Chapter 7 is Paul answering written questions from Corinth about marriage, and today's section deals with the unmarried. It contains one of the most unusual sentences in his letters.
What happens
"In regard to virgins, I have no commandment from the master, but I give my opinion as one who by the mercy of the master is trustworthy… Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek a separation. Are you free of a wife? Then do not look for a wife. If you marry, however, you do not sin… I tell you, brothers, the time is running out. From now on, let those having wives act as not having them, those weeping as not weeping, those rejoicing as not rejoicing, those buying as not owning, those using the world as not using it fully. For the world in its present form is passing away."
What to notice
Start with 1 Corinthians 7:25, because it is remarkable that it is in the Bible at all. Epitagēn kyriou ouk echō, gnōmēn de didōmi — "I have no command from the master; I give my opinion." Paul, inside a document the Church reads as scripture, marks the exact boundary of his own authority. Then the image in 1 Corinthians 7:29: ho kairos synestalmenos estin. Systellō is what you do to a sail — draw it in, furl it, reduce the canvas. The time has been taken in like a sail. And the hōs mē series — as not — is one of the strangest figures in Paul: not do not marry, do not weep, do not buy, but do all of it as though not. He is not asking anyone to stop living; he is asking for a change in the grip. The reason closes a circle with a word we had ten days ago: paragei gar to schēma tou kosmou toutou — the schēma of this world is passing away, the same noun as Romans 12:2, where the instruction was mē syschēmatizesthe. Do not take the shape of a thing whose shape is on its way out.
A royal wedding song — the superscription calls it "a love song" — composed for the marriage of a king, with a first half praising the groom and a second addressing the bride. It is the only frankly celebratory wedding poem in the Psalter, and its language has been read allegorically almost from the beginning.
The selected verses
Psalm 45:11–12."Hear, O daughter, and see; turn your ear, forget your people and your father's house. So shall the king desire your beauty; for he is your lord." Psalm 45:14–15."All glorious is the king's daughter as she enters; her raiment is threaded with spun gold. In embroidered apparel she is borne in to the king." Psalm 45:16–17."They are borne in with gladness and joy; they enter the palace of the king. The place of your fathers your sons shall have."
What to notice
Shikhi ammekh u-veit avikh — "forget your people and your father's house." The line is spoken to a foreign princess arriving to marry into another dynasty, and it is a real instruction with a real cost. It is also the exact echo of what was said to Abram at Genesis 12:1: go from your land, your kindred, your father's house. The bride is given Abraham's commission. The lectionary pairs this with a chapter on remaining unmarried, which looks like a mismatch until the common element surfaces: both texts are about leaving one set of attachments intact and unmourned in order to be available for another. Neither says the attachments were bad.
Luke's Sermon on the Plain, delivered immediately after the choosing of the Twelve. Matthew's version is on a mountain; Luke says he "came down and stood on a level place" — topou pedinou — with a great crowd of disciples and people from Tyre and Sidon. The geography is doing work: Matthew's Jesus teaches from above; Luke's stands on the same ground as the crowd.
What happens
Four blessings: "Blessed are you who are poor, for the reign of Theos is yours. Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you… on account of the Son of Man." Then four woes: "But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way."
What to notice
Three differences from Matthew, all of them load-bearing. First, the second person: Luke follows makarioi hoi ptōchoi immediately with second-person plural verbs — yours is the reign, you will be satisfied. Matthew's beatitudes describe a class; Luke's address a room. Second, no qualifiers. Matthew has "poor in spirit" and "hunger and thirst for righteousness." Luke has poor, and hungry — and the woes make the literal reading unavoidable, since the opposite of the poor turns out to be not the proud but the rich. Third, the woes exist at all; Matthew has none, and Luke's four map onto his four blessings exactly, in order, so the sermon is built as a balance sheet. And the word in the first woe is a commercial term you would have seen on a receipt: apechete tēn paraklēsin hymōn — apechō, "I have received in full," the formula on ancient papyrus receipts closing out a debt. "You have your consolation" is more precisely "you have been paid, and here is the receipt."
Now — poor now, hungry now, weeping now; filled now, laughing now
Luke's version of the beatitudes runs on a single adverb, and once you notice it the passage tightens. Blessed are you who are hungrynow. Woe to you who are fillednow. Every clause is a statement about the present tense and its expiry. The blessings are not descriptions of virtue and the woes are not accusations of vice — nobody in the list is charged with anything. They are statements about position in a sequence, and the sequence is about to turn over.
That is exactly Paul's argument arriving from another direction. The time has been furled; the shape of this world is passing away. His counsel is not that possessions are wicked or marriage second-rate — he says explicitly that marrying is not a sin. It is that the whole arrangement is temporary, and a person who has understood that will hold everything with a slightly open hand: those buying as not owning.
Which is why the first woe is the sharpest thing in the day. You have received your consolation — the receipt is issued, the account closed. Nothing is said about how the rich man got his money, and nothing about his character. The problem is that he has already collected. Luke's warning to the comfortable is not that they will be punished; it is that they have been paid, and the transaction they settled for was smaller than the one on offer.
Then the fourth woe, which nobody quotes: woe to you when all speak well of you. Universal good regard is listed as a danger, on the grounds that it is what happened to the false prophets. Set beside the fourth blessing — blessed are you when they hate you and exclude you — the pair makes a claim that is very hard to live with: being liked by everybody is evidence of something, and it is not evidence of being right.
Psalm 45 keeps this from tipping into contempt for ordinary goods, which is a real risk with these texts. It is a wedding song full of gold thread and embroidery and gladness, and the lectionary places it in the middle of a day about detachment without a flicker of embarrassment. The bride is told to forget her father's house, and she is carried into the palace "with gladness and joy."Nothing in the day says the good things are not good. It says they are not the settlement.
A Question to Sit With
"You have received your consolation." Not you will be punished — you have been paid. What unsettles me is how reasonable the transaction sounds: I wanted something, I worked for it, I got it, and the account closed. Most of what I have arranged my life around is like that, and none of it is wicked. The question Luke leaves is only about size. What have I already collected in full, and did I know at the time that accepting it would close the account?