1 Corinthians Lesson 3
First Corinthians Chapters 4-6
Lesson 3
By Cindy Ketron
On The Edge of Eternity
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Chapter 4 is the last chapter in which the Apostle Paul deals with the divisions within the church. In this chapter, he talks about how we, as believers, should conduct ourselves in order to maintain unity within the body of Christ. Remember, Corinth was the party capital of the Greek world. Every day was a party! Around every corner was licentiousness and debauchery. It was a “sin in your face” kind of culture. Oh my, I think I might also be describing the culture we have here in America. Sin was not only tolerated, it was celebrated! I can’t help but think of our White House being lit up on June 26, 2015 during Barack Obama’s presidency, with rainbow colors to celebrate LGBTQ and the Obergafell vs. Hodges Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states. And, the One World Trade Center was lit up pink on Jan. 22, 2019 to celebrate the passage of New York’s Reproductive Health Act that also coincided with the 46th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. Prior to this act, New York law criminalized abortion after 24 weeks of pregnancy. This Act also legalized physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and licensed midwives to perform abortions. By taking abortion out of the state criminal code and moving it to public health law, if a pregnant woman was assaulted and the baby died, the person who assaulted her would not be subject to any criminal prosecution. Oh, what a culture we live in! It should not be difficult for us to understand the culture in Corinth then. We are living it today!
Read 1 Cor. 4:1-4. Are we all ministers/preachers?
You may not feel like a preacher, but according to this verse, you are one! To preach means to publicly teach or proclaim something. In this regard, every human being on earth is a preacher. Not everyone is a preacher of the gospel, but every person’s life preaches what that person believes. I recently had an exchange with someone who calls herself a minister of the gospel. She twists Scripture and does some real biblical gymnastics to tell others that they can live any kind of life they want to live and still know Jesus. I strongly disagreed with her to the point that I eventually told her I had come to the conclusion that we did not worship the same God. This, of course, did not go over well.
The truth is that what we say and what we do preaches a particular message to the world. Paul is cautioning us in chapter 4 to be mindful of how we live our lives because our lives preach.
2. What are we stewards of?
A steward is someone who manages and is responsible for something. For example, if I’m a good steward of my money, then the way that I spend and invest and give should all reflect that I am responsible for what the Lord has given me. The word mystery is used again in this verse. Remember that a mystery is something that was hidden, but is now made known.
3. What are the mysteries of God?
God’s plan to bring redemption to the earth through His Son, Jesus Christ is the mystery that was hidden or veiled in the Old Testament and revealed in the New Testament. Because it was hidden in the Old Testament, the Jewish people had difficulty believing and understanding it.
We are responsible for the dispensing of the gospel. That is what being a steward of the mysteries of Christ means.
4. Read 1 Cor. 4:2-5. What is God’s requirement of stewards?
Verses 3-4 are difficult to understand. I love what Phillip's paraphrase of v. 3 says, “But as a matter of fact, it matters very little to me what you, or any man thinks of me.” Being affected by what others say about us and allowing those hurtful words to dictate how we run our lives are 2 different things. I don’t know anyone who likes others to speak harshly of them. I have more than a few people who speak harshly of me because I frequently contend for the faith in a way that others do not like. Sometimes my feelings are hurt, but I try to never allow those hurt feelings to steer me in a different direction or to be some kind of guiding principle in life. The older I get, the more contrary I become. If I do not respect the opinion of an individual, their words affect me far less than those I do respect.
5. Does Paul judge his own self?
6. What Paul is saying here is that he doesn’t put any confidence in his own opinion. Many people are ruled by their heart or feelings. What does Jer. 17:9-10 say about trusting our feelings?
