Sermon Notes on 1 Corinthians 9:1-12 Sacrificing Personal Rights for the Good of All.

For those of you who aren’t regulars here, we are working our way through the Bible book called 1 Corinthians.

1 Corinthians is not actually a book but a letter, written by a disciple of Jesus called Paul to a prosperous and successful, but also very dysfunctional church based in the sea port of Corinth.  Corinth was to Athens, what New York and Las Vegas are to Washington DC.  Athens, like Washington DC, was where all the boring politics and bureaucracy happened, Corinth, like New York and Las Vegas was where all the great action was, where the money was being made and where all the fun was being had.

Paul’s letter is long, at 6830 words it is probably longer than any letter that you or I will ever write. Today we are looking at a small section just over half way through the middle of the letter, which, thanks to the sixteenth century French publisher and geek known as Robert Estienne, we now call chapter 9 verses 1-12.

Before we look at this bit of the letter, we must be clear about the context and I will spend a decent amount of time setting the scene here so that when we read it later it should all be much clearer.
The great thing about verses and subheadings in the Bible, is that they help us find our way around quicker, the problem is that because it has been divided up in that way for our ease of navigation, we stop seeing the Bible and the writings in it as organic wholes that together make one complete story.

How many of you have ever sat down and just read 1 Corinthians from start to finish? You should.  It will take you about an hour or by the wonder that is the internet you can listen to it read to you for free if you prefer.

It’s a letter, and that’s what you do with letters, you read them in their entirety usually in one sitting. Have you ever had a letter, or an email from a friend which you read a paragraph at a time once a week?  No one would think that you were normal, especially not your boss at work, if you read their emails or letters at the speed of one paragraph once a week, you could well find yourself being made redundant for a lack of productivity.  Yet somehow, when it comes to the Bible, we think it’s normal to read them bit by bit in sections, rather than as a whole.

Now, there are a number of themes that run through this letter, which will help us understand, why Paul says what he does in this bit here.

If you were here when we were looking at the earlier parts of the letter, you will hopefully remember that Paul spent time stressing to the church that he is a genuine apostle and worthy to be considered a leader, better still, a father figure amongst them.  And so, again, today, we will see Paul defend his legitimacy as an apostle (spiritual father) to the Corinthian church.

But this time that defence has a different slant on it.  Last time, Mike, by looking at the issue of food offered to idols, introduced us to the theme of the strong and the weak in the church at Corinth. To use a wrestling metaphor, in the blue corner, we had strong who felt it was perfectly ok to eat meat offered to idols because idols are nothing compared to God and in the red corner, we had the weak who didn’t want to eat that same meat because it represented giving honour to those idols and compromising their allegiance to God.  These two groups were in the wrestling ring over the issue, but the strong were throwing their weight around and destroying the weak who they should have been viewing; not as people who should bow to the supremacy of their arguments, but as their dear brothers and sisters for whom Christ died.

Paul rebukes the strong and tells them that irrespective of their rights on the matter, they should if needed, lay their right to eat meat down for the sake of the greater good of the whole Church family.

This section addressing the question about meat offered to idols actually spans three chapters, finishing at the end of chapter 10 so what we are about to read is not Paul going off on a tangent about another subject, rather, having told the strong that they should lay down their rights to eat meat for the good of all he continues that theme by giving an personal example of how this laying down of rights works in his life.

Before we go there, we need to explore these themes of the strong and the weak and Paul’s authenticity a little more. 

You see, the strong weren’t just causing trouble in the realms of juicy steaks and bacon sandwiches, there was more going on.  The strong were those who held all the power and influence in church life.  They were rich, they were the ones with university degrees, the ones who had friends in influential places from whom they could call in favours, they were those with leadership responsibility and influence in shaping the life and culture of the church, and for all those reasons, they considered themselves to be spiritually mature and strong.

The weak were poor, living just above the bread line, they had little or no formal education, they had no friends in high places other than Jesus himself, they were the rank and file of the church who generally did what was asked of them and if they raised a question about how things were done, it would appear that they were just brushed off as being uneducated, immature or naïve.

We have already seen that it was the strong who, with their “so called” superior knowledge, were destroying the consciences of others by encouraging them to eat meat.  It was the strong who were encouraging factions, getting everyone to pick the apostle they liked best, be it Paul, Apollos, Cephas or someone else.  It was the strong with all their money and social connections who were trying to use the Corinthian law courts in chapter 6 to get their own way in the church.

