We come in our Bible survey to the first letter to the Corinthians. Whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do it all to the glory of God. Now, the Corinthians were a very worldly port city. We in Cape Town can somewhat identify with the issues that the Corinthians were dealing with. Corinthians is famous as having the matchless chapter on love which is read at many a wedding, 1 Corinthians 13. It has the great chapter on the resurrection of the body, 1 Corinthians 15, which is read at many funerals. But there's so much more in Corinthians. It's dealing with problems, it's dealing with division, it's dealing with wisdom and foolishness. It's dealing with worldliness in the church, of immorality, marriage, singleness, divorce. the Lord's Supper, gifts and callings. It's dealing with major problems that have to be tackled in terms of church leadership and practical application on a daily basis. Now, the problems in Corinthians were severe, and while this church seemed to have had all the gifts, they do not seem to have had much character or integrity. There was so much division, backbiting, divisiveness, factions, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Peter, these trying to fight with one another, they were guilty of some of the worst immorality. There was drunkenness going on in the church, even at the Lord's Supper, there was an aggressive form of feminism taking place, there was immorality and lack of modesty. And so Paul, who planted this church, who is the father, who says you may have thousands of instructors but you only have one father, I'm the one who's forgotten you, and Paul is horrified at the reports he's getting and this letter would have been written about 55 AD and it would have been written from Ephesus because Paul hears about what's going on and he sends Timothy in order to try and put right a lot of the chaos going on there. It's interesting that there are some churches out there that call themselves Corinthian Baptist Church or something like that and I've seen some of them And it's quite strange that anyone would want to name themselves after their church. You understand why a person would name themselves the Bereans. The Bereans were noble, they studied the scriptures daily to see if these things were true. But the Corinthians, what a chaotic shambles of a church. They had the gifts. They were rich both in the world's goods and in spiritual gifts but they were a spiritual chaotic mess. Now the city of Corinth is on a narrow isthmus of land that joins the mainland of Greece to the Peloponnesus. It was a very important seaport and an important destination for merchants because instead of going over the hazardous rocky stormy south of Greece around, they would come into this narrow equinox, they would offload their ships and go the short distance to the other side of this peninsula in order to load on to other ships and some smaller ships would take them in rollers and literally just take them across. Now there's a canal. going through. In fact Caesar tried to build a canal but that had failed. Now Athens is only about 70 kilometres away. So Athens and Corinth were like Glasgow and Edinburgh, not far from one another. And while Athens was a university city, so Corinth was the port city, the merchant city, the trade city, the industrial city, a very big busy town. and the Corinthian Canal had not yet been built at the time that Paul writes this letter. The first city had been destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC. Now it had been rebuilt. The Romans had built it up from 44 BC. Julius Caesar had actually founded the second part and it was the capital of the province of Achaia. cosmopolitan, the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, but it was Roman law and it was very much, while it was in Greece, it was more of a Roman city in many ways. Very wealthy, but not of noble birth, not many of noble birth, and like many of the people who have riches and what they call new money, without maybe the culture and upbringing that has often gone along with it. They were very arrogant, snobbish and very forceful, wanting things done their way. And they were terribly pagan. They lived in a very pagan area. The gods of Greece and Rome were worshipped in Corinth. There was a huge temple to Poseidon, the god of the sea. And there was also a huge temple of Aphrodite, who is the goddess of love. And so you had this Roman god, Poseidon, you had this Greek god, Aphrodite, both heavily worshipped. And there was a term to Corinthianize, which basically was to be immoral, like many people might speak about Californication these days, because it's just such an immoral area. Corinth was known to be promiscuous, immoral, debauched, arrogant, wealthy, corrupt, litigatious, going to court over all sorts of issues. And so these people having new money, lots of wealth, in 1 Corinthians 6 verses 9-10 the Apostle Paul speaks about their backgrounds. He says, sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexual offenders, thieves, greedy, drunkards, slanders, swindlers, and such were many of you. But you were washed, you were cleansed, you had been sanctified. And so these church members came out of very bad backgrounds. And idolatry was very big in Corinth, and idolatry was still in their church. In fact, not just idolatry in terms of food offered to idols, which brings up the question of halal in our own society today, which is also food offered to idols. but that they were actually idolizing church leaders. Instead of recognizing that Christ alone is head of the