Feelings are temporary. We might be happy one minute and sad or angry the next. We need to base our judgement of ourselves against the Word of God. I don’t trust me! I trust God! His Word is the plumbline of the measurement of our thoughts and intentions. I had someone tell me once that I worshipped the Bible because I believed in the inerrancy, infallibility, and supremacy of Scripture. (And also because I quoted Scripture frequently to speak truth to her lies.) She meant her comment to be derogatory. I took it as a badge of honor. If all Scripture is God-breathed, and it is, and if it is my guide to understanding life and living righteously, then that is what I need to be basing my life on. To believe what the Bible says about itself is not a sin, rather it is worshipping the God who breathed it out! Being able to see the sin in someone else seems to come far more easily than seeing our own sin. I think this is another reason that Paul said he didn’t trust his own opinion, but God’s. The 3rd court we must stand before is the biggie, the Bema Seat of Christ where He will be the judge and jury. We’ll learn more about this when we get into 2 Corinthians. We won’t be judged for our sins, because as we’ve already studied, those sins were judged on the cross and we are living under the blood of Jesus Christ. We will be judged for our works. What are we stewards of?
*Our time
*Our money
*Our bodies
*Our physical possessions
*The Gospel of Jesus Christ
How we chose to use these things or misuse them is at stake here. To misuse them would mean that they are burned up like the wood, hay, and straw from chapter 3.
Let’s recap the 3 courts spoken of in these first few verses:
1. The court of the opinion of others.
2. The court of our own opinion.
3. The court of Jesus Christ at the Judgement Seat.
Notice that these courts move from the lowest court to the highest court.
7. Read 1 Cor. 4:5-9. How will the hidden things of the world be revealed?
One thing that I caution many parents about is family secrets. These are almost never a good thing. Parents should never tell a child to keep a secret unless it is for a birthday party or something like that. And there is a difference in privacy and secrecy. There are many things that are private and are nobody else’s business. But things that are secret and hidden, the Bible speaks of as being sinful. Only by bringing those things to the light can we address them. As long as they remain in the dark, they will cause pain.
When Jesuss returns, He will reveal the intentions of the hearts. Therefore, be very careful how you allow yourself to feel and think about things. I would never want the intentions of my heart to be laid open for all to see. I can be an absolute scumbag sometimes in my thought process. My dad told me recently a story about an individual who was commenting on a loved one who was in the midst of addiction. He said this person commented, “Can you imagine wearing all of your sin on the outside of your body for all to see?”. No, I can’t imagine this, nor do I even want to. It is for reasons such as this that we are told in v. 5 to “judge nothing before its time.”
8. What does Matthew 7:1-15 have to say about judging others?
9. Does this verse mean that we do not have the right to tell others they are wrong if they are violating the precepts of God?
Many people (especially nonbelievers) want to pull Matthew 7:1 out singularly and use this verse to tell Christians that they have no right to judge them or anyone else and thus, believers are to be silent and not speak out against anything, or if they do, then they are not following the very Scripture that they preach about. This verse is undoubtedly one of the most misused verses in all the Bible. But we do have the right to discern right from wrong and to make that known, especially to those who call themselves brothers and sisters in Christ. These verses speak of not throwing dogs things that are sacred and not casting our pearls before the swine and watching out for false prophets. If we are not making a value judgment of discernment, then how can we know who is a dog or a pig or a false prophet?
Is truth a relative term or an absolute term? In other words, can you have your truth and me have my truth?
Truth, by its very definition, is an exclusive term. There is only the truth. Therefore, truth is completely objective and not subjective. If something is not true as defined by Scripture, then it is a lie. If we call sin sin, that is not being judgmental and intolerant, that is agreeing with what the Word of God calls sin. If we say that a man who is stepping out on his wife is sinning because that’s what Scripture says, then we have judged his actions based on the objective Word of God. We did not hand a sentence to him. We live in a culture where nobody wants to be called out for their sin. And if you do call someone out, then you are called a hypocrite and judgmental. It is true that hypocritical judgment is wrong. That would mean that we are telling someone else they are sinning while we are committing the same sin. We are to preach the whole counsel of God and by doing this, it becomes obvious what is sinful and what is not. So, judging is not wrong. We make value judgments every day and we discern the truth of God’s Word and contend for the faith every day. But there is a right and a wrong way to judge.
