Worshiping At The Temple Of Aphrodite Series

INTRODUCTION:

Over the last two Sundays we have been exploring what the Bible says about love… specifically the kind of love that God demonstrates for us, gives to us, and is for us. We talked about how there are different forms of love, some very shallow and feeling based, some that are more about what I get out of the relationship, some that are more of a like or preference, and some that involve commitment, giving (not taking), and sacrifice.

We’ve also seen how the world’s type of love is much different than the love that God demonstrates for us. Today we are going to look at the world’s flawed definition of love versus God’s perfect love that never fails.

Aphrodite! Aphrodite – the Ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, passion, pleasure, beauty, and sexuality… is still a name known and mentioned even today. Aphrodite, like so much of what the world worships, is a false god offering a very false and imperfect form of love. So we will allow this false god, Aphrodite, to represent a love that is self-driven, self-serving, self-seeking, and … well selfish. That has more to do with lust and desire and what benefits me. Versus the one true God that we believe in representing TRUE LOVE. Today we are going to be studying “The Love Chapter,” as it is called.

1 Corinthians chapter 13. Let us turn there now.

BODY:

The city of Corinth was a bustling city of more than 600,000 people. A port and trade center of the Roman Empire, it attracted many tourists and visitors. One of the main sites to see in the city was the Great Temple of Aphrodite, know for its cult of followers and temple prostitution. According to John MacArthur, “Even by the pagan standards of its own culture, Corinth became so morally corrupt that its very name became synonymous with debauchery and moral depravity. To “corinthianize” came to represent gross immorality and drunken debauchery.” The Greek word translated “corinthianize” meant “to practice fornication.”

It was in this city that the Apostle Paul founded one of his most troubled churches and why the two letters that we have in our Bibles to the Corinthians were written.

[MacArthur] “Paul lists some of the specific sins for which the city was noted and which formerly had characterized many believers in the church there. Tragically, some of the worst sins were still found among some church members. One of those sins, incest, was condemned even by most pagan Gentiles (5:1). The most serious problem of the Corinthian church was worldliness, an unwillingness to divorce [from] the culture around them. Most of the believers could not consistently separate themselves from their old, selfish, immoral, and pagan ways.”

The Bible says that they [the world] will know that we belong to Christ by our love for one another. But what happens when the world’s definition of love influences the Church?

Well, what do we see that happened to the Corinthians.

There were divisions among them; one followed Paul, another followed Apollos, another followed Peter, and others followed Christ. There was jealously and quarreling. There was obvious immorality that was being allowed. Church members were taking each other to court over disputes among themselves. And Communion...The Lord’s Supper? Instead of being a sacred time of reflection and remembrance, it had become a first-come-first-serve meal. So Paul wrote to combat these terrible things happening within the Church.

In 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 NASB20 He writes- If I speak with the tongues of mankind and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have [the gift of] prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give away all my possessions [to charity,] and if I surrender my body so that I may glory, but do not have love, it does me no good.

Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own [benefit;] it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong [suffered,] it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if [there are gifts of] prophecy, they will be done away with; if [there are] tongues, they will cease; if [there is] knowledge, it will be done away with. For we know in part and prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, [and] love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.