This week, we come to a new section in the writing of Paul to the Corinthians. In chapters 8–11 he is dealing with an issue that the Corinthians have raised with him: namely, food offered to idols. I confess that when I first preached on this passage, I wondered about its relevance to our congregation. How wrong I was! God’s word is always relevant, and this passage turned out to be one of the most foundational passages for our congregation. For apart from the many overseas students who grew up with food offered to idols, the treatment of this issue by Paul raises the great questions of freedom, knowledge, and love.

This week, we look at knowledge.

Yours,

Phillip

Peter Jensen: 1 Corinthians 8:1–6

Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.

Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”—yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

This sounds like a very different world than the world we inhabit. I’ve never been asked to eat food offered to idols or to face the issues raised by such an invitation. Why don’t we simply skip over this passage? It’s hard to see its relevance.

Phillip Jensen: The presenting problem may or may not be ours, but the actual problems that arise will always beset humanity. They are modern, not just ancient. You may never have been approached on this issue, but working with overseas students, I have been approached about it very often. But it goes beyond that; even if we are not approached by this, we can look at the great principles that are involved in Paul’s answer. This week, we are looking at the theme of knowledge, and next week we will look at the theme of love. Knowledge and love are two great principles. In fact, in this part of 1 Corinthians, freedom is also built into it, as we’ll see in the coming weeks. But of course, love and knowledge hang together, as you can see in the very first verse.

Peter: Verse 1 says, “This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” Why are we, then, teachers of knowledge? I’ve always assumed that knowledge is a necessary good. Is it dangerous?

Phillip: You see now why we’ve got to discuss this passage, because already you’ve raised some issues: what is knowledge? What is the importance of knowledge? But if we’re going to look at what Paul is saying about knowledge here, we’ve got to put him in his context. The context is the business of idolatry and spirits. So I think we need to start with this concrete situational issue that’s raised, and from there move into knowledge.

The presenting issue is that of idols. It’s much more significant than most people think. See, a vast number of people in the world still practice the worship of physical idols. You can’t go through India without seeing idols, for instance. Many an overseas student has asked me, “What do I do now that I’ve become a Christian, yet my family has offerings to our ancestors, and there are idols in the lounge room?” Can a Christian go along with the family tradition, or should they now stand separate from them? It is a very real issue for many, many people.

Peter: Indeed. But even if this isn’t our main issue in our western world—which is, as you point out, a minority world—the way that Paul deals with it has many ramifications. His principles are what count.

Phillip: That’s right, but to understand his principles accurately, you have to see them in the physical context of which he’s speaking—and so you’ve got to understand idolatry, to understand why he talks about knowledge in the way that he does. Our interest is in the knowledge end, but the beauty of Paul is that it comes in clear context, not just in abstract thinking. So we need to be aware of what idolatry entails. It’s not just the worship of statues and other objects; it’s the representation of gods, or worse still, sometimes the misrepresenting of God in physical image. It’s a very visual form of religion.

Peter: It’s like the golden calf. The Israelites claimed that it was a representation of the God who had rescued them from Egypt, but it was still a golden calf.

Phillip: Yes, because much of the polemic against idolatry in the scriptures is polemic against visual representations of Yahweh, for all visual representations are dead, dumb (in both senses of the word), and immovable. You have to carry them around. Whereas if you know the true and living God, he speaks, he’s alive, he’s powerful, and he doesn’t need to be carried around by us. So the visual representations are misrepresentations. But what we have here is the issue of the representations of gods. That’s also part of the problem here: what people are worshipping is not so much the statue, but what the statue represents—that is, gods, demons, or spirits. So you notice in verse 5 that the so-called gods in heaven and on earth correspond to the reality of many gods. In other words, we’re talking about the spirit world, which does exist. The normal human experience is to live in a world of many spirits with whom we have dealings and worship if we’re to be safe and happy. The atheistic world is a very unusual world. It’s not the normality of humanity today, let alone of history. The vast majority of people down history and around the world are and have been very conscious of a spirit world, which they seem to try and capture in visual images, through whom they’re able to worship in this spiritual world. You catch glimpses of the spirit world in the New Testament in references to evil spirits—and of course Satan, who’s called the god of this world in the scriptures.

Peter: Though I’ve mentioned this before, it reminds me of a conversation I had with an Indigenous friend of mine. We were talking about this very issue and I said, “It’s hard for people here to believe in spirits and ghosts and so forth.” He responded, “If I marooned you for two days in the bush, you’d believe.” It’s all very well for us to talk about India, but idolatry is universal, and it’s even right here.

Phillip: One of our great cricketers always had to have his lucky handkerchief with him when batting, as if that was going to make a difference to his skills in hitting a ball.

Peter: 87 was always the worst score to get, because you’d get out 13 short of 100. This leads to the rise, or the reintroduction, of sorcery, seances, fortune-telling, and the like; the worship of the spiritual world.

Phillip: I remember going and buying a crystal from a New Age shop. It was for the purpose of an illustration, so that I could hold up this crystal for the congregation, to say that this crystal was to have enormous power over my life, yet they didn’t give me any instructions as to what I was to do. Was I to place it under my pillow, in my ear, up my nostril? Was I to swallow it? It was supposed to be so powerful, but it cost 5 cents.

Peter: It’s on the rise in our contemporary world. We think we’re living in the world of ‘Science’ with a capital S, which has banished all such things. Who can believe in ghosts? We have a scientific, materialistic approach. We like to think that ghosts have disappeared.

Phillip: It’s more than that, in a sense. If we don’t worship via the spirit world, we tend to worship the material world. Idolatry captures our eyes and our hearts, but whether or not we worship the spirits, we will worship money, we will worship prestige, we will worship human champions, we will worship the things that we can see, because our vision is only limited down to the material. So idolatry in one form or another is endemic to the whole human soul.

Peter: Yes, and that’s what makes Judaism in the Old and New Testament so extraordinary. That is to say, this belief that there is one God, the Almighty, who’s in charge of all things, and anyone else pretending to be God is lying. Monotheism looks very strange at first, because in a sense it’s sort of unnatural. But note how here, in verse 6, Paul stresses that it’s only the power of this truth which we can challenge idolatry, whether of the spirit world or of ourselves. But verse 6 is crucial not just in this passage, but biblically. 1 Corinthians 8:6

Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

This is a critical and fundamental truth which carries many radical consequences—which we forget about because we’ve become used to it—bringing us into conflict with the alternatives, and saving us from superstition and the chaos of polytheism. Indeed, it is a reassertion of the rule of the one God, and of course his Son, and the power of the Holy Spirit: one God in three, three persons in one God. Indeed, it was the reassertion of the rule of the one God which began the decline of magic in the 16th century and helped pave the way for the rise of modern science. I would argue that science is not inherently atheistic; it is monotheistic. When we lose this, we don’t become atheists. We return to the worship of spirits because the human heart longs for worship.

Phillip: That’s why, strangely, Paul seems relaxed about eating food offered to idols, at least at this part of the argument. But it makes sense; if the idol is nothing, and if the god that it represents is nothing, then whether you eat food offered to it or not is nothing, because it’s of no consequence, of no significance. It can do nothing to you. It won’t poison the food. We all possess this knowledge in Christian circles, and so there would be no problem now in eating food offered to nothingness. But Paul is putting this knowledge into its missionary context. That’s the important part about understanding the knowledge concept here. He’s putting an idea that changes everything, but it’s a knowledge that puffs up, rather than love which builds up.

Peter: This leads us back to my questions. What is wrong with knowledge all of a sudden? Do I not teach knowledge? Isn’t knowledge a necessary good? What is the gospel if it’s not knowledge?

Phillip: We’re not going to read the Bible by protecting our own industry. Just because you’re a professional teacher of knowledge doesn’t mean you must now read the Bible that way. You’ve got to read the Bible in the sense of its own context. There is something wrong with knowledge. Here, knowledge can puff up. It’s got to do with what knowledge does, what it means.

How does it puff up? As you may know, you only have to hang around with academics for a little while to see the puffing that takes place. The sense of creating pride, even arrogance in what they believe, that they are of significance because they know something, or have got a degree somewhere that says they know something. But it’s not knowledge itself which is bad, but the use to which knowledge is put. It can puff up the ego when it’s supposed to love the brother.

Peter: I presume that means that not all academics are puffed up and arrogant in the way you’ve described. I was an academic administrator once, and my colleagues could not be described like that.

Phillip: Of course, many of them are not puffed up.

Peter: But it seems to me that, when we read this, Paul sees knowledge as true and as necessarily relational. Not that it’s subjective—in other words, it’s not, “I have my knowledge, you have your knowledge and we determine what is true or not.” There is such a thing as objective truth, of course. But this knowledge always comes in the context of our humanity, and we need to respect that. Firstly, we need to understand ourselves and realise our own weakness, our fallibility, and the limits of our knowledge; the partial nature of our knowledge which should lead us to humility, not to arrogance. Secondly, our knowledge should be put to the service of others. We can strut our knowledge and judge others for their stupidity or their weakness rather than loving others. Hence the contrast between the knowledge that puffs up and the knowledge which builds up. It’s not that love is the absence of knowledge; it’s that love is an essential character of one who has knowledge. You can’t separate the two, not least the knowledge of the gospel.

Phillip: That’s the point of 1 Corinthians 8:2, “If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.” There is a morality to knowledge that he’s speaking about here. That morality to knowledge, as with all genuine morality, has to do with the important relationship we have with God. In becoming Christians, we turn to the Thessalonians; if you remember, they’re the model of conversion in 1 Thessalonians 1. We’ve turned from idols to serve the true and living God and to wait for his son from heaven, who rescues us from the wrath to come. Here, he’s saying, verse 3, “If anyone loves God, he is known by God.” It’s important to know God, but it is in a sense more important to be known by God. If you’re known by God, it’s because you’re a friend of God. God knows everybody, but to be known by God indicates a friendship. See, we all know the prime minister, but it’s completely different when the prime minister knows us. So the person who loves God is known by God, because that person is the friend of God. God’s knowledge of us is a profound relationship which precedes all our weak and partial knowledge that we may have. Knowledge is very important, but it has to be put in this context of a relationship if we’re going to know as we ought to know. That’s why knowledge will puff up, but love will build up.

Peter: Yes. After all, the Evil One knows that there is a God, and trembles. That’s real knowledge.

It’s interesting that the word ‘know’ in the scriptures also applies to the marriage bond. I think this may be the beginning of an interesting discussion which we might have one day on epistemology. But I think it impacts every discipline. What is knowledge? How do we acquire it? What is it? What are its limitations? What are we doing? Why are we doing this? What is this knowledge intended to do? To answer these questions, you need to turn to the question of love. I’m reminded of 1 Corinthians 13:11–12

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So we should abide by faith, hope and love. But the greatest of them is love.

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Links & Recommendations

For more on this topic, check out this talk from St Andrew’s Cathedral called Freedom of Knowledge.

Please also see the Two Ways News episode on the origins of science that we produced as part of our Genesis series.

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For many years, Christians have been teaching on marriage and family life. But recently, the focus has moved somewhat towards singleness. This is in part because of our society’s movement away from marriage towards singleness, which is itself somewhat due to an attempt to correct an overemphasis on marriage.

This week in Two Ways News, we are discussing the issue of singleness not for either of those reasons, but because of Paul’s dealing with the subject in 1 Corinthians 7:25-40. So, following on from Paul’s discussion of contentment, we address the issues around whether we should marry and the consequences that flow from it.

Thank you for providing feedback. We are glad to hear how much you are enjoying our discussions, and are encouraged to think further by your questions and comments to us at respond@twm.email.

Yours,

Phillip

Phillip: The King’s Birthday is coming soon, on the second weekend in June. As usual, we will be holding our conference at Moore College on the afternoon of Monday 8th. This year, we will be looking at the topic of ‘Prophecy Today’. This is a great topic which teaches us how God relates to us by his Word.

Are there prophets today?

Why should we seek to prophesy?

What is it to prophesy?

If prophecy is preaching, should women preach?

If prophecy is not preaching, what is it?

Friends, we will be pursuing many questions as we explore this topic.

Registrations are now open – go to phillipjensen.com and register now; we reserve seats in the hall by registration number. For those living outside of Sydney we have a live stream you can register for, so why not get a group to come and watch with you?

Phillip Jensen: Last week, we left off at a cliffhanger. We were looking at 1 Corinthians 7:17–24, which dealt with the idea of being content with where you were when God called you in the area of married life. But now we come to the question of those who are not married. This brings us to a controversial and difficult passage in verses 25–40.

Peter Jensen: In Paul Barnett’s commentary on 1 Corinthians,1 he says that this is one of the most disputed passages in the New Testament.

1 Corinthians 7:25–40

Now concerning the betrothed, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgement as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy. I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned, and if a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.

I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.

If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes: let them marry—it is no sin. But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity but having his desire under control, and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well. So then he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better.

A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. Yet in my judgement she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God.

We’ve heard that this is a difficult passage. One of these difficulties is in figuring out the authority of what Paul is saying—for he contrasts his words with the words of the Lord, yet he seems to speak with authority, and at the end he claims to have the spirit of God.

Phillip: Yes, and he thinks of himself as somebody who, by the Lord’s mercy, is trustworthy. So it’s not as if he’s saying, “You don’t have to pay attention to me because I haven’t got a word from the Lord.” What he means is that he hasn’t got a word about what Jesus said on this subject.

Peter: There’s also the question of the word ‘virgins’ translated by the ESV as ‘betrothed’; which word is correct? And what about the main reason Paul gives for his advice—that they were living in times of distress, and that there will be the passing away of the present form of the world? Does that mean that he believes that the return of Jesus is imminent? Then there’s the question of marriage as opposed to singleness; he seems to favour the latter, but does he really? That is a vexed question in a world which can be given to the exaltation of marriage (which you refer to as ‘marriolatry’)—or among some, the exaltation of singleness.

Phillip: That contrast in the world today is very strong. Especially within our churches, there’s a great exaltation of marriage and family life, yet there’s also a growing exaltation of singleness in the community around us. This is also coming across in the church, for there are many people who are not speaking necessarily against other people getting married, but they see marriage and family life as overstated and so choose to be single.

In one church I was ministering in some years ago, there were 40 middle-aged single men within the congregation: some of them widowed, many of them divorced, some who never married. But fitting into a church, which is all about families, children, Sunday school, and youth group, is difficult.

Peter: There are mountains to climb here. To start off, we’ll deal with context, then move on to content. But I don’t want to give any impression that this passage is impossible, because difficult passages encourage us to dig deeper.

Phillip: I believe there are no difficult passages, just difficulties in our minds. Don’t blame the passage; blame our assumptions, our false thinking. That’s why I like difficult passages—they give me the chance to change my mind. I get the chance to discover the assumptions and presuppositions that I’ve made thoughtlessly, because what Paul is saying doesn’t fit with what I’m expecting him to say.

Peter: Indeed. We must first look at the context of this passage. In 7:1–7, the question of sex in marriage is addressed, indicating that, like the rest of Scripture, Paul is not anti-sex—so long as it’s done in the right place, at the right time. In 7:8–9 he talks about sex amongst the widowed and the unmarried; 7:10 mentions separation; 7:11–16 is on marriage to an unbeliever. Then as we saw last week, he seems to diverge in 7:17–24, giving a theological teaching on contentment, which is the undergirding theme of the chapter. Now we come to the topic of virgins. The passage itself could have been a topic raised by the Corinthians, for in saying “now concerning the betrothed”, he indicates that he is in conversation with them.

Some translations, including the NIV, say ‘virgins’; the ESV gives us ‘betrothed’. What does this mean?

Phillip: The actual word is ‘virgin’, but the choice of the ESV to use the word ‘betrothed’ is an attempt to help us understand what is being spoken of. A betrothed person is someone who is bound to a marriage. It’s like our engagements, although engagements can be broken. Betrothal, however, required a legal contract. It may be that most virgins were betrothed to somebody early on, because marriage in the ancient world was conducted very early and by family agreements. But the word in the passage is ‘virgin’, which I believe is meant to mean ‘unmarried’. That is because he goes on to talk about the unmarried, which includes widows or the word widow may actually mean ‘widower’.

Furthermore, when Paul talks about virgins, is he talking about the betrothed or the father of the virgin? When he talks about the person's virgin, is he talking about what the man who has a wife betrothed to him should do? Or is it about what the father of a virgin, who has betrothed his daughter to another man, should be doing or not doing? There are translation problems and it’s in what translators think is the situation of life that leads to these translations. For example, he can be talking about right and wrong when he talks of the word ‘good’; he can be referring to good as opposed to sin, though other times he can be talking about good in terms of utility - a sensible, beneficial thing as opposed to a foolish thing. So we have a series of words here which may have different meanings.

Peter: What do you make of the “present distress” that he mentioned?

Phillip: The word ‘present’ could mean ‘impending’, but either way, it is referring to things like conflict, persecution, famine, or war. The great Australian writer Bruce Winter suggests that it’s referring to the famine that was there at the time. But Paul also says in verse 29, “The appointed time has grown very short,” because the distresses that we live under in this world are under the hands of God. What they’re going through is not the permanent state of life. But then verse 31 says, “For the present form of this world is passing away,” which makes us wonder whether he is talking about the end of the world. However, what he is really referring to is the present form: the culture and the practices of this world are coming to an end.

I haven’t yet answered the question.

Peter: No, but you’ve given helpful clarification, which is essential to have before going into the passage itself.

Phillip: We’ve got certain assumptions that give us problems in our reading.

Peter: Yes—for example, we read a passage like this too directly, as though we don’t need the background. We then think our situation is directly referred to in the passage, rather than listening to what the passage itself is saying and drawing out its principles. So we then get these things you’ve referred to already: the worship of marriage, as though all life’s meaning is found in marriage; or the worship of singleness, which is so common in our culture. Looking to a passage like this to find rationalisation is not very wise.

Phillip: There are those who think their life has no meaning unless they’re married. Then there are those who think that being single is the purpose and the meaning of life, and that marriage will distract them from it.

Peter: The topic of contentment is lurking here in the background. But let’s now look at the passage section-by-section, starting with verses 26–28.

Phillip: It’s all tempered by this phrase, ‘present distress’. That is, the present pressure, or the impending calamity. Given what we’ve been taught in verses 17–24 about contentment, he now says that it’s good to remain as you are. Bound or unbound, don’t change. That’s why ‘betrothed’ is not a bad translation at this point. If you’re married, don’t seek to be single; if you’re single, do not seek to be married. As you are called, so it is good to remain. But the word ‘good’ here, I take it, refers to utility, because as he goes on to speak about marriage, he suggests that it creates anxiety. Moreover, in verse 35, he reveals that he says this for our own benefit.

What he means is that in the circumstances of life where contentment is found in the gospel, the changes that you experience are a matter of benefit, and are of this world. Paul wishes to spare them of the troubles of the flesh—in other words, the troubles of this life. So I take it that in verses 29–31, he’s going to elaborate on the meaning of verses 26–28.

Peter: 1 Corinthians 7:29–31

This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.

What does he mean by “the present form of this world is passing away”? He’s likely referring to the world in the sense of the culture, the present schema, the outward form of the world; for example, the persecution being suffered by so many Christians then and now. So he’s saying that the time in which these things are occurring is short, and the present culture will pass. In this shortened time, the way to live is free from normal practices. But does that mean that we should be free from these practices forever?

The passage is addressed to the Corinthians at that time, and he’s already discussed and commended marriage. He is not declaring that under Christianity, there will be far fewer marriages, and that you should only marry if you must. I believe he’s pointing to the time in which they were living as being one where wisdom demanded a degree of carefulness about these matters.

Phillip: It’s hard to imagine that the permanent state of Christianity would be that those who have wives live as though they had none.

Peter: That’s not how it should be read.

Phillip: If you take “the present distress” to mean the end of the world, then you would think that until the Lord returns you should ignore your wife. But that’s the opposite of what he said in 7:1–5. He clearly is concerned that we should be concerned for our wife and for our husband.

Peter: Additionally, when he says, “those who mourn as though they were not mourning”, does that mean we can’t ever be in grief? No—he’s talking about the present time.

Phillip: Indeed, because in Romans 12:15, he says, “Weep with those who weep.” In Philippians 4:4, he says, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.” The Christian life is not to be lived as those verses would indicate, which is why I take it that the present distress, the schema of this world, the persecution, or whatever was happening or about to happen in Corinth, is governing what he says here.

Peter: Does that mean there’s no application for us?

Phillip: No, because in the next section he explains that he wants to spare us from anxiety, which can be applied to us. We just need to filter the message from Paul to Sydney via Corinth. In other words, we must think about it in terms of the context in which Paul was writing.

In verse 34, he says that married life carries with it certain anxieties, and those anxieties are increased dramatically in times of distress. I think back to what Jesus says in Mark 13:14–19

But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not to be (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let the one who is on the housetop not go down, nor enter his house, to take anything out, and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! Pray that it may not happen in winter. For in those days there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, and never will be.

What is Jesus talking about? He can’t really mean the end of the world, because what would be the point of fleeing to the mountains at the end of the world? The mountains are going to fall upon us. Furthermore, what does it matter whether the end of the world comes in winter or summer? He’s talking about some impending distress, some future catastrophe. Is it the fall of Jerusalem with the destruction of the temple in AD 70, the crucifixion of Jesus, or the persecutions that will flow to the Christians?

There are certain times when those who are pregnant in particular have difficulties. See, Paul says that when we are married, we have a responsibility to please the other. But in the trials and difficulties of life, in times of distress, the necessity to please the other crosses against our desire to be pleasing the Lord. He’s not giving here a prohibition or restriction, rather he’s talking about the benefit of good order. He wants our undivided devotion to the Lord in all times, including the times of distress; but our devotion to the Lord, especially in times of distress, will be different for those who are married and those who are single. Knowing that some distress is about to come upon the Corinthian Church—or that they’re already in this present distress—he’s saying that it is not the time for marriage. But he speaks again of the form of this world, rather than this world passing away.

Peter: It’s helpful to understand the form of this world as an understanding of the times in which they lived, and to draw the principles from this knowledge.

Phillip: But we have principles. That is, as you take on more responsibilities in this world, you take on more anxieties for this world, and so your capacity to deal with difficult times is diminished. It’s not as if this has nothing to do with our life.

Peter: No. Additionally, notice the principle with which it finishes in verse 35: “To secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.” That is the great issue. Whatever situation you’re in, to be entirely devoted to the Lord Jesus is the key.

Phillip: Slave or free, circumcised or uncircumcised, married or single.

Peter: This takes us back to that key starting passage. What does Paul mean by “Not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order”?

Phillip: I don’t know what is meant by “good order”, but Paul says these things for the benefit of it. That is, you can think of the prayer that Paul encourages us with in 1 Timothy 2:2, “That we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” That seems to be the good order that we can have in this world.

You and I live in the peace of Sydney. But there’s a war raging in the Middle East. Our biggest problem is whether there’s going to be petrol in our local service station. But think of the Christians who are living in that context, caught between the Jew and the Muslim in the crossfire, living under the bombs raining from different countries. Their life is not a life of good order. They are in the circumstance of great difficulties, and they increase their anxieties and difficulties entering into married life at this point in time.

Peter: That is helpful. Additionally, the idea of the schema, the culture that is passing away, helps with verse 36: “If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes: let them marry—it is no sin.” Clearly, he is not raising an ethical issue. He’s talking about the times in which they live, and he’s giving us his wisdom about our present time. How can you best express your total devotion to Jesus in such a time as this? Verse 36 speaks of acting properly. In other words, if your passions are strong, you must act properly and do what needs to be done, namely to get married. An alternative to this would be that if the betrothed is getting on in years and needs to marry soon, then they should get married.

Phillip: We have a translation problem in verse 36. That is, it can be referring to being ‘oversexed’; that’s how the ESV takes it, and it’s a possibility. But the other translation, slightly closer to the Greek but a little bit less politically acceptable today, is that if she’s at a point where having children going to be difficult, then you should do the right thing and get married while there is that opportunity. That is a slightly more likely translation, though the ESV could be correct. Whichever the circumstance you’re thinking it is, appropriate behaviour is what is being spoken of. It’s not following the schemes of this world, but following the Christian scheme and thinking about the welfare of the other person.

Peter: Then it says in verse 37 that it’s better to remain unmarried in these times. But that’s a matter of conscience, and it’s got to do with the present distress. It’s not a law laid upon all Christians everywhere. There was a community who settled in Pennsylvania in the 19th century known as the Rappites, who had no marriage or children as they believed that Christians shouldn’t marry. It won’t surprise you to learn that they died out after 50 years.

Phillip: As the passage keeps saying, it’s not sin. It’s not a matter of right and wrong, but of the beneficial, appropriate thing to do in this circumstance. To turn singleness or marriage into the essential is to miss the point very seriously. Though if you detach it from the context, you could certainly turn it into an absolute.

Peter: How does the passage finish?

Phillip: The woman is bound to her husband, and vice versa. But when she’s widowed, she’s free to marry; though being a Christian woman, she’s only free to marry in the Lord—that is, a Christian husband. She may have, when she was called, been married to a non-Christian. But when he dies, she’s free to remarry in the Lord. But Paul says he thinks she’ll be happier if she does not remarry. But again, it can’t be turned into an absolute, because in 1 Timothy 5, he tells younger widows to marry. But in the general context he speaks of, the widow will be happier if she doesn’t remarry.

Peter: Then there’s a puzzling sentence at the end, “I think that I too have the Spirit of God.” What does this mean?

Phillip: The added word ‘too’ makes it sound as though there are people whom he’s been arguing with who are claiming to be ‘super-spiritual’. That calls back to 1 Corinthians 7:1, “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman,” for in that is a belief in a spirituality that is against the physicality of sex. He counters this by saying in essence, “They think they have the Spirit; I too have the Spirit.”

But the core of the passage is in verses 17–24, which tells us that changing your circumstances will not solve our problems, for contentment and godliness is found in the Lord Jesus Christ, not in the circumstances of life.

1

Paul Barnett, “1 Corinthians: Holiness and Hope of a Rescued People”, 2011 (Christian Focus Publications)

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Links & Recommendations

For more on this topic, check out this talk on 1 Corinthians 7 called To Wed Or Not To Wed.

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As we work through 1 Corinthians 7, we come to a paragraph that seems to have nothing to do with glorifying God with your body in love, sex, or marriage. Suddenly, there is a paragraph about slavery and circumcision. But this is the most important passage in the chapter, for it is simply using these topics to discuss contentment, which is the key to love, sex, and marriage.

I hope you enjoy this discussion. Please remember that Two Ways News is provided free of charge by the generosity of friends. If you would like to become one of our generous friends, at the end of the transcript are details regarding how you could contribute.

Yours,

Phillip

Phillip Jensen: The King’s Birthday long weekend is coming around soon, on the second weekend in June. As usual, we will be holding our conference at Moore College on the afternoon of Monday 8th. This year, we will be looking at the topic of ‘Prophecy Today’. This is a great topic which teaches us how God relates to us by his Word.

Are there prophets today?

Why should we seek to prophesy?

What is it to prophesy?

If prophecy is preaching, should women preach?

If prophecy is not preaching, what is it?

Friends, we will be pursuing many questions as we explore this topic.

Registrations are now open – go to phillipjensen.com and register now; we reserve seats in the hall by registration number. For those living outside of Sydney we have a live stream you can register for, so why not get a group to come and watch with you?

Today we are continuing our studies of 1 Corinthians 7, focusing this time on contentment. Peter, are you a contented person?

Peter Jensen: I would say that I’d be in an awful mood if I wasn’t a contented person. We are living through one of the wealthiest, and in a sense most peaceful times (in the sense that neither of us have ever had to go to war), in a magnificent city, in a nation with free speech and democracy, where it’s easy to get the most wonderful medical help if you need it. Let me add the personal blessings of knowing Jesus, of Christian fellowship, of a happy and long-lasting marriage, and much more. For me to be discontented, therefore, would mean that I am not grateful for my many blessings.

Phillip: The answer you’ve given touches on being correct. You say your contentment is in the circumstances of your life, but can you be content and not have such circumstances? Or can you be discontent even when you have all things going for you? Paul says that he had to learn to be content not only in the hard times, but also in prosperity. So you’ve had a very prosperous life, but you still need to learn to be content.

This week’s passage in 1 Corinthians 7 is in the context of marriage and sex, as the whole of chapter 7 is, but it talks specifically about contentment.

Peter: 1 Corinthians 7:17–24

Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision. For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God. Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. Were you a bondservant when called? Do not be concerned about it. (But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.) For he who was called in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a bondservant of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men. So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.

The passage may strike us as being a bit odd in the context of chapter 7, speaking as it does of contentment, circumcision, slavery and such. After all, the whole passage begins with Paul asking the Corinthians, “Is it good for a man not to touch a woman?” So far it has developed as a response to this, dealing with marriage, separation, and divorce. But it’s not untypical of Paul to apply gospel truths to what he’s saying. For example, chapter 12 is about the gifts of God and the one body of Christ. Chapter 13 seems strangely out of place in talking about love. But as you read through chapters 12, 13, and 14, you find that it’s not out of place, for it makes perfect sense to have the great love chapter in the midst of this other discussion.

You’ve pinpointed the word ‘calling’ as being key to this passage. Can you explain this?

Phillip: It’s not a word commonly used by Paul, but it occurs about 5 or 6 times in this paragraph. Paul is using the word ‘calling’ possibly in 2 different senses, though the one we use very frequently is the minor one rather than the major one. That is, since the time of Luther we’ve been using the word ‘calling’ to refer to one’s vocation in life. Your calling could be that you’re a nurse or a mechanic, a shop owner or a professional, or a pastor; yet the emphasis of Luther was to bring the vocation of everyday life back into the forefront of Christian living, rather than requiring you to go into a monastery in order to actually be a Christian. That’s the emphasis that we’ve carried in our Christian community for the last 500 years. It possibly means a calling in the sense of verse 17, “Let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him”; or verse 20, “Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called.”

But in verse 24, Paul uses the word ‘calling’ to refer to our conversion, our calling to Christ. The opening of the letter back in 1 Corinthians 1:2 reads, “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.” Likewise, verse 1 Corinthians 1:9 tells us, “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son.” Throughout this passage, he keeps talking about “the moment of your calling”, meaning the calling into the kingdom, the summons to belong by the power of God’s Spirit into new birth. I don’t want to deny the sovereignty of God over the rest of our lives, but if we were living in the 15th century, our calling would have been for us to be printers, because we are the sons of a printer. Back then, the calling was something that was given to you by your circumstances in life. It’s right to recognise that God is sovereign over every aspect of our lives: our family, our nation, the suburbs we grew up in, the education we’ve received, and the jobs that we are doing. But what Paul is speaking about here is the calling of the gospel.

Peter: So we’ve been called by God. We have been assigned to be his, and we’re to walk in that way. It’s the new creature, the new creation, then conversion and justification and sanctification. It’s the walk of the new creation coming out of this call by God, through the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit. So it strikes me that Ephesians 2 speaks of, if you like, the power of the call. Ephesians 2:8–10

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

But back to the question, why have you picked ‘calling’ as being key to the 1 Corinthians 7 passage?

Phillip: We’ll come to that in a moment, but in the meantime, I would like to ask: why do you think he mentioned circumcision and slavery, and what is he saying about it?

Peter: That’s interesting too, because these don’t seem to be the issues that the Corinthians were raising. Presumably he’s using these subjects as illustrations to lay the foundation of what he wants to say about marriage and sex.

