Week 7 day 3

read 1 Corinthians 6
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%206&version=NIV

6:1–11 First Corinthians 6 continues the theme of judging others (5:3, 12–13; 6:2–3, 5). Paul had earlier emphasized judging the sinful among them (5:1–8). At this point he examines the need for church members to work out disputes among themselves within the church (5:9–13). He did not want them seeking judges from outside the church. If needed, they were to go before Christian arbiters (6:1–6). In 6:2–4 Paul pointed out the incongruity of believers appealing to civil courts when the saints would someday judge the world (6:2) and angels (6:3; cf. Isa. 24:21; 2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 1:6; Rev. 20:10).

Paul wondered why judgment should even be needed among Christians living holy lives (6:7–11). It was a sign of defeat to get even that far (6:7). The questions Paul asked pierce to the heart of how worldliness can void the work of Christ on the cross (1:17). In 6:5–8 Paul presented two alternatives to appealing to civil courts: (1) have a believer judge the case (6:5–6) or (2) be wronged rather than wronging others and destroying one’s testimony in the community (6:7–8).
Paul gave a list of vices that were apparently evident in the Corinthian church (6:8–11). These vices are in sharp contrast to the life of true believers. The term “washed” (6:11) was a reference to the “new life” (Titus 3:5).

6:12–20 This section elaborates the principle behind 1 Corinthians 5:1–6:11 and reveals the root problem. The Corinthian Christians were willing to live with someone else’s sin (5:1) because they were living with sin in their own lives (6:12–20). Apparently, some Corinthian believers were trying to use Christian freedom to justify their sins. Paul insisted that Christian liberty was limited by expedience and self-control. Their formal right to freedom did not equal the right to do anything they desired. Paul would not, however, substitute a new or old legalism. The way out of this problem was in a different direction.

Paul put forth a principle that applied to stomach and body (6:13–20). Freedom in eating food does not equal freedom for immorality. The body is an eternal aspect of the person. It cannot be treated as separate from the real person.
The questions of 6:15–16 are not about physical possibility but ethical incompatibility. In 1 Corinthians 6:16 Paul used Genesis 2:24, a foundational text on marriage, to show that even in an adulterous relationship a union is established. A sexual union in and of itself does not make a marriage (cf. Gen. 2:24), but sexual intercourse does result in a one-flesh relationship and undermines the uniqueness of the one-flesh relationship of marriage.

Paul gave the Corinthians a strong warning to run from sexual immorality (6:18–20). Such sin is a sin against one’s own body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit (6:19), bought with the price of Jesus’ suffering on the cross (6:20). It is sin against a body that will someday be resurrected from the dead through God’s gracious gift of grace. Paul has moved his readers away from an attitude of fleshly arrogance and has prepared them for answers to the various questions they had sent to him.

Discussion question

What is your interpretation of verse 12?

Reflection question

If you are to honor God with your body (v 20b) what do you need to start doing?