church, they were very much building themselves around, well I am of Peter, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos. And as Paul bluntly puts it, was Paul crucified for you? No. It's not about us, it's not about the leaders. It's about Christ. There was this Celtic idolatry of leaders. And two of the biggest battles in any church is how do you get the church to engage in the world in evangelism? How can you keep the church in the world, and how can you keep the world out of the church? Which is holiness. And these are the two big battles, evangelism and holiness. In one sense we want to be separated from the world, so that we're not corrupted by it. But in the other hand we want to be engaged in the world, otherwise how can we evangelize it? Just like the National Sea Rescue Institute has to have the seas, the ships in the sea, but the sea must not be in the ship. The church must be in the world rescuing the perishing, but the world must not be in the church or we are sunk. A rescue boat cannot allow a large amount of water to be on board or the whole ship is sunk underwater. No use. How can it save anyone? And so it is, the church must be separated enough from the world that we're not corrupted and debased and compromised with all, but we've got to be engaged enough with the world so that we can be winning them to Christ. So there's got to be just enough contact that you can be effective, but not so much contact that you've lost your identity and you've become part of the world, part of the problem. Corinth being a seaport, typical seaports, a lot of immorality, And almost anything was acceptable in Corinth and the trouble is almost anything seems to be acceptable in the Corinthian church too. They had been corrupted and debased by the world. Now although in Greece it was Roman law, Roman culture, it was Roman society really that was carrying on in Greece. Just like you could look at Cape Town and say Cape Town in many ways is a piece of Europe annexed to the outer edge of Africa because the culture here is very cosmopolitan. In many cases it's like you've got a piece of Europe here. You've got the Portuguese club, you've got the Greek club, you've got Jewish synagogues, you can have the German school, over here you can have French, you can have all kinds of cultures and languages and religions, everything from the Greek Orthodox through to Anglicans, Charismatics, megachurches, everything goes in Cape Town. Well Corinth was something like that. And so Corinthians is a letter, an epistle, that's very relevant to our time and our place. There's a lot of things from Greece that is not biblical. And so, for example, some people think democracy is Christianity. No, it isn't. Democracy is a pagan Greek concept. And of course their democracy was only for men and it was only for the upper class elite men and it didn't include women and it didn't include slaves. So what they called democracy in Greece wouldn't exactly be recognized by many people today anyway. But the idea that 50% plus one rules is democracy. But Christians haven't held for democracy, we've held for lex rex, the law is king, the law rules, where you have a republic, where you have a constitutional monarchy, where you have a government of laws, a government of rules, and where it doesn't matter what 51% say, it's not a matter of raising your hands and taking a vote, it's a matter of what does the word of God say, what does the constitution say, what does the law say, we must do what is right. Freedom isn't to do what we want, freedom is to do what we ought. And so there's a huge difference between the Greek concept of democracy and a biblical concept of a representative state, a government of laws. which can be applied to a king in a constitutional monarchy or it could be to a representative republic it would could be a confederation but it is not the pagan concept of democracy that should rule in the church and some people think oh you should operate like a democracy but in the bible we don't see that we see Paul appointing Titus and telling him to appoint the elders and the bishops in Cyprus and in Crete. And you see how there's leadership taken from the top down in many cases as well. But there's an entreability to the church too. So you have this balance of representative, but you get real leadership, but it's in accordance with law and under God. The other thing about the Greek and Roman society, especially the Greeks, was sports was such an ideology. It was so important, well that's where the Olympics came from, they actually worshipped the human body and they worshipped statues of the most perfect, not that there could be any human beings like the way the Greek statues were made, but the idea that they worshipped perfection in human form and they worshipped their sports. Well sports has its place and we read in 1 Corinthians, some very good principles in life and for devotions and for doctrinal principles and to selfleship. At the end of 1 Corinthians 9 we read, Do not all those who run in a race run, but only one will receive the prize. Run in such a way that you may obtain the prize. Everyone who competes for the prize is temperate, self-restrained in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, which actually was a wreath of maybe gold leaves. Initially it might have been just green leaves. But it's a perishable crown. But we run for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus, not with uncertainty. Thus I fight, not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body, I bring it in subjection, lest when I preach