Phillip: He does talk about circumcision and slavery elsewhere, for example in Galatians. It’s a big issue for him, but this is the only reference to it in 1 Corinthians.

Peter: My guess is that he’s mentioned these issues, which are fairly big in his mind, so they won’t divert people into fresh arguments. By doing so, he makes some important points about both topics for ongoing Christian understanding. The key to both is that you don’t have to change your situation in life to be a full-on, true, born-again, new-creation Christian. In the case of circumcision, he is referring, as we know from elsewhere, to a controversial topic amongst Christian Jews: basically, the question was, “To what extent must I remain Jewish, and should Gentile Jews join us as Christian Jews through circumcision?” His answer brilliantly bypasses the controversy; namely, he tells them not to make an issue of this. It’s no longer important. The Old Testament’s ceremonial legal requirements are now fulfilled in Christ and we are free from them to keep the real heart of the law: that is, the commandments to love God and to love your neighbour.

Phillip: The change in situation once you become a Christian is not in being circumcised, but, as Paul writes, in being content, whether you’re circumcised or not.

The circumcision symbolised that you were under the law, but the symbol of being under the law is not the same as truly being under the law. It’s like the symbol of wearing an Oxford University t-shirt. It doesn’t necessarily mean you studied at Oxford; it can mean your auntie was a tourist who travelled through Oxford and brought one home for you.

Peter: I’m reminded that even in the Old Testament itself, circumcision was used as a way of talking about true repentance. That is to say, it is an outward sign which has now passed away, but it represents a deep inner truth which must remain.

Phillip: The case of slavery is slightly different though. Both slavery and circumcision have a permanence to them, though a slave could be set free. But Paul is now saying that, just as in Christ, the circumcised and the uncircumcised can now be under the law—and if you are in slavery, you are under freedom. You’re set free in Christ, even though you are a slave, because Christ himself became your slave for your salvation’s sake. He enslaved himself that you could be free. So you seek to please him now in all things, whether you’re a slave or free, whether you’re circumcised or not.

See, it’s interesting that he says of this freedom that where possible, you should take it, because slavery was a bad thing. Paul talks in 1 Timothy 5 about the yoke of slavery. There’s no joy in being poor, nor is there joy in being a slave. These are not good circumstances of life, yet you can be poor and content as a Christian. Likewise, you can be a slave and be content as a Christian. So the Lord is now the real person whom you seek to live under. If you’re free, you’re still a slave of Christ; if you’re a slave, you’re a free man in Christ. Our circumstances in this world remain the same, but spiritually and personally, we have been radically changed. The free man has now become a slave; the slave has now become free. Our contentment is found in our situation in the kingdom of God, which enables us to cope with both freedom and slavery.

We do not use our freedom to indulge the flesh, as Paul would put it in Galatians 5. We now use our freedom to enslave ourselves to Christ. But he does say that slavery is a bad thing, and he warns us never to enslave ourselves to a human. If you’ve got a chance to free yourself, take it, and do not put yourself into the position of becoming a slave to someone.

Peter: I love the gospel. The more you think about it, you realise that it is a summons to be the people, the men and women that God intended us to be, which is where our real freedom is to be found. It’s to be found in our slavery to Christ.

You used the word ‘content’, which takes us back to my question from the beginning of our conversation. Is Philippians 4:11–13 close to what Paul means here by ‘content’? Philippians 4:11–13

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned, in whatever situation I am, to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

I take it that this is what you mean by ‘contentment’.

Phillip: That’s what Paul means by ‘contentment’. It’s your attitude to the circumstances of life. It’s easy to see why someone who is poor or enslaved needs an attitudinal change to be content because their situation is one of disappointment, difficulty and hardship. But on the other side, the very rich are not content in their hearts and in their minds. They’re never satisfied with what they are doing; we know they are greatly disillusioned. Australians are not content people.

Peter: This reminds me of a silly commercial that’s on at the moment about retirement. It talks about how for your whole life, you go to work and get paid, over and over again. Then one day, you don’t go to work, but you still get paid. That is when you have entered the glorious state of retirement. It’s obvious they’ve never heard about arthritis. It’s so absurd, you’re right; contentment is elusive if you’re relying upon the world around you, your wealth and so forth.

Phillip: We have something bigger than the world around us.

Peter: Indeed, and we are still so thankful to God for the world.

So you’re saying that the secret of contentment is our relationship to Jesus, and that enables us, as Paul says, to do all things necessary. He is talking from his own experience, which is vast. He’s known abundance, he’s known poverty, prison, beating, and who knows what else.

Phillip: Where you were when you were called, stay there. You don’t have to change your circumstances in life to find contentment.

Peter: Back to the first question then: where did this passage come from? Why is it here in the middle of this discussion about sex, marriage and all the rest?

Phillip: That is because he is dealing with the questions that people are asking. 1 Corinthians 7:1 reads, “Now, concerning the matters about which you wrote,” which indicates that he is directly addressing people’s questions. He’s gathered up a series of matters about marriage and about sex, and so in verses 1–7, he talks about sexual relationships within marriage. His message is that you don’t need to change your situation to live in contentment in Christ. If you are widowed or unmarried, stay as you are.

Mind you, if you are now living in sexual immorality, you should fix that by getting married. Likewise, if you are already married, you should remain together. If you can’t live with each other, by all means be separate. But if you can’t be separate, come back together again, because your marriage is the place in which you exist as Christian people.

If you are married to a non-Christian, you should not free yourself from the non-Christian. But if the non-Christian wishes to leave, let them go. You can’t save them by hanging on to them. But if they’re willing to live with you, stay married to them because, as you were when you were called, so remain in that place and find your contentment in the gospel, in your changed life, rather than in the circumstances of life.

That’s going to take us on to what the rest of the chapter is about, because the next question that he answers is about what to do if you’re betrothed to someone.

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Links & Recommendations

For more on this topic, check out this talk entitled Sexual Contentment.

Freely available, supported by generosity.

If you enjoy Two Ways News, why not lend us a hand? Consider joining our Supporters Club—friends who make it possible for us to keep producing this article/podcast.

To join the Supporters Club, follow the link below to the ‘subscribe’ page. You’ll see that there’s:

• a number of ‘paid options’. To join the Supporters Club take out one of the paid ‘subscription plans’ and know we are deeply grateful for your support!

• also the free option (on the far right hand side)

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A church established through missionary work has many basic Christian morality issues to resolve. The old culture, not built on the gospel, will have practices inconsistent with the gospel. But as with most cultures, these practices are assumed rather than thought out. The gospel revolutionises all cultures, and Paul the Apostle is dealing with the marriage cultures of Corinth in 1 Corinthians 7. This episode of Two Ways News is a difficult unravelling of Paul’s advice on several complex issues.

Yours,

Phillip

Phillip Jensen: The King’s Birthday long weekend is soon with us, on the second weekend in June. As usual, we will be holding our conference at Moore College on the afternoon of Monday 8th. This year, we will be looking at the topic of ‘Prophecy Today’. This is a great topic which teaches us how God relates to us by his Word.

Are there prophets today?

Why should we seek to prophesy?

What is it to prophesy?

If prophecy is preaching, should women preach?

If prophecy is not preaching, what is it?

Friends, we will be pursuing many questions as we explore this topic.

Registrations are now open – go to phillipjensen.com and register now; we reserve seats in the hall by registration number. For those living outside of Sydney we have a live stream you can register for, so why not get a group to come and watch with you?

Last week, we spoke on marriage, but we only looked at the first 6 verses of 1 Corinthians 7, which is just the beginning of a long chapter on the subject. It is important to look beyond these verses into the rest of Paul’s teaching about marriage and the complexities of married life.

Peter Jensen: 1 Corinthians 7:7–16

I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.

To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.

To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

Phillip: We’re tackling a mountain in teaching this passage. It’s a key one for biblical teaching on the subject, but we’re not helped by some of the translation problems here. There has been (and rightly so) a push for ‘dynamic equivalence translation’, which looks for and translates ideas rather than simply words. It is helpful to convey one idea written in Greek into the language of the same idea in English, but it does require an accurate understanding of the original ideas. A failure to properly understand the original ideas in Greek will lead you to a translation which is inaccurate, and a failure there leads to compounded failure in our English translations.

But please do not be worried about your translations as if they’re done in mischief. Though there are some that have been done in mischief, such as the Jehovah’s Witness Bible, in general our translations are done in sincerity by a large and very skilful scholarship behind them. But professional Bible teachers need to know enough Greek and Hebrew to understand and evaluate the translation. I don’t think that every congregation member needs to, but certainly those who would be Bible teachers do, for theological education requires a proper understanding of the original languages. I say this because this passage is one in which I personally failed.

Years ago, in a book I wrote with Tony Payne called Guidance and the Voice of God,1 we failed to check the Greek properly. Some years later a great friend, John Richardson, corrected us in his book, God, Sex and Marriage.2 If Matthias Media ever reprints our book, we’re going to correct our errors.

Peter: What was the problem?

Phillip: It wasn’t just a single problem, like a mistranslated word—though there are several in most modern English translations. It’s the problem of us not travelling from Paul’s context to our Sydney context via Corinth. In other words, we didn’t take into account that the church in Corinth had many unsorted problems, common in missionary churches where the old culture hasn’t yet been Christianised. We live in a very Christianised culture, even though we’ve got so many non-Christians pushing against it. This means that we are familiar with our Christian words and concepts; but when you go back to a non-Christian culture such as in Corinth, when people become Christians, it takes time for them to sort out the false view of life that they have previously held.

Peter: This helps us to understand how we should approach the passage. What are the issues being dealt with here?

Phillip: There are 3 issues brought up: extramarital sex, separation and divorce, and marriage with unbelievers. They all require a Christian view of marriage, which values faithful, monogamous, lifelong families. How the Corinthians wrestled with these topics is slightly different to how we’re dealing with it today, but nevertheless what Paul tells us here, gives us the basis for how we’re to do so.

Peter: Paul gives us principles which we can apply in other situations as well, but we must see them in the light of what he’s talking about. Before coming to these issues, he starts us off with 1 Corinthians 7:7

I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.

Usually, people understand the first part as referring to Paul being single, but we know that it’s not his wish that all people should remain single, because he encourages certain people—for example, the younger widows—to get married. He’s not saying that singleness is the ideal Christian pattern, because marriage is also something that he recommends.

Phillip: Telling young widows to get married in 1 Timothy 5 is almost a command. At the end of 1 Corinthians 7, he talks to widows generally about marrying only in the Lord. But what we have here in verse 7 is a general statement.

Peter: Yes; in the first half of the verse, “I wish that all were as I myself am,” we see this distinction between ‘all’ and ‘each’. What Paul wants for all is going to be spelled out for us in verses 17–24, which is best summarised as ‘contentment in Christ.’

But in the second half of the verse, he poses the question as to whether singleness is a gift, or if the gift is marriage. He is not talking here about an internal desire to be single or married. The gift is contentment in the station of life God has given you, whether that’s being single or being married.

Phillip: Contentment is the right way of living, but surely the situation is the gift in a sense, rather than the contentment which we should have with our gift.

Peter: God is in charge of your life, and he has brought you to the state that you’re in at the moment. This is the gift of God, and so he tells us to be content. But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get married if there’s an opportunity.

Phillip: No. Verses 17-24 talk about being content in slavery, but that part also tells you that if you get the opportunity for freedom, by all means take it. But Paul also has to learn contentment, both when he has plenty as well as when he has very little. It’s something to learn, and that’s what he’s talking about here.

I agree with you about verse 7 in that the ‘all’ is different to the ‘each’.

Peter: Yes, it doesn’t mean that Paul is saying here, “I have decided I will never get married.” Rather, singleness is in the role to which God has called him, and in the life experience he’s had, so he learns to be content within it.

Peter: What does he mean by, “I wish that all were as I myself am”? Does that mean ‘contented’?

Phillip: Yes. But then we turn to 3 particular problems.

The first is the issue brought up in verses 8–9 of extra-marital relationships, addressed to the unmarried and the widows. 1 Corinthians 7:8–9

To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

But the original Greek says, “But if they’re not exercising self-control, they should marry. For it’s better to marry than to burn.” So the key here is the mistranslation of the verb, and the addition of those two final words, “with passion.” Paul is not talking about people being unable to exercise self-control, but about people who are not exercising self-control. It’s not a hypothetical problem about an internal struggle; in Corinth, there were unmarried people and widows, and possibly widowers, who were having extra-marital sex. Why they weren’t getting married, we don’t know. It is possible that remarriage was considered to be ‘unspiritual’, as we talked about last week regarding asceticism. But Paul’s direction is that, if you’re in a sexual relationship already, you should get married. For it’s better to do that than to burn.

What could he mean by “burn”? Our translation adds in “with passion”, but that’s because they’ve already added in the concept of lacking self-control and being tempted internally. It could mean “burn with shame,” or “burn in punishment.” But it’s extraordinarily helpful advice for pastoral decisions in an evangelistic setting. Here in Sydney these days, many people who get converted are already in sexual relationships. What do we say to them? Do we tell them to separate? Do we tell them to stop it? Do we tell them to get married? Or do we say, “It’s all right, stay the way you are”? In previous generations, it wasn’t really a pivotal issue; but today, any pastor who’s in an evangelistic church will see couples who are living together. What should they do? Paul’s advice is to get married.

Peter: How about the second issue of separation and divorce?

Phillip: 1 Corinthians 7:10–11

To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.

Again, the rise in divorce in our society over the last 50 years has made this a much more pressing issue for us pastorally. The troubled waters of Christianity in this new age have made it one of the most painful and difficult pastoral areas within congregational life. Here are 7 points that I would like to raise:

1. This is addressed to Christians who are already married. It’s not to divorcees or to the unmarried. The unmarried have been dealt with in the previous verses.

2. This is a command from the Lord. Paul is not saying that his other points don’t matter; in fact, he later on goes to say that he has the Spirit of God. But this is something that he has a clear word on, for we know from Matthew 5 and Matthew 19 that Jesus says you should not divorce.

3. The command, according to the Greek, is “not to separate,” or “not to put away.”

4. There are occasions, such as in cases of domestic violence, when it’s the right course of action to separate.

5. The word ‘divorce’ in English means ‘the right to remarry’, whereas the phrases ‘to separate’ or ‘to put away’ do not necessarily convey that idea. Here in this passage, it is explicitly stated that separation does not mean that you have the right to remarry. The phrase he uses for the husband is ‘not to put away’ which is slightly different to the phrase used for the wife, ‘not to separate’. Maybe that is because the husband had greater financial legal responsibilities or different rights within Roman law. But given the rest of the New Testament, it cannot mean that either the husband or the wife have the right to remarry.

6. Therefore, the purpose of the separation is not for marrying somebody else. It does not mean you can say, “Husband A is not doing too well for me, so I’ll drop Husband A and move to Husband B.”

7. When you separate, you are to stay single; if singleness is too hard, then you’re to seek reconciliation with your husband. So the concept of divorce in the modern English sense of the word is not what is lying in front of us in the passage. It talks of separation. The question of divorce and the right to remarry is an important subject, but this is not the passage to find it in.

Peter: You haven’t mentioned adultery. If a husband leaves his wife and then marries someone else, is she free to remarry?

Phillip: Yes, but that’s because of Matthew 5, not because of 1 Corinthians 7.

Peter: That’s why you’ve got to look at the whole subject, not just this passage.

Phillip: Yes. When Christians are married to each other, they shouldn’t separate. But if they do—for there are some relationships that can’t be sustained—then they should stay single. If they can’t stay single, then they should get back together rather than seeking another partner. Because marriage is a lifelong commitment, whether you are conducting it while separated or while being together.

Paul accepts the fact that there are some relationships that can’t be mended, but each party still has responsibilities. There are still the oaths that you’ve given, which you should stick to even if you can’t work out how to be reconciled with your spouse. It’s a hard passage.

Peter: Indeed, and we probably need to think through this independently because the passage doesn’t answer every question.

Phillip: No, but it is central to the whole subject, for it answers the question of what we say to Christians who are married. The answer is, “don’t separate,” because marriage is for life.

However, what do you do when the marriage is between a believer and an unbeliever? Especially in an evangelistic context, one spouse may get converted while the other spouse remains unconverted.

Peter: I’ll follow your example by providing 5 points:

1. Paul’s advice is given because, as he is at pains to points out, Jesus didn’t speak of this situation. This doesn’t mean that his advice is not the word of God, but he carefully distinguishes between what he says himself and what Jesus has said.

2. The fact that there is an unbelieving spouse is not grounds for separation, so we’re told not to initiate it.

3. Rather than the contamination of defilement flowing from the unbeliever to the believer, as it would if you were attached to a prostitute, it is a real marriage and it must be treated as such. Marriage is universal; it’s all around the world, and whether it occurs in a Christianised society or not, it is a valid marriage and must be thought of in those terms. So even if you become a believer and you are married to an unbeliever, your marriage is valid and must be conducted in the way that the Bible teaches us. So in that sense, Paul is saying that the holiness flows from believer to unbeliever. That doesn’t mean that the unbeliever is suddenly saved without even knowing it—it’s only that the marriage is still valid. Consequentially, your children are holy; that is to say, your children have access through you to the gospel and possibly to the church.

4. If you are married to an unbeliever, your children are not illegitimate. That may strike those who listen as odd, but there have been occasions in previous generations of children being labelled as illegitimate when they weren’t. For instance, in our family 100 years ago, a marriage was conducted between a Catholic and a Protestant, and their little boy was told by one of the grandparents that he was illegitimate, because it wasn’t a ‘valid marriage’. But what the Apostle Paul tells us here is that, even if an unbeliever is married to a believer, the children are not illegitimate, and they do have access to the gospel.

5. If the unbelieving spouse wishes to separate, then it is permissible to do so. You are not legally bonded under those circumstances, because God has called you to peace, not to warfare. You have no knowledge of whether your spouse will be saved or not, therefore you are entitled to do so if the marriage breaks down, and if that is the wish of the spouse. If you are a Christian and your unbelieving spouse leaves, are you free to remarry? It seems as though the idea of not being enslaved allows us to say that you are free to remarry, but we need to be careful here as usual, because Pharisaism is close to the surface, and some people declare their spouse to be an unbeliever so that they can marry another. But what he is saying here is that if a spouse is truly an unbeliever, and then leaves, you are free to remarry.

Phillip: You may argue that, in the case of the marriage between the Catholic and the Protestant, the marriage was invalid. The Catholic view of marriage being sacramental means that it would have had to be conducted in the Catholic Church, and so a marriage like this, conducted outside the Church, was not a marriage. But the Bible would say that creation is the basis of marriage, rather than church and sacraments.

Peter: Yes, and I’m not sure that too many Catholics would take this line these days. But in those days, they did. Nevertheless, a marriage, even if it’s between two unbelievers, is valid and should obey the laws of marriage.

Phillip: Then there’s the point you mentioned about the unbeliever wanting to separate. I can well remember a situation in which one of my alcoholic friends, after finally getting sober, went home rejoicing to his wife and she was pleased. Through the process, he became a Christian, but when he told his wife that he’d become a Christian, she said, “I’ll put up with you as an alcoholic, but I’m not going to put up with you as a Christian,” and walked out.

Peter: What an awful story.

Phillip: Indeed, it is. You see, Paul is writing about a real church in Corinth that has only been going for a little while. The more you’re involved in evangelism in a fresh new church, and in a very pagan culture, the more you see that 1 Corinthians is very important to understand and to analyse carefully.

So what we’re told about this issue is, “Don’t hang on. You’re not called to warfare. You can’t know whether they’re going to be converted or not, for that’s beyond your knowledge.”

Peter: Remind us what the general teaching here is.

Phillip: The general teaching is monogamy. Its application in the situations of life which are so varied and diverse requires wisdom: the wisdom of God given to us here in this scripture.

The other general principle, which we’ll go into next week, is the one in verse 7 that you spoke of: contentment. My singleness, or my marriage, is part of God’s sovereignty, part of the gift of God. How do I live in contentment with that?

Peter: I believe that is based on the end of 1 Corinthians 6, “For you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

2

John Richardson, God, Sex and Marriage, 1998 (St Matthias Press).

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Links & Recommendations

For more on this topic, check out this talk on Marriage from 1 Corinthians 7.

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When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he had to deal with many issues, some of which were raised by the Corinthians themselves. Several of the issues related to the subject of sexual morality. Chapters 5 and 6 of 1 Corinthians conclude with the importance of serving God with our bodies, and chapter 7 opens with the issue of how to serve God with your body in the face of sexual immoralities. The answer is not in celibacy, but a right understanding of sex in marriage. Peter and I are going to take several weeks to discuss the many issues raised in 1 Corinthians 7. This week, it’s sex in marriage, verses 1-6.

Yours,

Phillip

Phillip Jensen: So far, we have been working through 1 Corinthians, and we are now up to chapter 7.

Peter Jensen: The last 2 chapters have largely been about sexual morality, with good reason: the Corinthian world and the Roman world in general was, in many ways, quite permissive in sexual matters. Men virtually could do as they pleased, and they were fairly loose when it came to things like marriage, the only requirement for it being that you had to be married to one woman, and she had to do certain things. Basically, marriage was not seen as a stoppage to people carrying on as they pleased.

It’s not unlike our own world. We have this extraordinary prevalence of de-facto marriages, same-sex marriages (if that’s indeed what they should be called), child-free marriages, open marriages, and we have virtually free divorce. Someone once said, “It’s easier to free yourself from a partner than it is to leave a company.” So our world may not be exactly the same, but it is very much like the Corinthian and Roman world. That creates very practical difficulties for the younger generation, particularly those who want to get married, where real estate prices make it very difficult to get married, and those who do marry do so later because they must first establish their careers.

Phillip: The Corinthian situation was in some ways more explicitly sexual than ours, in that the great temple in Corinth is said to have had up to 1000 prostitutes. But prostitution has been legalised and promoted within our society. You mentioned real estate being a factor in declining rates of marriage, which is an interesting issue. In Australia, we’re now building 2-bedroom home units with no intention for housing families. Families are not where the money is; the money is to be found in two bedrooms. In this way, we’re making it harder for people to get married. But while marriage is under attack from all sides around us, there’s been something of a reversion lately amongst certain elites who are commentating on this issue. One of them is, of course, Louise Perry who wrote her book The Case Against the Sexual Revolution.1 The last chapter in this book is on marriage, and her advice for young women is “Marry a dad, not a cad” and “Listen to your mother.”2 But at the heart of the Christian view of marriage, something which was culturally accepted up until the 1960s, are the principles set out in 1 Corinthians 7.

Peter: In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul is setting out the principles for marriage quite directly, and he is addressing the attack on the Christian view in those days, helping us to see how corrupt the contemporary view of sexual relations is. By ‘corrupt’ I mean that it’s against God’s word, and it’s unethical, but also that it goes against our humanity. It does not lead to joy, to happiness or to living well; it’s dangerous to the wellbeing of people, for it’s not how God has designed us. In fact, 1 Corinthians 6 ends with these great words, “For you were bought with a price.” He’s talking of the cross, of course; consequently, you are to “glorify God in your body.” We are not to give up the body, nor turn against it, but to glorify God in our body. One explicit example of how we glorify God in our body is to avoid connecting with prostitutes. So “Glorify God in your body,” is how we move into chapter 7.

Phillip: 1 Corinthians 7:1–6

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. 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. 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. Now as a concession, not a command, I say this.

Why would Paul start this discussion on marriage in terms of not having any sexual relations with your wife? That just seems to defeat the very purpose of marriage.

Peter: That line is a quotation from the Corinthians. Essentially, after embracing the gospel, they drew from it the implication that sexual relations are forbidden, even between husband and wife. They heard Paul’s summons to abstain from sexual immorality, and they read it as a summons not to have sex at all. It may be an expression of another idea prevalent in the ancient world: that is, the expression of asceticism.

Phillip: What does that word ‘asceticism’ mean?

Peter: It’s a spiritual and religious idea that you must revolt against the body in favour of the spirit. In practice, you may fast constantly, or you may go out into the wilderness and not have very much at all in order to be in communion with God. One such aspect of asceticism is total celibacy, as though the body can be brought under control by being starved of food and sex. In some cases, it involves things like flagellation, beating yourself or being beaten by others. This is not unknown today, where people are beaten in order to give up sins of various types. That’s asceticism.

Phillip: Does this idea lie behind monasteries, nunneries, and the like?

Peter: Somewhat, but not entirely. But the Corinthians may have thought that this kind of asceticism is what is meant by the commandment to glorify God in your body.

Phillip: It’s almost like a ‘super-spirituality’ in that regard. But Paul’s answer here is quite clear. It’s not to abandon sex altogether. Rather, Paul is putting sex into the right context—that of husband and wife. He also speaks on the right way to conduct the marriage. It’s one thing to limit sex to marriage, but then how do we enjoy sexual relationships within the marriage? Paul speaks about that too, for in marriage, the husband and wife have each other and act out their mutuality. It’s an extraordinary passage in terms of this mutuality, because those who have attacked Christian marriage have for a long time spoken as if marriage was as the pagans would have it: that is, the husband owning the wife. But this passage speaks of the wife owning the husband as much as the husband owning the wife. Throughout this passage, what is said to and of the husband is equally said to and of the wife. That is, we don’t have to wait till the 21st century to discover that women have sexual needs and pleasures. It’s here in the 1st century, written by Paul, whom the world wants to tell us was a woman-hater.

It’s also in the Book of Common Prayer that the reasons for marriage are, firstly, to have children; secondly, because of our temptations to sin; thirdly, our companionship. It’s very interesting to see how modern prayer books still speak in terms of having children, (although that’s muted somewhat), and they certainly in terms of companionship, but they often completely omit what Paul is concerned about here when he talks about sinfulness. In fact, in the original Greek, it doesn’t say “temptation to sin”; it says “temptation to immorality”. So the Corinthians’ suggestion is that “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But sexual immorality is occurring, and so the solution is to have sex within the context of marriage. Our view of marriage now has been so overwhelmed by romanticism that it omits some of the fundamental factors of what marriage is about, in terms of having children and in terms of our sexual needs. But this mutuality is exactly what feminists would say that Paul is against.

Peter: Yes, you mentioned the description of Paul as the “woman-hater”. In Ephesians 5, Paul calls upon the wife to submit to her husband or to obey him. This has been taken to mean that the Bible regards women as inferior to men, and gives men a green light to become nasty or even abusive. But in this reading of it, the context of Ephesians 5 is disregarded, as Paul in the very same passage summons the husband to love his wife even to the point of giving his life for her. So yes, there is an authority vested in the husband, but it’s an authority as is usual with authority: it is in the interests of the other person, or the other persons when the marriage is blessed with children. So this passage gives us a recognition of the different roles of husband and wife within marriage, which is based, among other things, on the differences in physical strength. Therefore, the calling of the husband is not to boss the wife around, but to defend and provide for the wife and the family. And here in this passage, to the astonishment of those who criticise Paul, he speaks of each equally owning the body of the other. What do you make of this?

Phillip: It’s not just Paul who acknowledges those kinds of differences; Peter says much the same thing in 1 Peter 3. And while we may not actually be sure of Paul’s marital status—whether he’s a widow or whether he never married—we know that Peter married because he had a mother-in-law. But this passage is a great illustration of Paul’s view of mutuality. The ESV translates it as “conjugal rights”, but I think the NIV’s translation as “marital duty” is better; or the Holman Bible, which speaks of responsibility. That is because what we’re dealing with here is a command. It’s not a piece of counselling advice, but something that is owed, because sex is integral to the very act of marriage itself. I’ve met people who have tried to have sexless marriage, which defies the very point of marriage.

So verse 4 doesn’t start with the word ‘for’, despite the translations that try to put it that way. We don’t have something that is causal here, but rather an explanation. In our translation, it says, “For the wife doesn’t have authority,” but the original text just tells us, “The wife doesn’t have authority.” He’s not giving a cause for verse 3; he just gives the explanation of what marriage is about. Thus, what he’s saying is that this mutuality is exclusive. Our bodies belong to each other, to our husband or to our wife, and not to some other person. The very character of this relationship is that we have our body for our spouse and no other. Furthermore, authority is not by conquest, but freely given, in the consensual marriage of two persons, a man and a woman. Yet this mutuality is not egalitarian in the context of Paul and of Peter; it’s complementarian. The husband and the wife are not the same. One is a man, the other is a woman. They have different sexual drives and sexual needs, but each is provided for the other, and each is to provide only for the other.

Peter: Indeed, and verse 5 offers another explanatory statement about what he’s been saying. 1 Corinthians 7:5

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.

This is an explanatory statement of what you’ve been saying: don’t deprive each other of the sexual relations agreed upon when you entered into marriage, except by agreement between the two of you. Paul does not say that it’s just the husband who is the boss, for the decision is to be made by agreement between the husband and wife. Furthermore, it is to be for a limited time, so that people are not moving into asceticism. Prayer is mentioned here as a reason to abstain, but there are other possible reasons: it could be illness, for example. There are also times when sexual relations in marriage are simply not possible, and it is important to know that it’s not the norm, but it is necessary. In these moments, self-control needs to be exhibited here. But then, Paul tells husbands and wives to come together again once they can, in order to avoid Satan’s temptation to indulgence and lack of self-control.

Phillip: The marriage bed is not to be a place of warfare, but a place of mutual agreement and of consent. One is not to withhold for the sake of winning an argument or anything like that. Sex is a part of married life and our provision is for each other. This passage is a description of mutuality in decision, the importance of not sinning, an indication of the reason for marriage—not only to have children—and the reality of sexual motivation. These are all caught up in these wonderful few verses. But notice verse 6, where Paul describes this as “a concession, not a command.” You don’t have to deprive one another for a season if you don’t want to. It’s not as though when you pray, you mustn’t have sex with each other. It’s a concession he’s making. If you choose to do this, provided you’re choosing it together and for a season, it’s a choice that is available to you, which is right and proper.

Peter: Yes, so let’s go back to the beginning. How do you best glorify God in your body? It’s not to stop having sex.

Phillip: No, it’s certainly not. It’s in finding God’s way to have sex. It’s a funny way to put it, but not if you believe in the Creator who’s created our bodies, and that sex is part of our creation. In this case, within marriage, God’s way to have sex is in the right place, at the right time, in the right way, with the right person. The commandment is not simply to get married. It’s to get married in order to live as married people do under God, rather than as the pagans who abuse the relationship.

2

Ibid.

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Links & Recommendations

For more on this topic, check out this talk given at St Andrews Cathedral called Sexual Morality.

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The commandments of 1 Corinthians 6:15-20 are obvious: flee sexual immorality and glorify God in your body. However, Paul does not simply give commandments; he gives the rationale behind them. The rationale has to do with the meaning of the body in his thinking in terms of our creation, our resurrection, and our marital union with Christ. This densely argued paragraph provides for us a Christian understanding of ourselves as well as our motivation to live Christianly. I hope you enjoy hearing Peter and I struggling to grasp Paul’s reasoning.

Yours,

Phillip

Phillip Jensen: Today, we’re going to focus on the last part of 1 Corinthians 6. 1 Corinthians 6:15–20

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

It’s interesting that 3 times, Paul asks, “Do you not know?” He’s appealing to the Christian knowledge that this church, caught up in immorality, is supposed to have. But there are many twists and turns in this passage.

