107 1 Corinthians 6 - Dealing with Immorality, Part 2 - a podcast by Dr David Petts - Pentecostal preacher, former AoG Bible College Principal

from 2020-11-06T06:00

:: ::

Talk 9:  Dealing with Immorality (Part 2)

 

Welcome to talk 9 in our series on 1 Corinthians. Today we are in chapter 6.

As we saw last time, in chapter 5 Paul has been dealing with a very serious case of sexual immorality within the church.

He teaches the Corinthians that they must judge and discipline the offender.

He concludes by explaining that, in saying that they were not to keep company with the immoral, he was referring to those inside the church, not to those outside it.

Similarly it is not our responsibility to judge those outside the church, but we must judge those within.

 

This brings him quite naturally in Chapter 6:1-8 to the case of a Christian going to law with another Christian. This might appear at first sight to be something of a  digression from the subject of sexual immorality, but Paul is simply expanding on the whole subject of the Christian’s responsibility to judge and quickly returns to the subject of sexual immorality in vv9-20.

 

We will deal with the chapter under three headings:

 

Christians have a responsibility to judge (1-8)

Sexual  Immorality is not compatible with the Kingdom of God (9-11)

Six reasons why a Christian should avoid sexual immorality (13-20)

 

  1. a) Christians have a responsibility to judge (6:1-8)

 

v.1 If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people (the saints)?

 

has a dispute

 

This phrase in the Greek is a technical term for a law-suit

 

dare

 

This verb powerfully expresses Paul’s horror at what he has heard. How dare a Christian do such a thing?! He is horrified at the very idea of a Christian taking a brother to court before the ungodly. A Christian should not take a fellow-Christian to a secular court.

 

v2 or do you not know that the Lord’s people (the saints) will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases?

3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life!

 

 

 

judge the world

 

Daniel 7:22 is probably in mind here.  Judgment was given to the saints of the Most High - though Paul does not explain what this means in a Christian context, nor does anyone else in the NT. 

 

However, the sense of what he is saying is quite clear.  If Christians are going to have to judge the world, and angels one day, they ought to be able to sort out these small matters.

 

are you not competent..?

 

This means literally, Are you unworthy of the most insignificant tribunals?

This could mean either,

 

Are you unfit to form even the most insignificant courts?

Or

Are you not competent to judge trivial cases?

 

Fee prefers the latter on the grounds that kriterion, which properly means a court of justice can also denote the legal action itself.

 

 

4 Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned in the church?

 

The Corinthians ought not to be making an outsider the judge between Christians.  To go to court before the Roman pro-consul was, in effect, to ‘appoint’ him over their affairs.

 

5 I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers?

 

With all the wisdom they had been boasting of, there was not a man among them wise enough to deal with these things.  It was an absolute disgrace for a Christian to go to law with his brother Christian (cf 4:14).

 

6 But instead, one brother takes another to court – and this in front of unbelievers!

 

The church is airing its dirty linen in public (cf 10:32, 1 Thes. 4:11-12, 1 Timothy 6:1, Titus 2:8, 10, 3:1)

 

7 The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?

 

Whatever the result of the court case, you’ve already lost (because you felt the need to go to court at all).

If you have a quarrel, sort it out among yourselves, but better still, take wrong.  Let them cheat you if they want to. 

Turn the other cheek.    Give your cloak too.  (Cf  Matthew 5:39-41). 

If they hadn’t learnt that basic lesson they were already defeated!

 

8 Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters.

 

This is a very serious statement in the light of verse 10.

nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God

 

 

  1. b) Sexual Immorality is not compatible with the Kingdom of God (6:9-11)

 

In these verses Paul returns to the theme of sexual immorality and other sins.  Some things (vv9-10) are completely incompatible with the Kingdom of God.

 

  1. Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men
  2. nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

 

Paul’s purpose is to warn ‘the saints’ that if they persist in the same evils as ‘the wicked’ they are in the same danger of not inheriting the Kingdom of God. If, as some believe, this warning is purely hypothetical, it is no warning at all!

 

  1. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

 

But you’re not like that any more (11). You were washed...!  Literally,  you got yourselves washed. So stop living like the wicked!

 

Six reasons why a Christian should avoid sexual immorality (6:13-20)

 

  1. Our bodies are ‘for the Lord’

 

  1. ‘I have the right to do anything,’ you say – but not everything is beneficial. ‘I have the right to do anything’ – but I will not be mastered by anything.
  2. You say, ‘Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.’ The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

 

Paul refers to a common saying, without necessarily agreeing with it. 

It may be true that food is for the stomach and the stomach for food,

but that does not mean that the presence of sexual desire means that it must be satisfied (cf.  the modern attitude to sex).

 

  1. Our bodies are to be raised from the dead

 

  1. By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also.

 

The importance God attaches to our bodies is indicated by the fact that we are to be physically resurrected (cf chapter 15).

 

  1. Our bodies are members of Christ

 

  1. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!
  2. Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, ‘The two will become one flesh.’
  3. But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

 

To give yourself to a prostitute (or to anyone to whom you are not married, for that matter) when you belong to Christ is unthinkable.  Physical union with a prostitute is totally incompatible with our spiritual union with Christ (vv 16-17)

 

  1. To indulge in sexual immorality is to sin against your own body.

 

  1. Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.

                                                                                                                   

To indulge in sexual immorality is to sin against your own body.  Strong evasive action is, therefore, necessary.  Such temptation was common at Corinth, even as it is in Britain today.  The verb flee is Present Continuous:  keep on fleeing from it.

 

  1. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit

 

  1. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?

                                                                                                                   

Again it is  naos that is used (as in 3:16), but here it is the individual Christian rather than the church that is seen as the dwelling place of God.

 

  1. Your body belongs to God, not you!

 

  1. You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies.

 

The fundamental idea of a ransom Paul derived from the OT

but the picture is also that of ‘sacral manumission’.

A slave could buy his own freedom by paying the price of it into the temple treasury. 

He then became the slave of the god, but as far as men were concerned he was free. 

The Christian is both free and yet a slave to his God.  Our bodies are not our own to do with as we like.

But this goes much further than sex. It should be the fundamental principle guiding every area of our lives. My life is not my own. It belongs to Jesus.

Further episodes of Great Bible Truths with Dr David Petts

Further podcasts by Dr David Petts - Pentecostal preacher, former AoG Bible College Principal

Website of Dr David Petts - Pentecostal preacher, former AoG Bible College Principal