to others I myself will become disqualified. It doesn't just matter who crosses the finish line first or who scores the most goals. You've got to obey the rules. If you break the rules you can be disqualified, which includes taking drugs and so on. There's all kinds of rules involved in a race. And so it's not just a matter of getting to the top, becoming the leader, the pastor, the apostle, the one who gets the most people coming forward at a crusade or something like that. You've got to do this in accordance with the rules, in accordance with the laws. You can be disqualified in sports, you can be disqualified in spiritual life too. And this is the problem in Corinth. The people have been so affected by the immorality and by the idolatry and by the hyper-democracy and feminism that was amongst the Aphrodite cult and who were into their sports such except that all that mattered was winning and Paul's pointing out, no, there are rules, there's a law. this is being done for Christ. And so the great battle cries of the Reformation come through here, even just in the first chapter of 1 Corinthians, you get sola scriptura, scripture alone is the ultimate authority. You get solidary glory, everything should be done to the glory of God alone. Whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, it's all got to be done to the glory of God. You see solus Christus coming through strongly, that Christ alone is the head of the church. This isn't about Paul, this isn't about Peter, this isn't about Apollos, this is about Christ. And if the leader ever becomes such a focal point that he gets in the way of Christ, then he is not only a failure, but he is now an enemy. He is no longer fulfilling his purpose. We are all meant to be servants of Christ. Christ must be lifted up. And so the idea that any church can become so cultic as to be centered on an individual or person other than God himself, as seen in Christ, is an abomination. And Paul is pointing out the fact that in sports you have to discipline yourself. You have to do without. You have to be careful what you eat and drink and how much sleep. Not too much, not too little. How much exercise. It's got to be regular. It's got to be deliberate. It's got to be focused. You don't win a boxing match by beating the air. You've got to have your energy and your focus aimed at the target in such a way that you win. But you've got to win in accordance with the rules. What doesn't count? And these principles apply to spiritual life as well. And so all these things in history become our examples. And everything that's happened to the children of Israel, those who passed through the cloud, those who were baptized, so to speak, through the sea, who ate the spiritual food in the wilderness, who drank the spiritual drink in the wilderness, who received water from a rock, and that rock was Christ. And he says all these things were examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted and do not become idolaters as some of them were. Now all these things happened to him as examples and are written down for our admonition. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he falls. And all throughout Corinthians we see the importance of history, we see the importance of discipline, we see the importance of focus. Attitude is everything. The gifts are looked at. All the different gifts. There's so many gifts that the Lord has given. And yet, are they worth anything if they're exiled with the wrong attitude? If it's not in love? And so we look at the different gifts in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. There's diversities of gifts, but there's the same Spirit. There's many different ministries, but there's the same Lord. Just like there's many parts of the body. And yet, it's part of the same body. So some people have a word of wisdom. Some have words of knowledge. Others have great gifts of faith. Some have gifts of healing. Some miracles. Others prophecy. Some discernment. Others tongues and interpretations. But what good does it do is the whole thrust. If I speak with the tongues of men of angels but have not love, then I'm like a sounding brass or clanging cymbal, which can be quite irritating. I may have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries, have all knowledge, but I could have faith to move mountains, but if I don't have love, I'm nothing. Although I could bestow all my gifts to the poor, though I give my body to be burned, I mean, you could even be a martyr for Christ, but if I have not love, it profits me nothing. And then he defines what real love is. Now, because he was in the city of the temple of Aphrodite, because they worshipped the goddess of love, because they thought they knew what love was. And Paul points out, no, you don't know what love is. In fact, in the Greek, there's four words for love, which is helpful, because in English, we can use the word love for so many things, from loving ice cream all the way through to speaking about the love of God. God is love. How can one word encompass all this? And so in Greek, it differentiates between physical erotic love of Eros, storge, family love, philio, which is brotherly love, and then agape, which is God's sacrificial love. And he defines love, but the love he's defining is agape. Love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself. Love is not puffed up. It does not behave rudely. It does not seek its own. It does not provoke. It thinks no evil. It does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. And so the biblical definition of love, or acapella, God's kind