GIVE YOURSELVES TO FASTING AND PRAYER

This instruction can only be understood in the light of its context in verses 1 to 9 of the chapter. W. E. VINE points out in his commentary that ‘the most authentic manuscripts do not contain here any mention of fasting’.¹ Hence it is omitted from the RV and other versions. Paul is concerned about times of prayer in the lives of husbands and wives. He deals with the matter with delicacy but makes clear how his married readers should treat their partners.

He emphasizes that it is wrong for either partner in marriage to persistently deprive the other of physical fulfilment. Commenting on verses 3 to 5, LEON MORRIS writes, ‘Each (partner) owes duties to the other. Paul does not stress the duty of either partner at the expense of the other, but puts them on a level, a noteworthy position in the male-dominated society of the time. His verb (in verse 3) is the present imperative, which indicates the habitual duty (wives and husbands) have obligations to one another’.²

Now to our text. In verse 5 Paul recognizes that a Christian couple may agree to abstain from union for a time in order to give themselves to prayer. It is not that the Apostle strongly insists on this practice; much less does he teach that all married couples should adopt it. VINE emphasizes the three conditions which should control such abstention: ‘(1) there must be mutual consent, (2) it must be temporary, and (3) it must have the purpose of prayer in view’.³ It is noteworthy that, so far as God is concerned, married partners belong to each other so fully that persistent abstinence by one against the wishes of the other amounts to an act of fraud, v. 5.

The words ‘that you may give yourselves to prayer’ mean literally ‘that you may have leisure for prayer’. Most of us in the western world find that the pace of life is the enemy of leisurely prayer, yet this is a crucial activity. We have seen that Paul sanctions in this passage one way in which married Christians may achieve greater concentration on prayer. But the attendant dangers he mentions were very real then, and they remain so in our corrupt society today.

¹

W. E. VINE, 1 Corinthians, Oliphants, 1965, pg. 94.

²

L. MORRIS, The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, W. B. Eerdmans, 1985, pg. 103.

³

W. E. VINE, op. cit.