My Interview with Dr. Paul R. House

I had the great privilege of interviewing Dr. Paul R. House on June 4th. He is a respected OT scholar and theologian from Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama. For more biographical information, please visit here.

He spent an hour and a half to help a student he has never met. He not only answered my questions...he also lit a theological fire in my soul. I found his answers to be intensely practical and helpful! I strongly recommend his Old Testament Theology book.

This interview was part of an assignment for my Contemporary Old Testament Theology class at Baptist Bible Seminary. Dr. Mark McGinniss taught this immensely helpful summer module. It was a class and interview to never forget!!!

90min. interview

Singleness & Marriage - a Gift? ... 1 Cor. 7:1-9

Great discussion on Sunday...so much in this passage that piques our interest. Is marriage & singleness a gift? If yes, is it temporary or permanent? If Annie were to suddenly die, would I then be gifted with singleness? Or as Judy P. suggested, is sex the gift, not marital status?

Do we have a right to choose to be single or married? Or is it a calling, chosen by God rather than us?

If we are to have a biblical view of marriage and singleness and sex, then we must understand what Paul is saying in the passage, and how it relates to what God says through the entire Bible.

Time to do some digging on marriage, singleness, and gifts.

Some great online study tools - just enter your verse or key work on each site and hit enter! I have added each of these sites to my "favorites"...have you? These are just TOO EASY to not use!

- http://beta.biblestudytools.com/
- http://www.studylight.org/
- http://net.bible.org/home.php
- http://www.bible.org/

Here are some free resources you can download - I recommend E-Sword:
http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=3086

Don't expect an answer from me - you have the same Bible & Spirit I do. I challenge you to teach me!

Happy Digging!!!

marriage - good, bad, or ugly? 1 Cor. 7:1-9

Remember when I said that the hardest parts of 1 Corinthians were yet to come? Well, they have arrived! Take a deep breath before reading this:

Instruction on Marriage

7 Now regarding the questions you asked in your letter. Yes, it is good to live a celibate life. ² But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband.

³ The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs. ⁴ The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife.

⁵ Do not deprive each other of sexual relations, unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so you can give yourselves more completely to prayer. Afterward, you should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control. ⁶ I say this as a concession, not as a command. ⁷ But I wish everyone were single, just as I am. But God gives to some the gift of marriage, and to others the gift of singleness.

⁸ So I say to those who aren’t married and to widows—it’s better to stay unmarried, just as I am. ⁹ But if they can’t control themselves, they should go ahead and marry. It’s better to marry than to burn with lust.

1 Corinthians 7:1-9 (NLT)

This passage all comes down to the question Paul was apparently asked by the Corinthian Church: "Is celibacy superior to marriage?" Paul says yes, no, and maybe!

Let's go verse-by-verse:

Vs. 1 - It is better to be single & celibate
Vs. 2 - It is better to be married than immoral
Vs. 3 - Celibacy is wrong for married couples
Vs. 4 - Marriage is about fulfilling your spouse physically
Vs. 5 - If you "fast" from intimacy in marriage, make it mutual and temporary
Vs. 6-7 - Celibacy and singleness is a gift, but so is marriage
Vs. 8 - It is better to be single & celibate
Vs. 9 - It is better to marry than to struggle with immorality

I suppose this passage is not as radical as it sounds at first read. Paul is not contradicting himself. Instead he is living in two realities: good and better. Marriage is good and a gift from God. Singleness is better for those who can handle it.

Paul was able to spend all his time, focus, and energy serving God because he was single. He didn't see his singleness as a hindrance. He wasn't longing for a wife. He was grateful that he could devote 100% to the work of God.

Where is my loyalty? What am I 100% dedicated to? Since I am married, do I give only 50% to God? Is my allegiance split? What about you - what is your status? Single, married, remarried? Do you wish you were married? Do you wish you were single? There are pros and cons for each.

To the single, there is a saying: "Better to single and wish you weren't, than to be married and wish you weren't!" God will gift some with marriage, others with singleness. Learning contentment is a great challenge.

It is interesting to notice that moral purity is the expected outcome for both single and married. If marriage is really supposed to be a solution to sexual needs, why is there so much cheating? Why don't people find fulfillment in marriage? Why don't people find fulfillment in singleness?

How come purity is going the way of the dinosaur? A young lady in our class told me last night that she is treated like a nun at work because she is a virgin. She is pure, and to most that is strange! Welcome to Paul's world!!!

What does this passage teach you? Any insights?

Tornado or Termites: The Erosion of Purity…1 Cor. 6:12-20

Our discussion this week piggy-backs off the last two weeks. We are faced with the same questions, along with some new ones. Feel free to interact with this or any of the related blogs below!

Perhaps too often we view purity as something swiftly knocked down by a cataclysmic storm like a tornado. One minute a person is a strong Christian, and the next they succumb to their passions and lust. Pastors and lay people alike fall into the temptation trap and fall quickly from grace. Or is it more gradual than that?

Is the destruction more similar to a termite infestation – where we lose small battles in the mind that erode our foundation? Suddenly one day a breeze (temptation) comes along and knocks our house (purity) over. Shocking as it may seem to others, we realize that impurity is a road we have been traveling for a long time. Is the erosion of a person’s purity an overnight event, or a long process? When is temptation lost – in the mind or in the body?

We also talked about the 3 temptations of Christ (Matt. 4; Mark 1; Luke 1). The first temptation Satan tempted Jesus to turn rocks into bread. Jesus was tempted with the lust of the flesh. It was a real temptation. What do you think about this and the other temptations of Christ? Can this tell us anything about the temptation Paul talks about in our passage?

We talked a bit about the 3 sources of evil – Satan, the world, and ourselves. Is there Scriptural support for this? Have you ever thought about Satan being unable to tempt you and me at the same time? That perhaps some temptations come from my own inner badness? (James 1:12-15)

How about my body? Will it one day be destroyed & replaced? Does 1 Cor. 6:13 say that God will destroy my body? Or is my body somehow eternal? What does Scripture say about the skin I am in?

Let’s interact a bit on these issues as it relates to Scripture and life. Does our 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 text shed any light? What about other passages? What does Scripture say about temptation? What about purity? Sorry that I have more questions than answers this week! Feel free to interact with any of these questions - you don't need to answer them all!

I look forward to hearing what you find! Let’s dig together for Truth. Enjoy the journey!!!

the message paraphrase...1 Cor. 6:12-20

Ralph and I both stumbled across the awesome paraphrase of the Message for our passage. Hey, great minds think alike! This gave me lots to chew on:

Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I’d be a slave to my whims.

¹³ You know the old saying, “First you eat to live, and then you live to eat”? Well, it may be true that the body is only a temporary thing, but that’s no excuse for stuffing your body with food, or indulging it with sex. Since the Master honors you with a body, honor him with your body!

^14–15 God honored the Master’s body by raising it from the grave. He’ll treat yours with the same resurrection power. Until that time, remember that your bodies are created with the same dignity as the Master’s body. You wouldn’t take the Master’s body off to a whorehouse, would you? I should hope not.

^16–20 There’s more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, “The two become one.” Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever—the kind of sex that can never “become one.” There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for “becoming one” with another. Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.

Peterson, Eugene H.: The Message : The Bible in Contemporary Language. Colorado Springs, Colo. : NavPress, 2002, S. 1 Co 6:12-20

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