In First Corinthians 7:17-20, Paul makes a statement that has puzzled many through the centuries. "Nevertheless, each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts. Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him. (1 Cor 7:17-20)

The immediate context of this statement is the issue of marriage and divorce (1 Cor 7:10-16), with particular emphasis on mixed marriages between believers and unbelievers. Paul moves, however, from a particular situation to a more general principle when he states that new believers should "remain in the situation" they were in when God called them. The word "call" here is an equivalent of "conversion." Conversion should not trigger the abandonment of every aspect of a person’s former life. So verses 17-24 are a digression from the main point of the chapter. This digression is triggered by the missionary implications of verse 16, where a believing wife who stays with her husband can be the means of his salvation.

Paul’s point seems to be that we are not to put unnecessary barriers in the way of people accepting the gospel. For a follower of Jesus to leave a mixed marriage (assuming there is no abuse or danger to the wife) is to abandon the spouse in a lost condition. On the other hand, remaining in a less than ideal situation could be a means of saving another. So while the context of verses 17-21 is marriage, Paul is stating a much broader principle:"This is the rule I lay down in all the churches" (1 Cor 7:17).

In verse 18 Paul moves from marriage to circumcision to illustrate his general principle, and slavery and freedom further illustrate the principle in verse 21. Circumcision was a big deal in Old Testament times as well as in Paul’s day. It was the decisive marker setting off Jews from Gentiles. Yet Paul makes the radical statement, "Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing." To the Jew this statement would have seemed absurd for circumcision was one of God’s commandments in the Old Testament. Circumcision becoming nothing could only be true in relation to the gospel. The gospel is so critical that circumcision is not to stand in the way of someone receiving the gospel. Likewise, a man who was circumcised before his conversion is not to efface the mark of his Judaism. The gospel missionary is not to put unnecessary barriers in the way of the gospel.

This principle addresses the kinds of community that might result from the preaching of the gospel. There were at least two distinct branches of the early church, a Palestinian Jewish branch and a Gentile branch. It was more than a matter of taste or culture. To truly be a Jew one had to separate oneself from "unclean" Gentiles. Paul clearly understood the need to work differently in the two environments (Gal 2:7-9). Among the Jews he used Scripture and kept feasts and even temple rituals (Acts 13:16-41; 17:2-4; 18:21; 20:16; 21:20-26). Among the Gentiles he spoke on the basis of general revelation and quoted Greek poets and philosophers (Acts 17:28 [two quotes: from Epimenides, Cretica and Aratus, Phainomena 5]; Acts 26:14 [from Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1624], 1 Cor 15:33 [one quote found in two sources: Euripedes, Aiolos and Menander, Thais], and Titus 1:12 [also two sources: Epimenides, Cretica and Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus]). Compared to the pagan writings Paul quoted from, use of the Qur=an in outreach, for example, does not seem a stretch.

In First Corinthians 7 Paul considers the distinction between Jews and Gentiles to be significant, even among followers of Jesus. While the cross brings the two into a spiritual unity (Eph 2:11-16), they are to remain distinct for the sake of mission. There is no deception involved here, rather the recognition that God was working in two distinct environments. Rather than force an institutional unity, Paul preferred to maintain the distinction as a piece of his missionary strategy (1 Cor 9:19-23). Just as it was necessary to conduct two distinct missions in the first century, it may also be advisable at times for believing Muslims and Jews today to maintain some distance from traditional Christian communities.