1 Corinthians 6
6
Lawsuits between Believers
1Furthermore, how dare you take a fellow believer to court! It is wrong to drag him before the unrighteous to settle a legal dispute. Isn’t it better to take him before God’s holy believers to settle the matter? 2Don’t you realize that we, the holy ones, will judge the universe? # 6:2 As translated from the Aramaic. If the unbelieving world is under your jurisdiction, you should be fully competent to settle these trivial lawsuits among yourselves. 3For surely you know that we will one day judge # 6:3 The meaning of this is that believers will one day govern over and judge the angelic realm. Our position in Christ is higher than the angels. They are servants; we are sons. Sons rule over servants. angels, let alone these everyday matters. 4Don’t you realize that you are bringing your issues before civil judges appointed by people who have no standing within the church? # 6:4 The Greek verb kathizete can be interpreted as an ironic imperative instead of a question. This would change the verse to read “Appoint as judges those who have no standing in the church to arbitrate ordinary lawsuits.” However, it is more likely a question since kathizete is found at the end of the sentence. 5What a shame that there is not one within the church # 6:5 This chapter is loaded with irony. Paul here argues that the church must have someone who could discern, sift, weigh, and judge these everyday matters within the body. The irony is that the word for church is ekklēsia, which means “governing body,” similar to a senate. It was a Greek term used for the gathering of a governing body to promote the welfare of a city. To be a part of an ekklēsia (church) implies that there is wisdom and leadership among the group to govern and bring blessing to a city. who has the spirit of wisdom who could arbitrate these disputes and reconcile the offended parties! 6It’s not right for a believer to sue a fellow believer—and especially to bring it before the unbelievers.
7Don’t you realize that when you drag another believer into court you’re providing the evidence that you are already defeated? Wouldn’t it be better to accept the fact that someone is trying to cheat and take advantage of you, and simply choose the high road? At times it is better to just accept injustice and even to let someone take advantage of you, rather than to expose our conflicts publicly before unbelievers. # 6:7 Paul does not mean that we should passively acquiesce to abuse from others. Rather, he brings before us a higher principle: It is better to suffer personal injustice than to bring disgrace to Christ by bringing our conflicts before unbelievers. The Spirit of wisdom (Eph. 1:17) is one of the graces that God pours out upon his people. This anointing of wisdom will empower the body of Christ to bring justice and righteousness into our churches. Most scholars conclude that these disputes were not criminal but issues related to business, personal property, inheritances, default in loan payments to other believers, and the like. See also Matt. 5:25–26; 18:15–17. 8But instead you keep cheating and doing wrong to your brothers and sisters, and then request that unbelievers render their judgment!
Christian Morality and the Kingdom Realm of God
9Surely you must know that people who practice evil cannot possess God’s kingdom realm. Stop being deceived! # 6:9 Or “Make no mistake!” People who continue to engage in sexual immorality, idolatry, adultery, sexual perversion, # 6:9 Or “catamites” or “pederasts” or “child molesters.” homosexuality, 10fraud, greed, drunkenness, verbal abuse, # 6:10 Or “slanderers.” or extortion—these will not inherit God’s kingdom realm. 11It’s true that some of you once lived in those lifestyles, but now you have been purified from sin, # 6:11 Or “washed clean.” made holy, and given a perfect standing before God—all because of the power of the name of the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, and through our union with the Spirit of our God.
12It’s true that our freedom allows us to do anything, but that doesn’t mean that everything we do is good for us. I’m free to do as I choose, but I choose to never be enslaved to anything. 13Some have said, “I eat to live and I live to eat!” But God will do away with it all. The body was not created for illicit sex, but to serve and worship our Lord Jesus, who can fill the body with himself.
14Now the God who raised up our Lord from the grave will awaken and raise us up through his mighty power!
The Body of Christ
15Don’t you know that your bodies belong to Christ as his body parts? Should one presume to take the members of Christ’s body and make them into members of a harlot? Absolutely not! 16Aren’t you aware of the fact that when anyone sleeps with a prostitute he becomes a part of her, and she becomes a part of him? For it has been declared:
The two become a single body. # 6:16 See Gen. 2:24. Paul is teaching that sexual intercourse causes an interpersonal union that goes beyond a physical relationship.
17But the one who joins # 6:17 The Greek verb kallaō means “to unite,” “to knit or weld together,” “to mingle,” or “to join together,” and “to make two into one.” himself to the Lord is mingled into one spirit with him. 18This is why you must keep running away from sexual immorality. # 6:18 Or “fornication,” which includes sexual activity outside of marriage. For every other sin a person commits is external to the body, but immorality involves sinning against your own body.
19Have you forgotten that your body is now the sacred temple of the Spirit of Holiness, who lives in you? You don’t belong to yourself any longer, for the gift of God, the Holy Spirit, lives inside your sanctuary. # 6:19 Or “the in-you Holy Spirit.” The Greek word Paul uses for “temple” is actually naos, “sanctuary.” See Eph. 2:19–22; 1 Peter 2:4–5. 20You were God’s expensive purchase, paid for with tears of blood, # 6:20 As translated from the Aramaic. Your soul was purchased with the bride-price of the precious blood of Christ. so by all means, then, use your body # 6:20 The Aramaic and the Textus Receptus adds “and in your spirit.” to bring glory to God!
