This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 586: 1 Corinthians in Context 5 - Sexual Immorality with Sean Finnegan

This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode.

Audio file 588 1 Corinthians 5.mp3

Transcript

00:00
Hey I'm Sean Finnegan and you are listening to Restitutio, a podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today.

00:11
Do you know what blows my mind?

00:14
That, with all the permissiveness and sinfulness of the Roman world, what the Corinthian Christians were doing shocked Paul. He said that the sexual immorality of one man among them was so bad that such was not even found among the Gentiles.

00:31
That's quite an indictment.

00:33
We're going to cover 1 Corinthians 5 and the second-half of Chapter 6.

00:38
Both of these have to do with sexual immorality, and as such, today's content is not appropriate for children.

00:45
We're going to cover the incident where a man was with his father's wife as well as Paul's condemnation of those who indulged in the use of prostitutes.

00:55
It's going to be a spicy episode, but hopefully.

00:58
Helpful in your understanding of 1 Corinthians.

01:01
Here now is episode 588.

01:04
Part five of our one Corinthians and context class sexual immorality.

01:09
In one Corinthians.

01:18
Our topic today takes us into the realm of adult content, so I want to begin with a disclaimer. If children are listening.

01:28
Now would be a good time to turn this off.

01:31
So you can listen or watch it later.

01:34
I'll do my best to sensor out and I am. You probably won't even believe this is true, but I am actually censoring out some of the lewdest content of the ancient world.

01:44
But there's really no way to talk about these issues without talking about these issues. So.

01:49
Let's begin.

01:51
I want to cover 2 main.

01:54
One is first Corinthians 5 and the other is the second-half of First Corinthians 6.

02:01
The first half of First Corinthians 6 is about lawsuits.

02:04
We'll.

02:05
Cover that later.

02:06
So all of Chapter 5 and then the second-half of Chapter 6 both relate to sexual immorality, bisexual, immorality.

02:13
Mean sexual behavior that God says is wrong.

02:16
Or that the Bible says is.

02:18
You can take your.

02:19
Or that Jesus says is wrong.

02:20
That Paul says it's wrong.

02:21
Sexual immorality just is kind of a catch all term for any of that kind of behavior, and we'll get specific.

02:29
But first, let's talk about Venus.

02:32
Venus, also called Aphrodite, was a big deal in Corinth.

02:36
She had a temple on top of the Acrocorinth. She was considered to be the divine force behind physical attraction.

02:45
And romance, infertility. And we read a little statement about her from Strabo.

02:51
In his geography, he writes, the sanctuary of Aphrodite was so rich.

02:56
That it possessed more than 1000 temple slaves, Heteros, who had been dedicated to the goddess by both men and women. Because of them, the city was crowded and became rich.

03:07
The ship owners spent freely and easily, and thus the proverb says the voyage to Corinth is not for all men.

03:15
Heteros are high brow.

03:17
We can talk a lot more about prostitutes in a little while here.

03:21
This quote is sometimes used to indicate that temple prostitutes were very much alive and active in the time of Paul.

03:28
They were not.

03:30
This quote refers to the Greek Corinth prior to its destruction.

03:36
And the reestablishment by the Romans, Jerome Murphy, O'Connor writes.

03:41
Many New Testament introductions and commentaries have stressed this aspect because it appears to provide an explanation for.

03:49
The attention that Paul was obliged to give to sexual problems in one Corinthians 5.

03:55
However, the context clearly indicates that Strabo is here referring to the Pre 146 BC city and not the newly constituted Roman colony that he visited in 29 BC.

04:09
Then, when Strabo visited in 29, he saw only a small temple of Aphrodite.

04:14
The same adjective would apply to the two that Pasanius mentions.

04:19
And paws.

04:21
Like 70 years or so after Paul went to Corinth and Strabo was writing about, like, 7080 years.

04:28
Paul went to.

04:29
So these are on either sides.

04:30
Both went there.

04:31
They both talked about the temple of Aphrodite.

04:33
On the acro cores and it's just.

04:36
It's not some big thing with 1000 prostitutes anymore.

04:39
If that was ever true, scholars actually debate whether that was ever even the case.

