A Great Debate

May 22

I’m not sure but I suspect that Paul tended to over-value the single life. He was himself single and it seems from many of the things he said that he truly believed his was the optimum lifestyle. No, not because it gave him the freedom to pursue the ladies!! Oh, no! Paul was not a womanizer. He was celibate in the strictest sense. (See I Corinthians, Chapter 7 for Paul’s discourse on marriage.)

His words, as found in I Corinthians 7:32 state, “I would like you to be free from worldly concern. An unmarried man is concerned only about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord.” And his opinion of the ability of the single woman to focus on the things of God paralleled that regarding men.

I would certainly not wish to engage someone of Paul’s intellect in a debate on the subject, but since he’s not here to defend his position I take the liberty of disagreeing with it. In my opinion, Paul was unique in his ability to focus, in his ability to reason, in his ability to articulate the Word. In my estimation, he would not have compromised his ‘edge’ if he were married. He would still have given the things of the Lord top priority.

In the case of some who are not as goal oriented as Paul, who had a strong Type A personality, being single can be a great distraction. It would be easy to lose sight of the spiritual goal at hand when one’s focus tended to be drawn away by worldly concerns. For such a one, having those temporal needs met has a freeing effect—allowing spiritual goals to be more fully pursued.