From Selfish to Sanctified

In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul commends singleness as the possibility of undivided devotion to God but offers marriage only with the caveat that it necessary means divided devotion. Some might bristle at this unsentimental view of family life, but Erik used the story of the nineteenth-century American theologian B.B. Warfield to show how marriage sanctifies selfish desires by turning them towards others:

Warfield was certain he was called by God to support the global church as a traveling speaker. But his wife Annie wasn’t. In fact, her whole body seemed to say no: she had a physical collapse while traveling and she never recovered. So, Warfield gave up what he believed his calling to be and they moved to Princeton, New Jersey, where he spent the rest of the writing, teaching, and caring for Annie. He did not have authority over his own body, but yielded to her. She did not have authority over her own body, but yielded to him. Neither was free to care only about pleasing themselves. Neither was free to care only about pleasing God. Paul tells us, marriage means mutual agreement, but mutual agreement means divided devotion.

 Yet that marriage sanctified Warfield: he became the sort of person who would give up his ambitions and love another as himself. Supposedly Benjamin never left Anne’s side for more than a couple hours. He would do his work in her presence, reading aloud from his research or writing. I’m not sure the dry theology of Victorian Presbyterianism was good for her health, but they both cherished the companionship. It’s incredible to think that at the root of that devotion is the same desire that inspires pop songs and compels people to get on dating apps. But that romantic desire was sanctified, made holy, by marriage. Sex begins as a selfish desire that makes us into its servants, but in marriage it is sanctified into a desire that directs us away from ourselves and into servants of others.