Monday, July 30, 2007

1 Corinthians 9:19-23

19Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. 22To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 23I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.



Dig Deeper

I love all kinds of meat and cheese. I enjoy the ability to go to the grocery store and pick from a variety of meats and cheeses, prepare them in many different ways, and to enjoy eating them. Even though I have every right to eat meat and cheese we recently had a family over to our house that was vegan. That means that they eat no animal meat or by-products. Not wanting to unnecessarily offend this family and desiring to keep their minds open to the message of the gospel, we chose to serve an entirely vegan meal, complete with a meat-free main dish and soy cheese. We didn’t do this in order to manipulate them or because we were bound to do it. In fact, we surrendered our freedom to eat what we want in order to remove any obstacles to the spread of the gospel. We sacrificed a much-enjoyed freedom in order to love and serve other human beings.

The Corinthian teachers prized their freedom. They believed and taught that they were free because they were Roman citizens, they were free because they had true knowledge and wisdom which opened them up to true human freedom, and now they were free because, as Christians, they were free from the corruption and enslavement of the world. The problem was that they were viewing their freedom as the be-all-end-all of Christian existence. Paul continues to teach them that this is not true. There are, in fact, things that are far more important than any perceived freedoms.

Paul began this chapter pointing out that he was free, and he now returns to this point. He is free in all of the important senses of the word, but he chooses to make himself a slave for the sake of the gospel. Freedom is one thing. Understanding that you have freedom to the point that you are willing to sacrifice it at times for a greater goal is the ultimate freedom. Paul is still making his point that just because one has a freedom, does not mean it is always the best choice to exercise said freedom. It is possible to become so enamored with freedom that one actually becomes enslaved to it. Paul, conversely, is enslaved to Christ. His commitment to the gospel will always trump any freedoms that he has.

As a result of his commitment to his life in Christ (because this behavior seems crazy unless you realize that you have given up your own life to enter into Christ’s), Paul will become like the Jews when he is around them. By this he means that he has continued to go to the synagogues and take part in their official liturgy. In doing so, he subjected himself to many beatings for the sake of the opportunities presented by going (2 Corinthians 11:24). If he didn’t go, there would be no beatings because they had no authority outside of the synagogue. He did not have to go, because Paul no longer considers himself bound to his Judaism, yet he chose to go for the sake of the gospel. In a similar manner, if Paul was around those to whom law observances such as the Sabbath and food laws were important, then he would observe those same laws. He is quick to point out that his actions in no way imply that this law observance is not a proof or a path to salvation or spiritual maturity. When around Gentiles, Paul did not hold to the law because it would have been no advantage. Even when not observing the law, however, Paul is quick to point out that he is not lawless because he is under Christ’s law. He does not state explicitly what he feels this law to be, but it is safe to assume from his discussion in chapter 13 that he is talking about the love of Christ and being in Christ.

In verse 22, we can assume that Paul gets more directly to his point as he brings his conversation back around to the ‘weak’. He has stressed that he has all the freedoms that anyone else does, but he gladly forfeits those freedoms who are struck by a more legalistic conscience than he. If people had weak consciences of the sort discussed in 8:7-13, then he will gladly forgo his rights for the sake of the gospel. This is no problem for Paul because of his understanding of being in Christ. Paul knows that, at his baptism, he died to himself and willingly took up the life of Christ (Romans 6:3-4). Thus, although he technically has freedoms and rights, he feels no compulsion to claim them because his life is now the life of Christ. He realizes that in Christ, freedom is not a freedom from, rather it is a freedom for: for Christ; for the Kingdom of God; for the lost around the world who desperately need the message of the gospel.

Paul’s message here has often been misunderstood and perverted, particularly in our post-modern times. Paul is not being a hypocrite. He is not saying that the message of the gospel needs to be tailored or repackaged in order to appeal to people. Quite the contrary; the gospel message will always remain the same. It is the messenger that needs to swallow his pride, put himself on the back shelf, give up his rights, and willingly exchange his freedom for slavery. That is true freedom. Paul, no doubt, would offer a harsh rebuke for those who would transform the gospel so that they did not have to undergo the more painful and sacrificial process of transforming themselves.



Devotional Thought

Have you been willing to sacrifice your freedoms and rights for the sake of the gospel? As Americans we feel that we have many rights such as the right to a certain amount of rest, the right to privacy, the right of comfort and leisure. How differently would your life look if you were to embrace the sort of attitude that Paul espouses here? By what justification would you not embrace tha sort of life?

Friday, July 27, 2007

1 Corinthians 9:12b-18

But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ. 13Don't you know that those who work in the temple get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar? 14In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.

15But I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing this in the hope that you will do such things for me. I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of this boast. 16Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! 17If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. 18What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make use of my rights in preaching it.



Dig Deeper

Throughout my lifetime, the salaries of professional athletes has gone higher and higher. Currently, there are 30 players in the NBA that make over $12.5 million, while golfer Tiger Woods made over $80 million in one year. It’s very difficult to believe that players making that much money really play for the love of the game, although many would say that they do. In fact, many people enjoy watching small college and high school games, because it is there that you will find players who are not being paid. They truly play because they love to play. Although I’m not arguing that players don’t have the right to earn money, those who play for no pay make the game seem more pure and decent.

Paul was preaching and spreading the gospel without taking any pay from the churches in which he was ministering. He cherished his ability to do so, and even says that he would rather die than take payment for what he is offering to Lord. Why did Paul feel that strongly? He hints at his reasons in verse 12. He doesn’t want his situation or his past to, in any way, hinder the gospel of Christ. Yet, before he more fully explains his reasons, he will add two more pieces of evidence to bolster his case that those who preach the gospel have every right to earn a living from it. In making his case for why he denies his right to be paid, he wants to make extra sure that no one turns his argument around and accuse as abusers, those who do earn a living from it. They have every right to earn a living and it should not be at all shaded by his refusal to do so.

In verse 13, Paul uses an example from the temple. It is not really clear whether he is referring to pagan temples or the Temple in Jerusalem. His use of the singular, probably indicates that he is referring primarily to the Temple in Jerusalem. If he is the argument is doubly powerful. Not only does he make the point that those who work in the Temple receive support for doing so, Paul has already made the point that the Church is the Temple of God (3:16). Thus, he makes the extra point that ministers of God’s new Temple have the same right to support that the priests at the Old Covenant Temple have.

His reference, in verse 14, to the Lord’s command appears to be talking about Matthew 10:10 and Luke 10:7, where Jesus says that those preaching the gospel deserve their wages. To this point, Paul has made a convincing argument that ministers of the gospel have every right to receive financial support for doing so. Now, he turns to his reasons for not taking advantage of that right.

As he begins his explanation, Paul wants to make it clear that this is not some backdoor hint trying to get them to start paying him. No, this is no indirect argument and, just to make that clear, he says straight out that he would rather die than take money. In fact the sentence is so strong and raw that he actually interrupts his thought, so the actual wording looks more like this: "It would be better for me to die than. . . . Nobody’s going to take away my boast."

Paul has already made clear the difference between a preacher of the gospel and the sophists who spoke for money (the more personal and deeper the teaching you wanted from the sophists, the more money it would cost). The gospel is available to everyone, not just those who can afford it. Paul doesn’t preach for money. He preaches because he feels absolutely indebted to Jesus the Messiah. When Jesus called him to preach, He also rescued Paul from his bitter and angry life. He wanted to obey because of what Christ had done for him personally. Paul felt that because of his past as a persecutor of the Church, he was different than the rest of the apostles (see 15:7 where he calls himself one who is "abnormally born"). He was the only one that needed to be stopped dead to rights as a persecutor of God’s people and turned the other way. Preaching the gospel was privilege for Paul that he could never earn. No matter how difficult it would become, it was still far better than his previous life. His reward for preaching the gospel was that he got to do it for free. Paul believes that he gave up his own rights for the unending privilege of being able to give to others the invaluable gospel, and to give his service to God. These were both things that he would not have been able to offer had he not entered into the life of Christ. He has given up his own rights as an offering to God.

