The Tanager wrote: ↑Fri Feb 12, 2021 11:44 am
Paul encourages them to have plenty of sex, only taking limited breaks.
None of the versions I read say or even imply "plenty," or any amount of sex for that matter.
In v. 6 Paul makes a "concession" to what he just said but says it isn't a command. He seems to be agreeing with the ones who were saying that it isn't good for man to have sex with a woman in the sense that he views celibacy as the higher calling.
But in post 31 I established to my satisfaction that it was god who said through Paul, "It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” So I don't go along with your claim that it was "the ones who were saying 'It is good for a man . . . .'"
But, in v. 7, he clearly says celibacy and having a sexual partner within marriage are equally gifts of God. That sex is a gift of God to some people and that God simply tolerates sex because of sexual immorality contradicts.
Can't equate sex with marriage here: That because marriage is the gift, so too must sex be the gift, because that's not what it says. For whatever reason god doesn't consider the desire for sexual intercourse he implanted in just about everyone to be any kind of gift at all, but rather its objectionable outcome to be something he is willing to tolerate. . . . . under one special circumstance.
The toleration view also directly contradicts Genesis (which Paul accepted as scripture).
It certainly does.
In Genesis God makes humans, which includes giving them sexual drives, talks about them becoming one flesh, tells them to multiply, and calls all that very good. God doesn't create marriage there as a way to reduce immorality. At that point they had not sinned. Proverbs 5:18-19 talks about letting your wife's breasts fill you with delight. Romans 1:26 has Paul calling certain sexual relations natural. Then there is the whole book of the Song of Songs."
Yet in 1 Corinthians 7:1 through Paul he says: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” Kind of like other contradictions scattered throughout the bible:
“… I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” — Genesis 32:30
“No man hath seen God at any time…”– John 1:18
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“The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father…” — Ezekiel 18:20
“I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation…” — Exodus 20:5
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“Honor thy father and thy mother…”– Exodus 20:12
“If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. ” — Luke 14:26
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“… the earth abideth for ever.” — Ecclesiastes 1:4
“… the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” — 2Peter 3:10
Go figure.
My interpretation, that some in Corinth were thinking they should give up sex and Paul is addressing those concerns, still seems to me to make better sense.
Very possibly. The unstated question, to which god gives his reply in 1 Corinthians 7:1, and his solution in 1 Corinthians 7:2
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