We will see later in the letter that it was the strong rich who were humiliating the weak and poor at communion meals and it was the strong who were boasting about their amazing spiritual gifts and how they could speak in tongues all the time.

This should be no surprise to us.  There is nothing new about the strong manipulating everything for their own advantage, and the weak little people having to fight over what is left.  For most of history, most people have lived in poverty, whilst a few wealthy people at the top lorded it over them.  For all our talk about equality these days, the one equality that really isn’t getting addressed is the increasing gap between the rich and the poor.  Those who challenge that gap are brushed off as naïve and idealistic.  Whilst the crash of 2008 made many poorer, the super-rich continued to increase their share of the wealth and there is no sign that this trend will change any time soon.

The tragedy was that the Church in Corinth was more and more reflecting this kind of dark worldly thinking, where the preferences of the strong, irrespective of whether they were right or wrong were bulldozing over everyone else.
 
But not only are the strong throwing their weight around in Corinthian church life more and more, they are spreading toxic rumours about Paul, casting doubt on his authenticity and integrity as an apostle.

We saw earlier in the series that Paul has never asked them for any money to support him.  When with them, he laboured during the day as a tent maker, then in his free time, planted and nurtured the church.  But instead of saying “Wow, what a man filled with incredible love and self-sacrifice, he has freely given us everything he has to give.” they start saying things like.  “Well he can’t be a very good apostle then, if he is not earning any money from it.”  Or maybe they were offended by his refusal to receive any money from them.  “That Paul thinks he’s better than all the other apostles, he’s so super-spiritual, he doesn’t need our money, who does he think he is?!”

We do that too don’t we?  We assume that if something costs more, it must be better.  Whilst that may be true some of the time, it is not universally true. The rest of the time it just proves what suckers we are – duped by clever advertisers.

Do you think that Reading Family Church is a better church than other churches because it has a salaried staff team?

We are definitely better off from a management and administration point of view and in other ways too, but if we start to think that we are automatically more spiritually mature than the church down the road where all the leaders are unsalaried volunteers, then we are on dangerous ground.

Secondly, Paul isn’t married, but instead of saying “Wow what an incredible sacrifice he has made for the benefit of the church!” The strong are saying: “he’s a bit weird isn’t he?  Can’t get himself a wife, what’s wrong with him?  How on earth will he be able to speak with any authenticity to the women in our church, or to the dads with kids?”

Thirdly, Paul hasn’t been trained in the art of Greek public speaking, nor is he interested in merely entertaining his listeners with a good story, but instead of saying “Wow, Paul has understood the gospel of Jesus Christ really well, let’s glean as much as we can from him so we can grow and mature too!”  They say, “He’s not a very engaging speaker, he goes on for hours and hours all in a boring monotone voice, he can’t have anything worth hearing.

Do you do the same?  Do you think that if a preacher has held your interest and you have enjoyed listening to what has been said that they must be more faithful to God than someone who is boring?  When you check your phone during the sermon or start daydreaming about what you’re doing later; is it because those who speak aren’t declaring to you the words of God or is it because they aren’t entertaining enough for you?  Or maybe they aren’t saying it the way you think it should be said?

So as we read through this passage, and hear how Paul defends the way he lives out his apostleship, keep in mind that whilst he is addressing the whole church, he is particularly addressing the strong who are selfishly throwing their weight around and also casting doubt amongst everyone about Paul’s authenticity as an apostle.

He opens this bit with four rhetorical questions, to which the answers are all an emphatic YES!  And as I read I will insert some comments to help make things a bit clearer.

Verses 1-2

Am I not free? [Of course I am, Jesus has made me free!] Am I not an apostle? [Of course I am!  The Holy Spirit set me and Silas apart many years ago now during a time of prayer and fasting for this work.] Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? [Of course I did, he appeared to me on the road to Damascus as I was on my way to arrest Christians and destroy the church!] Are not you my workmanship in the Lord? [Of course you are!] If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

Paul effectively tells those who doubt his authenticity as an apostle to wake up, open their eyes and look around them.  The believers and the church at Corinth are the evidence that Paul is an apostle, that he did meet the risen Lord Jesus and that that same Jesus commissioned him to preach the good news of the Kingdom of God to the world.

