1 CORINTHIANS 7:9 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
“But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.”
But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. — The criterion is self-control (enkrateia), the capacity to manage sexual desire. Those who lack this gift should marry; Paul uses 'burn' (purousthai) as vivid image of unmanaged sexual passion becoming destructive. The comparative 'better to marry than to burn' establishes marriage as morally licit alternative to sexual sin, not second-best but genuinely good. This counsel respects both human nature and God's redemptive provision.
Church Fathers on 1 Corinthians 7:9
“Defraud ye not one the other, except it be by consent.” What then can this mean? “Let not the wife,” says he, “exercise continence, if the husband be unwilling; nor yet the husband without the wife's consent.” Why so? Because great evils spring from this sort of continence. For adulteries and fornications and the ruin of families have often arisen from hence. For if when men have their own wives they commit fornication, much more if you defraud them of this consolation. And…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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