10. Look up the verses below and note what you discover about the correct way or incorrect way to judge:
John 7:24 -
Proverbs 18:13 -
Luke 7:36-50 -
Romans 2:1 -
1 Thess. 5:21 -
Gal. 6:1 -
Eph. 4:15 -
Sometimes we wonder if we should or should not tell someone that they are sinning. We wonder if it’s God’s will for us to tell them. I had a dear pastor years ago who told his congregation that if we are ever pondering whether God wants us to say something to another person about the wrong they’re doing, then we need to ask ourselves if it will hurt us just as much to tell them as we think it will hurt them to hear it. If we can answer that we will be crushed to tell another person of their sin, then most of the time, we should be telling them. There is something else that we can’t know. We can’t know the heart and intentions of another person. We may think we know. As a counselor for so long, I’ve gotten pretty good at reading people’s verbal and non-verbal communication, but only the Lord knows the intentions of the heart. We can never and should never judge a person’s heart. That is for God and Him alone.
11. Read 1 Cor. 4:6-9. What do you think Paul is saying about himself and Apollos in v. 6?
Think back about the context in which he was saying these things. There were divisions in the church. Some were following Apollos. Some were following Paul. And some were following Christ. Paul did not want there to be any question about who the people in Corinth should follow. They should all follow God.
12. Who do our spiritual gifts come from?
If God is the Giver, then what do we have to boast about? He could just as easily have given that gift to someone else and given you a different gift than the one (or more) that you have. When we learn that all gifts originate with God, we can more easily see ourselves evaporate in the glory of Him who gifted us.
13. How were the apostles made spectacles to the world?
We might say that the apostles were living with a death sentence and the known world at that time had a front row seat. But not only the world, the angels had a front row seat. This was in sharp contrast to the church at Corinth. If they were to be in the business of Christianity, then they too, would need to become a spectacle to the world because if they were living for Christ, the world would consider them to be foolish. Does the world consider you foolish? Are you living your life in such a way that those who do not know Christ look at you and think you’re nuts for your belief system? For those the Lord is drawing to Himself, they perhaps will look at your life and want what you have. That is what we should all strive for.
Verses 8-9 are a little sarcastic. Paul was implying to them that they thought they were full and rich and already reigning as they would be in the millennial reign of Christ. Well, if they were actually in the millennium, then Paul says that he would be there too. And because he ain’t there, they ain’t there! Sometimes when we’re trying to get a point across to someone, we will use sarcasm. That’s okay as long as the recipient understands that it’s sarcasm we’re using. This church thought they were so smart because they had all of those Greek philosophers in their midst. This entire letter was Paul having a little “come to Jesus” talk with them.
14. Read 1 Cor. 4:10-13. List everything in these verses that Paul says he went through to get the Word of God out to a dying world?
I know very very few people who could say this. Most of us live in fine homes and have plenty to eat. Most of us have not been to prison for our beliefs or been spat upon for proclaiming the gospel. But as time marches on, some of us might find ourselves in this position. We literally have no idea how the Apostle Paul and the other apostles suffered for the cause of Christ.
15. Read 1 Cor. 4:14-21. Who did Paul send to this church and why did he send him? In v. 14, what does he tell them that he’s not doing with this letter?
16. Then what is he doing with this letter?
There is a difference between guilt and shame. Guilt is being sorry for something that you’ve done. Shame is feeling bad for who you are. Shame makes a person feel as if they are inherently bad. Sometimes, we shame others unknowingly and at other times, it may be purposeful. I remember hearing a little kid once tell me that a parent said to them, “My life was going along just fine until you came along.” That child had the deep feeling that something was inherently wrong with him and that it was something he would never be able to fix. Many people are walking around with a shame-based identity. Adam and Eve developed a shame-based identity after they sinned and realized they were naked. People who struggle with shame often feel that they have to work their way out of it by achieving something. Paul didn’t want his children in the faith to count on their works to lift them out of any hole. He wanted their faith in God to do that. The warning he was giving them came from his heart of love for them.
The ones we love the most are the ones we feel responsible for raising. They depend on us. They need us. Paul was their spiritual father and as such, he had a lot invested in them. He did not want to shame them.
Timothy was Paul’s son in the faith. In fact, he was probably the closest thing to a son that Paul ever had. Have you ever discipled someone? Have you ever had someone you’ve discipled go astray and abandon the faith they were taught? I have. It is a sick feeling and something that grieves me in a way that nothing else can. Paul didn’t want this church to backslide completely, or at all.