Have a look around you now.  All of us gathered in this venue are witnesses to the fact that one day many years ago, God laid it on the heart of Sean Green, the lead pastor here at RFC who is currently on sabbatical, to plant a church.  If he had not been obedient to that call, we would not be here, not like this.  Not that all of us became Christians through Sean, most of us didn’t and would have ended up at other churches in Reading if RFC wasn’t here, but RFC is here and that is due to the obedience of Sean and Liz, leaving Bracknell with a bunch of others and setting up here.

In the same way, the Corinthian church would not be there if it had not been for Paul’s obedience and whilst he did not personally convert everyone or baptise them, all of the Corinthian Christians, whether they have met Paul or not owe a debt of gratitude in God to Paul.  Not that they should idolise Paul, or that we should idolise Sean. Far from it!! We are to worship Christ alone, but we should recognise and be grateful for the obedience of all the people God put in our lives, without whom, we would still be destined for judgment and damnation.

Verses 3-12a
He has another fist full of rhetorical questions.

This is my defence to those [esp the strong] who would [cross-]examine me. Do we not have the right to eat and drink? [Of course we do!]  Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?  [Of course we do!]  Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living?  [Of course it’s not!  Of course we have the right to be funded by you like all of the other apostles are!  For] Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? [No one does, that’s mad!] Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? [No one does, that’s bonkers!] Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk? [No one does!] 

Do I say these things on human authority? [trying cleverly to manipulate you to get money out of you? Of course I don’t!]  Does not the Law say the same?  For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not certainly speak for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop. If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more?  Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, 

Paul lays out that what is a normal principle in everyday life is also a perfectly legitimate principle to have in the church, which is that labour done should be rewarded appropriately.  If you turned up at work one day and your boss or line manager said to you that your pay check had been cancelled because the management felt everyone should work for the moral satisfaction alone that hard work is good for the soul, you’d check your phone and see if it’s April the first or, if you found out they were actually serious, you’d realise that your company had gone bonkers and you’d hand in your resignation and go looking for another job because you have real bills to pay.

Or maybe do it yourself, why not try telling your bank or credit card company that the money you owe them isn’t real, it’s just typed in numbers on a spreadsheet, just a bit of ink on paper or just some pixels on a screen. They would laugh you all the way to the courthouse and afterwards, drop you off at the asylum.

Paul says it this way, that no soldier signs up to the army to risk their life in battle for the sake of the cause expecting to have to take their own packed lunch and box of Elastoplasts along with them to the front line.  No farmer spends hours cultivating food only to watch it be taken away at the end.  No cattle herder spends hours in the winter snow rescuing cows from snowdrifts only to see their delicious milk get poured out on to the ground.  No one works day in, day out hours on end for the joy of work alone.

Not only is financial reward a principle in life, it is in the Bible too.  Paul quotes the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 25:4 to be exact.  What’s weird is that if you look up that chapter, you find a whole bunch of verses about people and then suddenly this one that seems to be about animal rights – not muzzling oxen.  That’s a bit left field.

But it is symbolic of a wider point in that section, that those who have power over others should not abuse that position of power, and therefore degrade their fellow human beings.  If someone amongst you takes the place of a servant either by choice or because they have too, do not abuse the power you have over them lest they become discouraged.  If God didn’t allow the Israelites to discourage an ox by disallowing it from eating anything as they drove it around the threshing floor, how much more concerned is he that human beings treat each other with dignity and honour?  As Jesus said, you are worth more than many sparrows.

Paul has made himself a servant to the Corinthian church, and both the world and the word of God say that he has a right like anyone else to receive financial and material support from that church. For no one, should have to work hard without the hope of some kind of reward, whether that reward be financial or the receiving of some kind of recognition from others or indeed a commendation from Christ himself.  Meaningless work is corrosive to the soul and destructive to society.

Nevertheless, Paul has not taken up the right to financial support for the work that he does. Not because he has no right to it or is not worthy of it, but because there are other issues in play.  Paul isn’t against receiving money, he happily receives gifts especially when he is in need and we see that in Philippians 4.  But does not receive gifts as a normal practice in his life for three reasons:

1. Because those gifts come with the loaded expectation that he will now give preferential treatment to the people who gave them to him.
2. Because those gifts could give the impression that he is in it for the money. And finally, and this is the big one…
3. Because he wants nothing to block people – especially the poor, from hearing the good news of Jesus.

