seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
1 Corinthians 6:1 If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people? 2 Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! 4 Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned in the church? 5 I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? 6 But instead, one brother takes another to court—and this in front of unbelievers!
7 The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? 8 Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters. 9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a] 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
12 “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. 13 You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”[b] 17 But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.[c]
18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. 19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
Footnotes:
- 1 Corinthians 6:9 The words men who have sex with men translate two Greek words that refer to the passive and active participants in homosexual acts.
- 1 Corinthians 6:16 Gen. 2:24
- 1 Corinthians 6:17 Or in the Spirit
Oh I am very aware of this chapter. This is from the easy English site.
The Greeks very much liked to go to the law courts. It was like entertainment for them. Some of the Greeks had brought this habit into the Christian church. Paul heard that a Christian in Corinth was taking another Christian to a pagan law court. Paul was disgusted. The Jews usually settled things in front of the important men in their village. Or they took the problem to the important men in a synagogue. They thought that it was wrong to go to a pagan law court. As a Jew, and even more as a Christian, Paul believed that this legal action was wrong.
Paul said that one day Christians would judge both other people and angels. So it was not sensible to use human law courts to deal with small quarrels.
Christians should appoint other members of the church to decide what was right. They should choose Christians who were not important. Paul’s words seem like a command. So he is probably reminding them that they should be humble. They are wrong to think that one Christian is more important than another Christian. But other people have translated the sentence like this: ‘I do not know how you can let people outside the church judge. Their opinions are not very important for Christians.’
In Corinth, people worshipped Aphrodite, the female god of love. Their worship included much wrong sexual behaviour. Also, many people did not remain a loyal husband or a loyal wife.
‘Male prostitutes’ translates a Greek word that means ‘soft’. Probably it describes boys and young men who acted like women. They allowed older men to use them for their sexual pleasure. ‘Homosexuals’ describes people of the same sex who have sex with each other. In the Roman world, both these forms of behaviour were common. Even the Roman rulers did these things.
In those days, the water was not good. So the Greeks mixed wine with their water. In Corinth, there were people who drank too much alcohol. They thought only about their own pleasure.
To tell lies and to speak evil words about other people are serious sins. They make it difficult for people to trust each other and to be part of society.
Some Christians had been like all these wicked people. But they had become better. The water used to baptise them had shown that they wanted to change. God had made them his own people. The Lord Jesus Christ, by his death on the cross, had brought them into right relations with God. God’s Spirit had caused them to become new people. So, Paul uses these words to encourage them to live properly as Christians. That would show that their faith was sincere.
The Greeks taught that the spirit alone mattered. The body was not important. So they could act in any way at all and it would not hurt their spirit. It was natural to eat. And it was natural to satisfy their sexual desires. Paul had also taught that Christians are free from the law’s demands. So some Christians were continuing to visit prostitutes after baptism. Corinth was a city so well-known for sexual sin that a ‘girl from Corinth’ meant a prostitute. So it was very easy for Christians to sin in this way. And it was very easy to find excuses for this behaviour.
Christian freedom does not mean that Christians are free to sin. Paul reminded them about that. What they chose to do must be helpful to them. It must also be helpful to other people. It was wrong to be like a slave to their former way to live.
Scripture says in Genesis 2:24 that a sexual act between two people makes them into one united body. Christians are part of Christ’s body, the church. So for a Christian to give his body to a prostitute was a terrible sin. He must unite himself with Christ in a permanent unity of spirit.
The Christians at Corinth may have said that sin was in the mind rather than in the body. Paul said that sexual sin was against the person’s own body. It is true that to drink too much alcohol or to take drugs are sins against the body. But God wants to save Christians’ bodies and souls. So Paul explained that other sins do not affect a person’s body in the same way as sexual sins do.
The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit whom God has given us. Therefore, the body is holy, set apart for God. Christ died to save a person’s whole nature, both body and soul. So, a person is not free to do as he likes with his body. It belongs to Christ. Therefore, he must use his body in the way that God wants. He must give honour to God.