Because of this indebtedness that he feels and his spotty past, Paul wants to avoid any charges of impure motives or misuse of funds. Paul feels that because of his special circumstances, if he takes some sort of pay for preaching the gospel that he is actually robbing himself of his reward. Paul did occasionally take gifts from those to whom he wasn’t currently ministering (Philippians 4;10-19), but he never asked for it and he would never take reward from those to whom he was ministering. His pay was the reward of serving Christ completely free from all human impositions on his ministry.



Devotional Thought

Paul felt that the ability to share the gospel was his true reward (no doubt the other ministers and apostles did as well, whether they were paid or not). Do you feel that same way? Do you feel such a gratitude towards God that you can’t help but sharing your faith, reaching out to the lost, and telling others about God and what He has done for you? If you don’t feel that way, why don’t you?

Thursday, July 26, 2007

1 Corinthians 9:1-12a

The Rights of an Apostle

1Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the result of my work in the Lord? 2Even though I may not be an apostle to others, surely I am to you! For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

3This is my defense to those who sit in judgment on me. 4Don't we have the right to food and drink? 5Don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas? 6Or is it only I and Barnabas who must work for a living?

7Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk? 8Do I say this merely from a human point of view? Doesn't the Law say the same thing? 9For it is written in the Law of Moses: "Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain." Is it about oxen that God is concerned? 10Surely he says this for us, doesn't he? Yes, this was written for us, because when the plowman plows and the thresher threshes, they ought to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. 11If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? 12If others have this right of support from you, shouldn't we have it all the more? But we did not use this right.



Dig Deeper

Many commentaries and Bible passage headings, such as the NIV, give exactly the wrong impression of what this section is about. While the passage here is entitled "The Rights of an Apostle," this is not what Paul is defending here. In fact Paul only lists the rights of an apostle to demonstrate two things: that he is an apostle and has God-given access to these rights, and that he is intentionally not using them. Without that understanding this chapter seems a bit of a detour from Paul’s train of thought from chapter 8, one that he will pick up clearly in chapter 10. Yet when understood properly, we see that what Paul is doing here is giving illustrations to make his point that just because someone has rights doesn’t mean that exercising them is at all the best course of action or the loving thing to do.

Paul’s set of rhetorical questions in verse 1 would all be answered with an obvious affirmative response. In fact they are all interrelated. If the answer to any of those questions is ‘no’, then the whole set of them fall apart. Of course, Paul’s point is that he is free, he is an apostle, he has seen the risen Jesus, and they are the result of his work so they had better pay attention to what he is trying to teach them here. He is laying the foundation of the point that as an apostle he has certain rights so that he can move on to his real point: there are times when the correct thing to do is to not act on your rights.

Paul briefly mentions the existence of some disputation of his apostleship in passing. This is not his main point here, he only mentions it to emphasize the fact that they are the proof of his apostleship. At this point in Corinth, this was not a major issue. By the time he writes 2 Corinthians it will be. It is possible that Paul’s refusal to do what normal teachers did and take money from the church that he was actually ministering in, angered some of the Corinthians. It would have been expected that Paul would be paid by them and would show the proper deference to the wealthier members of the congregation. His practice of accepting support from other churches but not the ones in which he is ministering will become a source of irritation.

Paul points out that the other apostles, including Peter, and Jesus’ brothers all exercise their right to be supported by the believers where they are ministering. The language in verse 5 also implies that, not only did they bring their wives with them, the wives were also supported by the churches. Paul doesn’t mention all of this to imply that the apostles shouldn’t have or use these rights. He describes what they do as a way of contrast with what he and Barnabas have done.

Paul makes clear that he doesn’t at all begrudge them the right to be supported for their ministry. In fact, he follows with a slew of analogies to show that people should be supported as a result of what they do. Soldiers, farmers, and shepherds all reap a reward as a result of their fruit. Paul would vigorously defend the right of any minister and his family to be supported by the Church for the work that they do. He does not think of this as a salary, however, he believes that churches supply their ministers with resources so that they may serve freely. Paul, really wanting to drive home the right of an apostle or minister to be supported, then appeals to the law. He deals with a passage from Deuteronomy 25:4 in which the law says to allow oxen to eat while they are treading grain. Paul is not seriously supposing that this passage was written for his present time. What he is saying, though, is that if God’s principle is that if oxen are to be rewarded for their labor, then humans should be as well. Paul is making a logical move from lesser to greater. If animals deserve to be rewarded for their labor, then how much more are humans made in the image of God, doing the work of full-time Christian ministry.

If the point wasn’t clear already, Paul then asks another rhetorical question with an obvious answer. He has already reminded them of the facts that he is an apostle, as demonstrated by their mere existence, so of course he has the right to be supported and reap a harvest for his labor. If the other apostles have the right to be partially supported by the Corinthian giving, which Paul believes they clearly do, then he does all the more because they are a direct fruit of his labor.

At this point, the Corinthians in the Church who were upset that he was not taking support from them may have been getting rather excited thinking he was laying down this argument because he was about to start. If so, they would have become quickly disappointed as he says, we do not use this right. Paul is setting an example for the Corinthian congregation, and the point of his example is that although he has this right, he has not exercised it. In our reading for tomorrow, he will explain why he has not.



Devotional Thought

How are you doing when it comes to your ‘rights’? Do you find yourself more often in the position of demanding your rights or in the position of freely forfeiting your rights for the good of others? How you answer those two questions will tell you a lot about your own character. How are you doing?

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

1 Corinthians 8:7-13

7But not everyone knows this. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of it as having been sacrificed to an idol, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. 8But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.

9Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. 10For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating in an idol's temple, won't he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols? 11So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. 12When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 13Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.



Dig Deeper

"Who do you play for?" This was the frequent question for his players from 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey coach Herb Brooks. As depicted in the movie Miracle, Brooks would ask his players this question and then, after they responded by telling him what college team they played for, he would order them to run some more grueling drills. This continued for weeks until one night after a game, Brooks was asking the question over and over of different players and then running his team for hours. Just when they appeared to be at their breaking point, he asked the question one more time. This time one of the players responded that he played for the United States of America. Brooks quickly said "that will be all gentlemen," and walked away. He had wanted them to realize who they really played for and they had finally gotten the point.

This is the same sort of thing that Paul wants the Corinthians to see. They were under the mistaken impression that they were individual followers of Christ being powered along by knowledge and freedom. He wanted them to realize that they had died to their individual lives. They were now part of the Body of Christ. They had, at baptism, entered into the life of Christ and had, as Paul will state flat out in chapter 12, become the Messiah. Community life as the Messiah should be powered by love not self-seeking knowledge. Paul wants them to understand that they are Christ, the Messiah, and they need to start living and thinking that way rather than as individuals who have little to no responsibility to one another.

One aspect of this mindset that Paul is currently addressing is that some believed that they could eat meat wherever they wanted even if had been sacrificed to idols. They felt this way because they believed that had gone deeper in their knowledge and now realized that pagan idols were nothing and had no power. Paul’s response is not everyone knows this. For many, the power of the idols and the connection between the pagan gods and the meat was too strong. Their consciences were being violated by the suggestion of some that they should eat this meat. This may sound a bit silly to us but imagine a contemporary situation in which a group of mature Christians invited a young Christian, who had struggled with porn addiction, out to eat at Hooter’s. The older Christians might claim that sexual temptation had no power over them, that they had moved past that and so they had every right to enjoy some wings. For the younger Christian, though, this would be too much and would violate his conscience. If he went, it would not only be a sin for him, it might lead him down the road of falling away. Even the knowledge that others were engaging in this sort of behavior might make him struggles beyond what he had the capability to understand.

Paul realizes that the conscience is a tricky and personal thing that takes a long time to re-educate. The task of the Christian is to train their conscience to think Christianly, but they cannot and should not violate that conscience where it is at. This is a journey, though, and that is why one Christian cannot force the convictions of their conscience on another. The overriding principle for them should be love. Simply put, love trumps knowledge or supposed freedom. Since there was no advantage to eating meat (v. 8) then love must take precedence in this situation For Paul, the problem was with those violating the consciences of the weaker members (note that the terms ‘weaker’ and ‘stronger’ here are likely words supplied by the Corinthians that Paul is using somewhat bitingly), which is demonstrated by the fact that although he points to the fact that those claiming knowledge are right in a sense, he addresses them and never addresses those whose consciences are sincerely pricked by the association with pagan gods. Paul will balance things in chapter 10 as he says that the strong should not hurt the weak but neither should the weak be quick to accuse the strong of sin. The weak should work to allow others freedom of conscience and demonstrate love just as much as the strong, but since it is more difficult for them, Paul primarily addresses those claiming to be strong.

