Greeks had to the Romans, and your citizens become subject to a government over which you have no control. Jews, whether in Corinth or Jerusalem were also either Roman citizens, free aliens or slaves to a Roman, Greek or other master, their lord.

    doulos

    1. a slave
    2. metaph., one who gives himself up to another’s will those whose service is used by Christ in extending and advancing his cause among men
    3. devoted to another to the disregard of one’s own interests

    For he who was called in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord.

    Likewise he who was free when called is a bondservant of Christ.

    So note here Paul's all-important metaphor:

    You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants [doulos] of men.

    So, brothers, [v.29 meaning ‘brothers and sisters’] in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.

    1 Corinthians 7:23 ESV

    The Apostle uses ABIDE once again in v.23, his fourth of five times in 1 Corinthians 7.

    Marital Status form Single, Married, Widowed, Divorced. hand checking Married box - Abide
    Situation of the unmarried and widowed

    25 Now I write about people who are not married. I have no command from the Lord about this, but I give my opinion. And I can be trusted, because the Lord has given me mercy.

    Remedies for this present distress

    I suppose therefore that this is good because of the present distress—

    Paul's advice is both personal AND circumstantial: to the single (virgins and unmarried men), engaged (betrothed), married, widowed (no longer bound to a spouse), divorced (once again single and unbound to another).
    • 27 Are you pledged to a woman?
      • Do not seek to be released.
    • 28 Are you free from such a commitment?
      • Do not look for a wife.
    • 28 But if you do marry, you have not sinned;
    • and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned.
      • But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this.
    The time is short
    We do not have much time left. So starting now... 1 Corinthians 7:29b International Children's Bible

    What’s the historical context of which Paul speaks? (This seems somewhat prophetic, but certainly the handwriting on the wall is whispered in every province of the Empire.)

    AD 55 – Six years ago Caesar Claudius had expelled some of the Jews from Rome. And now Nero has succeeded him as Emperor.

    • Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus was self-indulgent, cruel, and violent as well as a cross-dressing exhibitionist.’
    • Nero planned his mother’s death with great care
    • After Nero and [his second wife] argued late one night (Nero liked to stay out late), he supposedly kicked her in the stomach, killing both her and the unborn child.

    And, of course we know Nero’s evil reputation best from an incident about to take place in the burning of most of Rome just nine years from now [AD 64] and more malicious persecutions of Christ followers, including Paul, who viewed Nero as an anti-Christ.


    ..the time is short, so that from now on

    even 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 did not possess,
    • and those who use this world as not misusing it.

    For the form of this world is passing away.

    Paul’s first Epistle to the Corinthians 7:29-31 NKJV


    Free from earthly cares

    Again, a list from Paul confirming motivations of men and women in their relationships - freedom apart from the commandments of the Law and rules concerning marriage.
    tablet of the 10 Commands from the Pentateuch or Law of Moses received from the LORD in Exodus

    A wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives;

    1 Corinthians 1:39a NKJV
    • The unmarried man is concerned about the work of the Lord, how he can please the Lord. – 1 Cor 7:32b BSB
      • But the married man is concerned about the affairs of this world, how he can please his wife, – v.33
    • The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit:
      • but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. v. 34b KJV

    cautions for your profit and not restraint

    If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes: let them marry—it is no sin. – v.36 ESV

    But if he has decided firmly not to marry and there is no urgency and he can control his passion, he does well not to marry. – v.37 NLT

    So then, he who marries the virgin does right, but he who does not marry her does better.

    1 Corinthians 7:38 NIV – Paul’s advice for uncertain times

    .. but if her husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.

    1 Corinthians 7:39b NKJV

    Once again, from the KJV, Paul's fatherly Apostolic opinion:

    40 But she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment: and I think also that I have the Spirit of God.


    NEXT: a Corinthian Culinary Conscience



  • Three Widows & a Widower

    Three Widows & a Widower

    Fifteen years ago I became a widower. (We had been married more than two decades.) I know personally the loss of the widow (& widower).

    Jesus spoke of three widows:

    1. one, in a parable on the persistence of prayer to God
    2. one, of an unnamed widow who sacrificed only two mites to God at the Temple (leptons or half-farthing, worth less than half of one cent)
    3. and one, a familiar widow from scripture.

    Jesus’ illustrations were not so much about what Christ followers must do for widows.

    Jesus uses these widows to demonstrate faith to us.