of love, given 1 Corinthians 13, 4-8, is so different from what the world is talking about. When the world is talking about love, so often what it's talking about is more like lust or a kind of selfish, I love you if, I love you because, I love under these conditions. And so the situation that you've got in the love given in man's love is so conditional. And it's therefore temporary. And so if you think of the Aorist type of love, which is lust, and the Filio love, which is more like like, and the Agape love, which is real love, sacrificial. Aorist is all about attraction. Filio is about affection. But agape is about attention and action. There's much more emphasis on attitude and action when it comes to agape. Love is not a feeling, it's an act of your will. Words of one important song. And so while eros can be more emotional, philio or philadelphia, love of the brothers, can be more intellectual, agape love is more a determination, a commitment. And while there's a lot of conditions to Eros, there's a commitment and unconditional sacrificial love in Agape. And while the Eros is of the flesh and it's temporary, the Philadelphia love is long lasting, but the Agape love is permanent, it is sacrificial, it is unconditional love. Then the family love of Storge. Family, loyalty, affection expressed through service. So there's these four words in Greek for love. Eros, Phileo, Storge, Agape. And 1 Corinthians 13 is speaking about Agape love. Now, you cannot choose your family. Your family love is a set commitment. Definitely blood is stronger than water, as has been said how many times. But acapella is an act, it's a choice, it's action, it's attitude, and therefore it's not dependent on all the different ifs, ands and buts that we would give in human love. And so, where we are here with the cultural clash between the Greeks, who were very much in democracy, very much in the ideology of sport, but the other big thing about Greek thinking was the separation of the body and the soul. To the Greeks, the body was not that important. What really mattered was the intellect and the soul, the spirit. So you could do the basic things with your body and it wouldn't pollute your soul in the Greek mindset. In fact this way of thinking is in a lot of Christians too, that they somehow can be holy in their spirit while absolutely debauched in their body and in their life. Like many people can completely divorce their Christian faith and values with their politics and their occupation. It's a very Greek concept. The idea that the Greeks could somehow separate this idealistic spiritual from the physical. But that's not the biblical thinking. Biblical thinking is that your soul is your being and hence the term in maritime emergency of Save Our Souls, S.O.S. is so biblical because Save Our Souls, it means to save our bodies and souls because we are a living, breathing composite. The body, the mind and the spirit is more or less firmly attached together. You can't really separate the one from the other and when missionaries were being rebuked for spending so much time on unspiritual work, such as rescuing orphans in India or fighting against infanticide. They were told to confine their ministry to spiritual activities. As Amy Carmichael so classically responded, bodies are more or less firmly attached to souls. Therefore, to serve the one and serve the other goes together. You serve a person's soul by serving their body. It goes together. How can you separate? So the biblical concept is souls and bodies go together. And the Greeks did not believe that the body was integral to the soul. In fact, they thought that death frees the soul to be unrestrained by all the restraints of this vile human body. Whereas to the Christian we believe in the resurrection of the body and that's why 1 Corinthians 15 is found in this book written to the Corinthians to emphasize to the Greek thinking of the city that the body is so important. Many religions believe in an afterlife. Only Christianity teaches the resurrection of the body, because the body is important, which is why Christians have not traditionally burned the dead, but have, because cremation is more a pagan Greek, pagan Viking pagan Celtic, pagan Hindu practice that Christians have believed in burial, as did Abraham with Sarah as did Joseph insist that his body be brought back to his own land to be buried from Egypt and they remembered 400 years later to bring Joseph's body with them on the Exodus and Jesus was buried. His followers didn't have his body burned. Christianity is burial because the burial service is a clear picture of insure and certain hope of the resurrection of the body from the dead. and therefore Christians have believed in burial. It is a uniquely Christian practice. It's only in the 20th century that Christians have started to go back to cremation, which used to be pre-Christian. And this is the whole emphasis in 1 Corinthians 15. The body matters. The body is important. And the Corinthians were struggling to understand what was acceptable behavior for a Christian, because they'd separate the body from the soul. They didn't see that it's linked together. And that's why the emphasis that we get in 1 Corinthians 3 and 1 Corinthians 6 is, you are a temple of the Holy Spirit. In the past, God's people had a temple. Now, God has a temple in his people. There has been a complete re-emphasis that it's no longer a place in Jerusalem, it's every believer is to be a temple of the Lord. The Greeks were doing one of three things with their bodies. Because their bodies weren't so important, they