04:44
Korith did have a great army of prostitutes, but it is doubtful that the situation there was any worse than in.

04:52
Other port cities of the eastern Mediterranean still Corinth as a city.

04:57
Was known for lewdness, sexual lewdness, in particular, Marshall, writing his epigrams.

05:04
And he writes around the year 95 S, like 40 years after Paul went. He says you live on.

05:11
Lilia, your mother, who never used makeup, was descended from the Sun. Burnt etruscans.

05:17
Your tough old dads from somewhere around Orissa, but you're forever stockpiling greeceisms.

05:24
Have you no shame?

05:26
The beds where such expressions should be heard, you should hear yourself talk.

05:31
And you, a respectable married lady. But even if you get all Corinth by heart and can recite it, Lyla, you still won't be quite laid.

05:42
Was the name of a famous hedera or quarterback?

05:45
In Corinth, who lived 4 centuries before Christ, Marshall is writing this Marshall's in Rome, the city of Rome, and he's writing this about 4045 years after First Corinthians was written.

05:57
Very close in time and he's referring to somebody that lived 4 centuries before Christ.

06:03
A famous high end prostitute named Laissez and he sang to this other girl because she's learning Greek phrases because Latin is a language in Rome that she is making herself a Corinthian.

06:15
She is becoming sexually inappropriate in some sense.

06:20
So.

06:22
As accepting as sexual immorality was in a city like Corinth.

06:27
The Christians were worse.

06:31
Than the average people.

06:33
One Corinthians chapter 5 says it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you.

06:41
And the sort of sexual immorality that is not found even among Gentiles.

06:48
For a man is living with his father's wife and you are arrogant.

06:53
Should you not rather have mourned so that he who has done this would have been removed from among you?

07:01
This.

07:01
Sexual immorality that we encounter in one Corinthians 51.

07:06
It's the Greek word pornea.

07:08
And it's a catch all.

07:10
That refers to any kind of sexual misbehavior that is sexual misbehavior outside of marriage between a man and a woman from a a biblical point of view. Outside the Bible, though, there was also a sense of like, what's proper and what's not proper.

07:25
That the Romans also had it doesn't agree with what the Bible says, but it it does.

07:29
Is a standard. Everyone has sexual standards, by the way.

07:33
There's nobody that accepts everything.

07:35
And the Romans talked about incest.

07:39
A Roman satrus named Catalyst.

07:43
Who I cannot really quote in this session because it would just turn all our faces red. But I'll just say this, he considered incest to be absolutely inappropriate and he was a very crass person who accepted a lot of other things.

07:58
But for him, incest was just like, way beyond the pale.

08:01
He's riding around 61 to 54 BC.

08:07
Paul calls her in verse.

08:08
Here he calls her the unnamed woman.

08:13
Father's wife.

08:16
This more likely refers to stepmother than a biological mother.

08:21
It could refer to either one.

08:24
But I mean.

08:27
Chances are it's a stepmother still, even if it was a stepmother, the Romans would have still considered that relationship incestuous and inappropriate.

08:35
The Romans would have wait until you see all the stuff the Romans thought was fine.

08:41
And they thought this was beyond the.

08:43
We have a statement from the institutions of Gaius.

08:47
He writes again.

08:48
I may not marry a woman.

08:50
Is a law document.

08:52
Justinian picks it up later.

08:55
I may not marry a woman who was previously my mother-in-law or daughter-in-law or stepdaughter or stepmother.

09:02
Is the Roman standard for law.

09:05
We have said previously because if the marriage establishing such a relationship is still in being.

09:11
There is another reason why she cannot be married to me.

09:14
The same woman cannot be married to two men, nor the same man.

09:17
Have two wives.

09:19
Therefore, if someone has contracted an evil and incestuous union, he is regarded as having neither a wife nor children. Children born of such a relationship are regarded as having a mother, certainly.

09:32
A father, on the other hand, not at all. For this reason, they are not in his power, but in the same position as those conceived casually.

09:40
So Roman sensibilities were totally against incest. Even if you weren't biologically related to that relative.

09:48
Did you catch that 'cause? They don't have the same sense of genetics and science that we have, right?

