Providence Church

Rights are central to how we think about life as Americans. But the question Paul wants us to wrestle with here in ch. 9 is: how are we as Christians supposed to think about rights?

As Paul begins to answer the Corinthians’ questions about whether or not they should eat food sacrificed to idols, he doesn’t give them a rule or a law. Instead he encourages them to think more deeply about what it means to live out the gospel as God’s people.

Sometimes the way we talk about singleness frames marriage as the aim of life. For Paul, our aim in life is to be fully devoted to God, and he thinks singles have an advantage on that front. He wants us to rethink our view of marriage and singleness in light of the gospel and the kingdom work at hand.

We can all probably remember a time when we felt a sense of newness and excitement in our faith. But inevitably, life has a way of catching up with us. And when it does, we can lose our sense of joy and commitment in our walk with God. What do we do when life catches up to us?

After 6 chapters of building a theological foundation, now Paul begins to address specific questions and concerns in the Corinthian church. In the first part of chapter 7 he gives practical instruction related to sex, marriage, and divorce. All of these things are grounded in the theological foundation. As we approach this chapter, we are not looking for quick answers or rules. We are looking for how these instructions reflect the beauty and wisdom of God and lead us to deeper faith in Jesus.

What we have in these verses is a theology of the body. Paul is telling us (in no uncertain terms) that our bodies matter.God gives more dignity and significance to our bodies than we could ever imagine. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all involved in dignifiying our bodies. If we really believed what God says about our bodies, sexual sin would be unthinkable to us!

When Christians act like the world acts — in this case, taking each other to court — we dishonor one another and we fail to show the world the wisdom of God and the power of the gospel.

1 Corinthians 5 is one of the key passages in the Bible about church discipline. And it’s also one of the most-ignored, least-applied passages in the Bible. We have much to learn from this chapter about what it means to be the church and love one another well.

So far in the letter, Paul has been contrasting worldly wisdom with the wisdom of the cross. Worldly wisdom leads to arrogance and pride and divisions in the church. But the wisdom of the cross results in humility and leads to genuine spiritual maturity. That’s what Paul has been teaching. But he doesn’t just teach the way of the cross with his words, he demonstrates it in how he lives. He points to himself and the other apostles as models to emulate. Because Paul knows we learn by imitation, by following an example. That’s how disciples are made!

The church belongs to God. He prepares work for us to do, he enables us to do it, and he causes the growth. That reality shapes how we view spiritual leaders, how we participate in the life of the church, and what we think the church is.