17. When Paul does come back to see them, what is he most interested in finding?
1 Cor. 4:21 just makes me smile. I have said similar things to my children growing up. “Now don’t you make me come in there and spank you! I had better come in there and find you two boys getting along!”. Perhaps this is exactly what Paul meant.
“Don’t you make me come to Corinth and find you guys not getting along with one another and fighting. If I do, I’ll have to spank you!”
As I stated at the beginning of this lesson, chapter 4 is the last chapter that deals with disunity. Beginning in chapter 5, we get down to the nitty gritty! Paul begins to go into detail about the kinds of issues this church has that has caused the disunity. Go ahead and read all of chapter 5.
18. Right out of the gate in v. 1, Paul shares a situation that was going on in this church. What was it?
This was so bad, that he said the Gentiles didn’t even speak of it! That’s pretty bad when even the heathen around you think it’s bad! Apparently, this situation was common knowledge. It was flagrant sin! Have you ever been in a church where there was flagrant sin that wasn’t acknowledged? Unfortunately, l think that most of us have experienced that. Matthew 18:15-17 lays out how sin in the church should be dealt with. There is a 4-fold process.
19. List the flow of this process below.
1.
2.
3.
4.
This church at Corinth was negotiating with evil. There are some things within a church that are negotiable and some things that are non-negotiable. Whether the choir members wear robes or not is a negotiable. Whether someone should be sleeping with his father’s wife is a non-negotiable. His father’s wife could have been his mother or it could have been his step mother. This was incest and even the pagan world around them in Corinth knew this was wrong. J. Vernon McGee is one of my favorite theologians and he made this statement, “A pure church is a powerful church; an impure church is a paralyzed church.” I think he is absolutely right. Some churches have no power because they are full of sin. And because they have no power, they have no influence for the kingdom of God.
20. What does Paul say to do with this man or to any man who is guilty of sin within the body?
Shew, lawsy! Those are hard words to read and even harder to think about! Is Paul saying here that we are to throw people like this out of the church and to the dogs? Yes, in a sense, I think he is saying exactly that, but perhaps not in the way you may be thinking. There are people in the bible whom God allowed to be sifted by Satan for the purposes of bringing them to a knowledge of how they need to conduct themselves and where their hearts need to be. Job is one of those guys. Job was a righteous guy.
21. What does God propose to Satan in Job 1:6-8?
These verses make me cringe. They make me cringe because I have a fear that God might do the same thing to me or to someone I love.
22. What was Job’s response to God in Job 42:1-6 after he finally realized who he was in light of who God is? What did Peter encounter in Luke 22:31?
Sifting someone has the connotation of shaking up their faith so as to cause them to deny their faith in God. The interesting thing here is that when we read the word “you” in this verse, we assume that this is only speaking of Peter. However, the “you” in this verse is plural and it is referring to all the disciples. This sifting also means that as the sifting is taking place, the person is broken down. Amos 9:9 gives us a clear analogy of the sifting of people.
23. What is that analogy?
The sifting of grain would allow the grain to be shaken in a sieve and the dirt and gunk that you don’t want falls to the ground. That is exactly what sifting God is talking about in these verses in 1 Corinthians.
If we are shaken up, the bad and impure parts of our hearts will fall away to reveal the purest part of us, the humble part of us, the part of us that God can actually work with. God’s goal and Satan’s goal in sifting are very different. Satan wants to destroy your faith and wreck your life. Jesus reveals His goal to Peter in Luke 22:32. What is it? We know the rest of that story. Peter thought he was all that and a cup of coffee! He was reliant upon his own strength. But, when put to the test, he denied Christ 3x, and he learned that the flesh is indeed weak. That denial shook him up so bad that he returned with a strengthened faith and it was Peter who preached that amazing message on the Day of Pentecost where so many came to know the Lord. Our Christian walk is never linear. We don’t just do it all right all the time til we get to heaven! No, we screw up and we get back up and we learn and God restores us. And for those who belong to Him, what does He do for us? (John 17:9, 11, 15) So, while it may appear in 1 Cor. 5:5 that Paul is saying to kick this person who is sleeping with his father’s wife out of the church and to disassociate with him, Paul gives his reason for this, “so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” Paul understood the sifting process and he was willing to subject anyone in sin to that process in order that they might be saved.