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1 Corinthians 6: TPT
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Learn More About The Passion Translation1 Corinthians 6
6
Lawsuits Before Unbelievers.#Christians at Corinth are suing one another before pagan judges in Roman courts. A barrage of rhetorical questions (1 Cor 6:1–9) betrays Paul’s indignation over this practice, which he sees as an infringement upon the holiness of the Christian community. 1How can any one of you with a case against another dare to bring it to the unjust for judgment instead of to the holy ones? 2#The principle to which Paul appeals is an eschatological prerogative promised to Christians: they are to share with Christ the judgment of the world (cf. Dn 7:22, 27). Hence they ought to be able to settle minor disputes within the community. Do you not know that the holy ones will judge the world? If the world is to be judged by you, are you unqualified for the lowest law courts?#Wis 3:8; Mt 19:28; Rev 20:4. 3Do you not know that we will judge angels? Then why not everyday matters? 4If, therefore, you have courts for everyday matters, do you seat as judges people of no standing in the church? 5I say this to shame you. Can it be that there is not one among you wise enough to be able to settle a case between brothers? 6But rather brother goes to court against brother, and that before unbelievers?
7Now indeed [then] it is, in any case, a failure on your part that you have lawsuits against one another. Why not rather put up with injustice? Why not rather let yourselves be cheated?#Mt 5:38–42; Rom 12:17–21; 1 Thes 5:15. 8Instead, you inflict injustice and cheat, and this to brothers. 9#A catalogue of typical vices that exclude from the kingdom of God and that should be excluded from God’s church. Such lists (cf. 1 Cor 5:10) reflect the common moral sensibility of the New Testament period. Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes#The Greek word translated as boy prostitutes may refer to catamites, i.e., boys or young men who were kept for purposes of prostitution, a practice not uncommon in the Greco-Roman world. In Greek mythology this was the function of Ganymede, the “cupbearer of the gods,” whose Latin name was Catamitus. The term translated sodomites refers to adult males who indulged in homosexual practices with such boys. See similar condemnations of such practices in Rom 1:26–27; 1 Tm 1:10. nor sodomites#15:50; Gal 5:19–21; Eph 5:5. 10nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11That is what some of you used to be; but now you have had yourselves washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.#Ti 3:3–7.
Sexual Immorality.#Paul now turns to the opinion of some Corinthians that sexuality is a morally indifferent area (1 Cor 6:12–13). This leads him to explain the mutual relation between the Lord Jesus and our bodies (1 Cor 6:13b) in a densely packed paragraph that contains elements of a profound theology of sexuality (1 Cor 6:15–20). 12“Everything is lawful for me,”#Everything is lawful for me: the Corinthians may have derived this slogan from Paul’s preaching about Christian freedom, but they mean something different by it: they consider sexual satisfaction a matter as indifferent as food, and they attribute no lasting significance to bodily functions (1 Cor 6:13a). Paul begins to deal with the slogan by two qualifications, which suggest principles for judging sexual activity. Not everything is beneficial: cf. 1 Cor 10:23, and the whole argument of 1 Cor 8–10 on the finality of freedom and moral activity. Not let myself be dominated: certain apparently free actions may involve in fact a secret servitude in conflict with the lordship of Jesus. but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is lawful for me,” but I will not let myself be dominated by anything.#10:23. 13“Food for the stomach and the stomach for food,” but God will do away with both the one and the other. The body, however, is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body; 14God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power.#Rom 8:11; 2 Cor 4:14.
15Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take Christ’s members and make them the members of a prostitute?#6:15b–16] A prostitute: the reference may be specifically to religious prostitution, an accepted part of pagan culture at Corinth and elsewhere; but the prostitute also serves as a symbol for any sexual relationship that conflicts with Christ’s claim over us individually. The two…will become one flesh: the text of Gn 2:24 is applied positively to human marriage in Matthew and Mark, and in Eph 5:29–32: love of husband and wife reflect the love of Christ for his church. The application of the text to union with a prostitute is jarring, for such a union is a parody, an antitype of marriage, which does conflict with Christ’s claim over us. This explains the horror expressed in 1 Cor 6:15b. Of course not!#12:27; Rom 6:12–13; 12:5; Eph 5:30. 16[Or] do you not know that anyone who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For “the two,” it says, “will become one flesh.”#Gn 2:24; Mt 19:5; Mk 10:8; Eph 5:31. 17But whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.#Rom 8:9–10; 2 Cor 3:17. 18Avoid immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the immoral person sins against his own body.#Against his own body: expresses the intimacy and depth of sexual disorder, which violates the very orientation of our bodies. 19Do you not know that your body is a temple#Paul’s vision becomes trinitarian. A temple: sacred by reason of God’s gift, his indwelling Spirit. Not your own: but “for the Lord,” who acquires ownership by the act of redemption. Glorify God in your body: the argument concludes with a positive imperative to supplement the negative “avoid immorality” of 1 Cor 6:18. Far from being a terrain that is morally indifferent, the area of sexuality is one in which our relationship with God (and his Christ and his Spirit) is very intimately expressed: he is either highly glorified or deeply offended. of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?#3:16–17; Rom 5:5. 20For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body.#3:23; 7:23; Acts 20:28 / Rom 12:1; Phil 1:20.
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