1 Corinthians 7:12-16 - On unbelieving partners

7:12,13

In verses 10 and 11 Paul is addressing believing couples. He now turns his attention to the situation where one partner is a believer and the other is not. Here, he says “I, not the Lord”. This does not mean it has any less authority. In v10,11 Paul is citing teaching that Jesus explicitly gave. Jesus did not address the situation a couple where only one of them comes to faith, hence the “I, not the Lord”. If the unbelieving partner is willing to live with the believing partner then they must stay together. The believing partner is not to divorce the other.

7:14

Those who had unbelieving partners may have worried, or have reasoned, that since their partner was not a Christian then that somehow rendered the marriage unholy. Indeed, some who had believing partners may have told them that this was so, making them feel guilty. We need to beware of being super-spiritual and too clever for our own good. The marriage is still holy in God’s sight, so the couple should stay together.

7:15,16

So we have just had the spiritual side of the matter from Paul, now we get the down-to-earth practicality. If only we could do the same more often today! We tend to either focus purely on the practicalities, with little or no regard for what God’s word says, implicitly saying that God’s word has to get into line with the practicalities as we see them. Or we get so over spiritual that we end up talking absolute nonsense. Paul does neither. “How do you know ...” From an over-spiritual viewpoint we would say “have faith, God is bound to bring your partner to faith”, implying that if they don’t come to faith it will be down to some deficiency in you. Paul has no time for this nonsense. So if the unbelieving partner leaves then so be it. This doesn’t mean the believing partner should not make any effort to keep them together, but if the other one is implacably set on leaving, then at some point we just have to accept the situation. Then Paul adds that we actually do not know if the believing partner would eventually bring the other one to faith. A little realism is, at times, in order.