60IN60 Day 13 - Sat Sept 16

It's Day 13 and we're in 1 Corinthians 6.

Where God Spoke To Me:
- Verses 9-10 - It strikes me that out of this list of sins we would likely first note that homosexuals are listed, given our current political battles.  We're not nearly as likely to note that "covetous" are in there too, since that's a sin that almost all of us are committing.

Help:
- Verse 1, 4-6 - Paul teaches that we should not sue other Christians in public court.  Instead, the church should find a wise person within the congregation to decide the matter.  Sadly, I do not know of a single instance of this being obeyed.
- Verses 2-3 - We will be part of ruling with Christ.
- Verse 7 - There are bigger things that losing a little money.
- Verse 13 - The issue here was food sacrificed to idols.  Paul notes that both the food and our earthly stomachs will someday be gone (when we die).  Our focus instead needs to be on the larger question of honoring God with all we do.
- Verse 15 - Having the Spirit within us, we are the Temple of God.  To go to a prostitute, we'd be physically uniting the Temple of God with a prostitute.
- Verse 18 - Sexual sin is different because our physical bodies are involved in the act of committing the sin.

If you want to read the chapter online, here's a link.

If you have a question or comment, email me at butcher@ymail.com.

Your Comments and Questions:
- "In our churches nowadays what would church discipline look like relating to what Paul was teaching in 1 Corinthians ch. 5?" - That's a question worthy of its own sermon, but I'll briefly outline the key points:
a. The church needs to know that it is called to take sin seriously and that includes sometimes confronting church members when serious sin is present in their lives.
b. The leaders of the church should follow the guidelines set up by Jesus in Matthew 18, including going to the person privately first.
c. The goal in this process must be repentance and restoration, not judging or condemning.
d. There are times when someone in the church is guilty of unrepentant serious sin and the church must excommunicate the person in question.  That is to only happen after all the other steps have been exhausted.  Still, it must be said that this does need to happen in such situations.  It is moral cowardice on the part of Christian leaders that often leads them to ignore such situations rather than handle them Biblically.