The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (112 page)

C. Disputes Between Believers (6:1—11)
Paul scolded believers in Corinth for attempting to settle disputes between one another in the civil courts. Fellow believers were far better qualified to make just and righteous decisions in such disputes than unbelievers were. Moreover, taking Christian disputes to the civil courts flaunted Christian disunity before unbelievers in a way that damaged Christian witness. In such cases everyone lost. Believers should prefer being wronged or defrauded to triumphing over fellow believers in court. But Paul warned those who wronged and defrauded their brothers and sisters that such actions were completely inconsistent with genuine Christianity. Those who practiced particularly heinous sins would not inherit the kingdom of God. Though the Corinthians had once practiced such sins, they had been dramatically transformed by Christ and rescued from these wicked lifestyles.

D. Limitations on Freedom in Christ (6:12—20)
The Corinthians’ toleration of incest and fraud among members of the church indicated that they had a perverted view of Christian liberty. Paul insisted that freedom in Christ was not absolute. Christians should not engage in any behavior that was not beneficial for others or that had the potential of dominating their lives. They should recognize that their bodies were created to glorify God. God's intention to resurrect their bodies demonstrated that the body, and what one
does with it, is important to him. Believers should also recognize that their connection with Christ necessarily involved him in all of their activities. The body of the believer was now God's temple and should be regarded as holy. Finally, all notions of Christian freedom should be tempered by the consideration that believers are slaves of the Lord Jesus who have been bought with the redemptive price of his blood.

III. Responses to a Letter from the Corinthians (7:1-16:4)

A. Matters Related to Sex and Marriage (7:1—40)
Perhaps because of a confused eschatology, some Corinthian believers were seeking to practice abstinence within marriage (7:1—7). Paul critiqued this practice on both theological and practical grounds. First, a married person's body belongs to his or her spouse. Withholding the body defrauds the spouse of what rightfully belongs to him or her. Second, such abstinence is risky business because it makes the spouse more vulnerable to sexual temptation.

Believers who had no sexual compulsion for marriage should remain single (7:8). Believers should not divorce unbelieving spouses on religious grounds as if a believer were corrupted by the relationship (7:10—16). If the unbeliever decided to leave the believer, the believer should permit him or her to do so. But a believer married to an unbeliever should seek to preserve the marriage in the hope of having a positive spiritual influence on the unbelieving spouse.

Paul's general advice was for believers to remain in the situation in which they lived at the time of their conversion, particularly with regard to slavery and circumcision (7:17—24). Because of the nearness of Jesus’ return and the distress believers would experience as that time approached, unmarried believers should remain unmarried. This would enable believers to focus their concerns on the things of the Lord and prevent them from being distracted from their devotion to him. However, when two unmarried believers felt passionately for each other and struggled to control themselves, marriage was the best option.

Marriage is a lifelong covenant, which means that widows are no longer bound to their deceased spouses. Widows may be happier if they remain single, but they are free to marry another believer if they so desire (7:25—40).

B. Matters Related to Idol Feasts (8:1-11:1)
Many of the Corinthian believers had formerly worshipped in idol temples. Some of these believers had now sworn off any association with pagan idolatry. They refused to participate in the idol feasts or even to eat meat formally sacrificed to idols that was later sold in Corinthian markets. Others avoided the idol feasts but felt free to purchase and enjoy the food that had been devoted to the idol. Still others felt free to participate even in the feasts based on their conviction that the idol gods did not really exist anyway.

Paul confirmed the theological premise of those who felt free to attend the idol feasts but challenged the conclusion that they drew from that premise. Paul agreed that there is only one true God, quoting the Shema of Deut
6:4
, “The LORD our God, the LORD is
One.” Strikingly, he interpreted this confession as an expression of a high Christology in which the Father is the one true God and Jesus is the one true Lord who created all that exists. This Christological interpretation of the Shema is one of the clearest and most stunning affirmations of the deity of Jesus in Paul's letters.

