Summary of 1 Corinthians 6:1-8

Paul is indignant that when they have lawsuits, they take them to courts where the judges are not part of the people of God, but are "unjust." They should realize that the holy ones will judge the world -- and so, if that be true, could they not handle the smallest judgments? We will judge angels -- so all the more, matters of daily life.

So [in sarcasm] if they have cases about ordinary matters, they should take the nobodies in the Church and make them be judges. They should be ashamed -- do they not have any wise man who can judge cases between Christians? Instead, Christian goes to court against Christian -- and with infidels as judges at that!

Actually, it is a failure for them to have lawsuits -- they should rather be inclined to suffer injustice or to lose something. But, instead of bearing wrong, they do wrong -- and to brother Christians at that!

Comments on 6:1-8

Greeks actually seem to have enjoyed lawsuits. In a Greek court, one would not hire a lawyer -- he would speak for himself. Hence speaking ability was highly prized. There is a legend -- even if it may not be true, it is in character -- of Korax and Tisias. After one of the many upheavals in Sicily, a teacher named Korax (the word means "crow") advertised: "If anyone takes my course, I guarantee he will be able to win his first case." Tisias took the course. At the end, Korax told him to pay up. Tisias refused. They went to court. Korax rose first: "Gentlemen of the jury, you will decide either for me or against me. If you decide for me, by your decision he must pay. If you decide against me, he has won his first case, and so owes me the money." Then Tisias rose: "Gentlemen of the jury, you will decide either for me or against me. If you decide for me, by your decision I do not have to pay. If you decide against me, Korax has not fulfilled his contract, I have lost my first case, and so I owe him nothing." The verdict of the jury was : "Bad crow (Korax) bad egg."

The story illustrates an unfortunate feature of Greek courts: they would often be moved by an argument that was clever, even if it was merely plausible, not conclusive. (We think of the actions of Ulysses in Homer -- always clever, honest sometimes).

So when Paul says the pagan judges are unjust, it is true in two ways: 1) They follow principles that are not in accord with justice or with Christianity; 2) They accept specious arguments.

Paul argues: We will judge the world and angels -- so we should be able to handle ordinary cases. He has in mind

Wisdom 3:8, "They shall judge nations and rule over peoples," and perhaps also Daniel 7:22.

Earlier, in 1 Corinthians 4:8, we saw Paul use sarcasm. Here he does it again. He will use any means that is not immoral to win their hearts over to what is right.

Next, Paul says it is a failure for them to have lawsuits at all. He has in mind the sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:41), where Jesus tells them if someone wants to force them to go one mile, to go two miles, and similar things. So, in that spirit, they should prefer to suffer wrong rather than to do wrong. (The reference was to the Roman practice of "impressment," forcing someone to carry military baggage for one mile).

Summary of 1 Corinthians 6:9-11

More broadly, they should realize that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God. They are deceiving themselves if they think the unjust could inherit. Really those who commit the great sins will not inherit: the sexually loose, the idolaters, the adulterers, the effeminate, those who lie with males, the thieves, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the robbers.

Certain ones of the Corinthians had in the past been such -- but now they have been washed, have been made holy, have been made righteous in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

Comments on 6:9-11

When Paul says the "unjust" will not inherit the kingdom, he is thinking of Hebrew sedaqah, often translated as justice or righteousness -- but really having a broader meaning. Sedaqah is the virtue that leads one to do everything morality requires, not just to practice justice in the narrow Greek & Roman sense of giving to each one what is due him (no more or less).

Then Paul gives examples of the chief varieties of great sins or sinners. First, the sexually immoral -- the Greek is pornoi. Old versions used to render it as "fornicators." That is true, but the word covers all kinds of sexual sin. Paul then mentions idolaters and adulterers -- with much of our meaning for those words, although adultery in the Old Testament sometimes meant general infidelity to God by His People, whom He had espoused to Himself.¹⁵ Yet it seems St. Paul means the word adulterers in the more usual sense here.

