Understanding and Addressing Immorality in Corinth: Lessons from 1 Corinthians
Explores the themes of Christian Conduct, unity, discipline, and spiritual growth in the local church as highlighted in 1 Corinthians. Focuses on the corrective behavior regarding immorality and worldliness, emphasizing the importance of church discipline. Discusses God's view on the body, sexuality, and the restoration of the physical body according to biblical teachings.
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Correcting Ills and Immorality Correcting Ills and Immorality My Body and Me - 6:12-20 Week Week 59 19 July 19 July 2023 59 2023
1 CORINTHIANS INTRODUCTION As we continue our study in 1st Corinthians, we are reminded that the themes of this letter revolves around Christian Conduct in the local church and how it influences unity,discipline, andspiritual growth.. worldliness. Paul s main objective in this letter is to make Positional sanctification Progressive. Therefore the corrective here is behavior rather than doctrine. The major problem in the church at Corinth was In this Third section (4:1-6:20). Paul outlines the principles and process of church discipline needed to purge and purify the church of its Immaturity and Immorality.
1 CORINTHIANS - LESSON OVERVIEW Swindoll opens by saying . . . We live in an age infatuated with the human physique. Each year people spend billions of dollars on cosmetics, exercise equipment, fitness clubs, fashion, vitamins, diet programs, and plastic surgery. Sculpted bodies parade before us in every form of media. The perfect body, we are told, is different than ours whether curvier, sleeker, slimmer, or more toned and muscular. Along with the body craze has come an obsession with sex that has reached insane proportions. Television, magazines, movies and the Internet provide a smorgasbord of opportunities to poison the mind with greatly distorted and often perverse pictures of human sexuality.
1 CORINTHIANS - LESSON OVERVIEW God-given sexual desires perfectly healthy and holy in the context of faithful marriage are exploited into opportunities for immoral images, attitudes, and actions. These worldly distortions of the human body and human sexuality should concerns us, but not surprise us. From time immemorial the world has been departing from a balanced, godly view of the physical body. So it should be no surprise that the next issue of Corinthian immorality that Paul seeks to correct involves a perversion of human bodily existence and sexual practice.
1 CORINTHIANS - LESSON OVERVIEW Swindoll says In the first century, the common Greek approach to body and soul was that the body was material, temporary, and merely a distraction from our true being the soul. The Greeks believed that the body was irrelevant to the soul. Yet the early Christians taught that the physical body was part of God s original good creation (Gen 2:7) and therefore was an essential part of humanity. Though the physical body is currently subject to sin, corruption, suffering and death. God s plan is not to annihilate the body and release our souls into a bodiless existence for eternity. It is to restore and glorify the physical body through bodily resurrection (15:42-43).
1 CORINTHIANS - LESSON OVERVIEW During that period, the Corinthians struggled with a view of the human body that differed greatly from ours the body was like a prison or tomb of the soul, merely a physical shell of the real person. soul, the body could be understood to have no moral value, and because of its sensual, earthy appetites, it seduced the goodsoul to sin and dragged it down into the gutter of vice. In light of this strong dualism that separated body and Two approaches of life emerged from this philosophy. harsh self-discipline and even self-mutilation, went to ridiculous extremes to curb the body s desires. First -- One group became Ascetic; those who, through
1 CORINTHIANS - LESSON OVERVIEW Second -- Others became Hedonists. They believed that, since only the soul would survive death, it didn t matter what was done through the body. They gave the body every opportunity to quench its lustful longings. Both approaches were to be found in Corinth (6:12-13; 7:5) and had infected many of the Corinthian Christians. the human body in God s design. Paul therefore needed to teach them about the place of misdeeds, calls the Corinthian believers to a life of physical purity that conforms to their spiritual holiness. So, in 6:12-20, Paul challenges their misconceptions and
1 CORINTHIANS 6:12 12All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:12 Paul was a preacher of Christian liberty, without a doubt. In Galatians 5:1, he wrote It was for freedom that Christ set us free. But taking this verse out of context a person could use it in defense of any kind of excessive lifestyle or wanton immorality. It is not hard to believe that in the Corinthians culture, Paul s teaching on Christian liberty might have been taken as an endorsement for a hedonistic lifestyle among Christians. The Corinthians had fully embraced one side of Paul s teaching on liberty without embracing the other. They shouted Amen to the first part of Gal 5:13, For you were called to freedom brethren, but had forsaken the second part only do not turn your freedom into and opportunity for the flesh.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:12 They had so emphasized the theological truth that we are free from serving the old master, the law of Moses, that they had forgotten the equally important truth that we have been joined to Christ to bear righteous fruit for God (Rom. 7:4). Though they welcomed the idea that all things are lawful for me (6:12), they wrongly took it for a banner to hang over their harmful justification of sexual immorality and other selfish desires. What Paul said and what the Corinthians heard were two different things. Paul clears up their misunderstanding by setting up two guardrails to keep Christian liberty within it proper bounds: Expediency and Self-control.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:12 First Freedom is to be guided by expediency (6:12). Christians are free from the Mosaic Law as a covenant that once governed the Hebrews special relationship with God. The old covenant granted blessing for obedience or cursing for disobedience (Gal. 3:10-14). This freedom from the covenant of the Law, as a way of life, does not logically lead to believers now having a right to do anything they please, regardless of its effects on themselves or others. Rather, believers are to be guided by whether an act is profitable, that is, whether it is advantageous, useful, or beneficial. The word implies a mutual edification building up one another. In Romans 14:19; 15:2, Paul says we are to pursue such things.