Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.
The apostle Paul wrote this letter to a young church in Corinth, a bustling, morally complicated Greek port city. The church had sent Paul a letter with a list of questions about marriage, sex, and relationships. His response to those questions begins here. Many Bible scholars believe the phrase 'it is good for a man not to marry' may actually be Paul quoting back something the Corinthians themselves had written — a position he'll spend the rest of the chapter carefully qualifying and nuancing. Paul was single himself and found great freedom in that, but he never teaches that singleness is spiritually superior to marriage. His larger point — unfolded across the chapter — is that both singleness and marriage are valid ways to live faithfully before God, and that neither one is the default for everyone.
God, you made me whole — not half of something waiting to be completed. Help me actually believe that on the days it feels untrue. Whether I'm single or married, teach me to find my identity in you before anything else. Free me from performing a life that just looks right from the outside. Amen.
Somewhere along the way, the church quietly made marriage the default setting for a good Christian life — the finish line everyone's working toward, the sign that things are going right. Singles get prayed over like projects. The phrase 'when you find someone' hangs over every small group like low weather. But Paul opens this whole section with a disruption: singleness is not a problem to be solved. It is a valid, even good, way to live. He was single. Jesus was single. There is nothing broken here, nothing incomplete, nothing to fix. This matters whether you're single, married, or somewhere in between. If you're single, your real life is not waiting in some future relationship — it's happening right now. If you're married, your spouse is not the answer to your deepest longing. That's a crushing amount of weight to place on any one person. What Paul is really pointing at, underneath all the specific instructions, is something simpler and more radical: your relationship status does not determine your worth, your wholeness, or your capacity to be loved and used by God. You are not half of something. You are complete. That's worth sitting with on an ordinary Thursday when the world says otherwise.
Knowing that Paul may be quoting back a phrase the Corinthians themselves wrote before he qualifies it — how does that change the way you read 'it is good for a man not to marry'?
Have you ever felt pressure — from church, family, or culture — to be married or partnered? How has that shaped the way you see yourself?
Does your faith community treat singleness as equally valid and whole as marriage, or is there an unspoken hierarchy? What does that communicate to the people living it?
When you interact with single people in your life, do you treat them as whole people — or as people in a waiting room? What does your behavior actually say?
Whether you're single or married, what's one way you could reorient your sense of identity away from your relationship status and back toward something more foundational this week?
If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish.
Exodus 21:10
But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given.
Matthew 19:11
His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry.
Matthew 19:10
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
Genesis 3:3
I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I.
1 Corinthians 7:8
Now as to the matters of which you wrote: It is good (beneficial, advantageous) for a man not to touch a woman [outside marriage].
AMP
Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.”
ESV
Now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman.
NASB
Marriage Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry.
NIV
Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.
NKJV
Now regarding the questions you asked in your letter. Yes, it is good to abstain from sexual relations.
NLT
Now, getting down to the questions you asked in your letter to me. First, Is it a good thing to have sexual relations?
MSG