It is good to welcome you to Episode 7 in Series 1, as we continue our remarkable journey through 1 Corinthians. If you have never studied 1 Corinthians systematically before, you might be surprised at how deep and complex it is, filled with challenging issues. My belief is that this book is very helpful for the Church in every age, because the sorts of problems that Paul was facing and dealing with are the sorts of problems that you and I experience in church life.

Recap and Background

Paul has talked in detail about the lack of effective leadership, which was the major problem in 1 Corinthians, and in the church. In the last episode, we looked at a particularly difficult and extremely painful problem that was taking place in the church in Corinth. That concerned a man who, although he was a baptised member of the church and attended regularly, was in an immoral sexual relationship with his stepmother; a relationship of incest - something that every culture in those days considered to be shameful and evil. Paul recommended how to deal with this man, which essentially meant to remove him from the church community through church discipline. Having dealt with that issue, Paul now comes to another issue, which he had been told about by the members of Chloe’s household who came to see him. They had travelled to see Paul in the city of Ephesus from Corinth to explain all the difficulties that were taking place in the church. They also brought a letter, with several different things that they wanted Paul to address.

Argument and Disputes

The next issue was nearly as shocking as the last one but something totally different. He found out that the church was filled with arguments, disagreements and conflicts between people about all sorts of personal issues. The church was divided in many ways. The atmosphere in the church was difficult - tense because people were arguing about lots of things and bringing the church into disrepute.

Paul found out that the Christians in this church community were even going to the law courts in the city of Corinth to debate and ask the judges to decide between them about the rights and wrongs of the personal disputes they were having. When Paul heard this, he was horrified; he was deeply upset that this process should be happening in the church in Corinth.

“If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people? Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned in the church?! I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? But instead, one brother takes another to court- and this in front of unbelievers? The very fact that you have lawsuits among you, means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters.”

1 Corinthians 6:1-8, NIV

This is a very shocking insight into the church. Several people had gone to the law courts. The church only had, between one and two hundred members, and if you had four or five different conflicts going on in the church, and several of those had gone to the law courts in the city of Corinth, that would have created a terrible atmosphere in the whole church. Everybody knew that people were fighting against each other about different things. Paul was very distressed to hear about this.

Contentious Issues

What sorts of issues would they be arguing about? Maybe about financial issues. These are often areas of tension between Christians. Sometimes a brother might come to say, ‘Please lend me $100 or $200 because I have an urgent need.' As a brother, you are a bit richer than he is, and you lend him the money. He says, ‘I’ll pay you within a year,’ and then the year passes, and he has only paid you $5 back. He says, ‘I haven’t got the money.’ That sort of thing happens frequently in churches and can create a dispute. But imagine if those two people then go to the law courts. He promised to pay back the money, but he hasn’t paid it back. ‘I haven’t got the money to pay back; I didn’t put it in writing that I made the promise.’ Paul was really upset to think that the people in Corinth could see Christians arguing in public about these ‘trivial or relatively unimportant’ issues. Money is an issue that we always feel very deeply about. I remember a friend of mine coming to me in a similar situation some time ago saying that a brother in another church was threatening to take him to the law courts about a financial issue. I asked him, “Why don’t the two of you meet together with your two pastors?” The other man was not willing to do that. This is the sort of problem that Paul is dealing with here. He is pointing out that the local church leaders should have the ability to help people resolve these issues.

In some societies, especially where shame and honour are very important, arguments arise amongst Christians about dignity and about honour. If you say something about a member of my family that is negative, I can become very aggressive towards you because you shamed my family, and that can develop into an argument. In many cultures in the world, we find those arguments develop to a greater and greater extent, because the shame of someone saying something negative about my family causes me to have to defend my family, to defend the honour of my family.

Sometimes the arguments are about things that we find referred to in the New Testament. Here are three examples of where arguments arose in the church in the days of the Apostles. The very first one that we see mentioned in the life of the church, took place in Acts 6. We find that in the Jerusalem church there was an argument developing about distribution of food to the poorest people in the community who were widows. Some of those widows were from the local community and spoke the Aramaic language; some of those widows were from the Greek-speaking community amongst the Jewish people. Food was given to the Aramaic speaking local people, and not to the people who had come into the city who spoke a different language. A dispute arose, and this was about ethnicity, race and culture. Sometimes arguments develop in churches because of the different cultures that exist, different languages that are spoken, and different cultural practices. The Apostles had to intervene, and they appointed seven men to make sure that the food was distributed evenly between these two groups.

Paul refers to disputes in his other writings. In Philippians 4: 2. He is writing to the church in Philippi, one of the other churches he founded just before he came to Corinth.

“I plead with Euodia, and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, I ask you, my true companion, help these women, since they’ve contended at my side in the cause of the gospel.”

These two women had had an argument in the church in Philippi, and Paul heard about it. He was somewhere else and he wrote and told them, ‘Come to an agreement. Don’t get into a longstanding conflict in the church.’ He asked a friend of his who was taking the letter, to help them come to an agreement. They had had an argument; they had fallen out and there was a conflict in the church.

These conflicts didn’t just happen to church members. They sometimes happened to the church leaders. Paul himself experienced a major disagreement with one of his colleagues. This is an interesting example of how Paul dealt with this particular problem. He had gone on his first missionary trip with another Apostle called Barnabas, and they had had a very successful church-planting trip. It is recorded in Acts 13 and 14, but when they wanted to go on another trip, they had a very sharp disagreement about who they should take with them. It says in Acts 15: 37, Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them. Paul did not think it wise to take him because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in their work. John Mark, had been with them before, but had left the trip halfway through. Barnabas said, 'Let’s try him again,' and Paul said, 'No, I don’t want him on the team because I don’t think he has got a strong enough character to deal with the issues we are going to face.' They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company; they went on two separate missionary trips. Even Paul could be in sharp disagreement with other leaders. But Paul obviously resolved this conflict because, later in his writings, he spoke very positively of Barnabas. They operated in different ways, but they came together again at a later stage; they did not go to the law courts; they didn’t make a big issue of it. They decided to continue on different pathways. So, in the New Testament, even amongst leaders, even amongst the apostles, disputes could arise.

