As I said, I advanced this because I wanted to see how people would react. I also have a belief, drawn from my theologian friend, that we shouldn’t avoid Scriptural topics that make us nervous, because those are often the ones that Jesus wants us to work on.

Paul had been discussing Christian liberty – how everything is permissible, but not everything is good for us, and how we need to consider the other guy’s weaknesses while we exercise our freedom in Christ. So, it is understandable that a topic like this would come up. In our 21^st Century culture, we see this as subjugation of women, but I don’t see it that way.

The Mediterranean culture that Paul was writing to in the 1^st Century was one where married women wore a head covering as a symbol of her status as a married woman. Within the Greek culture, it was also common to mark prostitutes with shaven heads. Apparently, the Corinthian church had asked Paul about something that was occurring in their church. Married women were apparently setting aside their head coverings when they were prophesying. The Corinthians – true to their divisions – were debating whether this was acceptable. It was a legitimate question and, setting aside our own ethnocentrism, Paul’s answer went to the heart of what he was trying to teach the Corinthians about Christian liberty.

Christian liberty is not about the freedom to do whatever we want in the name of the Lord. True, we are not under the Law of Moses and do not have to keep the Levitical Law. However, we who are under the Law of Christ must love our fellow man enough to consider his foibles as we live our Christian lives. Thus, we consider the women of Corinth. What exactly were they doing?

The head dress was the symbol of their marriage and the symbol of their husbands’ authority over them. In removing them, the prophetesses were perhaps showing that Christ was their head, which is entirely appropriate. I met the Lord quite a few years before I met my husband. In fact, he came to the Lord in part because of my witness, so if there were a hierarchy in Christ, I am his elder. My salvation does not depend on him and what I know of the Lord is independent of my husband’s authority. I stand before Christ alone, and I will do so on Judgment Day. Paul’s final sentence “if anyone wants to argue about this, we have no other Or no such custom, nor do the churches of God.” indicates that he understood that some cultures would not have a tradition of head covering for women. There would be disagreements over this tradition. As always, Paul noted that tradition is not the basis of rules within the Christian Church. The Law of Christ is.

Therefore, he told the women of Corinth to put their headdresses back on because he agreed with their husbands that it was unseemly for them to throw off the symbol of their marriage. On the other hand, he noted that “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.” Our Christian love for our fellow man should extend to not arguing about appropriate modes of dress. This is NOT saying that all modes of dress are acceptable. It is saying that arguing about it is not worth the harm the argument does to the cause of Christ. It’s just clothes! It comes under the same heading as the meat offered to the idols and then sold in the meat market. Nothing wrong with it, unless someone else’s conscience is bothered by it.

It is important to note that these women were speaking in a public gathering where visitors might be present. Just as with the subject to orderly worship, Paul spoke to meeting the needs of the secular community around the church. They could not act in isolation. What would outsiders think if they were all babbling at one time in the church service? What would outsiders think if the women prophesied with their heads uncovered? On the other hand, if you traveled afield and discovered people who thought head coverings to be a strange custom, why argue about it?

Many times in our Christian walk we encounter things that have no bearing on our walk with Christ. For instance, I eat shrimp. As a Gentile believer whose relatives have probably been Gentile since the tower of Babel, I have never lived under the Law of Moses (which banned shrimp, like pork, because it had a bad habit of making people sick and dead back in the days before refrigeration and de-worming meds). As a Gentile, I have never been under any obligation to keep the Law of Moses. This does not mean that some parts of the Law of Moses aren’t a good idea. Gentile Christians are free to obey Levitical laws when they are useful. When laws are not useful to the cause of Christ, they should be set aside. When however, our freedom in Christ becomes a stumbling block to others, we should not cling so ferociously to freedom that we alienate those who are of weaker or no faith.

What this means in a 21^st Century context can be a little complicated. If I am traveling in the Middle East, I am going to cover myself appropriately so as not to offend with my attire those whom I want to speak with about the Lord. If I am lunching with my vegetarian coworkers, I am not going to order meat, so as not to offend with my lunch those whom I want to speak with about the Lord. On the other hand, I have no cultural tradition of wearing a head covering to show my status as a married woman, so I do not wear a head scarf at church. As I do not live in a community where the wearing of head scarves is considered the norm, I probably will not be donning one in my church any time soon. On the other hand, when I visit my MIL’s church, where it is considered appropriate for a woman to wear a scarf when inside the church, I do wear a scarf out of deference to her beliefs. It’s about reaching the most number of people for Christ by offending as few as possible with that which we can control.

“Give no offense, either to the Jews or to the Greeks or to the church of God, just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved. Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.” I Corinthians 10:32-11:1

Burqas and hajibs are not required by the Bible, but a sensitive heart to those we would bring to Christ or who are new in Christ is essential to bringing people to the Lord.  It is not what we wear on our heads that sets us apart for the Lord, but what we hold in our hearts.

“Everything is permissible,” but not everything is helpful. “Everything is permissible,” but not everything builds up.” I Corinthians 10:23

For the Christian, the Law of Christ, as previously discussed, allows us the freedom to step out of our cultures in order to be relevant to other cultures for the cause of Christ. We can eat pork and shell fish, wear mixed-fiber clothing, and start fires on the Sabbath. We can even celebrate our Sabbath on Sunday instead of Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. Everything is permissible so long is it does not involve violation of God’s law. For example, the commandment “Keep the Sabbath holy” means something. To the Pharisees it meant you couldn’t heal a man on the Sabbath which was at a set prescribed time of the week. To Jesus, it meant He could heal a man on the Sabbath. Why could He, a Jew, do that? Being God incarnate, of course, He could supersede His own rules, but that wasn’t Jesus’ answer to those who called Him on violating the Sabbath commandment. “The Sabbath is made for men, not men for the Sabbath,” he said. The Law of Christ supersedes the Law of Moses.

Paul no sooner reminded his disciples that the meat offered to idols in the marketplace had no power over them than he turned around and seems to reverse himself. But did he? Or did he simply balance two Biblical issues?

“No one should seek his own [good], but [the good] of the other person.” I Corinthians 10:24

On the one hand, we have Christian liberty that allows us to break the bounds of our cultural norms and on the other, we have the conscience. Christians must not seek their own good, but the good of others. This can sometimes be complicated.

“Eat everything that is sold in the meat market, asking no questions for conscience’ sake, for
the earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it. If one of the unbelievers invites you over and you want to go, eat everything that is set before you, without raising questions of conscience.” I Corinthians 10:25

For the church at Corinth eating the idol-offered meat was not a matter of faith. It wasn’t going to hurt them and to assure that they wouldn’t feel the prick of former beliefs; Paul suggested they not even ask their host where the meat came from. It didn’t matter. Meat is meat! And, there were times when they might be invited to an unbeliever’s home and meat might be on the menu. If they ignored it, they wouldn’t offend anyone. If they asked, they might. A Christian seeking to tell someone about Christ should not seek to offend them over trivial cultural matters. However, there were other considerations.

“But if someone says to you, “This is food offered to an idol,” do not eat it, out of consideration for the one who told you, and for conscience’ sake. I do not mean your own conscience, but the other person’s.”
I Corinthians 10:26

The Christian life then and now is a complicated one as we weigh the Law of Moses against the Law of Christ. Culturally, the Corinthians could eat meat offered to idols, but some Corinthian Christians refrained from doing so because they felt they were participating in the sacrifice. Paul and some of their fellow church members knew this wasn’t true. Meat is meat! But, some suffered pangs of conscience and this was an issue for Paul and needed to be a concern for the church at Corinth. As a Christian, I am bound by my weaker brother’s conscience. I am also sometimes bound by the sincere conscience of my non-Christian associates. This is not for my sake, but for theirs.

“For why is my freedom judged by another person’s conscience?  If I partake with thanks, why am I slandered because of something for which I give thanks? Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for God’s glory.

"Give no offense to the Jews or the Greeks or the church of God, just as I also try to please all people in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved."  I Corinthians 10:26-33

Yes, I have freedom in Christ, but I should not let my liberty become an offense to those around me. I am not to seek my own profit, but the profit of many, that by some means, some people might be saved.

We don’t have a lot of meat being offered to idols these days, but I can think of several instances where Christians can damage their weaker brothers or turn off non-Christians even while not violating the Law of Christ. One of my daughter’s friends asked why Christians can’t say cuss words. After clearing up that Christians are not to take the Lord’s name in vain, we turned our attention to the s-word and the f-word and a few other words. Where in the Bible, she wanted to know, are these words forbidden? I had to answer that they aren’t forbidden anywhere in the Bible. So why can’t Christians say them? According to a strict reading of the Law of Moses, we can. And, according to Christian liberty, we probably can too. But, there’s that whole Law of Christ that Paul discussed through this letter. Why is my freedom judged by another person’s conscience? It shouldn’t be, but human beings are human beings. Most people consider a Christian who cusses to be a hypocrite. They might accuse us of that if we don’t cuss, but they definitely think we are if we do. If my husband is talking about the reality of Jesus in his life over lunch with another construction worker and the friend is cussing a blue streak, my husband would do well not to correct his speech. It doesn’t harm my husband to hear those words, but asking his friend to stop might offend him and prevent future discussions about Jesus with him. However, if my husband lets one rip when he slams his thumb, this might cause his coworkers to have a lower opinion of him than before (just listen to that hypocrite!) and that would also make it difficult to witness to his coworkers. That’s the Law of Christ working in our lives. We consider the other guy’s conscience to be more important than our freedom.

Cussing is permitted, but it’s not useful!

I have a couple of coworkers who are vegetarians. I am not! I don’t consider the eating of meat to be an ethical violation. I never pretend to these people that I do not eat meat. That would be dishonest. However, I don’t order meat when I go to lunch with them. Making them sick watching me eat Bessie is not a good way to advance the cause of Christ. It is not about my conscience. It’s about theirs!

Eating meat is permissible, but when I’m with them, it’s not useful.