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:12 Second Freedom is to be guided by self-control (6:12). The Corinthians needed to learn that when they indulged their sinful desires, they were actually losing their freedom instead of gaining it. To engage in unbridled immorality, is to deceive ourselves, about the distinction between freedomandbondage, and to trade in our freedom of righteousness for shackles of lust. When we say I m going to have it my way, we think that s liberty. When in reality we have simply bowed our heads to the very thing we couldn t say no to: greed, glutton, pornography, gossip, addictions, or any other gratification to which we surrender our freedom. When believers don t use their freedom to serve God, they unwittingly serve sin.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:12 To illustrate the seductive nature of sin Swindoll reminds us of the 1960 classic film, The Little Shop of Horrors. That tells a story of a struggling flower shop saved when customers line up to see a strange new hybrid plant named Audrey Jr. that feeds on human blood and whose appetite increases as the plant grows. Ultimately, instead of being a benefit to the business the plant controls the lives of the worker, virtually reducing them to slaves of its insatiable appetite. Having it our way, initially, mayseem to grant freedom as we bask in its pleasures and enjoy its benefits. Like in this film, we quickly lose control, finding ourselves enslaved to a feeding frenzy that grows increasing ravenous as we continue to gratify its desires. That s not freedom. That s slavery.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:13-14 13Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:13-14 Having established guardrails that protect us against the extremes of Christian liberty, Paul points us to the destination of freedom by explaining God s purpose for our bodies. He begins by alluding to what was likely a common proverb in the decadent Greek party scene: Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food (6:13). This statement makes a common association of gluttony with sexual pleasure; both were sometimes available in the banquets of the wealth. It also represented the sort of logic by which some Greeks had justified promiscuity: as food was for the stomach, so the body was designed for sexual pleasure. Paul concludes that God will do away with both of them perhaps referring to eternity when God will put an end to the insatiable desires of the body for physical sustenance.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:13-14 It could also be that this was the punch line of the Greek hedonistic philosophy, similar to the proverb, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we may die (Isa. 22:13). In any case, the Corinthian Christians reasoned: When your body is hungry, feed it. When it thirsts, quench it. When it lusts, indulge it. When it craves, satiate it. Before long the situation was out of control. The mortal condition of the physical body does not lead to the conclusion that we can simply treat it however we want, as if it is disposable rubbish. Paul corrects this false dualism of the hedonistically influenced Corinthians by emphasizing that not only our souls, but our bodies are to be submitted to the service of the Lord (6:13).
1 CORINTHIANS 6:13-14 He then reminds us that God raised Christ from the dead. The very body that had been crucified and buried was raised not disposed of, or annihilated, but glorified, transformed, and made immortal by the power of God. So, in that same way, believers bodies will also be raised to live in an immortal, glorious, spiritual condition (6:14). Our bodies will be qualitatively transformed, but they will be the very bodies that have existed on this earth (15:53). Because these same bodies are to be resurrected and glorified to reign as kings and rule as judges over heaven and earth, they should never be used for sexually immorality. Christ has purchased not only our souls but also our bodies from the slave market of sin (6:20; Titus 2:14; 1Pet 1:18-19).
1 CORINTHIANS 6:13-14 Therefore, we should serve God through our bodies, worshiping Him by abstaining from any form of sexual immorality. Simply put, our physical bodies are to be fully incorporated in the process of sanctification (being made progressively holy in practice,) just as our bodies are destined to be fully involved in future glorification (the ultimate perfection in holiness through resurrection).
1 CORINTHIANS 6:15-20 15Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not! 16Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For the two, He says, shall become one flesh. 17But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. 18Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. 19Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God s.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:15-20 Paul continues to argue against the Corinthians imbalanced views of the body and sexual immorality. In 6:15-20, he presents threefacts about our bodies that further confirm their worth and our responsibility to use them in the service of God: 1. Our body is a physical extension of Christ in the world (6:15). 2. Our body is to be a living picture of our relationship with Christ (6:15-18). 3. Our body is a living temple of the Holy Spirit (6:19).
1 CORINTHIANS 6:15-20 First Our body is a physical extension of Christ in the world (6:15). The church is the body of Christ (Eph. 4:12), and since each one is a member of that body (Rom. 12:5), the body of Christ cannot be regarded as only spiritual or invisible. Rather, it is manifested through a physical presence, just as Christ was both physical and spiritual. Each member of Christ s body is to represent the Lord on the earth. Like ambassadors in a foreign land who act as their nation s eyes, ears, hands and mouth, we are Christ s ambassadors in this world, carrying out His interests in His name.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:15-20 Only by consecrating our physical bodies to the service of God can we fulfill our calling to be not only Christ s heart and mind in the world, but also His hands and feet. Second Ourbody is to be a living picture of our relationship with Christ (6:15-18). Because we are members of Christ s body spiritually and physically we should be just as appalled at sexual immorality in our personal lives and in the life of the church as we would be at the idea that Christ Himself would chase after prostitutes. So disgusting is the idea that Paul utters the strongest condemnation of such a thought saying . . . May it never be! God forbid! Perish the thought!
