1 Corinthians 10
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Chapter 10
A false presumption due to experience
1.
For I do not
want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud,
and all passed through the sea.
2.
and all were
baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,
3.
and all ate
the same spiritual food,
4.
and all drank
the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed
them, and the Rock was Christ.
5.
Nevertheless,
with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the
wilderness.
The
apostle Paul took upon himself the responsibility of assuring that Christianity
would not be a religion of ignorance. In chapter 12:2, he wrote of their
blindness as pagans, following their leaders in idolatry, as uninformed as the dumb
idols that they served. Christian instruction is not an adornment, given to
embellish the church and its members, but is essential in order to carry out
its mission and to give glory to God.
What
is the apostle’s source for the text, from which he will teach? It is the Old
Testament Scripture. Jesus said, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent
me” (Jn.7:16). It was already established before He came to earth and He
simply built upon those Scriptures. Jesus recognized the divine inspiration of
the 22 books already determined by the Jews to be inerrant and infallible
truth. His disciples followed him and later taught the church their doctrine
(Ac.2:42). Today we have divided those 22 books into 39, but they are precisely
and completely the same text, from which the earliest believers were taught.
It
is truly astounding that there are many believers, who treat the Bible with
indifference. God has graciously bestowed upon us this unique treasure store of
divine thoughts and ways. There is nothing in the world to compare to it and
nowhere else on earth can we learn of heavenly, eternal truth.
1 Corinthians 9
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Chapter 9
1. Am I
not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my
workmanship in the Lord?
2. If
to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my
apostleship in the Lord.
3. This
is my defense to those who would examine me.
4. Do
we not have the right to eat and drink?
5. Do
we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles
and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?
6. Or
is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a
living?
7. Who
serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating
any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk?
8. Do I
say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same?
9. For
it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads
out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned?
10. Does
he not certainly speak for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the
plowman should plow in hope and the thresher threshing hope of sharing in the
crop.
11. If
we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material
things from you?
12. If
others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more? Nevertheless, we
have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an
obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.
Paul
begins this chapter with four questions, which we will briefly consider, one by
one. Each one presupposes a positive answer. First, he asks, am I not
free? Of course he is and in his epistle
of Christian liberty to the Galatians, Paul wrote: “The Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother… so,
brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman” (Gal.4:26,31). Every child, who is
born from above, is born in the ambience of freedom. It allows us to function, without restraint, according to the new nature.
Secondly, he
is without question a God-appointed apostle. God, the Father and the Son,
absolutely affirm his apostleship. Again, I refer to his letter to the
Galatians: “Paul, an apostle –
not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father” (Gal.1:1). Thirdly, he had seen our Lord Jesus on
the road to Damascus. Jesus first called the apostles to Himself, he gave them
authority, and then he sent them out. They were all witnesses of His
resurrection (Ac.4:33). Likewise, Paul was called by the Lord Jesus and sent
out with authority. As the believers, after Pentecost, learned from the
apostles’ teaching, so Paul was given authority to teach new believers, and so
he did and continues to do through his multiple letters (1).
Finally, the
seal of his apostleship, meaning his confirmed personal signature in Christ,
was upon the Corinthian church and they existed because of his apostolic work
there. For that reason, Paul concludes, at least by them, he should be
considered an apostle (2). There are people, who would attempt to bring his
apostleship into question, and in answer to them, he would present these four
proofs, and follow with other reasonable questions, that again assume a
positive answer (3).
1 Corinthians 8
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Chapter 8
Are
you motivated by knowledge or by love?
1. Now
concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.”
This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up.
2. If
anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to
know.
3. But
if anyone loves God, he is known by God.
Paul seems to be making use of Corinthian terms to assist him, as he
teaches. Already in chapter 6, there were two… verse 12 and 13: “All things are
lawful for me” and “food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food.”
Perhaps they were included in their questions, directed to the apostle. The
next question concerned food offered to idols.
Paul probably quotes their words: “All of us possess knowledge.” It meant that they,
as Christians, were informed concerning the nothingness of idols and that idol
worship was absolute vanity. If that is so, what harm is there in eating food
offered to idols. However, Christians often oversimplify, tending to emphasize
one particular Scripture, ignoring others, and arrive at conclusions that are
far from an accurate representation of principles taught throughout the Bible.
The apostle has at least two facts to add to the knowledge that idols are
nothing more than pieces of wood or metal, therefore an idolater is simply
involved in powerless vanity.
