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Dale Lewis -“The Ex-Factor” – /
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John 6:42-52
1 Corinthians 6:1-11
“The ex-factor”
The first five chapters of 1 Corinthians reveals that the Church in Corinth had many problems. Problems that we would not normally associate with an evangelical, spirit filled Bible teaching church. At the root of all their problems was pride, and this pride was manifested in self-centered ways:
Fighting over who was the best teacher
Tolerant of sin, thinking that this was a sign of spirituality
In the sixth chapter, Paul deals with two other areas in which pride had manifested itself:
Vs. 1-11 The issue of Christians suing each other
Vs. 12-20 The issue of sexual immorality
The tie between the 5th chapter and the tolerance of sin and the 6th chapter and lawsuits against each other is that these Corinthian believers were tolerant towards sin as long as that sin didn’t affect them personally, but the moment that sin affected them, they wanted to take the brother or sister to court to get justice done. Last year alone, the U.S. had 12 million lawsuits filed. 200,000 of those in federal courts were civil cases. To handle this many cases, there are over one million lawyers and the numbers are growing. The society in which Paul wrote this letter was much the same as today. Litigation was a part of everyday life. Every citizen over 30 served on a jury; every person over 60 had to serve as an arbitrator to settle any dispute between two parties where they could not it handle themselves. Just like today it was a source of entertainment. Six times Paul repeats the question “Do you not know?” in the 6th chapter of 1 Corinthians, which he implies the reason for their behavior was a lack of understanding of who they now were in Christ. Through the course of these 11 verses dealing with litigation between professing believers, Paul suggests three things we ought to ask ourselves before we act:
1-6 Where are we? That is in contrast with the people of the world. Simply put, we are in the world but not of this world!
7-8 Why do we? Twice Paul asked, “Why do you not rather accept wrong and let yourself be defrauded?” Paul is implying that the right attitude we ought to have towards each other is based upon true ownership. Who owns your car, house, life etc.? It all belongs to Jesus, right? So it’s His problem, not yours.
9-11 What am I? Finally, Paul hit on the bottom line of the reason behind the litigation between professing believers, failure to recognize that the “PAST” ought to remain in the “PAST”! Simply put, right faith is never separated from right actions.
This has been Pastor Dale
Blessings!
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