Peter Jensen: Yes, it’s like listening to someone talking on the phone, and only knowing what the person on one end is saying. It’s no wonder that, according to the experts, this is one of the most difficult passages of Paul’s writings. Even the Apostle Peter says, in 2 Peter 3, that there were some things in Paul’s letters which were hard to understand. If the Apostle Peter found them hard, then it’s not surprising that we do too. But in fact, this passage is filled with significance and richness, so let’s continue to unpack it as far as we are able.

Phillip: Well, in the last episode, we discussed the importance of context. In that instance, the context was that despite their sinful old culture, the Corinthians were now washed, sanctified, justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God. In a theological fashion, you pointed out that in addressing their problems, Paul appeals to the context of the biblical teaching as a whole: creation, sin, redemption, and the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The two words you used last week were ‘Christology’ and ‘anthropology’. How does that all work here in verses 15–20?

Peter: Let’s begin by thinking about the body, because that turns up repeatedly here. In the part of the passage we looked at previously, Paul reminds us that God created all things to be good, which includes food and the body. Even though they pass away, the resurrection of Jesus shows us that our future is embodied. In the resurrection of Jesus, our future has arrived.

Phillip: He’s still embodied, which I believe many people don’t grasp. But it wasn’t that he just became bodily for a few days to show his disciples, for the Ascension of Jesus is the ascension of a body.

Peter: Indeed, and Acts 17 tells us that the judgement will be conducted by a man whom God has appointed by raising him from the dead. This therefore tells us that our future is embodied, not merely spiritual. But we’re also told that our bodies are the domain of Christ. In other words, he rules over us: body, soul, and spirit, if you like. Our bodies belong to him, and of course, that is where we find true peace, true assurance, and true freedom. But the ongoing language of the body is quite puzzling.

Phillip: The body is more than just your physical organs: it’s you. You just mentioned “body, soul and spirit,” but the New Testament doesn’t differentiate those in any consistent pattern. The 3 go together as one person, and the language of ‘body’ is present throughout the Scriptures. It’s not just that the spirit is meant for the Lord; your body is also meant for the Lord. Christ made you in body, that you will serve him, that you will be his. But the Bible’s view of the body then is creational and resurrectional.

We’re not a spirit without a body, but a spirit-animated body. We believe in the resurrection of the body. Jesus still has bodily existence in heaven and we too, with our bodies, will be with him. What we do with our bodies, therefore, is what we do with ourselves. But there’s more to it than that in the Bible. For in marriage, a husband and wife become one flesh with each other, so that Paul speaks in Ephesians of a man’s wife as his body. It’s in this way of thinking that Paul speaks of the church as the body of Christ, because the church is the bride of Christ. We are united to him as his bride, which he purchased by his blood that was shed for us. These days, we don’t like thinking of brides being purchased, but that is part of the idea that, by his death on the cross, Christ purchased his bride. As such, we are individually members of his body.

But our unity with him is not in sex, but in having his Holy Spirit within us, animating us. So our bodies are the temple, or the home of the Holy Spirit. So, given that background, we come to the context of marriage that Paul is writing about: the issue of sexual immorality, particularly the problem of joining our bodies to a prostitute. For to unite yourself to a prostitute is to unite a member of Christ’s body to a prostitute, which is to unite the temple of the Holy Spirit to a prostitute. To do such an action is to sin against your own body, the body that is for the Lord. Instead, we are to glorify God not only in our spirits, but also in our body. I would like to note here—because our society is today very worried about the demonisation of prostitutes—that what is being spoken of here is sexual immorality in a broader sense. I think that the same would be said by Paul if the issue was of fornication rather than joining with a prostitute. But here, he is speaking of the uniting of your body, a member of Christ and the vessel of the Holy Spirit, with someone who is in an inappropriate relationship for you to unite yourself to them.

Peter: You’re saying that we are members of the body of Christ. Is that in a metaphorical sense?

Phillip: Yes, in that we are members of the bride of Christ, which is a metaphorical way of understanding the relationship that the church has with Christ.

Peter: How does that impact our understanding of our physical bodies?

Phillip: My body is symbolic of the relationship between the church and Christ, and it is part of that bride of Christ.

Peter: In Corinth and perhaps even more in our own society, there’s an immense amount of permissiveness around sex; for instance, people don’t think that a sexual ‘hookup’ is all that significant. Is it?

Phillip: Of course a sexual hookup is significant, because the sexual union is that. It is something fundamentally different to all other sins, because it is the connection of one body with another. Within marriage, this is a good and wonderful thing that God has created us for, which is symbolic of Christ and the church, as our prayer book wedding service spells out for us. But outside of marriage, it is an expression of our sinfulness, and it is a sin against our own bodily integrity.

Peter: Thus, the culture which allows for all sorts of sexual relations to occur is damaging to those involved. It’s creating a profound, deep relationship which will later be discarded. It is a travesty, a destruction, a corruption of relationships.

Phillip: It is the abuse of the relationship in the first place, because that is not how the body is to be used. Furthermore, going back to last week, there is an element of slavery too, because the more you commit this act, the more you will be enslaved by it. The very nature of sexual relationships is undermined by their frequency, therefore, as opposed to their loving consistency.

Peter: Verse 17 uses this strange expression, “But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.” You might expect Paul to say “one body”, but instead, it’s “one spirit”.

Phillip: Yes, because in our relationship with Jesus Christ, we are not one flesh in a sexual relationship with him; we are one flesh in that we have his Spirit within us. To be Christian is to be born again by the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, and so we are united to him because we are the temple of his Spirit.

Peter: In this instance, should the word ‘spirit’ have a capital or a lowercase ‘S’?

Phillip: Here’s the problem with our English translation: in the Greek, everything was written in capitals, and so our translators always have to work out whether to use upper case, to indicate that they’re referring to the Holy Spirit, or lower case to indicate that it is our spirit. In the instance when the passage talks about us being ‘one spirit’ with him, I would stick with the lower case.

Peter: That’s interesting. It reminds me of 1 Corinthians 15, which talks about our resurrection body as a spiritual body. That doesn’t mean our bodies are not physical, rather our bodies will be ruled by the Holy Spirit.

Phillip: That’s right, but it’s also an eschatological figure you would like to know. That is, the Spirit is the age to come. The first part of 1 Peter 3:18 tells us, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” It’s a lovely verse, and at that point I would want to end the sentence, but Peter goes on, “Being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.”

This doesn’t mean that Jesus died physically and then spiritually rose, because the Old Testament makes it quite clear that he rose bodily. So what does it mean to say that Jesus rose and was made alive in the spirit? I take it that the flesh is symbolic of this world, while the spirit is symbolic of the world to come. You find the same thing in Revelation 1:10, where John was “In the Spirit on the Lord’s day,” meaning that he’s in the age to come, the age of the Spirit. When we come to chapters 12–14 of 1 Corinthians, we will be dealing with the spirituals, which has this overtone of the age to come that is broken into this world. And Jesus, though dying in this world, was also raised in the world to come.

Peter: You’ve demonstrated a key point in my thinking; that is to say, eschatology, which is the doctrine of the last things, infuses the whole New Testament, particularly as the resurrection in a sense is the beginning of the end. But that’s for another day.

For now, what are the implications? I go back to Christology, pneumatology (the doctrine of the Holy Spirit), and anthropology. “Such were some of you,” he says earlier in the passage, but now they are owned by the Lord Jesus Christ. He owns us through his death for us on the cross, expressed in our union with him and foreshadowed in his resurrection from the dead. That’s the first thing, Christ’s Lordship. Then we come to what it says about the Spirit. We have the presence of the Spirit who brings with him the Father and the Son, and we are temples. We all know about Solomon’s temple, one temple in one place at one time; but we are temples indwelt by the living God, the Spirit being the gift of God. That’s an astonishing thing to say of any human being, and it’s true of all Christians. Therefore, both in the present and in the future, we don’t own our bodies. This is our anthropology. When we repent, we don’t just have remorse; we have repentance. In repentance, you turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and you trust him, and he becomes Lord of your life, as this passage says. Our bodies are his domain. Of course, the law is still important in the Christian life: “Love God, love your neighbor,” is the summary of the law. But at the heart of it is a relationship with God. It is because of the grace of God, and all the things that he has done, that our aim in life is to glorify him in our bodies.

Another way of saying it is found in 2 Corinthians 5:9, “We make it our aim to please him.” The aim of your life is to please God. To find out what pleases God, you read his Word. So we express our freedom by an obligation to love God and to love others. Here, and here alone, is purpose, meaning, hope and joy of true freedom. Here is a doctrine of humanity which goes to the heart of the truth. It’s about relationships, not legalism, important though the law may be. Nor is it about anarchy, doing whatever we want. Our aim in life is to please him and express that in our love for others; particularly our other brothers and sisters, but not only them. So if those are the implications, what does this mean for Christians living in the age of permissiveness?

Phillip: That’s the background in our thinking and understanding, which is so important to stop us from just being rule-keepers. But the trouble with just the theological reflection is that people can have their reflection and still ignore the rules. Here, there are two commands which are made absolutely clear: flee from sexual immorality, and glorify God in your body.

What do we mean, “flee from sexual immorality”? I always think of Joseph; when he was in Egypt and his master’s wife sought to seduce him, he ran away naked. Like Joseph, we must flee. We tempt ourselves by our discontentment in our relationships, but if we’re in a relationship, we must walk a country mile away from any physical intimacy with anybody else. If we’re lonely, we need to keep our minds on what is pure and what is holy. If we’re in the company of people, we must beware of the adulterer, as the book of Proverbs warns us of. If we’re already in adultery, we need to get out of it, and we need to get out of it now, not in the future. We will say more on that later, when we come to 1 Corinthians 7.

We must glorify God in our body, because our body, being the temple of the Holy Spirit and members of the bride of Christ, symbolises something so important. I think of 2 Corinthians 11 where Paul, talking about heresy and about people moving away from the Lord Jesus Christ, uses the language of betrothal, which was a legal contract. 2 Corinthians 11:1–4

I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

Here’s a great error: we’ve been betrothed to Christ, and so we must glorify God in our bodies as members of the bride of Christ, and as the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Links & Recommendations

For more on this topic, check out this sermon from St Matthias Evening Church called The Gospel and Sexual Liberality.

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Hard passages of the Bible are great passages. The reason that they are hard is because we are not thinking biblically. Wrestling with these hard passages gives us the opportunity to change our thinking in order to be aligned with biblical thinking. 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 is notoriously difficult, and over the next two weeks, Peter and I are going to try to unravel some of its complexities. We start today by looking at the context.

Yours,

Phillip

Phillip Jensen: Today we’re going to be looking at a small passage in the second half of 1 Corinthians 6.

Peter Jensen: 1 Corinthians 6:12–14

“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.

Phillip: This passage is only 3 verses, but it is difficult.

Peter: It is. Brian Rosner describes it in his commentary, The First Letter to the Corinthians, as being, “Widely acknowledged to be one of the most difficult passages in Paul’s letters.”1

Phillip: In my view, the hard passages are the important ones. In one sense, there are no hard passages; there are just confused brains. They’re hard for us because we’re not thinking in the way in which the author was thinking, and so we are forced to ask questions about our understanding and assumptions.

What are some of the issues we have with this passage?

Peter: Regarding the beginning of verse 12, who is saying, “All things are lawful to me”? Is it the apostle or is it the reader who says it, and why? Furthermore, what does Paul mean in saying, “Not all things are helpful?” ‘Helpful’ is a rather uncharacteristically weak word. In addition, particularly in the face of such blatant antinomianism (lawlessness), why make such an obvious point about food and the stomach, and then have it turned into threatening words about God destroying both food and stomach? And then there’s this strange skip to sexual immorality. Where did that come from?

Phillip: Context, context, context! We must always look at the context. Yes, these 3 or 4 sentences seem to jump from topic to topic, but the key is to look back at the context. Chapters 5 and 6 have been referring to flagrant acts of sexual immorality of all types. But notice how the chapter ends: by addressing sexually immoral people inside the Corinthian church. It seems that some members of the Corinthian church were doing what the world did and running wildly into sexuality; back in chapter 5, one person was doing something so immoral that even the world wouldn’t have approved of it. They seemed to be justifying their behaviour through an appeal to a twisted version of the gospel about freedom. Their thinking was, “I’m free from the law now, so I can do what I want.”

Peter: On the subject of context, I believe it’s worth observing Paul’s great words just before this passage. As he says in 1 Corinthians 6:11, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

Phillip: How does this context help you in reading this passage?

Peter: It paves the way for the fundamental theme of what Paul is saying here. He is not a moralist. That is to say, when we’re talking about freedom from the law, he is not saying that people must keep the law of Moses in order to be saved, nor does he merely tell people to stop breaking the law. Rather, he models an approach to living as a Christian. I would say that he appeals to biblical Christology; that is to say, the teaching of the Bible about Christ and about anthropology. Further, he appeals to what the Bible says about these 2 great subjects to expose the weaknesses in the other approach that was being endorsed in Corinth.

Phillip: In the next passage, Paul says, “Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!” In one sense, he sounds like a moralist for simply forbidding this action, yet he gives a reason for this view. In other words, he doesn’t just chastise people for this error, but he explains why it is wrong.

Peter: Indeed, and just as he told them their lives were utterly changed by the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit, so he applies the gospel to their situation.

Phillip: That then brings us to the aspect of Christology that we’re talking of, being the resurrection of the body in the Lordship of Christ. 1 Corinthians 6:14, “And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power,” deals with, as you would call it, anthropology. It’s got to do with our bodies being raised as Jesus’ body is raised. Inherent in this anthropology is our creation, especially in relationships. We were created in relationships: in relationship to God, and in relationship with each other, male and female. And the great value for us here is that we live in this world, in Sydney, in the same world in which the Corinthians lived in Corinth. That is a world where we’ve been created bodily, in relationship with God, and we are coming to a time of the resurrection when we will be again like the Lord Jesus Christ. But right now, we are living with him as our Lord. Just as the Corinthians were seduced back into sexual immorality, into living in a way inconsistent with their creation and their salvation, so our society is pushing the same sexual immorality. We do need to hear what the Apostle Paul has to say, not just in rules and regulations, but in rationale.

Peter: Yes, and that’s seen right here in the opening. Most translations put the statement, “All things are lawful for me” in inverted commas to denote a quotation from another source. In other words, it’s used by the Corinthians as a slogan, and interestingly, it fits our contemporary world perfectly, as we encourage each other with slogans like, “You do you,” and “Do what pleases you best.” I presume, based on what we read elsewhere in Paul’s writings, that this is a sort of perversion of his preaching of justification by faith. Some Christians, having heard that they are justified by faith alone, now abuse the doctrine as though it is a charter for self-centred lawlessness.

Phillip: Lawlessness is always condemned in the New Testament. It’s one thing to break the law; it’s another thing to place yourself outside the law. The sovereign citizen movement, for instance, places people outside the law, so that it no longer has any application to those within. But justification is not about placing yourself outside the law, nor is it simply about God ignoring the law, forgiving everybody for everything no matter what they do. That kind of forgiveness is not forgiveness, but acceptance, and when you are willing to accept anything anybody does without punishment, that’s just approval of bad behaviour. Instead, God justifies us.

The very word ‘justified’ has a legal overtone. God justifies us by his Son fulfilling the law for us, and paying the penalty for our failure to obey the law. In that way, the law is upheld while genuine forgiveness is secured at the supreme cost of the death of Christ. But I’m surprised at what looks like a very weak response from Paul, in the phrase, “not all things are helpful.” ‘Helpful’ seems like a pretty weak moral term.

Peter: That’s what struck me too. Other translations use the word ‘beneficial’, which is slightly better, but it doesn’t push us much further. But I believe that what the Apostle is appealing to is one of the points made before, namely that our standing with God is relational. That is, true freedom is not simply the abandonment of law and so forth, because the New Testament tells us that law is good. People didn’t understand then what freedom means, nor do they understand it now. The Corinthians, by saying that all things are lawful, have failed to love. When Paul says “It is not helpful,” what he means is that it is not beneficial to the fellowship, to others. Therefore, those who say “All things are lawful for me,” do not keep the heart of the law, which is an obligation that we all have, not in order to be saved, but as people who have been saved and are now living as God wants us to.

So relationships, as you pointed out, are integral to the theology of the passage. And that is where their view of freedom, and our contemporary views of freedom, are exposed as absolutely shallow and indeed inhuman. You see, Paul also says, “I will not be dominated by anything.” Freedom is not the ability to do whatever you want to do, for that simply leads to domination by sin. As Jesus said in John 8:34, “Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.” Rather, true freedom is a discovery of who you are meant to be, and the capacity to live according to who you are designed to be.

I always loved the great illustration used by the American poet Robert Frost, who said that, “Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.” That is to say, true freedom—the true capacity to play tennis, in that case—depends upon a limitation to freedom. Who we are, therefore, determines what freedom really is. For us, our true freedom as human beings is found where we were designed to find it: in submission to Christ. Freedom depends on finding the best Lord, and in Christ, you find the Lord who is the greatest of all, and he will set you free.

Phillip: Indeed. The phrase, “All things are lawful for me” is said twice in that verse. The first response to it is “Not all things are helpful”, but the second response ups the ante: “I will not be enslaved by anything.” So while ‘helpful’ may feel like a weak word, ‘enslaved’ feels like a very powerful word. Because while we may think freedom means that we can do what we want, in reality, what we want to do will enslave us, for that is the character of sin itself.

Peter: It is not a true picture of what freedom really is. How does this all fit in with references to the stomach and to food?

Phillip: Context is still key. You see, Paul could be referring to the context of the Corinthian situation, because in chapters 8 and 9, the discussion of legalism and freedom comes up again as to whether people are free to eat food offered to idols, or whether that will bring them into condemnation. Part of the answer to that has to do with your earlier point about relationships. That is, in this situation, the Corinthians had failed to ask, “What is in the best interest of others for my liberty to be exercised in eating food offered to idols?” So Paul in chapter 6 could be laying the foundation for that later discussion, although it’s slightly more likely that he is again quoting the Corinthians. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food.” Again, our translation here puts this phrase in quotation marks, meaning it’s likely that the Corinthians are saying it.

In that case, they’re arguing in a way like Aristotle, who saw that the purpose for something gave it its meaning and its morality: the eye is for seeing, the ear is for hearing, and so on. Likewise, the stomach is for eating. And according to the Corinthians, as the stomach is for food and food is for the stomach, both of them are going to be destroyed by God, so it really doesn’t matter what you eat. It’s neither here nor there. From which you can then make the next argument, “The body was meant for sex.” Then it doesn’t matter what you do in that regard either, because as the stomach is going to be destroyed, so will the body be destroyed. So your sexual relations don’t matter any more than what kind of food you eat.

Peter: And they were arguing that this is Christian?

Phillip: They were Christians who were arguing for this behaviour. It takes a time for Christian thinking to change the Christian person. We come as Christians in an Australian culture, and it takes some time for the absolute understanding of the gospel to whittle away the Australian culture that we’ve just taken for granted. The same applies to the Corinthians.

Peter: Referring back to this idea of the body being destroyed and so forth, is Paul’s point that it is the spirit that matters, not the body?

Phillip: No, that’s not right. The Greeks did not like the body; to them, the spirit was everything. The body was seen within certain aspects of Greek philosophy as a prison, as an evil thing in itself. But we are not created as embodied for no purpose and no future. The body is the person and the person has a Lord. We are creatures, created bodily, and we therefore need to look at the purpose of the body. In doing so, we look back to creation, which gives us the biblical attitude of both the matter and the spirit. The purpose of the human body—that is, the purpose of the human person—is to serve Christ. I do not serve him bodiless. My body is me and I am my body. For all things, including your body, soul, and spirit, were made for him.

Peter: And the fate of Christ after death was not merely to live on as a soul or spirit; he was resurrected.

Phillip: Yes, and this idea that we believe in the resurrection of the body is so central to Christianity. Not the reincarnation into a different body, nor just a soul somehow being amalgamated into the spirit world. God raised Jesus from the dead bodily, and he will also raise us up by his same power, bodily. The bodily resurrection of Jesus and of Christian people is one of the fundamental distinctive characteristics of Christianity itself, and of course is very much at the heart of the gospel. The death of the Lord Jesus Christ for our sins, and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ who is victorious over death, sin and Satan, must never be diminished. The resurrection is important, but it is a bodily resurrection. The tomb is empty, and Jesus’ real body appears. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus eats fish in front of the disciples as a demonstration that his body is a real body. He tells Thomas to reach out and put his fingers in the marks of his hands where he was crucified. Thus, Jesus’ body is a real physical body, the same body resurrected. And as Jesus’ body is resurrected, ours is to be resurrected. So while the stomach will be destroyed, it is to be resurrected into eternity.

Peter: It’s a revolution. By the way, please notice too that Paul digs deeply in this passage into Christology and anthropology—the doctrine of Christ and the doctrine of human beings respectively—to answer their questions and correct their worldly ideas. Of course, you rightly pointed out that context earlier, but we need to summon up our theological context, what the Bible as a whole teaches about these things, in order to see the whole truth emerge from a passage like this.

Phillip: ‘Context’ is a wonderful word, because it refers to the grammar of the sentence, the paragraph, the book in which it is written, the Testament in which it is, and the Bible as a whole. All of that is caught up in the ‘context’ of a passage. So I would say that Paul is laying here some very important foundations for the challenge he’s going to give to the Corinthians in the next few verses about their sexual immorality with prostitution.

1

Brian S. Rosner and Roy E. Ciampa, “The First Letter to the Corinthians”, 2010 (Eerdmans)

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Links & Recommendations

For more on this topic, check out this talk on 1 Corinthians 6 given at St Andrew’s Cathedral on the topic of Sexual Immorality.

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If you enjoy Two Ways News, why not lend us a hand? Consider joining our Supporters Club—friends who make it possible for us to keep producing this article/podcast.

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If ever there is a passage of the Bible that has caused controversy and division today, it is 1 Corinthians 6:9—11. There is not much doubt as to what the passage says or means, yet the application of this passage in the church and in society has led to great conflict. In today’s episode, Peter outlines something of the background of the conflict within the Anglican Communion over the last two decades, before we turn to the real pastoral importance of this passage in the lives of the leaders.

Yours,

Phillip

Phillip Jensen: Before we get into this week’s episode, we would like to encourage you to invite your friends and family members to subscribe so that we can share the news of 1 Corinthians to a wider audience.

Last week, we looked at 1 Corinthians 6:1–8 and discussed the question of disagreements between brothers that require reconciliation. But this week’s passage is quite stark. 1 Corinthians 6:9–11

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Peter Jensen: That is confronting, especially in the age of the Sexual Revolution, and also due to the power of the warning. In other words, if you continue to practice these things, you will be lost.

Phillip: It says twice that they “will not inherit the kingdom of God.” It’s hard to be more explicit than that. This is the passage that got Israel Folau, a Rugby Union footballer, into trouble. After he read and discussed the passage in his church, the Rugby Union cancelled his contract. I know there are disagreements about the basis on which they did it, but we all know, underneath it all, he was making a point here about entering the kingdom of God that people objected to, particularly the homosexual community. Similarly in Melbourne 2 years ago, Andrew Thorburn was appointed as the CEO of the Essendon Football Club, and the next day was forced to resign because years before, the church in which he was a member spoke on issues of sexual morality and marriage. The Essendon Football Club took objection to this, and so he was forced to resign. We have this difficulty in that a subject that 30 or 40 years ago could barely be mentioned has now been one of such widespread or powerfully spread promotion that you can’t even express a disagreement without at least chastisement. In the early 2000s, our federal government ruled that marriage was between a man and a woman; by 2017, the federal government ruled that marriage could be between people of the same sex. Now, if you speak against that, you are in trouble in the community, and may lose your job. But this passage deals with something greater than losing a football contract. These are very important subjects.

Peter: They are. First of all, here is a list of sins seen by Paul to be so grave that to live in accordance with them has dire consequences; you will not inherit the kingdom of God. It is a life and death matter which has had a vast impact on many places, but particularly on the worldwide Anglican church in the last 30 years.

The Anglican Communion, as it’s called, is not like Roman Catholicism. It’s more of a worldwide fellowship of independent denominations, depending on the country you’re in, which share the same history and much of the same theological basis, structure and liturgy. In its present form, it traces back to the Reformation. Central to the unity which has been maintained has been a fellowship with the Archbishop of Canterbury. He has been seen as the first amongst equals, so to speak, thus he has the capacity to call a conference called the Lambeth Conference every 10 years of all the bishops around the Anglican Communion.

Phillip: The Anglican Communion is a bit like the gathering of a very big extended family, in that all of the Anglicans have come out of England.

Peter: Yes, and when I travel around the world as an ordained person, my ministry is largely accepted. So when I lived in England for three-and-a-half years, I was allowed to minister. There are applications of this that are not insignificant; for example, there’s the way in which the churches in more wealthy countries try to look after those in poorer countries with financial support and with personnel. It’s not simply that once every 10 years, the bishops get together in communion. As you pointed out, we also have a shared history, and so what goes on in England is still particularly important to us.

Phillip: I remember the Lambeth Conference in 1998 when the Sydney bishops returned delighted that the conference had rightly and overwhelmingly decided that same-sex relations were inconsistent with the Scriptures and were not to be accepted within the Anglican Church.

Peter: I also remember them coming back, and partly because their advice and wisdom had been part of creating the document that spelled this out. Yet within five years or less, some Canadians and particularly the United States Anglicans, who are called Episcopalians, had gone ahead to bless same-sex relations despite what the Lambeth Conference had said. The Lambeth Conference is not a legal entity, so it does not make laws, but it was overwhelmingly in favour of supporting the traditional view of sexuality.

With some difficulty up until then, the Communion had stayed together over the advent of female clergy. This was also a fairly disputed subject which caused division, but people stayed together because that was not a matter of life and death. I have dear women friends who have been ordained. I don’t think they’ve lost their salvation as a result, although I do disagree with them. But as we can see from this passage, the practice of same-sex relationships and other sinful relationships put you outside the kingdom of God. It threatens your eternal salvation, which makes it very significant.

Phillip: Before we look at the significance in this passage, we should continue talking about the Anglicans for a while. How did the Orthodox Episcopalians—the ones who believed in the Scriptures—respond to the acceptance of same-sex marriage?

Peter: About 100,000 Episcopalians decided that they could no longer stay in their denomination with a clear conscience, so they withdrew. They lost many of their buildings as they did so, but they preferred to bear such losses over staying in a denomination which had made this decision, which to their mind went against the teaching of God’s Word. Subsequently, the same thing has happened in New Zealand, in Brazil, in Wales, in Scotland, and other places.

Phillip: What happened with the property issues?

Peter: Most of the court rulings went against the leavers, and so they lost their property. I remember one minister telling me that he and his whole congregation had left their building. I saw this building once; it was magnificent. But this large congregation left to meet in the local school, and some years later, they built a new building.

Phillip: That’s hard because often, the building is paid for by the congregation, not the denomination.

Peter: Leaving a building can be heart-rending for that reason, but also because the building is where members of the congregation were married, or where funeral services took place. Nonetheless, people sacrificed for the sake of the Word of God. In fact, the minister said to me that he never felt more free than when he left and was able to preach the whole Word of God without it being damaged by others.

In the following 5 years after these congregations left, there were many efforts all around the Anglican Communion to get the Americans and the Canadians to repent, but they refused to do so. So when the next Lambeth Conference was held in 2008, the then Archbishop of Canterbury had an impossible decision to make on whether or not he would invite the whole of the bishops of the Episcopal Church who had agreed to this. He decided to invite them, and so a large group of us decided that we could not attend the conference, so we set up our own conference in Jerusalem called GAFCON. It was at this conference that we took the key step of disassociating ourselves from the offending churches as we saw them, and recognising those who are left as the true Anglicans. GAFCON recognised their Anglican authenticity, which the successive archbishops have never been able to bring themselves to do.

Phillip: It raises the question of what it means to be Anglican. Is my Anglicanism just a matter of birth, or is it a matter of confession? Is every Englishman a member of the Church of England, or only those who believe in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ?

But first, can you tell me what GAFCON stands for?

Peter: GAFCON stands for the Global Anglican Fellowship Conference. But of course, this conference has now turned into a movement.

Phillip: What are the achievements of these last 20 years of GAFCON?

Peter: There are many, but the one that I think is most significant is that, when the true Anglicans had to leave their churches for conscience’s sake and at some sacrifice, GAFCON helped them to start their own Anglican churches. In other words, the real heart of GAFCON is fellowship and communion. Not having fellowship with those who have disobeyed the Bible on a clear and vital matter, but having fellowship with those who have obeyed it. Essentially, this demonstrates that the authority of scripture is preeminent.

Phillip: The genuine Anglicans are not cradle Anglicans, but confessional Anglicans. So GAFCON was born and goes on to this day.

There is a new Archbishop of Canterbury, however, and she has made it clear that homosexual practices and partnership has her support. What does that do for the crisis that’s been happening for the last 20 years?

Peter: In the past, we have called the Archbishop of Canterbury “he”, which has been the case for the last 104 of them, but now we call her “she”.

Phillip: Does that make a difference at this point?

Peter: The Anglican Communion before 1998 had women priests and had women bishops shortly thereafter. Though this created tensions, it didn’t break the Communion because it wasn’t, in that sense, a salvation issue. But the advent of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, who has made it clear that she is in favour of homosexual practices, has made a difference. The Church of England has not gone down this path as yet, although it’s been debating it in its synod. Perhaps it never will, because there’s a fair bit of objection to it, but there are also a large number of people agitating for it. I’ve discussed this at length to illustrate the sheer importance of the disagreements, which we call “salvation issues”: issues which put at risk your inheritance in the kingdom of God. It means that there are moments when we need to stand back from fellowship and call for repentance. It’s not that we’ve washed our hands of the Americans; it is that we long for them to turn back and adopt the biblical teaching once more.

Phillip: Just to be clear, we do have strong disagreements, for example, about a woman Archbishop of Canterbury, but GAFCON is not separating from Anglicanism or maintaining that Anglicanism is separated from us because of the female Archbishop. I’ve seen that idea in secular media, but it’s not true.

Peter: It is to do with the stand she has made on this key subject. Though it’s not necessarily a helpful phrase, this is what I call a salvation issue.

Phillip: However, having ordination of women and consecration of women as bishops has created enormous strains in how we operate together. It’s not like that’s nothing.

Peter: No, it’s not. As I said before, one of the features of the Anglican Communion has been that I can go to England, to Africa, to South America and be with my fellow Anglicans. The fact that I’m an authentic minister is recognised in those places. But now, because of the disagreement based on our understanding of Scripture, since the ‘80s and ‘90s there has been a tension in the Anglican Church of Australia. Certainly, the appointment of a woman Archbishop in Canterbury does create its own tension. For example, the Nigerian Church, which is the largest group of Anglicans in the world, do not agree with this. So if the Archbishop of Canterbury visits Nigeria, will she be able to conduct Holy Communion? How will she be recognised with respect to her office, but also with the desire to keep the teaching of God’s Word?

Phillip: We no longer have mutually acceptable orders. But given the explicit nature of 1 Corinthians 6, the issue of homosexuality is in the list of things that prevent you from being in the kingdom of heaven.

But the first thing to notice about this list is the word “deceived”. Sin fools us. We’re all fools at different times, but it’s sin which fools us. We’re warned by the Apostle that there are certain sins that have this deceptive quality. In Galatians 5:21, where he talks about the works of the flesh, he says, “I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Additionally, in Ephesians 5:6, he says, “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” So these sinful things have a deceptive quality that lead people to accept them.

Peter: Why is that the case if they are fairly obviously sinful?