either indulged their body through gluttony and drunkenness, which is forbidden in Corinthians, Or they ignored their body and tried to be aesthetics, thinking that you've got to deny your body, maybe like the monks fasting, which of course Martin Luther, before his conversion, believed he had to do, because that was taught in the Middle Ages Catholic Church, which was more influenced by the Greek philosophers of Socrates and of Aristotle. Or they idolized their bodies, as with their sports and with their statues. And so you had indulging the body, ignoring the body, or idolizing the body. And Paul reminds them, no, their body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. What we do with our bodies and our souls is important. What we do with our body affects our souls. What we do with our souls affects our bodies. And attitude is everything. It's not just what you do, it's why you do it. It's how you do it. It's your attitude. And that's why it doesn't matter if you even are willing to be a martyr for God if your attitude isn't right. The attitude and motive isn't for the glory of God alone. That's why Soli Deo Gloria is on the tomb of Andrew Murray in Wellington. It's on the one-man coins of Soli Deo Gloria. Everything should be done for the glory of God alone. The fifth solo of the Reformation. And so many church members today are effectively Greek in their thinking. For most of Christian history, Christians have seen it as important to have our body and our soul in conformity. So for example, the idea was if you're coming to church, coming to worship the Lord, you dress up, you clean your body, you wear your best, you have an attitude of worship which includes standing up, perhaps for the reading of the word or sing hymns, kneeling for prayer. Kneeling has been a practice of the church for 19 centuries and somewhere in the 20th century it's ceased being a common practice. It was common for families when they were praying family devotions to kneel. We read that, for example, that was common for William Wilberforce, for Luther, for David Livingstone. David Livingstone was found on his knees, and he died on his knees in prayer. Kneeling was a normal practice for Christians for most of history, but somehow Greek philosophy has come in to us in the last century in that your physical body isn't as important, and what you do and how you dress and how you behave isn't so important. But Corinthians deals with a whole lot of things matter. Long hair on a man is a disgrace. We read in 1 Corinthians 14, 1 Corinthians 11, 14. We read that long hair on a woman is a glory. We read in here that how we dress and how we behave is important and women are rebuked for not being modest in their clothing. And men are rebuked for acting like women and being effeminate and not having a distinction in either clothing or their hair. And you can see in Corinthians everything from leadership cults being dealt with, immodesty in dress, hairstyles and clothing being tackled, and litigation. Church members were taking one another to court, they were threatening one another with legal attacks, rather than setting matters amongst themselves, and they were rebuked severely for this. We are told bad company corrupts good morals. Long hair on a man is a disgrace. We are not to go to the world to settle problems within the church. Forbidden. And some Christians in Corinth were mixing the worship of God with pagan practices. And if you think how for centuries the church has tried to be uniquely Christian. And there were reasons why the church had its architecture like it did. Pulpit Having a central place showing the teaching and preaching of the Word is critical. The Lord's table, which may be an open Bible, again symbolizes the fact that we have free access to God through the Word of God and that we have a table. Not an altar, just the sacrifice has been done, but as Protestants we hold to a table. We don't have a crucifix in the church because Christ is no longer on the cross. We might have an empty cross, because Christ has risen. He's reigning from on high. Pastors tended to wear a Geneva gown, an academic gown on Sundays. Why? Not to draw attention to themselves, but the opposite. These days we've got all this glitter and all the kinds of robes embossed and it looks more like regal robes. That's not a Geneva gown. What the Protestants wore was a simple black gown that just covered their normal clothes. They had a wooden pulpit to separate the personality and the dress style and the shoes of the pastor from attention. The main attention is to be on the word of God, on the Lord Himself, it's His Word, His Will, His Worship, His Work. And so the minister is obscured. So the way we've now moved to strutting up and down on the stage, having if a lecture at all a see-through lecture, this is all putting more attention on the person and less attention on the Lord and the Word. So a lot of what we've done has actually undermined 2,000 years of Christian tradition and history, and have thrown most of those hymns out. And they want to go into a system now where if it's new it's better. Well that would have fitted with the Corinthians. But the Corinthians are being warned, do everything decently and in order. It is not honouring to God to have different people speaking, to have chaos going on. And these people where everyone starts screaming and shouting at the same time, that's not prayer. In the book of Acts we read that when the church all prayed together, they prayed the same words. There was obviously a liturgy. They all lifted up their voices