However, Christian rejection of polytheism and the existence of idol gods did not necessarily lead to unqualified approval of eating food formerly sacrificed to idols. Believers needed to be aware that others might follow their example of eating food sacrificed to idols only to suffer a tormented conscience. They ought to be sensitive to how other believers perceived their actions and the potential impact of others following their example (8:1-13).

Although some believers might resent this limitation on their Christian liberty, Paul himself willingly sacrificed some of his liberties as an apostle as well. He relinquished his right to financial support from the churches that he served even though secular examples, OT law, and the teaching of Jesus confirmed his right to that support. Paul also sacrificed other freedoms in order to relate better to the people whom he was attempting to reach. Paul was concerned that some Corinthians viewed Christian liberty as a throwing off of all restraints on their behavior. He used several athletic examples that were familiar to them from the nearby Isthmian Games to remind them that self-control and personal restraint are practical necessities in all areas of life (9:1—27).

Paul suspected that the Corinthian view of Christian liberty was related to their sacramental theology. The Corinthians apparently believed that reception of baptism and participation in the Lord's Supper guaranteed salvation. Those who received those ordinances were free to live in any way they wanted without fear of divine judgment. Paul attacked this sacramental theology by arguing that the Israelites had participated in events analogous to baptism and a spiritual meal. However, all but two of the Israelites died in the wilderness wanderings as a result of divine judgment. Moreover, they fell under divine judgment because they had committed the very same sins in which the Corinthians were now engaged: idolatry, sexual immorality, and rejection of the authority of divinely appointed leaders. The example of the Israelites functioned as a warning to the Corinthians. They must not presume that the ordinances guaranteed salvation, and they must beware of falling into temptation (10:1—13).

Although the idol gods did not actually exist, those who participated in the idol feasts thus became partners with demons (10:14—22). This was inconsistent with the Corinthians’ Christian commitment and could only provoke the Lord's jealousy as the Second Commandment warned (Exod 20:4). Because believers should only do what is helpful, edifying, and beneficial for other believers, they ought to limit their freedom to eat idol meat for the sake of those with weaker consciences. In the privacy of their own homes, they were free to eat the meat. However, in public settings where people were present who might be disturbed by the consumption of idol meat, believers should refrain from eating it. The believer's primary concern is to glorify God rather than exercise his own freedom.
Thus he should avoid giving unnecessary offense to others by his actions. This was in keeping with the examples of both Paul and Christ who lived for the benefit of others rather than their own pleasure (10:23—11:1).

C. Matters Related to Christian Worship (11:2—34)
The first relevant issue was gender distractions in worship (11:2—16). Some believers in the church at Corinth were apparently practicing gender role reversal. This practice probably resulted from their confused eschatology, the influence of their pagan backgrounds, and misunderstandings of Paul's own teaching. Women in the church began to dress in a masculine fashion, and some men possibly dressed in a feminine manner. In response, Paul argued that the distinction between men and women had been ordained by God. These distinctions should be reflected in the dress and hairstyles of believers, with women being in proper subjection to men.

The second issue was behavior during the Lord's Supper (11:17—34). Paul also expressed concern about abuses of the sacred ordinance of the Lord's Supper (11:17—22). During the Supper, the church was divided into personality cliques. Some members overindulged in both food and wine, while others, particularly the poorer members of the congregation, remained hungry and thirsty. In doing so, they desecrated the Supper that should have been a celebration of the new covenant, a remembrance of Jesus’ sacrifice, and an anticipation of his return. Paul urged the Corinthians to examine themselves to ensure that they partook of the Supper in a worthy manner (11:27—34). They should gratefully reflect on the body and blood of the Lord that had been sacrificed for them in their observance of the Supper. Paul warned that sickness or even death might result (and in fact already had resulted) from the sacrilege of the Corinthians with regard to the Lord's Supper.