1 CORINTHIANS 6:15-20 When we engage in sexual sin, we form an immoral union that mars our holy alliance with God through Christ. Why? Because the sexual union is a physical expression of the most intimate union two people can have. They become one flesh (6:16). Because some of the Corinthians held the body in such low regard they failed to see the spiritual implications of their physical actions. Those who joined themselves with the Lord, through the personal self-consecration pictured in the physical rite of baptism, became one spirit with Him (6:17). This physical act illustrated a spiritualreality.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:15-20 The Corinthians had failed to understand the close relationship between the inner, spiritual reality and the outer expression. They held that whatever was done by or through the body was not immoralbut amoral that is morally irrelevant. Paul refutes their claim, saying, The immoral man sins against his own body (6:18). Sexual relations outside of marriage is wrong because they abuses the body with pleasures that don t last, and are ultimately a source of great regret. Paul commands the Corinthians flee sexual immorality (6:18).
1 CORINTHIANS 6:15-20 Third Ourbody is a living temple of the Holy Spirit (6:19). In 3:16, Paul likened the church in Corinth to a temple of God in which the Holy Spirit dwells. There the emphasis was on the corporate body of believers as the temple, with the spirit dwelling among the gathered community in a unique way. Here in 6:19, Paul draws out another important type of indwelling of the Spirit his presence in the body of each individual believer.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:15-20 The Spirit indwells each of us who has been bought with the priceless blood of Christ, setting us apart from all others for His glory alone (6:20; Rom 8:9, 11). God sent His Son to die in order to redeem us from sin. One day, God will raise us from the dead, as He did Christ Jesus, so we can reign with Him forever (6:2-3). In the meantime, the Lord has called us to live according to His standards and by His indwelling power. He bought us at the highest price imaginable, His own life.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:15-20 He gave us the noblest vocation, representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth. He prepared us for the most glorious end, eternal life in our resurrected, glorified bodies. How can we do less than honor Him through obedience, especially through our bodies? If we truly belong to Christ, how could we not consecrate our bodies to His services? all its forms and run back to the liberating arms of Jesus? How could we not flee from the slavery of immorality in
APPLICATIONS OF THE LESSON My Goal? His Glory!
APPLICATION MY GOAL? HIS GLORY! In closing, we are reminded that our physical bodies are not disposable waste, fertilizer for flowers, or food for worms. Swindoll says . . . This pagan notion of the flesh is an affront to God s handwork. God created us with both immaterial and material aspects both originally good so we could serve as His image-bearers in creation. As His redeemed people, one day He will transform our mortal bodies into immortal bodies, but until that time our bodies are a physical extension of Christ, a moral illustration of the Lord and a temple for the indwelling Spirit.
APPLICATION MY GOAL? HIS GLORY! All of this leads to a compelling conclusion, which Paul underscored with a simple imperative: Therefore glorify God in your body (6:20). God let His Son die to redeem our bodies from a lifestyle of sin and rebellion. Until God raises us from the dead and redeems our bodies from death and decay, He expects us to live in our mortal bodies according to His principles reflecting the light of His truth. Physical mortality should never be an excuse for physical immorality. Paul reminds us that we have been bought with a price the precious blood of Christ (6:20). So, if we belong to Christ, we should serve Him faithfully and consistently.
APPLICATION MY GOAL? HIS GLORY! Not just in our thought life. Not merely with our feelings. But with our hands, our feet, our eyes, our ears, and our tongues. What we say, what we do, where we go, what we watch, what we listen to all these things are to be done to His glory. How do we do this? First, we avoid the extreme of asceticism. That is, we neither neglect our bodies as if they are irrelevant to our spiritual lives, nor do we reject our bodies as if they are distractions to God s services. Denying the needs of the body isn t spiritual. Because we are embodied creatures designed with God-given needs and desires.
APPLICATION MY GOAL? HIS GLORY! Mature Christians don t deny their needs; they submit them to God s will and use them for His glory. While we all need food, clothing, shelter, companionship, and intimacy; all of them, should be sought according to God s commands. Second, we avoid the extreme of hedonism. We honor God with our bodies by keeping passions under control. We don t dive into sexual immorality. We don t overindulge in food and drink. We don t focus on our physical appearance while our character and virtue suffer. And we don t build our physique while neglecting our spiritual health. Because we were bought at a price, our goal for our bodies should be His glory.
NEXT CLASS 26 July 2023 Before next class, read the below chapters in Before next class, read the below chapters in the NKJV and in one other versions of the Bible, the NKJV and in one other versions of the Bible, i.e., KJV, NRSV, NIV, CEV, etc i.e., KJV, NRSV, NIV, CEV, etc Chapter 7:1 16 Advice on Marriage Matters
