Marriage and Singleness

I Corinthians 7:1-16

Today we continue our series on broken vessels that have been repaired and made into something beautiful.  Last week Tim's message was on fleeing immorality and lust.  One verse Tim shared was I Corinthians 6:13

The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

As I prepared for this message, I looked back to our series in 2009 on seven deadly sins.  During that series I presented a message on lust.  At that time I shared some alarming statistics on sexually transmitted diseases. One of those statistics was that (at the time) 20% --1 out of 5-- United States residents had been infected by one or more sexually transmitted disease (STDs). While preparing the message for today I sought out an update on that 2009 statistic.  What I found was even more alarming.  As of October 2014, 110 million people (that is 33%) in the US were infected with one or more STDs.  So in a period of five years the number went up from 1 out of 5 people being infected to 1 out of every 3 people in the US.  

The Humility of Fleeing

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Today we return to the topic of sexual sin, which Paul addresses several times with the Corinthian church. A couple of weeks ago, Carl spoke about the passage in chapter 5 where Paul rebukes the church for tolerating an illicit relationship between a man and his stepmother. In a society where immorality was widespread and generally accepted, Corinth as a city was renowned for its promiscuity and its temple to Aphrodite, the goddess of love and pleasure. This temple stood on the Acrocorinth, a rugged hill overlooking the city. The Greek geographer Strabo wrote in about 20 AD:

“The temple of Aphrodite was once so rich that it had acquired more than a thousand prostitutes, donated by both men and women to the service of the goddess. And because of them, the city used to be jam-packed and became wealthy. The ship-captains would spend fortunes there, and so the proverb says: ‘The voyage to Corinth isn’t for just any man.’”

The Christians in Corinth needed to be different. Paul was warning them: you can’t just go with the flow in this culture, where all kinds of sexual relationships were accepted – incest, prostitution, adultery, and homosexuality, mentioned in last week’s passage. His message is just as relevant for us today. In America we don’t have temples glorifying Aphrodite, but our Western culture is just as saturated with sex as the ancient Greeks were. It is almost impossible to avoid the blatant sexuality in advertising, movies, clothing styles, and all kinds of media. The temptations are all around us, as real as the prostitutes lining the streets of Corinth. Girls and women are given the message that they need to look a certain way to be considered attractive. Boys and men are being told that their every desire can be fulfilled anywhere, anytime, without commitment or consequence. What can we do? Is purity even possible?

Defeated Already

I Corinthians 6:1-11

We are inundated by a culture that values winning disputes at any cost.  If you don’t stand up for all of your rights then you’re considered to be weak or the unfortunate target of injustice.  While there are some serious issues going on in our nation there are some humorous things happening too.  For example, Fox News shared the following story about a court case between Aitken vs. NBC:

Handing Over

I Corinthians 5:1-13

Welcome! Today we continue our series in I Corinthians, looking at Chapter 5. Today’s passage is a challenging one, hard to hear, but I think its message was never more applicable than it is today. In previous chapters in I Corinthians, Paul has focused primarily on divisions in the church and on their immaturity as a whole. Through all this, however, he has also reminded them of who they are in Christ. But now he moves on to an additional issue in their church, sexual immorality.

Now when we began this series on I Corinthians about two months ago, we emphasized that the book was written to the body of believers as a whole in Corinth and also to all believers, each in their local bodies, everywhere. It is important when looking at today’s passage to remember that this letter was written to the church corporately; that is, it contains many instructions on how a local body of believers, working together, led by elders but also individually equipped by the Holy Spirit, were to act and behave.

Sent

1 Corinthians 4:14-21

You may have heard on Friday about the attack on a popular cafe in the diplomatic area of Dhaka in Bangladesh. I heard of it first from one of our workers there who lives just 5 minutes away. Once again, the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for yet another successful attempt to kill foreigners and spread terror. Their violence in the name of religion seems to know no bounds. Places that used to be considered safe have now become targets, and although America has experienced only a tiny fraction of what is happening in the rest of the world, recent incidents here as well remind us of the risk to virtually everyone now. Many people are afraid of what is happening in the world.

On the same day as the Dhaka attack, I was listening to a talk about how a Christian should respond to radical Islam. There were several good suggestions about how to love our enemies, as Jesus commanded. One of the speakers made two important points that I would like to highlight. First, we should not expect to be exempt from violent persecution. Jesus warned of it, and early Christians fully expected it to happen. In Acts 4, after Peter and John were arrested, the believers did not pray for protection. 

“Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them.  You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: ‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?  The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed one.’