And yet, at the very time Moses was up on the mountain receiving the law, recorded in Exodus 32, the people were down in the valley breaking that very commandment. They were making the golden calf, and falling down and worshiping it. At this point, even though they were identified with Moses in th
We need to talk about some of the imagery Paul uses in verses 1-5 because it is both interesting and helpful. The matter of baptism in verse 2 has led to a number of interpretations by commentators. The root word for “baptism,” which is bapto, means “to immerse.” And from that came the word bapti
I do not know of any book of the New Testament that is more practical than 1 Corinthians, at least in terms of the range of subjects that it addresses. Through the first nine chapters Paul has dealt with pride, sexual immorality, marriage, divorce, lawsuits, and how Christian freedom functions in t
Of course, that is not at all what Paul is doing. He is certainly not trying to work a situation to his financial benefit. His emphasis is entirely on the other side. Although he has these rights, he has willingly laid them aside in order that he might have the privilege of taking the Gospel to th
Paul gives a number of reasons why he has a right to be supported in his missionary work.First of all, in verse 7 he deals with what I would call a universal principle, which is simply that the laborer is worthy of his reward. He illustrates it in different ways. He talks about a soldier who is se
From other references we understand that two qualifications needed to be met in order to be an apostle. First of all, he had to have seen the Lord. From Acts 1 we see that an apostle was to be a witness of the Lord during the days of His ministry from the time of the baptism of John until His deat
We recognize the reality of rights even in a secular way. In our Declaration of Independence, we talk about the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Every human being has a right to life, yet for some this right is being denied in our time. We believe that liberty is something th
In the late 1950’s, Mabel Williamson, a missionary with the China Inland Mission, now the Overseas Missionary Fellowship, published a book that bore the title, Have We No Rights?1I read that book years ago and was very impressed with it. Early in my ministry, when I was preaching on the Sermon on t
What we do affects others, and part of being a Christian is knowing how your brothers and sisters in the Lord are going to take your activity. Now that does not mean that nobody can ever eat any meat that has ever been offered to any idol. Those with weaker consciences cannot use their weakness as
Once again he lays down some principles. The first one is that an idol is nothing. It is just a piece of wood or stone or some other material. But in terms of anything spiritual, it is nothing at all. Paul gets this idea, of course, not from the so-called knowledge of the pagan academies, but fr
When we talk about knowing God's will in doubtful situations, that involves a couple of key ideas. It involves, first, the idea of knowledge. What does it really mean to know something? Is it simply a matter of intellectual awareness, or does true knowing involve more? Second, knowing God’s will
The issue for the Corinthian Christians was whether or not a Christian could lawfully before God eat meat that had been sacrificed to one of the heathen idols. There was a system by which the priests and priestesses were supported. Sacrifices were always part of the worship system in the ancient w
If at some point in my past I had had training as a sociologist, or even in statistics or accounting, I perhaps would have made up a list of the different kinds of questions I have been asked over the years as I have spoken in a variety of places. I would have tried to make an analysis of those que
The very last portion of this chapter begins with verse 17. Paul talks about what I would call contentment, and he brings in a number of different illustrations. We should be content to abide in whatever calling God has called us. If God has called you to a married state, be content with that and
In yesterday’s study we concluded with Paul’s instructions that if one spouse is a Christian and the other is not, the Christian is not to divorce the unbeliever.But suppose the non-Christian leaves because he or she does not want to be married to a Christian. What do you do then? That is what Pau
The second category of problems that he deals with are those involving separation. Whereas Paul talks about marriage as good, separation is something that is bad, though there are times when it may be necessary. In verses 10 and 11 we read, “To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord)
The question, therefore, that Paul places before us is simply this: What is that to which God has called you? As I read 1 Corinthians 7, I suspect that there was a division in the church between a Jewish mentality and what we would call a “super spiritual” Greek mentality. In the Jewish culture, m
In the last chapter we saw how the spirit of our times has made the matter of sexual immorality particularly problematic for us, not least because of the many ways in which that sin can be committed. Another area that is also of great concern, to which we come now in 1 Corinthians 7, is that of mar
Having made these two points—the first being that not everything we can do is beneficial, and the second being that we should not allow sinful things to master us—Paul then takes them and begins to relate them to God. Sin, specifically sexual immorality, is not only harmful to myself and other peop
Our passage from 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 deals with sexual immorality, but I gave this background because we cannot understand properly what is happening in the Church unless we understand that the Church is simply at this point reflecting the culture around us. Jesus said that the Church is to be sa
In yesterday’s study we were talking about the Western world’s change from an “open system,” which acknowledged God’s existence, to a “closed system,” which holds that the only things that exist are what can be seen. In the past, there was an established order in the universe because it went back t
Towards the end of the book, Schaeffer directs his attention to the matter of sexual immorality. He bemoans the breakdown of standards in that area within the evangelical church. Even as we observe the obvious breaking of the moral law of God, there are those who would consider themselves as evan
In 1984 Francis A. Schaeffer published a book called The Great Evangelical Disaster. It was disturbing to see how evangelicals, even if at times unconsciously, are, nevertheless, tragically compromising some of the great standards of the Word of God. The word Francis Schaeffer uses for it is "acco
After telling the church that “the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God,” Paul then describes more of what he is talking about: “Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards
