***WARNING*** This lesson contains some sexual references. Although I
have tried to avoid gratuitous sexual content, I recommend parents of young
children read it before sharing it with your children. However, I do hope you
will find it largely appropriate to share with your children.
Introduction
The
latest furor this week in our culture is over the practically-pornographic dance/music
performance of a young celebrity, Miley Cyrus, at the annual Video Music Awards
(VMA). Not too many years ago, Cyrus played the wholesome character of Hannah
Montana for Disney on a children’s television program by the same name. Fans
have watched, many in shock and amazement, as this popular children’s star has
gone from Disney G-rated family star to VMA, practically X-rated porn star in a
few short years. With the transformation, you might think her popularity would
diminish but you’d be wrong—Cyrus is wildly popular now. She may be losing or
has lost her original audience of Disney-watchers but she has clearly attracted
the attention of the majority culture who seem to have a clear disdain for
anything wholesome. I observed the reaction of various media figures with
amusement as they flailed wildly trying to explain Cyrus’ transformation and
behavior. Really? Have these people bothered looking around the culture lately?
It seems clear that the critics of Cyrus see the trees but are blind to the
forest. I’m not making excuses for Cyrus but let’s not be naïve shall we—Cyrus is
just one person in a long line of representatives of a crude culture that is
all about Sex, Sex And More Sex isn’t
she? Let me see if I can give you some examples: A 2000 study revealed that 10
percent of students in grades k-12 have had sexual contact in some form with a
teacher, with the largest percentage between teachers and upperclassmen; I’m
sure it hasn’t gotten any worse in the decade since that study {read: sarcasm}. There is a very
successful website for “sugar-babies” that makes arrangements for women to be
in sexual relationships with wealthy men (married and unmarried) in order to
supplement their income—the site boasts an enrollment of 40,000 teachers as
well as other “respected” professionals. An on-line service has been
established for the sole purpose of arranging discreet sexual relationships
between men and women who are married to someone else but long for sex outside
their own marriage relationship—the site boasts a membership of over 1,000,000
participants; the founder claims it is a way to avoid divorce and keep families
intact—how thoughtful! {read: sarcasm
again}. And if these sites seem too complicated or nefarious, there is an
on-line service that cuts right to the chase and creates a database matching people
who make no pretense about their intentions—they are looking for compatible partners
to share free sex and nothing else.
Let me ask you,
when was the last time you saw a movie or television program that had no sexual
content? How about depicting sex only between a husband and wife? Ok now, how
about a movie or television program that included sex outside of marriage;
casual sex? And that goes for music and music videos as well! I could go on but
you probably get my point—our culture is obsessed with Sex, Sex And More Sex. People were shocked this week when Miley
Cyrus performed her might-as-well-be-porn dance and music number at the Video
Music Awards but it won’t be long before the bar for sexual morality in our
country is lowered another notch making her performance part of the new normal.
What really puzzles me is how this is possible in a country where the majority
of the population claims to be Christian! Something doesn’t add up. I’m going
to give Christians the benefit of the doubt that they are just ignorant on the
matter so perhaps it is time we are reminded what the Bible says about sexual
morality or more specifically sexual immorality.
Subject Text
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
12“Everything is permissible for me”--but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”--but I will not be mastered by
anything. 13“Food for the
stomach and the stomach for food”--but God will destroy them both.
The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he
will raise us also. 15Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a
prostitute? Never! 16Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with
her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” 17But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. 18Flee from
sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his
body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. 19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy
Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20you were
bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
Context
Corinth
is located about 50 miles from Athens and around two miles from the narrow
isthmus that forms a land bridge between Greece and the Peloponnesus. Because
of its geographical location, Corinth controlled two major harbors and ruled
the trade routes between Asia and Rome.
