The Expositor's Bible: The First Epistle to the CorinthiansDods, Marcus
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The First Epistle to the Corinthians
Dods, Marcus
Bible. Corinthians, 1st -- Commentaries
His reason for thinking that unmarried men would be more efficient in
the service of Christ is given in the thirty-second and thirty-third
verses: "He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the
Lord, how he may please the Lord; but he that is married careth for
the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife," an
opinion quite similar to that which Lord Bacon pronounced when he
said, "Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public,
have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, who both in
affection and means have married and endowed the public." Given two
men with equal desire to serve Christ, but the one married and the
other unmarried, it is obvious that the unmarried man has more means
and opportunities of service than he who has a large family to
support. No doubt a good wife may stimulate a man to liberality, and
may greatly increase his tenderness towards deserving objects of
charity; but the fact remains that he who has seven or ten mouths to
fill cannot have so much to give away as if he had but himself to
support. Then, again, however alike in sentiment husband and wife may
be, there are sacrifices which a married man may not make. With the
unmarried man there need be no other consideration than this: How can
I best serve Christ? With the married man there must always be other
considerations. He cannot ignore or forswear the ties with which he
has bound himself; he cannot act as if he had only himself to
consider. The unmarried man has life and the world before him, and may
choose the most ideal and perfect style of life he pleases. He may
seek to realize, as many in recent times have realized, the exact
apostolic idea of how it is best to spend a human life. He may choose
to devote himself to the elevation of some one class of the community,
or he is free to go to the ends of the earth to preach the Gospel. He
has no one thing to consider but how he may please the Lord. But the
married man has limited his range of choice, and has cut himself off
from some at least of the most influential ways of doing good in the
world. It is therefore to the unmarried that the State looks for the
manning of the army and navy; it is to the unmarried that society
looks for the nursing of the sick and for the filling of posts of
danger; and it is on the unmarried that the Church depends for a large
part of her work, from teaching in Sunday-schools to occupying
unhealthy and precarious outposts in the mission field.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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