Paul’s pastoral letter on marriage, celibacy, and calling - where every life circumstance is addressed with one governing principle: you were bought with a price.

Full sung version coming soon.

Lyrics

Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me It is good for a man not to touch a woman But because of sexual immoralities let each man have his own wife And let each woman have her own husband

Let the husband give his wife the affection owed her And likewise also the wife her husband The wife doesn’t have authority over her own body but the husband does Likewise also the husband doesn’t have authority over his own body But the wife Don’t deprive one another unless it is by consent for a season That you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer And may be together again that Satan doesn’t tempt you Because of your lack of self-control

But this I say by way of concession not of commandment Yet I wish that all men were like me However each man has his own gift from God One of this kind and another of that kind But I say to the unmarried and to widows It is good for them if they remain even as I am

But if they don’t have self-control let them marry For it’s better to marry than to burn with passion But to the married I command not I but the Lord That the wife not leave her husband But if she departs let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled To her husband and that the husband not leave his wife

But to the rest I not the Lord say If any brother has an unbelieving wife and she is content to live with him Let him not leave her The woman who has an unbelieving husband and he is content to live with her Let her not leave her husband For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife And the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the husband

Otherwise your children would be unclean but now they are holy Yet if the unbeliever departs let there be separation The brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases But God has called us in peace Only as the Lord has distributed to each man as God has called each So let him walk So I command in all the assemblies

Were you called having been circumcised Let him not become uncircumcised Has anyone been called in uncircumcision Let him not be circumcised Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing But what matters is keeping God’s commandments

Let each man stay in that calling in which he was called Were you called being a bondservant Don’t let that bother you but if you get an opportunity to become free use it For he who was called in the Lord being a bondservant is the Lord’s free man Likewise he who was called being free is Christ’s bondservant You were bought with a price Don’t become bondservants of men

Listen

1 Corinthians 7 sung by Psalm Selah. The whole Bible, one chapter at a time.

Published 2026-05-22 · Last updated 2026-06-06
Written by Reid Wender, Editorial Director at Psalmody Press