Freedom in Christ is a wonderful thing! It freed us from the intricacies of the Mosaic Law. Thank you, Jesus! But, we remain under the Law of Christ. Our first commandment from Him was to go to the world and tell people about Jesus. There are useful ways of doing that and sometimes those ways involve our freedom. I’ve got no problem sitting down with you for a shrimp dinner, but I bet Peter did. This is why he proved to be a reluctant apostle to the Gentiles. Paul was much more comfortable setting aside his identity as a Jew to reach non-Jews. His was a ministry advanced by freedom from the Mosaic Law.

Yet, freedom requires personal restraint through discipline of our human tendencies. All things may be permitted, but some things hinder the cause of Christ. As I examine my life, I can think of many such examples where my Christian liberty could spell slavery for those of weaker or no faith. And, it is my responsibility to “Give no offense to the Jews or the Greeks or the church of God, just as I also try to please all people in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.”

It’s not all about me! It’s about Christ and what He wants me to do for the other guy.

“Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.  I am speaking as to wise people. Judge for yourselves what I say.

"The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?
Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for all of us share that one bread.  Look at the people of Israel. Are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar?

"What am I saying then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but I do say that what they sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons!

"You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot share in the Lord’s table and the table of demons.

"Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?"

“Everything is permissible,” but not everything is helpful. “Everything is permissible,” but not everything builds up.  No one should seek his own [good] , but [the good]^*. of the other person.

"Eat everything that is sold in the meat market, asking no questions for conscience’ sake, for
the earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it. If one of the unbelievers invites you over and you want to go, eat everything that is set before you, without raising questions of conscience.
But if someone says to you, “This is food offered to an idol,” do not eat it, out of consideration for the one who told you, and for conscience’ sake. I do not mean your own conscience, but the other person’s. For why is my freedom judged by another person’s conscience? If I partake with thanks, why am I slandered because of something for which I give thanks?

"Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for God’s glory.
Give no offense to the Jews or the Greeks or the church of God,
just as I also try to please all people in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved." (I Corinthians 10:14-33)

Paul was once again reiterating, as he would do several times in this letter, that Christians should run, not walk, away from that which harms their spiritual walk with God. Yet, some readers of this passage get totally the wrong idea about what Paul taught. Never take Bible passages out of context. This is why, in this particular discussion, I am not breaking up the subject passage, even though they appear to be saying two different things. In reality, Paul is balancing two perspectives of the same doctrine. The cherry-picked Bible can be used to support almost any ludicrous idea, but when taken in context as a complete body of work, the Bible teaches many balanced doctrines, particularly as we move from the Law of Moses to the Law of Christ.

Christian liberty would be a major subject in a later letter Paul wrote to the Romans. It would also feature prominently in the first Christian council at Jerusalem and in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Christians are no longer under the Law of Leviticus, but under the Law of Christ. That is Christian liberty. Yet, in I Corinthians Paul discusses the consequence of too much Christian liberty.

He started by telling his immature followers to flee idolatry. Corinth was a pagan city, so there were lots of idols to choose to worship. The Corinthian Christians would not have been born Christians (Jesus had only died 21 years before), so they would have been intimately aware of idol worship. Paul was a very intelligent man. He understood the intricacies of the human mind. So, he put this issue into simple terms for them, into terms that they used in their everyday Christian lives. He invoked the Lord’s Supper. That simple, probably frequent symbolic act of breaking bread to remind one of Jesus’ torment on the cross and drinking wine to remind one of His blood’s washing away our sin was the clearest and probably most common form of worship in the New Testament Church universal. In participating in the Lord’s Supper, Christians join in a singular ceremony honoring our God and His sacrificial salvation.

I’m sure the Corinthian Christians were nodding their head in understanding at this point. Of course, eating the Lord’s Supper is an act of worship. It would have been their most familiar act of worship. But then, the reader (most likely Timothy) presented Paul’s next point. When a worshipper eats of the sacrifice to an idol, is he not participating with the priests in the worship of the idol? I think that the Corinthian Christians held differing opinions on this. Idols were not, are not God. They are mostly statues of stone and metal. A few are empowered by demons. None have power over the Christian. And, this is likely what Paul had taught when he’d been working within the Corinthian community – come out from among those inanimate idols of stone and metal and embrace the One True Living God. And, many of them believed wholeheartedly idols had no power over the Christian and therefore, it was just fine to eat of sacrifices offered in the meat market.

Alas, it’s the return of the Corinthian slogans! I don’t think Paul liked those very much. In the heads of an immature church, they really were wreaking havoc and I can understand Paul’s annoyance. It’s like runaway slogans of any kind. Slogans can serve a purpose to catch an idea in our oh-so-slippery minds, but if we turn them into dogma, they can do as much harm as what they were designed to deliver us from.

Although I included the whole passage here, I’m going to post my analysis on the second part following. In my prayers, God has revealed to me that what I post on this subject is of enough weight to give it special handling.

Paul wanted them to understand that the Christian life is all about the journey and Jesus is the one Who leads us on that journey. We are saved on the day we accept Christ as Savior, but we spend the rest of our lives working out that salvation in our daily lives. It is fitting that he used the idea of athletics since he was writing to Greeks who lived not far from Mt. Olympus and the plain of Marathon.

“Do you not know that the runners in a stadium all race, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.  Now everyone who competes exercises self-control in everything. However, they do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one.

"Therefore I do not run like one who runs aimlessly, or box like one who beats the air.  Instead, I discipline my body and bring it under strict control, so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified.’ I Corinthians 9:24-27)

My daughter is a dancer. Ballet, hip-hop, jazz, highland – she’s taken pretty much all of them. Don’t let ballet dancers fool you! They look delicate, but they can hold their arm in a curved position at shoulder level while standing on their toes for long, long periods of time. I know, because I’ve watched her do it. A boy in her school once made the mistake of trying to jab her in the stomach and he sprained his finger. This is the sort of athletic training that Paul was talking about, but he applied it to training in the Christian life. I love to dance, but I can’t dance as my daughter does because my body is not trained. I am like a boxer beating the air, merely wasting time with shadows. And, this is the sort of discipline Paul said we should exhibit in our Christian life. His reason was clear. So that the preacher won’t look like Elmer Gantry at the end of the movie.

Paul used the example of Old Israel as they were leaving Egypt, spending 40 years in the desert. They had fun times! They were all following the pillar of cloud and all were rescued crossing the Red Sea. They all got to nosh on some manna and drink pure spring water. Then came the calf and the sexual immorality around the calf and pretty soon 23,000 people were dying in a single day. It got their attention far better than God’s loving care had. Is their example enough to get ours? Was it enough to get the attention of the Corinthians?

“Now these things happened to them as examples, and they were written as a warning to us, on whom the ends of the ages have come.

"Therefore, whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall!” I Corinthians 10:11-12

Reminding the Corinthians to beware of their pride – the assumption that they were just all right with God – Paul also reminded them that God is greater than anything negative that they might encounter.

“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to humanity. God is faithful and He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation He will also provide a way of escape, so that you are able to bear it.” I Corinthians 10:13

None of us is special; none of us has been given unique burdens. Someone somewhere has suffered or is suffering through whatever temptation may exist in our lives today. God has already provided a way to escape temptation and a way to bear up under temptation. We must simply turn to Him and ask for it.

It is sometimes tempting to say – there’s no way I can control that – whatever “that” is. Alcoholics are told they can’t control their drinking. Addicts are told they can’t control their using. Overeaters are told they can’t control their eating. Teenagers are told they can’t control their sexual behavior.

Paul said “Nonsense!” No temptation exists that God cannot overcome! That’s not to say that relying on God rather than on your own strength comes naturally for most of us, but it is a necessary discipline like all those hours of plies my daughter had done. I know a marathon runner who tells me that those 26 miles are preceded by about 2600 miles of training. That’s discipline and it translates into fields other than athletics. It translates into every area of our lives – from what we eat to what we say.

Israel failed because they had their eyes focused on the Sinai Desert around them rather than on the God above them. We’re all passing through some Sinai Desert on our way to a Promised Land. Do we have our gaze set on God as He leads us to where He is taking us? Or do we let the desert sands grab our feet and the temptations around us distract us from our goals? Paul told the Corinthians that they had a way of escape that wouldn’t take the temptation away, but would help them to resist it, but they had to discipline themselves in order to take advantage of it.

We must discipline ourselves for the race God has given us to run.

“About food offered to idols: We know that “we all have knowledge.” Knowledge inflates with pride, but love builds up.  If anyone thinks he knows anything, he does not yet know it as he ought to know it.
But if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.” I Corinthians 8:1-3

Paul started out explaining the knowledge is a good thing, but that knowledge un-tempered by Godly love inflates pride. Whenever we’re prideful of our knowledge, we’re headed for a big stumble down a long flight of stairs because we’re over-confident in our own smugness. It is only through our relationship with Jesus that we know anything for certain. We should feel no pride in this because it’s not from us that the knowledge comes.

You’ll notice by the quote marks that the Corinthian slogans are back. Paul really must have hated these, because the passage simply drips with sarcasm.

“About eating food offered to idols, then, we know that “an idol is nothing in the world,” and that “there is no God but one.” For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth—as there are many “gods” and many “lords”—  yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through Him
.” I Corinthians 8:4-6

History lessons are in order once more. In the cities of the ancient world, there wasn’t a lot of meat. Farms were located on the outskirts of the cities. Urbanites did not themselves go hunting. So, meat was a delicacy. It was common practice in that day for large quantities of meat to be offered to various idols (false gods) at their temples around the city. It was offered at a fair price. Those who were not followers of that god would buy the meat and consume it. Typically, if one was a follower of the god, one did not eat meat offered to that god. This would have been a common way to get meat in those days, but it also appears to have been a common way for Christians to get meat.

Remember, Christians knew that these temples to the Greek gods were honoring nothing more than stone, metal and wood. The One True God is spirit and, while in Jerusalem sacrifices were still ongoing in the Mosaic tradition, the Christians knew that Jesus had been the ultimate sacrifice that had rent the veil between the Holy of Holies (which only the High Priest could enter) and the rest of us. The meat was just meat and naught more.

