1 Corinthians 6

1 Corinthians 6

6:1-2 – Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts?

- In Chapter 5 we are judging the immorality of people in the body. Paul is showing the foolishness of taking other believers to court. In the 1st Century they were constantly bringing lawsuits against one another but Paul is saying that believers shouldn’t act that way, they should handle their problems with each other amongst themselves.

6:3-8 – Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church? I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren, but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers? Actually, then, it is already a defeat for you, that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? On the contrary, you yourselves wrong and defraud. You do this even to your brethren.

- The unbelieving judges of the secular world were out there fornicating and people from the church were bringing sexual defrauding cases before them. Paul is disappointed that they can’t find one wise man in the church to settle these disputes.

- We are slaves to God, building His building and expanding His kingdom through sharing the Gospel – when we spend our time taking each other to court we are defeating ourselves.

- Why Not Just Be Wronged? – We are called to a position of humility, but we can’t handle our pride being assaulted – when someone ‘wrongs’ you just take it in stride. Keep going. You’re God’s property, you don’t have any rights.

6:9-11 – Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

- Those wicked people from verse 4, the ones whom we are allowing to judge us, they will not inherit God’s kingdom and they are not God’s slaves. We will because we are.

- Idolaters is always a word associated with sexual sin in the new testament. Effeminate, or ‘Softies” were people so wrapped up in sexual sin that they’ve gone from debauchery with women to debauchery with men also. Paul’s emphasizing that these people aren’t qualified to judge us, and we shouldn’t be taking each other to their courts. We shouldn’t be taking each other to any court in the first place because we’re humbled slaves who have no rights.

6:12 – All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.

- Profitable = That which is advantageous to the lord who owns you.
- “Will not be mastered” = The same as “have authority over her own body” in 7:4

6:13 – Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.

- Some things are okay (food is for the stomach), others are not (immorality) because our bodies belong to the slave Lord and what is bad for the body or bad for His name is wrong. These things will be accounted for when He comes back.
People like to emphasize the “all things are lawful” part of verse 12 and forget the rest of it. You are not free to do whatever you want because you are not your own. You may get away with certain things now, but you will be held accountable for the way you’ve treated God’s grace. This passage goes back to chapter 5 (only a few verses ago, mind you) where Paul says that a little leaven ruins the whole batch.

6:14-16 – Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “The two shall become one flesh.”

- “members” is a double entendre here. It is “members” of the body of Christ, but also “members” of a body in an anatomical sense. Paul is talking about committing sexual immorality.

- When you “go into a prostitute” you take the whole body with you. You are only one part of an entire body! If you commit these things you are defiling the whole body of Christ.

- The word “prostitute” does not mean that money has changed hands. It is the feminized version of the word “porneo” and simply means an immoral woman. “Go into a prostitute” is a euphemism for any type of sexual immorality, including pornography and lust. This is just an example that Paul is using, the principle stands for any blatant sin that people bring into the body.

6:17 – But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him,

- Join instead with the Lord, have your intimate relationship with Him and by His standards and you can help take the whole body with you, building up the body.

6:18-19 – Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

- Committing immorality tears down the body and halts Christ’s work. The other members have to stop what they’re doing and deal with you and are demoralized by your actions.

- “You are not your own” is an inclusion with verse 16 – You belong to the body which belongs to Christ – He’s the master!

- “Body” in these verses is the same word used for “wife” in the coming chapter. He’s going to transition into chapter 7.

6:20 – For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

- God bought you! You belong to Him! You’re His slave! Everything you do reflects back on Him and a wicked slave gets turned out (remember the darkness? Streets at night are a very bad place to be in Rome). Don’t disease the body with bad, immoral decisions, and if you know someone who is doing that, deal with it. Don’t take it to the unbelieving courts – Jesus is coming back to judge us.

Paul keeps coming back to the idea that we’re all slaves to God and Christ. Here he talks about our bodies (which is also a word for slave, the impersonal word for a human being is ‘body’) and says that we are bought with a price! Remember where you stand in the final order of things and don’t presume that you can do whatever you want as long as it’s in private, you’ve got a job to do and you’d better not hinder the household from doing that job before Jesus gets back.

1 Corinthians 5

1 Corinthians 5

5:1-2 – It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.

- ‘immorality’ is the Greek word “pornea” from which we get ‘pornographic.’ In the first century, a man sleeping with his father’s wife was punishable by death, but the church isn’t doing anything about it.

- They haven’t punished this like they should have

5:3-4 – For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus,

- When a judge entered the courtroom he said, “I am present.” This meant “Court is in session.” Paul is going to pass judgment because they haven’t done it themselves. He is again using slavery/courtroom imagery to deal with this situation.

5:5 – I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

- The unbelievers were hating and killing each other. Being ‘put out’ was dangerous in the first century, kind of like being lost in a bad neighborhood of one of today’s big cities at night (we have some safety when we’re in a vehicle, that wasn’t even an option then, it was very dangerous to not have a place to go at night).

5:6-11 – Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous or swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler – not even to eat with such a one.