Corinth
catered to the gods of Egypt, Rome and Greece. The Temple of Aphrodite, the
goddess of love, was in Corinth. Even though the actual temple was not active
during Paul’s time, prostitution flourished in the city below where the temple
once served as the center for prostitution. As you might imagine, Corinth
catered to sailors and merchants from around the world. Even before Paul’s
time, Corinth had an awful reputation. Aphrodite’s temple gave Corinth its
reputation of overt immorality referenced by Paul (1 Cor 6:9-20; 2 Cor
12:20-21) “She had a reputation for commercial prosperity, but she was also a
byword for evil living. The very word korinthiazesthai
[Gk], to live like a Corinthian, had become a part of the Greek language, and
meant to live with drunken and immoral debauchery…Aelian, the late Greek
writer, tells us that if ever a Corinthian was shown upon the stage in a Greek
play he was shown drunk. The very name Corinth was synonymous with debauchery
and there was one source of evil in the city which was known all over the
civilized world. Above the isthmus towered the hill of the Acropolis, and on it
stood the great temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. To that temple there
were attached one thousand priestesses who were sacred prostitutes, and in the
evenings they descended from the Acropolis and plied their trade upon the
streets of Corinth, until it became a Greek proverb, ‘It is not every man who
can afford a journey to Corinth.’ In addition to these cruder sins, there
flourished far more recondite vices, which had come in with the traders and
sailors from the ends of the earth, until Corinth became not only a synonym for
wealth and luxury, drunkenness and debauchery, but also for filth.”[1] “Immoral debauchery” as
referenced above finds it specific meaning in the city’s thriving sex trade. Its
reputation preceded Paul’s letter by more than four centuries going back to the
Greek poet Aristophanes
who was the first to coin the word “Corinthianize” [Gk. korinthiazesthai]. Pre-marital sex, extra-marital sex, prostitution
and homosexuality were prized practices in first-century Corinth. When the
sexual practices where questioned or criticized, the response was often: “What is foul, if it seems not so to those
who indulge in it?” (Athenaeus Deipnosophists 13.582d). Fast forward more than 2,000
years and you know what has changed? Nothing! Consequently, if the context that
precipitated Paul’s teaching is quantitatively and qualitatively comparable to
our culture then its relevance for us should be obvious.
Text Analysis
It
appears that some in the Church in Corinth took their new-found freedom in
Christ to extremes claiming that “everything was permissible” because Christ
removed all sin so they were now free to live however they wanted. Theological
historians believe that this was “probably a slogan bandied about among some of
the Christians in Corinth and used…to justify an indiscriminate exercise of
their rights.”[2] My
gosh, isn’t this the message that is preached from the pulpits of so many of
our churches today? Not that we are explicitly free to live however we want because
Christ has removed all sin but implicitly because no one has the right to hold
a fellow Christian accountable for their sinful behavior because we all live
under God’s grace so no one has the right to “judge” anyone else. Can we please,
please stop pretending that we don’t know what’s going on here? Countless people
use “grace” as the excuse to do whatever they want with impunity. However, Paul
makes it clear that even if something is permitted, that doesn’t make it
beneficial. Paul goes on to say something profound in v. 12 that even if he
were to stipulate that “everything is permissible,” he refuses to be “mastered”
by anything. With all of Paul’s instruction about sexuality in the succeeding
verses, this is a message we will come back to as the statement of
accountability for our actions. Are we being “mastered” by sexual immorality?
Paul
is not introducing a new dietary code in v. 13. Instead, he is trying to make a
point that God has granted us certain things for our benefit; a stomach to hold
and digest food and food to ingest for daily survival; they are meant to exist
in harmony with each other; both fall under God’s sovereignty and both have a
specific purpose. The abuse of food (and/or drink) can lead to the destruction
of the stomach and the destruction of the stomach directly impacts our ability
to process food necessary for our survival. However, Paul makes clear that both
are passing, temporal elements. Paul then makes a similar correlation between
our bodies and the Lord. Just as the harmony between food and the stomach can
be destroyed by abusing food and drink, the harmony between our bodies and the
Lord can be destroyed through “sexual immorality.” However, what Paul implies
in v. 13 he will make explicit in succeeding verses—the degradation and
destruction of our bodies through sexual immorality has eternal implications. “The
nutritive system forms no part of the permanent self; it belongs to the
passing, to the constitution of ‘flesh and blood’ and hence the indifference to
foods. ‘But the body’ has relations more vital and influential than those
concerned with its perishing sustenance…‘The body’—regarded as a whole, in
contrast with its temporary apparatus—is fashioned for the Lord’s use; to yield
it to harlotry is to traverse Christ’s rights in it and disqualify oneself for
a part in His resurrection.”[3]
Although
that all seems fairly clear, the part that seems less clear is what is meant by
“sexual immorality.” And you know as well as I do that humanity is always
looking for a loophole to try and justify their sinful behavior. Therefore, I
will do my best to try and put some specific parameters around the general term
“sexual immorality.” “Sexual immorality” in the NIV is translated from the Greek
“porneia” from which we derive our
English word “pornography.” Some insist that Paul is specifically talking about
prostitution in our subject text and that is certainly part of what he is
talking about. However, porneia is a
general term that includes not just prostitution (male and female), but also incest,
adultery and other extramarital sexual activity. Porneia is specifically defined as “Illicit sex, fornication
[consensual sex between two people not married to each other or anyone else],
sexual immorality, prostitution.”[4]
Homosexuality is also condemned as sexually immoral but is translated from the
Greek arsenokoites meaning “a male
who has sexual relations with a male”[5]
and is itemized separately in 1 Cor 6:9 as behavior that disqualifies one from
participating in the inheritance of God’s kingdom. Let me see if I can simplify
this even farther. Sexual immorality includes any and all sexual activity
outside of the marriage relationship between one man and one woman.