and we read what they said. It wasn't a babble. It was coherent, logical. And so the distinction between men and women is also very clear. The feminists in Corinth were trying to get men more effeminate, women more masculine, blend the different distinction between the genders, abolish gender distinctions and the letter to the Corinthians reasserts what our standards are meant to be. You see a proper understanding of the Lord's Supper, how we are meant to honour the Lord, how it's meant to be serious, it's meant to be solemn, it's meant to be spiritual. There's no place for gluttony, overeating, drunkenness or anything like this at the Lord's Table, which apparently was taking place. Corinthians was a charismatic church, but it was a carnal church. There were worldly and Paul condemns them because they might have been charismatic, they had all the gifts, they'd been enriched with every gift, but they were lacking character, they were lacking integrity, they were not handling the gifts in the right way. For example, some churches think that you've got to have a foot-washing ceremony, and the Pope even has a foot-washing ceremony. That misses the point. Jesus washed his disciples' feet because it needed to be done. They walked in sandals in dirty outdoor streets where donkeys and oxen walked, and they came into the eating place, and the way the people acted, they didn't have tables there, they lay around an open area, probably with their elbow on a cushion, and there your feet would be close to the other person's, a face and maybe even close the food. Washing the feet was a practical, necessary, hygienic thing to be done. Jesus did it not to make a scene, but because it was something practical that needed to be done. And he did it. And he was being an example to them of, we should be willing, if we are the first, be willing to be the last. If we are the ones who lead, be willing to serve. Even doing dirty, unpleasant and unpopular work. Now if you have a ceremony, such as in St. Peter's, where the Pope comes and he washes the feet of his cardinals, who obviously have not got dirty feet, haven't been walking out on dirt roads. This is just a mindless, meaningless ceremony to make the Pope seem something like Christ, whereas of course he isn't. Whereas the people come and kiss his toe and kiss his ring and all this nonsense, and he does some kind of washing of clean feet. They probably were extra specially cleaned and foot-pounded that morning because they're going to have their feet washed by the Pope. What purpose is that? That is an empty ritual. And it's a look-at-me type of ritual. What gives that? No. It's a simple task done when it needs to be done. Necessity. Not ceremony. Now there's a whole lot of other things in Corinthians such as you could bring up the problem of halal today. should we be eating food offered to idols? Well, as Paul points out, the things which people offer to idols are not actually offered to idols but to demons. I wouldn't want you to be partaking with demons. You cannot share in the table of the Lord and with a couple of demons at the same time. And so we should have nothing to do with idolatry. But he also says, but you must realize these idols have no power, and Christ is greater power. So if you happen to have, without knowing it, eaten food offered to idols, don't worry about it. But if somebody points out to you, this food was offered to idols, You notice there's this halal sign on there. This is obviously being packaged and prepared by Muslim while they've been praying to Allah and all this. Well, now I know this is food offered to idols. If I've got a choice, especially for a matter of conscience and witness, it would be better to avoid food offered to idols. Not that you need to be afraid of it, because these idols are powerless in the face of God. But on the other hand, let's not knowingly have part and compromise with things that have been dedicated to idols. So there we get again a good understanding of how to balance both the law and our liberty in Christ. In the passages here dealing in 1 Corinthians 11 with the Lord's Supper and also dealing with a woman's headdress and it speaks of it's so important that men and women are different and that they look different and that they dress different and that the hair is different and that it is a glory for women to have long hair it's a disgrace for men to have long hair. The fact that this comes in here would seem to indicate that through the centuries, especially in the Middle Ages, didn't read the Bibles very well, is how many have depicted Jesus as long-haired. In fact, he often looks like some Californian surfer with long hair and sandals and the hippies sort of like this image. But that's not the practical way that a person in first century Israel behaved. Judeans and Galileans had short hair. And you know this because have you noticed how the films on the life of Jesus, the hair's been getting shorter, shorter, shorter, the more we do archaeological research and look at it and realize actually the Renaissance artists were wrong. Jesus couldn't have had long hair. We read that Samson had long hair. This was unusual. We don't read that Jesus had long hair. There's not a single indication anywhere in the Bible that Jesus had long hair. Why do we think he had long hair? It's just because that's the way Renaissance artists depicted it. And they didn't know, the oldest pictures of Jesus in the catacombs, dating from the 1st and 2nd century, showed him having very short hair. Which actually was pretty normal for that time. And you'll see