The effeminate and those who lie with males are homosexuals -- distinguishing the two types of roles in homosexuality. Homosexuals today try to say St. Paul objects only to promiscuous homosexual relations. But the Catholic Church interprets Paul to mean any homosexual relations. (Cf. the Doctrinal Congregation's "Letter on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons," of October 30, 1986.) Further, Scripture nowhere makes such a distinction. See Genesis 13:13 and 19:5 and also Leviticus 18:22: "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination," and Leviticus 20:13: "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them shall be put to death." Paul also in Romans 1:26ff. gives a dreadful list of the vices of the pagans and makes homosexuality the centerpiece, and then in the last verse of the chapter, he agrees with Leviticus: "Though they have known God's decree that those who do such things deserve death, yet they not only do them, but approve of them." This is the ultimate, the lowest degradation: to not only sin in a foul manner, but even to say it is good. See also the letter of Jude, verse 7: "Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire." We also get light from the way the original readers of the Old Testament understood these things. So in the intertestamental literature (written after the completion of the Old Testament and even overlapping a bit the time of the New Testament), we find flat condemnations of homosexuality. For examples, see The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha¹⁶ and also the comment by the Editor of the Sibyllines, I, p.323: "All forms of sexual offenses are condemned, but special reproach is poured on homosexuality. . . . [such condemnation] can be paralleled amply in the preachings of gentile moralists."¹⁷ Thus Suetonius, biographer of the first twelve Emperors, accuses many of them of homosexuality, always presenting it as a vice, never as anything tolerable. Pagan Athens in the 5th century B.C. even had a law against homosexuality!

St. Paul speaks similarly in other places such as Ephesians

5:5, and Galatians 5:16-21.

Martin Luther slid too easily over these passages. He thought that if one once in a lifetime took Christ as His personal Savior, he could commit all kinds of sins, and he would not be charged with them! So Luther wrote, in Epistle 501, to his great lieutenant Melanchthon: "Pecca fortiter, sed crede fortius," that is: "Sin boldly [or bravely] but believe still more boldly [or bravely]." And in another Epistle to Melanchthon of August 1, 1521¹⁸: "Be a sinner and sin boldly. . . . No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day." To think Protestants used to charge Catholics with having a permission to sin in indulgences! Look what Luther gave them! Hence a bumper sticker I have seen said: "Christians are not perfect, just forgiven." The sense is just what Luther said in these Epistles. But as we saw in First Thessalonians, St. Paul means something other by the word "faith" than merely being confident that the merits of Christ are credited to me. As we said, even the standard Protestant reference work, Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, (Supplement volume, p.333) explains faith as we did -- far different from what Luther thought. Further, according to Luther's view, one is infallibly saved if he once takes Christ as his Savior. For then on the credit side of the ledger he can write infinity, for the merits of Christ, which will always outbalance any number on the debit page for his sins past, present, and future. Luther did not see that faith includes "the obedience of faith" (Romans 1:5) and thought faith, which includes obedience, can justify any amount of disobedience!

Besides the fact that the Catholic Church has condemned Luther's errors -- this is the essential thing -- we can see that St. Paul, who surely took Christ as his personal Savior if anyone ever did it, yet does not count on that. Thus, as we shall soon see in 1 Corinthians 9:26-27, St. Paul said that he chastised his body to tame it, otherwise, even after preaching so much to others, he might be rejected at the judgment. But, if once taking Christ as his Savior would take care of him permanently, he would have no need for such chastisement of the body.

Also, we notice that in all three passages mentioned above Paul says that the great sinners will not "inherit" the kingdom of God. Now it is true, that the word inherit in Scripture sometimes means merely to acquire. But often it means to inherit from one's father. And St. Paul in Romans 8:17 says we are heirs of the Father along with Christ, if we suffer with Him, so we can be glorified with Him. (Recall also the comparison of the last will and testament in Galatians 3:15-18). Now when we inherit from our father, we do not say we have earned our inheritance. No, we get it because our father was good, not because we are good. (This is like justification by faith, in which we get justification without earning it). Yet we could earn to lose that inheritance by being bad children too much. A student in a discussion class once summed it up neatly: "As to salvation -- you can't earn it, but you can blow it."

In verse 11 St. Paul says that only "certain ones" of the Corinthians were as wicked as the great sinners he has described. He can say this honestly even though Corinth was noted for its immorality. Now this raises an interesting problem if we compare it with the dreadful litany of the sins of the gentiles Paul gives in chapter 1 of Romans. There, as we will see when we study that in relation to the first lines of chapter 2 of Romans, Paul really is charging all gentiles with all these sins. (For he says in 2:1: "You who judge another condemn yourselves, for you do the very same sins yourselves -- all are guilty of all sins!")