Verse 12b

but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.

Paul wants nothing to stop people from hearing the gospel and coming to Jesus, and if there is anything that does stop them, it should only be the message itself, nothing else.

Why does Paul have this attitude of laying down a perfectly legitimate right to the benefits of financial support?  On a purely practical level, he wants the everyone, especially the poor – those who just manage to scrape a living from day to day, to hear the gospel.  He doesn’t want them to disqualify themselves from hearing the good news, because they think that at some point Paul will ask them for money like all the other travelling gurus of the day.

But more than that, because that is the attitude of the master himself – Jesus - and Paul wants to be like him. John 13 says:

Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God.  So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him…
I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you.

Do you think you have rights?

Jesus has more, he is the eternal Son of God, he has always existed, he created the universe by his power in all its intricate detail and beauty.  He is pure in all his ways – never has a dark thought, word or action been committed by him. He is always doing the right, good and beautiful thing.  He alone has the right to rule the world and expect things to be done the way that he wants, and that way is best for all. He alone is worthy of worship and adoration along with his Father and the Spirit.

Yet he gave up all those rights of strength, honour and glory to come and serve weak, foolish and corrupted little human beings like us so that he might make us beautiful like he is beautiful.

Supremely, we see that at the cross, where:

• Instead of demanding his rights that people worship him and give him an easy life, he willingly, receives all the insults that they hurl at him. 
• Instead of receiving the gifts rightly due him as a king, he allows himself to be treated as a common criminal.  
• The one who has the right to all blessing, was, on the cross, cursed for our sake, taking the place where we should have been.

We see the same in John 13, it is hours before Jesus goes to the Cross, Jesus knows that the universe and everything in it belongs to him, he knows that he has all authority over it, but instead of expecting worship from his disciples, he gets down from the table and takes the lowliest place of all, washing their cheesy, dirty feet.

He who was the strongest amongst them, used his strength to serve those he loved.  He who had every right amongst them, gave all those rights up so that he might beautify those who had no rights, giving them the right to become children of God.

Jesus told his followers that they should do the same.  For it is by this that the world will know that we are his people.  If the world sees a church where the strong are throwing their weight around and having everything their own way marginalizing the poor and weak, they will see that we are no different to any other human community.

But, if when they look at the church, they see the strong laying down their rights for the benefit of all, just like Jesus, the mighty Son of God laid down his rights for the benefit of all then they will know that we are truly disciples of the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus said, that the world would know that we are his disciples by the way that we love each other, not just in words but in actions, not just loving people like us, but in loving those who are not like us for Jesus sake, not by the assertion of our rights, but by the giving up of our rights. Not because Christians should be doormats for everyone to walk over, but so that everybody wins, not just the powerful few.

So, what right is God asking you to give up for the benefit of all?

Do you think you have the right to the last word in everything?  Might you not, for the good of all keep your mouth shut.

Do you think that because you and your friends are the kinds of people who represent the majority of people at RFC that you should have the loudest say in what goes on in church life? Might you not, for the good of all honour the requests of those who are not like you?

Do you think that because you have been here at RFC longer than other people, that your opinion should be heard more strongly than others? Might you not, for the good of all help those who are newer around here to get embedded in like you have, rather than leaving them to figure it out by themselves?

Do you spend most of your time thinking about how make the best of the rights you have for you and your family rather than for your community?  It’s important to look out for your family. But do you do that at the expense of the wider community, whether that is the church family, the place where you live or the place where you work?  Why not change your definition of the greater good to include those who are beyond your family and friendship circle?

Do you think that because God loves you so much you have the right to become everything you think you should become?  Do you expect everyone else in your life to serve you and God’s call on your life?  Don’t be so blinkered, stop staring in the mirror and start looking out for and serving others.

Do you think that Jesus died for you so that you could have the right to a comfortable life?  Loads of us think that. Me included.  Jesus died, so that I don’t have to. Well yes, that is true.  But he who died in your place, also said “Pick up your cross and follow me.” The inference of that phrase is follow me to death – to death for the sake of love.

You see when we kneel at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ, or indeed before the throne of the risen Lord Jesus, all talk of our rights goes out the window and we repent of such stupid thinking.

A church that is most interested in asserting its rights, will see minimal real breakthrough in the things of God, but a church that is full of people who have given up their personal rights to comfort and the good life for the glory of Jesus and benefit of all, both those inside and those outside the church are a people who will truly see God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven.