Thus, Paul gives a fairly stern warning in verse 9, telling the Corinthians that they should never let their freedom cause others to stumble. Paul will again come back to this and explain it more fully in chapter 10, saying that the guideline to any perceived freedom is that it should be beneficial, it should build others up, and it should glorify God.

If Christians give no thought to their convictions and actions, even if they are seemingly correct, then others who do not understand their convictions may misunderstand and be led astray. They must be aware of this. Yet Paul is not encouraging hypocrisy or legalism, he wants them to realize that they live the life of Christ, which is a community, not their own lives. They must put the good of the Messiah (the body) before their own individual good or rights. When care is not taken and love is not shown, the knowledge that is so valued by the Corinthians as a Christian virtue actually destroys others. When they sin against others, Paul warns them, they sin against Christ. Again, what he means by that is that the community of Christ is synonymous with the Messiah because all believers gave up their own lives and entered into His.

Paul makes it clear that because they have the freedom of Christ they should never be a slave to anything, including their rights. If Paul’s freedom to eat sacrificed meat causes a sincere Christian to struggle then he says he will never eat meat again. This is the standard of love to which he is calling the Corinthian church as well as us today.



Devotional Thought

How have you done in this area? Are you thoughtful of the needs and feelings of others or have you been more concerned with your own rights and freedoms? Many, for instance, will use their freedom to miss church events without giving thought to the effect it may have on others in the body. Paul would say that this is stressing freedom over love. Is this an area in which you need to make some changes?

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

1 Corinthians 8:1-6

Food Sacrificed to Idols

1Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all possess knowledge.[a] Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. 2The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. 3But the man who loves God is known by God.

4So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one. 5For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"), 6yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.



Dig Deeper

Recently I went in to a restaurant to pick up and carry out some food that I had ordered. As I was paying, I noticed that there were several Buddha statues around the cash register and throughout the store. I really didn’t think much of it as I grabbed my food and left. For us, something of this nature is not a big deal. It was a very big deal, however in the ancient world. In the ancient world, restaurants were Temples. They would take the meat that was leftover from sacrifices to the gods and then sell it. This was such a problem for Jews that lived in places like Corinth that rather than eating food sacrificed to pagan idols, they would often just avoid eating meat altogether.

The issue was no less sticky for the new Christians in Corinth. Should they eat meat sacrificed in a pagan Temple? Some teachers in Corinth had been pressing Christian freedom to the point that they were teaching that they could even go right into the Temples themselves and eat meat sacrificed to other gods. Their questions were good ones, though. Should they eat this meat? What about various weddings, parties, and clubs that used the Temples as meeting halls? Paul will begin to lay down his answer to this question here, but it won’t be until chapter 10 that he fully completes his answer. The questions throughout though, have to do with the consumption of food sacrificed to idols and going to the Temple for other reasons; there is no question in Paul’s mind that any actual idolatry should not be taking place amongst the Christians.

Using a technique that is rather common for him, Paul engages here in an imaginary dialogue of sorts so that we should understand the phrase, "we know that we all possess knowledge," to be a quote from the Corinthians. This was, evidently, another one of those slogans that had been passed around by some in the Corinthian church. Their claim, then, is that because they have a special knowledge of the truth (at least in their own eyes they did), they should be able to do whatever they wanted. Paul’s answer gets right to the point of Christian living. He sets up a sharp contrast between knowledge and love. Knowledge is self-serving and only puffs up, while love is self-sacrificial and builds up. Paul is not anti-intellectual or anti-learning. He is specifically speaking against prideful human speculation that was being passed off as knowledge.

If they thought they had attained a higher level of understanding due to this type of knowledge, then this was proof in and of itself that they did not have knowledge at all. This is what Paul is saying in verse 2 which could be paraphrased something like this: "If someone thinks they have reached some level of knowledge, they have not yet reached the stage where he has any knowledge at all in the true sense of the word." The reason is that true Christian knowledge cannot be separated from love. Without love, human knowledge is has little value in itself and is useful for nothing more than self-aggrandizement.

If one wants to know how wise they are, to what level of knowledge they have attained then they need look no further than their love for God. In Paul’s mind, anyone not demonstrating a love for God is not demonstrating true knowledge. If we love God, then we will love others as well. Paul is carefully laying the groundwork of the importance of love to show them that how their actions effect others is far more important than exercising their own freedoms based on their deep knowledge and understanding of what is really going on in the world.

Paul’s quote of another Corinthians slogan in verse 4 demonstrates some of that so-called knowledge of what was going on in the world. Those who were becoming drunk on their own knowledge felt that all this business about idols and Temples had absolutely no bearing on them because they understood that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one. The "we know" should be understood as part of the quote and does not imply that Paul agrees with that statement in its entirety. In 10:20, Paul will state that he believes that behind the seeming myth of pagan idols is the very real world of demons. So, in a sense Paul agrees with them. There is nothing in pagan idols or Temples that rivals that of the one true God. They must be careful and not deceive themselves, however, because it is not true that there are no other supernatural beings beside God in the world (by ‘gods’ Paul probably meant pagan demonic gods, while ‘lords’ refers to their human agents, such as the powers of the Roman empire). These supernatural, demonic powers will use pagan religion to lead people away from the true God. The idols themselves are worthless pieces of stone and wood but they are used by the powers of evil to enslave human minds and hearts. In short, they are nothing to simply be dismissed as a fairy tale. Even if these things hold no sway in their lives, they are very real in the lives of the pagans and in the minds of many Christians. Puffed-up knowledge would dismiss idols. Love would understood that power that they hold in people’s lives and not want to offend Christians who were sensitive to these evil forces.

Paul does confirm, though, that for the Christian there is only the one, true God. In confirming the uniqueness of the Christian God, Paul does something extraordinary here. He has taken the familiar creedal statement of the Jews from Deuteronomy 6:4, known as the Shema, and re-written it with Jesus smack in the middle of their understanding of the one, true God. Thus, there is one God, and their is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.



Devotionial Thought

Once again, Paul will avoid laying down hard and fast rules in favor of giving principles that cause Christians to show discernment and think through difficult situations. When you give Christian advice is that how you tend to do things or is it easier for you to just tell others what they should or shouldn’t do? In the future, take a page from Paul and try giving principles that will cause others to think and develop strong Christian convictions for themselves.

Monday, July 23, 2007

1 Corinthians 7;32-40

32I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs—how he can please the Lord. 33But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife— 34and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband. 35I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.

36If anyone thinks he is acting improperly toward the virgin he is engaged to, and if she is getting along in years and he feels he ought to marry, he should do as he wants. He is not sinning. They should get married. 37But the man who has settled the matter in his own mind, who is under no compulsion but has control over his own will, and who has made up his mind not to marry the virgin—this man also does the right thing. 38So then, he who marries the virgin does right, but he who does not marry her does even better.

39A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord. 40In my judgment, she is happier if she stays as she is—and I think that I too have the Spirit of God.



Dig Deeper

One of my high school basketball players came to me with a very challenging problem one year. He wanted to continue to play on the basketball team but he wasn’t sure he could. He was a very good player with the potential to play in college one day, but now he was thinking about giving up playing. His family was not doing well financially and he had been given the opportunity to work full-time after school. The money he would make there would help out his family greatly in the short-term but would not be as beneficial in the long-run as a college education would. Making matters more difficult was the fact that he believed he couldn’t afford college without a basketball scholarship. The real difficulty in the situation was that these two competing interests completely conflicted with one another; he simply could not do both well. Eventually a compromise was worked out where he was able to work and play basketball, although he wasn’t able to do either to the best of his ability.

Paul continues here with advice on marriage to a church that is torn between their social customs and pressures about marriage on the one hand and their desire to do God’s will on the other hand. Paul’s personal preference is that people, if so gifted, remain unmarried so that they can focus on God’s work. He has no problem, however, with those who choose to get married. He just wants them to realize the difficult road ahead if that is the path that they choose.