24. In 1 Cor. 5:6-7, what does leaven represent?
In other words, it only takes one bad apple to ruin the whole bushel. Leaven is almost never spoken of in Scripture in a good light. With the exception of a couple of places, leaven is bad, and it is spoken of like a contagion. If you are leaven, others around you will catch it and be sick.
25. What feast do you think Paul was referencing here in 1 Cor. 5:8?
If you recall from our study last spring on the feasts of the Lord, the Feast of Unleavened Bread followed right after the Feast of Passover. Before this feast began, there was some serious spring cleaning that took place and every nook and cranny of every house was cleansed. Even all the cooking utensils were cleansed just in case they had accidentally touched any leaven. This, of course, was symbolic for getting all the sin out of the house. Paul was using this same analogy here in 1 Cor. 5.. We need to understand here that Paul was not talking about them being unsaved. He was talking about the saved people in this church acting like they weren’t saved. I think that’s a common problem everywhere.
26. What other categories of people were the members of this church not supposed to hang around with in 1 Cor. 5:9-11? What did Paul previously write to them in v. 9?
If you recall from our first lesson, Paul had sent the church at Corinth a letter before the letter that we know as 1 Corinthians. We do not have that letter, but it is referenced here with what some of the content was. Friends, there’s some crazy stuff that goes on in some churches that is very dishonorable to the Lord and most of the church knows it and doesn’t do a thing about it. Many churches have a big ole lump of leaven in them. Church discipline is something that our modern churches don’t like to do. Heck, we don’t even like to talk about it! But the Apostle Paul is telling us in this chapter that if we don’t deal with sin in the church, it will affect the whole church.
27. In 1 Cor. 5:12-13, who is Paul judging?
28. Who is he not judging and why?
The lesson for us here is that it is the business and responsibility of the church to judge sin within the church. God will take care of judging those outside the church. When we get to 2 Corinthians, we’ll find out what happened to this fella who was booted out of the church for sleeping with his father’s wife.
Had Paul not given this instruction to the church in Corinth, no sin would have ever been dealt with. And this is a lesson for us today in our own churches. When we are tempted to just move on because we don’t want to be judgmental or because we don’t want to embarrass anyone, we are not doing the will of God within our church. The question we must always ask ourselves is this, “Is God free to bless a church with flagrant and unrepentant sin that the church has refused to deal with?”
As we move into 1 Cor. 6, we see yet another problem within the Corinthian church, the issue of lawsuits amongst the members of this church. Can you imagine attending church and sitting in front of the person who is suing you in court? I can’t fathom this! And yet, this is exactly what is going on here. Read 1 Cor. 6:1-11. In v. 1, is Paul saying that Christians should not go to court at all?
Let’s face it, whether we want to or not, there are some things that need to be taken to court. What Paul was saying was that believers should not take other believers to court. He does not restrict a believer taking an unbeliever to court. What do you think our responsibility to the state is?
29. How does Jesus answer this question in Matthew 22:21?
Apparently, we have a dual responsibility. We owe the state and we owe God. It is like having dual citizenship. We have to pay our taxes. We have to obey the laws of our land.
30. But what else should we do with our earthly citizenship? (1 Tim. 2:1-4)
31. If we fail to do what the above-mentioned verses say, then what would be the effect on the lost world around us?
I am always reminded that it is God who puts kings on thrones and deposes them. If there is a president that is in office and we do not like him because we think his ways are evil, then there is a reason that God has allowed it. That has never been more real to me than it has been in the last 2 elections. Sometimes God gives us what we deserve. Thank God, people across our great land prayed and fasted and sought His mercy upon us for the last election.