It is evident that 1 Corinthians 6:11 seems to clash with Romans chapters 1-2. In Corinthians, even in a licentious city, not all are guilty of all the great sins. But in Romans, all are. Commentators usually do not even mention the problem when they speak of First Corinthians. They often do mention it in connection with Romans, but cannot solve the problem. We will see it fully when we get to Romans. For now, if we recall that St. Paul has two ways of looking at some things -- focused and factual -- we will see that in 1 Corinthians he is using a factual view, in Romans 1-2, a focused view (we could also call it a system as system view -- the system or setup of being a gentile as such produces nothing but sin, every sin).

Summary of 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Paul's enemies quote Paul against Paul. He said: You are free from the law. But now he replies: not everything is good for me. The enemies repeat. Paul replies again: I will not let anything get control of me.

The enemies now say: Food is for the stomach, and the stomach for food. They imply: Similarly, if one wants sex, he should take it. But Paul replies that God will bring to an end the use of the stomach and of sex, in the resurrection. For the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. God has raised the Lord Jesus from the dead -- He will do the same for us later.

Further, your bodies are members of Christ. So, is it right to take the members of Christ and make them one in the flesh with a harlot? For the one who attaches himself to a harlot does become one flesh, two in one flesh. But the one who attaches himself to the Lord becomes one spirit, instead of one flesh.

So he urges: run away from sexual immorality. Other sins, says Paul, are outside a man's body. But sex sins are especially contrary to one's own body. And that is not right, for our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit: we do not belong to ourselves, for Christ has bought us at a price. So we should glorify God with our bodies.

Comments on 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

In Paul's day there were no punctuation marks of any kind -- no periods, commas, quotation marks. In fact, they did not even separate words. So we have to use good judgment to see what would have been in quotes. Here we need some quote marks. We can imagine Paul going into licentious Corinth and saying: You are free from the law. The libertines would say: We are! Let's go and live it up! But Paul heard of their ways, and wanted to stop them, yet would not say they were not free from the law. So he says: Not everything is beneficial. Really, if we obey God's laws it does Him no good. But it pleases Him for two reasons: 1) He, being Generosity itself, loves to give to us. His laws are instructions on how to be open so as to receive. 2) His laws also steer us away from things that would be harmful, for example, getting drunk brings a hangover, and worse, in time, liver damage. Premarital sex feels like real love, warmth, tenderness -- but is only chemistry, not love. It often leads to a loveless marriage.

Paul adds that he does not want to be a slave to creatures, to be dominated by them, addicted to them. God's laws make us free from being hooked on things.

His enemies then try to argue from a parallel -- just as we eat food when hungry, so we should have sex when we are hungry for it. Here Paul argues that both food and sex are temporary. After the resurrection, our bodies will need neither one. So the body is for the Lord, for He, if we are His members, will raise us up on the last day, just as the Father raised the Son.

Paul tries another argument. Those who have intercourse become two in one flesh. But it is not right to become one flesh with a harlot, when my body is actually part of Christ. By becoming one with Christ we become one spirit with Him, instead of being two in one flesh with a harlot.

So he says they should flee, run away, from sexual temptations. Some commentators think he may have had in mind a distinction. There are two kinds of temptations -- one type is such that one can reason himself out of it. Thus if one is tempted to rob a bank he can say: Why take the money, when I have to give it back to be forgiven (otherwise, keeping it is a continuation of the sin). And think of the dangers -- armed guards, tellers have a call button under their toes that will bring in the police. But with a temptation involving strong emotion, such as sex, there is no point in trying to reason oneself out of it. St. Francis of Assisi has a clever comparison. He loved to speak of Brother Sun, Sister Moon, etc. Similarly he called his body "Brother Ass" -- the long-eared kind. No ass ever goes over to another ass and says: Brother Ass, you have been around longer than I. Please give me good advice. No, he learns only by his own experience, especially if he is facing north when a boot comes in quickly from the south. Suppose then that a man has bought a copy of Playboy. He has opened it at the center-fold, and is taking it in, and getting worked up. But then Brother Mind speaks: See here, Brother Ass. Why get excited? That is only a piece of paper with some ink on it. You can't do anything with that. So why get excited? And what does Brother Ass say? Yummy!

Paul's saying that other sins are outside the body, but sexual sin is against the body, is hard to interpret. Probably he means that the body is so fully involved in sex. Yet, that body is the temple in which the Holy Spirit dwells, Whom we have from God. Jesus bought us at a price, the price of redemption. So we do not belong to ourselves. So when a woman wanting an abortion says "It is my body, it is my own business what I do with it," Paul would reply, "No. You do not belong to yourself." (Not to mention the live baby inside!)

He concludes: Glorify God with the way you use your body.