Paul doesn’t think that it’s impossible for someone to be married and serve God, as most of the other apostles were married (see 9:5). Yet he does personally believe that the ideal situation would be for people to be gifted with singleness. The thrust of Paul’s statements, though, can be better understood in context of the famine at the time. With famine in the midst, times were hard and being married was going to be more difficult than ever. Providing for a family and serving God during times of economic hardships can be almost impossible.

Above all, Paul does not really lay down any rules, he wants people to learn to demonstrate discernment and to think about things from the perspective of their life in Christ. One of the things that Paul wants people to realize is that many people get married for the wrong reasons. Getting married for a reason any other than glorifying God with one’s marriage will certainly lead one into divided loyalties. Paul is not against marriage, he is against marriages that pull one’s loyalties away from the Kingdom of God.

Verses 36-38 are notoriously difficult to translate and to understand. Many commentators now agree that the NIV translation is at best misleading from the original meaning. Theologian N.T. Wright translates these verses to read: "If anyone thinks he is behaving improperly towards his fiancee — if he finds the situation overly stressful, and matters reach a point of necessity — then let him do as he wishes, he won’t be sinning. But the man who settles it firmly in his heart and is not under necessity, but in control of his own will, and has made his judgment in his own hear to keep her as his finacee will do well. So the one who marries his fiancee will do well; and the one who holds back from marrying will do better." Paul is probably offering advice (although this passage could be taken in a couple of other ways) to engaged couples. They would have been engaged at a young age and the social pressure was for them to go ahead and get married. With their devotion to the Lord and the coming economic hardships to think about, Paul wants to remind them that they are in Christ. This matters far more than the social pressures to get married and have children, so whatever they decide is best to do is okay. If they feel that it is wise to postpone or cancel their marriage, that is a perfectly acceptable position to take.

In verse 39, Paul returns to briefly address the group of women that had been married but had lost their spouse. First he affirms the ideal permanency of marriage by saying that a woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. They should not feel that this bind reaches beyond the grave. If they are widowed, they are free to make a wise Christian decision about their future marriage. This would have been quite freeing for women who would have faced great public pressure to get remarried. Paul reminds them, then, that their status in Christ moves them beyond social pressures. The only restriction that they should observe is to marry someone who belongs to the Lord. Paul has already given his advice to those who find themselves married to a non-Christian, but no one should voluntarily enter into that arrangement. It would be foolish for someone ‘in Christ’ to unite themselves willingly with someone who is still ‘in the flesh’. Paul’s judgment is that the widow might well be better off remaining unmarried. He ends witht the cryptic phrase, and I think that I too have the Spirit of God. It’s hard to know if Paul meant this seriously or sarcastically, and to what specifically he is referring. He may be poking fun at those in Corinth who were offering differing advice and claiming that they could do so because they were ‘in the Spirit’. He might, however, be referring to the possibility that he was a widower who had remained unmarried. His phrase, then, would mean that has been perfectly happy with his decision, and he has the Spirit of God as much as anyone who decided to get remarried.



Devotional Thought

The topic of marriage and divorce is as difficult and muddled in our world as it was in Paul’s world. Whenever we are in the midst of situations like these or offering advice to those involved with these issues, we must do as Paul did. Consider what it means to think like someone who is in Christ and put the social expectations and pressures of the pagan world to the side.

Friday, July 20, 2007

1 Corinthians 7:25-31

25Now about virgins: I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy. 26Because of the present crisis, I think that it is good for you to remain as you are. 27Are you married? Do not seek a divorce. Are you unmarried? Do not look for a wife. 28But if you do marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this.

29What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none; 30those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; 31those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.



Dig Deeper

When people ask my advice on the topic, I nearly always counsel that getting married while attending college as a full-time student is an unwise thing. It makes it very difficult for a young person to be a disciple, a good student, and a proper spouse. Although there is an element to the truth that being married will always divide one’s attention away from the Kingdom of God, there are are also many benefits to being married as a disciple. This advice, then, is not universal advice against getting married; I am not a marriage hater. In fact, if God has called someone to be married then they absolutely should. If He has gifted them to be single and has called them to do so, then they should do so with joy. My advice against marrying is very general advice to people in a specific situation and time in their life. Yet, if for some reason, one of those college students chose to get married, it would not be a sin, it would just be a more difficult situation for them.

This is the case with Paul’s advice here, which can be quite confusing if we forget that he was writing specific advice based on specific questions at a specific time. Our job is to pull out the principles of Paul’s advice and apply them to our own situations, not to woodenly follow his words as though they were a new law that he was writing down. At the time that Paul was writing this, there was a severe shortage of food, particularly grain, in that entire region of the world. This was particularly difficult for those that were poor, as apparently many of the Corinthian Christians were. It was a time of great trouble for those who would have a very difficult time providing food for themselves, let alone a family. Much of Paul’s words here then, must be seen through those lenses. He is offering advice through a difficult but limited situation, but there is a degree to which he thinks his advice has its advantages in general for the Christian who must always realize that their reality is the Kingdom of God not the present age. Thus, in a sense, Paul is referring to the crisis in the present time, but he always has an eye on return of Christ and the ‘age to come’. Christians should never settle in and start living as though the present age is all there is, and that we will be here forever.

The word translated ‘virgins’ here would be better understood by us if we read it as ‘unmarried’. It refers to those who have never be married. If they were unmarried, Paul says that they should remain that way because of the present crisis. Once again, he is reminding them that, as Christians, they should think situations through and not give into social pressures. To make sure that there are no misunderstandings, though, he covers all his bases by mentioning that if someone is already married, they should use neither the present crisis or the impending ‘age to come’ as excuses to get a divorce. If someone wanted to disregard Paul’s wise advice and get married for whatever reason, they were free to do so. They should not be made to feel like second-class citizens or disobedient Christians, but should realize that they will have to face the challenges of their situation. This section should be rather instructive for those who feel that all advice from a leader or another Christian should be followed blindly, or if they don’t it is sinful and prideful (following wise advice is usually the best medicine, though). It is also rather instructive for those who teach that being a Christian means having a trouble-free life. Paul would not endorse or agree with either of those attitudes.

Paul’s advice that begins in verse 29 must again, be understood as referring to the present crisis as well as having an eye on the Lord’s return. Verse 29 could be rendered "the present situation won’t last long." If that is the case, then the second half of that verse could actually be advice to engaged couples (it doesn’t make sense otherwise and would seem to be rather contradictory with what he has already written about not abandoning one’s marriage). He is telling them that during the present crisis, they may want to postpone their weddings until a better time. It is true, that although Paul reveres and respects the institution of marriage, he would probably rather see most Christians have the gift of remaining single as he had. He probably realized that the reality of that wasn’t practical or realistic, but that was his preference nonetheless.

Paul continues his thoughts about how to view the world, through the lenses of both the present crisis and the return of the Lord. His words in verse 30 and the first half of 31 are pretty straightforward. What Paul really wants them to understand is what he has been trying to explain this whole chapter. Any situations that they may find themselves in during this life, pale in comparison to their status of having their life in Christ. Being in Christ dwarfs any life situations, customs, or social pressures. As Paul will continue to stress, finally culminating in chapter 15, they need to completely rethink their worldview based on being in Christ and the reality of the coming resurrection. When the Lord returns, the righteous, both living and dead, are resurrected, and we enter into the ‘age to come’, none of the social customs or our status in the world will matter. All that will matter is did we remain faithful to our life in Christ in whatever strange circumstances we may have found ourselves.



Devotional Thought

What are the conventions or standards of the world that are most likely to influence you away from approaching the world as one who is in Christ? Is it the pull to climb socially, to get a better job, to become more educated, to have a great car or home, etc. How would Paul’s principles laid out in this chapter apply to things like that? What sort of advice might Paul give to you on this topic?

Thursday, July 19, 2007

1 Corinthins 7:17-24

17Nevertheless, 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. 18Was 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. 19Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God's commands is what counts. 20Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him. 21Were you a slave when you were called? Don't let it trouble you—although if you can gain your freedom, do so. 22For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord's freedman; similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ's slave. 23You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men. 24Brothers, each man, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation God called him to.



