We are not ignorant of: “Marriage is honorable and the bed undefiled” (Heb. 13:4). We read God’s first judgment: “Increase and multiply and fill the earth” (Gen. 1:28), but just as we accept marriage, we prefer virginity, which is born of marriage. Now will silver not be silver, if gold is more precious than it? …. Although the one-hundred-fold, sixty-fold, and thirty-fold fruits are brought forth from one earth and from one sowing, nonetheless they differ much in number. The thirty-fold refers to marriage …, the sixty-fold to widows…, the one-hundred-fold … expresses the crown of virginity.

Copyright © 1988 by the author or Christianity Today International/Christian History magazine.
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