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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - 1 Corinthians 7:7 - 7:7
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
As I myself
Not unmarried, but continent. It is not necessary to assume that Paul had never been married. Marriage was regarded as a duty among the Jews, so that a man was considered to have sinned if he had reached the age of twenty without marrying. The Mishna fixed the age of marriage at seventeen or eighteen, and the Babylonish Jews as early as fourteen. A rabbinical precept declared that a Jew who has no wife is not a man. It is not certain, but most probable, that Saul was a member of the Sanhedrim (Act 26:10). If so, he must have been married, as marriage was a condition of membership. From 1Co 7:8 it is plausibly inferred that he classed himself among widowers. Farrar (“Life and Work of St. Paul,” i., 80) has some beautiful remarks upon the evidence for his marriage afforded by the wisdom and tenderness of his words concerning it.
Gift (χάρισμα)
See on Rom 1:11. As regards the matter of continence, fitting some for marriage and some for celibacy.