Dig Deeper

If Paul wanted the Corinthians to understand nothing else, the one thing that he really wanted them to grasp is what it meant to be in Christ. In Paul’s theology, the only person worthy of being called righteous and entering into the ‘age to come’ was Jesus. The only way that any human could enjoy any of that was to enter into the life of Christ. This, was of course, done at baptism (Romans 6:2-11), and it is the only way that we can enter into God’s presence. Throughout this letter, Paul is trying to help the Corinthians understand what it means to live in Christ. As part of that explanation in his letter to the Galatians (3:27-28), Paul says, "for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." His point is that once you have entered into the life of Christ, human distinctions are unimportant. We should neither exalt ourselves for them or feel badly about them. We are in Christ and that is the only important place to be. All other positions are merely tools to be used to bring glory and honor to Christ and places in which we can carry out His work.

If we don’t have that concept from Galatians 3 in mind, this passage can seem a bit out of place. Why would Paul include discussions on circumcision and slavery in a chapter about sex and marriage? It is because the real point of the chapter is about understanding who we are in Christ. He has been discussing the angle of gender and marriage, now he will turn to the other two big areas of contention and status in his day (both of which are mentioned in Galatians along with gender).

The first is circumcision. This was a clear divider between Jews and Greeks, especially in Greek towns where the men bathed and exercised naked. Many Jews in the first century Greek towns were so embarrassed by this physical marker that they took to having surgeries to make it look like they hadn’t been circumcised. The second was that of slavery. Slavery was a major part of life in the first century. The entire economy and social fabric was built upon it. We should note, though, that although it was still far from God’s plan of freedom for all humans, this was not nearly as brutal and dehumanizing as the form of slavery practiced in the new world from the 16th to the 19th centuries, nor the evil form of human slavery still practiced in many corners of the world today.

Paul’s point on both of these topics cannot be taken out of context. He is not writing about his personal feelings on these topics, nor is he laying down a biblical standard, that, for instance, slavery should be considered a positive thing. His point is that once someone comes to Christ there should be no exaltation or shame at whatever position they were when they were called. Men should not think themselves better than women, uncircumcised better than circumcised (or vice-versa), or free better than slave. These are all human constructs and are null and void in Christ where all are equal. The Christian need never to be swayed by social pressures to better themselves or change themselves. In Christ, we are all we ever need. This is what Paul means when he says that keeping God’s commands is all that counts (this is deliciously ironic for a Jew who would consider circumcision to be doing just that). The whole of keeping the law, in Paul’s mind, is to remain in Christ. In Christ, all of God’s commands are kept, which is, of course, something that we could not do on our own power.

Paul believes this because he firmly believes that "this world in its present form is passing away" (v. 31). Why worry about social pressures, customs, and standards that should be passing from our lives just as surely as they will pass away from this world completely in the ‘age to come’? In more modern terminology, why be in a hurry to re-arrange deck chairs on the Titanic? Living in Christ means a dignity that goes beyond anything the world can understand or offer. This is why each person should consider their human status as precisely the place where God wants to use them rather than something to be escaped.

In the passage on slavery, then, Paul is neither condoning human slavery, nor is he condemning it. It is true, that in its essence, it goes against the way that God ordered the world, where he gave each man the freedom to choose. Yet, if a slave became a Christian and all they could do is obsess about becoming free it would be a demonstration, not so much about the power of God in one’s life, as it was a demonstration that they considered their place in this present age to be far more important than it is. Although, they shouldn’t obsess about it, Paul does add that if the opportunity to gain their freedom comes up, that they should not hesitate to take it (v. 21).

Paul’s words in verse 23, then, are brilliant in the way in which they speak to each group in a different way. The slave would hear that they had been purchased and had now entered into the freedom of Christ’s lordship while the free man would hear that they had been purchased into bondage to the one who had purchased them. They had both had their status in this present age changed and transcended by Christ and thus, should never stoop to becoming slaves of men, by which Paul means the standards or conventions of men. He wants them to realize that their status in Christ is far more crucial than any social or cultural standards. They, and we, need to resist both the subtle and the not-so-subtle pressures put on us to make changing their status their be-all-end-all.



Devotional Thought

Is your status of one who has entered into the life of Christ the most important thing in your life? Does it determine the way you act or think about yourself and your position in life or are you tempted to view your position in life according to the standards and conventions of the world? What evidence do you see in your life that you might not have the view of being ‘in Christ’ that Paul would want you to have?

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

1 Corinthians 7:8-16

8Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. 9But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

10To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. 11But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.

12To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. 13And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. 14For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. 15But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. 16How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?



Dig Deeper

One of the most curious enigmas that I have seen repeatedly over the years that I have been involved with basketball teams is the phenomenon of big men that were centers and forwards that believed deep down they had the gift to be a point guard. I have known countless number of big men who, whenever they had the opportunity, tried to act on the court as though they had the skills to dribble and distribute the ball the way a smaller guard usually does. The problem is that for most of these players, they had no business trying to perform those skills. They should have learned to stick to the things for which they were gifted.

There is an element of this same principle running through this section of Paul’s letter. Paul wants the Corinthians to recognize the gifts that God has given each one of them and to appreciate the situations in which He has placed them. This could be a difficult task for a people who were trying to figure out what it meant to come out of the pagan world and live holy lives. To make matters more difficult, they were being bombarded within the Church by those who taught that permanent celibacy was a virtue and from outside the Church that unmarried people were worthless.

The NIV’s translation of verse 8 is probably misleading. The word translated ‘unmarried’ should probably be rendered as ‘widowers’. This would mean that Paul is addressing widows and widowers in 8 and 9 rather than two groups (this makes sense because he will directly address those who have never been married later in the chapter). This also gives us a strong clue that Paul was a widower as he says it is preferable, in his opinion, to remain as he is, which we can presume he means not remarried. Paul wants them to understand that in their old, pagan lives there was little to no redeeming value in remaining unmarried, but in their new life in Christ there can be a new sense or value to the single life. Verse 9 is often easily misunderstood to mean that Paul was giving a concession to those who could not contain their passions. Here, Paul is using ‘self-control’ in the same manner that he does in Galatians 5:23, by which he means the Holy Spirit-empowered directing of one’s self. He is not telling them to fight their urges and if they can’t then give in quickly before they fail. He is telling them to recognize the gift that God has given them, whether it be the gift of remaining single or the gift of the married life, and to embrace and appreciate it.

With those who were once married already addressed, Paul now turns to matters concerning those who were presently married. We would do well to remember that this letter was written to a people who were struggling with the concepts that sex and marriage should just be avoided all together, that it would exalt the soul and keep the body from sin. The command of verse 10, then, must be read in that context. God had created and ordained marriage and these Corinthian Christians should not buy into any sort of teaching that told them it was good to leave their spouses and focus on Christ. They must realize that God was pleased with marriage and that it was a gift, not something to be discarded, yet this is not a universal prohibition on divorce. Paul would not, for instance, say that a woman being beaten by her husband should stay in that marriage. The fact that Paul uses a wife as the example, probably demonstrates that he was directly addressing a specific question about a specific Christian woman in their community. It was not God’s will for her to leave her husband, particularly for spiritual reasons, yet if she had, she should not, under these circumstances remarry someone else. Paul then universalizes this principle with the phrase, and a husband must not divorce his wife.

Paul then moves into advice that he has for those that are married to unbelievers. Two things must be considered here before we continue. The first is that even though Paul does give a command of the Lord in verse 10, he gives instructions for someone who does not follow this command. Nowhere does he say that this act would keep that person from being a Christian, but she must deal with the consequences of her actions. Paul’s reason for this is that, for him, Christianity is about learning to exercise discernment to think and act in a Christ-like manner. The Christian life is not simply the replacement of the Old Testament Torah with a new law based on the teachings of Christ. As Christians we must learn to think like Christ, not merely follow a list of rules. The second thing to be considered is what to make of passages when Paul says what he is writing is from him and not the Lord? Paul was an apostle of Jesus Christ, inspired by the Holy Spirit to write letters that would become and should be considered Holy Scriptures (2 Peter 3:16). Paul does not mean this is just his own opinion; he is offering the Spirit-inspired word of God. He merely means that what he is saying did not come directly from Jesus; it is new teaching for a new situation. What he writes here, then, is not something Jesus said to be obeyed without thought (there are very few instances of that in the New Testament for the reasons just stated), it is wise Christian advice and principles. Principles, however, that we must undertake to apply to our lives because they have been ordained as Scripture by the Holy Spirit.