Phillip: Firstly, we fool ourselves into thinking that God’s grace is expressed in freedom from sin: that he will forgive anything and everything at all times. That’s a very poor understanding of the love of God which removes the turning aside of God’s wrath through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, as well as the repentance.

Secondly, so sinful are our hearts that we are very good at making exceptions and excuses for ourselves, finding a reason why God wouldn’t possibly condemn us: “What I’m doing is just natural to me because of the situation I’m in.” Therefore we can excuse almost anything. I’ve had friends excuse their adultery to me. They tell me that given how their wife had treated them, it’s not their fault that the girl in the office was now attractive to them. “It’s not really adultery because the marriage had dried up anyway,” they say.

Thirdly, the world is constantly telling me that sin is okay, and we succumb to the voice of Satan that is expressed in this world. In movies today, there is an acceptance of certain sexual immorality and of drunkenness. The world is not saying that if you do these things, you will be excluded from the kingdom of God; it is denying these very things. Sinful as the list looks, it’s fascinating how easily we’re deceived.

Peter: Indeed, and it’s important to underscore this because the discussion we’ve just had about GAFCON, which happens to be centred on one of the sins mentioned in the passage, may make it feel as though sexual immorality is what this is all about, and the Bible is denouncing this as the worst of all possible sins. But this passage is certainly not just about sexual sins.

Phillip: The list goes: the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, men who practice homosexuality, thieves, greedy, drunkards, revilers, and swindlers. There’s no hierarchy of sins. We mustn’t try and downplay it as if homosexuality is not in this list, but so is adultery, greediness, the love of money, drunkenness, swindling, and slandering. These, too, are sins that would exclude one from the kingdom of heaven. It is important to notice that it is about more than just sexual sins that we’re talking about, while at the same time not using that to downplay or exclude sexual sins. It is also important to notice that it is about committing these sins repeatedly. It’s not that you are excluded from the kingdom of heaven if you commit these sins once; it’s about being habitual, because he goes on to say, “Such were some of you.” It’s not talking about being drunk once, but about being a drunkard. It’s not talking about being greedy once, but about being a greedy person. It’s the very lifestyle of it.

Peter: There are many people caught up in this. Now, it may be that you are tempted by alcohol, but that doesn’t make you an alcoholic. But we’ve got to recognise that there are temptations to sin which arise from the heart, from the way we are. We need to be sympathetic to people in that situation and encourage them not to capitulate to a lifestyle which will only damage them and others.

Phillip: Yes. I’ve spent many years working with alcoholic friends and helping them, as Christians, out of what I see as an addiction. That is, there are certain sins that, when practiced enough, become addictive. They change the synapses of your brain to make it a difficult thing for you to renounce. Whereas some people can drink without ever getting tempted to be drunk, there are some people who, as soon as they start drinking, can’t help but get drunk. They’re different in those situations. The Bible doesn’t speak against drinking alcohol (I say that as a teetotaller myself) but it is speaking against those who drink and get drunk. Getting drunk is not of the kingdom of God. If that is your continued practice, then you should stop it, because you can’t be a drunkard and a member of the kingdom of God. However, if you’ve reached the third stage that I mentioned a few moments ago, namely becoming an alcoholic, not getting drunk becomes an almost impossibility. My alcoholic friends get tremors when they haven’t drunk. It’s physiologically an addictive practice that requires considerable help. And help is available, both in counselling or through Alcoholics Anonymous or Overcomers Outreach. Just because you may have this addictive characteristic to a particular sin, that does not mean you must and will always be there. Now, my alcoholic friends will never say they’re cured. The alcoholic always says, “I’m in recovery,” because he knows that should he lapse, he will lapse hard. So they are in recovery, but they are forgiven by Jesus Christ. They are no longer drunkards. They’re alcoholics because they’re addicted, but they’re not drunkards because they don’t get drunk anymore.

Peter: So there is hope. There is a way back.

Phillip: That’s true in the homosexual world too. Though people may have tendencies; I won’t go into the reasons why, because there’s considerable disagreement on this. Practising homosexuality is a different thing. There are many Christians who have same-sex attraction for various reasons, but who do not practice homosexuality. A few weeks ago in Malta, a man called Matthew Grech was finally declared to be not guilty of breaking the law. He gave testimony to his conversion out of the gay lifestyle into Christianity, but was accused of promoting gay conversion. Three years of court cases have finally settled that he was not guilty of such a thing by declaring that he has changed. Many people say that you can’t change, but he has demonstrated that you can, as many others have as well. Whether he continues to be attracted to men or not, he is no longer practicing. That’s the point: that the gospel has changed his life, and in the same way that my alcoholic friends love the Lord Jesus Christ and are no longer drunkards. But sadly, you also see people who are drunkards and who think it doesn’t matter, that it’s fun. You cannot have that; repentance and faith has to be serious. So you’ll notice the change, “And such were some of you.” That is the path of forgiveness and justification of adoption.

Peter: But what if a professing Christian falls away?

Phillip: Think back to where we started in chapter 5. There was a man who was practicing incest—he had his father’s wife as his sexual partner. The church was to take action in order to save him. There’s always a way back through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ has paid for our sins, past, present, and future. But the way back starts with repentance. It involves turning to the Lord and leaving the sin behind. You can’t keep practicing the sin, because repentance is about turning back. It’s not simply remorse. The question is, are you turning away from that and finding the forgiveness that is in Jesus?

Peter: This has been an interesting and difficult conversation. But some of our listeners, I’m sure, may well be those who have found a habitual temptation arising perhaps from their personalities. What advice do you give?

Phillip: Firstly, all Christians are habitually tempted, so there’s nothing new or different about you.

Secondly, don’t try and solve the problem by washing away the idea that sin is sin. Don’t try and rationalise out of it. Recognise sin for what sin is, and recognise the dangerous grip that it can have on us, and worse, the exclusion from the kingdom of God. But recognising the power of Satan and his lies must be matched with a recognition of the far greater power of the forgiveness that comes through the death of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. And recognise that by his resurrection, the work of the Spirit is in our lives to bring us to repentance, change, and transformation.

So recognise that the sin is wrong. Turn to God and plead for the mercy that is available to us all in the death of Jesus. Ask for the power of the Spirit to work in bringing about the change. The fellowship of Christians is really helpful, for as we confess our sins to one another, we can encourage and build each other up in the gospel of the Lord Jesus.

Seek help, and do not accept the hopelessness that Satan will try and tempt you to believe.

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Links & Recommendations

For more on this topic, listen to this talk given at Moore Theological College chapel entitled Israel Folau has Caused a Controversy in Australia.

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1 Corinthians 6 opens with a very challenging issue of disputes within the congregation. The Corinthians seem to have blown up these minor disputes into lawsuits against each other. This raises for us a plethora of issues about resolving disputes inside the church and when it is appropriate and right to take issues beyond the church into public law courts. I’m sure you will find this issue as complex as Peter and I discovered in our conversation.

Yours,

Phillip

Phillip Jensen: In this episode, we will be looking at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 6.

Peter Jensen: 1 Corinthians 6:1–8

When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? 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? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? 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, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers!

This is a challenging passage. Once again, we are reminded the Corinthian church was far from perfect. The word ‘church’ to many people means ‘denomination’ – for example, the Anglican church or the Presbyterian church. But Paul is dealing here with disputes within the congregation, which is called ‘the church’. But what specific situation is Paul addressing?

Phillip: He’s not referring to the courts of the early Reformation period that just tried the clergy, but about grievances within the church. He speaks in terms of relatively trivial cases, such as disputes between brothers. Mind you, a dispute between brothers can entail being defrauded and suffering wrong, but generally speaking, it’s of small concern, and the matter can be settled by a wise person from within the ranks of the church. There’s the famous passage in Luke 12 where one man calls out to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” It’s an appeal for justice, yet Jesus tells him not to be greedy, then teaches the parable of the rich fool. Similarly, in Matthew 18:21, a man asks, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” to which Jesus says, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

So why does the apostle regard taking things beyond the church as a shameful thing? Why is it so vital that we shouldn’t take things to court?

Peter: Before I come to that, I must add that sometimes these relatively trivial disputes within a congregation can be extraordinarily painful and can lead to bad results. We’re not saying they’re just trivial in the sense that they’re all minor matters about, for instance, where you park on a Sunday.

Phillip: But sometimes minor things are large because of our emotional reaction to them, when in fact they are very small. A parking spot can cause terrific fights.

Peter: That’s perfectly true. So the matter itself can be relatively trivial, but the emotions involved may not be. The apostle here mentions going to law before unbelievers, and he suggests that this is a shameful thing that brings the gospel into disrepute. You can imagine how this is true, especially in a village community where everybody knows everyone else. The matter becomes public, and in the wrong way. The fact of a dispute causing such passions as to be taken to court can do nothing good for the standing of the church. It says little for the wisdom of the saints that they can’t judge their own matters. If you’re a Christian, you have a clearer picture of what love, forgiveness and justice are, which ought to equip you to judge. But this raises some tricky issues that are very relevant to our own day in a way. What about criminal cases, for example? Has there been a tendency to deal with these within a denomination rather than taking them to the police or to the courts?

Phillip: Criminal cases should be reported and/or go before the governmental courts. But our problem is a little bit with this word ‘criminal’, because at the moment, the word is used with 2 different connotations. Technically, the word ‘criminal’ just means ‘against government legislation’. But government legislation can be immoral. Under our present government with its long Christian history, most of our governmental laws are of a Christian nature. But in a non-Christian society, we can have criminal behaviour which is godly, like preaching the gospel or praying publicly. But the word can also mean, ‘immoral’. In some situations, we may say something is criminal because it is immoral, even though it may not be against the law. However, if someone is doing something which is criminal because it is illegal and immoral, covering it up to guard the reputation of the ecclesiastical structure, rather than see the case dealt with, is a big mistake.

Our denominations have been doing this with the best intentions, but they absolutely should not be. God has given us government, as said in Romans 13, to deal with wrongdoing, and it’s to the government we should hand over matters of criminality. 1 Corinthians 6 says that in disputes between members of the congregation, we should be able to rule on those ourselves. But when you come to somebody committing a crime, we must take those matters to the courts to be dealt with properly. In recent decades, there have been many sexual abuse cases which have been covered up and not dealt with properly. What was done to the victims was wrong, and these cases should have been brought to court. Mind you, the church at this stage in the late 20th century was following the social norms of society. The police and the government generally underestimated the impact of sexual abuse upon children and did not deal with it properly. We’ve changed that attitude, and we need to continue doing so. But 1 Corinthians 6 simply deals with grievances between the saints.

But there are some matters that are tricky, like marriage breakdowns. Should divorce be settled between members of a congregation, or is that something to deal with externally?

Peter: This is a sensitive matter, because a number of our listeners will themselves have been through this or have witnessed it in their church. There’s every reason to think of a marriage breakdown pastorally, in the first instance, and to see whether the relationship can be restored. It’s a good thing if members of the congregation, particularly the pastor, can help to restore the relationship. This may involve recommending a counsellor, or the pastor may need to listen to both sides and offer biblical counsel on rights and wrongs. That is important, and it would fit in very much with this passage.

In a church I belonged to 50 years ago, there was a husband who was physically abusive to his wife. The chief pastor in the church rebuked the husband, advised the wife, and sought to bring peace and justice. In the end, the pastor advised the wife to consider leaving the husband because the man persisted in this abuse. He also gave up coming to church at the same time.

Phillip: But that crosses a line, because physical abuse is a crime that should be reported to the police.

Peter: It is nowadays, and it has become a crime because members of the public, households included, have not dealt with it very well. Sometimes, the person being abused may prefer it not to go to the courts, but the alternative would be that it goes on and the abuser is not brought to book as they should be.

Phillip: But it always was criminal. See, this is the trouble with this word ‘crime’. Physical abuse has always been a crime. We may not have recognised it as such as a society, but that was an error.

Peter: I agree with you. We have taken our freedoms and not used them well, which means that the law has to be far clearer and far more invasive on this issue. But sometimes there are decisions which flow from a breakdown, which may go well beyond the capacity of the saints to decide. There are decisions to be made about money, about property, and about who has the children. If these matters can be agreed to before the courts are involved, that would be good, provided the agreement is just. But it is a matter of secular law, for the marriage is registered by the state. So these issues may well need to go before the courts in order to be resolved in a way that can’t easily be resolved in a congregation.

Phillip: The law courts themselves are very big on trying to get people to discuss these matters before coming to court to settle them. The courts will reinforce the decisions that have been made in discussion with court appointed officers to come to some agreement. But within our society, there are people who are choosing not to get married, or there are people who are choosing religious marriages that are not part of secular registration. We know God doesn’t want divorce because divorce is always violent. It’s the breaking of a relationship of unity that God has created, and it damages children, grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. Our government in 1975 changed the divorce laws in such a way as to undermine marriage, for the covenant by which we take one as a spouse, has now been undermined. The words we say at a wedding service no longer mean what they mean, because you say, “For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, until death do us part,” but you don’t mean that, legally speaking. The trouble is, God does unite us in marriage.

Last week, I saw in the paper that de facto marriages, which are growing in great numbers in Australia, are now being seen in exactly the same terms as de jure marriages. So when people think, “We won’t get married, so we can divide up 50-50 if we break up, and we can make our own decisions,” the courts do intervene. These marriages are then considered to be equally legitimate marriages, and you can lose your properties to your spouse as much as if you’d gone through the legal processes, because the legal marriage recognises a reality that children have rights. In a divorce, the property needs to be divided in ways that are concerned for the welfare of the children as well as for the people. So the sinfulness is not dealt with by just avoiding marriage law, for the law recognises the sinfulness of people. The reality is that we don’t always live together in harmony because we are sinful people.

As 1 Corinthians 7 tells us, if you cannot live with each other, then be separate. God does not want you to be separate, but if it is impossible to live together, then you should be separate, but not so you can marry a third party. The command is to live separately, and if you can’t stand being separate, then be reconciled. The Bible doesn’t encourage this mentality that I can change partners to solve my problems.

Peter: It would be good if such matters between members of the congregation could be resolved internally. Not criminal matters, but those of defamation, for instance.

Phillip: These are civil matters rather than criminal matters in terms of our courts. While you talk of the case many years ago where a marriage was lost and where violence was involved, over the many years I’ve seen quite a lot of marriages at the breaking point that have been restored, and some that have not. You can be reconciled on minor disputes or on more serious matters like the breakdown of a marriage through Christian intervention and pastoral care.

Peter: That’s a win. It’s one of the blessings of belonging to a church, ideally, that others around you can be on the front line of advice, help, counsel, and mediation.

Phillip: Absolutely. When it comes to owning property, though, that’s where the problem moves into another category, for you must work out who gets what.

Peter: It may be worked out within the fellowship before it goes to the court, but then it has to be agreed to by the court.

Phillip: Yes, because the property is licensed on the title deed, which is a government title deed.

But there are times when Christians and non-Christians within the legal system are at odds. The issue of women’s ordination in Australia during the 1990s demonstrated the problem we have with law now, because we are shifting to judicial activism from non-Christian lawyers and judges. They think that the settlement should be X, which is from a non-Christian point of view a just answer, but it is not just from a Christian point of view. In previous generations where we had Christian judges, or judges operating on a Christian basis, we were able to have confidence in the government to make just causes. But this is now becoming more difficult.

Peter: I think so. Think of the legal fights that we saw between, as I call them, the leavers and the stayers in the Episcopal Church in America. This was a big debate over sexual matters, during which around 100,000 people left the Episcopal Church and set up their own churches; still Anglican, but away from the Episcopal denomination, which in their view had fallen over the cliff theologically. That led to questions of who owned the property. Could the leavers not keep the property that they owned? In the end, the courts decided that the leavers could not keep the property, so it went to the original denomination. While this was very painful for all involved, I’m sorry that it was taken to court. Whether they stay or leave, they will be preaching the gospel, and it’s better for them to be able to do that, perhaps by renting the church, than for us to go to court and take the church from them. The implications need to be studied carefully, and we must always ask ourselves, “Why are we doing this?” We must also think about whether a Christian mediator could help, or even whether I should accept the wrong being done to me, as Paul suggests here in this very passage. Perhaps the idea of mediation is closer to what the passage is suggesting than simply taking things up with the law. There’s a difference in where things were back then and where things are now, but these, I think, are some of the direct implications of this passage.

Phillip: I have a problem though. That is, the passage is talking about minor things like you and I having a squabble over a parking spot. It’s not over whether the denomination or the congregation owns the property. While you may be able to settle that through Christian mediation or through mediation generally, in the end, the title deeds on a property is a decision of the government and of the courts.

Peter: It sounds to me as though this merits a bigger discussion.

Phillip: Absolutely. I’m just worried about pushing this passage beyond its scope in the discussion. But I’ve got another question. Paul says that the saints will judge the world and even angels, as 1 Corinthians 6:3 tells us, “Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!”

Where in the Bible are we taught this other than in this passage? I thought Jesus was the judge of the living and the dead. Why are we then listed as judges? What is this business about the saints judging the world and judging angels?

Peter: If this verse was the only reference, I’d be a little bit agnostic about it. I guess I still am, but the reference that comes to mind is Matthew 19:27–28

Then Peter said in reply, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

There’s a picture of shared judgement. The way I see it, it is a marginal reference. There’s also Revelation 3:21, which is relevant. But it fits in with the fulfillment of our humanity in Jesus as image bearers. That’s who we are. We have trashed it, but not lost it. Image bearers are those who rule, those who govern the world; hence when the age to come is upon us, we will be still working for Christ. We’re told that too in 1 Corinthians 5:9. Christ, of course, is the last Adam, the man from heaven in whose image we are. Therefore, I take it that we will share something of his work, because he gives us work to do, seen here as judgement. But I think on the broader front, that’s a way of looking at it. Whether indeed we will be judging the world on the day of judgement, I can’t deny it, but I am not sure what it exactly means.

Phillip: Can it be that we are judges like in the Old Testament Book of Judges?

Peter: Yes, you wonder about that, don’t you? Because we think of judges with white wigs, but the judges in the Old Testament have a more active role in working out the righteousness of God.

Phillip: Yes, because they’re sitting on the thrones; they’re not sitting on the bench.

Peter: They’re sharing Christ’s rule under Christ’s lordship.

Phillip: Yes, and if you’re able to do that, then you should be able to help people sort out minor matters, like King Solomon did with the baby who was claimed by two women.

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Links & Recommendations

For more on this topic, check out this talk. It’s called The Gospel and Lawsuits.

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Christians in Western society have had a large say in public morality. When appointed the Dean at our cathedral, I was told by several people that my role was to be the moral conscience of society. I thought I was supposed to preach the gospel, but what is the relationship of the gospel to public morality and of the church to the rest of society? 1 Corinthians 5 raises these issues for us; I hope you enjoy our discussion.

Yours,

Phillip

Phillip: Today, we will look at the second part of 1 Corinthians 5. The first half was addressed last week in our episode The Arrogance of the Immoral as it told us how the Corinthian church was immoral and yet so arrogant. But the second half of the chapter, in a sense, is twisted around, and so we’re looking this time at The Arrogance of the Moral.

Peter: 1 Corinthians 5:6–13

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”

That all sounds fairly rough. We are to see that such a sin as the man of the previous passage has committed corrupts the whole church, and indeed as we saw last week it was a corrupt church which allowed it, and that as a result he is to be cast out. It reminds me of some of the stories that our father told us about the country town that he grew up in during the 1920s.

Our father attended the local Anglican church and it was a blessing to him, but he also noted that there was a general critical mood in the town towards those who were judged to behave in non-Christian ways. So no woman hung out her washing on a Sunday, for fear of being sharply criticised for breaking the Fourth Commandment in doing the washing on a Sunday. The word of those critics was pretty strong around town.

Phillip: He mentioned to me the whole issue of the Sabbath, which he found was the most difficult of the Ten Commandments to keep, and the one that caused the most division and unhappiness. For most people, the majority of the commandments are obvious: you don’t steal, you don’t commit murder, you avoid taking the Lord’s name in vain. But if, for instance, you played tennis on a Sunday afternoon (assuming that Sunday is the Sabbath), then you could be condemned. He spoke of people, of men in particular, who would avoid attending church rather than face being condemned for hypocrisy, because they knew they would go to work or organised sport on the Sabbath. What was going on in those days?

Peter: There’s an old word for it, which you and I are old enough to use: ‘wowserism’. But since no one 10 years younger than us knows what the word means, I’m going to call it the power of moralism, of acting superior and looking down at people who don’t do what they ought to do.

Phillip: What did the word ‘wowser’ mean?

Peter: A wowser was a person who went around telling other people what they were doing wrong, like hanging out their washing on a Sunday, and criticising them for it. It was an acronym which stood for We Only Want Social Evils Remedied.

Phillip: There’s a lovely quote I once came across, and though I can never remember who said it, it goes, “If all the moralists are to be believed, England has been in decline since 1066.” Moralism and wowserism are very negative, then.

Peter: Yes, although the moralist sees it as a positive, in the sense that through moralism there is good to be done. But 100 years ago, Australia was regarded by most citizens as a Christian country, regardless of whether everyone went to church. Throughout the 19th century, there had been several strong movements aimed at putting Christian ethics into the daily life of the nation. One of the most famous was the Temperance Movement, an attack on the abuse of alcohol. Some people allowed moderate drinking, while others were against drinking at all. But as a whole, the movement focused on calling for strict controls to limit its use, for drunkenness was addressed as a real social evil.

Phillip: It drove forth the movement of women having the right to vote. One of the key motivators for it was to change the character of government, and enable the regulations of life that would come about by women who were the victims of alcoholic excess, and who were believed to have superior moral values. So the push for women voting, which happened in Australia very early, came out of this moralism.

Peter: I believe it did. I also understand that there was a movement like this in the United States which led to the period called Prohibition. I haven’t researched that for this episode, but according to my memory, Prohibition led to an improvement in people’s health, in social cohesion and so forth, though the consequences in criminality were so bad that it didn’t last.

Phillip: It led to the improvement of people’s health and of criminals’ wealth simultaneously. But it wasn’t only an attack on alcohol; gambling, the breach of the Sabbath, and smoking were all considered to be very bad things. It’s fascinating, of course, that 50 years later the community came to agree on the issue of smoking, and now those who smoke are treated like lepers and hang around outside buildings looking guilty.

Peter: Indeed. Some in the movement even looked down upon going to the movies.

Phillip: There was also the attack on the wearing of make-up, and the implementation of blasphemy laws, which we’ve done away with; though there are new blasphemy laws coming in with a different god in terms of Islam. These attacks on those moral problems were quite successful in a way, though they of course never succeeded in abolishing sin in any of these areas. But to understand it, you do need to know the history of us Australians seeing ourselves as a national church. But were these the blessings of the gospel, or was it that as a nation we were obscuring the gospel?

Peter: My answer to that is yes and no, so the whole subject is worth the discussion. This moralism was based on the idea that we were broadly a Christian nation, but what it became, as people became more and more strong in their arguments, was a finger-wagging perversion of the gospel; the ‘wowserisation’ of the gospel, if you will. The danger is that being moralistic makes you feel good, particularly if you have a great cause to fight for, because then you have an enemy to defeat. You regard your enemy as self-evidently morally inferior, as a bad person. Who wouldn’t want to be a moralist under these circumstances? Remember, these were often good causes, but they became an obsession. As you pointed out, they didn’t, in the end, succeed. You can control gambling, but you will never eradicate it. A government that knows its business will try to control the ill effects of sinful behaviour, but will not think that somehow we are going to eradicate the problem. We haven’t eradicated smoking, for instance. At the same time, as you said, the gospel gets lost in this.

Phillip: Yes, because the idea of a Christian nation 100 years ago is different to our society today. I believe Australia is still a Christian nation because our foundations, our way of thinking, and our whole history are all founded and based in Christianity. But we’re not a Christian nation as they thought of themselves 100 years ago, where being a Christian was considered to be the norm. Back then, around 90% of the population, according to census figures, identified as Christian, whereas today it’s less than 50%. So the nation we live in today is a different kind of Christian nation to what it was 100 years ago. Back then, people disagreed about normative ethics, or the norms of life. How you observed the Sabbath, or what trading hours you would have for the selling of alcohol, or in terms of shopping, were all contested topics. People disagreed about the details of the rules and regulations of morality.

But when you move to a non-Christian society like Corinth, and to some extent now Sydney, we no longer disagree simply about the norms of society; we now disagree about the very nature of ethics itself, what the professionals call ‘meta-ethics’. We ask, “Is there such a thing as right and wrong? How do we determine right and wrong? Who says that right is right and wrong is wrong, and why should we believe them?” Moralists still exist, of course, and so we’re beset with all kinds of moralism. But now the nature of this moralism has shifted. The norms that are being imposed now come out of causes and fiery advocates rather than a total package of a moral system. Anyone who doesn’t share this enthusiasm at the moment is shamed on social media or ‘cancelled’ from the public square. Think of the #MeToo movement, the climate catastrophising movement, feminism, transgenderism, Black Lives Matter, Indigenous Rights, etc. In fact, some famous feminists have now come out against the transgender movement, and they are no longer welcome to speak on different university campuses. Nevertheless, there’s a whole range of these movements that are couched in very moral terms, even though our society has come to no agreement about what morality is.

Peter: In other words, these movements assume that we are moral creatures, and we therefore can respond to their morals, yet they do not agree on what the source of their morals is. I take it you’re not saying that these movements are necessarily all wrong, only that there’s a problem as to the question of where these morals come from, and the way in which some people exercise their morals in their finger-wagging, ‘wowser-istic’ way. When it doesn’t succeed, they demand for the government to do something in order to make things happen.

Phillip: One thing that moralists today and the moralists of Christianity in the past have in common is a tendency to focus on the minor issues. For example, we thought that alcohol was a problem in our society. The Temperance movement then took over, acting as if alcoholism was the only moral issue in society. When we base our morality just on causes—whether good, bad, Christian or non-Christian—we make rules about things, and we make the cause the totality of morality. With that being said, take us back to 1 Corinthians.

Peter: This passage raises the question, “How does a congregation relate to its social milieu?” For instance, Paul points out that the sin of the offender in 1 Corinthians 5:1 would be condemned by non-Christians. That is true of things that have happened in our own lifetime. Christians are likely enough, in fact, to face criticism from the world, for instance, due to our inability to cope with pederasty, which is child abuse. There is a lesson for us here: although a number of moralistic causes of our own time may conflict with Christianity and must be resisted despite criticism, there are a number of causes for which we should listen to what’s being said and change our ways. However, Paul makes clear that his strong words address the church, not the society in which they are living at this point. He’s not calling upon the church to become a little club or a sect cut off from the world; indeed, he expects Christians to live in their world, recognising, however, that sin is everywhere. But he does not call upon them to confront the sinfulness of the world with moral righteousness. Why not? Surely our love of our neighbour would mean we make a stand against things like sexual permissiveness, abortion, greed, and other sins by which people exploit each other. So why be so strong about a Christian brother needing to be chastised, yet so speechless about the world in which we’re living?

Phillip: I don’t doubt that the Christian ethic is for the good of society. Making sure that workers have the freedom to take a day off each week, for example, is a good thing for society. Furthermore, the abuse of alcohol and the prevalence of gambling in Australia has been a dreadful blight upon our society and ruined the lives of many people. Adultery, which is now semi-promoted in some circles, is a dreadful thing, causing untold damage to the lives of married couples, children, grandparents, uncles and aunts. But while imposing the Christian ethic would be good for society, Paul knows what our contemporary moralists don’t know—and frankly, the earlier moralists had forgotten this—that the power of Christian ethics is based on a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, not a performance relationship where you get rewarded or punished for your transactions. The basis of Christian ethics is the gospel of the Passover Lamb who has died for us and risen again, bringing us the grace of the gospel.

The moralists of today motivate people by finger-wagging and inducing guilt, and then they try to solve the problems through their government: throwing money at problems, changing laws and regulations, or through adding to the educational curriculum. But such moralists don’t understand sin and the gospel. Sin is the disease that gives rise to immorality, therefore band-aid solutions on the symptoms of sin don’t work. To make rules and regulations about certain sins, without addressing the issue of sin itself, will always fail, but the gospel brings atonement, forgiveness, relationship, and regeneration. These things change the hearts and minds of people, which in turn transform their lives.

Peter: It’s interesting too that the Christian gospel has had a very powerful impact all around the world on the social lives of people. It’s not as though the two things are not connected. It is just that if you forget the heart of the matter—loving God, loving your neighbour, and the need for grace and a new life—you will carry on about the causes, but you won’t have the essential insight into where this is coming from, what you call the meta-ethics. When I was in public office, I was not unwilling to enter into debates about the Sabbath, for example, because I regarded having the same day off each week as being important for Australian society; but I also tried on every occasion to link that back in to the gospel itself, so that people could see that it flows out of the gospel. The ethic has a source in the gospel of the grace of God, and the command to love God and love your neighbour. It is essential that people can see the gospel in the moralistic causes.

Phillip: The big problem of preaching the gospel in Australia is that people think we preach, “Good people go to heaven; bad people are punished.” That is because people have this moralist framework, and also because we address the morals of society. This is exacerbated by the fact that back in the days when Australia was a Christian country, we pushed our morals like the wowsers that we were. People then got very confused about the gospel, and I still find in evangelism that the fundamental obstacle for people coming to the Lord Jesus Christ is not atheism, nor doubting the existence of God; it’s that people think they’re Christians because they’re good enough, and that the gospel we’re preaching is simply about being good.

Peter: Returning to the passage, I notice that Paul is very strong in his condemnation of the sinner, but as you have pointed out, he is wishing that he repent and return to the fellowship. He loves the sinner. You have mentioned Galatians 6 and the way in which the failures of the Christian brother are to be treated in the fellowship. I think it is good to bring that passage to bear on 1 Corinthians 5 in order to help us to see the whole picture of what ought to happen in church.

Phillip: Galatians 6:1–5

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load.

Those who are spiritual are to take action for those who are struggling with some sin. The aim of this action is restoration, as you are to seek to restore them. But you restore a person not in the spirit of judgementalism, but in the spirit of gentleness. We come alongside our brother or sister who is struggling with sin and gently point the sinfulness out and the consequences that are involved. But in the process it’s important to watch yourself for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, I must never think that the sin that my brother or sister is committing is beyond me to also commit. As they have fallen into temptation, I too may fall into temptation. So I don’t approach my brother or sister as though I am approaching someone who is morally inferior, because I accept that I have the exact same sinful capacity that they have. There is nothing beyond my capacity for sinfulness, and so I go with the spirit of gentleness, watching myself.

Secondly, I must not be aiming to boast over a brother or sister’s weakness. I go on the basis that I am nothing, because if I think I am something, I deceive myself. That is how I bear my brother’s burden: by helping him with his difficulty. But that’s also how I bear my own burden, because I do not take credit for my superiority over him. I am nothing, as he is nothing, and the two ‘nothings’ must help each other. Yes, we may see our brother or sister fall into sinfulness, and the church cannot tolerate sinfulness, so must seek to address it. But how we address it always has to do with seeking the salvation of the other person: not seeking to put them out, to rule over them, or to establish our own superiority by their failure.

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Links & Recommendations

For more on this topic, check out this talk from St Matthias evening church called New Morality or Old Morality.

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Because of sin, immorality is universal. Sometimes it is so blatant that everybody can see it. But what happens if everybody can see it except for the church? In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul is dealing not only with immorality, but also with arrogance.

