Reflections on 1 Corinthians 6

1 Corinthians 06 (Contemporary English Version)
1. When one of you has a complaint against another, do you take your complaint to a court of sinners? Or do you take it to God's people?
   
2. Don't you know that God's people will judge the world? And if you are going to judge the world, can't you settle small problems?
   
3. Don't you know that we will judge angels? And if that is so, we can surely judge everyday matters.
   
4. Why do you take everyday complaints to judges who are not respected by the church?
   
5. I say this to your shame. Aren't any of you wise enough to act as a judge between one follower and another?
   
6. Why should one of you take another to be tried by unbelievers?
   
7. When one of you takes another to court, all of you lose. It would be better to let yourselves be cheated and robbed.
   
8. But instead, you cheat and rob other followers.
   
9. Don't you know that evil people won't have a share in the blessings of God's kingdom? Don't fool yourselves! No one who is immoral or worships idols or is unfaithful in marriage or is a pervert or behaves like a homosexual
   
10. will share in God's kingdom. Neither will any thief or greedy person or drunkard or anyone who curses and cheats others.
    
11. Some of you used to be like that. But now the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the power of God's Spirit have washed you and made you holy and acceptable to God.
    
12. Some of you say, "We can do anything we want to." But I tell you that not everything is good for us. So I refuse to let anything have power over me.
    
13. You also say, "Food is meant for our bodies, and our bodies are meant for food." But I tell you that God will destroy them both. We are not supposed to do indecent things with our bodies. We are to use them for the Lord who is in charge of our bodies.
    
14. God will raise us from death by the same power that he used when he raised our Lord to life.
    
15. Don't you know that your bodies are part of the body of Christ? Is it right for me to join part of the body of Christ to a prostitute? No, it isn't!
    
16. Don't you know that a man who does that becomes part of her body? The Scriptures say, "The two of them will be like one person."
    
17. But anyone who is joined to the Lord is one in spirit with him.
    
18. Don't be immoral in matters of sex. That is a sin against your own body in a way that no other sin is.
    
19. You surely know that your body is a temple where the Holy Spirit lives. The Spirit is in you and is a gift from God. You are no longer your own.
    
20. God paid a great price for you. So use your body to honor God.
    
    

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    Paul addressed multiple issues in this chapter with a flow that tied them all together even though they may appear on the surface to be unrelated issues. Church members taking each other to court seems unrelated to sexual immorality, idolatry, and homosexuality, but Paul ties them together. In what way? As behaviors that are unfit for the kingdom of God. The unjust, which was Paul's charge of those who could not settle their differences outside of court, had no more place in the kingdom of God than the "sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexuals, thieves, greedy people, drunkards, revilers, or swindlers." (6:9) It no more represented the "new command" (2 John 1:5) given Christians to love one another than did the actions of those who were sexually immoral, etc.
    
    Christ modeled a new lifestyle for His followers of mutual submission. But neither mutual submission nor the new command of loving one another were the practice of those Corinthian Christians who were cheating their fellow Christians. But neither were they the practice of those being cheated who took the cheaters to court for settlement. Paul asked them why they would not rather "put up with injustice" than to take their fellow Christians to court. "Why not rather be cheated?" (6:7) There were no winners in this situation. Not those who cheated nor those being cheated who took them to court nor those in the church who simply stood idly by. Paul's question to them all was, "Can it be that there is not one wise person among you who will be able to arbitrate between his brothers?" (6:5) Instead of settling such matters within the church body they selected "those who have no standing in the church to judge." (6:4) Even though "the saints will judge the world," the saints were going to the world to settle their judgments. Paul told them that in this they were already experiencing "total defeat." (6:7)
    
    Paul chided them with the saying, "everything is permissible for me," which was likely a common saying used by the Corinthians who considered themselves free from the law. But he also pointed out that although everything might be permissible not everything was helpful. Neither should they allow themselves to be "under the control of anything" which was happening through their permissiveness. Through their permissiveness they were allowing these behaviors to take precident over their love for one another. And of even greater concern was that they were dragging Christ into these situations with them. "Anyone joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him," Paul says. (6:17) Whether it be sexual immorality or parading injustices in the church before the world, they, as "members of Christ" were taking Him into it with themselves.
    
    Those who are in Christ should never forget that we "are not your own," but have been "bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body." (6:19,20)