A friend once asked Isidor I. Rabi, a Nobel Prize winner in science, how he became a scientist. Rabi replied that every day after school his mother would talk to him about his school day. She wasn't so much interested in what he had learned that day, but she always inquired, "Did you ask a good question today?"
"Asking good questions," Rabi said, "made me become a scientist."
This is precisely what the Corinthians had done. They had a question concerning marriage, so they wrote a letter to Paul: “Now concerning the things about which you wrote. . .” (1 Cor. 7:1). In fact, the Corinthians had written and asked Paul about four issues on their minds:
First, they had a question concerning marriage – 1 Cor. 7:1.
Second, they had a question concerning things sacrificed to idols – 1 Cor. 8:1.
Third, they had a question or concern about women in the church – 1 Cor. 11.
Fourth, they had a question concerning spiritual gifts – 1 Cor. 12:1.
Therefore, the Corinthians were dealing with some major issues, such as, marriage, divorce and remarriage; things sacrificed to idols; women in the church; and spiritual gifts. They had written to Paul about such things and so the whole Book of 1 Corinthians is Paul’s answers to their questions.
Now to understand why this church had problems with marriages, it is important to understand a little about the context in which they were living. Remember, the city of Corinth was in a Roman province. Rome had no uniform set of marital laws. Anyone could get married at least four different ways, all of which were recognized as marriage in some sense.
The first way had to do with slaves. There were many slaves in those days -- hundreds of thousands of slaves and they weren't considered human so they didn't have any of the rights of a Roman citizen. And when a slave wanted to get married, instead of an official marriage, the owner of the slaves would agree to what was called a “tent companionship.” The owner would say, “Alright, you two can live in a tent together.” And that consummated a certain kind of slave marriage.
Now, if he didn't like the way they were living together and he didn't particularly care for the situation or the slave, the master of the slave could go in and take them apart. Or, he could sell off the husband or he could sell off the wife. So you had a lot of real problems in the early church because so many of the Christians in Corinth were this way before coming to Christ. And now that they had come to Christ, they were wondering if their marriage was legit and if they should continue living together. So then, with these kinds of marriages performed in the Roman world and people like this in the church, how will the church handle such couples?
What Paul did do was not try to break things up but to try to teach them the sanctity of the marriage that they had whatever the legal basis was of it. If they were living together under a tent companionship, then he simply taught them to stay together and prove themselves true to one another, and to love one another, and to make everything of that marriage that God designed it to be. Because that's really all the choice they had as slaves.
A second way one could get married under the Roman system was called, “Usus.” This particular custom meant that a woman and a man could live together for one year. At the end of the one year, they would become identified as husband and wife. Today we would call this “Common law marriage.”
So, again, the church back during Paul’s time would have had to deal with people who were common law married, who had no legal paper or anything to identify their marriage. Again the New Testament doesn't say anything about such only that they ought to live in the sanctity of the marriage under whatever it exists. That is, just maintain it. Of course, we would not encourage couples to live together by any means for one year. But in Rome, when this was done, the couple was considered legally married. The church had to accept and deal with this.
There was also a third way, which was “Marriage by Sale,” where the father sold his daughter to the husband. If the guy would come across with the right price, he could have the daughter. And of course, depending on the girl, the price would vary. If the girl was really beautiful looking, the guy would probably pay between three to four dozen sheep. If she wasn’t, he would give her father a lame chicken. But again, you had these kinds of couples in the church.
But the most elevated and the most noble way for couples to become married was a coming together on a much higher level. This was the classy kind of marriage. And you want to know something very interesting about this? The entire marriage ceremony as we know it today in the Christian church comes from this pagan Roman marriage, the one we practice and go to presently. It does not come from Hebrew custom in the Old Testament, it does not come from a New Testament basis, it's entirely the Roman pagan ceremony that was used back during the first century.
For example, the Roman Catholic Church simply picked up the standard Roman ceremony and when the Reformation came in the seventeenth century, nothing changed or no one sought to change things. By the time of the Reformation, it had become tradition and pretty much the same today. In fact, the Hebrew wedding lasted seven days. So, you know we're not into that. We're far from the Hebrew customary wedding. But the Roman pagan wedding was a short one-afternooner, or a one-evening thing.
The two families came together; they picked out a matron who would be like the maid-of-honor and a best man. The couple joined their right hands, which is also what we still do in a marriage ceremony. They recited vows. And after the vows there were prayers offered, that's the standard procedure only they offered the prayers to Jupiter and Juno. There were flowers. Flowers were customary and a bridal wreath was really the beginning of what we know today as the bridal bouquet. The bride always wore a veil which was lifted. There was a ring and it was always put on the same left hand ring finger. Note: In fact, medical scientists in their dissecting of the human body, discovered that a nerve ran from the middle of the ring finger on your left hand right to the heart. And since that nerve was connected to the heart, that's the place where the ring is placed! This all came from the pagan Roman system of marriage. When all that was over, the bride and groom went to another place to celebrate their wedding and believe it or not, they had a cake. That's right. So, now you know where the whole custom came from. Not from the Bible, not from Hebrew custom, but from pagan Rome! But that’s okay, because the church can take that which is pagan and redeem it and use it for the Lord.
So, there were at least four ways a person could get married back during the time of the Corinthians. The church at Corinth had these four kinds of marriages within its membership. People who were being saved and coming out of the pagan Roman system had questions about the way they had gotten married and the legality of their marital status. So the church wrote a letter to Paul asking him to clarify. This is what Paul was doing when he wrote the seventh chapter of 1 Corinthians.
What Paul basically does would be to simply teach the sanctity of marriage, whatever way one happened to get into it. Paul’s point is to just make the most of it now that you're there.
End of Part 2