Yours,

Phillip

Phillip: Today, we will start off by reading 1 Corinthians 5:1-8

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Peter: I would have thought we would delve into all of chapter 5, and maybe even chapter 6. Why are you reading only half of this chapter?

Phillip: That is because of the significance of what is said here, its current applications, and the care with which we need to think through the issues raised. Chapters 1–4 have focused our attention on ministry and the unity of the church, but chapter 5 confronts us with a very difficult question about the presence in the congregation of serious moral failings. These sins are not just sexual; later in this chapter he talks about swindlers, idolaters and drunkards. Therefore, we will discuss today what I would call the arrogance of the immoral. Do you think that’s a fair description?

Peter: It’s a confronting description, but it is fair. What you put your finger on is interesting: the problem, in a sense, is not the man who’s committed this offence, but the reaction of the church, in its arrogance. ‘Arrogance’ is an unpleasant word, defined by Macquarie Dictionary1 as “Offensive exhibition of assumed or real superiority; overbearing pride.” What we see throughout 1 Corinthians is that the first sin is not so much the highly immoral one, but the ethos and attitude of the church in Corinth. It’s already illustrated, for example, by the way in which they take sides with the different preachers in chapter 1. Furthermore, we have also seen a sharp critique by the apostle in 4:6, 8, and 18; and so too in 5:6. But when confronted with such a great sin as incest, why does Paul blame the church, and how is that a warning for us?

Phillip: ‘Arrogance’ is never a word that a person applies to themselves. But Paul applies it to the Corinthians in 5:2. They think they rule, they think they’re kings, and yet within the church, there is a terrible evil: this incestuous relationship of a sexually immoral character. We don’t know the details, only that “a man has his father’s wife.” But it’s such that the non-Christians, the pagans, wouldn’t accept such behaviour. It’s called ‘arrogance’, however, because of the church’s superior attitude. The church’s problem is that they’ve taken no action, instead tolerating what has been done. Tolerance is a good thing in some ways, but it becomes a very bad thing when it is used to accept sinfulness. So, while the church tries to cover themselves with glory, appealing to the ‘big name’ preachers that they’re following, their acceptance and tolerance of the sinfulness of this person means that the church as a whole is corrupt.

Peter: That is what upsets Paul. It’s interesting that he preaches the way in which God, in his extraordinary love, takes us enemies of God and makes us one with Christ, yet we can see the danger of grace when it’s misunderstood. Because there is such a thing, to quote Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship,2 as “cheap grace.” He says, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” But the misunderstanding of grace is in thinking that because we’re forgiven, we are free to act how we want. Cheap grace, therefore, creates arrogance.

However, the first act of worship that we engage in is faith. When you put your faith in someone, you are praising that other person. In essence, you are saying, “I haven’t got this, the other person has; therefore, I trust them.” When we put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, it is our worship. But cheap grace enables you to become arrogant. Cheap grace, where you say, “I’m forgiven, therefore I’m free to behave as I wish,” is the opposite of faith. Grief, repentance and sorrow is our real act of worship.

But what does this passage tell us about the corruption of a church? Is it possible for such a thing to happen today?

Phillip: The gospel entry for us into church has to do with forgiveness. As we are forgiven, so we are always to have in our hearts forgiveness. The end of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew chapter 6 speaks of the necessity of being a forgiving person, as a person who has themselves been forgiven. Therefore, it’s always good to approach others with forgiveness in your heart. But forgiveness without atonement, without payment, is acceptance and even approval of sin. Sin always has a cost. Sometimes we cannot pay for what we have done; the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is about the wonder of God’s payment on our behalf.

One year, I came home during the Christmas holidays to find that the front fence of our house had been destroyed after a car had run through it. About half an hour afterwards, a father and his young teenage son came along and apologised to me. The son had been given a car for Christmas, and as he’d driven his first time around the block, he had wiped out our front fence. It was very painful for the young boy to repent, but the father was very quick to say, “We will pay for the new fence,” for the fence still had to be paid for. That was part of the forgiveness. For him to say, “I’m sorry, I hope you didn’t need a fence,” or “I hope you can afford to build your own,” would not be the way of forgiveness and repentance. The way of repentance is to at least offer if you cannot pay. But the wonder of the gospel is what God has paid for us.

But it’s not enough to preach forgiveness without also preaching repentance. As if, when you say “sorry”, I forgive you and it’s all forgotten, therefore we don’t have to worry about the woman that you bashed, or the child that you abused, or the money that you stole. That’s not grace. That’s accepting sin.

Peter: Yes, just saying “sorry” is not repentance. Repentance requires a determination to repair the relationship, to do the right thing.

Phillip: It has to do with going forward in a new way. But Jesus going forward in a new way is not enough either. There has to be a payment somewhere, and God in his kindness has paid the price for us.

Peter: Hence Bonhoeffer, “When Christ calls a man to him, he bids him come and die.”3 That’s not saying that we are to die in order to gain God’s grace. Rather, we “die” because having received God’s grace through the cross of Christ, we take up his cross daily and follow him. This is repentance. That presumably means that we all need to take account of the spiritual health of the congregation and be on the lookout for the tolerance which grows sin. This passage is not primarily about the sinner. It’s about the sinners, namely the congregation. The point of the passage is not to denounce the incest of the individual sinners, though we should do so anyway. It’s to denounce a congregation which, through arrogance, has practiced tolerance.

You mentioned ‘tolerance’ before, which is a popular word these days. In a sense, the greatest virtue of our society is tolerance, though I don’t see too much of it around. But is tolerance a Christian virtue? It could be, under certain circumstances. But always remember that the greatest Christian virtue is love. How do you best love the congregation, and the sinner within it? Paul addresses everybody in the congregation and is critical of all. For example, in 1 Timothy 4, he shows us that the teaching pastor is vital for the good health of the congregation, as the congregation needs to be taught. But it’s essential that we encourage, speaking the truth in love to one another, as is said in Ephesians 4, in order that we may live godly lives and build each other up. As congregation members, we must act positively and lovingly for the whole congregation, even if it requires rebuke.

Phillip: But the teacher is judged with the greatest strictness, as we’re told in James 3. 1 Timothy 4 also tells us that when an elder does something, public rebuke is required for the elder but not necessarily the whole congregation. The difficulty is when congregation members do something as outlandish as the person here in 1 Corinthians 5 is reported as doing. How do we handle it? There are two polar opposite approaches on the subject of church discipline that are difficult to negotiate. There is the desire to save members, and then there is the desire to have a pure church. But the pure church in this world is not going to happen, and we can’t always save members.

These conflicting desires are represented in the scriptures. Diotrephes in 3 John is the ‘patron saint’ of the pure church, as we see in 3 John 9–10

I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church.

Diotrephes is the man who kicks people out of churches. That’s not the way to go. Representing the other extreme, however, is Thyatira in Revelation 2. The letter to the seven churches addresses Thyatira’s toleration of heresy and immorality. Revelation 2:20–21

But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.

Then the risen Lord Jesus goes on to denounce Jezebel and the judgement that will fall upon her. So Diotrephes and Thyatire are the representations of the 2 extremes: those who always resort to kicking people out of churches, and those who are happy to accept an ongoing, unrepentant sexual immorality. Both of these are wrong, but negotiating between them is difficult. That’s where most of us have to live and move.

Peter: What does Paul recommend here in Corinth in the face of a terrible sexual sin, condemned by the word of God in a context of arrogance and outward displays of sinful behaviour by the church?

Phillip: His recommendations are to “deliver him over to Satan,” placing him outside the fellowship of the church. But there are several things to note here. Firstly, what the man is doing is a heinous sin, bringing the cause of Christ into disrepute. The punishment must fit the crime, and we’re dealing with something very great here. Secondly, the judgement is the activity of the whole church. Paul asserts that though he is absent, he has already cast his vote, and the congregation needs to agree on the action they will take. But I particularly like the aim of the action. It’s remedial, for they are still concerned for the sinner. They place him outside, back into the world, treating him as a tax collector and a sinner in order that he may come to his right mind, repent and be saved. When the congregation is involved in these activities, it’s not to protect ourselves so much as to save the sinner. Diotrephes is putting people out of the church because he thinks highly of himself as a moralist, whereas Paul is concerned about saving this man.

Peter: So love, not tolerance, is key. I like what you said about delivering him to Satan. That means putting him back into the world, so to speak, which is dominated by Satan, the god of this world. That is awful, but the action is intended to bring him to his senses and back to Christ. But in speaking about these things in church life, we do need to be careful about such things as defamation. Sometimes things are said publicly which leave people open to legal action, and perhaps rightly so. After all, Christians are not above gossip. So how do we navigate such difficulties?

Phillip: It is difficult; there’s no doubt about that. In one sense, in a litigious society such as ours, people race to the law to defend themselves. But in another sense, people shouldn’t be defamed. That’s why it’s right that there are laws on defamation. We mustn’t say that which is untrue of people, or present them in a bad light for our own satisfaction. That’s why sometimes confession is better than accusation; to have people admit to what they’re doing, so that we are not making the accusation, but they are accepting it publicly or privately.

But think back to Jesus and his teaching in Matthew 18 about what we should do when a brother is causing offense to us. It’s not all that different to what we do when we see someone fall into sin. It starts with the offended person talking to the other person about the problem. If they listen and repent, that is a great victory. If they don’t, the next step is to take a witness with you. Then, with the knowledge that other people are seeing the problem, and that it’s not just your prejudice that is giving rise to the question of their behavior, see if the sinner may come to their right mind and confess. But you must do that before you go to the church. The part about going to the church can confuse us. ‘Going to the church’ can mean taking the concern to the office bearers, but Paul is saying that we should take it to the congregational meeting. Taking problems to the office bearers of the churches has created church courts and the like, which have not had a great history.

Peter: No, but it’s tricky to make sense of this, because church is a public occasion. Anyone can come to church in our setup, but that was not the case back in Paul’s day. Thus we need to be careful here, to take the difference between the church then and now into account. We need to be careful about what we’re summoning here.

Phillip: But the church was still public in those days. The non-Christian in 1 Corinthians 14 comes in and hears them preaching.

Peter: That’s a discussion for another day.

Phillip: We’ll work out about how public it is another time, but certainly we are in a different society now which is much more litigious about these things in particular. But if we can have the sinner confess their sins to the church, then it’s easier to be able to have the discussion resolved in a congregational meeting. It’s painful nonetheless. On other occasions, I have dealt with this issue, given the complexities of our church life, by talking about it with groups in the church rather than the total church. If you’re in a large church where not everybody knows each other, it is better to take the issue to whichever group that the person is a part of: for instance, other families of the Sunday school children, or amongst the other people in a Bible study group. The aim is that the church will hear that there is a need for repentance. There is the offer of forgiveness and the need for the person to be rescued. However you do it, these are the goals that you need to be seeking to achieve, especially their salvation.

Peter: To sum up, what we’re talking about is the health of the church, preeminently. And the church can be arrogant in many ways. Next week, as we come to chapter 5, we will talk about how the church can be moralistically arrogant.

3

Ibid

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Links & Recommendations

For more on this topic, check out this Campus Bible Study talk from 1977 on 1 Corinthians 3-4 (the audio quality isn’t great but a great listen nonetheless!)

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Freely available, supported by generosity.

If you enjoy Two Ways News, why not lend us a hand? Consider joining our Supporters Club—friends who make it possible for us to keep producing this article/podcast.

To join the Supporters Club, follow the link below to the ‘subscribe’ page. You’ll see that there’s:

• a number of ‘paid options’. To join the Supporters Club take out one of the paid ‘subscription plans’ and know we are deeply grateful for your support!

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Sign up to support us

Just as Western society is confused over the subject of identity, so we are confused over the issue of judgementalism. The modern push is to be a non-judgemental, inclusive society, but the reality is one of high condemnation and exclusion of people whose views or lifestyle differ from those in power.

Christians believe in the judgement of God, but what do these judgements involve? And what are the differences between discernment and condemnation? I hope you enjoy our consideration of 1 Corinthians chapter 4.

I remind you again of our point of contact, namely respond@twm.email.

Yours,

Phillip

Phillip Jensen: Last week, when reading 1 Corinthians 3, we followed a very unusual procedure in which we read through the beginning of the chapter, then the end, before finishing with the middle. This time, as we look at chapter 4, we will return to reading 1 Corinthians chronologically, as the Apostle Paul wrote it.

Peter: 1 Corinthians 4

This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgement before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.

I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favour of one against another. For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?

Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you! For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honour, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labour, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.

I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me. That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church. Some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power. What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?

Phillip: That is a great chapter in judgement. We now occupy a very judgemental society in which we regularly condemn and ‘cancel’ people. People are banished because of statements they make or their practices of life; at the same time, however, we are ‘anti-discriminatory’. Everybody is to be included, yet our ‘inclusive’ society keeps excluding people.

Furthermore, we Christians have a particular problem when it comes to the ‘celebrity Christianity’ that is around us. I remember being at a conference overseas where the speakers needed bodyguards because of the number of people who were pressing upon them. They needed bodyguards not to protect against someone who was going to shoot or stab them, but because so many people treated them as if they were pop singers. But these people keep on being caught out for their failures. I remember meeting Paul Cain years ago, one of the Kansas City prophets who was commended to me as the man who could tell me exactly what God thought on all kinds of topics. Paul Cain has died now, and the judgements that have come upon him because of his sexual immorality are just some examples of the many problems within the Kansas prophecy movement. In more recent times a great Christian writer, Philip Yancey, has now spoken of his 8 years of having an adulterous affair, during which time he was writing Christian books and his own biography. There are many of these kinds of people for whom we are judgemental, and indeed we should judge them, because they were exercising Christian leadership.

Peter: But the Lord said in Matthew 7:1, with words that are unforgettable, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” Yet, though I hardly know how to say it, judgement and discrimination is essential to being human and to being Christian. How do we chart these waters? How do we hear what the Lord says, but also live in a world where every moment we are called upon to make a judgement?

Phillip: “Judge not, that you be not judged” is one of the favourite verses of our inclusive society. It’s a part of the teaching of Jesus that people who have never read the Sermon on the Mount still know, because they love this message in isolation. But the full quotation warns you not to read it that way. Matthew 7:1-2

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgement you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”

What follows is the illustration of the speck in the eye versus the log in the eye. Therefore, it’s not saying, “Make no discriminations”; rather it is warning you that the judgements you make on other people are exactly the judgements that you will receive yourself, and that if you are harsh, then expect harshness towards yourself. If you are overly generous you may expect over-generosity, but the passage has got more to do with the word ‘judge’. That word carries the connotations of discernment, discrimination, and condemnation. Discrimination is essential in a fallen world, for you need to be able to discriminate between what is right and what is wrong. I had Paul Cain presented to me as the man who could tell me exactly what God was thinking. Do I accept that or not? That requires a discrimination. But that is different to condemning somebody for what they have done. I think of that passage in Galatians 6 which tells us that if anybody is sinful, then those who are spiritual are to restore them in a spirit of gentleness. You bear one another’s burdens, but you ought to look to yourself, lest you too be sinful.

One of the ways of dealing with somebody else who is sinful is to push them further down so that you can lift yourself up. “Well,” you may say, “I wouldn’t do that.” But the spiritual person says, “I would do exactly the same thing. Let me help you; let me lift you up.” It’s a different mindset in which we consider the other person. It’s not for us humans to condemn; that’s the Lord’s work, as is said in 1 Corinthians 4:4–5

For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgement before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.

Essentially, he says, “I don’t even judge myself. I’m going to be judged by God, but that’s God’s work because he knows the secrets of the hearts. He knows everything, and so the judgement will be right and true and proper.” The message of chapter 4 is that we are to think about the other person, rather than condemning them.

Peter: Let’s take up this business of human judgement versus the Lord’s judgement as Paul talks about it. It’s interesting that he says in verse 3, “It is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court.” I can see the truth of it, namely that there are times when someone will judge us. It may well come from someone who loves us, or even someone who doesn’t love us, and from this experience we can learn. I can think back to such experiences that I’ve had myself. So what is the best way of putting it? In the end, can we learn unconcern about how others judge us—bearing in mind that the Lord is our judge—except where there’s something to learn?

Phillip: Indeed, but how we think about this has also got to do with what we are judged for. For instance, I run faster than you do. That’s a discernment that can be made, but it’s not of great significance, unless you’re going to enter a competition. It’s not that all people are exactly the same and there is no discernment to be had between people. But the judgement we’re talking about here can be 1 of 2 judgements in the Lord. The first is the judgement of salvation: the condemnation that Jesus has borne for us. The second is that we all stand before the judgement seat of Christ to receive our blessings for what has happened in this lifetime, to see the outcome of our lives in this. That is what Paul is speaking about here. So I don’t judge myself.

You can discriminate, saying, for example, “I’d prefer to have Fred preach, because I think he’s a better preacher for this situation than John.” But to say, “Fred’s a better person because he’s a better preacher than John,” is a different thing altogether. It would also be wrong to suggest that God couldn’t use John to bring about his purposes in ways that Fred wouldn’t. The Lord will judge. So I personally don’t care whether you think I’m a good preacher or a bad preacher.

But notice that the basis of this judgement is faithfulness. That is, the Lord is not going to judge me on how many words I can say in a minute; he’s going to judge me on whether I’m faithful to the task that’s been given to me. In saying ‘faithful’, I don’t mean to suggest that we shouldn’t look at the outcome. Remember the parable in Matthew 25, where a man gives 3 workers different talents (sums of money) and the first 2 put them to work, as was intended. When the man returns, they are able to give back the money with interest because they’ve put it to work; they are called faithful. Whereas the third man buries the talent, because he doesn’t want to lose it, and he is called faithless, because it was given to him to do something with. Likewise, God gives us gifts to use for the salvation of the people, for the glory of the Lord Jesus. The judgement will come on how faithful we were to the tasks of the commission that God has given to us. But God’s judgement is superior to the judgement of other people, because God can see the secrets of the heart.

Peter: I love those sorts of texts which are really troubling, because they speak to you in the end very deeply. I return to 1 Corinthians 4:4, “For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.” That is one of those troubling texts, which is a good thing.

Phillip: And to quote Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

Peter: Indeed. It reflects reality too, because there are times when I am not aware of anything against myself, but it may be due to my very poor memory, or my misunderstanding of what it is that I’ve done. The Apostle says that he does not judge himself, that doesn’t mean you should never reflect upon yourself; it’s that the final judgement is not yours. In the end, the final judgement belongs to God himself. We may have an assurance of our salvation which depends upon the blood of Christ. Some people are smitten by internal agony frequently, while other people drift along without a thought. But either way, we must come to the cross of Christ and say, “This is what we are trusting for our salvation on the Day of Judgement.”

Phillip: That flows on from the end of chapter 3, that my works may be burnt up. But it’s not a question of salvation. It’s just that I don’t want it to be the case that I’ve done nothing for the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ ever since I became a Christian 60 years ago.

Peter: Or worse, that you’ve done things which haven’t been so good.

Phillip: If I have done nothing, it will all be burnt up, but I will not lose my salvation at that point. It’ll just be that I have nothing to show.

Peter: What can we see here about Paul’s method in ministry?

Phillip: 1 Corinthians 4:6–7

I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favour of one against another. For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?

You start to re-think the last chapters which talked about people claiming, “I follow Paul,” “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas”. When you come to the last few verses, you start to see that there were real people who were arrogant, but Paul says, “I’ll come soon, and then I’ll see the talk of these arrogant people.” Because this arrogance is all talk; it’s not the power of God. Instead of doing the gospel work and transforming lives, they’re building themselves up. Those who are impressed by men, or by themselves, are the real arrogant talkers.

The other day, I heard the North Queensland politician Bob Katter describing people as “Double-degree-do-nothings.”

Peter: I love Bob Katter!

Phillip: He’s a great one. There are the people who have all the qualifications under the sun, but they don’t do anything. Likewise in this passage, here’s this arrogance among the church, but rather than talking about them and therefore getting caught up in the politics of it, Paul has talked about a policy and about himself, so that you will follow the argument that has been written, rather than worrying about the particulars of these ‘super apostles’.

Peter: What method in ministry is he talking about? What can you see here which makes us think as ministers of the gospel?

Phillip: That he is concerned with how well people will understand what he is saying. He takes us back to the very principles of the gospel itself, and diffuses the personality issue of the church. But he also describes his method back in verse 14.

Peter: “I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children.” That’s not insignificant. There’s a big debate about what the marks of the church are: preaching, sacraments, or discipline? If we’re going to accept discipline as a mark of church, we have to think of what it means. 1 Corinthians flows into that question, for as this verse points out, Paul is not trying to make the church feel ashamed.

What does that mean? Do we try to make people ashamed? We may. If our ministry is our real sense of our identity, and if we are driven by the desire to have power over other people, then we may well admonish others in a way that creates shame in the other person. But the apostle, in telling us here about ministry, says that this is not what he aims to do. What he aims at is to admonish them. We admonish children in order that they may learn from it and grow into the adults we want them to be. Likewise, the aim of admonition in ministry is not to make us feel superior; it is very deliberately for the blessing and usefulness of the other person.

Paul also uses the language of family in this passage. The way in which the Corinthians came to Christ was through Paul ‘fathering’ them. Additionally, he says that when Timothy comes, he will remind them of what Paul has done so they may imitate the Christian life as they saw it in Paul. It’s not that Paul is putting himself in the centre of things; rather, these are the earliest days of the Christian faith, and Paul as a man is expressing that faith.

Furthermore, as he mentions several times, the Corinthian church is not the only church. There is a universal brotherhood, if you like, of Christians from all of the different churches.

Phillip: I would like to highlight several key points that you mentioned which are important. Firstly, there is Paul’s claim, “I became your father.” ‘Father’ can be a powerful position. In fact, Jesus said, Matthew 23:9, “And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.” That is because ‘father’ connotes this patriarchal power. But in this passage, it’s a term of love and commitment that is being expressed, to admonish your children out of responsible and loving care.

You also talk of the marks of the churches. As John 13:35 says, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Love, then, surely should be the key mark of the church.

Peter: I believe so, and too little is spoken of it. I can remember a lady who came to our church, and because we didn’t have prophecy from the front, she left as soon as she could. I said, “But we do love each other,” to which she responded, “It doesn’t matter; you don’t have prophecy.” Regardless, I think that Christian love in the congregation is immensely important, and is a sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Phillip: A key aspect of 1 Corinthians, which we mentioned a few weeks ago, is that while it’s written to a specific context, it’s a universal letter. Therefore, what he’s saying to the Corinthians is true of all churches. There is a Christian way of living that is universal, at least in some elements. It may be that some church members differ in small ways such as attire, but Paul never implies that those things matter in the slightest. But there are certain things about love and care for others that are true everywhere. Likewise, arrogance and boastfulness about our ministries, skills and abilities are wrong everywhere.

The Corinthian problem seems to be their ‘over-realised eschatology’. That is, they think that heaven has already arrived, whereas the Apostle Paul knows that we’re still in this world; that the eschatology, the last days, have not yet arrived. So the ‘super-apostles’, the arrogant people who speak of their victorious Christian living, have missed the point. The apostolic reality is seen in 1 Corinthians 4:9–13

For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honour, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labour, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.

This demonstrates the contrast of the apostolic reality as opposed to the arrogance of people’s arrival, because in this world, our ministry is of the cross. You can’t be a preacher of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and be a conquering king yourself. Bearing the cross gives us the expectation of rejection and refusal.

Peter: Here is true wisdom. Judge not by what the eye sees; instead, judge in accordance with what God has revealed to us about himself, ourselves, and the world. In the end, leave the ultimate judgement to God in the assurance that Jesus died for us and that we are in Christ.

Phillip: You as a minister never rise above being a servant. William Cowper’s hymn, ‘God Moves in a Mysterious Way’, is one that I love. The last verse goes

God’s purposes will ripen fast,

Unfolding every hour.

The bud may have a bitter taste,

But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err

And scan his work in vain.

God is his own interpreter,

And he will make it plain.

That is what will happen on the last day.

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Links & Recommendations

For more on this topic, check out this talk by Phillip on 1 Corinthians 4. It’s called The Foolish Stewards of God.

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Today as we proceed through 1 Corinthians 3, we think of the pressing problem for modern Western culture: that of identity. Apparently, many people struggle with the questions, “Who am I?” or “What am I?”. This chapter answers these questions for Christians.

Yours,

Phillip

Peter Jensen: Today, we will look at 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Before we begin, what is the key theme of the passage?

Phillip Jensen: The theme is that of identity: the “Who am I” and the “What am I” questions that people ask themselves.

Peter: I’ve noticed that when I meet someone new, I often ask them what they do for a living. Why do we go for that question?

Phillip: I presume that is because one of the key ways in which we define ourselves is by what we do. We say, “I’m a lawyer,” or “I’m a carpenter,” or “I’m a surgeon,” or if we’re someone who really earns money, “I’m a plumber.” We’re very selective, though. We don’t identify ourselves, for instance, as being a prison officer, a garbage collector, or a street sweeper. We’re especially anxious that our children go into the top professions. There is a very clear pecking order of the things we can be proud of our children going into, versus what we’re slightly embarrassed about. But generally, we think that people are what they do.

Furthermore, what you do for a living can indicate your level of education, your status, wealth, and intelligence. It’s a women’s issue too: that is, getting women into the workforce was a way of establishing their place and their importance in society. The feminist drive for establishing you as a ‘real person’ is achieved through having a ‘significant job’, so that you don’t have to say, “I’m just a mum.”

Peter: I agree. It’s interesting that earlier generations generally identify themselves by family connections. We think, “I am who my family is.” I suspect that in many different cultures, the same thing would apply. In this understanding of human identity, the individual is less important than the family that the person belongs to. You are part of the clan, part of this wider group. You are the son of someone; you are the sibling of someone else; you are the father; you are the grandfather.

Phillip: This concept is applied in Russian names through patronymics. If you’re the son of someone, your name would include the patronymic ‘-ovich’ or ‘-evich’, meaning ‘son of’; if you’re a daughter, the name would be ‘-ovna’ or ‘-evna’. I’m sorry to our Russian readers if I have misunderstood this, but there is a code that determines where you fit in the family.

Peter: Surely, that’s better than identifying yourself by your work. It’s not wrong to tell people what your occupation is, but to identify yourself by what you do is a little worrying. But are either work or family enough to identify yourself by? It can become, in either case, a form of pride which is not helpful.

Phillip: I definitely think it’s better to identify yourself by family. Rather than asking ourselves, “Who am I?”, we should ask, “Who are we?” Individualism is one of the weaknesses of Western culture. Other cultures of the world have held family as a more important way of understanding oneself, which is the way God has created us, too. He’s created us through family, through the unity of the father and the mother. But you’re right; we can still fall into the trap of pride in family. This shows up especially in aristocracy, for instance.

Peter: Indeed it does, or at least it used to. Additionally, in the cultures where family is everything and the individual is subservient to the family, it can be a very imprisoning sort of context to live in.

Phillip: Yes, the cultures that practice family identity are the cultures that also practice control by the shame system, which is dreadful. Tribalism is another one of the weaknesses of our society, and family is a part of tribalism. For instance, the countries in Africa, where tribes are a foundation of society, have their problems. But you mentioned pride, which leads us into 1 Corinthians 3.

It can be tempting to have pride in what we do in the ministry of the gospel. Frankly, that’s worse than having pride in achievements or in family. We need God’s wisdom to understand and evaluate ourselves and our ministries. This applies to full-time ministers, to Sunday school teachers, to youth fellowship leaders, to home Bible study group leaders, and every other kind of ministry. We need God’s wisdom, and that’s what 1 Corinthians 3 gives us.

Peter: 1 Corinthians 3:1–4

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?

Phillip: This follows on from chapter 2, where we saw the contrast of two wisdoms: the wisdom of the world, which wound up crucifying the Lord of glory in its folly; and the wisdom of God, which was made known by the Spirit of God. The passage has arisen from strife in the church: the intrusion of the wisdom of the world into the church in Corinth. The Corinthians had not been Christians for very long, therefore they were still carrying over the wisdom of the world. As a result, parties arose as people claimed as their heroes various Christian teachers. So we’re essentially dealing with the same issue through chapters 1, 2, 3, and into 4.

Peter: Is this division a marker of identity for the Corinthians?

Phillip: Yes; it’s in a sense like identifying as a Lutheran or an Anglican.

Peter: Interestingly, Paul is speaking to Christians about their lack of wisdom. These are Christians who have been drawn to God by the Spirit of wisdom. Despite this, he has some pretty harsh things to say about their behaviour and what leads to it. He says they’ve been fed with milk. They allow the flesh to dominate their thinking and behaviour; therefore, they’re going to be fed with milk again because they haven’t developed beyond that. We certainly aren’t dealing with a perfect church here. Of course, we never are. But this church was marked by jealousy and strife. Were they real Christians?

When I was a new Christian, as a young person, I was reading some books about holiness that were doing the rounds at the time. I was taught in some of these books that this passage meant that there are 2 sorts of Christians: the ‘carnal’ Christians (‘carnal’ meaning ‘of the flesh’) and the ‘Spirit-filled’ Christians. According to the books, you needed a second blessing, as it was called, to become a Spirit-filled Christian. What would you have said to my young self back then?

Phillip: I would say that you mustn’t follow that kind of teaching. This letter to the Corinthians is written, as it says in 1 Corinthians 1:2, “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.” These are Christian people, and to divide Christian people is a fundamental error. Paul is not saying that there are two kinds of Christians, the carnal and the spiritual. All Christians are spiritual; if they weren’t spiritual, they wouldn’t be Christians. What he’s saying is, ‘I can’t talk to you as the spiritual Christians. You are acting childishly, and so I can’t talk to you as adults. I’m having to talk to you as if you are still children.’ He is adjusting his speech to the Corinthians as if they’re babies.

He’s using the arguments of this world, if need be, to remind them to think as adults. In fact, he uses the same imagery in 1 Corinthians 14:20,

Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.

Here, he presents the problem. It’s not a question of there being 2 kinds of Christians; it’s that there are two kinds of wisdom, and these Christians are showing the world’s wisdom. So Paul reminds them to turn their minds to that which is of God, rather than the things of this world.

Peter: This is the summary at the end of chapter 3. 1 Corinthians 3:18–23

Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.

Phillip: The wisdom of the world has the profound quality of deception. When you achieve the wisdom of this world, it puffs you up. But that kind of worldly wisdom, that kind of arrogance, is a deception. You start to think you are something when you are nothing. God’s wisdom is quite different. So our boasting is never in human achievement. The thing that we have to boast about is that we are in Christ. Frankly, what we boast about in Christ is infinitely more valuable than the things the world boasts about. For instance, I recently saw an Olympic athlete win their gold medals, yet I couldn’t remember their name. It was a thing of which they could boast, which really is of no significance. But to be in Christ Jesus gives you everything in this world to have. Therefore, the wisdom of this world is deceptive because it tells you that having wealth, a great house, a great education, and a great job makes you significant, when in reality, you are not. It says, “You have Christ, you have eternity. You have the temple of God. So what?”

Peter: The presenting problem in Corinth, of course, is one that’s not atypical in our churches. That is the worldly problem of following the great leader: in this case, Paul or Apollos or Cephas. We are constantly, even in our circles, invited to identify ourselves with some great leader, past or present, like Calvin or Wesley. We may even identify ourselves pre-eminently with a denomination, like Anglican or Orthodox, rather than Christ. Of course, we owe much to others who have been our teachers and friends. I am not unhappy to be an Anglican, but we must remember that we are not disciples of these great ones; we are disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we learn from him above all. That is true wisdom. Let’s then go back to the middle of the chapter.