32. What does Proverbs 29:2 say about this?
America’s mourning is over, but only temporarily. We are on God’s timeline. We know what will happen as the days go on. President Trump may be the only obstacle standing between us and the one-world government of the last days. For the momentary reprieve that we’ve been given, make good use of the time. Share the Lord and His goodness with as many people as you can while you still can. Paul is writing these words while he is under the rule of the Roman government with all of its harshness and tyranny. Nero, who was on the throne during Paul’s day, was a monster. He ascended to the throne because his mother, Agrippina, had already seen to it that Claudius and his son, Britannicus, were murdered, leaving Nero next in line to the throne. There are stories that say that Nero would wander the streets at night murdering innocent people just for the fun of it. And although his mother went to extremes to get him to the throne, he turned against her and had her murdered. He murdered his first wife so that he could marry his second. When his second wife was pregnant, he kicked her in the stomach so hard that she died and so did the baby. Eventually, the people turned against Nero and hunted him down like an animal. Rather than allow his life to fall into the hands of the people, he committed suicide.
It is against this backdrop that the Apostle Paul said to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s”. Paul had a solemn reverence for the law of his land as long as it did not violate the law of God.
33. He gave some reasons for believers being able to judge other believers in 1 Cor. 6:2-10. What are those reasons?
These verses are in no way saying that we will judge the sinners at the Great White Throne Judgement. God alone can do that. But it is saying that we, as believers, will judge angels. I can’t imagine that. There are a lot of things in Scripture that I can’t imagine, but if that is what we are told, then I accept it and believe it.
34. Who are we told will not inherit the kingdom of heaven?
1 Cor. 6:11 should give every sinner (that includes all of us) hope. We were all once lost in our sin, but now that we know Christ, our future is very different. In this verse, Paul gives us 3 reasons why we can judge.
35. What are those reasons?
1.
2.
3.
36. What does Scripture have to say about being washed? (1 John 15:3, Hebrews 10:22-24, 1 Cor. 11:23-26)
37. What does Scripture have to say about being sanctified? (John 17:17, 1 Thess. 5:23, Hebrews 10:14)
38. What does Scripture have to say about being justified? (Gal. 2:16, Romans 3:24, Romans 5:1)
Beginning with 1 Cor. 6:12-20, we dive a little bit deeper into the issue of sexual immorality.
39. Complete the following:
All things are lawful for me, but________
All things are lawful for me, but_________
Food is for the _________
The stomach is for _________
The body is not meant for ________
The body is meant for ________
The Lord is meant for ________
Because God raised ________
He will also raise ________
Whoever joins a prostitute becomes ________
He who joins the Lord becomes ________
40. What is the only sin that is committed inside the body?
I want to quote something from a great little app that I sometimes use, Got Questions, “The body was not designed for immorality in the same way that the stomach was designed for food. Sex is more than a desire to be satisfied, food does not defile a person, but immorality does.”
It is only through the act of sex that 2 people are joined and become what the Bible refers to as “one flesh”. If we are to be one flesh, it should only be with our spouse. If we are to be one in Christ, then we are spiritually one flesh with Him. When a person commits sexual immorality, that person defiles himself and the other person as well. But when a Christian does this, they have brought the Spirit of God into that immoral sexual union.
41. Now, we finally get to the passage that we referenced in another lesson. What are our individual bodies as believers?
42. Why do you think Scripture describes our bodies as a temple instead of a house? 15 What was inside the temple in Jerusalem?
The temple was laid out basically exactly like the tabernacle. Inside both was an inner court. There was the holy place where the table of shewbread and the menorah were located. Then, there was the holy of holies where the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat were located. It was above the mercy seat that the presence of the Lord resided. It was in the holy of holies that the high priest went every year on the Day of Atonement to pray away the sins of the people for another year. There was a point in the Old Testament (we studied about this in the book of Zechariah) where the spirit of God left the temple. This happened in incremental steps until the Spirit of God was gone from their midst. They didn’t even know. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Instead of the presence of God residing over the mercy seat, His Spirit resides inside of us. We are the Holy of Holies!
There is no way the High Priest would have ever gone into the Holy of Holies in a casual or undignified way. To do so would have meant certain death. And yet, we do things in our temple, the Holy of Holies where God’s Spirit resides that do not honor God.
Dear friends, we were bought and paid with a price, a very heavy price, the blood of Jesus. What you do while in your body on this earth matters for eternity. Honor Him with your body. It does not belong to you. It belongs to Him.
Blessings……
© Cindy D. Ketron. All Rights Reserved 14