- This is, of course, a reference to the man mentioned above. It is extremely important that we not tolerate blatant, open immorality in the church. In other places Paul refers to the church as a physical body or as a temple being built with living stones. Just as a little leaven spreads to the whole lump of dough, if we tolerate these things in the body (but we’re just ‘loving them back to the Lord’….) eventually others will stumble and it becomes a major problem. Get it out of here as soon as possible. Someone who claims to be saved and is in the church, but does not live a moral lifestyle should not be associated with.

- The other important thing that Paul mentions here is that we are not to be “out of the world.” In the first chapter he’s clearly said that we are to be doing the Master’s work and that we will be accountable for what we’ve done while he’s been gone. Paul apparently wrote them another letter that is not in scripture (before 1 Corinthians) where he told them not to associate with immoral people, and they were using this command to separate themselves from the world. Our job is evangelism.

5:12-13 – For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.

- Deal with internal problems internally but if someone is wicked and worldly they should be left for God to deal with.

Again, Jesus the Master is coming back to judge his household. He's left some people in charge while He's gone and they are accountable for the way they've handled things. The church is designed to be the Body of Christ who is completing a task left for us by the master when he left on business. It is important that we get the work done instead of constantly dealing with internal problems (which is why we deal with one another in humility) so if someone is openly defiant and living an immoral lifestyle, get him out of here so he doesn't cause more problems. End of story.

Today in my 1 Peter class the prof said "People need to realize that the spiritual life is not just about disciplines. We make those a miniature works system that all Christians should follow. I want to see a spiritual life book that teaches what the Bible says. God purifies us like gold in a furnace, and the heat of the furnace is the slander, ostracism and persecution that comes not only from unbelievers, but also that which comes when bearing with one another in the body of Christ!" I think that this point speaks to the message of 1 Corinthians, because the whole book is about not fighting about stupid stuff with each other; just get over it, bear with one another, stop getting offended and do the work.

Who Haven't You Told?

How many people do you come into contact with every day who are headed to hell? Recently I've come under conviction about the people at my last job who didn't know Christ, and my reluctance to share the gospel with them. The only way that people can possibly know the truth of the gospel is if those of us who know it tell them, and God's word makes no bones about the urgency of our message.

"But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet and the people are not warned, and a sword comes and takes a person from them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require from the watchman's hand... When I say to the wicked, 'O wicked man, you shall surely die,' and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his inquity, but his blood I will require from your hand. But if you on your part warn a wicked man to turn from his way and he does not turn from his way, he will die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your life." Ezekiel 33:6, 8-9

Why I didn't vote for Huckabee.

I went to the Republican Caucus in Lawrence this morning with every intention of voting for Mike Huckabee. My choices for the republican nominee went like this: Thompson, Romney, Guliani, (Huckabee/McCain, not sure), Paul. Since my top 3 have dropped out, I was forced to choose between McCain and Huckabee, so I chose Huckabee for the simple fact that I've heard him talk about what he believes as a Christian and I appreciated his boldness. I got to the caucus today, waited until everyone in line was through, and listened to the campaign speeches given by campaign workers.

McCain's guy was alright but all he talked about was Vietnam (which I wasn't even alive for) and left me wishing they would talk about something that's still relevant. Paul's guy did nothing but trash the other two and then make a few plugs about pulling out of Iraq because it's an illegal war. After this, the Huckabee people got up to speak. The other two people had 1 person who spoke..granted, each candidate's campaign had 10 minutes to talk, but by the time the Huckabee people got up there everyone was ready to go..and they had 3 people speak. The second and third speakers were ladies who got up and said "I used to be sooo disinterested in politics..but now I"m a supporter of Huckabee..see? Vote for him." One girl even said "I'm almost 25 years old. I haven't really paid attention to politics for a few years, but when I graduated college I was like a politics junkie and had been for 10 years." So what? You were a 'politics junkie' at 12? Why did they have to get up there and talk about themselvels all day anyways?

Anyways, here's what did it for me. When the guy who had the actual, prewritten, substantial speech to give spoke his message was, "Mike Huckabee doesn't care whether it's left or right, conservative or liberal, democrat or republican. Mike has no problem reaching across party lines to ensure that our country is working together to do what needs to be done regardless of our political idologies." I was sitting up front and when he said "It's not about whether you're conservative or liberal" I yelled "..but it is!" Why do we have to reach across party lines? I'm tired of "conservatives" browbeating us about why we have to 'give a little' and 'reach across party lines' to 'encourage unity' in our country. Screw that. Every time we 'reach across party lines' what we end up with is "here let me give up on what I believe just to make you happy" and we get bills like McCain-Feingold (Government controlling campain donations) and McCain-Kennedy (Amnesty). How come 'unity' always means that we give in while they sit there and smile. You never hear liberals saying "well we just need to come to a compromise with the conservatives."

After this, this feller starts raving on how much Huckabee respects Senator McCain, and how much Huckabee agrees with McCain..there was at least 3 minutes of the Huckabee speech that was nothing more than a McCain love fest. What in the world is going on here...
I'll probably vote for McCain/Huckabee (if that's the ticket, which it could be) just because I can't stand Hillary or Obama even more than these two, but when are conservatives in America going to get representation again? I like the idea of not voting in order to "take them to the woodshed" but we'd screw up the supreme court if we let either of those other fools have the white house for 4 or 8 years. Can we get our own party please?