“However, not everyone has this knowledge In fact, some have been so used to idolatry up until now, that when they eat food offered to an idol, their conscience, being weak, is defiled.
Food will not make us acceptable to God. We are not inferior if we don’t eat, and we are not better if we do eat.” I Corinthians 8:7-8

What if you had been a follower of the god whom the meat had been sacrificed to before you became a Christian. Might not some lingering discomfort exist with eating meat offered to that idol? This was the issue and Paul wanted the Corinthians to understand it.

“But be careful that this right of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak.
For if somebody sees you, the one who has this knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, won’t his weak conscience be encouraged to eat food offered to idols?  Then the weak person, the brother for whom Christ died, is ruined by your knowledge.
Now when you sin like this against the brothers and wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ.

"Therefore, if food causes my brother to fall, I will never again eat meat, so that I won’t cause my brother to fall.” I Corinthians Chapter 8:7-13

Putting this into modern-day terms -- Jesus turned water into wine, so obviously there is no commandment that says “Thou shalt not drink of the fruit of the vine.” Some churches teach a convoluted theology that cherry-picks Scripture or justifies in one way or another that the Bible really says you shouldn’t drink alcohol, but you can’t really logically support that argument when you read about the marriage at Cana. You can, however, make a limited argument about the subject from I Corinthians 8.

Several of my fellow church members are recovering alcoholics. I’m going to use them as an example, but the subject does not need to be alcohol. It could be rock music or R-rated films or chocolate cheese cake or …. I think you get my point.

My friends may or may not be physically addicted to alcohol. In some cases they may just be weak of character. Whatever their reason for having this weakness, they are unable to stop at a moderate, social-acceptable level of drinking. They are like the old Navaho saying – “First the man takes a drink; then the drink takes a drink; then the drink takes the man.” Simplistic, but true. Some people simply cannot drink alcohol. They lack control over it. Yet, as Christians we know that it is not a sin to drink alcohol as long as we do it in moderation. That’s knowledge. “Knowledge inflates with pride, but love builds up.” We are called to love our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and to put aside any pride that might get in the way of that love. So, if I want to party with my Christian friend and I think it’s just fine to bring alcohol into the situation, what have I done to them? I have placed them in a position of violating their conscience, but I might also have placed them in a position to sin. In other places in Scripture we are instructed to moderate our use of alcohol. It is not wise to abuse it. In fact, since drunkenness is an abuse of the temple of Christ (our bodies) we are sinning when we get drunk. If someone is an alcoholic who cannot control whether they get drunk or not, then we are inviting them to sin when we say “It’s okay to have a little wine.” It may be okay for me, but it’s not for them.

“Then the weak person, the brother for whom Christ died, is ruined by your knowledge.
Now when you sin like this against the brothers and wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ. Therefore, if food causes my brother to fall, I will never again eat meat, so that I won’t cause my brother to fall.”

Remember always that our freedom in Christ is not liberty to harm one another. We have an obligation to look after the weaker members of our community. If you know someone who might be lead astray by drinking, don’t drink around them and don’t set it up so they will know you drink freely. I know of at least one recovering alcoholic who was struggling who took the fact that an elder of our church will occasionally enjoy a cold beer to mean that God would allow him to do so as well. He believed Satan’s lie. Last I knew he was still drinking and no longer an active member of any church. Don’t ask someone who believes rap music is evil to sit in your car listening to a Christian rap band. Yeah, it would be nice if they got off their high horse, but maybe they’re up there to keep from getting back down into the muck from which they just came. We must have compassion on those who are weak in the faith and bring them along slowly to where they are now strong. We must not use our liberty as an opportunity to “ruin our brother in Christ” with our knowledge.

It’s great to be smart; it’s better to be compassionate!

This is perhaps the nutshell of instructions to missionaries. Be what is needed in the situation in which you minister. Obviously, from statements Paul made earlier in the letter (and reiterates later), he was not saying to join the pagan culture around them. He recognized that would be disastrous to their Christian walk. What he advocated was flexibility and acceptance of differences – the real meaning of diversity. The Jews followed the Law and that was fine. Paul did not consider himself to be under the Law any longer, but if he was fellowshipping with Jews, he’d keep their customs. The Gentile culture differed from the Jewish culture and Paul had championed the rights of Gentiles to be Christians without becoming Jews. When he fellowshipped with Gentiles, he did not follow the Jewish dietary customs and he felt no guilt in having done that. “I am not under the Law,” Paul declared. “I am not outside of God’s Law, but under the Law of Christ.” In doing so, he was an effective minister to all the people groups he encountered.

In the letter of the Galatians, Paul warns of a heresy that was circulating in the Gentile churches at the time and had apparently infected the church at Galatia. We call it Judiazation. Basically, the idea was that Gentile Christians needed to follow the Jewish law in order to be good Christians. Paul was very stern on this subject. It was a lie from the devil, he said.

I Corinthians was written before Galatians. In fact, there’s good evidence that I Corinthians is the earliest of the epistles (written about 26 years after Jesus’ death). So, Paul is not yet dealing with this heresy on the level that he would later need to deal, but this is an early indication that he knew it was around. Paul no longer considered himself under the Jewish Law. In Romans 11 he later wrote that he was appointed apostle to the Gentiles. Given the stringent rules of the Mosaic Law, a good Jew could not minister to Gentiles effectively. Paul had stepped from beneath the structure of the Mosaic Law to shelter within the Law of Christ. He became flexible in order to reach those who differed from himself. He clearly used the Levitical Law to teach moral living apart from the pagan Gentile lifestyle, but he did not ask his disciples nor himself to live within the strict guidelines as the Jews did. Want to move a chair on the Sabbath? Go for it. If you accidentally make a furrow in the dirt floor of your house, you are not guilty of plowing and therefore violating the Levitical Law. A Jew might be guilty, if he chose to remain under the Law, but Paul and the Corinthians were not.

In the 21^st Century, we can learn much from this rather short passage. We find inspiration and instruction for moral living within the Mosaic Law, but Gentile believers are not required to follow that Law to the letter. In areas having to do with moral living, we are right to look carefully and to consult the Law because it is our guide, but when it comes to areas of culture we should not make ourselves slaves to the Law. I am currently wearing a polyester/cotton blend T-shirt. Now, those who don’t understand this concept of freedom in Christ will sometimes insist that I am violating the Law regarding mixed fabric garments – that if I don’t keep this one picky rule, I am violating the entire Law. That’s nonsense! This passage addresses it as does much of the Letter to the Romans. The T-shirt I’m wearing has nothing to do with my walk with Jesus. It does not come between me and God and it does not (currently) come between me and my fellow man. Therefore, for someone under the Law of Christ merely drawing instruction from the Levitical Law, I am not in violation. “There is no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ.” Romans 8:1. Now, were I to travel to another culture where women are not to show bare arms, my T-shirt would become a violation of the Law of Christ, not because of its fiber content, but because it would come between me and those to whom I wish to witness. This is the Law of Christ, that the Law of the Jews does not become a stumbling block to anyone coming to know Christ.

With regards to how we present ourselves to the world outside of the Church, I think we also receive a message from Paul. Be flexible! Don’t let culture trump ministry. I am reminded of a great Christian missionary to China – Lottie Moon. She went to China under the auspices of the Southern Baptist Convention and while in Shanghai, she found herself at odds with the Presbyterian missionaries who wore their Victorian western clothing and scarcely ever ventured into the countryside. They didn’t even speak the language and had to rely on interpreters. They held a belief, according to Lottie’s letters home, that they were not only called to preach the gospel, but to transform China’s people into Westerners by modeling “appropriate dress and customs.” They weren’t reaching many people. Lottie moved out into the countryside, donned Christian-appropriate Chinese clothing and began to witness to people in Chinese. She spent the rest of her life there and many of the Christians in China today could trace their spiritual heritage back to her. She understood Paul’s admonition to “become all things to all people, so that I may by all means save some.”

Are we being flexible for Christ? Do we do what it takes to reach out to those who might find Christianity to be odd and unapproachable at the initial contact? Are we willing to do what it takes in terms of changing personal habits that are not essential to our walk with Christ in order to reach those who judge those personal habits negatively? I know I have failed in this account on numerous occasions.

What about you?

It behooves us to remember that Paul never knew Jesus in His lifetime. Paul was an apostle “out of time”, as he described himself. He met Jesus in a flash of blinding light on the road to Damascus while headed there to arrest Christians. In some ways, nobody has ever had a more dramatic introduction to God. Paul sincerely desired to know God even before he became a Christian. His whole life was spent in training to be a student of the Hebrew God. Some scholars believe he was not only a student of the great theologian Gamalial, but in line to be his successor. Tradition suggests that Paul and Barnabas had known each other while at Hebrew seminary in Jerusalem.

Despite his undoubted scholarship with regards to the Hebrew Scriptures, Paul was not accepted by all Christians as an apostle. Some of this was no doubt due to his past as a persecutor of Christians, but that had been in the Holy Land and Corinth was in Greece, so this may not have been as strong an influence there. I think (and it is only my humble opinion) that the office of apostle was of such magnitude among the first-century Christians that they did not lightly award it to many. We really have no modern-day equivalent of an apostle. They were missionaries sent to spread the gospel. The original 12 were sent by Jesus, but after His ascension, the remaining 11 apostles and the disciples with them took it upon themselves to elect a 12^th by group vote. I’m not sure they were supposed to do that as nothing seems to have come out of the appointment. It appears to me that apostleship was something directly ordained by Jesus. The original apostles became theologians whose relationship with Jesus was such that they carried His authority in their teaching. They had been commissioned by Jesus Himself for this work. Paul met Jesus after His resurrection, after His ascension. Scripture leaves no doubt Paul actually interacted with “the Lord” on the road to Damascus, but some thought a spiritual encounter was secondary to having been friends with the Messiah. Paul certainly disagreed. Others were not so sure. There would always be questions about his authority in some segments of the Christian Church. There are still a few modern day skeptics who question Paul’s authority, usually when they don’t like his theology. The Corinthian Christians knew that Paul was who he said he was, an apostle of Jesus. He had won them to the Lord. They accepted his authority. But there were some, even in the church at Corinth, who did not wholly accept Paul’s authority and this caused difficulties for not only Paul, but Barnabas.