Phillip: 1 Corinthians 3:5–17

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

Peter: Indeed. This is particularly addressing those in ministry, but as Phillip has said, in a way, we’re all in ministry. Please remember that this is written to all the Corinthians, not just the leaders. But anything we achieve for God goes back to his grace, mercy, kindness, and love, undeserving as we are. It’s interesting to see the description of God’s work here: that the result of preaching his Word is described as a field and also a building in verse 9. Then finally, Paul says, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” We take that to mean the church, but of course, it’s also true of the individual. You are the temple of the Lord in whom the Spirit dwells. But the work of God comes from his grace. It makes nonsense of the misreading that we referred to before of verses 1-4, about there being 2 sorts of Christian, because he declares that all are indwelled by the Spirit of God. What then do we learn here about the workers in ministry?

Phillip: If we’re in this world’s wisdom that sees our identity in our work, we will think of our identity and value in the work of ministry that we’re doing. It sounds more pious to say, “I’m a Sunday school teacher,” rather than “I’m a shop owner,” or “I’m an engineer.” But it’s the same philosophy of identity in what one does. It is fascinating that according to verse 9, we are ‘God’s fellow workers.’ There’s no higher status than to be God’s partner. Yet we are nothing. The one who plants and the one who waters are nothing, because although God is our partner, he does the work. Yet God uses our work to do his work. So we are God’s skilled and masterly servants.

It’s not as if humans are only puppets. We’re more than that, for God gives us wisdom. God gives us an ability. That’s an extraordinary phrase which is difficult to translate. We have great abilities; we water, plant, and we lay foundations. Yet it is God who does the work through us. Therefore, while I am God’s partner, which is a terrific status, I am not anything, because God is working through me.

Furthermore, we’re united in the fact that there is one building, one foundation stone upon which we lay, yet we are diverse. Verses 6-8 speak of our diversity: being a planter, a waterer, a builder. We are doing different things, because we are individuals. This takes us back to what we were talking about earlier. It’s not just about individualism or anti-individualism, or about communalism. We work together as individuals, for as God’s partners we are assigned different tasks. Therefore, God is working through us in different and varied ways, but nobody is to think that he or she is better or worse than anybody else, because we are all working towards a united effort.

Our tasks all come from the grace of God, or the gift of God. But as individuals, we must take care of what we are doing, because we are working on the temple of God. The foundation is in the Lord Jesus Christ, as verses 10-11 say, and our task is to take care of it. We will receive wages, and we will receive a reward for our labour, because when the judgement day comes, what we have done will be revealed. If we have built with shabby materials—wood, hay, stubble—our work will be burnt up, and we’ll see that what we’ve done was of no great significance. However, if we build with the precious stones that come through the fire, then what we see will be of great significance.

Phillip: And so our work will be seen. Though we’re not talking here about salvation judgement; rather, we are talking about the judgement of our Christian life. We will be saved, but what will our life have added up to? Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 2:19–20

For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy.

The work we do has eternal significance, and will be seen for its significance. But it’s the quality of the work that we’re doing that matters. It’s not that I am the preacher as opposed to the musician, or the person who cleans the building, because God uses us all to bring about his purposes. It will be seen on the last day how we’ve shared in the purposes of God. Given this, we will go back to our first topic on Christian identity.

Peter: In listening to you, I’ve been thinking about life in ministry. There are times when, being the minister of a church, everyone smiles at you, and everyone compliments you (although what they say behind your back may be different). Over time, it is easy to get the impression that you are somebody, and to draw your identity from this rather than from the Lord himself. We need to be careful in saying this, of course, because there are moments when the Lord uses another person to encourage us when we need to be encouraged. But there is the danger of believing the smiles that everyone gives us and drawing our identity from that, rather than drawing our identity from the grace of God and the ultimate fact that we are in Christ Jesus.

Phillip: So when you stand before the Lord on the last day, are you going to stand as a bishop?

Peter: I’m just putting my trust and confidence in the Lord and knowing that there will be things which I have done, and things that I have failed to do, which will be drawn to my attention. It may well be that there will be people that I now think little of who are ahead of me in the kingdom that is to come, and I will rejoice in this because I’ll be a better person. But my only trust is in Jesus.

Phillip: To bring up one of our heroes, how did John Newton perceive himself and his identity?

Peter: The last words of John Newton, whose influence goes on to this very day, were, “I remember two things: that I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Saviour.”

Phillip: That doesn’t mean that what we’ve done has no eternal significance.

Peter: No. I plant, others water, and God gives the growth. But that’s not my identity.

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Links & Recommendations

For more on this topic, check out this talk from 1 Corinthians 3 on The Work of God.

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We do appreciate comments and feedback, and even questions from our many subscribers. Sadly, we haven’t got the time or resources to be able to answer each question; however, two of the comments that came in to us on the Acts 17 passage we thought would be very helpful to air in this episode of Two Ways News, before we look at the two wisdoms contrasted in 1 Corinthians chapter 2.

Yours,

Phillip

Phillip Jensen: Today, we will speak on 1 Corinthians chapter 2, a great passage about the two wisdoms. But before we start, we must go back to some previous episodes. I would like to take this opportunity to thank those who have written to us, and to respond to some of the questions and comments that have come through. We don’t reply to every comment, but we do read them all and take careful note of them. But there are two pieces of feedback on Acts 17 that we should pick up on.

The first piece of feedback came from our dear friend Barry, who said that he enjoyed hearing about ‘the unknown god’ regarding Acts 17:23 . However, he informed us that the ancient Greeks didn’t have a concept of religion, according to Edwin Judge, since for most people, all of life was what we would term ‘religious’. A more accurate translation of what Paul said regarding the Athenians’ understanding of spirituality might be something like, “I perceive you are very careful in your piety.” For the Greeks were so afraid of offending any gods that they built altars to unknown gods, one of which caught Paul’s eye.

Peter Jensen: Personally, I agree with this viewpoint, particularly if it’s held by Edwin Judge, the great ancient historian to whom we owe so much.

Phillip: Religion is a funny thing. I have used the language of today in my referral to the ancient Greeks as being ‘religious’. We have a general understanding of what is meant by ‘religion’—temples, sacrifices, priests, holy buildings—but it is important to acknowledge this point, because the word ‘religion’ is something that has developed over time. This word, as it is used today, comes from the 19th century, when the Raj in India had to differentiate followers of Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism. However, the word became especially useful in Western society when Holyoake and others invented the term ‘secularism’. At that point, religion became what was not secular, and that then defined how we refer to religion today. Our 21st-century word ‘religion’ is frankly unhelpful, because it implies that anything ‘secular’ is the norm, and anything other than a secularist worldview is a religious worldview, which is oftentimes deemed ‘irrational’ and ‘superstitious’. When we refer to the scriptures, that division between secularism and religion does not appear; therefore, we need to be careful not to impose it onto the Bible when we read it. So thank you Barry for raising this point. We need to express clearly that ‘secularism’ is atheism, a modern invention, which then created ‘religion’ as a modern invention.

Peter: It’s worth noting too that the word ‘secular’ in itself doesn’t mean ‘without religion’. It means ‘things of this world’. There are secular priests, for example.

Phillip: The Catholic Church has secular priests who are “out in the world” as opposed to being monastic.

Peter: Indeed. It’s also important because here in the state of New South Wales we have what is called ‘secular education’, but that doesn’t mean it is anti-religious or even unfair.

Phillip: No; it just means education about the world.

Peter: Now onto a point raised by Sharon, which is again very helpful indeed. Sharon recently visited Greece, during which the tour guide drew her attention to the fact that there is an existing extra-biblical ancient source explaining the origin of the altar to the unknown god. She refers to Diogenes’ ‘Lives of Eminent Philosophers’, in which he recounts the philosopher Epimendides setting up several altars to the unknown gods near the Areopagus at around 600 BC. This certainly corroborates the evidence in Acts 17, although it seems to suggest that the altars were for several unknown gods rather than one. Regardless, this is particularly relevant because Paul also quotes from Epimenides later in the same speech. I might add that this point is made in the commentaries by David Peterson and F.F. Bruce, for those who are interested. But we would like to thank Sharon for this very enlightening and helpful comment.

Phillip: Indeed. The question is, though, do I believe it now because the history books refer to it, or do I believe it because the Bible says it?

Peter: That’s an important question because there’s been much dispute around this topic. For example, there was previously no reference to King David outside the Bible, leading to skepticism over whether he existed. However, a recent archeological find has revealed that David did exist. But we didn’t need that archeological find to know he existed; we have the Bible.

Phillip: A similar thing happened with Pontius Pilate. In the 1960s, archaeologists discovered a stone with his name and title. But I believed in Pontius Pilate before then.

Peter: What we need to recognise is that even the greatest historians only know about a small fraction of what happened in the past. If I could spend a week in Israel at the time that Jesus was there, how much more would I know about what life was like?

Phillip: The old saying goes, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” It’s important to remember this when people say that because there is no evidence for something other than the Bible. The Bible is evidence.

However, we must come to today’s passage in 1 Corinthians 2 about the two wisdoms that we deal with. Part of the contemporary attack on Christianity is about the notion that it’s anti-intellectual. Indeed, some Christians are profoundly distrustful of learning to the point that they attack modern science, modern education, and other areas of the wisdom of this world. But is Paul’s attack on wisdom in line with this anti-intellectualism?

Peter: Not if we see in the second half of the chapter the embrace of the wisdom he’s talking about. There are two wisdoms: that of the sinful world and that of God.

Phillip: 1 Corinthians 2:6–16

Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,

nor the heart of man imagined,

what God has prepared for those who love him”—

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

Peter: So the wisdom of God is not opposed to great human thought. Paul quotes the philosophers, thereby demonstrating that there are wonderful things that occur through human thought; that’s the way God created us. But the wisdom of God does differ from that of sinful human culture in thinking about fundamental issues. How do we experience this? What do you think is the best way of describing it?

Phillip: Take the Tower of Babel for example. There was great wisdom and great foolishness in what the people were doing. For they used technology. They understood how to make bricks without stone, which was impressive. Indeed, God, when he views what they’ve done, says that they will be able to do anything. The wisdom demonstrated here is described as “the wisdom of this age” and “the rulers of this world”. Every age has its rulers who impose their wisdom, and whose wisdom passes away with them. From the late 19th century through to the late 20th century, the wisdom of eugenics was imposed upon our societies. In the hands of Adolf Hitler, of course, it did incredible damage to the whole world, but it didn’t just show up in Germany. It was here in Sydney and Melbourne, too. It was this way of thinking that gave rise to a whole host of terrible social problems, such as the Stolen Generation amongst the Indigenous people.

But of course, these rulers didn’t understand God’s hidden wisdom. Now, the rulers that Paul is talking about in Corinthians demonstrated their wisdom in their execution of the Lord of Gory. Here were men and women, face to face with the Prince of Life, and they killed him. But that was God’s hidden plan: that he who was the ruler of the world would become a man rejected by humans, in order that he may pay the price for our sinfulness.

Peter: Indeed. Human wisdom can accomplish great and terrible things. We are surrounded by advances in medicine, but we have also created atomic power. But the Apostle speaks here of fundamental wisdom. Wisdom is defined relationally, as being the true knowledge of God: the fundamental wisdom without which all other wisdom is lost. It’s a wisdom which is secret and hidden. The wisdom of God is God’s determination for our glory. It is hidden, but it is eternal in God. Furthermore, it is the wisdom which rules the world, and which we need to discover. But we can’t discover it because we are sinful people. So how does that relate to the way in which human beings, as God’s image-bearers, achieve so much in the world?

Phillip: I am happy with that way of putting it, and that God has a plan for our glory. What lies ahead of us? The world doesn’t know. But God tells us what lies ahead of us: our glory, that he planned to bring about through the death and resurrection of his son. That was a great secret. The wisdom we have is built on a lie. The scientific revolution has been a wonderful thing, but of course, neither rationalism nor the scientific revolution of empiricism can ever tell me what’s on your mind and what’s in your heart. If you can’t tell me what’s on a human’s mind or heart, you certainly can’t tell me what’s in God’s mind or heart.

Peter: Do you accept that the true wisdom that we need, the fundamental wisdom, is relational?

Phillip: It is, because it’s God’s wisdom of revelation: not of rationalism or empiricism, but of knowing the mind of God.

Peter: It’s not just general revelation, but the revelation of a person.

Phillip: It’s knowing the mind of a personal God as opposed to knowing the functioning of an impersonal force. Physicists may understand the functioning of a force, but no one will understand the mind of a personal God. But the difference is very great. What we have from the personal God is his plans for us, for the universe that he’s made, but also for the future. Plans which involved hiding his wisdom so that the rulers of this world could kill his son. In Acts 2:23, Peter says, “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”

There’s the great plan of God: our glory through the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ through his death and resurrection, which the rulers of this world did not understand, otherwise they would not have put into effect the plan of God. But the mind of God is very personal, for he’s a personal God. Therefore, the way in which we know him is by the revelation of the Spirit.

Peter: I like the way you have put things, particularly in comparing God’s wisdom with ourselves. It’s very difficult to know another person. You can tell certain things about them, but having a deeper understanding of them requires a disclosure from them. This is what we call ‘revelation’: God’s disclosure of himself without which we could not know him. This is connected with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

Phillip: That is what 1 Corinthians 2:6-16 is about.

Peter: We learn a great deal about the work of the Holy Spirit in that passage, because the Spirit knows what humans cannot know. The Spirit knows the mind of God, because he is God. So in this new age of the Spirit following the resurrection of Jesus, it means that the Holy Spirit reveals what the spirit of this world has never understood. Even given the remarkable things that human beings do, even the most brainy person cannot understand the things of God unless it is revealed to them. That is because of human sin, particularly.

But we do know God. It comes to us through the Spirit-inspired words of the gospel, found in the Bible, and it’s received by us through the illumination of the Spirit.

Phillip: But it’s more than just sinfulness. It’s also that as creatures, we cannot know the mind of the Creator without revelation. I can’t know your mind without you speaking to me. You are human, you are personal, therefore I cannot know what you’re thinking.

Peter: So whenever God discloses himself, he does it in a way that he doesn’t have to, but he chooses to out of his grace. This is wonderful.

Phillip: It’s marvellous. But there are two sides to this. One side is the public revelation of himself through Jesus’ death and resurrection. The other is the opening of our minds to understand what is being said.

That illumination is the work of the Spirit. For here is the great divide between the elect and the non-elect by their reception of the gospel. For the natural person hears the gospel and calls it folly, whereas the person enlightened by the Spirit hears the gospel and sees it as the truth by which to live. He hears the wisdom of God rather than the folly of the preacher. Then the spiritual person judges all things from this worldview of wisdom that comes from God, which is so contrasted to the worldview that comes from the rulers of this age. The key to evangelism is this enlightening work of the Spirit, which in turn gives us the key to our wisdom.

Peter: Phillip, you have the gifts of an evangelist. So what difference does it make in your evangelistic work to know what 1 Corinthians 2 teaches us?

Phillip: It makes a lot of difference, in terms of the salvation of people and how the gospel goes forth, but also in the activity of day-by-day preaching the gospel. Firstly, it makes you prayerful, because it’s the work of the spirit that makes the difference in people’s hearts, rather than the quality of your presentation or anything like that. It drives you to your knees that God would open the hearts and minds of people. That gives you humility, because when people are converted, you know that it’s not because of your own gifts.

I remember giving the same exact talk at 2 separate university missions. At one university, hardly anybody was converted, but at the second, many people were converted. They were the same talks given by the same preacher. The difference was the great plan and the purposes of God: that is, the work of the Holy Spirit in the opening of minds. So when people get converted, I’ve got no grounds for calling myself a great preacher. In fact, if they were converted because I was a great preacher, I suspect they weren’t truly converted.

You must have humility as an evangelist, but this will also give you confidence, because there is nothing so simple as the gospel that, under the Spirit, can convert the greatest and the least of minds. So I know God has his people who he’s calling through the gospel. My job is to call; he will bring that message. It’s this hidden message. 1 Peter 1 tells us that the prophets of old didn’t know what they were preaching. They preached faithfully, but the sufferings and the glories of Christ were hidden from them. Again, in 1 Thessalonians, Paul knew that the Thessalonians were chosen because they responded positively to the gospel. Romans 8:5–8 says

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Plain and simple is our message. But the power of God is in the message to transform, to enlighten the hearts and minds of people, and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of that wisdom that enables people to see everything differently.

Peter: There are 2 points I would like to add. The first is that even the elect may resist the gospel to begin with, but then comes the moment when they accept it. So the fact that people may reject the gospel now doesn’t necessarily mean that they won’t accept it in the future. That means you must persist in speaking.

The second point is that the 1 Thessalonians passage you refer to illustrates not only God’s great work and the elect people, but also the way in which he uses us to do his great work. It’s very kind of him to do so. The passage also talks about the way that the Thessalonians responded. It’s as if God works through human responses and human obedience, even though he doesn’t need to.

Phillip has been talking as an evangelist, and I want to conclude by mentioning that I teach doctrine, and 1 Corinthians 2:6-16 is great for christology, the teaching about Jesus Christ. It is also great for teaching the grace of God, for it tells us that our salvation depends upon him. Additionally, it is wonderful in teaching anthropology: our doctrine of humanity, our understanding of sin, and the inability of human beings to understand the fundamental truth of the gospel. Furthermore, it informs us about pneumatology, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

Apparently Phillip Jensen has also written a book on pneumatology, The Coming of the Holy Spirit,1 which is so helpfully written. About half of it is taken up with appendices on different subjects to do with the Holy Spirit, but the first half provides an exposition of the motion of the Holy Spirit.

1

Phillip D. Jensen, The Coming of the Holy Spirit, 2022 (Matthias Media)

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Links & Recommendations

For more on this topic, check out this talk from St Andrews Cathedral City Night Church called The Secret Wisdom of God.

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Freely available, supported by generosity.

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As we continue in our studies on 1 Corinthians, we learn a lot about Paul the evangelist. This helps us in understanding evangelism ourselves and our evangelistic efforts.

However, before we get there, we need to backtrack a little to our episode about Bondi and antisemitism to clarify some of the things that we said. I hope you find these clarifications helpful, though the subject of evangelism in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 is more important.

Yours,

Phillip

Phillip Jensen: Following our recent episode Bondi and Antisemitism, we need to make some qualifications about the things we discussed, for we are worried that some of our points were not expressed as well as we intended.

Firstly, I think we gave the impression that we thought antisemitism was a new phenomenon that did not exist in the 1950s. That isn’t the case, and the history of Sydney’s golf clubs, for example, indicates just that. At that time, Jews weren’t allowed to join several of the leading golf clubs of Sydney, which led to them creating their own club, Monash Country Club up at Ingleside. In one sense, this was simply part of the tribalism of the early 20th century in Sydney. The Roman Catholics were also excluded from golf clubs and, like the Jews, they founded St Michael’s at Little Bay. This aspect of history reminds us that there’s no such thing as a golden age of sinlessness. However, we must not generalise tribalism to such an extent as to fail to notice that antisemitism was a particularly nasty feature of it, and had its own distinctive characteristics. As a matter of fact, the Catholics and the Protestants got on with each other better than the way either of them treated the Jews. In fact, Christianity has had a very sad history of antisemitism throughout the centuries.

Yet the antisemitism of recent years is more explicit, more hateful, and more potentially violent than it was in the 1950s. I don’t recall, either historically or from our experience, that back then there was any likelihood of people shooting or bombing Jewish people. The synagogues in our suburb then didn’t have guards standing outside them, whereas the synagogues in my suburb now are surrounded with guards and police. Antisemitism has become much more explicit. There are all kinds of reasons why: firstly, there has been a re-emergence of the Nazi party, which is almost unimaginable to people who grew up in the 1950s, after our nation had fought against them. Another contributing factor is that we now have an Islamic community of great size in Australia, which we didn’t have in previous generations, creating a division in our society that we didn’t have previously. Thirdly, there’s been a shift towards the ideology of identity politics, of oppressors and oppressed tribes. There is also the community response to the war in Gaza, and especially to the way in which Israel prosecutes that war. And of course, there is the historical ignorance of our society. We don’t teach about the Holocaust; we don’t teach about the history of the establishment of the State of Israel; we don’t teach the history of the Bible; we don’t teach the history of the Middle East. Thus, there is a significant amount of ignorance in our community about these matters.

One of the factors that I believe contributes to our ignorance is the secularists, who often run our education and our government, because they fail to understand or respect religious motivations. They are against religions in general, and they lump them all in one category called ‘faith communities’, because they don’t understand the differences and the motivations involved. This can be seen in the way the government has tried to equate antisemitism with Islamophobia, even though they cannot really be equated. This has resulted in our government being unwilling to protect the Jews. I noticed that the Prime Minister, in making a public apology, said that “we could not” defend the Jewish people, rather than “we did not”, implying that it was somehow beyond our capacity to do so. These many contributing factors have given rise to why we are going to have a Royal Commission into antisemitism. But as we wish to reiterate, antisemitism has been running for over a century within Sydney as a community.

That brings us to the second qualification that we would like to make, which is about the usage of certain terms. How do you understand terms such as ‘antisemitism’, ‘Zionism’, and ‘the Israeli government’? How do these 3 ideas interact?

Peter Jensen: Antisemitism has had an extremely long history, whereas Zionism, being the belief in the right of the Jews to have the modern state of Israel, only goes back to the post-Second World War period. People, of course, have very strong opinions about this. Those in favour support sending the Jews back to their homeland, an event which occurred during that period of time. However, this action led to negative consequences. So Zionism is a political matter. But it’s worth saying that you can be against the idea that there should be a state of Israel whilst not being antisemitic; it depends on your reasons as to why you hold that opinion. Likewise, Israel’s government makes political, economic and military decisions which we may or may not agree with. If, for example, you disagree with the way in which they are conducting the present war, it doesn’t automatically mean you are antisemitic.

Phillip: There were people who objected to the ways in which the allies prosecuted the Second World War, after all, including those who objected to the dropping of the atom bombs. How a government conducts a war is a political decision that you can agree or disagree with.

Peter: I have been reading a book about the conduct of war, where the author talks about how the British prosecuted the war in Europe with carpet bombing and other such things. There were many people who objected to these actions, and some of the stories that this man brings up in his book highlight that war is a horrible and ugly thing. I hope that I’ve been clear in saying that antisemitism is wrong, but the issue of Zionism and the activities of the Israeli government are matters for discussion, and differences of opinion can arise about those topics without those opinions necessarily being antisemitic.

Phillip: But there is an overlap, for the antisemitic person will be anti-Zionist and will be against the Israeli government’s decisions.

Peter: I fear so. Furthermore, given the fiery nature of this discussion, it is interesting to see how much the war in Gaza has been covered within Western media, yet there are other terrible things going on elsewhere that hardly get a mention. What are the reasons for this?

Phillip: You could argue that the West’s involvement is part of it too, but you raise a good point: why don’t we hear about Sudan? There are many Sudanese people in Australia, yet we don’t hear much about the horrendous things that are happening there. However, that is a discussion for another day. For now, we will move on to 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, which is on the subject of evangelism.

When Paul came to evangelise to the Corinthians, he taught us how to fulfill the Lord’s commands to go into all the world.

Peter: Inherent in what he says here, and even throughout the whole chapter, are key insights into how God works in bringing people to himself. Fundamentally, what we see here is yet another example of the way in which God’s grace and love for the undeserving is at work, how salvation is from grace, and how we cannot praise ourselves for choosing God.

Phillip: Yes, although as I indicated, the passage is about evangelism. We have been given the task of evangelism, which is about what we say and how we say it. What we say is the message of the cross: a message that is not attractive to the world, neither then nor today. How we talk about the message of the cross is described in 1 Corinthians 2, for Paul mentions in verse 3 that he proclaimed it “in weakness and in fear and much trembling.” Many people, when they come to evangelise, have a certain fear and trembling just like the Apostle Paul did.

Peter: To read from 1 Corinthians 2:1-5,

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

The great Apostle Paul, the evangelist who stood up against authorities that were threatening to kill him, reveals here his own weakness and fear. I find this so encouraging, because I personally find evangelism very hard, especially one-to-one evangelism, and particularly amongst people that I know, because of my own fear. It’s encouraging, then, to see Paul admit this.

Phillip: Indeed, because within the New Testament, speaking the gospel boldly is one of the characteristics of evangelism. In Ephesians 5, Paul asks for prayer that he might be bold enough to speak as he ought to speak. It’s part of the fact that we are, essentially, clay vessels. What matters is not the appearance of the vessel; rather, it is that we contain the gospel, the power of God. It is important that we understand Paul’s teaching here in terms of ourselves. Like you said, it’s encouraging, because we also fear. But it’s also about the nature of evangelism, that it isn’t about being a great orator. What is more important is the humility of the message of the cross.

The cross assures us that the way of salvation is not by conquest, but by sacrifice and service in the Lord Jesus Christ. Having been saved by his sacrifice, we do not preach the gospel by overwhelming people. We have a message, but the message is an invitation to accept the sacrifice of our Lord and Saviour. Paul doesn’t come proclaiming the testimony of God using lofty language; he is not on his high horse speaking down to people. He deliberately proclaims the gospel by highlighting the humiliation of Jesus, and hence the humility of the cross. Paul does not portray himself as being the great man in Corinth. He’s the humble visitor in Corinth, building tents for a living.

Peter: As a doctrine teacher, I often turn to 1 Corinthians 2 in teaching the doctrine and the work of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul tells us here, as you say, that his speech was not in plausible words of wisdom. He is not like someone trying to sell a product as in our day. He attributes his success simply to the work of the Holy Spirit in opening people’s eyes, despite the fact that he speaks to them in a very plain way. The Holy Spirit has done this. Once again, we are reminded of God’s grace in bringing people to himself. It’s God’s work.

Phillip: It is, because he describes the message as foolishness. Evangelism is about speaking, talking, proclaiming, telling. It seems strange, the idea of aiming to convert the world by simply telling people things. It’s not in doing miracles, in signs and wonders, or even through clever arguments and rhetorical tricks, but in opening hearts and minds to believe. But that’s the work of the Spirit who comes with our speaking. Because as we speak the Word of God, so the Spirit works in the hearts of the recipients. When Paul describes his preaching in 1 Thessalonians 1:4-5, he says

We know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.

As the Holy Spirit comes upon God’s people, they are fully convinced of the words that are being spoken in 1 Corinthians 2. That is because the purpose of evangelism is that our faith may rest on the power of God, not on the wisdom of man. When a very clever person evangelises with very clever arguments, the temptation is to put our faith in the person. C.S. Lewis was indeed a very clever man who used very clever arguments, but I would rather rely upon Jesus than C.S. Lewis to be saved. In fact, I’m sure C.S. Lewis would prefer that too. Wonderful miracle workers point to the messenger, and so our faith is in the cross of Christ, which is the purpose of God.

Peter: One of the best books that I read as a teenager was Dr. Packer’s Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God1 which I still recommend because it reminds us of some of these points. Returning to today’s topic, however, what do you think is the lesson about evangelism for us in 1 Corinthians 2?

Phillip: There are many things to take from this, really. Evangelism is about simply and plainly telling God’s truth. That’s why any Christian can be involved. If you can talk at all, you can tell people Christ is Lord.

Peter: But let me ask you a question. Paul says here that his message about the crucified saviour was regarded as ridiculous, and so it was. But 2,000 years later, the cross is something else entirely: it is everywhere. Is our message ridiculous to the Western world in which we live?

Phillip: It is, but it’s ridiculous for 2 reasons. The first is that people don’t understand it, but the second is that people do understand it. When you say that Jesus died, they say, ‘Yes, Jesus died for our sins’, because that’s the standard Sunday School answer that we were taught as children. But people have no understanding of what sin is or how Jesus dying for sins could make any difference. In our gospel summary Two Ways to Live2, we highlight 3 great doctrines that are essential to have as background information to understand the cross and the resurrection. If you don’t understand the creation, sin and judgement, Jesus’ death and resurrection don’t make sense.

Peter: So why does Paul say that he preaches Christ crucified?

Phillip: Because that is the one message that makes sense of the 3 doctrines of creation, sin, and the judgement that is to come. But without that background, you can’t make sense of the cross. In some ways, the connection between the Old and the New Testament is what we’re talking about. But it’s more than that: when people do understand the cross, they think it’s foolish because that message surely cannot bring about the change of the world, even though historically it’s quite manifest that it has. Paul writes later, in 1 Corinthians 15:3–4

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures

The phrase, ‘in accordance with the Scriptures’ appears twice, because without the Scriptures, you won’t understand either the death or the resurrection of Jesus. But this has to do with understanding, not apologetics. I'm afraid that people confuse apologetics and evangelism.

Peter: To return to the observation I made before about myself and doctrine, evangelism is the work of God the Holy Spirit.

Phillip: Absolutely, and to leave that out is a great mistake.

Peter: Indeed. Evangelism does not rely on human wisdom, but is the work of God by his spirit in the heart of unbelievers. One of my favourite passages is 2 Corinthians 4:1-6

Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

This passage refers to unbelievers as being ‘blind’, unable to see the light of the gospel. It refers to Paul as preaching the gospel, summarised aptly as “Jesus Christ as Lord”. But then, to summarise verse 6, the light is switched on and we see the face of Jesus Christ in all his glory. The switching on of the light is God’s work by his Holy Spirit. So the essence of evangelism is certainly about preaching the message to people who cannot believe. Then those whom God has chosen for that moment believe because he has turned the light on.

Phillip: That’s how we know the Thessalonians had been chosen, because of the way they responded. One of my favorite passages is 1 Thessalonians 2:13

And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.

The Holy Spirit does the great work of evangelism through human messengers, by this great divine message of the cross, in the hearts and minds of hearers, as he brings them to new birth. The evangelist in this whole system is the Holy Spirit, and we are the microphone, the vessel which contains the powerful treasure of the gospel.

Peter: To conclude, evangelism is God’s work through his people, and therefore, all of us are evangelists who should take the opportunity to share the gospel, trusting in the Lord that if he pleases, he will open the eyes and hearts of the people we’re speaking to. But are there not people who are gifted as evangelists?

Phillip: There are, because we know Philip is called an evangelist in the book of Acts. Ephesians 4 also speaks about the gifts of the Lord Jesus Christ, which include the evangelists alongside the apostles and prophets. Additionally, Timothy is told to do the work of an evangelist. Thus, there are people who have a particular giftedness in evangelism.

Peter: How do you account for that?

Phillip: God in his kindness and Christ in his plans has given people this gift, but it’s not exclusive. It’s like prophecy: there are certain who are prophets. “Are all prophets?” writes Paul, in 1 Corinthians 12. No. But in Chapter 14, he tells us to seek prophecy, and he says that we can all prophesy in time. The universality of our prophetic abilities is given to Christians, because whenever Christians speak of Jesus Christ as Lord, according to Revelation 14, it’s the Spirit of Christ that puts the word of prophecy in the mouth, and our words of prophecy are of the lordship of Jesus.

2

Read all about the Two Ways to Live gospel presentation here.

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Links & Recommendations

For more on this topic, check out this series of talks from Mid Year Conference 2004 on the Doctrine of Evangelism.

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Is pride a virtue or a vice? Is it right or even wise to boast of oneself? Traditionally, modesty has long been commended and pride decried. But today, we encourage the young to be proud of themselves, and we hear celebrities of all kinds proclaiming pride in themselves and their achievements. What place, then, does pride have in the Christian life? Should we be proud to be Christians?