Sermon Notes on 1 Corinthians 7:25-40 "Wisdom for Living Between Worlds"

Today we are looking at 1 Corinthians 7:25-40, but I won’t get to that text until later, the reason being is that to really make sense of what we read, we need to understand the context both in the world at large and in the church, so I’ll spend about half my allotted time talking about that. The benefit being that is that if we understand the context well, Paul’s words will be less confusing and how we are to live as a result will make so much more sense. We won’t make the mistake of either badly applying or misapplying what he says to our own lives or worse to the lives of others.

So let’s get going on the context. Paul is not speaking into a prosperous peacetime context, but one of great upheaval. In this passage he says in verse 29 that “the time is short” and in verse 26 he talks of a “present crisis.” What did he mean by these things?

First, there was a famine that had been prophesied by Agabus over the whole (Roman Empire) World in Acts 11:28 and that came to pass in AD51 during the reign of Claudius. Whilst we don’t know when exactly this letter was written, many people with cool combinations of letters after their names seem to think it was between 53-57AD, that the “present crisis” Paul is referring to is this famine and that they are living in the traumatic aftershocks of that deadly period. Poor people are always hit harder by these kinds of events and in 1 Cor 1:26, Paul suggests that most in the church were poor and therefore most in the church would have gone through a severe time of testing. Whilst I don’t think this is the primary reason for the advice that Paul gives in this section, the famine obviously contributed to an understanding of the fragility of life; of not taking the gift of life for granted.

Secondly, the world at this time was in a phase of massive turbulence and transition both spiritually and politically.

• On a political level, the emperor Nero was fermenting trouble for the sake of boosting his own self-esteem. Less than a decade after this letter was written, in AD64, he set fire to the city of Rome so that he could rebuild its public spaces as a monument to his own enormous ego and when he found out that his people didn’t really like him for burning down much of the city, he blamed the Christians, thus unleashing both the power of the vigilante lynch mob and the state on the church, arresting, torturing and killing many. Moreover, after Nero’s death (soon after the fire) Rome would go through a massive civil war as various factions sought to gain supremacy. 
• But at the time of writing, pressure building from Rome was not as great as the pressure being applied by the Jews, many of whom were now actively persecuting the church, either from the outside, by getting people arrested, or from the inside, by leading people away with false teaching; telling them they have to follow all the Old Testament law and that the men have to be circumcised. Even more significant than that, the world was in a 40 year cross over between the end of the Old Testament Age and the beginning of the New Testament Age. Jesus said that The Old world, centred around Jerusalem: the temple, the sacrifices and festivals was about to come to a dramatic end (Matt 23:37-24:51) and that his generation of people would see it. And that is exactly what they did see, when the Romans razed Jerusalem and its temple to the ground in AD70 and whilst the nation of Israel was resuscitated back in 1947, the Temple has never yet been. Emerging from the wake of that collapse was a new world centred on Christ and his Spirit filled church which was to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. There are parallels here with the 40yr period in the wilderness (transition) which Israel experienced between the “old world” of slavery in Egypt and the “new world” of conquering the promised land. All this makes Brexit look like a walk in the park.

Finally, the end of the old world had begun. When the Cross of Christ was lifted high and dropped into the ground, it was, as it were, like a stake through the heart of the old creation. Ever since that moment, that old world ruled by the devil and full of sin and suffering has been passing away and the new world of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, the new world of Christ and his bride the church, has been advancing growing and maturing. And it will one day culminate with the return of Christ. Those of us old enough to remember the Matrix trilogy of films will remember the final moment when Neo defeats Agent Smith, causing the whole dark system of the matrix crash. The Cross of Christ, caused the crash of the old world and out of the ashes of that defeat, God is not only resurrecting and transforming people, but He will also resurrect and transform the whole universe.

So whilst Corinth was a relatively prosperous, liberal and multicultural place, there was nevertheless a large amount of uncertainty and upheaval in the background of everyday life:

• On the level of physical existence getting enough food,
• On the level of politics and society – with the earthly powers vying for supremacy and
• On the level of the unseen, spiritual world, with the old order passing away – but not going without a fight with Satan trying to take down as many with him as he goes to destruction.

