Now let me speak to those who are engaged. I don’t have a direct command from the Lord for you. But I’d like to give my opinion as someone who, by the Lord’s mercy, can be trusted.
I know that some of the rest of you are in a complicated situation. We don’t have a direct command from the Lord about that, but let me offer some advice. If a brother has a wife who isn’t a believer, he shouldn’t divorce her if she’s willing to live with him.
Unlike many people, we aren’t selling God’s word to make money. It’s just the opposite! Because of Christ, we speak honestly before God, as people God has truly sent.
But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace wasn’t wasted on me. No, I worked harder than all the other apostles—though it wasn’t me doing the work. God’s grace was with me.
So he’s pulled in two directions. An unmarried or single woman is concerned about the things of the Lord. She wants to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the things of this world. She wants to know how she can please her husband.
But if you do marry someone, you haven’t sinned. And if a woman marries her fiancé, she hasn’t sinned. But those who do marry will have many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you from those.
But as for those who are married, I need to give you a command that comes directly from the Lord Jesus, not from me: A wife must not leave her husband.