Paul’s basic point is that Christians should not leave a marriage to a non-Christian spouse. The Corinthians were a group of people that were trying to figure out how to come out of paganism and lead holy lives. The fear of some was that their non-believing spouse would defile them. Paul assures them that this is not the case. Rather than the non-believer defiling the Christian, the influence of the believing spouse can actually have a purifying and saving effect on their marriage, and ultimately on the non-Christian. He also assures them that their children will not be automatically defiled by living with a pagan, they can still be set apart (holy) for God’s purposes (this does not, of course, mean that they were automatically saved). This ray of hope for the Christian married to a pagan does not mean that it is good or wise for an unmarried Christian to take this principle and run into a marriage with a non-Christian. (Nor should someone stay in an abusive marriage because of this principle.) This is advice for people already married, not a license for those who are not. Marriage is a good thing in God’s sight as it points to His love and thus, glorifies God. It should not be entered into lightly or ended lightly. Paul ends with a bit of necessary common sense, assuring them that if the non-Christian spouse wanted to end the marriage, they should not feel under any obligation to remain married. The ultimate principle by which they should live, one that would have the biggest impact on those around them, was to attempt to leave in peace under all circumstances.



Devotional Thought

The Corinthians lived in a confusing time and culture when they would need a great deal of humility, discernment, and conviction to live out the Christian principles of love and peace in difficult circumstances. We also live in confusing and difficult times and need the same sort of humility and patience with ourselves and with others to live out these same principles.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

1 Corinthians 7:1-7

Marriage

1Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry. 2But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. 3The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. 5Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6I say this as a concession, not as a command. 7I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.



Dig Deeper

When I was younger, dieting was viewed quite differently than it generally is today. Dieting is still done with great fervor, but most people understand, at least in theory, that a proper diet must be done wisely with healthy, balanced meals, and accompanying exercise. When I was younger, however, it was much more common for people to diet by simply starving themselves. They began to view eating in general as the enemy and would avoid it all together. The problem with that is that two major things were working against that. One is that the body thinks its starving and so hangs onto its fat reserves rather than burning them. The second is that the human will can only hold up against our natural inclinations for so long. What usually happened is that the starvation diet would crash and burn in the midst of a great binge of eating.

In Corinth, there were apparently at least two camps of thought. Some Christians were claiming total freedom and doing whatever they wanted with their bodies. They believed that what was done with the body had little if any effect on the spirit, so why not do it all. There was another group, however, that seemed to be following the line of thinking of many pagan philosophies of the day that included the belief that the body was inherently evil. All pleasures of the body needed to be avoided because they inhibited the development of the spirit. The eventual goal, in this philosophical line of thinking, was for the soul to be free of the body after death. This was the view that Plato espoused, but it is not at all biblical.

Paul has already addressed the first view with several examples, now he turns to the second viewpoint. He does so by answering a question that had arisen amongst at least some in the congregation. They had written Paul an earlier letter asking several questions and now he is going to give his answer. To fully understand his answer, though, it will help to realize that the Roman (and therefore Corinthian) view of marriage was as an arrangement of status and public image, especially for the rich. The Roman emperors greatly encouraged marriage among all people. Marriage, however, was not a very advantageous situation for women. They had very little rights within a marriage and the prospects of unmarried women were very limited in this society. Divorce could be had with a simple declaration of such. This meant that a good marriage was considered to be one that was harmonious. Pleasure was often sought outside of marriage.

In answering their question on marriage, then, Paul is dealing with both the societal view of marriage as well as a pagan-infused Christian philosophy that was teaching that sex and pleasure, even within a marriage, was wrong and should be avoided. Paul’s overall point is obscured in the NIV translation of verse one which actually says "It is good for a man to have no sexual contact with a woman." He is quoting what the Corinthians have written him. In theory, Paul agrees with this statement, to a degree, but his full answer is that just as starvation diets don’t really work, neither does this philosophy. Bodies were ultimately made to glorify God, but God also made them to have sex. Sex within a marriage is glorifying to God and should not be avoided. The one trying this starvation approach will find themselves exploding in inappropriate ways as evidenced by the apparent visits some had made to prostitutes (see chapter 6) or even the many well-documented problems that Roman Catholic priests have had with sexual matters in modern times.

In this short section on marriage, Paul sets many societal assumptions on their head. His declarations that each spouse literally has ‘authority’ over the body of the other, and that women were free not to be married if they so chose, are quite remarkable and are thoughts that appeared nowhere else in the ancient world. Paul affirms that sex within a marriage is a good and God-ordained thing. Withholding from it in no way enhances one’s spirituality or brings one closer to God. If both parties agree to abstain for some special period of prayer or a spiritual retreat, then both must agree and it needs to be for just a short time. If they try to completely abstain from sexual relations within their marriage they will find, just as the diets, that both their physiology and the power of their will to overcome temptation will be working against them.

Many readers have misunderstood Paul’s remarks in verse 6 regarding a concession as referring to Paul saying that marriage is a concession to keep people from sins of sexual immorality. That’s not Paul’s point at all. The concession to which he is referring is the fact that they may still feel the need to withhold from marital sex for a short time to focus on their spirituality. Paul believes that these are not mutually exclusive activities. Thus, the need for short and mutually agreed-upon sabbaticals are a concession that are wise advice, they are not something that must be done as a command from God.

Paul’s words in verse 7 have also been often misunderstood. Paul’s point here is that chastity, the freedom from the need to be married is a gift that enables some to focus more directly on the work of the Kingdom. But we must understand that Paul believes that marriage is also a gift. Each has their own gift, his language is inclusive not exclusionary. He is saying that his personal preference is for the gift of being single but at the same time, he realizes that it is neither possible, practical, or even preferable for all people to have that gift. In the same way, I have occasionally said that I wish that everyone had the gift to teach, yet I realize that in the reality of the Church this is not possible, practical, or ultimately preferable. Paul sees each believer in the community as gifted by God in some way, and it is the responsibility and privilege of each person to use those gifts for God’s own purposes.



Devotional Thought

Paul’s belief is that everything within a marriage should be for the purpose of glorifying God. How does this challenge you in your own marriage? If you’re not married then how does this change your views of marriage and dating? What can you do in your own relationships to ensure that they glorify God in every aspect?

Monday, July 16, 2007

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Sexual Immorality

12"Everything is permissible for me"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"—but I will not be mastered by anything. 13"Food for the stomach and the stomach for food"—but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. 15Do 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! 16Do 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." 17But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

18Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. 19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.



Dig Deeper


While teaching a class years ago for pre-teens, I was trying to explain to them that they were made for God’s glory; that’s the purpose for which God mad them. They should, I told them, use themselves properly. To make this point clear, I first took a wrench and began to use it to hammer a nail into a piece of wood. The wrench worked well enough for a couple of nails, but eventually it broke. We can use things outside of their intended purpose for a time, and they may even function fairly well, but eventually they will break. The number one cause of tools breaking is use outside of their intended function.

Paul will now address an extremely important example of his overall argument against the Corinthians: they have arrogantly not realized what kind of people they are supposed to be in Christ. An extremely important part of that issue, especially in a port town like Corinth, was sexual immorality. Paul has a question here that lies just beneath the surface of his writing from here all the way through to chapter 15. The question is simply: what is the body for?

In verse 12, Paul begins an imaginary dialogue with the Corinthians. Their imagined utterances are in quotes in the NIV, while his responses follow the words in quotes. Paul repeats a couple of sayings which were evidently popular in Corinth at the time, and that the Church had actually started using and living by. Paul takes advantage of these little sayings because they clearly capture the deceived mindset of many in the Corinthian Church at the time.

The first saying is that everything is permissible. There is a sense in which Paul agrees with this because Christianity is about freedom, but they were forgetting that there is always a balance in the Christian life. Many things are technically permissible, but are they beneficial? This is a question we must always ask. In claiming their ‘Christian freedom’ they were actually signing up to a new master. Paul wants them to realize that precisely because Christianity is about freedom, they must be careful to never allow something outside of Christ to give them orders, whether it be appetites, habits, culture, or the desire for pleasure and comfort.

