Does 1 Corinthians 7:32-35 Mean I should be more worldly?

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DominicForGod

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I am 18 and my girlfriend is 17. My whole life I have been very devoted to strengthening my spirit through not giving into my fleshy desires so to speak, I always strive to be simple and tell the truth, and to make myself Jesus’ slave and die to self. My girlfriend (who I plan to marry) comes from a very different background, still Christian, but she is much more worldy (likes rock bands and celebrities and doesn’t see the devil, Satan, working through the secular side of things as I can)

When 1 Corinthians 7:32-35 says: I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.

How can I keep the “good order” that this verse speaks of and secure my “undivided attention” to the lord in the best way possible? Right now I currently am trying to show my girlfriend that the cheap pleasures of the world are not the right path through praying the rosary with her (I am catholic) and also taking her to mass, She last night broke down crying because she felt that it was too much on her and that I never seem to be happy with her. she is naïve to any other way, I do my best to have patience, I just feel that I am here in the relationship to help strengthen our eternal spirits, and not our mortal fleshy bodies. Please can someone interpret this verse and maybe use other biblical support in their answers to tell me how I should best approach this scenario with my worldly girlfriend (soon to be wife). Thank You, God Bless
 
It appears that you, comparitively, have a strong spirituality while your fiance has a weaker spirituality. This will undoubtedly bring you strife in the future, as it seems to have in your present.

There is absolutely no Scripture that encourages you to be any more worldly than what is necessary to your daily duties. We are to love God with “all” our beings and to live “in the Spirit”, which opposes the flesh.

It seems that your fiance doesn’t understand the idea of constantly improving one’s self and each other, that married couples are meant to help each other become saints. Tell her that it’s not a rejection of her or about being unhappy with her, but that you have a goal of always moving from where you are to a better state of grace.

Hopefully, she will understand and accept this necessary and fundamental concept.
 
This sounds like trolling, but I will give a straight answer.

I think what St. Paul means by the married man being worldly is that while the single person can live a fairly uncomplicated semi-monastic life if he wishes to (and a lot of single men have other ideas), a married man has to be thinking a lot about the material welfare of his family. If you are a single guy, you can have a bunch of shady roommmates, live in a terrible neighborhood, eat ramen or cheesy dogs every night, and pray as much as you like, but a married man with a family has much larger material needs. He has to think carefully about the people he exposes his children to, the schools he sends his children to, the food he feeds his kids and he will find his free time eaten up with household chores and amusing and educating the children. Yesterday, for instance, my husband drove our daughter to two different lessons, grocery shopped with her, drove us all to confession (something the single guy would do, but much less of an ordeal with one rather than 5 people to manage), replaced the alternator in our car, and supervised our daughter as she did homework and cleaned her room. It was a long, long day. We have a large mortgage that has to be paid. If my husband were a single man, he would be perfectly happy living in a studio apartment. Even a married man with no children will find himself doing more household chores. The bathroom that previously was an untouched eco-system will need to be cleaned before company and maybe even once a week! I could go on, but you get the picture. On the one hand, the married man has less time for prayer, but it’s also true that his life is generally more focused on the welfare of others than is true of the average single man. It has to be said that the average single man is not spending all of his free time on prayer. St. Paul is talking about a very special sort of single man who is living his vocation fully.

I would argue that an engaged person in some ways is much more like a married man than a single man. He has similar responsibilities to think about the material needs of his future wife and his future children, to develop his career, watch his money, and plan for the welfare of his future family.

You sound very young and not well matched with your fiancee.
 
If you’re making your girlfriend cry, that’s not a good sign. It is not chivalrous to make your girlfriend cry. Be gentler.

Look, I don’t know you or your girlfriend or the state of your souls. But the more you are trying to get someone to learn a new way to live and new concepts, the more you have to be nice and kind and loving about it. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

The reason that the land of Israel was “flowing with milk and honey” was that God wanted the Israelites to have a promise that was sweet like honey and smoothly nourishing like milk. Jewish children on their first day of school get a drop of honey on their tongue, so they’ll be encouraged to love learning. There’s a Jewish holiday for studying the Bible all night; what do people eat during it? Cheesecake and other dishes made with milk and honey.

When your girlfriend thinks about the love of God in you, is she thinking you’re like milk and honey? Or what?

Of course, sometimes a girl crying is not your fault. Personally, I get weepy whenever I’m deeply moved. But the basic concept of having a girlfriend to love involves love!

Be good now.
 
When looking for a future wife, don’t choose someone who needs to change (as you see it). Look for someone who already believes as you do. And even if this gal should change, would you know if she was changing for the love of Jesus or to please you? (Not to mention you are waaaaaayyyyy too young to be picking a wife anyway.)
 
In my list of my husband’s activities yesterday, I forgot that he also took our two big kids to watch a parade in the morning. It was a huge day.

Now that I have a family, I understand exactly what St. Paul meant. The material requirements of caring for a family are so pressing that prayer can really suffer and one can be so focused on doing the best for one’s own children that one forgets that there are other children and people in the world who need our help and our consideration. There really are people whose motto is “my kid, right or wrong,” no matter how much damage that does to the kid himself and to others.

However, it is also true that for the average person, changing 10+ diapers a day, breastfeeding a baby 8 times a day and feeding big children half a dozen times a day and comforting them as often as they need comfort does tend to make us a little less self-centered than we would be if we were home alone with our Xbox, our shoe collection and our internet. St. Paul had similar ideas. In 1 Timothy 5, he explains his thoughts on the problem of young widows. While he encourages the church financial support of elderly widows with a record of service to the poor, he encourages younger widows to marry, as he has noticed a number of younger widows doing the following: “13…they get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also busybodies who talk nonsense, saying things they ought not to. 14 So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander.” There is undoubtedly a male equivalent.
 
One must be careful in reading chapter 7 of 1 Corinthians. St Paul himself has been careful in how he wrote it. Note the various places where he says that something is from the Lord, while in another place he says that it is from him - and/or is his opinion.

As to the specific section you reference here, the very first sentence sets the tone. He wants you to be free of anxieties. He then goes into expressing his ideas on how this can be accomplished…but again note in verse 35 how he says he does not wish to lay any restraint on you…

Paul is trying to lift a burden from the shoulders of his readers…so they will not be anxious. IMHO - You are making yourself (and your gf) anxious by over thinking this passage.

Beyond this - I think that Xantippe pretty well nailed it…

Faith should be joyful…serious yes…but it should not make your girlfriend cry for the reason you give in your OP.

Just some thoughts…

Peace
James
 
I would like to say thank you so much for all of your answers, I agree with everyone, and just some backround, my parents, celebrating their 33rd year together of marriage, got engaged and married at ages 19 and 22, and they met in highschool like me and my girlfriend did. You all answered my questions, and I do believe she is the one for me, and love can get us through anything, especially with Jesus as our rock foundation, and plenty of support from our family and church. I appreciate all of your efforts to explain this passage to me, and I believe I understand it thoroughly enough now. God bless you all! 🙂 -Love Dominic
 
I’d like to point out that there’s nothing wrong with liking rock music or being curious as to what celebrities do. It shouldn’t replace God in any way, but the world is not a terrible place to shun and keep out. Jesus went to feasts, Karol Wojtila was an actor before becoming Pope JPII (and still liked to do things like ski afterwards), and Tolkien was a devout Catholic who hung out with his writer-friends discussing mythology and fairy tales.
 
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