But there was an added complication. Into all this external upheaval, competing voices were vying for supremacy within the church. You will know from history lessons and from our own recent EU referendum that in times of tension and upheaval, extremist views find it easier to get heard in the public square. The church at Corinth was no different. But they weren’t just dividing over which leader they liked and thought they should follow, but also over the best way live out the Christian life. There were those who said “No worries! It’s all about grace.” Versus those who said “No Compromise! It’s all about righteousness.”

Have a look at the slide behind me? Which column do you more naturally gravitate towards? “No worries!” or “No compromise?” One of the problems of living in an advertisement saturated culture is that we begin to live life by well-meant but misleading slogans and clichés. All of the words on the slide behind me (“No Worries,” freedom, desire, spontaneity, hectic-ness, informality, “No Compromise,” rules, discipline, routines, order, formality.) have elements of truth in them, but if left unquestioned, or if we don’t allow the Bible to define how we understand those words, they will become infused with our own confused definitions and then they become dangerous to us.

Christian freedom is not the freedom to do what we want, it’s the freedom to do what is right.

Christian discipline is not the opportunity for us to show God how faithful we can be to him, but the opportunity for God to show how faithful he has been and will be to us! We read our Bibles not because we are trying to prove how faithful we are, but because when we read our Bibles we see how utterly faithful God is!

Some in Corinth were all about freedom and license – sleeping around at the temple, getting drunk during communion, eating food that had been offered to idols in pagan temples, (more on that in the coming weeks) and they thought nothing of it – No worries. God loves us – the Cross of Jesus covers all our sin! And yet over time, they start to make God look like a weak and overindulgent parent, spoiling their child.

But others in Corinth were all about legalism – they were no longer making love to their spouses, they were withdrawing from public spaces and they were spending all their time in church meetings speaking in tongues, because they seemed to have arrived at the conclusion that normal everyday things like grocery shopping, making love to your spouse and talking intelligibly to other people were far too worldly and not spiritual enough for “real Christians” (whatever they are). Yet they were in danger of portraying God as a harsh task master and looking down their noses at all those who didn’t share their view.

Paul will not be drawn into either of these two camps because, whilst having elements of truth in them, they are both ungodly at their root. They both are human-centred. The “no worries” people put their own desires for pleasure at the centre and the “no compromise” people put their own desire for glory and vindication at the centre. Neither of them have Christ at the centre. Paul seeks a different way, which explains why he might at times seem to contradict himself. He is neither totally for nor totally against either group, he wants to show them a yet more excellent way – the way of love – love for God and love for others. (More on that when we get to chapter 13 of the letter.)

Paul seeks wisdom which is founded on Christ and his goodness, full of the Word and Spirit of God. This kind of godliness does not seize what it thinks it should have now, but waits upon the Lord for his timing. This kind of godliness is full of praise, thanksgiving and hope, it’s wise, pure, peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy, impartial, sincere, it honours God and blesses others, it is willingly self-sacrificial and it shows to the world a vision of life as good, the next life as even better and of God as a loving father, with us in Christ, as his joyfully obedient children.

Paul has waited on God, meditated and reflected on the context of the world at large, the economic uncertainty, the political struggles going on in Rome on the one hand and Jerusalem on the other and how the new life of the gospel of Jesus is transforming everything. He has meditated on the basis of his own first-hand experience of planting the Church in Corinth and now on the basis of the report that Chloe’s house has brought to him and in the midst of all that, he has meditated on the truth of God’s timeless word. And now, whilst he has had no direct heavenly revelation, he gives them trustworthy Holy Spirit inspired answers regarding the unmarried in their church.

V25-28: Singles? Stay as you were.

Now concerning the betrothed, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment 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.

Paul’s advice to singles in the church given the times that they are living in is the same as it was to the slaves and the married people from earlier in the chapter who have become Christians – stay as you were. Don't worry about the situation you find yourself in, do not rush to change it. Singles who are engaged to be married and on the road to being married do not now need to call off the engagement and if they get married, they have done no wrong – contrary to what the super-spiritual bunch in the church at Corinth might have been telling them. The only word of caution Paul has for them is that because of the times they are living in, they may have their hearts broken as they try to hold their family life together in the midst of a world that is falling apart. Paul, being the loving pastor, seeking their best interest wants to spare them this sorrow.

This week, as a nation we have been celebrating the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. In terms of loss of life it was the worst ever battle in British military history. The first day alone saw nearly 60000 men killed or wounded.