"My defense to those who examine me is this:  Don’t we have the right to eat and drink?
Don’t we have the right to be accompanied by a Christian wife, like the other apostles, the Lord’s brothers, and Cephas?

"Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working?

"Who ever goes to war at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its fruit? Or who shepherds a flock and does not drink the milk from the flock?

"Am I saying this from a human perspective? Doesn’t the law also say the same thing?
For it is written in the law of Moses, "Do not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain. Dt 25:4
Is God really concerned with oxen? Or isn’t He really saying it for us?” I Corinthians 9:3-10

Apparently, Paul and Barnabas had worked as what we call “tent maker” missionaries while the church at Corinth didn’t pay them anything. This was not the established pattern with missionaries. Paul named a few of them – the other apostles, the Lord’s brothers (this would have included James, the writer of the Letter of James and currently probably the pastor in Jerusalem) and Peter. These men, it would seem, were supported financially by the churches they ministered in. Was God so concerned with oxen that He wrote in the Law of Moses that an ox should not be muzzled while it treads out the grain? Of course not! God’s word is meant to teach us how to live with our fellow man. He who labors gets the benefits of his labor.

“Yes, this is written for us, because he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes should do so in hope of sharing the crop.

"If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?
If others share this authority over you, don’t we even more? However, we have not used this authority; instead we endure everything so that we will not hinder the gospel of Christ.  Do you not know that those who perform the temple services eat the food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the offerings of the altar?  In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should earn their living by the gospel.” I Corinthians 9:10-14

Paul sought to teach the church at Corinth to be good stewards and to remember that the pastors and apostles needed to eat food; they couldn’t just live on air and faith. Paul was not seeking a reward for himself, he wrote, but reminding the Corinthian church of their obligations. It was enough for Paul that he could bask in having preached the gospel.

“But I have used none of these rights, and I have not written this to make it happen that way for me. For it would be better for me to die than for anyone to deprive me of my boast!  For if I preach the gospel, I have no reason to boast, because an obligation is placed on me. And woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! For if I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if unwillingly, I am entrusted with a stewardship.
What then is my reward? To preach the gospel and offer it free of charge, and not make full use of my authority in the gospel.” I Corinthians 9:15-18

Paul recognized that he was under no constraint to preach to those God had brought into his path, but that he had voluntarily agreed to be whatever it took to reach people for Christ. He would live as a Jew to reach Jews. He would live as a Gentile to reach Gentiles. He would not eat of the meat of false idols if it caused weaker brothers to stumble. He looked forward to the rewards God would give him in the end.

Bringing that into the 21^st Century, a contemporary situation comes to mind. I know that it’s practically a doctrine among some denominations that the pastor be bi-vocational – having a job besides being pastor so that the church does not have to pay him. This is not a wrong practice in a church that is too small to support a pastor. I know several pastors who work a full-time job as well as pastoring because the church they are the pastor of cannot afford to pay them. Sometimes this is because of a small congregation, sometimes it is because the church has ministries that the pastor considers more important than his salary (this is the current situation with my own church that is working its way out of rough financial patch and will probably start paying our pastor’s salary in the spring.) I am not saying that a church that does not pay its pastor is, at nature, evil or unChrist-like. There are circumstances that warrant flexibility with regard to pastor pay and benefits.

However, I know of some rather large and well-off churches that have never paid the ministerial staff and would not pay them. That is wrong! It leads to high pastor burnout with consequent turnover, but more to the point, it can – as is apparently the case in my own community – to pastors who start taking liberties with church funds. This being the kind of town it is, I know the church and I know the pastor. I am in no way excusing thievery (though I will point out that he is innocent until proven guilty and the accusation is inconsistent with what I know of the character of the man), but I do know that this particular pastor has not drawn a salary in the 20+ years he’s labored at the church. He’s always had other jobs, but he’s also been the janitor, maintenance man, the snow-shoveler, etc., for the church. If someone came to my home to do those functions, I’d expect to pay them. I’d feel guilty if I didn’t and they’d likely quit performing those functions if I didn’t. This church (and I know of several others) would disagree with me. The pastor is called to preach and pastor, but that doesn’t mean you have to pay him, would be their answer to me. They’d point to Paul the tentmaker and insist that it’s unscriptural to pay the pastor. I think they need to actually read the scripture in its entirety.

If this were a small church struggling to pay the electric bill and do a little ministry, I would have naught to say to them about payment of their pastor, but this isn’t a small or poor church. This church that doesn’t pay its pastor so much as a housing allowance or a retirement plan just built a new, huge, beautiful building and, according to the newspaper, it was in this process that the funds were embezzled. It’s a beautiful building that is at least three times larger than my church’s building. I’m sure the congregation deserves it and it will likely bring in more members. Those are good things. Yet, I can’t help feeling like an ox was muzzled as he threshed the grain and that makes the church as guilty of thievery as the pastor. This is my personal opinion, but I find verification for my opinion in this scripture passage.

Again, I will reiterate, I am not condoning thievery. If this pastor did embezzle these funds, he deserves prison. There is no justification for stealing church funds. If a church does not pay its pastor, the pastor has the option to find another church that will pay him. Thievery is not an option for a Christian. But, a well-fed ox doesn’t steal from the threshing floor. A pastor who is paid a reasonable salary (in MY experience) is not tempted by the offering plate. A church that can build a $1 million building should be able to afford to pay the pastor.

More to the point, it is the obligation of the Body of Christ to care for the men God has anointed to be our servants and guides. They should pay the primary ministerial staff of their church. Paul reminded the Corinthians of this apparently because they had been less than forthcoming in paying a pastor. I suspect from reading the whole letter in context with itself that he was looking out for Timothy who delivered the letter and was being introduced as their pastor. If the brothers of Jesus were supported in their ministry endeavors by their churches, Timothy deserved to be supported by the church at Corinth as they ministered to him. Paul and (perhaps) Barnabas were apparently content to be bi-vocational and to gather their rewards in heaven, but that didn’t mean Timothy needed to do the same thing.

When we seek a church, a primary criterion should be that the church nurture and mature us through Biblical teaching. Like the Corinthians, many of us have a lot to learn about the Lord. We find those lessons in the Bible. Sometimes those lessons are not pleasant and this may be one of those bitter pills. Certainly there is disagreement in the Body of Christ on this issue. I don’t think that is disagreement born from scriptural fogginess. It seems pretty clear reading Paul’s letter that he thought churches in 21^st Century United States with all the advantages, bells and whistles (similar to the wealthy church at Corinth) ought to pay their pastor. Can we do anything less?

"In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should earn their living by the gospel.”

The flesh-and-blood part of me thinks it would have been entertaining to fellowship at the First Church of Corinth. They allowed sexual immorality in the congregation and they apparently had some rocking worship meetings. They also had some catchy phrases that apparently had become known outside of the congregation. Sounds like a cool, hip, happening church! Paul was concerned about them, though. Why? Isn’t the goal of the church to reach out to the world and show them how attractive we are? Doesn’t cool, hip and happening provide a way for us to do that? Paul told the Corinthians to beware of where cool, hip and happening took them.

“Everything is permissible for me,” but not everything is helpful. “Everything is permissible for me,” but I will not be brought under the control of anything.
“Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods,”  but God will do away with both of them. The body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
God raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power.
Do you not know that your bodies are the members of Christ? So should I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Absolutely not!

"Do you not know that anyone joined to a prostitute is one body with her? For it says, The two will become one flesh. But anyone joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
Flee from sexual immorality! “Every sin a person can commit is outside the body,” but the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body.
Do you not know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body. (I Corinthians 6:12-20)

Before we start, I’m going to make a disclaimer here. I am a human being! I am not a nun! I was not born a Christian. I am married and I have two children, conceived in the usual way. I enjoyed the conceiving. I enjoy sex when I am not conceiving children. I am not saying sex is evil. I am teaching what the Bible teaches, that sexual immorality is disobedience to God and therefore sin. We are NOT talking about marital sex in this lesson. That’s later in the letter. Enough said. Now onto the lesson.

Biblical scholars suggest that “everything is permissible to me” and “foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods” were slogans used by Corinthian Christians. Remember that the Corinthian church was a wholly Gentile church. Situated in Greece, it was not a Jewish or even part-Jewish church. Thus, they felt not the constraints of Judaic dietary law. Having no background in Judaism, the Corinthians were used to a pagan lifestyle where sex was part of worship (vestal virgins were most definitely not virgins) and non-monogamous sex was common within and without marriage. Paul, in keeping with his teachings in the letter to the Romans and elsewhere, would have taught them that they were not under the Law, but under Jesus. And, here’s where I think the problem arose.

We all have liberty or freedom in Christ. In reality, until we’re saved, we’re really slaves to sin and its degradations. It is when we become Christians that we are freed from that and then voluntarily gives ourselves to Jesus as our Master. Gentile Christians, never having been Jews, are not restrained by the Mosaic Law. We can do whatever we want. However, we are to be constrained by our love of God from certain behaviors, ordinarily behaviors that come between us and God or between us and our fellow human beings. The Corinthian Christians – prideful, arrogant, self-confident as only a toddler with a couple of days on his feet can be – had remembered half of the teaching and forgotten the other half.

Everything is permissible to the Christian, but some things aren’t good for us. We are not to submit to the control of anything other than God for just as God resurrected Jesus from the death of His body, He has resurrected us from the death of our spirits. We are free from all but God, to Whom we should willingly submit ourselves.

Paul uses the example of immoral sexual activity, but we could just as easily be talking about over-eating or alcoholism/drug addiction (just to name a few). These are activities that would take our liberty in Christ and turn it into slavery to that activity. We become one flesh with certain activities, either helpless to fight against them or the fight would require so much of our attention that we would be little use to God. But Christians belong to the Lord. We are one flesh with Him, joined by the Spirit. Thus, there are activities Paul said Christians should avoid.

