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11
Feb

Deal As If You Don’t

2009 at 3:30 pm   |   by Nicole Whitacre
Filed under Singleness

The verse we considered yesterday, 1 Corinthians 7, serves as a kind of “financial advisor” for the single season. This passage informs you of quality deals and advises you against bad investments. In the context of answering this question about singleness and marriage, Paul gets to his real point:

“This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away” (vv. 29-31)


Stockxpertcom_id3610321_jpg_d4331eccb12039c40fa26160971fc7dd How do you avoid wasteful spending of your time? Don’t invest it all in "the present form of this world." ‘Cause it ain’t gonna last.

“Form” here carries the idea of “fickleness [or] the changing fashion. There is nothing solid and lasting in this world’s system. It is its nature to pass away” (Gordon Fee).

Here’s a metaphor we women can understand: fashion. The world’s bargains are as fickle, as fleeting as this year’s “in” style. And they won’t come back again in twenty years.

“Believe me, there is nothing here that is worthy of your pursuit,” warns pastor Charles Spurgeon:

“If you give your soul up to anything earthly, whether it be the wealth, or the honours, or the pleasures of this world, you might as well hunt after the mirage of the desert or try to collect the mists of the morning, or to store up for yourself the clouds of the sky, for all these things are passing away.”


While we must live in this world and “deal” with it, we must not set our heart on it or put our hope in it or give up our soul to it’s offerings.

So what are the good deals of this season? More shopping for time advice from 1 Corinthians 7 tomorrow.



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