Read: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

This passage tells why sexual immorality is different from other sins. Here again Paul is reflecting on how human nature is different than animal nature. It has a unique capacity: it is this marvelous capacity to hold God, to be intimately related to the greatness and the majesty and the glory of God, to have God in you. That is the temple — God dwelling in something transforms it into a temple. But sexual immorality defiles that temple. It offers the temple to another. It brings the body of that person who is the temple into a wrong union and therefore, it is basically the sin of idolatry. That is why in Colossians and other places the apostle links together covetousness, which is idolatry. He means sexual covetousness, the desire for another person’s body, is a form of idolatry.

Now only idolatry, the worship of another god, the substitution of a rival god, defiles the temple. That is why sexual immorality has an immediate and profound but subtle effect upon the human psyche. It dehumanizes us. It animalizes us. It brutalizes us. Those who indulge in it grow continually more coarse, less sensitive, have less regard for the welfare of another, more self-centered, more desirous of having only their own needs met — I couldn’t care less about the rest of you. That is what fornication does.

I have seen it destroy young people’s relationships. A beautiful young couple came to me. Both of them were Christians, and had formed a close friendship. They were growing in the Lord and heading for marriage and then something happened. They began to fight. Finally, they brought one of their quarrels to me and in the process of working it out I said to them, Are you having sex together? and they admitted they were. I said, Well, this is the result of it. It is destroying your relationship. But they did not believe me and they went on. Sure enough, soon they ended it with great brokenness and hurt on both sides — a painful episode remaining in each one of their lives. This is what sexual immorality does.

Continue reading Ray Stedman – What are Bodies For? →

Read: 1 Corinthians 6:1-11

If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people? Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! 1 Corinthians 6:1-3

The apostle does not use the word stupid here, but his implication is that these people are very foolish for doing what they are doing. They were obviously engaging in lawsuits, dragging them before the Roman courts, and having all their quarrels and dirty linen washed in public and settled by a secular court. This, the apostle says, is foolish, and he has two reasons for implying this.

First, he implies that it is an act of audacious boldness: Dare any one of you having a grievance against his brother take it to a law court to settle? His clear implication is that this is an audacious act; it is an outrageous act; it is a bold, daring thing to do. Paul implies that, of course, by the word he uses — that one who does such is uncaring; he has reached the point where he does not care what anybody thinks or feels and he is acting regardless of the injuries that may be done to others. Paul then suggests, in the two questions he asks, that anybody who does such a thing is really an ignorant person: Do you not know that the church is going to judge the world, and do not you know that the church is going to judge angels?

These questions he asks imply a certain degree of knowledge that the Corinthians ought to have had. Do you not know, he says, that the saints will judge the world? Surely he is referring to those passages both in the Gospels and in the Epistles where we are clearly told that when the Lord returns the saints are going to share the throne of judgment with him. We are to rule and to reign with Christ, entering into judgment with him. We are not told whether we are all assigned a little throne to sit on, and have a certain number of people come to us, or whether we divide up according to the alphabet. We are, however, to enter into the mind and heart of God as he examines the motives and hearts, the thoughts and innermost desires and urges of men. In Chapter 4, remember, Paul said that we are not to judge before the Lord who will examine the motives, the hidden things of the heart. But we are learning how to do that, and that is the point Paul is raising here. He does not mean to put down the systems of justice that were practiced in that day or any day. Paul admired and honored Roman law — he himself called upon it for defense on occasion — but he is saying that human law by its very nature has to deal with trivial, superficial things, with actions, and not with urges and deep, hidden motives.

Continue reading Ray Stedman – The Wrong Way to Right Wrongs →