09:53
But they still had brains, and they still had the EU factor like EW.

09:59
And they had these rules in place against stepmother and so forth.

10:06
Additionally, in Judaism they considered this kind of behavior a capital crime.

10:12
So in Leviticus chapter 20, verse 11, it says the man who lies with his father's wife has uncovered his father's nakedness.

10:19
Of them shall be put to death.

10:21
Their blood is upon them.

10:23
And look, it's that exact same phrase fathers wife.

10:28
You can also see other places in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. The Mishnah furthermore says in Sanhedrin 74.

10:34
These are the felons who are put to death by stoning.

10:37
He who has sexual relations with one his mother, 2, the wife of his father, three with his daughter-in-law, four with a male and five with.

10:48
These people would all be executed according to Jewish law. The Mishnah is written, I think about in the 2nd century, but it goes back to traditions that were likely enforced in the town of Paul as well. Back to first Corinthians.

11:03
Paul says it is actually reported.

11:05
You hear his?

11:06
He's like, I can't believe this.

11:07
Even saying this to.

11:08
It's actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and the sort of sexual immorality that is not even found among the Gentiles. For a man is living.

11:18
With his father's wife.

11:20
Now, scholars have puzzled over this statement quite a bit.

11:24
And they ask the.

11:26
Well, why would somebody do that?

11:28
And there are various theories that they have, of course, in the ancient world.

11:34
It was common for a man to marry a much younger woman, and so if the father, for example, had died and she was an attractive woman around the same age as the son not related to, you could see, you know, there might be some attraction there.

11:51
So it could just be a rebellious desire to go against custom and a lustful type of.

11:57
But there's another possibility. I bet you never thought of which is related to property. And John K Chao talks about this at some length. He says in Paul's day.

12:08
Material interests, which might include money and power rather than sex and affection, seem to have a bigger role to play in the establishment of a marital relationship.

12:18
Indeed, for the sake of keeping wealth men in those days could do some strange things.

12:24
The satirists tell us that there were husbands who were willing to condone their wives, acts of adultery in return for the control of their dowries.

12:33
For on the one hand, through marriage, he would not have to pay higher taxes.

12:37
On the other hand, he would immediately be able to have total control over his share of the inheritance from the father, who was probably dead at that time.

12:46
Better still, through marrying his stepmother, he might have been able to preserve in his house his stepmother's dowry to his father, and might even have access to the possessions of his wife's family.

13:01
So maybe that's why he did it.

13:02
Maybe did it for money? Maybe did it for love?

13:04
Maybe he did it for some other reason.

13:07
Don't.

13:08
All we know is that there was a guy that was with his father's wife.

13:15
And Paul is just.

13:17
Shocked.

13:18
And we read his response at verse 3 for I though absent in body and present in spirit.

13:24
And as if present, I have already pronounced judgment in the name of the Lord Jesus on the man who has done such a thing. When you are assembled, and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to hand this man over to sat.

13:39
For the destruction of the flesh.

13:41
So that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

13:45
What does this mean to hand him over to?

13:48
There's of course a lot of theories on this too. As I mentioned to you before, I can't really go through all the theories on all the different verses, because there's just so much interesting stuff in First Corinthians.

13:59
I just have to be a little bit brief here, but I think my best guess is that this is talking about domains.

14:05
It's not like Satan is a puppet waiting to receive a bad Christian to convert him back to good Christianity.

14:15
Nobody thinks that so.

14:17
Delivering him over to Satan, I think is delivering him over to the domain of Satan. If you can think of this phrase in Christ, we see it all over the New Testament as an umbrella that protects us from the world and in the world is reigning.

14:31
But in Christ you are.

14:34
You're under his umbrella, and so he protects you wherever you.

14:38
So long as you remain in his domain and Paul is saying kick this guy out, he's not practicing.

14:46
Christianity. He's practicing pornea.

14:49
So for Paul, if you're practicing pornea sexual immorality, you're not.

14:54
You're not in Christ, simple as that.

14:58
Still, we see some hope here.

15:02
For redemption, ultimately.

15:05
Anthony Thistleton writes for the offender himself.