Now, imagine you were living in that time. You were a young man called up to serve your country in that battle, or a young woman called to serve the war effort at home. Imagine that you had just got engaged, as WWI kicked off over Europe. At best your marriage plans would postponed until the war was over, at worst your fiancée might not come back alive, or if he did come back alive, he might have come back with a body and mind so mangled by the trauma of war that your expectations for marriage and family life would have been completely overturned.

Times must have been hard, because Paul tells singles who are not in a relationship currently, not to pursue one. He doesn’t say that they should never seek a spouse, just that in the current circumstances, you may do better to hold off at least for now.

V29-31: Have a “camping” mind-set.

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 remember a conversation many years ago with a guy who was very worked up about whether he should marry or not. The reason being that he thought that marriage continued for ever, not just in this life but in the next one i.e. for eternity. He was scared he would make the wrong choice and have to live with the consequences for ever. When I told him that marriage is for this life only, the joy and relief on his face was incredible.

In this section, Paul isn’t actually telling his married listeners to live as if they weren’t married, if he was then he would be going totally against what he had just said earlier in the chapter – for more on that you can listen to Sean’s sermon from two weeks ago.

What he is saying; is don’t get overly attached to this world or the things in it. Don’t live your life as if the 70 or so years you hope to have down here were the only time you have. Have a camping mind-set in life. When you go camping, you know it’s for a short time, that your real life is elsewhere. If the camping is hard, it’s pouring down with rain, everything is sodden and you are cold, then knowing that the experience will not last long is a great comfort. If however, sun is shining and you are having a great time, you still live with the knowledge that one day you will have to pack up the tent and go home, back to real life.

That’s what Paul is getting at here. Live here in this life, fully in the knowledge that one day you will pack up your bags and go home.

Now if you’re a Christian living in North Korea or Iraq right now, that is probably a great comfort to you. However, if you are a Christian living in the prosperous and relatively comfortable West, then that might feel like an interruption to your fun you are having.

Irrespective of where you think you think you are, remember you are camping, this is season you are in, this life you are living right now is temporary. A day will come when we all have to pack our bags and go to our permanent home.

V32-35: Count the cost, honour your word.

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.

In saying that we should have a camping mind-set, Paul is trying to help anxious Christians calm down and take the heat out of some of their decision making. That being said, he is in no way saying that we should be casual in our decision making. Living in this world as though we are passing through is meant to help us have peace in our hearts; it is not at all an excuse for being flippant in our life choices. The paths we choose to walk, assuming that we have a choice in the matter, deeply affect not only our own lives but the lives of those around us too. They also affect not only our own eternal destiny, but the eternal destinies of those around us too. We should be prayerful and careful in the decisions we make and then resolute and steadfast in following them through to the end.

Paul doesn’t lay down an exhaustive list of the benefits of singleness or marriage here so we should be wary of taking what he says here in isolation. Marriage and singleness both have their joys and their struggles, their pros and their cons.

Paul says that marriage comes with responsibility. Good responsibility. Those who are married have to fulfil obligations to one another and to their family. Single people also have obligations, it’s just that singles have fewer of them and they are not all legally binding. If, as a single man I got a lodger who I ended up not getting on with very well, then I could easily say to them that they needed to find alternative accommodation. However, if I get into serious relational difficulty with Elli or Evie, I am still bound both legally and in the sight of God to continue looking after them, I cannot cut my losses and leave.

When Paul says unmarried people can be more concerned with being holy, it doesn’t mean that single people are more concerned with purity or being “zen,” it just means that they can be more overtly devoted to the work of God. They can serve people in the name of Jesus, rather than spend hours and hours poring over the decision of which primary school to send their children.

Moreover, married people cannot embrace risk and danger for the sake of the gospel in the same way as single people can because they have others who are dependent on them.

This doesn’t mean that single people in the church should be viewed as cannon fodder for the mission field or that single people make better martyrs, nor does it mean that married people are let off the hook from living radically and sacrificially for Jesus - sometimes becoming martyrs.  It’s just that at times the risks, needs and costs of missionary work are better suited to singles i.e. people with fewer ties.