This is from the blueletterbible.org site.The Corinthians were just like modern Americans: addicted to their own “rights.” But in clinging to their rights so fiercely, they had already shown utter failure. Just by going to court against your brother, you already lose.
b. It would be better to accept wrong. It would be better to let yourselves be cheated than to defend your “rights” at the expense of God’s glory and the higher good of His kingdom.
Nor homosexuals: Since this is such a clear condemnation of homosexuality, those who would like to justify the practice say Paul speaks of homosexual prostitution, not a “loving, caring homosexual relationship.” But taken in context, there is no doubt God is speaking of homosexual acts of all kinds with the words malakoi (homosexuals, which literally refers to male prostitutes) and arsenokoitai (sodomites, a generic term for all homosexual practice).
Paul did not write in or of a “homophobic” culture. Homosexuality was rampant in the ancient world; 14 out of the first 15 Roman emperors were bisexual or homosexual. At the very time Paul wrote, Nero was emperor. Nero castrated a boy named Sporus and then married him (with a full ceremony), brought him to the palace with a great procession, and made the boy his “wife.” Later, the emperor lived with another man, and Nero was declared to be the other man’s “wife.”
In this list of sins, homosexuality (not some “special” version of homosexuality) is described, but it is described right along with other sins. Some who so strongly denounce homosexuals are guilty of other sins on this list. Can fornicators or adulterers or the covetous or drunkards rightly condemn homosexuals? Of course not.
IMHO......If the culture of Rome had been like the culture of Noah and his boys fresh off the Arc.... then I could buy what the preachers have been spewing. Back in the day.... when Noah and his three boys were getting their legs to work on dry land again.... there were four men and a few women.... and a world to populate. If men spent time loving men.... then women wouldn't have babies. The world would remain unpopulated. A handful of humans would have not stood a chance against so many of the large or cunning animals God had planted on the planet. Survival of the species depended on men humping the right type of human and then not eating the baby or killing it..... after conception,
Joshua 24:15 But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
When those descendants of Noah..... Seth..... Abram.... Joseph.... Jacob..... started to get some numbers.... enough to sustain themselves..... God had to give them rules to live together.... and He gave Moses the 10 Commandments. If people, all people, had adhered to the commandments.... then there would not have been prostitutes in the temple of Aphrodite.... heck... there wouldn't have been a temple.... but they didn't.... some decided they were "above" the law..... and no doubt some thought they were so "below" the law... they would never get right again.... so why bother. Joshua couldn't make them understand..... and that's when Joshua drew his line in the sand. IMHO.....Paul wasn't bashing homosexuals as some of the holier than thou humans would have us believe. Paul was trying to blur the lines between the prostitutes and the goody two shoes. Like I said... those male prostitutes must have been quite intriguing to those naive descendants of Jacob. For a new church meeting in what was a brothel [where prostitutes lived and worked] there had to be rules. In order for the church to grow there had to be new members.... and new members would be difficult if they couldn't accept one another without picking up their problems.
Let me put it another way..... if the church had been established in a warehouse used to store the very finest jewels and artworks stolen from other museums by thieves..... wouldn't it be difficult to keep from admiring all the beauty? How then would that be different for the Jew who was so restricted they probably were told what foot to put in their trousers first... to keep from admiring the works of art.... shiny objects.
If there is one thing I have learned about the Jews in this Bible.... they are a sucker for shiny objects. The intrigue of the homosexual or the prostitute would have sent one of those cold chills down their spine.... and they would have been drawn..... and that would take time away from what they were actually there for.....
IMHO... the Christian Church was not there to teach humans how to live..... that was the point of the ten commandments..... the Christian Church was there to take care of the Christians.... feed them.... clothe them.... protect them..... heal their wounds when they were persecuted..... there was not time in the Christian life for "intrigue".
Like it or not..... there were Prostitutes.... Male and Female... in the church..... they got their salvation the same as the goody two shoes.... they accepted Jesus Christ as their Personal Savior.... and they certainly didn't need those curious goody two shoe Jews begging them for a taste.... just one taste to cure this incessant "intrigue".