15:08
Sudden removal from a platform of adulation to total isolation from the community would have a sobering, if not devastating, effect.

15:18
It's possible that this guy was a person of wealth and that people were looking up to him.

15:25
It says that they were arrogant.

15:27
They were bragging about it. We don't.

15:29
Were they bragging about him because he had done this horrible thing with his father's wife or because of some other reason that he was a high important person in the community of faith either way?

15:41
Getting kicked out is going to sting because you're just going to lose instantly your community.

15:47
James.

15:47
Writes. It means putting him outside the sphere of God's protection within the church.

15:52
And leaving him exposed to the Satanic forces of evil and hope that the experience would cause him to repent.

15:59
And return to the Fellowship of the Church, the Flesh to be destroyed is thus not his physical body.

16:07
Now back to the Corinthians attitude of pride here, verse 6.

16:11
Your boasting is not a good thing, Paul continues.

16:15
Do you not know?

16:15
A little yeast leavens all of the dough.

16:19
Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch of dough as you really are unleavened. For our pastoral lamb, Christ has been sacrificed.

16:28
Therefore, let us celebrate the festival not with the old yeast. The yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

16:37
So the concern here is for the body, not just the individual.

16:44
Sin is a contagious yeast.

16:47
You get that sin is something that will contaminate.

16:50
And in fact, and fester, Dale Martin writes about this. He says Paul is not afraid.

16:56
That social contact between a Christian and a non Christian will.

17:00
The church.

17:02
But he does think that the disguised presence within the Church of a representative from the outside.

17:08
From the Cosmos, cosmos is.

17:09
Greek word for world.

17:11
From the world that should be out there, threatens the whole body.

17:16
In that case, the only remedy is violent expulsion of the polluting agent.

17:21
Which will result in the return of the body to a clean, healthy state.

17:26
Has anyone ever had a stomach virus?

17:29
You know, you know.

17:30
This is talking about violent expulsion of the polluting agents.

17:36
I had.

17:37
Kid violently doing this just last night into the morning, so yeah, very fresh analogy here, but the idea is you have the body of Christ, the body of Christ is is the people, the believers, right.

17:49
And you've got this faker that's inside.

17:52
And he's accepted. And he.

17:54
He is a polluting agent and people instead of saying to him, hey, look, man, you've really got to repent. You've got to stop, sleep with your father's wife.

18:02
There boasting they're arro.

18:05
And so his sin is actually causing more damage to the body, just like our physical bodies.

18:12
And so Paul is saying we need to get this guy out of the body.

18:17
But he doesn't take it to an.

18:18
He balances it outlook at the next verse, verse 9. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral persons.

18:27
Not at all, meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters.

18:34
Since you would then need to go out of the world.

18:37
But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of Brother or sister who is sexually immoral or greedy, or an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler.

18:48
Do not even eat with such a one.

18:50
For what have I to do with judging those outside?

18:54
Are you not judges of those who are inside?

18:57
God will judge those.

18:59
Outside, drive out the wicked person from among you serve like I think of Paul. Just sort of.

19:05
We'll see him out of you.

19:07
You.

19:08
You can't.

19:08
This one out like I'm not even there.

19:11
I'm.

19:11
But look, I know he should get kicked out.

19:14
This is bad.

19:14
You can't have this kind of behavior happening in the church. And then, he says.

19:19
But that doesn't mean you're so pure. You can't have any interactions with unbelievers.

19:25
Are fine.

19:26
The people in the world are fine.

19:27
Go spend time with them.

19:29
Eat with them. Invite them to church.

19:32
The problem is not the unbelievers. The problem is believers who are living like unbelievers.

19:38
That's what his focus is here.

19:42
It's a modified sectarianism.

19:44
The church has a fixed, clear boundary of those who are in Christ and those who are in the world, and members are not to police the world.

19:53
That's not the job of Christians to say to everyone. Hey, you're sitting.

19:58
Sinners are going to sin, sin, sin.

20:00
Is supposed to.

20:01
That's what sinners do. If you want to focus on something we focus on.

20:06
Ourselves and where we need to change.

