GRINDIT podcast

Warning! This episode is not suitable for children!

Mature Audience Only

Ever since I was old enough to read the bible and understand it, I have come across the words “Fornication” and “Adultery” but did not know there was a difference. The two are closely related but they each mean something different. Most translations will use the words “sexual immorality” instead of “Fornication”. In the church at Corinth, a young man was committing sexual immorality with his stepmom! Yeah! He was having sex with his dad’s wife! And the bad thing was, the church was tolerating the sin and ignoring it! Paul says, “This can’t be happening and you need to deal with it immediately!”

*Warning! This episode is not suitable for children! *

Ever since I was old enough to read the bible and understand it, I have come across the words “Fornication” and “Adultery” but did not know there was a difference. The two are closely related but they each mean something different. Most translations will use the words “sexual immorality” instead of “Fornication”. In the church at Corinth, a young man was committing sexual immorality with his stepmom! Yeah! He was having sex with his dad’s wife! And the bad thing was, the church was tolerating the sin and ignoring it! Paul says, “This can’t be happening and you need to deal with it immediately!”

With the church at Corinth becoming arrogant and prideful after Paul left, he writes to them making fun of their attitude and he contrasts it with himself and the other apostles as being made a spectacle to the whole world by God. He says they are like a Greek play in the local theater, out there for the whole cosmos to see. But then he compares them to prisoners of war which is rough, opposite of what the church at Corinth is like. He could possibly be referring to The Lachish reliefs which were recently found and put in a British museum. They are carvings in Ninevah showing Sennacherib defeating Judah and taking prisoners back to Ninevah. You can read about it in 2 Kings 18-19. Paul is telling the church to learn some humility and quit the division that is going on between them.

The church at Corinth has become proud and arrogant since Paul left. He started the church in Acts 18 and stayed in Corinth for a year and a half but after leaving, they turned inward and began to be jealous of one another and quarreling. He pokes at them a little by telling them they have become rich and have everything they need, living like kings who are sovereign and have lots of power. They have forgotten were their gifts come from—God, and they are relying on themselves. Paul will send Timothy to Corinth to help them learn some humility before he arrives for a visit. He gives them the option: learn now before I get there or it will not be pretty when I come!

When I hear the word “steward” I think of the people who work on airplanes that go up and down the aisles asking people if they want peanuts, a cookie, or some type of drink. They also have the job of making sure everyone follows the rules such as putting on our seatbelts as the plane is getting ready to take off. They “manage” the plane if you will. For a short time, the plane is a dwelling place full of people and the steward makes sure everything is in order. Paul says he, Apollos, Peter, and other who minister the gospel are simply stewards who must be faithful. Unseen, unheard, and faithful are three words to describe these men the Corinthian church are dividing over. Do those words describe us as we carry the gospel to others?

Paul has been dealing with division in the church at Corinth since chapter 1. That means he uses for chapters to confront this issue which means it very important. The division was coming from the people looking at Paul, Apollos, Peter, and others as THE most important person because they are the one who converted them to Jesus. Paul has told them, “We are nothing but simply the ones who plant and water so look to the one who DOES matter, Jesus.” In chapter 4 Paul says, “We are simply ministers who steward the mysteries of God.” When you look at this in the Greek, Paul uses a word that means “under rowers” referring to the ones who are below the deck rowing these big ships he travels on. They are unseen, not heard, and row to their captains command. Let that sink in...that totally goes against our 2026 culture!

The church at Corinth was concerned with who baptized them, which minister of the gospel they liked the best, and this was stirring up jealousy, strife, contention, arguments, and all of this was leading to division. Paul explains to the church that he, along with Peter, Apollos, and any other teacher that came to the church to speak, is nothing. They are all laborers that have a job—to plant and water seed. That’s it. That’s all we can do! We plant seed, we water seed, but we cannot make seed produce fruit! Only God can do that! Therefore, he is telling the church in Corinth, these people you are dividing over are not important at all. The one who is important is Jesus and you should be focusing all of your time and energy on him!

When I was a kid back in the 80s, there was a milk slogan that said, “Milk, it does a body good” It was an advertising slogan used by the American Dairy Association from the 1980s through the 1990s. The campaign aimed to highlight milk's health benefits such as building strong bones, muscle repair, and providing essential nutrients like protein and calcium. Peter talks about consuming the milk of God, even craving it, as we are being built into God’s temple, but Paul tells the church at Corinth they should be off of milk by now and eating solid food. What is he talking about? He is talking about wisdom—the world’s wisdom, which is what the church at Corinth was drinking from, verses God’s wisdom that comes from the Holy Spirit...whom, by the way, lives inside them! They were being led by the wrong wisdom!

Do you realize that if you have given your life to Jesus you have been filled with his Spirit and therefore, you have the mind of Christ?!?!? That’s right!!! You have the mind of Christ so your life should reflect that. When we look at the church at Corinth, whom Paul calls holy, they are lacking in the category! There are things going on that do not reflect Christ in that church and Paul is saying to them, “What are yall doing? Why do yall have divisions among you? Yall should all be focused on Jesus and nobody else!” Why? Because they have been given freely the Holy Spirit of God and through the Spirit, they have the mind of Christ and God reveals His secrets to them through His Spirit.

Paul was dealing with a lot of stuff with the church at Corinth but one thing in particular he was wrestling with was the local philosophers. These philosophers were engrained in the Corinthian culture, especially with the rich. These philosophers would come to town with their fancy speeches trying to persuade young men to become their followers so they could teach them their ways and they too, could sound educated and impress the crowds. They would charge the rich families a fortune to send their children to their school. Paul says to the church at Corinth, “I came to you with a simple thought...the gospel, and I let the Holy Spirit do his thing.”