title: The Body for the Lord: Sex and Identity in 1 Corinthians 5-7 (The Library of New Testament Studies)
author: Alistair May
description: Rev Dr. Alisair S. May earned his Ph.D. at Glasgow University in 2001. He now serves as a Church of Scotland parish minister in Rutherglen.
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  # Homily 19 on First Corinthians
  
  
  ## 1 Corinthians 7:1-2
  
  
  Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote to me: it is good for a man not to
  touch a woman. But because of fornications, let each man have his own wife;
  and let each woman have her own husband.
  
  
  Having corrected the three heaviest things laid to their charge, one, the
  distraction of the Church, another, about the fornicator, a third, about the
  covetous person, he thenceforth uses a milder sort of speech. And he
  interposes some exhortation and advice about marriage and virginity, giving
  the hearers some respite from more unpleasant subjects. But in the second
  Epistle he does the contrary; he begins from the milder topics, and ends with
  the more distressing. And here also, after he has finished his discourse about
  virginity, he again launches forth into matter more akin to reproof; not
  setting all down in regular order, but varying his discourse in either kind,
  as the occasion required and the exigency of the