Paul's two questions again sort his readers, this time into married and unmarried, and give each the same counsel: don't seek to change your state. Barnes explains the first as "Art thou already married?" since marriage is pictured as a tie or bond, and the second as asking whether one is single. Paul asks because of "the present distress" (1 Corinthians 7:26). Barnes takes that word to mean calamity, persecution, and trial; Gill calls it "the present time of persecution"; and Matthew Henry says the first Christians were grievously persecuted. In such a time, Paul counsels staying as you are rather than taking on new cares.

Paul answers both questions at once: "seek not to be loosed" and "seek not a wife" (1 Corinthians 7:27). Then he guards against misunderstanding: "But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned," though such "shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you" (1 Corinthians 7:28). His aim is "not that I may cast a snare upon you," but "that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction" (1 Corinthians 7:35).

Both verbs are in the Greek perfect tense: "have you been bound" (dedesai) and "have you been loosed" (lelysai). Paul is asking about the reader's present state, married or not married. Barnes says "loosed" would be better rendered "free from" a wife, that is, single. Gill teaches that "marriage is such a bond as cannot be dissolved, but by the death of one of the parties," though he adds, "unless in case of adultery, or of wilful desertion." Paul's own words are that a wife "is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth" (1 Corinthians 7:39).

Paul's counsel grows out of love and out of the times. He says "the time is short" and "the fashion of this world passeth away" (1 Corinthians 7:29, 31), so believers should hold earthly arrangements lightly and keep their hearts on the Lord.

Paul does call remaining single "better" (1 Corinthians 7:38), because of "the present distress" (1 Corinthians 7:26), while marriage is no sin (1 Corinthians 7:28). And "every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that" (1 Corinthians 7:7). Matthew Henry notes that Paul recommended the single life because of persecution, without laying it on anyone as a burden. Whatever a believer's state, the goal is the same: to "attend upon the Lord without distraction" (1 Corinthians 7:35).