John Calvin Commentary 1 Corinthians 7:33

"but he that is married is careful for the things of the world, how he may please his wife," — 1 Corinthians 7:33 (ASV)

He that is married careth for the things of the world. By the things of the world, you must understand the things that belong to the present life, for the world is taken here to mean the condition of this earthly life. But from this, someone will infer that all, therefore, who are married are strangers to the kingdom of God, as thinking of nothing but this earth.

I answer that the Apostle speaks only of a portion of the thoughts, as though he had said: “They have one eye directed to the Lord, but in such a way as to have the other directed to their wife; for marriage is like a burden, by which the mind of a pious man is weighed down, so that he does not move God-ward with so much alacrity.” Let us always, however, bear in mind that these evils do not belong to marriage but proceed from the depravity of men.

Hence the calumnies of Jerome, who scrapes together all these things for the purpose of bringing marriages into disrepute, fall. For, if anyone were to condemn agriculture, merchandise, and other modes of life on this ground, that amidst so many corruptions of the world, there is not one of them that is exempt from certain evils, who is there that would not smile at his folly? Observe, then, that whatever evil there is in marriage has its origin somewhere else. For at this day, a man would not have been turned away from the Lord by the society of his wife if he had remained in a state of innocence and had not corrupted the holy institution of God; but a wife would have been a help-meet to him in everything good, as she was created for that end (Genesis 2:18).

But someone will say: “If anxieties that are faulty and blameworthy are invariably connected with marriage, how is it possible for married persons to call upon God, and serve him, with a pure conscience?” I answer that there are three kinds of anxieties.

1. Some anxieties are evil and wicked in themselves because they spring from distrust. Of these, Christ speaks in Matthew 6:25.

2. Others are necessary and are not displeasing to God. For example, it is fitting for the father of a family to be concerned for his wife and children, and God does not mean that we should be mere stumps, so as to have no concern for ourselves.

3. The third class is a mixture of the two former: when we are anxious about those things for which we ought to feel anxiety, but feel too keenly excited, due to that excess which is natural to us.

Such anxieties, therefore, are not by any means wrong in themselves, but they are corrupt in consequence of αταξια (that is to say, undue excess). And the Apostle did not intend merely to condemn here those vices by which we contract guilt in the sight of God, but he desires in a general way that we may be freed from all impediments, so as to be wholly at leisure for the service of God.

And is divided. It is surprising how so much diversity has arisen regarding this passage. For the common Greek version is so widely different from the old Latin translation that the diversity cannot be ascribed to mistake or inadvertence, as a mistake often happens in a single letter or a single word.

Now, the Greeks commonly read it literally: “He that is married thinks of the things of the world, how he may please his wife: a married woman and a virgin are divided: She that is unmarried, thinketh of the things of the Lord,” etc. And being divided they understand as meaning to differ, as if it had been said: “There is a great difference between a married woman and a virgin, for the one is at leisure to attend to the things of God exclusively, while the other is taken up with various matters.”

But as this interpretation is somewhat at variance with the simple meaning of the word, I do not approve of it, especially as the meaning of the other reading (which is also found in some Greek manuscripts) is more suitable and less forced. We may, accordingly, understand it in this manner: that a man who is married is divided, inasmuch as he devotes himself partly to God and partly to his wife, and is not wholly and exclusively God’s.