1 Corinthians – Don’t Fool Yourself
“Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 Paul breaks out into a terrible catalog of sins that is a commentary on the civilization in which the Corinthian Church was growing up. There are certain things which are not pleasant to talk about, but we must look at this catalog to understand the environment of the early Christian Church; and to see that human nature has not changed very much. There was a great deal of sexual sin in the city of Corinth. It was a permissive society with a philosophy similar to that which we see in our world today. It must have been hard to be a Christian in this atmosphere of Corinth. Just like our world today. Paul is very clear that unless you turn from sin to God, you will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Homosexuality was a cancer in the Greek and Roman civilization. The down fall of the Roman empire was due in part to homosexuality. There were idolaters. Idolatry is an example of what happens when we try to make religion easier. An idol did not begin by being a god; it began by being a symbol of a god; its function was to make the worship of the […]