Fleshly affliction; soldier, farmer, shepherd and unused right (1 Cor 7–9)

if the virgin also marries, she has not sinned; again he did not say "good," but "she has not sinned." But such will have affliction in the flesh (1 Corinthians 7:28). For how will they not have affliction when what was said to the woman comes upon the married woman: In pain you will bear children, and your turning will be toward your husband, and he will rule over you (Genesis 3:16)? From all these the virgin is free, set free by purity, awaiting a bridegroom of blessing. Every marriage happens in darkness; therefore not in beds and wantonness (Romans 13:13). But Christ's marriage, when he receives his church, happens in the light. Why then do virgins enter the wedding with lamps and oil that lasts? Because that marriage is of seemliness. The one joined to flesh is one body; but the one joined to spirit is one spirit (1 Corinthians 6:16–17). And what is more seemly than a soul joined to spirit and united with it, no longer being a soul but becoming what the spirit is? For of marriage it was said: the two will become one flesh; but of the one joined to the Lord: he will be one spirit.

Who ever serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who shepherds a flock and does not eat of the milk of the flock? Do I say these things according to a human way? Or does not the law also say these things? For in the law of Moses it is written: You shall not muzzle an ox while it is threshing (1 Corinthians 9:7–9). As a God-fearing soldier the apostle says: Who ever serves as a soldier at his own expense? As one entrusted with God's field and farming the church: Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? As a disciple of the good shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep: Who shepherds a flock and does not eat of the milk of the flock? And as a soldier he also teaches us to serve, saying: No one serving as a soldier entangles himself in the affairs of life, that he may please the one who enlisted him (2 Timothy 2:4); as a farmer he also teaches us to farm: I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth (1 Corinthians 3:6). And about shepherds the prophets taught us, recounting the wages of the good and announcing the punishments of those who shepherd otherwise. And the apostle will seem to one not attending to the Scripture to have forgotten what is before him through these things; but the truth is not so—he holds to the word. It is before him to teach about food offered to idols, that even if someone professing knowledge says he is not harmed by using idol-food, yet if he becomes a cause of harm to others, he ought to have cared for his neighbor, lest on his pretext others be destroyed. For this he takes the examples and says: Not in every case, if we have authority over something, ought we to make full use of the authority. For whether he is a soldier, he does not serve so as to secure nothing for himself from the rations; or a farmer, he is not content with the wage but eats from the grape; or a shepherd, besides the wage he shares the milk. So also I ought, besides the promises laid up for me from having served or farmed or shepherded well, to share in this world the things needed from those under me as soldiers, those farmed, those shepherded. Yet even if I have authority over the things needed, looking to the building up of people I do not make full use of the authority, in awe of giving some cutting-off to the gospel of Christ, or of giving a pretext to those who walk disorderly and work nothing but are busybodies (2 Thessalonians 3:11). Just as I do not use the authority I received from the Word, in the same way you also who claim to be wise ought not to use the authority but to provide for the building up of neighbors. And if the word seems to some to be without witness and spoken by human reasoning, let him hear the law saying: You shall not muzzle an ox while it is threshing, and what follows.

Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Or does he speak entirely for our sake? For it was written for our sake, that the one plowing ought to plow in hope and the one threshing to share in hope. If we sowed spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your fleshly things? (1 Corinthians 9:9–11). Therefore these things were said for our sake who have received the new covenant, and they were written about human beings, the saying being understood spiritually according to the divine apostle. And what is the sense? That the one plowing ought to plow in hope and the one threshing to share in hope. Paul the farmer plows a catechumen's soul, making fresh plowings in his soul according to