Eating the Shewbread

On this day in 1954, C.S. Lewis dined with Joy Davidman Gresham (his future wife) [ http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001188.cfm ] and Ruth Pitter (winner of the Queen’s Medal for Poetry).

“I’m not a man for marriage, but if I were, I would ask Ruth Pitter.” C. S. Lewis to Hugo Dyson. [ http://www.crlamppost.org/dyson.htm ]

At fifty-eight years of age, C. S. Lewis married divorcee Joy Davidman. Their unusual marriage is well-chronicled and mostly acknowledged as a “match made in Heaven,” but at the time it was widely regarded as a sin.
God’s regulations for sexual matters are given in 1 Corinthians 7 and elsewhere in the Bible and are an ideal toward which we should strive. Missing the mark is sinful, but God is our judge.

Matthew 12: 3-8
He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.”

1 Corinthians 7: 1, 2 - Concerning Married Life
Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband . . .
1 Corinthians 7: 8-11
Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.