When
Paul says that God will raise our bodies in the same way that He raised Jesus’
body in v. 14, it seems a bit disconnected unless we consider that the Gnostic
heresy was always present in its devaluation of the physical body. Paul’s
thoughts and motives never seemed to wander very far from the need to combat
Gnosticism. However, this was probably a secondary purpose for v. 14. The
primary purpose was to demonstrate how much value God places on our physical
bodies. “The work of redemption includes the whole person, which in the Jewish
view of things includes the body. If the stomach is irrelevant for future
existence, the body itself is not. Through Christ’s own resurrection it has
been stamped as belonging to eternity; it is destined for resurrection. Thus it
is also ‘for the Lord’ in the present.”[6]
Those
seeking to limit Paul’s teaching in our subject text to prostitution use vv.
15-17 to support their position. However, Paul is simply using prostitution as
one example of the relationship between sexual immorality and our bodies vs.
our bodies and the Lord, with all other forms of sexual immorality having the
same relational effect. Paul reminds us in v. 15 that believers, the Church,
form the “body” of Christ. Paul uses this metaphor throughout his writings to
illustrate our intimate union with Christ. As such, Paul is saying in v. 16
that we have no business combining our bodies, as a member of the body of
Christ, with a prostitute in sexual immorality. Specifically, Paul takes us
back to Genesis and God’s proclamation that a man and a woman, in the course of
sex become one flesh (Gen 2:24). Similarly, according to Paul in v. 17, when we
become believers we are united with Jesus and become one with him in spirit.
Since the body and the spirit are a unified whole, when we engage in sexual
immorality we are trying to harmonize the perfect holiness of the Holy Spirit
with sin and immorality—they are not compatible and cannot coexist. “Paul cites
Genesis 2:24 to demonstrate what is involved in the seemingly casual one-night
stand with another woman; you become one body with her. It is the peculiar
dignity of the one-flesh union of heterosexual marriage, on the other hand,
that not only is it quite compatible with spiritual union with the Lord, but
also it expresses the mysterion
(‘mystery’) of the union between Christ and his church (Eph 5:31-32; 2 Cor
11:2). The analogy covers not merely reciprocal mutual love, respect and care
but the union itself. A couple’s becoming ‘one flesh,’ which entails sexual
congress whatever else it may entail, is comparable to the bonding between
Christ and believers.”[7]
After
having established what we shouldn’t
do in the preceding verses, Paul now tells us what we should do in v. 18. I picture Paul contemplating how he could
convey his message in a way that reflects its proper emphasis. The word Paul
uses is the Greek pheugo which means
to flee from, to avoid or to shun. Paul was saying that they should do whatever
it takes, no matter how extreme, to purge their lives of sexual immorality.
Paul’s point is that sexual immorality reaches a depth in our person that no
other sin touches. This makes sense doesn’t it? Within the context of a
marriage relationship between a man and woman, is there an intimacy that
reaches deeper into our souls than does sexual intimacy. Even many married couples
fail to realize the importance of their sexual relationship. This is why Paul
instructs those who are married not to withhold sex from their spouse except by
mutual consent and then only for a short time (1 Cor 7:3-5). The marriage bond
is refreshed and strengthened through a married couple’s sexual relationship.
