Thursday,
Paul is pretty clear on the disputes over lawsuits. Don’t take your fellow Christian to court… settle it among yourselves. Oh, if this could only be true today. How many people could save them a lot of hardship and lawyer fees, court fees… To be taken to court over something that could be settled between two reasonable people, must just make Satan smile. Ok, so I admit that I’ve watched a few episodes of those “people court” type shows. It’s like deer in the headlights, for some reason I can’t shut the TV off when one catches my eye. Many times these episodes involve family members or friends and the end result is that relationship is ruined forever. Is there any amount of money that is worth destroying those relationships?
What Paul is saying is that these lawsuits have the potential of destroying the fellowship of believers. You will find that in any group, people will start to take sides and this will eventually lead to a split in the group.
I know that Jesus never meant for his church to be divided, but we seem to have too many examples of where God’s people could not reason through a dispute.
The other problem here, as Paul points out, is that unbelievers are watching what Christians are doing. If they treat each other this way, is this something that an unbeliever will want to get involved with?
Our actions are constantly being observed by other people. What message are we sending them?
Apparently there was a group within the Corinthian Church that were saying that “everything was permissible”. Paul himself had taught that Christians are not saved by the law but by faith in Jesus Christ and that believers have been set free from all other masters. The problem that arose from this teaching, was a misconception that a person could do whatever they wanted to do – a theology that says since their spirits have been saved and liberated through Christ, what they do with their bodies is not important. They gloried in their spiritual liberation (1 Corinthians 4:8). It is a theology that allows you to sin away because you will be forgiven. And actually encourages you to sin more so that you will be forgiven more.
Paul goes on to state that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Should we defile such a dwelling place? Absolutely not. Instead we should be honoring God with our bodies. Which means that every part of our lives should be God-honoring, even down to the simplest of acts. Do all things to bring honor and glory to God.
Grace and Peace
Pastor Kathy