 Was Paul giving his opinion, or was he stating what God wanted him to say? Clearly, Paul will make a lot of controversial statements, not controversial to the average Christian, but controversial to the world, things that the world would not agree with, especially in this climate in today's society. Paul makes some statements, and before we go to what he says about, in this case, women and marriage, I want to go to what he states about Scripture. Paul says in 2 Timothy 3.16, he says, All Scripture is inspired by God and probable for teaching, for reproof, for correction. All Scripture. Now, what is considered to be Scripture? That's the issue. It's not the person that is inspired, because that's what the text says. The text says that all Scripture is inspired. Now, the reason why I put it that way is because it's possible that Paul can make a statement or anyone else, and it not be from God. As a matter of fact, that happens. There are things that even the apostles or the prophets would do that are clearly not of God, which meant that these men are not infallible, that these men are finite, that these men can fall, these men can fail, and we see that we see them struggling at time. Paul himself admits to struggling with certain desires and certain things. We see that with Peter. We see that with all of the apostles, as well as the prophets, as much as the Scripture can give us light, too. And so it's not to say that all of the people that write the Scriptures are inspired, but the Scriptures themselves are breathed. The question is, does this also include Paul's writings? As a matter of fact, does it include the New Testament writers? Since when Paul makes his statement, there were very few of the New Testament writings that were there. Well, a couple of things. One, Peter himself validates Paul or affirms Paul. He says in 2 Peter chapter 3 verse, let's say verse 15, in regard of the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you. So how did Paul write? Paul wrote, as he says, according to the wisdom given to him, obviously by the Lord, as also in all his letters, speaking in the terms of these things which are sometimes hard to understand, which are, which the untaught and unstable distort as they do also. Look what he says, the rest of Scripture. So Peter here is equating Paul's writings with Scripture, with Scriptures, all of the Scriptures, including the Old Testament Scriptures. So he puts it on par with at least the things that we know are from God, that they would agree they were from God, which are the Old Testament Scripture writings. Now, the reason why that's important is because when we get to a couple passages, there are those that want to say that Paul was just simply giving his opinion, and we shouldn't take that. Well, the question is, if he's giving his opinion, well, then why then is it in the canon of Scriptures that we all should be looking to? But the passage in question is 1 Corinthians chapter 7 verse 12, he says, but to the rest I say not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her. Well, why is Paul making that statement? As a matter of fact, why does he say, I say, but not the Lord? Well, he's not saying this is just my opinion, not the lower state, that's not what he's saying. What he is speaking of is something that Jesus himself did not cover verbally. In the in the Gospels, specifically Matthew, notice what he says in Matthew 532, Jesus is speaking about divorce and so forth. He says, but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchassis, makes her commit adultery. Well, Paul also establishes that as well. And in that case, Paul doesn't say the Lord or I say not the Lord, because the Lord has covered that. But in this case, Paul, Paul is stating that Jesus did not verbally cover that because there was no issue about them marrying someone outside of Judaism. You marrying a non Jew was not an issue. That was that was obviously no, no. Paul is speaking here in regards to someone who's an unbeliever, someone who is not a Jew, someone of what's going to happen naturally. There are going to be these mixed marriages, meaning that there are those who are someone, one of the spouses might be saved. The other is not one of the spouses of believer, the other the other spouses of pagan. How does it happen? Well, both can start off as pagans. Both can start off as unbelievers and one becomes a believer. Well, then what should happen with the spouse who's not a believer who doesn't want to leave? They want to stay with the person. Well, then don't don't don't get divorced. Even though Paul just said, do not be married. You should not marry someone who's not a believer. But if the two come together and one becomes a believer, well, then you stay together. If the unbelieving spouse happens to leave, then what does Paul say? Paul speaks and says that that person can now be free. He is no longer bound to the unbeliever who left. And so in this case, it's not that Paul is bringing up something that Jesus is against or anything like that. It's just that Jesus did not verbally speak that there's a lot of passages. There are a lot of commands speaking about the church and going forward that Jesus did not verbally speak, which is why these scriptures are God breathe that's going back to the point. That's why all scripture, not the writers, but the words that were written that we accept, those are the ones that are literally breathed out by God through the personality, even through the personality of the writer, such as Paul. Paul makes another statement that people want to kind of brush aside because he makes a statement in this that some who are looking for some wiggle room and want to get out, focus on. Let's be clear. Oftentimes, when we see people not wanting to follow what Paul has commanded from the Lord, they'll look for an out. They'll look for something that says, see, that's not for us. This is just Paul either given his suggestion. One of the cases is in regards to women being pastors. He says in 1 Timothy 2 verse 12 says, but I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man but to remain silent. Paul is not again given his own opinion. He's giving scripture because again, Peter validates what Paul is saying and calls what he says on par with the rest of scripture. So no, Paul is not giving his own opinion. There's some personality of Paul in what he's saying, but the words that he's saying to teach us to command us, as he says, imitate me as I imitate Christ, he is giving us literally what the word of God would have him say with the spirit of God, working through him, moving him to say Paul himself is not inspired by the Holy Spirit, but the words that are coming through him that are being moved by the Holy Spirit, those words that we see on paper, those words that he wrote, those words that he spoke about us and our walk. Those are the ones that are inspired, including the ones that we don't like. Amen.