-As we’ve discussed in the past, in this first letter to the Corinthians, Paul is basically responding to their questions
-Even though Paul spent considerable time in Corinth (in Acts 18, Luke tells us that Paul stayed there for a year and a half), they still had some major theological and very practical issues to work through.
-Corinth’s history is long and interesting. It dates back to some of the earliest recorded history.
-The Romans following a siege in 145 B. C. destroyed the city. All the men were put to death, the women and children sold into slavery and the city was torched.
-Julius Caesar refounded the city in 44 B. C. shortly before his assassination
-It was noted for its wealth, and for the luxurious, immoral and vicious habits of the people that lived there.
-In Paul’s day, corinthian was a synonym for immoral.
-I know that we probably think of it today for the “pure Corinthian leather”. {PAUSE}
-Looking specifically at our text, in the larger section of chapter 7, the Apostle Paul is responding to questions about marriage.
-We don’t know what the exact question was but apparently the members of the church in Corinth were wondering what the relationship between sex, marriage, and being a Christian was.
-You can imagine some of the questions they probably had, can’t you since they were all idol worshippers.
-Imagine the husband or wife, who now has become a Christian, but their spouse is not. What questions do you think would enter their minds? {Wait for some answers}
-After Paul’s earlier teaching that a Christian is not to engage in sex with a prostitute, which was commonplace in the former situation, they probably thought that they should not engage in sex with their unbelieving spouse.
-Remember Paul wrote sex is God’s glue (my words) that binds a husband and wife together like in no other relationship.
-So when a Christian has sex with someone other than their spouse, they not only sin against their own body but they sin against Christ.
-Paul says that Christ and a prostitute are incompatible.
-One might think, therefore, by extension that joining together with someone who is not a Christian would be incompatible as well.
-Apparently, some Christians were considering, or maybe had already, left their unbelieving spouses to rid themselves of their spouse’s unforgiven sins.
-You could imagine the problems that would ensue.
-For example, how was the wife to support herself?
-Was the church to take care of her as if she was a widow?
-What happens to the children?
-Is the church under compulsion to care for them?
-How would the culture view a religion that advocated leaving one’s spouse?
-Christianity already had enough hurdles to overcome in that its founder was raised from the dead but no longer present on this earth than to cause upheaval in a society but undermining its families.
-Remember, the Corinthians were steeped in Greek philosophy, whose influence would later almost rip the world-wide church apart.
-Plato made a stark contrast between the physical and the spiritual. He thought that all things physical were bad and all things spiritual were good. This led to many controversies about how to explain how God (who is spirit which means good) could become human (which is physical which means bad) in the person of Jesus.
-If that was their base framework, you could see how they could easily see that marriage and sex could be seen in a very negative light especially considering that Jesus, the founder of Christianity never married.
-Maybe the whole marriage thing isn’t so good after all. {PAUSE}
-There’s a song I really like by U2 that came out in 1987 called “With or Without You”
-Because three out of the four members of U2 are Catholics, there is a definite Christian flavor to their music, sometimes even questioning where God is in the midst of the chaos that we see around us
-I think some of their music asks the question, “How do we relate to things in this world as Christians?”
-“With or Without You” has three main interpretations that people have offered for its meaning and two have to do with this topic.
-Some people believe that it has to do with someone who is caught between two people that they care about and they don’t know which one to continue their relationship with.
-The second verse kind of points in the direction. The lyrics go:
-Sleight of hand and twist of fate
On a bed of nails she makes me wait
And I wait without you
With or without you
With or without you
-But that is kind of what the Corinthians were asking, wasn’t it?
-With or without your, or a, spouse?
-In staying or getting married, were they choosing between Christ and their spouse, in a way?
-The Apostle Paul answers, “No!” but we should, at the same time, all live as though we were not married.
-As maybe he says more clearly that we as Christians are to be in the world but not of the world.
-I think that is one of the biggest lessons and maybe tests of Christian maturity is how one interacts with and deals with the world.
-It really is about stewardship – understanding that God is the maker and owner of evertyhing and has given us all of our blessings. He has given us our jobs, our vocations, our homes, our money, our spouses, our children for our joy, but also for our personal and spiritual growth.
-What do I mean by that?
-Why does Paul say in this section of Scripture some apparenty negative things about marriage like in verse 8 where Paul writes, “ Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am.”
-Just as a side-note, we don’t actually know Paul’s marital status from this verse since in 1 Corinthians 9, he notes that the other apostles take their wives with them on their missionary journeys but he is not able to. Many theologians believe that his wife may have either left him after he converted to Christianity or may have left him a widower.
-What I mean is that, as much as we love our family members, they still cause us to change and look at the world differently in order to attempt to make our lives together work. That’s a good thing.
-However, on the negative side some of the time, money and attention that we could devote to God and to taking care of others has to be turned towards our spouse and our children.
-Obviously, that’s a good thing if we are married but it forces us to trade time helping potentially more people for time spent with our family.
-Paul writes in verses 32-35, “I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife— and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.”
-In addition, giving part of ourselves and our heart away to our family members will cause us pain in the long run.
-As difficult as miscarrying at least four babies for us was, it is nothing compared to losing an older child that you’ve had the opportunity to bond with.
-Paul is refers to “this present crisis” or “this period”
-Apparently, they were going through a number of persecutions for their faith and would certainly go through many more.
-Having to be concerned about family members when enduring persecutions was a possible hindrance to one’s faith.
-The enemy, just as our eathly enemies do, use any weaknesses to undermine us. In his book “Tortured for Christ”, Richard Wurmbrand talks about his concern for his wife and she for him while they were both imprisoned for their faith and how many children of Christians (including their own son) were orphaned. To make matters worse, it was illegal to help the orphan of a Christian.
-He tells the story of a young Christian woman who the Communists were planning to arrest. They waited until her wedding day to arrest her, knowing that it would hurt her more to be arrested on what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life. {PAUSE}
-The other major interpretation of this song is that it is about Christ. As with a lot of U2’s songs, they can easily have multiple meanings.
-Sometimes, as we wrestle with things in our lives we think that we can go it alone but again come to a point where we know we can’t.
-Sometimes it feels to hard to be a Christian because of what God calls us to endure so we think we would be better off without Him. However, we quickly realize the eternal consequences of that.
-As the third verse goes:
-Through the storm we reach the shore
You give it all but I want more
And Im waiting for you
With or without you
With or without you
I cant live
With or without you
-There are other allusions in the song that point to Christ and what He’s done for us.
-The thorn twist in your side, My hands are tied, My body bruised and of course, You give yourself away.
-In the song “Pride” by U2, they are more explicit
-They speak of the assassination of Martin Luther King in terms of Jesus’ mission to save the world.
-The lyrics go:
One man come in the name of love
One man come and go
One man come, he to justify
One man to overthrow
In the name of love
One more in the name of love
In the name of love
What more in the name of love?
One man caught on a barbed wire fence
One man he resist
One man washed on an empty beach
One man betrayed with a kiss
In the name of love
One more in the name of love
In the name of love
What more in the name of love?
Early morning, April 4
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride
In the name of love
One more in the name of love
In the name of love
What more in the name of love?
In the name of love
One more in the name of love
In the name of love
What more in the name of love?
-Fortunately for our sake, Jesus died for us in the name of love so that when we get caught in the tension between with or without you we might by the power of the Holy Spirit turn towards with Him instead of without Him.
