Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: hall@vice.ico.tek.com (Hal Lillywhite) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Seventeenth Century Language Message-ID: Date: 5 Oct 89 03:17:11 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. Lines: 33 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article bnr-fos!bmers58!davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) writes: > >In article >This is regarding 1 Corinthians 7:1 which says "Now concerning the >things whereof ye wrote unto me: {It is} good for a man not to touch a >woman.". > >It would appear that there has been a slight misunderstanding. I never >meant to say that I thought this verse teaches that it is good for a >man not to touch someone else's wife. This is extremely good advice, I think we should pay more attention to something the moderator mentioned about this verse, namely the first phrase "Now concerning the things whereof you wrote unto me..." We have the interesting situation here that we have Paul's response to something the Corinthians wrote to him - that is we have the answer but we don't have the question. One question (which the moderator mentioned) is: Is the second phrase (It is good for a man not to touch a woman) part of the question, or part of Paul's response? I'm inclined to believe it is part of the question but I would not be surprised if I were proven wrong. Since much of the rest of the chapter concerns the question of "should we marry?" I think that must be more or less the question put to Paul. Further, I think some unpleasentness must have been involved since in verses 24-27 Paul seems to council that the unmarried (and the married) remain as they are "for the present distress" (again, I don't know what this distress was). I still have some questions about this chapter, but I believe a careful reading in light of the above can be helpful.