    Jesus’ rebuke here is how God used a faithful widow who was NOT part of the family of God (Israel). He spoke to the people of his own hometown, Nazareth, were Jesus was rejected.

    Let the church remember our widows and widowers, that Christ might not need to site the faith of an unbeliever to christians.

    Luke 4:25 But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, 26 and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.

    1 Kings 17

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    The Widow of Zarephath

    8 Then the word of the Lord came to him, 9 “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” 10 So he arose and went to Zarephath.

    And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks.

    Suppose you could only gather sticks to cook some food (what little they had) during a drought. Enter the Prophet of God, Elijah.

    And he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.”

    The widow humbly obeys, as she would her deceased husband or any man of authority.

    11 And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.”

    Now this destitute woman challenges the bold request of this strange man.

    12 And she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.”

    13 And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said…

    (‘Good. I’ll be done with this bothersome stranger,’ she must have thought, ‘and return to my misery.’)

    The widow’s son is obviously unable to gather firewood, perhaps because he is only a boy in need of everything (as children must depend on father and mother for everything).

    Yet the man of God continues:

    … But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son.

    14 For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.’”

    For thus says the Lord…

    A command to be obeyed (only IF the man is a true Prophet of the Lord God of Israel).

    15 And she went and did as Elijah said.

    Time passes, but the provision of God does not.

    And she and he and her household ate for many days. 16 The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.

    More time passes.

    17 After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. 18 And she said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God?

    Once more the woman is bold because God has taken the life of her son.

    She continues:

    You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!”

    How inexplicable had been the death of his father to the widow’s young son.

    • How great the loss of a mother or father to a young child.

    Yet with the help of the Prophet, she has raised her son through her grief; and before her grief is ended her son also dies.

    • How tragic to lose your husband.
    • How sorrowful to lose your wife.
    • How unexpected and hopeless is the untimely death of your own child: the flesh and blood of you own womb; the joy of your own seed!

    19 And he said to her, “Give me your son.”

    And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged, and laid him on his own bed. 20 And he cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?”

    Elijah is crying out to the Lord in prayer. The Man of God is pleading for the life of this son even as his mother has plead to the Man of God in her bold faith.

    21 Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.”

    22 And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. 23 And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother.

    And Elijah said, “See, your son lives.”

    24 And the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”

    RESURRECTION! Bodily resurrection and the resurrection of the soul: both are possible! Both have been witnessed. Both require great faith, as the widow has shown.

    The widow of Zarephath had said of Elijah: “Now I know that you are a man of God;” however before she knew it, she had great faith.

    Along comes Jesus to His neighbors in Nazareth and it seems that (like many of us) that they have very little faith.

    IF a man came to you and asked for your last morsel of bread, would you give it even to Jesus?

    Matthew 25:

    35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me…

     

    42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food,

    I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,

    43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me,

    naked and you did not clothe me,

    sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’

     

    44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’

    45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’

    46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal.

    Have you remembered the widows?

    The widowers?

    Those dejected by the trials of this earthly life?

    Perhaps you are gathering your last sticks for the hopeless situation of your family and along comes one asking you for your last morsel of bread.

    How will you answer?

    Will you have faith?

     

  • Remember the Widows

    Remember the Widows

    1 Timothy 5:5  She who is truly a widow, left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day…

    In only a century since the millennia of the Bible, relationships of the family have been overturned. All older than sixteen require automobiles and all older than sixty-six need to be put away in a senior center. The sixteen-year old and the sixty-six year old work side-by-side; one to get ahead and the other to get by.

    As no honor is given to marriage, as no honor is given to the husband and as no honor is given to the grandparents; no consideration is given to the relationships relished by our aging widows and widowers of our churches.

    1 Timothy 5:1 Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers,2 older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity. 3 Honor widows who are truly widows.

    Christ Jesus would gently remind the church of those among us who live in poverty of relationship with the family, including the family of God, the church.

    Exodus 22:22 “You must not exploit a widow or an orphan.

    Why not?

    What is God’s will? Has social security not taken care of our widows and widowers? Do they not have pensions of their own saved to keep them in their old age?

    Have we not taken care of the orphans and children of the divorced and divorced ‘single moms’ through welfare of our government?

    Is this the attitude of the world?

    OR should this be the attitude of ‘Christ followers’, the church?

    Again, the several Biblical examples of widows and orphans are not directed only to the fatherless, but to those in need.

    To be continued…