Slices
Prepare
Jesus said, ‘You [my followers] are the light of the world’ (Matthew 5:14). Pray that the Lord will show you and your church how you can ‘light up’ your community with Jesus.
Bible passage
Lawsuits among believers
6 If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people? 2 Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! 4 Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned in the church? 5 I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? 6 But instead, one brother takes another to court – and this in front of unbelievers!
7 The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? 8 Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters. 9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Explore
The second half of verse 11 nails the issue. Christians should live differently from other people because Jesus has ‘washed’ us, made us holy, made us righteous (1:2). So our loving response to him is to live out that ‘cleanness’, demonstrating to the world by our lives what God is like and the difference Jesus makes. We’re no longer living to please ourselves, but trying selflessly to live out who Jesus made us.
However, some Christians in Corinth are selfishly focusing on their own ‘rights’. Airing grievances between themselves in public (v 1) is just asking for other Corinthian citizens to think of the church as unloving, lacking in integrity, inept at sorting out its own problems (v 5), unforgiving (v 7) – none of which reflects the nature of God.
Now Christians don’t agree on what the Bible says about homosexuality. Verses 9 and 10 are particularly difficult. But the good news is, however we think of people like those on Paul’s list and their lifestyle, by the grace of God, they too can meet Jesus and belong. Suddenly it’s wash day (v 11)! That’s the amazing power of God to transform people’s lives through Jesus.
Respond
‘Give me Jesus; give me Jesus. You can have all this world, just give me Jesus’ (CS Brown © Warner Chappell Music, Inc).
Deeper Bible study
Give me, O Lord, the mind to know the life you want me to live, the heart to desire that life and the will to live it.
The fragility of new churches throughout the Roman Empire worried Paul. Having personally experienced criticism and hostility, this concern was a vital topic in Paul’s letters. Christians must conduct themselves ‘in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ’.1 Pursuing fellow Christians over money and property in public law courts before pagan judges showed they had not abandoned the greed of their past. Solving these matters within the Christian community would be better than demonstrating disunity.
Paul regularly pens a ‘vice list’ in his letters,2 reminding people of their previous conduct and warning about returning to their old, sinful ways. Today’s list is tailored to Corinth’s self-centred and godless lifestyle, characterised by greed, idolatry, dishonesty and immorality. Twice Paul declares that those who persist in these behaviours ‘will not inherit the kingdom of God’ (vs 9,10).
We should not single out homosexual behaviour in this passage as if Paul is teaching us here about sexual orientation. He is not. Paul is dealing with the self-indulgent lifestyle out of which the Corinthian Christians were called. They knew exactly what he was talking about: their society’s decadent, self-gratifying, uninhibited behaviour. Many homosexual behaviours condoned in Corinth would be illegal today, even where same sex relationships are encouraged. The abuse of young boys (and girls) in pagan temples was paedophilia. Married men keeping male sex slaves would be condemned today as enslavement and sexual abuse. We are called to emulate Jesus in lives of selflessness and humility, living in this age the values of the kingdom which is both present and yet to come.
‘Higher than the highest heaven, / deeper than the deepest sea, / Lord, thy love at last has conquered … “None of self, and all of thee.”’3
1 Phil 1:27 2 Eg Rom 1:29–31; Gal 5:19–21; 2 Tim 3:2–5 3 Theodore Monod, 1836–1921, ‘Oh the bitter shame and sorrow’ [italics added]
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Proverbs 21,22; 1 Thessalonians 3
Pray for Scripture Union
Pray for the team in Wales as they aim to ensure that key resources are available in the Welsh language. The team support Faith Guides and churches who work in a range of areas, from those where Welsh is a significant minority language to those where Welsh is the predominant language of everyday life.