The ancient world, as with the modern, places great emphasis on learning, education and wisdom. The human ability to think deeply is one of the great distinctive characteristics of our species. But does God set limits on human wisdom? Can we judge God or even know him by our wisdom?

The gospel always undermines human pride in ways we never expect, and so I hope you enjoy our discussion in this episode. Thank you to those who have inspired conversations by contacting us and providing feedback; if you want to do the same, please write to us at respond@twm.email.

Yours,

Phillip

Peter Jensen: Continuing in our series on 1 Corinthians, we are now moving into the body of chapter 1, starting at verse 18. In the preceding verses, as we discussed last time, Paul talks about the divisions in the church. He concludes his point by mentioning that while he did baptise some people, he says, verse 17, “For Christ did not send me to baptise but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” If you asked a class at a theological college to finish the sentence in verse 17, assuming they’d never read it before, I doubt that they would finish it with these words, “lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” It is astonishing, because we often don’t see how central the cross is, nor the way it speaks of the power of God. We think about God in terms of miracles and of healings, but the cross exhibits the power of God in an extraordinary way.

Phillip Jensen: What we have in that passage is a contrast, not simply between baptism and preaching, but between eloquent words and the power of the cross.

Peter: In fact, the gospel preached by Christ and by Paul was ridiculous to the world. Any modern advertiser would strongly discourage their client from selling their product in the way that the Apostle Paul was preaching the gospel. In our day and age, we don’t realise how incredibly absurd the Christian message was in the 1st century, firstly because it was about the Jewish God. Although some Gentiles were understandably drawn to the Jews, they were a minority, and they were looked upon as strange. The Jewish religion was so unusual in the pagan world that it was regarded as something ridiculous, and thus the gospel was profoundly disregarded.

Phillip: Even within the Jewish framework, the idea of a crucified Christ is nonsensical. It’s hard for us to imagine now how unbelievable it was to proclaim that your god was crucified. Within the scriptures, it is said that anyone who hangs from a tree is under the curse of God.

Secondly, from the Roman point of view, someone who was crucified was a failure of a person. One of the oldest pieces of graffiti in Rome, dating back to around 200 AD, depicts a man named ‘Alexaminos’ worshipping a crucified man with a donkey’s head. This piece of graffiti was making fun of the idea that someone’s god would be crucified. It was a particularly absurd idea because crucifixion was not only cruel, but it was the most degrading, shameful way of being executed. No Roman citizen was ever supposed to be crucified; it was what happened to slaves, to foreigners, and to rebels. So this gospel about the crucifixion was nonsense to the Jews and to the Romans.

Peter: These days, if we were the apostles, we would probably agree to tell people what Jesus said, and of the miracles he performed, but to never talk about his disastrous end.

Phillip: Indeed, we would want to focus on how Jesus can satisfy and give meaning to your life. There’s a whole range of things Jesus can do for you which, from a public relations point of view, are much more interesting and attractive than his crucifixion.

Peter: Funnily enough, that sounds a bit like some modern preaching that we hear.

Phillip: Yes, it’s the idea that we must emphasise the positive rather than the negative: that we should not mention sin, judgement, or Jesus’ crucifixion.

Peter: That’s right. But not only was the idea of God being crucified unbelievable; the resurrection was equally abhorrent and absurd. Before the invention of modern medicine, your body was your enemy. The length of life was much shorter than it is today. The pain and suffering that people put up with is now unimaginable. Today, a problem like a rotten tooth can be resolved within 24 hours, but back then, it could cause lifelong problems. If you did have an operation of some sort, there would be no kind of pain relief. The body was, then, something that you wanted to get rid of.

Phillip: There was also a philosophical aspect to the relationship between a person and their body.

Peter: Upon death, the spirit was believed to leave the body. Within that framework, if you were crucified, the spirit that left the body would be attached still to the earth. You could not ascend to the heavens, even if you were crucified as an innocent. If we were sitting with the apostles, discussing the most convincing way to preach the gospel into the world, we would say, “Let’s talk about what Jesus said, and the miracles he performed. But we should avoid the resurrection, and the idea inherent in the resurrection that every human being would be resurrected.”

Phillip: What is the connection between Jesus’ resurrection and the promise of everybody being resurrected?

Peter: It’s eschatology again: that is, the study of what the Bible teaches about the end of all things. For what Daniel 12 teaches us is that there will be a moment when everyone who is in the dust of the earth will rise, and God will create a new heaven and a new earth. He will revise all things and set us in this new world. But when we get to 1 Corinthians 15, we will discover how the body is utterly transformed and suitable for the new world. But here, we have the resurrection of all human beings: both those who believe and those who don’t — though the fate of each is going to be different.

Phillip: This was where the Pharisees and the Sadducees disagreed. For what they disagreed about was this eschatological resurrection that you mentioned.

Peter: Indeed, and Jesus is the first fruit. The resurrection of Jesus is extraordinary. Theologically, it is the evidence that God has introduced the last days, because the first resurrection has occurred.

Phillip: When Paul preaches about that in Acts 17, the audience mocks him. They aren’t necessarily mocking Jesus’ resurrection, but the entire concept of a person being resurrected from the dead.

Peter: You wouldn’t want to preach this gospel in a million years. But we will now return to this idea of the cross and its connection to God’s revelation of himself.

Phillip: 1 Corinthians 1:19–21

For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

The desire of people is to decide for themselves who God is, by human reason or by seeing some mighty works. But the gospel is a revelation from God. ‘Revelation’ is a fascinating word, for Christians use it in a way that the non-Christian world doesn’t always understand. The word ‘revelation’ means ‘uncovering’, or a ‘disclosure’ of something. Revelation in this context is not the result of human searching or inquiring, but the result of God showing us who he is through the cross and the resurrection.

Peter: But in the Old Testament, we’re told that the creation is a revelation of God. Psalm 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” What is the connection between the cross and God’s revelation?

Phillip: While the heavens made clear the glory of God, people do not hear or see. For God has revealed himself by what he has created, but because of our evil, we suppress the truth of God’s revelation in creation. It’s the sinfulness of us humans that prevents us from seeing the truth. There’s no lack of evidence about God, but there is a lack of desire to know and to relate to God, because God rules over us. Obedience is not what we want; instead, we want to sit in judgement on God by human wisdom. That’s why we come to verse 19, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” This verse quotes from Isaiah 29, which talks about the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem. At that point, the empire, having destroyed city after city, arrived at Jerusalem, intending to destroy it. But out of nowhere, they packed up and went home.

Why did they pack up and go home? Because God sent them home. God predicted it would happen, and it did. All the Israelites had to do was trust God, for he was going to do it. So all the wise prophecies and expectations from the Assyrians and the Jews were proven false, because God decided to thwart the wisdom of the wise. God has decided not to be known by wisdom; in fact, he uses his wisdom to thwart our wisdom. Clever people think they can understand everything, which is of course nonsense. You can learn certain things from empiricism, testing, surveys, and by rationalism, especially through mathematics. But you cannot learn what a person chooses to hide. The Enlightenment of the 18th century enthroned humans instead of God, and thus enthroned human reason instead of God’s wisdom. In the arrogance of the Enlightenment, we decided that God is answerable to humans. But God’s choice is to reveal himself to whomever he chooses to. It’s the same as ours in that regard. For example, we once had an older brother named Ralph. You will never know what he was like, unless you knew him personally or unless we revealed to you what Ralph was like. Personal knowledge requires not empiricism or rationalism, but revelation.

Peter: This means that the way into the knowledge of God is humility. It’s the willingness to listen and to hear. It is not the way of pride and boastfulness. Calvin begins his great work Institutes of the Christian Religion by putting the knowledge of God at the very center of things, and by asserting that there is a connection between the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves. He says that the knowledge of ourselves has to be the knowledge that we have nothing, we are nothing, and we are sinful people. Our only way of knowing God is through God’s revelation of himself.

If we could come up with some philosophical proof of God’s existence, we could award ourselves medals. But that doesn’t actually relate you to God. It doesn’t mean that God is God for you because you have proved his existence. On the contrary, your pride may exempt you from that. It’s not that God and the gospel lack wisdom or power.

Phillip: 1 Corinthians 1:22–25

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Peter: This makes me think of the cross of Christ, once regarded as so abhorrent that it was unmentionable in polite circles; now, the cross can be seen throughout the world. The cross has conquered the world. That is the power of God.

Phillip: It’s astonishing that the cross is the most recognised symbol in the world. It testifies to the fact that what was once completely powerless, a crucified man, is more powerful than anybody ever imagined. That which we think is foolish, a message about a man being crucified, is wiser than anything anybody ever imagined.

Peter: Let us return to this extraordinary point about the knowledge of God resting upon his revelation.

Phillip: But it’s not the universal revelation of God that we’re talking about here. It isn’t the creation revelation of God that all men see.

Peter: Let’s refer to the text to see whether you’re correct: in 1:24-25, Paul says

But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Phillip: Those verses repeat Paul’s point in verse 18, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

Peter: Indeed, what we have read is so important, so heart wrenching. Our sin is so great that we cannot believe that we can receive this salvation.

According to some interpretations, when the gospel is preached, it is up to you to believe it. In a way, that’s true, but you must understand that when you do believe it, you only believe it because the light of the truth has shone in your heart, so that you may see the face of Jesus Christ. In other words, it’s God’s summons through his Holy Spirit that brings us to salvation. The reason that we tell you this is so that we cannot boast. As the hymn goes

Naked, come to thee for dress;

Helpless, look to thee for grace;

Foul, I to the fountain fly;

Wash me, Saviour, or I die.

The salvation we are talking about is entirely the work of God in its supreme achievement, its accomplishment, and its application to us. For we are called into the knowledge of God by the Holy Spirit.

Phillip: As Paul continues through verses 26–31

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Peter: Is there still a temptation for us to boast in our strength, as there was among the Corinthians?

Phillip: Of course, there always is. In fact, it’s a modern practice to talk about being proud of oneself. Pride has now become a virtue in certain circles, but pride is never of the people of God. Our boast is in another: Christ Jesus. We are not significant in any shape, form or fashion of this world. The reality is that we’re unimpressive, we’re unimportant, and we’re weak. This is why the rich find it so hard to be saved, though it is possible. The Countess of Huntingdon, a famous and wealthy woman of the 18th century, said in regards to verse 26,

Blessed be God, it does not say “any mighty,” “any noble”; it says “many mighty,” “many noble.” I owe my salvation to the letter “m.” If it had been “not any noble,” where would the countess have been?

She knew that she was not saved because she was wealthy or significant or had the right family connections. She was saved because of the Lord Jesus Christ’s death. The death of Jesus empties us of all pride, of all self, as we simply cling to the cross. So it’s the basis of true piety that our boast is only in the Lord.

This affects so many things, such as evangelism. People often confuse apologetics, arguments, and philosophical debates with evangelism. However, the difference is that you don’t have to read up on all possible arguments to preach the gospel. In fact, it’s better that you simply tell people about the Lord Jesus Christ and his death for them.

People also confuse evangelism with miracles. Some speak of ‘power evangelism’, the performing of miracles to persuade people to turn to Christ. But it is the death of the Lord Jesus Christ which is the great power of God demonstrated in this world. This brings us back to the subject of divisions in the church. Because when I think I’m somebody, then I am tempted to fight with others; but when I recognise that without the Lord Jesus Christ, I am nobody, but with Christ, I am only one of the saved, that diminishes the fight, the pride, the quarrelling.

Peter: Boasting is not wrong; it’s what you boast in that can be right or wrong. You can boast about the achievements of your children, of your nation, of your own accomplishments, but that is all garbage. As this chapter concludes in verse 31, “As it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’”

We as Christians should not boast in our own achievements, our own righteousness, our own intelligence, or anything of that matter. Our boast is simply in the Lord because we are saved in him. To our readers, I ask the question: do you believe that? Is your boast only in the Lord Jesus, and what he has done for you in dying for you on the cross?

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Links & Recommendations

For more on this topic, listen to this talk. It’s called The Foolishness and Weakness of God.

Freely available, supported by generosity.

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Church division dishonours our Lord and creates great pain amongst his people. Sadly, it is all too frequent in our experience. But what is the nature of church unity, and what level of priority should we give to it? Clarity of thought and expression is very important when painful disagreements are being addressed; this is particularly true when we discuss the nature of unity and the church.

In Corinth was the disunited church of God. This is the issue that Paul discusses in his first letter to the Corinthians. However, we must remember that he not only addresses the particular situation of the Corinthian church, but also “all those who in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Yours,

Phillip

Phillip Jensen: Since the tragedy in Sydney, with the shooting of 15 mainly Jewish people at their Hanukkah festival, our nation has been struggling with unity and with discord. Our government has talked more about social cohesion, which is a difficult concept to make sense of; subsequently, they are struggling to make meaningful changes. Our national government in particular has demonstrated the problem with their legislation, which has led to further disagreements as it has displayed the deep divisions within our society, for nobody could agree about almost any element that was involved in this massacre. The public media, in its typical judgemental fashion, demonstrated the same kind of divisiveness, because instead of reporting on what the government had decided, they spent pages talking about the divisions within the government, particularly within the opposition parties. The political mindset of journalists prioritises fighting, for division is more interesting to report than the decisions of governments.

But we Christians have to be careful in our criticisms about divisions. Within our churches, we also often have divisions, which are painful and dishonouring to the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what we’re going to deal with when we look at 1 Corinthians, for we find that such divisions are the subject of chapter 1.

Peter Jensen: Could you clarify why you have chosen 1 Corinthians in particular?

Phillip: Because I believe in all the Bible, as you do. But I chose this particular part because as we read and talk about the Bible, we discuss the significance of passages in a particular context which have a general application, for general truths are being spoken. It’s typical of the New Testament to see that the Apostle Paul appeals to the great fundamental truths of the gospel in order to address the particular situations of Corinth. So out of these particular contexts come universal principles.

Peter: In our last episode, we talked about the introduction to 1 Corinthians. I would like to refer back to this wonderful introduction, which is a very positive description of the church. Paul says, in 1 Corinthians 1:2

To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.

This is a very positive, wonderful description of the church in Corinth. Subsequently, you could hardly believe what he says next.

Phillip: Paul is particularly addressing the church in Corinth, but the letter is not written exclusively to Corinth; it’s to the church of God. It’s to anyone who calls upon the Lord from any place. That begs the question: what is the church, and how do divisions fit into it?

Peter: Paul describes divisions in 1 Corinthians 1:10-17

I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgement. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarrelling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptised in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptised none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptised in my name. (I did baptise also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptised anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptise but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

Phillip: Here’s a great passage about divisions and Paul’s appeal, but what is the church? What’s the meaning of this concept of the church of God that he’s writing to, which can apparently be so divided?

Peter: We both know that we have what may be regarded, in terms of most Christians, as a slightly unusual doctrine of the church. I believe it’s a biblical one, but it’s unusual nonetheless. The chief expression of church in the New Testament, from our point of view, is a congregation: a gathering of people with the intention of meeting the Lord in his word and by the power of his Spirit. We think of that as being a congregation, a gathering around the Lord Jesus Christ, rather than the way the word ‘church’ is so often used to mean a denomination. In a sense, I would prefer the Anglican Church to be called the ‘Anglican Denomination’ to distinguish it from the local church. Interestingly, William Tyndale, who translated the Bible into English, wanted to use the word ‘congregation’ instead of the word ‘church’, but was talked out of it.

Phillip: It’s a sadness that he was talked out of it, because ‘congregation’ has a more specific meaning, whereas ‘church’ can mean so many things. We’re not alone in holding to the church being the congregation.

Peter: Indeed; for example, Jim Packer wrote about the church in these terms in his book Concise Theology

Essentially, the church is, was, and always will be a single worshiping community, permanently gathered in the true sanctuary which is the heavenly Jerusalem (Gal. 4:26; Heb. 12:22-24), the place of God’s presence. Here all who are alive in Christ, the physically living with the physically dead (i.e., the church militant with the church triumphant) worship continually. In the world, however, this one church appears in the form of local congregations, each one called to fulfill the role of being a microcosm (a small-scale representative sample) of the church as a whole. This explains how it is that for Paul the one church universal is the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:12-26; Eph. 1:22-23; 3:6; 4:4), and so is the local congregation (1 Cor. 12:27).1

Phillip: So this word ‘church’ is fundamentally referring to the heavenly, eschatological, current end-of the-world gathering. But the local congregation is the expression of that.

Peter: Indeed, it is the microcosm, or the manifestation of it. So when we enter our local congregation, we are entering the church of God. I sometimes see these documents that say the Church throughout the world is the ‘body of Christ’, and we are parts of it. As if one church is a ‘toe’, and another is a ‘hand’, and so forth. But that’s not the case: the church is the local gathering of Christians with the intention of meeting the Lord Jesus in his word, by the power of his Spirit. It is the body of Christ, and it is the bride of Christ.

One of the key elements here is New Testament eschatology, or the doctrine of the end. Often in systematic theology, the idea of the end is the last subject you come to. But in the Bible itself, based as it is upon promise and fulfilment, eschatology suffuses the whole. The time in which we are living is between the first and second coming of Christ. The first coming of Christ is the end: the kingdom has arrived, the king has landed. Now we are living between the first and second coming, in what the Bible calls the last days. The last days have gone on for about 2000 years so far, but in this period of time, the resurrection has begun.

This helps us to understand church. There are not many churches, but one church: the heavenly church. Every place where the gospel is being preached and Christians gather together to meet the Lord, whether it’s a hillside in China or a vast cathedral somewhere, is the church.

That of course begs the question: what is the relationship between my local church and the other gatherings of Christ?

Phillip: 1 Corinthians speaks of churches. For example, 1 Corinthians 7:17 says, “This is my rule for all the churches.” He thereby acknowledges the reality that there are different churches around the world. However, the churches belong to each other as one eschatological, heavenly church. They are all members of the same family, which is why Paul uses the language of ‘brother’ and ‘sister’. In Christ, you belong to the family of God; therefore, there is only one church in which we share.

Peter: 1 Peter 5:9 mentions the “brotherhood throughout the world”.

Phillip: It is spread across the world, but it’s still the same brotherhood. There’s no harm in a set of churches forming a denomination and helping each other. I’ve always been slightly amused by the fact that both in England and in Australia, we have ‘the fellowship of independent churches’. The language is a paradox: if it’s a fellowship, they’re not independent; but if they’re independent, they’re not a fellowship. It’s a strange phrase, because although it’s in some ways correct, because there are many churches, there really is only one fellowship of the churches. But this organisation is not itself a church. That’s why we use the phrases, ‘the Anglican Church’ or ‘the Presbyterian Church’. It’s interesting to see the shift that’s happened in language regarding the Baptists, for people nowadays talk of ‘the Baptist Church’ when it was originally called ‘the union of Baptist churches’. That was because the ‘church’ referred to the local church or congregation, but these denominations are not themselves the church of God.

Peter: Does that mean you have no objection to denominations merging in the name of church unity? After all, Jesus prayed that we may all be one. Should we not work to fulfil that prayer? Shouldn’t John 17:21, “That they may all be one” be taken as a command that we’re all meant to be one?

Phillip: I don’t mind denominations and associations uniting, but I don’t see that there’s any reason why they need to. For that is not church unity; it’s association unity. But talking about it in terms of John 17, I think, is quite wrong. John 17:21 is a prayer, not a command. Furthermore, that prayer is asking God firstly that he will once again have glory with his Son; secondly, that the apostles will faithfully deliver the message; and thirdly, that all who receive it may be one with the apostles. It would be very strange to think that the first two prayers would be answered, but then to think God wasn’t concerned about the third point, that they are one. In fact, Paul tells us in Galatians that we are all one in Christ Jesus. We don’t create church unity because God has created church unity.

Peter: This passage in 1 Corinthians, however, tells a very different story to that of church unity. The Corinthian church was a mess. I’ve seen churches that have been in deep trouble before now, but I don’t think I’ve ever come across a church quite as bad as the Corinthians. It was a mess of fighting and quarrels, and that’s how this passage begins. How can this be the church of Christ?

Phillip: I agree with you. The church of Corinth is as messed up as any church you may come across. So when people hold up the church of Corinth as a great example of spirituality, that is a problem.

Churches are messy. There never has been a golden age of churches. There will be a golden age in the return of the Lord Jesus, but certainly not in the first century, the sixteenth century, or today. If anything, we’re told by Paul in Corinthians not to expect perfection, but divisions. He says in 1 Corinthians 11:18–19

For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognised.

It’s the expectation of the Apostle Paul that it won’t be all plain sailing in Corinth. But that’s not to say that divisions are acceptable. Back in chapter 1 verse 10, he commands them to speak with one voice. It’s not the vague unity and social cohesion that our parliamentarians in Canberra try to create. It’s the agreement in the gospel, that they might strive to have the same mind, the same judgement, the same understanding and knowledge. He wants them to restore that same speech and understanding. But Paul had heard that they weren’t like that.

Peter: He must have known his own eschatology. He taught us, as did the Lord, that this period between the first and second coming of Jesus would be marked by sin. So it’s hardly surprising to find churches which are divided in the way you’ve described.

Tell us about the parties mentioned in chapter 1: the followers of Paul, Apollos, Cephas, and Christ.

Phillip: Cephas is the Aramaic name of the Apostle Peter. Apollos was a great preacher at the time. Thus, there were followers loyal to Paul, Apollos, Cephas, and Christ. The parties seem to be real, but the names may not be. Paul may have applied false names to these parties to avoid getting entangled in the particulars in Corinth, so he could draw out the greater truths.

It’s not that there are, in reality, different apostolic theologies. It’s not as though there is a ‘Gospel of Peter’ or a ‘Gospel of Apollos’. Regarding the ‘Christ party’, it may be that there was a group of people who would say, “I only follow Christ”, to feel a sense of superiority over the others. It’s more likely, however, that Paul was making the point that Christ is what unites us, rather than the apostles. Christ is not divided, and Paul was not crucified for us. So he reminds us that we are followers of Christ, not Paul, for Paul was not crucified for our sins; nor are people baptised in Paul’s name. We are baptised in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He wasn’t sent to baptise, but to spread the gospel.

Peter: It’s initially a surprising thing for Paul to say – though it becomes less surprising when you think about it. For the Lord said in Matthew 28:19-20

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

So the apostle goes to the very heart of what Jesus has said, pointing out that while preaching and discipling are important, what is most essential is the preaching of the gospel. Furthermore, after addressing the situation in Corinth, Paul turns to the universal truth of the gospel, hence 1 Corinthians 1:17

For Christ did not send me to baptise but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

Phillip: Matthew 28:20 provides us an important understanding of the nature of baptism, that it is about repentance and for the forgiveness of sins. The pivotal aspect is not the water; it is the cleansing that happens. As 1 Peter chapter 3 describes, it’s the appeal to God for a clear conscience through the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. So Paul in 1 Corinthians says that while he did baptise people, the baptisms he performed were not what he was sent to do. What matters is not who performed the baptism; rather, it is to be baptised into Christ, as a result of hearing the gospel of the cross of Christ. Therefore, Paul was not sent to baptise, nor to impress others with his own words of wisdom, but to spread the gospel: that is, the message of the cross of Christ.

Peter: It is interesting that Paul in this chapter moves immediately to the cross, and that 1 Corinthians also finishes with one of the most magnificent passages about the resurrection. Thus as we continue in our series on 1 Corinthians, we will be discussing the themes of the cross and the resurrection.

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1

Jim Packer, Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs, 2001 (Tyndale House Publishers).

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Today we start our year’s work by looking at the opening of 1 Corinthians. It’s such an exciting letter covering so many topics that we look forward to God using this podcast to challenge us all.

Yours,

Phillip

Phillip Jensen: In this episode, Peter and I commence our 2026 program on 1 Corinthians.

Peter Jensen: Amongst the 27 books of the New Testament, what is the relevance of 1 Corinthians in particular?

Phillip: In one sense, all books of the Bible are as good as any other. But 1 Corinthians covers so many issues: in particular, it addresses disunity in the church and the nature of the cross. It also discusses sexual immorality, lawsuits against one another, the question of our relationship with other religions, and the subject of idolatry. But built into this letter is the issue of Christian freedom. For example, the topic of marriage comes up in chapter 7, as does the question of spirits in chapters 12-14. It then finishes with a great chapter on the resurrection. 1 Corinthians covers, in my opinion, a broader range of topics than any of the other letters of the New Testament. Therefore, there is a year’s worth of discussions about what comes out in 1 Corinthians.

Peter: If you asked me what my favourite epistle of Paul’s is, I would say Ephesians. Have you got a personal relationship with 1 Corinthians? Is it your favourite?

Phillip: I would say my favourite is Colossians, because it is written to a new church whom Paul has never met. It is a good example of what you might say to new Christians.

Peter: One of the reasons that I like Ephesians is because it is written on the doctrine of the church. But I’ve been reading some literature on 1 Corinthians written by Tony Payne, who has drawn out in no uncertain way how, like in Ephesians, the church is a key subject throughout. With this in mind, how will we approach the subject of 1 Corinthians?

Phillip: We will go through it bit-by-bit. I believe the different paragraphs and chapters of the book open up subjects for us to discuss, as well as closing them off.

Peter: There’s another reason that I like 1 Corinthians. It is that we all have this habit of looking back to a certain period and thinking of it as the ‘golden years’, then subsequently claiming that everything has gone wrong since then. But one of the wonderful things about the New Testament—and 1 Corinthians illustrates this perfectly—is that we find that there were no ‘golden years’ of the church. The early church was very far from being perfect, and the church at Corinth in particular was a disaster. It was heavily influenced by its surrounding culture, which is also true of the modern church here in Sydney.

There’s another element, too, that was pointed out by our teacher when we were studying these matters many years ago. That is, as the church in Corinth was in such a mess, you would expect the Apostle Paul to address the leadership first and foremost. But he doesn’t; he talks to the whole church, as though everybody has a responsibility to the way in which the church functions. He does not address the leadership before Chapter 16. Therefore, 1 Corinthians is a reminder to us that the whole congregation must act responsibly, not just the minister.

Phillip: Even chapter 16 addresses how the congregation should treat the leader of the church, rather than focusing on what the leader must be doing. It is a powerful point. But 1 Corinthians is also a missionary letter. The church in Corinth was a missionary church, for it has just come into existence. But it was not the type of settled, established church that we may be familiar with today. In Corinth, sin was out in the open because the Christians there had only just been converted; they still carried the baggage of their old life. For example, one prominent topic in 1 Corinthians is the question of eating food that had previously been offered to idols. Some of the converts were opposed to eating such food, because for them, it was a symbol of what they had left behind. Others concluded that since the pagan gods didn’t exist, the food offered to idols was harmless. Thus, many of the issues raised in 1 Corinthians are issues of the basics of Christianity.

Peter: There’s another element to this as well. Often in the course of Christian history, particularly in the last 100 years or more, issues have arisen: for example, the question of evolution. This forces us to look back to the Bible to ask ourselves, “What is the Bible saying here?” It encourages us to understand what it is and is not saying. The rise of Pentecostalism, which has become so prominent in an astonishing way since the 1960s, has forced us to look again at 1 Corinthians, because there are a number of issues that arise out of the Pentecostal movement which are addressed by this book. We must ask ourselves, “Have we been reading the Bible correctly all these years?” One of the benefits of the rise of Pentecostalism is that it forces us to do just that.

Phillip: When we read the Bible correctly, it changes our mind, as opposed to our culture changing our view of the Bible. It unravels our cultural blind spots, although sometimes, our culture may lead us to open ourselves up to what the Bible is actually saying. When I wrote my book, The Coming of the Holy Spirit,1 the entire chapter on 1 Corinthians 12-14 caused me to make a complete rediscovery of 1 Corinthians, as I realised that so many of the arguments of the last 50 years have got nothing to do with what it is about. There are two sides arguing over Pentecostalism and using Bible verses to defend themselves, rather than turning back to the Bible and realising what it was saying for its own sake. This debate is pointless.

Peter: Let’s see if I agree with you as you read verses 1-3.

Phillip: 1 Corinthians 1:1–3

Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes,

To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

One of the wonderful things about studying the Bible like this is seeing both the generality and the specificity of what is being spoken of. This letter is written to the church of God in Corinth, and also to “all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” As Christians, this letter is addressed to us as well as to the early church of Corinth. Yet Paul was writing to Corinth about the specific things that were happening in the church at that time. So we do not just move in the generalities of for example the book of Proverbs; we are dealing with the specific church in Corinth with its particular problems. But the way in which Paul deals with the problems is always to go to great gospel truths, which then find their resting place in us. So the letter controls our understanding of the general truths of the gospel by having a specific application in Corinth. Thus, 1 Corinthians greatly contributes to our self-understanding as Christians, for Paul establishes who we should and should not be, as illustrated by the Corinthian church.

Peter: In other words, the universal is found in the particular. You look at the particular thing and you see the universal truths within it. That seems to be a very helpful way of understanding things like this, so I agree with you.

What about this business of the church of God that is in Corinth? Do you not think that there might have been multiple churches in Corinth?

Phillip: The word ‘church’ just means ‘the gathering’. The difference is that it’s God’s gathering as opposed to any other gathering. It’s a pretty big claim; this is the church of God, because each congregation is really the church of God when it gathers in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Furthermore, he is writing to the people called ‘saints’. These are the holy ones; anybody who is a Christian is a saint.

Peter: In Christian history, the idea of the ‘saint’ has referred to ‘the extraordinary Christian’: the Christian who is head and shoulders above the rest of us. But that’s not what seems to be the case here.

Phillip: The word ‘saint’ means ‘to be set aside’. It’s to be the consecrated person who is set aside for a purpose. All Christians have been set aside for the Lord Jesus Christ. Being set aside for Christ means you must live in a way that brings glory, honour and praise to him; but again, it does not mean you are ‘the extraordinary Christian’. For example, my Bible, which has my name written on it, has been set aside for me. In the same way, a Christian is someone who has been set aside for Jesus. Therefore all Christians are saints.

Peter: It’s easy to skip over this aspect because we are so familiar with the language, but I noticed that in these 3 verses, Jesus is mentioned 4 times.

Phillip: This signifies that Jesus is the dominant element of Christianity; it cannot be any other way. Paul’s apostleship, the Corinthians, Christianity, and God’s blessings all come from the Lord Jesus Christ. Christianity is totally Christ-centred. That’s why Christianity is not just morality. Christ-less Christianity is not Christianity any more than cross-less Christianity can be Christianity. If you haven’t got Christ or the cross, you haven’t got Christianity. You may have cultural Christianity, or Christian morality, but you do not have authentic Christianity if you are not being set aside for Christ Jesus or calling upon his name.

Peter: Indeed. Moving on to verses 4-9

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge—even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you—so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

It’s characteristic of Paul to begin his letter with a prayer. He does it frequently in his other letters.

Phillip: Another aspect that is so characteristic of Paul is to say ‘you must pray with thanksgiving.’ To pray is to thank God for the blessings we’ve received, so he starts with a prayer of thanksgiving. He thanks God for what God has done for the Corinthians already, in that they have been set aside as saints for Christ Jesus; consequently, they have received these particular blessings. Thanksgiving is fundamental to Christian living.