Church Leaders to Judge

Paul’s recommendation is very important. Local church leaders should be able to deal with any disputes between members. That is what he wanted in Corinth. He told them not go to the law courts if they had a conflict, for example over finance and money, but to go to the church leaders, accept their judgement and seek a reconciliation. Maybe everyone would need to give a little bit of ground and to compromise; they may need to form a written agreement. People needed to have pastors overseeing the process, to help resolve the conflicts, if necessary. Church leaders should be able to address these issues. Paul asked, in verse 5, ‘Is it possible that there’s nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers?’ He was very worried about the loss of reputation, if they were going to have disputes in front of unbelievers, in the law courts.

Future Judgement

Another perspective Paul brings into this discussion is something that we might find quite extraordinary. In verse 2, he says, “Do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? Do you not know that we will judge angels?”. Paul is looking forward to the end of the world, to the time when Jesus comes again. He is looking forward to when Jesus establishes his Kingdom in a renewed earth, and He is ruling his Kingdom. Paul points out that Christians, who will be saved because their names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, will participate with Jesus; they will be alongside Jesus as they look after this new world and as they get rid of all the evil that has been in the world before. Paul even makes the very astonishing statements that we will stand alongside Jesus as fallen angels and demonic spirits are finally judged. This is a remarkable insight. The redeemed community of believers will come alongside Jesus at the very end of the world, when the new heaven and the new earth are being established, and they will be responsible for looking after the renewed earth.

Paul makes a mention of it here, but it is developed much more in Revelation 20, 21 and 22. If we are going to be responsible for the whole earth, and if we are going to stand alongside Jesus as he is the judge of all people, then how is it that we can’t deal with trivial cases of disputes that go on in the local church? Paul is very concerned about the reputation of the church. In fact, he is very concerned about the church altogether; his genuine fear is that the church will collapse and die, and that would be a terrible thing for Paul to experience. He wants to save the church from its internal problems.

Washed, Sanctified, Justified

“Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who have sex with men, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers, will inherit the Kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God.”

1 Corinthians 6:9-11, NIV

Paul reminds them here of what they have been redeemed from. He is always very clear that salvation is a radical change. In some cultures, we can just put our hand up in a meeting and say, ‘I want to follow Jesus’ or come along on a Sunday and say, ‘I want to be in the church congregation’ and churches grow through this process. But in the New Testament, and it should be in our churches too, the decision to become a Christian is a dramatic and complete change. Paul wanted to remind people of what they had been set free from and what they had come into, so that they dealt with these disputes in a godly way. There are many different types of sin that people have been redeemed from in Corinth including sexual immorality, idolatry, temple worship, adultery, men who have sex with men, thieves, greedy drunkards, people drinking too much, slanderers, swindlers and many people were doing bad business practice in the markets in Corinth.

Paul says there are three things that have happened to people who have become believers and define what they are. First, he says, ‘You have been washed.’ That is a lovely expression which refers, in one way, to baptism. Baptism is a tremendously important expression of what it means to become a Christian. It is a physical symbol of an inner spiritual change; washing isn’t just outward - it is the inner change of heart and character. The Holy Spirit comes to live within us. The previous sins don’t need to dominate us, and therefore they don’t need to become part of the disputes that Paul was referring to in the first part of our passage. We were washed.

We were sanctified. That word means ‘set apart’. We are set apart to serve God. We have been commissioned to serve God. We are part of his community. We are living for him, not for the old life.

We are justified. Our past sins have been dealt with by Jesus on the cross; we are no longer under their power; we no longer need to follow their ways, says Paul. He wants to remind people of the reality of their salvation so that they don’t go back into a sinful, selfish way of life, and then start having arguments with people in the church - becoming angry, defensive, selfish, and self-righteous about their rights. We let go of all that when we become believers, says Paul.

Reflections

It is very important to resolve disputes we have with other believers as much as we can. It is a priority. That is the first thing we learn from this passage. If the arguments carry on, they generally get worse and they become a big problem. How do we get a resolution? We bring our disputes to pastors and leaders and mature church members that we trust to help us deal with conflict.

The second thing we learn from this passage is how important it is to have mature and wise leaders in churches - people who are not interested in their own reputation, who don’t expect everyone to do everything they say just because they have a high status in society, but leaders who come to serve with spiritual authority, the authority of God, the authority of the Word of God, the authority of the Holy Spirit’s presence in their life. Those leaders need to make sure that they are not involved in any of the sinful practices that Paul has listed here, and that they are not involved in arguments and disputes as leaders.

In Titus 1: 6 - 8, Paul says an elder should be, “An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. Since an overseer manages God’s household. He must be blameless, not overbearing, not quick tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. Rather, he must be hospitable. One who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined”.

These are the sort of people Paul wanted in Corinth, but they didn’t have those type of leaders. The disputes between church members tended to grow and then they went to the law courts. Then the church was humiliated and lost its reputation in the community because the unbelievers could say, ‘Look at these Christians, they can’t even solve their personal disputes with each other without coming to the law courts.’ Paul was very concerned about the welfare of the church, and he wanted these disputes to end as quickly as possible.