Scripture Daily

Context No. 1063 of 4322 · 1 Corinthians

Context · Reflection

1 Corinthians 7:17-24: in context

17Only, as the Lord has distributed to each man, as God has called each, so let him walk. So I command in all the assemblies. 18Was anyone called having been circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised. Has anyone been called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised. 19Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but what matters is keeping God’s commandments. 20Let each man stay in that calling in which he was called. 21Were you called being a bondservant? Don’t let that bother you, but if you get an opportunity to become free, use it. 22For he who was called in the Lord being a bondservant is the Lord’s free man. Likewise he who was called being free is Christ’s bondservant. 23You were bought with a price. Don’t become bondservants of men. 24Brothers, let each man, in whatever condition he was called, stay in that condition with God.

Paul lays down a principle he says he teaches in all the churches: let each person live the life the Lord assigned, in the condition in which God called them. He applies it to the big dividing lines of his world. Was someone circumcised when called? Fine; stay as you are. Uncircumcised? Do not get circumcised; neither counts, what matters is keeping God's commandments. Were you a slave when called? Do not let it trouble you, though take freedom if you can get it, because the one called as a slave is the Lord's freedman, and the one called as free is Christ's slave. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.

Paul's counsel is quietly freeing: you do not need to change your external circumstances to be fully God's. The Corinthians seem to have thought that becoming a Christian required rearranging their social status, getting circumcised or uncircumcised, escaping their station, as if the outward condition were the spiritual reality. Paul says no; what matters is keeping God's commandments, and you can do that right where you are. Most strikingly, he addresses slaves, the lowest in his society, and tells them their status before Christ is not what their society says: the slave who belongs to the Lord is actually the Lord's freedman, truly free in the way that counts. And the free person is Christ's slave, bound to the master who bought them. The deepest identity is set by Christ, not by circumstance. You were bought with a price, he says, so your true owner is the Lord, and that reframes every earthly condition. Bloom where you are planted, Paul is saying, because your real freedom and your real bondage are both determined by Christ, not by your place in the world.

Am I waiting to change my outward circumstances before I can fully serve God, when Paul says my truest freedom is already settled by the Christ who bought me, right where I am?

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