1 Corinthians 7:16

16. For Assigning as a reason for peace.

Whether The Greek word usually means simply if. And as there is no negative so as to make if not, so Stanley, Alford, and others make the apostle ask, How knowest thou that thou wilt convert the infidel party? And then the question gives a reason to let the party go without interposing any legal obstacle. Let him go, for you know not that you shall convert him. We reject this view. For, 1. The not is not necessary in order to indicate that a question implies an affirmative hope. Dr. Hodge rightly quotes 2 Samuel 12:22; Joel 2:14; Jonah 3:9. Take the first passage. David fasted and prayed in the hope of his child’s life being spared, asking, “Who can tell if the Lord will be gracious, that the child may live?” Thus David conducts, as Paul would have the married Christian conduct, in the hope expressed by the interrogative if, that a favourable issue might result. 2. The meaning given by Alford is very un-Pauline. It makes Paul, by emphatic repetition, very earnest to expel the hope of saving a soul, and very earnest to prevent action for that purpose! The Christian could not, indeed, know that the opposite party would be converted, and it would be very superfluous for Paul to so inform him. But there often might be a hope; and it would be very unlike Paul to deny that such a hope should be a ground of action to save a wife or husband from infidelity, sin, and death. To act from such hopes, where he did not know a favourable result, was one of the fundamental purposes of Paul’s life.