D. Matters Related to Spiritual Gifts (12:1-14:40)
The Corinthians evidently had very confused notions about the nature, importance, and proper exercise of spiritual gifts. Apparently, some in the congregation who thought that they were exercising the gift of prophecy had actually cursed Jesus in corporate worship (12:1—3). Paul saw the need to correct the Corinthians’ confused views. He explained that the same Spirit had bestowed different gifts to different people for the benefit of the church (12:4-11). The fact that the different gifts all came from the same source implied that the gifts were all equally “spiritual” and no gift was unimportant. Paul confirmed this by comparing the different gifts to the various abilities of different members of the human body (12:12—31). All gifts, like all physical abilities, were necessary and important. No individual would have all the gifts. However, he should exercise whatever gift God granted him without comparing his gift to someone else's.

Paul urged the Corinthians to cultivate the attribute of love, which is more important than the exercise of any spiritual gift (13:1—13). Love is more important than the gifts of human or heavenly speech, miracle-working faith, liberal generosity, or even the faithfulness that motivated a person to embrace martyrdom. Paul's prose soared into poetry as he
beautifully described this patient, kind, humble, forgiving, and virtuous love. This kind of love exceeded all spiritual gifts, even the gifts of tongues, prophecy, and faith, because only the gift of love would endure after Jesus’ return and would continue to be exercised throughout eternity.

Paul encouraged the Corinthians to aspire to the gift of prophecy and demonstrated that prophecy was superior to the gift of languages in many ways (14:1—6). Evidence suggests that the Corinthians had confused the true gift of languages given at Pentecost with ecstatic utterances common in the pagan religions of Corinth (14:6—12). The gift of languages described here seems different from the gift exhibited in Acts 2 since the spoken languages were not intelligible to others or apparently even to the speaker himself without an added gift of interpretation. Because the utterances communicated no message to the hearer, they were like shrills from a flute that lacked a clear melody or blasts from a bugle that communicated no meaningful message to the troops (14:8—10). Whereas the Acts 2 display of languages transformed foreigners who could not communicate with one another into friends and brothers who spoke the same language, this gift of languages turned friends and brothers who spoke the same language into foreigners who could not communicate.

Paul also expressed concern that the Corinthian view of the gift of languages involved utterances that were unintelligible to the speaker himself (14:13—19). He urged the Corinthians to exercise the gift only when the utterance was intelligible to the speaker and when someone could interpret the message in an intelligible manner to the others who were present. Paul preferred five intelligible words understood by the speaker that instructed others to 10,000 words that no one understood. Paul quoted Isa 28:11—12 to argue that unintelligible utterances were actually a sign of divine judgment on unbelievers (14:21). Moreover, the Corinthian practice of languages might give visitors to the church the impression that believers had lost their minds. However, prophecy revealed the secret sins of the unbeliever, drove him to his knees in repentance, and displayed to him the presence of God (14:20-25).

Finally, Paul offered instructions about maintaining order in corporate worship (14:26-33a). Worship services should be organized. Those who prophesied should maintain their composure and self-control rather than attempting to work themselves into a frenzy like pagan prophets in the idol temples. The congregation should evaluate the prophets and silence those who departed from the truth.

Paul also silenced women in the church whose speech in the setting of corporate worship somehow undermined the authority of their husbands and publicly embarrassed them (14:33b—36). Possibly, some wives were questioning or challenging the legitimacy of the prophecies of their husbands or other leaders of the church, thereby seizing a role that Paul recognized as inconsistent with the wife's role of submission. Paul's general guideline for the conduct of public worship was that all things should be done “decently and in order” (14:37-40).

E. Matters Related to the Resurrection (15:1—58)
Against attacks on the historicity and reality of Jesus’ resurrection, Paul affirmed that the gospel he received testified to Christ's death, burial, and resurrection “according to the Scriptures,” that is, in fulfillment of OT prophecy (15:3—4). He also cited numerous appearances of the resurrected Jesus to various audiences (including “over 500 brothers at one time,” v. 6), including many who were still living at the time of writing (15:5—8), and last but not least to Paul himself on the road to Damascus.
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