The second saying was being used as an excuse for immorality. If "food is for the stomach and the stomach for food", then it only follows logically that sex is for the body and the body for sex. Although he is addressing sexuality here, the core subject is still the nature of Christian freedom. Sex is an important aspect of that, however, because it is one of the biggest ways that Christians corrupt their freedom Understanding the purpose of the body has everything to do with the Resurrection. Because Christ was raised, so will those who are in Christ. At baptism, we became Him and took His life. Our bodies are the Lord’s, no longer ours. To take the body of Christ and unite it to anyone outside of the body of Christ is a category mistake (Paul uses the example of a prostitute as the worst possible scenario, but any sex outside of its intended use is no better). This does not, of course, mean that sex with anyone within the body of Christ is acceptable, God has created sex for marriage and marriage alone. Paul quotes Genesis 2:24 in verse 16 to make the point that sex is a union of two bodies. Christians, though, are resurrection people whose bodies belong to Christ now. What we do with our bodies now matters, because there is a correspondence between our bodies now and in the ‘age to come’ (Paul will explain this in chapter 15).

The believer is united with Christ and cannot rightly be united with anyone else. Although this is a spiritual unity, it is still impacted by what we do with our bodies, because the body and the spirit are intertwined. It is simply not true that one can do something with their body that does not effect their spirit. This can all be boiled down to one principle: does what you are doing with your body glorify God? Every relationship we have and everything we do with our bodies should glorify God. If it does not then we have wandered outside of our intended purpose.

What is interesting is that Paul does not simply lay down a hard, fast rule in this area. The problem with laying down rules is that people follow them for a short time and then began to think of ways that they can slowly get around them. Instead, Paul wants them to be Kingdom people. This takes thought and effort, and a willingness to wrestle through the issues. He wants them to learn to think in a Kingdom way so that they will make the right decisions all of the time.

Paul offers the advice to cut and run when it comes to sexual immorality. There is no point in playing with fire. The wise thing is to follow the example of Joseph in the Old Testament and flee. The next statement is a bit difficult to understand, partly due to the fact that the NIV has added the word ‘other’ that does not appear in the original language. It would appear then, that Paul’s point is that immorality is like all sin and is something even more. The reason that sexual sin is something more is that it is the act of uniting our bodies, which belong to Christ, with something that is outside of the body of Christ. Just as the Church is the Temple of God, so is the individual body of the Christian. There simply cannot be impurity in the Temple. To make this point clear, Paul gives them another important reminder. Just as they should be constantly celebrating the final Passover, so should they always remember that the freedom they have came at the extremely high cost of the blood of Christ. Our lives should be an eternal Passover celebration that honors God.



Devotional Thought

Paul uses a fantastic technique of identifying the little catchy slogans and sayings of his day and answering them with concise, and easily remembered responses. What are some of the valued, but wrong slogans and sayings of our culture? How could you respond to them in the same way that Paul responded to those of his day.

Friday, July 13, 2007

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

9Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And 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.



Dig Deeper

During the time I was a teacher and basketball coach, many interesting things happened. One event in particular had to do with two young men who wanted to come to our high school to play on the basketball team. The issue was that our school was an alternative partnership school. It was a place designed for only certain students who had met certain kind of criterion. It wasn’t that there was a list of rules or requirements, it was simply a description of the type of kids that would be served by this sort of school. One of the young men came from another state, but after getting his records it was determined that he was the type of student that could enter into our school. (Most of the descriptions that determined whether or not they could enter the school would be considered of the negative type.) The other guy, however, found that he just wasn’t the type of student that could enter our school. His academic career had been too positive.

What Paul writes to the Corinthians here is a similar idea, although the exact opposite. In the case of the Kingdom of God, it is not negative but godly descriptions that will determine if they are Kingdom type of people. The Kingdom of God isn’t about a list of laws or rules; it doesn’t require certain behaviors or achievements in order to gain access. Instead it is a life. It is a life where certain types of people simply won’t fit, they won’t be served by what the ‘age to come’ has to offer. The point that Paul will make clear later in chapter 13 is that a Kingdom person is characterized by love. Love isn’t an achievement or number of tasks that can be checked off; it is a lifestyle. A Kingdom person doesn’t so much ‘love’ as a verb as they are ‘love’ as a noun.

In Greek mythology, Damastes had a stronghold in the hills outside of Eleusis. He had an iron bed to which he invited all passersby to lie down on. If they were too tall, he cut off the excess. If they were too short he would stretch them on a rack. The catch was nobody ever fit because it was adjustable and he would change it after he sized up his guests from a distance. This is not the sort of thing that happens in the Kingdom of God. He does not use some sort of arbitrary standards of behavior to determine who gets in and who doesn’t. No, it’s simply a matter of the kind of people for which the ‘age to come’ is made. It is made for a people who have been transformed into the image of God, and we know that God is love (1 John 4:8, 16). It is important to remember, though, that we are talking about God’s definition of love, not the world’s.

God created genuine human beings, unmarred by sin, to be His image bearers. But since the Fall of Adam and Eve, no one had seen what a truly genuine human being, characterized by love looked like. God, Paul believed, had revealed a genuine human, bearing His image and characterized by true love, in the person and life of Jesus the Messiah.

Paul warns the Corinthians not to kid themselves and become deceived, people not characterized by love simply won’t fit into the Kingdom of God. They had fallen into the arrogance of thinking that they could define what sort of people could enter into the Kingdom, now Paul calls them back to God’s standard. He gives them an illustrative not an exhaustive list of the types of people whose very lives demonstrate that they are not conforming to the image of God. Although this passage has been disputed lately in our culture where it concerns homosexual behavior, Paul is quite clear. The Greek malakoi (translated ‘male prostitutes’) means ‘soft ones’ and most likely referred to the passive homosexual partner that so characterized those types of relationship in the Greek world (very similarly to the prototypical homosexual relationship today). The word arsenokoitai (translated ‘homosexual offenders’) refers to the dominant partner in the relationship, thus Paul is comprehensively saying that those who engage in homosexuality at any level simply are not bearing the image of God and will not fit into the Kingdom of God.

Although each generation of Christians has been guilty of demonizing its own set of pet sins and behaviors and making them seem worse than others, there is the equal and opposite error of deceiving ourselves into believing that certain types of behavior, often related to sexual immorality of some type is okay. In our culture, the world has given love its own definition and then redefined many un-Kingdom-like behaviors as acceptable based on that definition. One of the ways they have done this is to confuse temptation with orientation. Just because someone is prone to a set of temptations that others may not be, does not make that behavior who they really are. Who we really are is the image-bearers of God, that is our only orientation. The types of behaviors that Paul lists here are temptations that keep us from being who we really are. We must be extremely careful to never confuse the temptation with our orientation and thus deceive ourselves into thinking that we are Kingdom people when we are not. Behaviors in the present that distort and deface the image of God lead us away from the Kingdom of God, not to it.

Paul reminds them that they were this sort of people. This indicates that he believes that the ‘real’ humans that they are, are separate from their temptations and behaviors (including homosexuality). They can leave those image distorting sorts of activities behind if they are to become God’s genuine human image-bearers. They have been washed (an allusion to baptism), sanctified (set apart and made holy) and justified (marked out and vindicated as God’s people of love that live by faith), now they need to start acting like it and calling others to the genuine human existence.



Devotional Thought

Part of why Paul wrote this letter was that he was aware that this new type of humanity doesn’t come automatically, but he does believe that once faith has intertwined with baptism, one has access to this new type of being a genuine human. How have you and how can you display this new type of being human to those around you? In what behaviors or areas of your life have you been deceived?

Thursday, July 12, 2007

1 Corinthians 6:1-8

Lawsuits Among Believers

1If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints? 2Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 3Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! 4Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little account in the church 5 say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? 6But instead, one brother goes to law against another—and this in front of unbelievers!

7The 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? 8Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers.



Dig Deeper

It didn’t take me very long in teaching at an inner-city high school to notice that the administration wasn’t particularly concerned with small details like in what areas the teachers were actually licensed. Sometimes out of necessity teachers were asked to teach classes in areas outside of their field of expertise. At other times, teachers were allowed to teach outside of their field simply because they wanted to and thought a particular class would be fun to teach. It always seemed a bit odd to me to let people do something for which they were not really qualified, especially when teachers qualified in those subjects could have taught it.

