Word study involves more than just looking up original language words in a word study dictionary (a lexicon). The usage of a word in context is the most important consideration. However, there are times when a word’s distribution within either a book or in the writings of a single author ought to influence the way we think about word meaning.
One of the best examples of this consideration is the Greek noun translated “unmarried” (agamos). This word occurs four times in the New Testament—all in the same chapter and, therefore, all by the same author. The fact that only Paul uses this term four times in 1 Corinthians 7 means that we must allow what Paul writes (and, in this case, what he doesn’t) to inform our understanding of the word’s meaning. Put negatively, it matters not how some author in some other Greek text from some other period says. We have to figure out what Paul was thinking when he used the word.
On the surface, “unmarried” seems easy to define. It’s “the state of being spouseless.” Fair enough, but there are a number of different circumstances that would put someone in that category. Here are the circumstances that would mean you have no spouse:
• Never been married
• Your spouse has died
• Divorced
• Your spouse has deserted you
The last circumstance is less familiar to us than people (usually women) in the ancient world. Scholars agree that Paul’s language in 1 Corinthians 7 includes all four circumstances. They disagree, however, on whether Paul would have forbidden remarriage to those divorced. The answer to that question depends on whether it seems reasonable (or not) to presume that Paul included divorce as a circumstance for being spouseless in verses 27–28. Is Paul talking only about first-time marriage in those verses, or is anyone “loosed” from a spouse allowed to remarry? Answering that question is the interpretive task in 1 Corinthians 7. There is nowhere else to look for what this term might include or exclude in any given verse, since it occurs only here.