in a film like Jesus and Nazareth, all the disciples have short hair. And Jesus is the only one with long hair. Which just shows that it wasn't even the fashion. But there's no way that one Corinthians could condemn long hair on a man as a disgrace if Jesus had come with long hair. We're talking about the Apostle Paul now, writing in 55 AD, which is a very, very short time after the Lord was on earth. We're talking about less than 22 years before. And Paul had actually seen the Lord. on the road to Damascus. And for him to write long hair in a man is a disgrace. And for most Christian artists to depict Jesus having long hair shows a serious disconnect. Obviously, some people who are artists are not very good students of the Bible and have not paid close attention. We know that he had a beard because it mentions him plucking out handfuls of his beard. But we don't know that he had long hair. In fact, all evidence is no, not even possible. It just shows, again, some idolatry there. And I remember one young man coming here wanting to work with us in our mission, and he arrived here with long hair and he looked quite a drip actually, hands in his pockets, long hair, hunched over shoulders, and I told him that he should go and have a haircut if he wants to be part of our outreaches, and he refused with long hair, so I handed him the Bible and said, could you show me where it says that? Well, I don't know where, but... I can save you the time, it's nowhere in the Bible. And, interestingly enough, when he came back with his haircut, and a shave, and suddenly his shoulders were up, and he turned into a really nice, ideal person. His whole attitude changed. There was nothing wrong with him, but somehow he had bought into the culture, and once he got liberated from that culture, and just told, you know, Stop having some idolatrous, humanist, Hollywood idea. Get a biblical view of Christ and get out there and clean your acts up and stop being a woman. And he became one of the best people at our Great Commission camp, actually. A real model. In fact, one of our best people. So, what we have in the scripture is transvestism is condemned. Men should act and look like men. Women should act and look like women. It is wrong for women to try and be like men. It's wrong for men to try and be like women. It's wrong for men to wear women's clothing, it's wrong for women to wear men's clothing. No wonder the Bible is hated by this modern culture that's trying to destroy distinctions, destroy the family. The family is the basic building block of society. The family is absolutely critical, which is why the pastures here on marriage and on the family and on divorce and singlehood is so important. And For most of Christian civilization there's been a great respect given to the family and a great stigma attached to having children out of wedlock or being single parents. Now in recent time they've gone way over on the other side to removing that stigma so now it's quite common to get pastors with their daughter, unmarried daughter with child at their home and no problem with this and this has become so common that in fact now A majority of black people in this country, for example, would tend to be in single parent homes. They don't even necessarily know who their father is. And that's, in America, it's the overwhelming majority of black people don't even know who their parents are. And this is the single biggest indicator for a life of crime, immorality, drugs, and suicide, and whatever category of negative you want. The single biggest indicator of a ruined life is the fact that they don't have both parents in the home. Now that's not to say that by God's grace some people who've had a very bad background can't come out of it. Henry Morton Stanley was abandoned not only by his father but by his mother. and he somehow managed to be used of God in a dramatic way. But those are exceptions. Generally speaking, while by God's grace some people can, with all the things against them, survive, it's for the good of society and the next generation to encourage men and women to be faithful and to bring up their children together. And this selfish mentality of a society where divorce is acceptable, marriage wedlock is acceptable, and illegitimacy is no longer seen as a major problem, Whereas you read in the scripture that a bastard shall not be allowed into the congregation of Israel for 10 generations. I mean, 10 generations is about as long as the Dutch have been in the Cape. That's over 350 years, about 10 generations. 10 generations is a huge amount of time. There's probably not a family in America that's been there for more than 10 or 11 generations. When you've got that kind of prohibition, it indicates just the seriousness which, in the Old Testament, this was considered bastardy or illegitimacy. And yet today it is considered so normal and acceptable, and this is a matter of where the compassion of the wicked is cruel. Where they claim that they, so as not to hurt someone's feelings, they commit civilizational suicide. It will destroy a society, it will destroy a nation, if you allow illegitimacy to be normal. And there are nations today where most of the people are illegitimate. They don't, and of course it's the parents who are illegitimate, first and foremost. But this is what has happened. We've got a society which seems hell-bent on destroying families, destroying the integrity of the next generation and the nation. And all of this is tackled. Now, the cross is an offense to Greeks because they reject the idea that the body's got any benefit. It's