Regulations for Christian living

Two or three years after leaving the church he started in Corinth (an important commercial city in Greece), Paul heard disturbing reports of factions, divisions, spiritual arrogance and sexual misconduct. He wrote this letter of correction and admonishment to restore the church to true worship. In today's reading, he tackled a few touchy subjects that are still hot buttons today...church discipline, disputes between believers, sexual freedom, and mixed marriages between believers and non-believers.

Church discipline: Paul suggests that a man living in sin with his stepmother should be thrown out of the church and handed over to satan. this certainly doesn't sound like something that jives with the Christian doctrine of mercy and forgiveness, but as inspired words of Scripture, must be taken literally. So what is Paul saying? For the health of the church body, overt and rebellious sin in any of it's members cannot be allowed to persist. There are specific steps for handling church discipline outlined by Matthew in chapter 18:15-18. the intent is not punishment but restoration. For someone engaged in rebellious sin who has refused the admonition as described in Matthew, Paul advocates "tough love" as the only available tool remaining. note that he says"hand him over to Satan so that his sinful nature will be destroyed and he himself will be saved". So Paul's heart is definitely in line with the restoration of the fallen believer. He does not advocate the permanent dismissal of such people but the temporary exclusion in hopes that heart change would follow.

Disputes between believers: As with church discipline, Paul suggests a pattern for handling lawsuits between Christians. Ideally, such matters would be handled internally not only because believers should inherently treat one another with fairness and respect, but also because legal disputes reflect poorly on the church. If Christians are nasty to each other, how are we a "city on a hill"? Ultimately, Christians should always have the advancement of the gospel as their primary goal and should not look to their own interests In addition, the social context placed Christians in a great minority (it is estimated that half of 1% of the population of the Roman empire was Christianized at this time). The Roman courts were completely pagan and it would have been most unlikely that Christians would have received favorable outcomes within that system.

Sexual freedom: What was happening in the Corinthian church was a misuse of the "freedom from the law". They were taking the logic that "food is made for the stomach and the stomach for food" and extrapolating that "if my body wants food, I eat and if my body wants sex, i visit a prostitute. What's the big deal? We are not slaves to the law anymore". Paul explains that while we are free to do whatever we want (nothing can separate from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus), not everything we want to do is beneficial for either ourselves or the body of believers. A true worshipper of God would seek to do only those things that will glorify Him.

Mixed marriages: In Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, he plainly states "do not be yoked together with unbelievers" (6:14). It is fairly logical why such an arrangement would be less than ideal in marriage. However, Paul was speaking to people who were already married and now found themselves in a 'mixed' marriage due to the conversion of one spouse alone. In these cases, Paul recommended that the couple stay together so that the unbelieving spouse would be sanctified and the children would be holy. Is Paul claiming that the faith of one person can be transferred to the members of his or her household? No. In keeping with the popular truism "God has no grandchildren", everyone must have their own personal relationship with the Lord and cannot ride the coattails of a believing parent or spouse. So what does Paul mean by "sanctifying the unbelieving spouse" and making the children "holy"? Sanctified does not mean saved. It means "to be set apart". That the children of such marriages would be "holy", also does not imply salvation. Rather, the word offers reassurance that these children would not be considered by the Lord to be "unclean" or illegitimate by virtue of the unbelieving parent. Paul's words validated the legitimacy of "mixed" marriages and the children they produced.

Ultimately, Paul encouraged believers to remain in whatever state they were currently in, whether single or married. He elevated neither over the other but did cite his own preference for singleness because of it's compatibility with ministry. Paul took seriously the notion that the Lord would return like a "thief in the night". He lived as one who believed the end was drawing near, which is a model for us to follow. His insistence that single people not concern themselves with marriage nor married people concern themselves with divorce, reflects his belief that there was little time to dwell on such earthly matters.

Tomorrow's reading: 1 Cor. 8:1-11:1