In 2 Corinthians 11 Paul will say that he has led a life that has gotten him imprisonments, countless beatings, often to within an inch of his life. He has been stoned, shipwrecked not once, but three times left adrift on the open sea, he has been in danger from robbers, from his own people, from the Gentiles, he has regularly been hungry, thirsty, cold and exposed. Now imagine if Paul had been a family man, what his letters home would have been like and the nervous wrecks he would have reduced his wife and children into as they wondered if he would ever make it home alive.

V36-38: Marriage is good and right, but singleness for Christ is “even better.”

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.

The main question in this section is what does Paul mean when he says that he who marries does well and he who does not marry does better.

You don’t become an extra super Christian if you get married, and you don’t become an extra super Christian if you remain single. But equality of status, is not the same as equality of action and we should not confuse the two. God has no favourite children – the gift of Christ’s righteousness is the scandalous claim that all Christians, irrespective of track record stand as not only forgiven, but dearly beloved in the sight of God. But that does not mean that all our life choices are equally good.

Paul says here that marriage is good – very good, but that singleness is better. Why? Because it is a sacrifice. But marriage is a sacrifice, I hear you marrieds say. True, husbands are told to lay down their lives for their wives. But no one gets married expecting their life to get worse. No-one. When those who are married, met at the altar or the registry office, they did so in the hope of stepping into a better life together. It’s true marriage is not always easy and it can be a place of exquisite pain and sorrow. But it is still, at least at the outset, an enterprise of hope, help, joy and companionship.

Those who embrace singleness for the gospel whether in the short term a year at a time or for a life time, are making a sacrifice that others have not made, that is why Paul says they do even better. Because they embrace a loneliness that others do not, they embrace a sense of rootlessness in this life, that others, with their responsibilities to family do not. Their motives can be misunderstood; they can feel socially awkward – like black sheep, because they haven’t embraced the same behaviour as the rest of their peers. They are more vulnerable because, if they invest themselves in gospel and mission work, and it all goes up in smoke one day because of the moral failure of others or themselves, to whom do they go to grieve and find their sense of identity again if they cannot retreat back to their family?

A few months ago, Sean spoke on what happens when we die. On judgment day, I truly believe that those who have embraced singleness for the sake of the gospel, will receive a greater reward in tat area than those of us who married, because the cost they willingly paid in this life for the service of God was greater. And when that reward is given we will all say, Amen and give praise to God for the incredible things that he did through that single person.

Those of you who are single now should consider these things, and like Jesus said in Matthew 19:14 – if you can receive it, then receive it. But if you can’t you are not sinning, marriage for God is good, but singleness for God is better.

V39-40: Freedom with limits

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 judgment she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God.

Finally Paul instructs that if a woman becomes a widow and decides to remarry, the man should belong to the Lord – i.e. be a Christian.

From this verse and others in the Bible, we have the teaching that if you are a Christian, you should marry another Christian.

This is not because Christians automatically have better marriages, there are some really toxic “Christian” marriages out there. Nor are we saying that when a Christian marries a non-Christian it is automatically worse. Those kinds of statement are demonstrably false.

Moreover, just because someone says they are a Christian, that doesn’t mean you should go out with them, nor does it mean that you will have no problems in your married life. Conversely, just because someone isn’t a Christian, that does not mean they won’t make for an excellent husband or wife. I know many spouses who aren’t Christians, who love their spouses in ways that demonstrate the relationship between Christ and the church.

What it means is this, that if you really love Jesus and want to live all out for him, then marrying someone who is at best, not invested in that same enterprise or worse, actively working against it, will be a source of sorrow or even outright conflict later in married life.

When it’s all dinner dates and romantic walks, and having lots of me time in between, it’s easy to think that later disagreements about how to spend your money, your time, how to raise your kids, where to live will all just somehow easily resolve themselves. They often don’t and the pain of that can be excruciating.

That said, like Scott said last week about divorce last week, it’s not the unforgivable sin. The issue is this, and I would address it to both the Christian and the non-Christian who are dating: why would you both knowingly embrace that potential conflict? Don’t do it. Just don’t.

I realise that I have touched on many issues this morning, and I may have left you with more questions than answers. I’m ok with that – my point this morning is to provoke you to godliness, not answer every possible interpretation or speak into every circumstance. But if there are now questions for you that need resolving then do come and speak to me or one of the other elders. The prayer ministry team will be at the back should you wish to talk / pray some of this stuff through with them.

But for now, let's eat and drink with Jesus in communion...