In chapter 10, verses 18-21, he gives the Corinthians and us something
more to consider. He says, “Consider the people of Israel; are not those
who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar?” Their sacrifices made them
participants in the worship of God; however, this also meant that when they ate
the pagan sacrifices, they were participants with the pagan gods. “What
do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is
anything?” This is as far as the mentality of Corinthian Christians led them and
Paul is not going to contradict their knowledge. It is true that the idol is
nothing: It does not speak, hear, walk, or breathe. That does not settle the
issue! “No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to
demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.” There is an evil,
spiritual power behind the idol and that brings the participant, who eats from
their sacrifices, into contact with the kingdom of darkness. “You
cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of
the table of the Lord and the table of demons.” So here we have an obvious
fact, beyond the simple eating of pagan, sacrificial foods, that gives us a
clear reason to avoid compromise in this area.
1 Corinthians 7
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Chapter
7
Intimate
marital relations
1. Now
concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have
sexual relations with a woman.”
2. But
because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own
wife and each woman her own husband.
3. The
husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to
her husband.
4. For
the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does.
Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife
does.
5. Do
not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that
you may devote yourselves to prayer but then come together again, so that Satan
may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
6. Now
as a concession, not a command, I say this.
The Bible provides answers for all areas of life… even very delicate
areas… and the Corinthians were not embarrassed to ask Paul about them. As a
result, we can simply read these first verses, without commentary, and know very
clearly how to handle certain issues. I will mention one thing: The Roman
Catholic church teaches that intimate, physical marital relationship is
strictly for the procreation of children. That is the basic reason for it, but it
is not the only reason that the Bible gives. Paul gives another reason in verse
2 and I commented on something else in an earlier chapter. I pointed to a verse
in Proverbs, which I will quote here: “Rejoice in the wife of your
youth… be intoxicated always in her love. Why should you be intoxicated, my
son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?” (Pro.5:18-20). You
may want to review it again, as well as Hebrews13:4. A married man and his wife, committed to one
another for a lifetime, fulfill a
natural desire of the body and share intimacy.
Paul goes on to
write about something that he calls “conjugal rights”, belonging to both the
husband and the wife (3-4). He means that in marriage neither one nor the other
hold selfish possession over their own bodies, but must share them. There may
be mutual agreement in a Christian marriage to set a time apart for abstaining
from intimate physical contact, just as time may be set apart for fasting.
However, these are temporal seasons, when Christians want to devote themselves
exclusively to seeking God in prayer. The normal, day-by-day Christian life
includes regular eating habits, as well as a physical relationship between
husband and wife (5). Paul is covering some areas that Jesus did not mention in
the gospels, of which the Corinthians questioned him, but that does not mean
that his answers are not inspired (6).
There is no
suggestion of polygamy in the New Testament, nor was there any place for it in
the beginning, when God created Adam and Eve. There is only teaching concerning
a bond of love between one man and one woman. I should not even have to mention
any kind of homosexual bond, because common sense teaches that all such filth
is perversion and rebellion against the Creator. That was understood in Bible
times by all reasonable people and it is a sign of the wickedness of our day,
that we should even have to bring up the subject. The Bible clearly condemns
all such practice.
1 Corinthians 6
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Chapter 6
Not living up
to spiritual potential
1.
When one of you has a grievance against another, does he
dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?
2.
Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world?
And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial
cases?
3.
Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much
more, then, matters pertaining to this life!
4.
So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before
those who have no standing in the church?
5.
I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one
among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers,
6.
But brother goes to law against brother, and that before
unbelievers?
7.
To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a
defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?
8.
But you yourselves wrong and defraud – even you own
brothers!
Our time on earth is short…
that is for sure! “What is your life?
For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (Jm.4:14).
Earthly life is a vapor, a gas, the most unstable of all forms of matter. You
cannot grasp it; it is temporal and always changing. Job made several statements about it (Job 7:6-7;
9:25-26; 14:1-2) and the Psalmist followed with still more verses on the theme.
Here is one example: “Behold, you have
made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!” (Ps.39:5; study also Ps.89:47;
90:5-7; and 102:3). I was not yet two-years-old, when I was taught this verse
in Peter: “All flesh is like grass and
all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower
falls” (1 P.1:24). Jonathan Edwards wrote:
Where will all
of our worldly enjoyments be, when we are laid in the silent grave?
Resolved, to
live as I shall wish I had done, when I come to die.
Resolved, to
live as I shall wish I had done, ten thousand ages hence.
Lord, stamp
eternity on my eyeballs!
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