Flee sexual immorality! How much clearer a statement do we need to read? Later in the letter, Paul gives details on what is sexual immorality, details he presumably gave previously in the missing first letter to the Corinthians, but I think it is hardly worth an argument as to what Paul thought was sexual immorality. The man was a Jew of Jews. Pretty much anything but married monogamous sex was immoral sex to a man such as Paul. And, Christians hold that Paul was inspired by God in writing the letters bearing his name in the New Testament. Therefore, Paul was writing as if from God.  And any time Paul uses the term "Absolutely not!" he is using the strongest possible terms for a God-forbidden choice.  Our English translation does not do the strength of this phrase justice!

Why did Paul say to flee sexual immorality? Why not just to walk away quietly, or allow one to grow out of that sin into one’s new life in Christ. No, Paul said to “flee”, connoting run, do not pass go, do not dawdle, get as far from it as you can as quickly as you can! Why the urgency?

Among all the sins in the human range of sins (and we are a creative race in that regard!) sexual sins are the only ones we commit against our own bodies. I have a good friend who spent time as a runaway back in the late-70s. In order to survive, he sold himself as a prostitute. I guess it was better than what he was running away from. Eventually, a Christian family took him in and helped him transform his life. He’s a happily married devoutly Christian man working in ministry with teenagers who are today where he was when he was on the streets. Mark says that no matter the intervening years and all the happy memories that stand between him and those memories, his past sins will always be a part of him and a part of his memory. They even intrude sometimes into his relationship with his very understanding wife. Our sexual partners are always something we remember and sometimes they come into our marital beds even when we think we haven’t summoned their memories. We compare our spouses to former significant others. The counselors I work with in my job tell me that many of the couples they counsel admit to fantasizing about former lovers while having sex with their spouse. Some of them feel guilty about this and it impacts their enjoyment. I’m sure if their spouses knew, it would affect their enjoyment as well. These “divided loyalties” are detrimental to our relationships and detrimental to our mental health. Then, of course, there are STDs, the gift that keeps on giving. Sex is the one sin we commit against our own bodies (which includes our psyche). So, what?

Our bodies are the sanctuary (the holy temple) of the Holy Spirit – the essence of God. They’re not ours to join with a prostitute/sexual partner/big stud on campus. They belong to Jesus, Who bought it with the price of His crucifixion. Just think about that. It took a long time for my husband and I to save the down-payment for our home and it will take 25 years to pay off the mortgage, but we weren’t nailed to a cross, allowed to suffocate in our own pneumatic fluids and then stabbed in the side to assure we were really dead. Jesus paid a heavy price to own my body. The least I can do is keep His temple nice for Him.

We should be using our bodies to glorify God, not to gratify our fleshly desires. There is an incredible amount of joy to be had as a Christian living in Jesus. We do not need to disobey God with our own bodies in order to feel joy. Yet, how many of us think – “This is MY body! I should be able to keep this one thing for myself.” It’s not YOUR body. If you are a Christian, you’ve invited Jesus to live in your heart. Your body is no longer your own. It belongs to Jesus.

“Therefore glorify God in your body.”

These are the words of Jesus --
“If your brother sins against you, Other mss omit against you go and rebuke him in private. Lit him between you and him alone If he listens to you, you have won your brother.
But if he won’t listen, take one or two more with you, so that by the testimony Lit mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be established. If he pays no attention to them, tell the church. Or congregation But if he doesn’t pay attention even to the church, let him be like an unbeliever Or like a Gentile and a tax collector to you.” (Matthew 18:15-17)

There is a tendency among some not to view the Bible in complete context with itself. Therefore, if you read only I Corinthians, you get the impression that Christian churches are to throw out members who are engaged in sin, no questions asked, no options, just do it. Paul may have already instructed the Corinthians to follow the above in that previous lost letter. We have no way of knowing that, but regardless, we who do have these instructions can take them in context with I Corinthians.

Before we toss sinning church members off the church rolls, we have a procedure to follow. It is a simple procedure, so that I often wonder why more churches don’t follow it.

First, go to the sinning member and speak to them privately, one-on-one. Sometimes people simply do not know that they have chosen sin. None of us is born a Christian and thus we are all works in progress as we move forward in our Christian lives. We’re not always going to walk a straight path, always doing what is right. Some of us have a harder time walking that straight path than others. Thus, when a Christian sees another Christian sinning, it is his obligation to judge that person and to deal with the sin.

What? The Bible says “judge not!” Well, yes and no. In I Corinthians 6:1-9, Paul tells the Corinthians that they must judge the matters within the church and not take them to the secular courts because Christians will one day judge the angels. If that is our destiny, it would seem ridiculous to avoid judging our own church bodies. That word “judge” has a lot of negative connotations in our world today. It is not necessarily a negative act. We can judge something positively. My friend Patsy’s quilt was judged positively at the valley fair this last fall. I don’t think she is unhappy with her blue ribbon. My daughter’s dance performance was judged recently and she was given high marks, but also given suggestions for improving her performance. We judge activities all the time. It has only been in recent years that we have thought our personal behavior should not be judged by others as if that is somehow private and just between us and God. Paul told us 2000 years ago we are wrong in this regard. Jesus continues to tell us that through His words in Matthew.

When I was in college, I allowed myself to be seduced by my new freedoms. Alaska had a drinking age of 19, which meant I was legal to get lit within four weeks of the first day of my first semester. I exercised that freedom throughout my freshman year. Near the end of it, however, a friend came to me and said “as a Christian, I don’t think you should be doing that. You do stupid, un-Christlike things when you drink. Maybe you should moderate your intake or just not drink at all.” Now, I could have gotten mad at my friend, but he was right. And, his intervention on my behalf allowed me to pursue a more Christlike adulthood. His rebuke never went further than between us two. It didn’t need to.

The second step, if the person does not change their behavior after a private discussion, is to share the problem with one or two other church members. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH! This is not the time to gossip. At this point, it should be kept among a very small group of church members who are of mature enough Christian character not to talk about the problem outside of your group.

The goal is to bring the sinner back to a righteous walk with Jesus, not to expose their sin to the world. Very little is usually accomplished by making such behavior into a public spectacle. Just because a private conversation has not resolved the issue does not mean that the sinning Christian is beyond redemption. They may not see things the same way you do. Moreover, they may possibly be right. We’ll discuss personal sins sometime in the future (as we work our way through I Corinthians, it’s a couple of chapters out). So, the idea of going to a sinner with a small group also allows some accountability on your part. If you’re wrong, if you’re judging harshly and without cause, or reacting to a personal sin of yours displayed in someone else, the small group will see this and hopefully deal with it honestly. And, if you’re right, the sinner cannot say “Well, this is your opinion and I’m not bound by that.” The standard of “by the testimony of two or three witnesses every fact may be established” is a Judaic legal standard from Deuteronomy. The idea is that one person may have a wrong idea, but multiple people usually weigh their ideas among one another and come up with truth.

This small group also acts as an accountability group for the sinner who repents at this stage. They can help him/her to adjust Biblical attitude and identify steps required to move away from sin. They can act as a cheer squad as the person takes steps to transform their behavior.

Some people just plain will not listen. My church fired a pastor a couple of years ago who could not understand that our Alaskan Native leadership were (and remain) adults and did not need his paternalism. This was causing problems within the church and the individuals involved had already discussed it with him. Then two of us who might be considered elders met three times with the pastor and the complainants about the issues. We were going to rule that they all needed to work on a project together to improve their respect for one another when the pastor responded with a sermon that was a not-so-subtle slam on those who had issues with his leadership style. At this point, the small group realized that he was not going to repent from his behavior, informed the larger congregation of what was happening and asked the pastor for his resignation.

This is not a perfect system, I will warn. In the matter of my church, some in the larger congregation felt that they should have been told about the issues a long time before they were told. We lost some members because of their objection to our perceived secrecy. In the end, though, we feel that we followed the Biblical standard as well as we could. Notably, one of those former members did apologize recently for his unBiblical response. He had read Matthew 18 and realized that we had been following Christ’s example and that his desire to be the first to know was a hunger for gossip, not church discipline. I hear that he is an asset to his new church and we would welcome him back.

The Christian Church in its individual congregations will never be a perfect mechanism. It is a God-inspired, but human organization. Humans in our natural state are rotten to the core and everything we touch is flawed for that reason. When we become Christians, it’s like God washes out a rusty bucket and then fills us with the pure water of the Holy Spirit. The rust taints the pure water. We can filter it through a steady diet of Bible study, prayer and accountable fellowship, but the rust will always be there and we will always act in human ways. Sin will always be a part of the Christian life and a danger to the Christian church. We are given mechanisms for handling incidents of sin within the congregation. There will not always be a favorable outcome. Sometimes people will refuse to change, sometimes outside observers will not understand.

Paul told the Corinthians (I Corinthians 6) that a day would come when they would judge angels, so why couldn’t they know judge earthly events with involving the secular courts? Christians are called to keep our communal house in order and we do that by being honest about sin within our congregations and dealing with it as it arises. Not in hatred. Not because we wish anyone to leave the church. We discipline to bring the sinner back to a righteous walk with Jesus. We discipline to keep the congregation from falling into the same quicksand of sin as the individual.

We must always remember that we do this out of love and obedience to the One True God.  It is an awesome thing to be used of God. Let us do it soberly and without malice, remembering that we also could be judged.

I could choose to leap forward into another topic, but I’ve decided to deal with what the Lord presents as He presented it through Paul nearly 2000 years ago. Sometimes when we skip around in Scripture, we start to cherry-pick and avoid those issues we wish to avoid. Thank you, justaguy, for reminding me that not flinching from uncomfortable subjects is a good thing.

Below is the entire text of I Corinthians Chapter 5. Although I have included it here for you, I urge you to read it for yourselves, preferably in a couple of translations, so that you might understand it fully for yourselves.