This reminds me of the contrasting cultures of Australia and America. The myth of Australia is of the convict settlement, whilst the myth of America is that of the Pilgrim Fathers. Therefore, the defining characteristic of Australians is of whining and complaining, whereas the characteristic of the Pilgrim Fathers was thanksgiving. Though many have lost who they’re thanking, Thanksgiving is a culturally significant holiday that comes from a Christian foundation. Whereas if you ask an Australian who they thank for their blessings, they’ll likely say, “I thank my lucky stars,” as if their lucky stars have done anything for them. We’ve got everything to thank God for, but if we don’t know God, we won’t thank him.

Peter: I attended a service this week of a dear brother who had died, which was called a thanksgiving service. There’s no harm in exalting the person for whom we hold the thanksgiving service, as long as we recognise that the person’s good gifts are from the Lord; furthermore, the person’s achievements must be put into the context of what the Lord has done in that person’s life, the gifting they’ve received, and the determination to use those gifts to God’s glory. That’s what Paul says here.

Phillip: Without pride and boasting, and without flattery.

Peter: Indeed, that is the proper way to do it.

Phillip: Today, pride is seen as a good thing. Previous generations thought being proud was a dreadful thing, but today we say, “I’ve done XYZ and I’m proud of my achievements,” or “I pride myself in XYZ.” The language of pride is now used positively, rather than the language of gratitude. We should be saying, “I thank God that he has given me the opportunity to do these things.”

Peter: Bearing that in mind, the Apostle Paul starts the letter thinking about the Corinthians, but primarily thanking God for what God has done. And notice the word ‘grace’ in verse 4, “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given to you in Christ Jesus.” The word ‘grace’ indicates that this is not something that you have achieved, nor something that you deserve; it is something that, out of the extraordinary mercy of God, has come into your life as it has come into Paul’s life.

Phillip: I agree, but while it is the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, it’s not narrowed down to the grace of mercy and forgiveness through the death of Jesus, because it goes on, “In every way you are enriched in him in all speech and knowledge.” The generosity of God was given to these people in speech and knowledge, so that they are “not lacking in any gift.” What do you make of the reference to spiritual gifts here?

Peter: This is a subject that is going to be significant, particularly as we get to chapters 12 to 14. Therefore, it’s interesting that it appears so early in the letter. It’s not as if Paul doesn’t know where he’s going with all this, but it’s likewise interesting that he should especially mention as having been gifted to all, the gifts of “speech and knowledge”. I’ve already mentioned that I’ve been reading a book soon to be published by Tony Payne. In it, he takes up this point, saying that all Christians are gifted with speech: the sort of speech which encourages, rebukes, and strengthens the other members of the church. What we’re seeing here is the beginning of a theme of the way in which church should function. It is something for which we are all responsible in how we speak to one another.

Phillip: That’s a very important point. I would like to point out that our translations have inserted the word ‘spiritual’ to the verse, “so that you are not lacking in any gift,” even though it’s not in the original Greek. The imposition of ‘spiritual’ into the English translations is part of what has misconstrued the whole discussion about the importance and the place of spiritual gifts. Here, the gifts are of knowledge and speech, but notice the purpose for which they’re given: namely, for sustaining us until the end.

I love evangelism; I love to hear people becoming Christians. But of course, the heart of evangelism is not that people start the Christian life but that they finish the Christian life. The key is being so converted as to stand mature in Christ on the last day, guiltless before him because of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. God not only starts the good work in us, but brings it to completion on the last day. That is what is being spoken of here. God is not quixotic. God is not temperamental. God is faithful. He starts that work and enables it to find its fulfilment, so that we are “called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Peter: What do you make of the suggestion that it is God the Father who has called us into the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ? That is to say, aren’t we related to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit? Is it not a relationship where the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are equally God? Why has he particularly mentioned the fellowship with Jesus?

Phillip: I’m not sure that it’s the fellowship with Jesus alone. When we come into a relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come into a relationship with each other, for we are all called into that same fellowship. So the fellowship of Jesus Christ is the fellowship that he owns: namely, his people. Therefore, the solitary Christian is not the normal Christian. The normal Christian is one who is in fellowship in the name of Christ, and therefore is in fellowship with all who call upon his name. The church is not called the Holy Spirit Church, nor is it God the Father Church; it’s the Christian Church.

To continue with verses 10 to 11

I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgement. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers.

The letter started from such a wonderful high point of thanksgiving, only to immediately move into the reality of church life. Though our translation says that he appeals to them, a more direct translation would be to say “I exhort you, brothers.” It’s not just a polite request for them to stop quarreling. But notice how he exhorts them “by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” I’m afraid that unity is such a theme of modern Western civilisation, with its emphasis on “social cohesion” and the like, that we’ve underestimated what is meant in this passage. Real agreement is about being of one mind, in the same judgement, having the same understanding. To sit together and sing Kumbaya around a campfire, so to speak, does not capture the sense of agreement that Paul calls upon people to have. It is agreement in the Lord Jesus Christ, that we have the same mind and the same judgement.

Peter: Indeed; one of the marks of the church is unity, particularly in the congregation. That is to say, church unity has become something that goes on in the public service of the church.

Phillip: It’s an institutional view of church, and an institutional view of unity.

Peter: Exactly, but what we’re seeing here is something far more profound. We’re seeing the necessity for each congregation, and hence every member of each congregation, to take the responsibility for a profound unity in the church, a love of one another. This is going to be a theme as we continue in Corinthians, because we are going to find out how we can achieve this.

Phillip: Especially as Chloe’s people reported that there wasn’t unity. Paul is addressing the particular situation of disunity in the early church, which is also an issue in congregational life.

Peter: Let me ask you this: you chose 1 Corinthians as our subject for this year. It’s a big change from Genesis. Are you happy with this first discussion? Do you think we’re going to really benefit from each other? Because it’s the benefit you and I receive, which we hope we share with others. What’s it doing for us?

Phillip: The first study lays the foundations; that’s always the problem with the opening sermon in a new series. In fact, one of the problems with starting a new series on a letter is the amount of time that the preacher spends on the first verse. The enthusiasm is there, but understanding what we’re doing while we’re doing it is vital.

The main subject of 1 Corinthians starts with the mention of Chloe’s people. That is where the conflict starts, which we will address throughout this series.

Before we start our 2026 Two Ways News series on 1 Corinthians, we need to have an important discussion on Bondi and antisemitism. This is something that neither of us imagined would happen. Not all our listeners will agree with our views, but we hope the thinking and discussion is helpful grist to the mill.

Yours,

Phillip

Phillip Jensen: Over the summer, we did a series focusing on Acts 17. That should take us to our 2026 series on 1 Corinthians; however, recent events have overtaken the discussions we previously had, especially about nations.

Firstly, President Trump’s actions in Venezuela raise concerns about what is going to happen next. The same uncertainty arises regarding whether Trump may involve troops in Iran. Nevertheless, the concept of the state and its sovereignty has been challenged in light of the US’s involvement in the affairs of these nations. Of course, this is not the first time that such events have occurred; the US has, in the past, been in conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. The concepts of national sovereignties and independence are not now as steady as we may like to think.

More telling, though, is the tragedy in Sydney with the terrorist shooting of people in Bondi at a Jewish festivity, during which 15 people were murdered. This has raised several issues regarding terrorism, Israel, and Jews within Sydney.

Peter: For both of us, the Jewish population in Sydney was very much our background growing up. We grew up in a strongly Jewish area, to the extent that I once thought that most of the world was Jewish. My wife Christine was raised in Bondi, and as the terrible photos emerged of the shootings in Bondi, she was looking at the place of her childhood, and at the very people amongst whom she grew up. When Phillip and I were children, a Jewish married couple lived next door to us who were refugees from Austria; they had arrived just as the Second World War began, and our parents were very friendly with them. Therefore, we have a particular feeling for Jewish people, as we have always had Jewish friends and neighbours.

Phillip: Indeed. Though there was a consciousness of difference between ourselves and the Jewish community. For example, we attended Sunday school, but our Jewish friends attended Saturday school. But at our Sunday school, all our heroes were Jewish. I was on the side of Moses and David; it never occurred to me to think of the Jews as anything other than heroes. As a result, antisemitism never seemed like a psychological possibility for either of us.

Peter: But it was strange that amongst some who were very friendly with Jewish people, there was also a slightly critical edge to their friendliness. I can remember, for example, standing with someone when a new car went by. The person I was standing with simply remarked, “Jews.” In other words, the Jewish people were known to be very successful in a way that others were not. But that comment wasn’t an instance of antisemitism, because the person I refer to was very supportive and friendly with Jewish people. But there was a sense of difference which this person felt.

Another instance in which the difference between ourselves and the Jews was clear to me was when we read the Bible in school, and the boy sitting next to me didn’t have the same Bible as I did. He seemingly only had half a Bible. I asked, “Where did you get this from?” to which he said, “From Sabbath school.” That was when I realised that the Bible had two parts: the Old and the New Testament. The point is that from the very beginning of our lives, Jewish people have been present and admired. We’ve had many friends who are Jewish, and we love them.

Phillip: When you look at the history of Australia, the contribution of the Jewish community to the welfare of our society has been massive. For example, the first Australian-born Governor-General was Sir Isaac Isaacs. They were part of our Australian community, and although they seemed to us to have their oddities, it was not difficult to accept and love them.

Peter: Antisemitism was not something that we grew up with. But it is real, undoubtedly.

Phillip: Historically, antisemitism has been present across the world. Pogroms against Jews have occurred in different parts of the world at different periods of history. Sadly, even Christians have taken it upon themselves to attack Jews. It is a great evil that we cannot accept, that we should be treating people as less than citizens and as less than full humans because of their Jewish heritage, as has happened. It rose to its worst, of course, under the Nazi regime. Peter and I, having been born at the end of the war and raised in the light of new information coming out about the Nazi treatment of Jews, came to recognise the Nazis as the greatest symbol of evil. I wonder to what extent, 80 years later, the generations that have been born subsequently, or have come to our country, are not living under the light of the Holocaust in the same way that we were. Even though the Jews have maintained Holocaust history, I’m not sure that society has to the same extent.

Peter: I think you’re right. The history is still there, but I don’t think it has the same bite as it did in our generation. However, it is important to realise the origins and the growth of antisemitism in Germany, because this history feeds into the contemporary world.

Jews in Germany likely comprised about 1% of the population. Knowing this, you may wonder why the Jews were picked on. There were several reasons, but one of them, as mentioned by Christopher Browning in his book, ‘The Origins of the Final Solution’,1 was that while there wasn’t initially a deep antisemitism in Germany, there was, particularly among some people, a considerable antagonism based upon the sheer success of the Jews. At the end of the 19th century, in a number of European states, a more liberal attitude had emerged, and some of the old laws against Jewish people were abolished. The Jewish people were, at last, given full citizenship and allowed to progress – and progress they did. This created a considerable degree of jealousy and antagonism, often among deeply conservative people who were committed to German culture. That certainly fed into the success of Nazism.

Phillip: Nazism also took hold of science. Hitler was very proud of creating a scientific society, but science at that time was heavily influenced by Darwinian eugenics. Out of Darwinianism came the sense of some biological systems being more “fit for existence” than others. Eugenics is the idea of ensuring that those who are “superior” breed and those who are “inferior” cease from living. This idea was popular not just in Nazi Germany. The concept of creating better quality people was popular across the world. It lay behind the issue of the Stolen Generation here in Australia: the idea of separating the “half-caste” Aboriginal people, as they were called, from the “full-blood”.

Eugenics lay behind a lot of what we now call racism. Today, ‘racism’ is a word that is used to cover a multitude of sins. If you don’t like someone, you may direct a racist comment towards them, which has got little to do with whether or not you believe they’re inferior to you on a biological basis. Whereas the Nazis argued that the Jews were ‘biologically inferior’ and should therefore be operated upon and killed. Add to that the geopolitical attitude towards the state of Israel, which was set up after the Second World War, to which people have very different attitudes. Antisemitism, through the Nazis, became focused on racism. For it wasn’t a rejection of their beliefs in the one God; it was the rejection of them as people. Subsequently, different people object to the Jews having a state. This has fed antisemitism leading up to the war of today. For a time when you and I were raised, antisemitism was severely looked down upon because that was immediately equated to Nazism. But in recent times, attitudes towards Zionism and the state of Israel have opened the doors again to people’s residual antisemitism.

Peter: I take it you’re saying that antisemitism has no place in Christian thinking. What was the attitude of Jesus, Paul and Peter in the New Testament?

Phillip: Of course, they were all Jewish; in fact, the first Christians were all Jewish. The presiding struggle in the New Testament was the question of whether you could be a Christian if you were not Jewish. Furthermore, the Jewish Christians saw Christ as the fulfilment of all the Jewish dreams, hopes, aspirations, and prophecies. Indeed, it was Jesus who not only fulfilled but also explained it and was the end point of the whole Jewish plan and the purposes of God. So the Christian is very pro-Jewish. In the sense of fulfilment, it changes our focus as Christians. We’re not theologically interested in Jerusalem, Palestine or Israel, for our city of God is above, where the Lord Jesus Christ reigns. So we talk of the New Jerusalem, but the New Jerusalem for us comes from heaven. So many of the Old Testament practices—the priests, the sacrifices, the altar, the temple—were all fulfilled spiritually in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we do not go back to that kind of Judaism, but we never reject Judaism because we know that our faith goes to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. It was God’s ancient people who led us into the truth of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. If God can make us Gentiles into his people, it is so much easier for him to make his ancient people into his people. Chapters 9 to 11 of Romans speak on those issues. Thus we have no right to ever despise, look down on, or reject God’s ancient people.

Peter: No, indeed. Though we may disagree deeply with their religion, we invite discussion and invite faith in Christ, as they have every right to speak to us.

This discussion has been stimulated by the awful shootings at Bondi. There have previously been killings at a shopping centre in Bondi Junction. What are the differences?

Phillip: Bondi Junction, for those who don’t know Sydney, is two miles away from Bondi Beach, where there was once a tram junction. But the killing at the shopping centre was the result of a man with mental problems. It wasn’t aimed at Jewish people; if anything, it was aimed at women. Whereas the Bondi Beach attack was aimed at the Jewish people celebrating Hanukkah out in the open air. It was conducted by two Muslim men who were advocating ISIS and killed out of their beliefs in the rightness of killing Jews. This is the extreme horror of antisemitism. But antisemitism in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, where Bondi is located, had been increasingly present for a while before that. The synagogue next to the church I attend always has 2 or 3 guards outside every Sabbath. Additionally, a protective wall surrounds it, and there are cameras on the wall surveilling everybody who comes in. We don’t have these measures outside the church, but they are present outside every synagogue in Sydney, as with the Jewish school. The massacre is just the end point, the worst of the worst, and it has finally provoked our government to take action against antisemitism. But I worry about how these actions are going into effect.

Peter: Of course, when something like this occurs, there is a general outcry, as people look to the government to do something. For example, we’ve had a haste to change the gun laws. There’s now a royal commission to be called, and an introduction of legislation against hate speech. These are thought to constitute an answer of some sort. All three of those things may have their strengths, though I doubt that they will be particularly effective. Looking back over many decades, I have found that royal commissions are often called to make people think that something is happening, yet not much happens in response. Changing the gun laws may be a good idea, but it’s not going to solve this problem, because people will still find ways to possess guns if they want to. The whole issue of hate speech certainly needs a great deal of thought before it’s introduced. We abandoned censorship many years ago, but now we’re in a sense reintroducing censorship of a different sort. Where will it stop? How do we define it? How do we know what people are thinking? How is speech linked to hate?

They are passing laws about these things, which hardly constitutes an answer. The government doesn’t solve all of our problems, any more than the public service can; this is a problem for every one of us. We need to step back, and we need to ask ourselves what is happening in the way our nation is constituted that such an event could occur. We need to ask, “What aspects of the way in which our nation has developed may have contributed to it?” As our listeners and readers know, I’m not a young person, nor am I optimistic, but I did previously think to myself that the placement of guards outside the Jewish schools and synagogues was overdoing things. I thought, “This is Australia. We are not going to see something here like what they are suggesting.” How wrong I was. What is there about our nation that such a thing could happen? We must look deep within our own hearts, because it’s got more to do with what’s going on in the heart of our nation and the individual than with policies and laws.

Phillip: Generally, we need to do something about this. It is not right that people need to have guards outside their schools and synagogues. Things need to change, and we do need to investigate. The Royal Commission is the way to investigate the contribution that our government and its policies have made towards this issue. They will assess whether in the last few years, particularly since October 7th of 2023, we have acted rightly, or whether we should have clamped down on certain demonstrations. However, such a solution is like putting band-aids on a cancerous growth. There’s a fundamental problem that we have established, and seemingly, the solution being offered is to change the gun laws.

I have never owned a gun, nor do I want to. But changing the gun laws is not going to prevent such things from happening again. During the investigation, police found explosives left in a car; changing a gun law won’t prevent people from leaving bombs in cars. But the problem is not simply the band-aid solution to the cancerous growth. I’m afraid of overreach in what the government is doing. In trying to solve a problem, they create more problems. Some years ago the government enforced upon us the philosophy of multiculturalism, in opposition to the policy of assimilation. But when one person, by their culture, feels justified to shoot into a crowd of a group exercising a different culture, it is evident that multiculturalism has not worked. However, when laws are brought in against hate speech and about social cohesion, we may wind up with a society similar to the Soviet Union under Stalin. That’s exactly what the Gulag Archipelago was about; it enabled persecuting people for the strangest of reasons. It is what allowed the government to send anti-Soviet thinkers to Siberia.

Overcoming our present problems by immediate knee-jerk government regulations does not build trust. But trust is what used to exist in Australia. In the suburb we grew up in, I once counted that there were 11 synagogues. There was no guard outside any one of them, nor were there defensive walls or gates.

Peter: That’s why I was silly enough to think, “Why do they have all those guards outside?” In the Australia I grew up in, we could trust each other. Where did that trust come from?

Phillip: It came from the fact that we were a monoculture, and that monoculture was heavily influenced by a Judeo-Christian understanding of rights (or responsibilities) as to the truth of justice. We can’t go back to it now, because it has been undone. But we’re not going to go forward just by putting more regulations in place. Rules and regulations are not only an expression of a lack of trust; they also undermine trust. The government is wrong in thinking that it can somehow stop hate, for it’s the gospel that stops hate, that changes and transforms humanity. If we don’t teach a religion in our society that promotes love, then we must not be surprised when hate becomes part of society.

Peter: Christianity is a religion that promotes love and also teaches that every human being is a sinner. One of the nonsensical teachings of secularism is that human beings are “basically good”. We are not basically good; we need to be transformed by love. Knowing this doesn’t make me a perfect person, and it won’t make a perfect society, but it is nonetheless vital. We used to say that recent migrants would be new Australians. I love migrants, but we need them to become Australians with that basis in the Judeo-Christian ethic. We also need not only a recognition of human sinfulness, but a spiritual reformation. We need the gospel again.

Phillip: Indeed. It is important to remember that the world we grew up in was still sinful. But the concept that there is no right and wrong, because all cultures are equal, and we need to respect them and value them equally, is not true.

Peter: I agree. This is an enormous subject which we need to come back to sometime. But as a final question to conclude this week’s episode, which way do you vote?

Phillip: I vote by secret ballot!

The politics of how you implement culture—which is really implementing religion—are open to question and to agreement. There is no right Christian vote. As a minister of the Christian religion, I don’t tell people how I vote, and I do not encourage other ministers to tell people how they should vote.

Peter: Do you mean you don’t even tell your own brother how you vote?

Phillip: I don’t even tell my own wife how I vote, and she certainly doesn’t tell me either!

The Australian voting system is, I believe, a great voting system, but a key aspect is the privacy of the vote, where I can express between me and God what I believe are the best mechanisms forward. It is important to remember that policies are only mechanisms, and other people would skin a cat differently, so to speak.

Peter: There is a deeper issue here too. That is to say, if you vote one way for your entire life, I wouldn’t say that’s not Christian. The country we live in is a country where Christians are perfectly free to vote as they wish. Some Christians will vote one way, and some Christians will vote the other way. We are not living in a country which has been torn apart by these differences, and that principle comes from somewhere. I would say it comes from the Bible.

Phillip: Unfortunately, party politics are becoming more ideological and more fanatic, so that there are certain people who will not speak to others because they vote the other way. That’s unhealthy. Part of the Australian culture that we wanted new Australians to join into was this wonderful democracy, which is not in the countries that most of them came from, but it is here. We express our differences in the ballot box, not with guns on Bondi Beach.

1

Christopher Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution, 2007 (Bison Books)

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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The climax of Paul’s great Athenian sermon is the call of God for all people to repent. But there are some strange elements in this call. One important element is its timing. Another is in the judgement “by a man”. Let’s listen afresh to Paul’s great gospel statement.

Yours,

Phillip

Phillip Jensen: In our summer edition of Two Ways News, we are looking at the great address of the Apostle Paul in Acts 17, in which he preaches the gospel to the Athenians. That sermon rises to its climax in Acts 17:29-31

Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

Peter, what do you think of this great address of Paul?

Peter Jensen: It is astonishing, and such an encouragement to the preaching and sharing of the gospel. So far in this sermon, Paul has been telling the Athenians of the God that they acknowledge in a way; in last week’s episode, I quoted from Francis Bacon, “Atheism is rather in the lip, than in the heart of man.” The heart of human beings is religious, and the Athenians acknowledged that by creating many gods, including this strange one: the altar of the unknown God. That is a confession of not knowing God, so Paul essentially says, ‘I’ve come to tell you about the real God.’ Then he proceeds to tell them this astonishing, wonderful, extraordinary truth, that there is only one living God, who has created and sustains all things.

If you ask who rules this world, the answer is one God. If you ask why things are happening, the answer is the will of this one God. Furthermore, this one God is so almighty and powerful that he rules over the nations in such a way that we should all be seeking and searching for him. But the truth is that he’s not far from any of us, that his disclosure of himself in his general revelation of the universe means that he speaks to us all the time. But more than that, he discloses himself to us in the truth of the gospel.

Furthermore, Paul tells us that God is the father of all humans. In other words, we all have a connection to him; it’s not as though he’s only the father of Christians. Though there is a special way in which he is the father of Christians, he is the father of all. Therefore, all are united in one people, and all of us should be seeking the Father. That’s why religious practices like temples and idols are, in the end, incoherent. We know that there is one God, not many gods. We know that this one God is such that he discloses himself to all his children. We know that he is the ruler of the universe; therefore, to put him in a building and worship little statues of him is so human and so sinful.

Phillip: That’s why we come to the climax on the judge of all the earth, because doing that to God is not something neutral; it is to reject the God we know, as he made himself known. It’s the attempt of humans to control God, to make him answerable to us, rather than to acknowledge ourselves as answerable to God. It’s the attempt to manipulate God to give us good weather, children or grandchildren, or whatever else we want. Religious practices, while completely normal, are completely sinful. The different temples, sacrifices and idols are not truly mankind’s attempt to find God; they’re humanity’s attempts to run away from the God that is clearly revealed to us. So far, Paul tells them of the God they acknowledge in the idols, but whom they confess not to know: this true and living God, who creates and sustains all things. That’s why these religious practices are so awful.

Therefore we come to the conclusion of the sermon, the judgement of God. But this judgement is not quite as people expect. One of the beautiful things about the Bible is that it keeps changing my mind for me. I have my expectations as to what the Bible is going to say, which are then subverted by what it truly says. That’s because it is right and I am wrong. It keeps changing me.

In this conclusion of the sermon, I have drawn out 5 points. The first is, “The times of ignorance God overlooked”; the second, “Now he commands all people everywhere to repent”; the third, “Because he has fixed a day on which to judge the world in righteousness”; the fourth, “and to judge by a man whom he has appointed”; and the fifth, “of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

Let’s start with the first point, “The times of ignorance God overlooked.”

Peter: It is a strange phase, but what it means is clear enough. It’s not ignorance in the sense that people didn’t know about God’s existence, because their religious life showed that they knew something, even though it was an ignoring of God. Remember that we are dealing here with a relationship between ourselves and God. We all know what it is like to be ignored, for someone to turn their back on us, carrying on as though we don’t exist. It’s very painful to us as human beings, and that is the point that Paul makes. We have ignored God. That is to say, we have done everything to avoid looking at him.

Phillip: Indeed, it is a profound rejection of God.

Peter: The times of that sort of ignorance, God overlooked. He didn’t do what you would have expected him to do: namely, to end the human race right there and then, because that’s what we deserve for our treatment of him. But we read in the Bible that God is slow to anger. That does not mean that he is devoid of emotions; in fact, he is angry. It is the righteous anger of God which we’re referring to. It’s not a temperamental matter. Another way of putting it is to be found in 2 Peter 3:9, which states that the Lord is “Patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

So it comes out of the very being of God himself, that judgement is not being wrought upon us. The very being of God himself, his love for his wayward children. He could have condemned us at any point in history. The sins of Adam and Eve could have been the end of all things. But he has overlooked these things in the sense that he has patiently given us time to do what he tells us, which is to turn to him.

Phillip: Could this overlooking of our sinfulness bring people to accuse him of not being righteous?

Peter: It could indeed. If the state refuses to take action on a crime, you can be aggrieved and accuse the state of not being righteous. But there may, even in this example, be a good reason for this. That is certainly the case with God.

Phillip: It made me think of Romans 3:23-26

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

The work of the gospel is the bringing to an end of this overlooking of sinfulness, which therefore takes us to the second point: “Now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” ‘Now’ is a key word in this sentence, as it indicates the change that has occurred between the past, during which sin was overlooked, and the present, in which we are called to repent.

Peter: In Mark 1:15, when Jesus preaches in Galilee, the gospel is summarised thus: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Phillip: Furthermore, in John 12:31, Jesus says, “Now will the ruler of this world be cast out.” Here he speaks again of his death, indicating that he will be a profound disruption to the history of the world. Our forebears were right in dividing history as ‘Before Christ’ and ‘In the year of the Lord’, because no continuum of history can be written without this fracture that happened when God stopped overlooking the wilfulness of humanity by paying the price. Therefore, now is the day for repentance.

The word ‘repentance’ means a change of mind, particularly one that leads to a change in the direction of one’s life. For example, I made my repentance back in 1969 when I married Helen. At that point I said, ‘No longer am I going to live as a single man; now I’m living as a married man.’ That change of mind, declared in a church building in front of many witnesses, meant that I did not go back home to my parents; from then on, we combined as a couple. Repentance is therefore the change of life that comes from a change of mind.

The repentance Paul refers to in Acts 17 is the turning away from idolatry and from the false views and the rejection of God. The reason why he calls people to repent brings us to the third point, “Because he has fixed a day on which to judge the world in righteousness.”

Peter: Indeed, the end of history is at hand. To once more quote Mark 1:15, “The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” You may think that this kingdom never came. However, it came in the person of Jesus, and there will be a second coming. That there’s been 2,000 years so far is neither here nor there. We’re living in the last days now. We don’t know how long this period will last, but the day will come at any time, for there is a fixed day in which he will intervene and bring judgement to pass.

Phillip: It is good news. But what does it mean to judge the world in righteousness?

Peter: We want God to be just; we all love justice. We want the right thing to be done, especially when we are the victims of injustice. So the fact that God is totally just and will bring all sin and evil to account is good news. The only bad news is that we are the ones who will be brought to account. Even then, it’s not bad news, because God has warned us of this and has called upon us to repent. Particularly, we must repent of our wilful misrepresentation of him by the idolatry of our hearts: the worship of money, for example. Our idolatry has to finish, and we need to repent and turn back to him now.

Phillip: God is going to judge by righteousness. That a judgement would be on the basis of righteousness is to be expected. But then he says something unexpected, that fourth point we raised: “He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed.”

Peter: That is one of the most astonishing verses in the Bible, for it tells us that God will judge the world by one of us.

Phillip: Indeed, you don’t expect the world to be judged by a man. But it’s not just any man; it’s the one he has appointed to do this. It’s an extraordinary idea. But Jesus taught it by the use of ‘Son of Man’ as a phrase. In Daniel 7, there is a picture of God’s judgement taking place. The Ancient of Days is there, the books are all open, and everybody is standing before the judge of all the earth; suddenly, there appears a ‘Son of Man’ coming in the clouds to the Ancient of Days. You’re not told anything about this man, other than the fact that the Ancient of Days gives to him all nations for all time. Suddenly, in the middle of the judgement seat of God, a man is given sovereignty over the universe.

You may think, ‘Who is this man?’ Nothing more is said about it in Daniel 7, but throughout the gospels, the phrase that Jesus uses most often to refer to himself is ‘Son of Man’. Most of the references may make you think he’s referring to himself, but it likely doesn’t make you think of Daniel 7. That is, until Mark 14:61-62, when he’s challenged, “Are you the Christ?”, and he says, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” Suddenly, you realise that all those other references to the Son of Man indicate that he is the judge of this earth.

To once again quote John 12:31, “Now will the ruler of this world be cast out.” That is because Jesus is the judge. It’s an extraordinary idea that Jesus continues to be a man, yet he is still the one whom God has appointed according to Acts 2: “God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” It’s the appointment of God to the dead and risen Jesus. But the resurrection is a key part of it, which leads us to our fifth and final point about Paul’s sermon.

Peter: We are certainly not left in the dark about this man, hence the words, “Of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” The resurrection from the dead likewise is predicted in Daniel: it’s the resurrection of all people from the dead, and Jesus confirms that. But the resurrection from the dead is something that occurs on the last day. When the end has come, and God has created a new heaven and a new earth, the resurrected dead will be there. There will be a day of judgement. But one of the most telling features of the story of Jesus is that his resurrection occurs 3 days after he was crucified. Among other things, this tells us that the new day has dawned, for the king has come. In a sense, the day to come has invaded the present time.

Why was Jesus resurrected from the dead? Was that strictly necessary? The resurrection is God’s great enthronement of Jesus as the king of humanity, the king through whom God rules. As the apostle Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15:22, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”

So Jesus’ resurrection from the dead speaks to us of his status, and tells us that ours is an age which begins with that judgement. We have the assurance of this age to come through the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. We are therefore living in the last days; though they have gone on for a long time, we can be sure that they will come to an end when Christ appears to judge all things.

Phillip: The breaking in of that resurrection age is something that is not taught much. I have had to learn about it over time, because I previously did not realise how fundamental the judgement resurrection is to understanding the Jesus resurrection. It reminds me of the parable at the end of Luke 16, where the rich man begs Abraham to send the poor man back to warn his brothers of the judgement, and he says, in Luke 16:31, “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.” But you must understand what resurrection is to see the importance of Jesus’ resurrection in bringing about the judgement of the world, and assuring us of the judgements to come.

Preceding the verse you quoted earlier, “So as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive,” is 1 Corinthians 15:20–21

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

The phrase ‘firstfruits’ refers to the assurance that there is going to be a crop, through the first sign that the harvest has started. Furthermore, there is a strange reference in Matthew 27:51–53

And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

The general resurrection started with the death and resurrection of Jesus. He is the first of the new age; thus, his resurrection is the assurance of our resurrection, because God is going to judge the world by him.

When Paul’s Acts 17 sermon finished with the mention of the resurrection, there were 3 types of reactions from the audience. The first was that some mocked the idea of the resurrection; secondly, some wanted to hear more; thirdly, some were converted. That is still the case when you preach on the resurrection. When some people hear of the resurrection of Jesus, they start to mock it and find fault with the historical evidence that we have. But others want to know more about the resurrection and what it means. Because simply knowing about a man rising from the dead alone is not enough; you must know the prophets and Moses.

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Links & Recommendations

For more on this topic, check out this talk. It’s called The Inevitable Judgement.

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