And it can become weak and frayed when sex is abused by either party either
through selfish excess or selfish abstinence. Understanding, now, the degree to
which sexual relations impact our lives, we might have a deeper appreciation
for the danger of sexual immorality. “The immoral person perverts precisely
that faculty within himself [and/or herself] that is meant to be the instrument
of the most intimate bodily communication between persons. He sins against his
unique power of bodily communication and in this sense sins in a particular way
‘against his own body.’ All other sins are in this respect by comparison
‘outside’ the body—with ‘body’ having in this verse the strong sexual overtones
that appear to cling to it throughout the passage as a whole. No other sin
engages one’s power of bodily personal communication in precisely so intimate a
way.”[8]
One
of the things that I have tried to teach my daughters is that when you owe
someone anything—money, time, etc.,—you have relinquished part of your freedom
to that person. This is similar to the principal that Paul is trying to convey
in vv. 19-20. The opportunity for us to follow Christ came at a cost; a price,
and that was Jesus’ death on the cross. If we accept the invitation to follow
then we are free to be followers but within the boundaries of what it means to
be a follower. For a moment, let’s stay with the analogy of marriage since I am
fairly familiar with the concept after nearly 30 years. I am free to be myself
in my marriage. However, I am not free to behave however I want. I am free to
love my wife all I want but I am not free to love another woman. I am free to
go to the gym and punch a punching bag but I’m not free to use my wife as a
punching bag. I’m free to be as critical as I want about the travails and
failures of my favorite sports teams but I’m not free to be as critical as I
want about the travails and failures of my wife. This is what it means to be in
a relationship with anyone to a certain extent. We are free in those
relationships but we are not necessarily free to do whatever we want—that’s not
being in a relationship that’s being a selfish, power-mongering dictator! Paul
is saying the same thing when it comes to the relationship between our bodies
and Christ. When we became followers, we were set free from sin and the Holy
Spirit took up residence in our lives. We are free to be in relationship with
God thanks to Jesus and with the power and help of the Holy Spirit but we are
not free to live our lives in a way that is contrary to how God tells us and
expects us to live. “Paul is seen here, however, to have a very high view of
the physical body in light of God’s acts on its behalf and the privileges
accorded the Christian as he or she lives in this body. God’s investment in the
whole person is so great that the only fitting response is for us to live for
the Lord with the whole person, to bring honor to God in the way we use our
body. To reinforce this, Paul reminds the believers of God’s ultimate ownership
of the believer’s body, with the result that the Christian is to use the body
as God wishes, not as he or she might wish (i.e., to indulge its desires; 1 Cor
6:19; cf. Gal 5:13, 24). Thus, how we use our body provides us with a wide
array of opportunities to honor God, bearing witness to God’s redemption of our
body from sin and to enhance our connection with Christ.”[9]
Application
Do
you want to know something ironical about this lesson? I fully anticipate that
a significant number of people will access this lesson by accident because of
the title as they search for something I’m guessing is far more entertaining
than what I’m offering in this lesson or any other lesson. Imagine their surprise
disappointment when the search results for some internet fun turns up my site.
Do you want to know something less ironic but instead sad and revealing? George
Barna conducted a survey comparing behavioral patterns of Christians and
non-Christians—the survey revealed that 9% of Christians and 16% of non-Christians
watched an X-rated movie within the 3 months preceding the survey.[10]
So the sad and revealing thing about those who happen on this lesson in search
of something more tantalizing is that a certain percentage of them will be
Christians. If you’re feeling pretty good about yourself because you know
you’re not one of those 9%, let’s take it to the next level. In the same
survey, Barna found that 76% of Christians and 87% of non-Christians watched a
PG-13 or R-rated movie at some point during the 3 months preceding the survey.