This is more or less the way Paul sees the situation that he now turns to. In a sense, this is a continuation of his continuing argument against the arrogance of the Corinthians. In this section he will discuss the arrogance of not living in a manner worthy of the ‘age to come’, a life that was made available to them by Christ, the Passover lamb. In essence, this was a result of their arrogance and their complete lack of love, something that Paul will make quite clear in chapter 13.

It would appear that some of members of the Corinthian community had taken other members to the Roman courts. Two of the ongoing characteristics of the Roman legal system were that lawyers were extremely expensive and that it massively favored the wealthy. This would indicate that some well-to-do members of the congregation had evidently tried to exploit a situation to their advantage.

This was a clear indication to Paul that they were not understanding or behaving like people who had entered into the ‘age to come’. Rather than being a light to the world and demonstrating what it looked like to be a community of true humanity living in concert with God, they were snubbing that and trying to exploit the system of the present age. Why, Paul wants to know, would they turn to worldly judges who are incapable of exercising God’s true justice and who have no access to the life of the ‘age to come’, rather than dealing with the situation themselves? Paul assumes that they should know that they will judge the entire world one day. This does not contradict what he has already said in the previous chapter. In the present age, Christians are not to engage in judgments that are God’s to make, but in the ‘age to come’ that will be part of the Church’s responsibility. Paul believes this based on Old Testament passages like Daniel 7:27 (as well as extra-biblical Jewish literature like 1 Enoch 1:9 and Wisdom 3:8) which says that the saints will be set in authority over the whole world. They need to become now in the present age, the people they actually are in the Messiah. In a sense, this is what this entire letter is about. They need to become who they really are in Christ.

The whole purpose of the Christian community is to model the life of Christ (the life of the ‘age to come’), which is the genuine human existence apart from the plague of sin. If they weren’t doing that, then what was the point? The fact is that because of their own arrogance and selfishness, they weren’t pointing to the time when God’s justice would rule the entire earth, rather they were turning to the inferior Roman brand of justice. Why would they do this when they were to rule over and judge the entire creation one day? The rule that they had been given in the Church was practice for the future age, and to this point, they were blowing it.

Paul is clearly trying to shame the Corinthians who are responsible for this situation. In verse 5, he asks if it is possible that there is nobody among them that is wise enough to judge a dispute between believers. This is an obvious shot at those in the congregation who are puffed up and think so highly of themselves. In this honor-shame culture, shaming them was a powerful motivator. In our culture we tend to think more in terms of success and failure than we do honor and shame. Thus if Paul were writing to us he might say, "I write this to show that you are failures." However we word it to apply to various cultures, the point is that they have failed to live up the genuine human life to which they had been called.

Paul has two points to make concerning this situation. First, If they are going to engage with one another in disputes, then they should at least keep them in house where God’s justice rather than the world’s can be exercised. Second, it would be better if they didn’t sue one another at all. Paul believes that it would be better for them to get ripped off than to harm their witness the way they have. Those who insist on asserting their individual rights at the expense of other Christians and at the expense of the image of the body of Christ, are really demonstrating that they don’t have a clue of what the life of Christ is all about. This kind of quibbling amongst Christians says to the world that they are really no different than the rest of humanity. They have presented a shameful image to the world outside of the Church and badly damaged their witness to those who so desperately need hear the message of the gospel so that the exile between them and God can be brought to an end. This is the precise message that Paul explains in Philippians 2:14-16: "Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing."



Devotional Thought

How quick are you to forfeit what you feel may be your personal rights in order to demonstrate the life of the ‘age to come’ for the world around you? Are you prepared to be wronged or cheated in order to further the cause of the Kingdom of God and shine like a star in the world?

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

1 Corinthians 5:6-13

6Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? 7Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.

9I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.

12What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked man from among you."



Dig Deeper

If you ask most people when the American slaves were freed, many, if not most, will answer that it was when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln. This is the standard line that most American school children are given. Yet, it is not really true. The Emancipation Proclamation freed virtually no slaves. What it did was to declare any slaves in states that remained in rebellion against the United States to be free. This made for a great political move but Lincoln did not have any authority over the southern states during the war and so the Proclamation was toothless. Judgment and authority can only be exercised where one has the power to do so.

In this section of his letter, Paul continues to deal with his example of the Corinthian arrogance and pride as demonstrated in the way that they have handled the immoral brother among them. He has stated already that the man should be expelled from the congregation, and now he will delve further into the concept of why they need to deal with sin in the Church, but also why they should not judge sinners outside of the Church. Like Lincoln, they can only reach the areas over which they truly have authority.

Paul begins verse 6 as bluntly as he possibly could, saying, your boasting is not good. In displaying pride over their free-wheeling attitude towards immoral behavior in the Church they have shown that they don’t get the point of the Christian life at all. They have been called to demonstrate for the world what the ‘age to come’ will look like. They will hardly announce that the life of the ‘age to come’ is available now through God’s Kingdom and His Church if they fail to live up to even the moral standards of the pagans. This is not about legalistic standards, it is about demonstrating for the world what a people reconciled to the Creator of the universe look like.

To make this point clear, Paul uses the imagery from the Passover. The Passover was the meal celebrated yearly by the Jews to commemorate the night of the original Passover in Egypt when God freed the descendants of Abraham from their life of slavery in Egypt. The Passover lamb was not a sacrifice but was the means through which God marked out His people, keeping them from destruction. Paul’s use of this imagery, then, is not some example he has pulled haphazardly out of the air. His point is a very important and specific one. He reminds them that at the very heart of Christianity is Christ, the real Passover lamb that had made the protection of the lamb available to the whole world. If they would only remember this, they would realize that the entire Christian life is one continuous Passover celebration. In the traditional Passover meal all leaven would be removed from the house. During the original Passover the bread was made without leaven because they had to flee without waiting for the leaven to rise in the bread, but since then it had come to signify sin as well. Just as leaven must be completely removed from the Passover celebration, so it must all the more be removed from the ultimate and eternal Passover celebration, the life of the Christian community.

In fact Paul calls on them to get rid of the yeast of their old life and calls them to live a life worthy of the one to which they have had made available when they entered into the life of Christ. He wants them to live freed from sin and freed for godly lives because God has already acted in Christ to make provision for the reality of them living a life of the ‘age to come’ in the present age. In calling them to the bread of sincerity and truth, Paul is reminding them that at the heart of all immoral behavior is the lie that goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden; it is the lie that we can do things are own way without obeying God.

In verse 9, Paul references an earlier letter (one that has not survived history) that he wrote to them about not associating with sexually immoral people. We don’t know for sure whether this was an honest misunderstanding or a deliberate attempt to disregard his instructions (see 4:18). He now makes it very clear for them. Not only would it be impossible for them to not associate with non-Christians who are immoral (and Paul then gives many representative examples of worldly immorality that are not just limited to the sexual type), it would make no sense. This is a further development of what Paul alluded to in in verse 5. The fact is that the Church is responsible for judging behavior (which is different from the type of value judgments that Paul referred to in the previous chapter) within the Church, but outside the Church it is God’s responsibility. In calling for them to not eat with this type of individual, Paul is directly alluding to the table fellowship of communion but this is, most likely, a figure of speech that would mean that they should not associate with him at all. Not eating with someone was a significant act in this culture (see Galatians 2:12-13).

Because it is their responsibility to judge those in the Church they should "expel the wicked man from among you." This is a loose quote from Deuteronomy 17 and Paul’s point is this: because the Church has failed to be humbly responsible in executing their duty, they need to send him back to the realm of the world where God is solely responsible for judgment. Because the Church had failed both God and this man is this situation, the only hope was to return him to the world, where God alone would be his hope. When seen in the proper light, surely the Corinthians have nothing in this situation that should puff them up, rather they should be humbled and ashamed by their arrogance.



Devotional Thought

Do you see your life as one long Passover celebration? Do you apply Paul’s principle of removing all of the yeast from your life so that you can properly honor the ultimate Passover lamb? Spend some time thinking about that today, then go share your faith by explaining the Passover to someone, how Christ became the ultimate Passover, and how our lives are to reflect the understanding and gratitude of that monumental event.