1 Corinthians 7:39-40 (NIV)
A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord. In my judgment, she is happier if she stays as she is—and I think that I too have the Spirit of God.
Paul gives one more piece of direction before he leaves the topic of marriage and divorce. And that is simply that the marriage bond is for life. A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. (The question in the Corinthian letter was apparently written from the standpoint of a woman with an unbelieving husband, although the principle cuts both ways and is equally applicable to men.) So, as long as her husband lives, the woman must stay single or be reconciled to him (1 Corinthians 7:10-11).
However, when the husband dies, the marriage covenant is completed, and the wife is free to remarry. But Paul gives very specific guidance here as well: the person a Christian marries must be a Christian as well.
Some push back against this, falling in love with a non-believer, and justifying it by believing that they will be able to save them, if not before they are married, then surely after. But oh, how few of these scenarios actually play out the way they are imagined. All over the Church there are older Christian women whose husbands are still unsaved after decades of marriage. And the vast majority of them will still have an unbelieving husband when she or he passes away. (For some reason, there are far fewer Christian husbands with unsaved wives, and most of those men became Christians after they were married.)
Paul’s ultimate concern in all this is that the Christians are spared the unnecessary complications and sorrows that come from being married to an unbeliever, and thus having to choose between serving the Lord wholeheartedly and considering the wants and needs of their spouse. Thus, he recommends at the close of this section that the single Christian consider that they might be happier and more fulfilled being single and serving the Lord completely.
Father, so often we make the decision of who to date and who to marry strictly on the basis of feelings and emotions. We don’t look to You before we start to date someone, and by the time we do turn to You, we are already emotionally invested in the relationship, which clouds our ability to see and hear Your guidance. We ignore clear signs from You that we need to walk away from the relationship, justifying our decisions by our feelings, and often on our fear of being alone. And we rarely, if ever, consider how the relationship will enhance or lessen our relationship with You and our service to Your kingdom. Lord, marriage is such an important issue to You that You caused a lot of ink to be used in spelling out Your guidelines for it, even in this letter. Help us to do things Your way instead of allowing ourselves to be blindly led along by our feelings and emotions, which can easily lead us to a place that we will later regret. Amen.