Paul continues his plea to the Christians in Corinth to surrender their rights for the benefit of others, encouraging us to be sacrificial. He uses his life as an example of what it looks like to do so and makes the case that it does not lower his authority. He then makes the plea to become all things to all people so that some may be saved. We should be self-denying in letting go of things that we hold dear in order to connect with others to share the gospel with them. The chapter ends with Paul explaining the benefit of self-discipline when it comes to the Christian life. That we don't become more like Christ casually. It takes intentionality and discipline. 

The people of Corinth had a question about whether or not they should eat food sacrificed to idols. Paul teaches them that there is freedom and knowledge in Christ, but neither of those are as important as love. We should love louder than our knowledge, and our freedom should be selfless instead of selfish. We often think of freedom as a benefit for ourselves, but we should never put our freedom over loving someone else. 

Paul shifts focus from sex and marriage in the beginning of Chapter 7 to more of an issue of identity. He brings up religious practices, slavery status, and relationships. The reoccurring phrase "remain as you are" is teaching the people of the church at Corinth that they should not find their identity in their temporary circumstances, but in Christ! The things of this world will never satisfy us, but finding our Identity in Christ will satisfy. He has called us a royal priesthood, holy nation, people of His own choosing. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in us and He is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters. We are co-heirs with Christ. These should be the things that we use to identify ourselves, not our religious performance, not our status, not our relationships. 

The city of Corinth was surrounded by sex. It was a big part of their culture and even religion in the area. So new believers had some questions about the role of sex in the Christian life. Paul answers the question by giving instructions to husbands and wives about how they should act in marriage. He also gives instructions for divorce and how to handle an unbelieving spouse. We should be pointing our spouse to God through how we love and interact with them. If we want to have Godly marriages, we can't look to the world for help, but to God.

We are different because of what Jesus has done for us. This means that we should live differently as well! We're called to be different, not for the sake of being different, but for the sake of showing Jesus to the people around us. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6 that we should be different in conflict, different than we were, and different in our lifestyle. 

Paul almost immediately reverses course from the previous chapter and talks about judgment. What he's talking about though, is the difference in judging actions, versus judging others with condemnation. We have to remember that we are never called to judge the world, but we should hold accountable those in the church when they are walking in sin. This shouldn't be our first line of action, but we can't just allow unrepentant sin to run rampant in our church. We have to root it out. This is not just to protect the church, but for the betterment of the people who need to turn to Jesus. We have to find a way to cling to the truth while also loving the people around us. 

One of the hardest traps to avoid as believers is judgment. We get focused on our sense of morality, or a set of rules that we want to live up to, and we put ourselves, and others against that standard. Paul points out that we have to stop Judging ourselves, Judging others, and accepting the judgment of others. It is not beneficial, and only pushes people away. We are called to love, not judge. We have enough to do following Christ, we don't need to add being a spiritual hall monitor to our job description. It's time to resign as judges and focus on living like Jesus.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 3 reminds the believers in Corinth of the standard they are called to live by. That they are called to the standard of participating in the growing kingdom, to hold their teachers up to a standard, and to change the standard of what they are proud of. The same is true for us and we should ask ourselves the questions: What is my task? What am I made of? and What am I proud of? 

When we receive salvation we start the process of growing in our spiritual walk. We're not called to continue living the same way, but to allow God to transform us. Our will should start to decrease in our life while His increases. If we are still acting like mere humans, it's because we haven't allowed the Holy Spirit to work in us. We are not mere humans because we are the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit with the Mind of Christ. Not only that, but we are experiencing eternal life now! We should live like we are full of the Holy Spirit living our eternal life!

In 1 Corinthians 1 and 2 Paul explains that God isn't supposed to make sense to us. He is infinitely bigger than we could understand. His foolishness is wiser than our wisest, and His weakness is stronger than our strongest. The only way the things of God make sense is through the wisdom given by the Holy Spirit. For this reason, we shouldn't depend on the wisdom of men to be our authority, but understand that we have the mind of Christ. We have the Spirit of God dwelling inside of us, who can help us understand everything we need to know about scripture.