“It is widely reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and the kind of sexual immorality that is not even condonedOther mss read named among the Gentiles—a man is living with his father’s wife.
And you are inflated with pride, instead of filled with grief so that he who has committed this act might be removed from among you.  For though absent in body but present in spirit, I have already decided about him who has done this thing as though I were present.
In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, along with my spirit and with the power of our Lord Jesus, turn that one over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the Day of the Lord.

"Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast permeates the whole batch of dough?
Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, since you are unleavened. For Christ our Passover (Ex 12) has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us observe the feast, not with old yeast, or with the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

I wrote to you in a letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— by no means referring to this world’s immoral people, or to the greedy and swindlers, or to idolaters; otherwise you would have to leave the world. But now I am writing you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother who is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a reviler, a drunkard or a swindler. Do not even eat with such a person.   For what is it to me to judge outsiders? Do you not judge those who are inside?
But God judges outsiders. Put away the evil person from among yourselves.” (Dt 17:7)

Note that in the third paragraph, Paul remarks that his is not the first letter he has sent to them. It’s the first letter we have in our possession. Who knows what happened to that earlier letter, but there is something we can know about that letter. It said for the Corinthians NOT to associate with sexually immoral people. We know this because Paul said that’s what the letter said. You may encounter folks who are of the opinion that we can’t know what the New Testament writers really meant because we don’t have all of their writings, but my counter to this would be, we have the writings we have and we can divine what they mean simply by reading them. Only if you don’t like the meaning would you need to throw up paper chases about writings we no longer have. Paul told us what his previous letter said. Why argue that it said anything different from what the letter we currently possess says? The epistle we entitle I Corinthians is a continuation of that previous letter, not a refutation of it.

Apparently not even the Gentiles thought it was okay to have sex with your mother. This might have been a step-mother. The writing is unclear. However, it doesn’t really matter because Paul calls it sexual immorality. Apparently, the Corinthians were proud of this. Given the apparent content of Paul’s previous letter, they weren’t probably proud of the sexual immorality itself. Maybe they thought allowing it in the church showed how progressive or inclusive the church of their city was. They could have such adulterous and incestuous behavior in their church, showing how cosmopolitan they were (Corinth was a cosmopolitan city full of sexual immorality and other vices). Not much has changed in the 21^st Century Church, for at least one of the mainstream denominations has decided that it’s okay to embrace sexual immorality within the church.

Paul didn’t think so. He urged the Corinthians to hold a business meeting and disfellowship this sinner. Note there is no mention of excommunication. The church at Corinth did not hold the power of God to decide if a sinner could or could not communicate with God. This is a business decision of the church based upon the merits of fellowship. It does not affect the salvation of the sinner. Note that Paul does not say the Corinthian Christians should disfellowship this sinner in anger or hate, but so that “his spirit may be saved in the Day of the Lord.” We don’t do people any favors by saying that sin is okay. We risk their eternal damnation when we do that. Turn them over to Satan; kick them out of the church, Paul says, so that they might have a hope of making their lives right with God.

Paul was concerned about the boasting of the Church at Corinth. He was concerned that they didn’t understand that sin was a lot like yeast. Yeast is such a small part of making bread. For all the flour and other ingredients, it’s really pretty tiny and insignificant. But it affects the entire loaf. Mix it up with flour and a little sugar and salt and add water, and poof. The yeast begins eating the sugar or salt and producing gas and then, pretty soon your little lump of dough is overflowing the bowl. Yeast is a tiny, but very powerful thing. And, Paul likens it to sin. Christians are called not to embrace sin, but to embrace Christ. We are to avoid sin (to be unleavened, Paul says) by being sincere and truthful.

Paul’s previous letter had warned the Corinthians to avoid contact with the immoral of their city who were outside of the church, but now he warns them to remove immoral from the church. It is not enough for Christians to simply not live like the sexually immoral, thieves, idolaters, liars, drunkards and swindlers; they must also not give them quarter within the church. This was for the protection of the church. Paul assured the Corinthian Christians that they had the right to judge those within the church. He also assured his readers that God would judge those outside the church and He would use Paul to voice those judgments.

I think the significance in this passage was that Paul was not urging that this church disfellowship the sexually immoral church member out of anger or hatred, but because that person needed to see the weight of the impact of their sin. They could not be reconciled with God as long as they thought themselves okay. This is so true for all of us. We are all sinners, not really that much different inside the church as outside. The only thing that separates Christians from non-Christians is Christ. Our sins have been forgiven. It doesn’t mean we don’t still commit them. It does, hopefully, mean we don’t still embrace them. However, there are instances where Christians do indeed embrace immorality. Later in this letter, Paul will discuss what the church can do to bring this church member and others like him back into fellowship, but he states clearly and unequivocally that we are not to allow such behavior to continue within our churches.

I will state a caveat for new Christians. It is easy when freshly showered to distain those who may not quite meet your standards of cleanliness. Note that all Christians are a work in progress and that in your youthful zeal, you should not get carried away with judging others. Listen to your elders and learn. When you see that within the church that you do not think belongs there, ask first after its purpose before negatively criticizing. Sometimes, you may find you don’t know what you are judging.

Also recognize that the church at Corinth was populated with baby Christians. The average church today has a range of maturity in its believers, which means that immoral visitors or even apostate members may be permitted for a length of time in order to share the gospel and show Christ-like love and this may not affect the larger body as readily as it threatened to do in Corinth. I will use an example borrowed from a friend. Imagine a church composed of people who six months before had all been prostitutes and drug addicts. Should that church welcome still practicing prostitutes and drug addicts into their fellowship? Will that be a healthy choice or a harmful one? I submit it would be a harmful one. Yet, a church where the former prostitutes and drug addicts have had long years of recovery behind them might be able to minister to an active prostitute or drug addict without harming individuals or the church as a whole.

Avoid sexual immorality or association with the sexually immoral. It only takes a little sin to transform a new Christian back into a lifestyle sinner and it only takes a little acceptance of sin to nullify the work of a Christian church. As we grow in Christ, we must learn from this. If there are little sins in your life, get rid of them. If a congregation has sin within the members, they should deal with it. If a denomination embraces the sinful and labels them as just all right with God, consider whether you ought to be a member of that congregation and whether the church you belong to is agreeing or disagreeing with the denominational decision. Sin really does have an impact in the lives of human beings and it will affect the walk of the individual believer, the congregation and the denomination as a whole.

Some will say “we are not condoning the sexual immorality; we are merely offering a loving environment in which the sinner may grow.” I think Paul would say “Church of the 21^st Century, like the Corinthians in my generation, you are prideful, elitist and arrogantly over-confident.” Put away the evil person from among yourselves. This is what we know to be the command of God given to us through the greatest Christian theologian who would ever live.  Avoid sexual immorality individually and within the church and, more importantly, do not be arrogant, elitist and prideful as a church because this will cloud the judgment of the entire body.

Sometimes I am reminded by my betters to not get ahead of myself and my friend and former pastor, who is a New Testament theologian, reminded me this weekend that I had promised to stick with milk in the early stages of this blog. He reminds me that there are lots of people who are willing to discuss meatier subjects, but that there is a real need to discuss the baby steps of Christianity. After a little bit of prayer, I agree that my mentor has appropriately corrected me back. Thus, I’m going to stick with the basics for now and not go haring off after philosophies when God wants me to discuss basics. I started this blog as a basic primer of Christianity and it will remain on that topic for the time being.

Thus, we continue our study in I Corinthians. The Church at Corinth was an immature church that was blessed with all sorts of wonderful gifts that made its members think they were something special. Paul had to pull them back down to earth. Thus he sent Timothy to them to train them up as they should have been trained in the first place. Perhaps they had been trained and just deviated from the course. Whatever the case, Timothy was sent to get them back on the right pathway, starting with their spiritual diet.

As babes in Christ, they could not yet chew or digest meat, but needed a nice soft, digestible diet of spiritual milk. New Christians often want to sit down immediately at the feet of Gamalial and absorb all the intellectual arguments of great thinkers, but in reality, we need to start out with little sips of mother’s milk.

“No one should deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, he must become foolish so that he can become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, since it is written: He catches the wise in their craftiness and again, The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are futile. So no one should boast in men, for all things are yours: whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come—all are yours,
and you belong to Christ, and Christ to God.” I Corinthians 3:19-21

Paul was careful to let the Corinthians know that they weren’t any wiser than God. In fact, God knows that in their wisdom, the non-Christian intellectuals were making their own reasoning into futility. I have an extremely intelligent cousin who absolutely refused for many years to accept any discussion of the validity of Christianity because he could not put God into a test tube and “prove” Him. This double PhD paleontologist, who 10 years ago would have described himself as an atheist without a doubt, has slowly come to realize that some of his reasoning is without foundation. As this realization has grown upon him, it has tested his confidence in his own intelligence. Yet, it is not his intelligence that is lacking, but merely his confidence that has been misplaced. In time, those who have set their sights on his salvation will help him to come to this understanding.

There is no way a human being can ever be as intelligent as the Supreme Deity. We are fools if we think we can be. God is so intelligent that He created intelligent human beings. If He could create Einstein, what makes us think Einstein could think at His level? Einstein, to his credit, recognized that if there was a Deity, It was far more intelligent than even Einstein.

Thus, it is wonderful that we have intellectual reasoning among human beings, yet it is only when that reasoning is bent to God that we truly are wise. God is the source of all knowledge and all wisdom. We must remember that. And we must remember that the lessons of tomorrow are built on the lessons of today. Let us not wander off into foolishness the way the Corinthians did, but learn by their example and not go that way.

Going back to what Paul had been talking about, Paul and Apollos were mere men who were mightily led of God. They knew more about Jesus than did the Corinthians because of length of time in the faith and experience through the ministry, but Paul recognized that his wisdom had limits. He wanted the Corinthians to listen to him not because he was wise, but because he was their spiritual father – the one who had first brought the gospel to them. At the end of his introduction involving wisdom and the factions within the church, he asks, “What do you want? Should I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?” (I Corinthians 4:21). Paul has much for the Corinthians to learn and he wants them to correct themselves under the guidance of Timothy before he, Paul, gets there, so that he can rejoice in their maturity rather than punish them for their fleshliness.