also an offense to the Hebrews. The Jews hated the idea of the crucifixion. I mean, crucifixion looks like weakness. It looks like failure. And to the Greeks, it's foolishness to think that anything done to the body could possibly benefit the soul. And so Paul is saying, we preach Christ crucified. To the Jews, a stumbling block. To the Greeks, foolishness. But to us who believe it is the power of God. And so we've got to help people understand the importance of the body. Christ is the head of the church. Scripture is our ultimate authority. Everything has to be done to the glory of God. Attitude is critical. Our attitude and our motives are vital on all matters. Our belief affects our behavior. Everything has consequences. So here we have, in Corinthians, what Calvin taught. There are three essentials for a church to be a church. The word of God needs to be faithfully taught. Number one. Number two, the sacraments need to be publicly administered. Number three, Church discipline needs to be exercised consistently. And it would seem that the church in Corinth was violating all of those things. They weren't teaching the Word of God properly. They weren't administering their sacraments properly, biblically at all. And they certainly weren't exercising church discipline. They were tolerating within their ranks incest, drunkenness, gluttony, immorality, all sorts of things which could not be tolerated. And that he said, I order you in the name of Christ to hand over those people to Satan for the destruction of their bodies so that their souls could be saved perhaps. And that you've got to separate yourself from those who call themselves brothers but who are immoral, dishonest, and he goes through the different categories that disqualifies a person. The goal is not to destroy them. The bar makes a tea, you first talk to them. If they won't listen, you take them as witness, and if they won't listen, then you bring them before the church, and if they still won't repent, then you put them outside. Which does not mean they're not allowed to attend church. It's that they are not considered a member. They can come and hear the gospel, but they are not to receive the Lord's Supper. They cannot be regarded as a church leader. You can't have them, of course, as a Sunday school teacher, or an elder, or a deacon, of course. And so they cannot have church leadership, and they should not take the Lord's Supper. They cannot vote, of course, in a church membership meeting or anything along that line. So he says, we can't separate ourselves from sin in the world, but we should separate ourselves from one who calls himself a brother, but who behaves in such an inconsistent and such a blatant way. I'm not saying a person can't fall. But if there's no repentance, they're now to be formally dissociated from. and that this is with the goal of them being restored. Of course that's the aim and intention. So there's a lot here. Corinthians is just amazing. It tackles everything from pride, greed, lust, idolatry, gluttony, morality and it gives a clear message of what we as Christians are to stand for. You can see grace is strong Faith is strong, Christ is centered, the Scripture is our authority, the glory of God is our motivation, the five solos of the Reformation come through constantly. We preach Christ crucified. Christ is the power of God and He is the wisdom of God. No other foundation can anyone lay than that which is Christ Jesus. All of our works will be judged as by fire. Everything we do will be put on an altar and burned on the Day of Judgment. And that which is made of gold and precious stones will endure, but that which is wood stay and hobble will be burned up. And so that our works will become clear on the Day of Judgment. Everyone's work will be tested by fire. You are a temple of the Holy Spirit. The King of God is in power, and do not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God." Very, very specific, and making it clear that we must flee immorality Our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit. You are not your own. You are purchased with a price. We belong to God twice over. He created us and he redeemed us. Keeping the commandments of God is what matters. We read. And then he mentions in 1 Corinthians 8 verse 6, For to us there is one God, the Father of whom are all things, and we are for him. And one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and to whom we live. run in such a way to get the prize. No temptation has overtaken you such as is common to man, but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able to resist. And with a temptation you'll make a way of escape so that you'll be able to endure it. Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you drink, to it all, to the glory of God, which again is the reason why we give thanks before a meal. The idea that everything is to be done to the glory of God. God has honoured and remembered all things. True love is mentioned. The gifts are mentioned. The resurrection of the body is mentioned. And this passage concludes. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast and movable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour is not in vain. Let us pray. Lord God, we want to thank you for the book of 1 Corinthians. We want to thank you, Lord God, for the grace and the power that we see in it, for the wisdom, how it deals with the issues that are so relevant to our age. We ask, Lord God, that you'd help us to rightly divide the word of truth and to faithfully serve you, for we pray in Jesus' precious name. Amen.