Now I can start hearing some howling out there complaining that there’s nothing
wrong with those movies because they’re not X-rated; you would never watch an
X-rated movie. Relax, the point of this lesson isn’t about movie ratings
specifically. The point of this lesson is the trajectory of our behavior as it
relates to sexual ethics. Let me see if I can illustrate: When Elvis Presley
hit the music and movie stage in the late 50’s, men tried to imitate his moves,
his hair style and his clothing in the hope of being able to make the girls
swoon the way Presley did. However, Presley, along with his white,
rhinestone-studded pant-suits cut down low to reveal his bare chest covered in
gold chains, created no small amount of controversy. Some believed that
Presley’s music and waging hips crossed the line of morality because they were
sexually suggestive. If you could watch one of Elvis’ concerts in the prime of
his career on a split screen with Miley Cyrus’ performance at the VMA’s, I
wonder if the phrase “We’ve come a long way baby,” might come to mind. So
what’s my point? My point is that bad habits, although easier to develop than
good habits, occur over a long time and get worse not better. Also, some of
those bad habits are so subtle that we often fail to recognize that they are
destroying our lives until it’s too late. This pattern is all too familiar with
many of us isn’t it? We sit with the broken pieces of our lives before us and
wonder—“How did I get here?” The implication of the question says it all—it
wasn’t always like this. We weren’t always angry; we didn’t always drink; we
didn’t always use drugs; we didn’t always lie; we didn’t always cheat; we
didn’t always steal; we didn’t always use coarse language; we weren’t always
obsessed with sex. However, in order to stop traveling along on the same path,
we need a clear view of the path to begin with. That way we can avoid that
particular path and take a different one. If we are called to “flee from sexual
immorality,” we need to be able to recognize as clearly as possible what we are
fleeing from.
I
want to challenge you to conduct a personal experiment this week. I’m not
asking you to change what you would normally do during a week with the
exception of making a note every time that you encounter an instance of
sexualization or sexual immorality in the course of your everyday life; music,
movies, television programs, videos, internet activity, magazines, etc. The
purpose of my challenge is to alert your mind to what you have become
desensitized to over a long period of exposure and have simply come to accept
as part of your daily life. After a week of re-sensitizing yourself slightly to
your daily habits and environment, compare your life to Paul’s instruction to
“flee from sexual immorality.” This is a chance for you to honestly examine the
habits and environment of your daily life to see if it conforms to the way God
wants you to live.
I fully realize that this is
a difficult lesson for some of you (probably for all of us to some extent). I
know that God’s way would entail some real life-changing decisions. For
example, some of you are living with and/or in a sexual relationship with
someone you are not married to. You won’t have to look far to find the sexual
immorality in your life—just look next to you in bed. Some of you are working
in a highly sexualized environment and conformity to God’s way would constitute
a very real financial hardship. Some of you believe that flaunting your
sexuality is the only way you can be accepted and you fear that following God’s
instruction for your life will mean being shunned by your friends and peers. Some
of you don’t want to change and I can’t make you and God won’t force you to. Author
Marilyn Ferguson once wrote, “No one can
persuade another to change. Each of us guards the gate of change that can only
be opened from the inside.” Change can be a hard thing. However, before we can
make changes in our lives, we need to know what we are changing from and why.
The “why” is easy and I hope I have outlined those reasons above. The “what,”
however, might not be immediately clear. That is the reason for my challenge to
you. Unless we recognize that our culture is saturated with Sex, Sex And More Sex we won’t be able
to see that we might be living our lives in opposition to God’s good instruction.
Let’s remember the first thing Paul said in our subject text—Paul refused to be
mastered by anything. So I want to leave you with a final question to think
about as you engage in my challenge: Are you being mastered by sexual
immorality?
[1]
William Barclay, The Letters to the
Corinthians, (Lexington, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), pp. 2-3.
[2]
Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle
to the Corinthians—The New International Greek Testament Commentary, (Grand
Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2000), p. 461.
[3] W.
Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor’s
Greek Testament, Vol., 2, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing
Co., 1983), p. 819.
[4]
Cleon L. Rogers Jr. and Cleon L. Rogers III, The New Linguistic and Exegetical Key to the Greek New Testament,
(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1998), p. 359.
[5]
Ibid.
[6]
Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the
Corinthians—The New International Commentary on the New Testament, (Grand
Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1987), p. 256.
[7]
Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, Daniel G. Reid, eds., Dictionary of Paul and his Letters,
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), p. 872.
[8]
Craig Blomberg, 1 Corinthians—The NIV
Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), p. 127.
[9]
David A. deSilva, An Introduction to the
New Testament: Contexts, Methods & Ministry Formation, (Downers Grove,
IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), p. 571.
[10]
George Barna, The Second Coming of the
Church, (Nashville, TN: Word Publishing, 1998), p. 6.
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