We are the Corinthians, 21^st Century Church! Let us learn from them and learn from Paul as we start tasting the pureed vegetables in the first letter to the Corinthians.

Have you ever noticed feet? What about your little toe? It’s a funny, misshapen little appendage. Mine can’t even bother to grow an attractive nail. So how important is it to the whole of my body? Yet, doing without it will really mess up your balance. You need your feet to walk, but if you didn’t have hands, you couldn’t hold things or make things. If you’re deaf, your hands may be taught to talk, but they can never sing as lovely as Sarah McLaughlan. If you’re blind, your hands can be taught to “read”, but they can never see the beautiful colors of the sunset. Your various body parts have their unique uses and so do the parts of the Body of Christ.

Denominations are not inherently bad. Divisions that cause strife and infighting are bad, but when denominations work together, they work for God.

“For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” I Corinthians 12:13

All Christians are just Christians. We aren’t Baptist Christians or charismatic Christians, or Lutheran Christians. We’re Christians. In a sense Christians in America share a nationality with Christians in Somalia who share a nationality with Christians in China. We live in separate countries, speak different languages and were raised in vastly different social cultures, but we share a common belief that Jesus, the One True God, came to earth as a man to die as a sacrifice to absolve us of our disobedience to God and that if we accept the price He paid on our behalf and confess this before men, we will be saved. Thus, when I speak with a Christian from Tanzania, we find that we have a lot in common beyond the language barrier and the cultural differences. The same holds true with fellow Christians who are members of other denominations.

“So the body is not one part but many.

"If the foot should say, “Because I’m not a hand, I don’t belong to the body,” in spite of this it still belongs to the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I’m not an eye, I don’t belong to the body,” in spite of this it still belongs to the body.

"If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?

"But now God has placed the parts, each one of them, in the body just as He wanted.
And if they were all the same part, where would the body be?” (I Corinthians 12:14-19)

Whenever I read the statement, for the body is not one part, but many, I imagine the body as a giant bag of goo. That really would not be very useful to us. It is better than we have hands and feet and eyes and ears, because each of these parts of our human body is useful in their own unique way. Without any tiny portion of your body, the whole would be made less. I know someone who lost their little toe on one foot to frostbite and he says it was very hard to relearn to walk after the loss and that he still has more difficulty with balance than he ever did before. All because of a tiny useless-seeming appendage. The human body is amazingly complex and wonderfully made.

God calls the church the “Body of Christ.” We are Jesus’ hands and feet, eyes and ears, upon this earth. Normally, I’ve heard this passage used in discussion of our individual spiritual gifts, but I think it is applicable to denominations today. Denominations serve different purposes in the greater Body of Christ. Southern Baptists are very big on Biblical scholarship even for those who just sit in the pew while charismatics are very big on experiencing the Holy Spirit. Neither group does the other’s thing well. Southern Baptists are uncomfortable with the experiential part of faith because they fear they might encounter extra-Biblical revelation. This is not a bad thing. The Bible is our anchor amid a sea of every changing experience. My charismatic friends trust their experiences and they sometimes are a bit too ready to accept extra-Biblical revelation. They have taught me to be more open to my gut and I hope I have thought them to be more skeptical of revelation and to weigh it against the Bible.

“Now there are many parts, yet one body.
So the eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” nor again the head to the feet, “I don’t need you!”  On the contrary, all the more, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are necessary.
And those parts of the body that we think to be less honorable, we clothe these with greater honor, and our unpresentable parts have a better presentation.  But our presentable parts have no need [of clothing].  

"Instead, God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the less honorable, so that there would be no division in the body, but that the members would have the same concern for each other.

"So if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.  Now you are the body of Christ, and individual members of it.” (I Corinthians 12:20-27)

Denominations try to do this all the time, to say that other denominations have nothing to teach them. I think this is folly. I have learned much from the members of other denominations. It doesn’t mean I will become a member of their churches, simply that I have learned from them and that is a good thing.

Sometimes new denominations form because members cannot agree on doctrinal points. I submit this is what is happening with the Episcopalian church currently. The leadership earnestly believes that what they are embracing is right, but the membership reads the Bible and says “it’s not in there, so how can we believe it?” I think the leadership has been lead astray by its own sense of intelligence and the membership has rightly come down on the firm foundation of the Bible. I see a new denomination growing from the wreckage of the old. I don’t see that as wrong. To remain in a denomination whose leadership is corrupt and unbiblical is to give quarter to liars and heretics. It is right to leave such a denomination and to either join with other churches or to form another denomination. And, in the case of the Episcopal Church, I think we’ll see Christian churches – those that still believe in the death, resurrection and salvation of Jesus Christ, no longer working with the denomination unless the denomination returns to the foundations of Christianity. While we can pray for them to return to the Body of Christ, we are told to have nothing to do with those who spread heresy in the name of Christ. It iss fine and Godly to remove cancer from the Body.

However, when it comes right down to it, the Body of Christ is meant to work together as a whole. Different denominations and churches within those denominations have different functions, but those functions all work as a whole. In my community, the Community Food Bank is a consortium of local churches that have little in common beyond their basic belief in salvation through Jesus Christ and their desire to feed the hungry. The same is true of the Rescue Mission. This is the Body of Christ working together and it is a wonderful thing. Hands, feet, eyes, ears, mouths – all have purpose within the human body that are wonderful and necessary. Baptists, charismatics, Lutherans, Wesleyan Methodists, etc. – all have functions within the Body of Christ. Those functions are different and that is also a wonderful and necessary thing.

Don’t be afraid of what you do not understand. Study it, consider it, and let God decide where you belong in the Body of Christ. The Body is not divided. It is simply differentiated. Let God call you to where He wants you to be.

I am a member of a Southern Baptist church because I have found, for the most part, that Southern Baptists are people of the Word. They rely on the Bible for their doctrine and normally will not tolerate preachers or teachers who deviate much from that. As I trust the Bible, but don’t trust people all that much, it satisfies me to attend such a church. Southern Baptists churches are not perfect (no human institution is), and they lack some things that I would want in my ideal church, which is why I sometimes attend other denominations. Yet, I remain a member and have chosen to teach and minister through a Southern Baptist church because I think, overall, they have planted themselves on a firmer Biblical foundation.

No church in the New Testament had more problems than the church at Corinth. Some, like the Galatians, had more important problems, but when it comes right down to it, the church at Corinth was a mess. Situated in a wealthy, cosmopolitan city, the church at Corinth had many advantages, but surrounded by paganism and worldly pleasures, the church needed a great deal of instruction. I find it illustrative that Paul begins his instruction with the following.

“Now I urge you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all say the same thing, that there be no divisions among you, and that you be united with the same understanding and the same conviction.
For it has been reported to me about you, my brothers, by members of Chloe’s household, that there are quarrels among you.
What I am saying is this: each of you says, “I’m with Paul,” or “I’m with Apollos,” or “I’m with • Cephas,” or “I’m with Christ.”
Is Christ divided? Was it Paul who was crucified for you? Or were you baptized in Paul’s name?
I thank God Or I am thankful that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius,
so that no one can say you had been baptized in my name.
I did, in fact, baptize the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t know if I baptized anyone else.
For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with clever words, so that the cross of Christ will not be emptied [of its effect]* The bracketed text has been added for clarity. . (I Corinthians 1:10-17)

This certainly sounds like denominations forming. There were some in the church of Corinth who considered themselves just a little bit better – more favored of God – because of who had baptized them or from whom they had first received the gospel. Paul was clear that they should stop this elitism immediately.

“You should all say the same thing, united by the same understanding and same conviction,” Paul told the Corinthians. “Let there be no divisions among you.”

But there were divisions and someone from the household of Chloe had reported them to Paul. I don’t know who Chloe was, but she apparently had a good reputation for honesty or perhaps leadership within the Corinthian congregation. Paul believed what she (or her family members) were reporting and it was clear he thought the Corinthians would not argue if the information came from this source. This should serve as a reminder to all who wish to judge congregations. We should consider the source before we jump to conclusions. Paul knew Chloe and her household to be reliable. We cannot often say the same about our own sources of information about congregations of which we are not ourselves members. Some people like to spread rumors and stir up trouble just because they enjoy watching the results and others would, as my mother say, complain if they were hung with a new rope – meaning they always think something is intolerable, no matter the real situation.

Now these factions within the church at Corinth had selected some high-flying company with which to ally themselves. Paul was the greatest Christian theologian ever. Apollos was a great preacher. Peter preached the first Christian sermon. And, hey, great as those guys are, some of the Corinthians had actually heard Jesus preach! Now, how does anyone top that?

You don’t, you can’t, and Paul says “You shouldn’t!” Paul gave no rating system here between the various factions. He didn’t say – well, yes, listen to me because I am Paul. No, he told them to cut it out!

“Is Christ divided?”

Well, no, of course not, would have been their answer and should be ours. Christ is the One True God, not the several-of-many-could-be-right god.

“Was Paul crucified for you?” Well, no, Christ was crucified for us.

“Were you baptized in Paul’s name?” Well, no, we were baptized in Christ’s name.

He could easily have put Apollos’ or Peter’s name in place of his own, but the personality was not the issue, so Paul used himself for the example.

Remember that the letter to the Corinthians was not written with chapter and verse divisions, so that what we call Chapter 2 really is an extension of Chapter 1. Paul launches into a discussion of wisdom, explaining that human wisdom would out and out reject the gospel of Christ, but that properly considered, the gospel makes far more sense than the wisdom of man. Yet he is not done with the topic at hand, which was the divisions that are growing within the church.

“Brothers, I was not able to speak to you as spiritual people but as people of the flesh, as babies in Christ.
I fed you milk, not solid food, because you were not yet able to receive it. In fact, you are still not able,
because you are still fleshly. For since there is envy and strife among you, are you not fleshly and living like ordinary people?

“For whenever someone says, “I’m with Paul,” and another, “I’m with Apollos,” are you not [typical] The bracketed text has been added for clarity. men? So, what is Apollos? And what is Paul? They are servants through whom you believed, and each has the role the Lord has given.

"I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. Now the one who plants and the one who waters are equal, and each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.

"For we are God’s co-workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.” (I Corinthians 3:1-9)

Paul essentially told the Corinthian Christians that they were spiritual babies and that he had to leave them in that condition when he moved on because they were still not mature. He found they were still immature, living like non-Christians rather than the Christ-centered people Christians should desire to be.

He reminds them that he and Apollos had come to them as servants from God and had fulfilled the respective roles Jesus had given them. Paul evangelized Corinth, then moved on to evangelize another area. Apollos discipled Corinth, teaching them more about Christ since he had more time with them. Yet, neither Paul nor Apollos did anything extraordinary. God was the one Who caused the growth in the church’s membership and maturity. Paul and Apollos were equal under God in His field, not their own. Thus it follows that those who were baptized by one or the other were equal under God as well, mere co-laborers in God’s fields, no matter who baptized them. They should all be working for the same thing – telling the gospel to their little corner of the world.

Bringing that down to 21^st Century, what does that mean? Should we do away with denominations? Well, I wouldn’t be so hasty in that!

Say what? Paul just said divisions are bad. Well, yes, he said quarrels are bad, putting your faith in human beings is bad, but didn’t he actually say denominations are bad!

Stay tuned for a deeper study on the Body of Christ.

Biblically, there are only two rituals (called “sacraments” by the Roman Catholic church or “ordinances” by Protestants) that have been recorded. One, baptism, I have already discussed. Now, I move onto the discussion of the Lord’s Supper.

The difference between a sacrament and an ordinance may seem unnecessary hair-splitting, but I prefer the term “ordinance” because of the foregoing reasons. Sacrament connotes that God’s grace is somehow imparted through the ritual – that salvation is tied to it. Yet, we know that the New Testament does not teach this. Baptism is a symbol showing that you have been buried with Christ and left your sins in the grave to walk free in salvation. It does not impart salvation, but is a symbol of an inward change that is salvation. The water in the baptistery is just water. The term “ordinance” conveys the idea of obedience, which I think is closer to the truth than sacrament. Water or bread and wine, God does not impart anything through either one. These are rituals with symbolic meaning, not requirements of salvation.

Thus, the word “communion” (implying that you communicate with God through this and only this form of worship) is uncomfortable to me and many other practicing Christians. The term “Lord’s Supper” seems a better term, for it connotes that you dine at Jesus’ table, not your own.

“Now in giving the following instruction I do not praise you, since you come together not for the better but for the worse.  For, to begin with, I hear that when you come together as a church there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it.
There must, indeed, be factions among you, so that the approved among you may be recognized. Therefore when you come together in one place, it is not really to eat the Lord’s Supper. For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others, and one person is hungry while another is drunk!
Don’t you have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you look down on the church of God and embarrass those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I praise you? I do not praise you for this!

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: on the night when He was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and said, “Take, eat. “This is My body, which is Other mss add broken for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.”
In the same way [He]^* also [took]^* the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
(I Corinthians 11:17-26)

Remember that Jesus and His disciples were celebrating the Passover of the Lamb when Jesus added another cup and bread breaking at the end. His followers were first century Jews who avoided blood as a matter of religious fervor. They clearly understood that Jesus was speaking symbolically. If they had thought He was speaking literally, they would have said so because to eat of a man’s body and drink of his blood was totally anathema to their Hebraic faith. That they who knew Him well took Him as speaking symbolically, I think we are safe in doing so as well.

The account of the Last Supper in Mark 14 is roughly parallel to Paul’s account. It is highly likely Paul received his instruction in the Lord’s Supper from Luke, who was a traveling companion and future (or perhaps in process) author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, a careful historian who apparently interviewed eye-witnesses to the events in the gospels. Both refer to covenant in connection with the cup as His blood and both contain an emphasis on the future institution of this ritual. Paul stressed the memorial aspect of the Supper. “Do this in remembrance of me.” Christians were to remember that the body of Christ was broken and His blood shed for them. As in baptism, sharing the Supper is a proclamation of the gospel in hope, “until he comes.” As the Passover was a symbol of the old covenant, the Lord’s Supper is a symbol of the new. Christians remember the sacrifice provided for their deliverance from bondage and look forward to the ultimate consummation in the land of promise, the kingdom of God.

The Supper shared in remembrance of the past and hope for the future is fulfilled in fellowship for the present. Paul used the term “in Christ” often in his writings, describing the unity of the fellowship of believers. Union in Christ and unity with Christians is a recurring theme. It’s not surprising to find this emphasized once again in relation to the Lord’s Supper. Paul was not talking about a repetition of the sacrifice of Christ, but a genuine sharing of fellowship with the Living Lord. Fellowship in Christ is basic for fellowship in His body (the Church).

We can thank the Corinthian church for being so dysfunctional so that we might be more Christ-like. A church in a cosmopolitan city filled with paganism, the Corinthian fellowship was blessed with wealth in money and spiritual gifts, but they seemed to have more than their fair share of controversies and doctrinal confusion. They lacked love for those outside the church and for those inside the church. Thus, Paul found himself instructing them sternly.

“If you can’t conduct yourselves properly at the community meal, eat and drink at home before the Lord’s Supper,” he told them.

The Lord’s Supper was apparently practiced in the New Testament churches somewhat like the Passover – as a community meal/worship service. Among the Jewish Christians, there were likely few problems with conducting the meal and worship service at the same time. The Jews had been doing it for centuries as part of the Mosaic tradition. But the Gentile Christians were not familiar with Jewish traditions. They came to the meal to eat and celebrate. Some drank too much wine, others ate too much food, and still others had nothing to eat or drink. They had confused the fellowship meal with the worship of Christ and were giving the Lord’s Supper a bad name. Paul chided the church sharply for this misbehavior. The emphasis was not meant to be on the community meal, but on the remembrance of the covenantal sacrifice of Jesus. If necessary, they were to separate the fellowship meal from the worship experience of the Lord’s Supper rather than abuse the Lord’s Supper.

Baptism is a symbol of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus and our joining with Him as we lay our sins in the grave and rise to walk anew in Him. The Lord’s Supper is a symbol of the covenant. Jesus died for us. His body was broken and His blood spilled so that we might live. As Christian baptism offers new believers a first-time opportunity to show the inward change of salvation, the Lord’s Supper offers believers an ongoing opportunity to obey Jesus.

“Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy way will be guilty of sin against the body and blood of the Lord.
So a man should examine himself; in this way he should eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
For whoever eats and drinks without recognizing the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.
This is why many are sick and ill among you, and many have fallen asleep. If we were properly evaluating ourselves, we would not be judged,
but when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord, so that we may not be condemned with the world.
Therefore, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.
If anyone is hungry, he should eat at home, so that you can come together and not cause judgment. And I will give instructions about the other matters whenever I come. (I Corinthians 11:27-34)

Paul urged his audience to examine themselves before they take the Lord’s Supper. He warned them that they were not doing this and they really needed to. “For if we were properly evaluating ourselves, we would not be judged, but God disciplines us when we are judged so that we will not be condemned with the world,” he warned his readers. In this discussion, he was perhaps hearkening back to Jesus’ own words in Matthew, discussing Temple sacrifices and the true heart of the Law.

"But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, 'Raca!' shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, 'You fool!' shall be in danger of hell fire.
"Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,
"leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. (Matthew 5:22-24)

All Christians are unworthy to share the Lord’s Supper, but His grace has provided for them in their unworthiness. The tragedy is that some partake in an unworthy manner, not discerning the Lord’s body. Paul addressed this matter for the Corinthians and for us, urging that Christians examine themselves and respect he corporate body of Christ as they share the Supper of the Lord.

So, what does this mean in the 21^st Century as you’re learning to live a Christian life?

The Lord’s Supper is not the primary focus of worship. It is a symbol that is there to help us remember Christ’s sacrifice and to give us occasion to evaluate our own lives. Different churches deal with this ordinance in different ways. My own church offers the Lord’s Supper (approximately) quarterly to any scripturally-baptized believer who comes. It is between the attendee and God whether they are worthy (a Christian, baptized by immersion, right before God). We ask parents of young children to discuss the importance of self-examination with their children before allowing them to participate, but we don’t second-guess parents in this regard.

As I’ve made it clear, I don’t consider the symbol to be more important than what it symbolizes. Therefore, I am not dogmatic about the elements. As Baptists, we don’t traditionally use wine, but I’ve attended Lord’s Suppers that did. I always wonder what recovering alcoholics do in those circumstances, but that’s between their conscience and God. They can come to my church (where we serve grape juice in individual cups) if they want a sweat-free Lord’s Supper. I’ve used the tasteless wafers of several varieties. I had a pastor once who would buy Matzo crackers for Lord’s Supper and another whose wife baked unleavened bread. A missionary friend once offered the Lord’s Supper during a mountaintop camping trip, using Ritz crackers and Dr. Pepper. The elements are not the point. The self-examination and remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice is what’s central.

In our contemporary rushing-every-minute world, it is easy to “get our fire insurance” and think that God knows our sins so we don’t need to dwell on them, but in actuality, it is good to have periodic times of self-examination. The Lord’s Supper provides one of those times. Churches should be offering it at intervals that are not so close together as to make this important worship event into something ritualistic and mundane, but not so far apart that people are over-awed by the gravity of the symbol.  Participants should also understand the reasons behind the actions. It is more than just a ritual, yet it does not impart salvation or communication with God. It merely offers us a form to focus our minds on God and our relationship with Him and with our fellow man. It gives us opportunity to examine ourselves and present ourselves as clean and upstanding as we can at that moment to a God Who always knows what we’re made of even when we do not.

Examine yourselves and then eat, remembering always that Christ died so that you could live.