20:09
Paul doesn't want the Corinthians to.

20:11
He doesn't tell them to live off grid in a commune.

20:14
He wants them to stay in the.

20:16
He wants them to reach people in one Corinthians. What? It's like when the unlearned comes to the meeting.

20:22
When the outsider, when the person who's never been to a church service before, comes, he anticipates and wants.

20:28
Those kind of people to be participating in their meetings.

20:33
His problem is fake insiders, not the sin of the world.

20:38
He says in verse 12, drive out the wicked person from among you.

20:44
Now it could be that this person was driven out and then later repented.

20:50
Some have looked at 2 Corinthians 2 as an example of referring to somebody that was then welcomed back in.

20:56
To the church.

20:58
That view is a little less likely these days, but it's still possible.

21:03
And it's also possible even if second grade ends is not referring to this guy. It's entirely possible that he repented later on and was able to return to the church.

21:13
All.

21:13
So that was number one sexual immorality in the church with respect to this guy and his father's wife, now #2 prostitution.

21:25
Here we go.

21:27
Prostitution was legal but not respected as a profession in the Roman Empire.

21:35
It was something that happened, but it wasn't like anybody wanted to grow up and become a prostitute, you know.

21:43
So that makes sense.

21:45
Horace and his satire rights the sight of a certain aristocrat leaving a brothel, drew a famous remark from Cato.

21:53
Is writing at 35 BC.

21:55
Cato is a very famous.

21:56
Strict moralist, the kind of guy that wouldn't even put whipped cream on his strawberries.

22:04
Know. Just eat him. Eat him raw.

22:06
Say forget those.

22:07
Just give me the green stuff.

22:09
Me. Just give me.

22:09
Me.

22:10
You know that kind of a guy? Real straight.

22:12
Guy and so anyhow, Horace comments about a remark of Cato.

22:15
Is what Cato says.

22:17
Keep up the good work, he.

22:18
Seeing a guy come in off a brothel whenever a young man's veins are swollen by accursed lust.

22:24
Right to go down to that sort of place instead of grinding other men's wives.

22:29
Brothels were a normal part of their world.

22:31
Was not.

22:33
That brought incredible shame on you if you got caught in a brothel or using a prostitute. Some sort.

22:39
Margaret Johnson writes in her book sexuality in Greek and Roman society and literature. She says in the Roman world, the legal practice of sexual labor.

22:49
Was placed under the jurisdiction of the Khruli Edials.

22:54
Workers were required to register and during the reign of Caligula.

22:58
37 to 41 to pay.

23:01
The brothels ensured there would be less likelihood of adultery. In other words, commercial sex.

23:06
Ensured that wives were safe from other men.

23:09
The perceived role of the worker as some kind of society safety valve.

23:13
A requirement for the maintenance of a calm home environment may also be witnessed in the more graphic sources.

23:20
Workers of both sexes were there to provide services. One would not ask of a.

23:25
Wife these workers were nevertheless despised and ridiculed. Two other quick things about prostitutes.

23:32
Just so that you understand the kind of situation we're talking about, because we're about to jump to 1st Corinthians 612 to 20, where Paul directly talks about prostitutes and uses the word prostitute. So it's not.

23:44
Not vague like it's right.

23:46
The nose, he's saying to the church.

23:48
Stop it with the prostitutes. OK? Like we're going to get there, but another couple of quick points.

23:53
Is they didn't have all the same sexually transmitted diseases that we have today.

23:59
Not that they didn't have any, but they it just wasn't as much as what we have.

24:04
And #2 pay for a prostitute was relatively affordable.

24:09
One estimate from Pompey because at Pompeii they found a actual brothel with like pictures on the wall of like sex scenes.

24:18
And they also had pricing for what things would cost. A cheap prostitute would be about the cost of a glass of wine in Pompeii. Anytime somebody says anything about Pompeii.

24:29
We're talking about the year 79 AD because that's when it blew.

24:34
Volcano blew and buried it.

24:36
So it was relatively safe, I would say 100%.

24:42
I think there was still probably some sexual diseases going around and it was relatively cheap. Now higher end prostitutes could cost you a lot more.

24:51
All right, back to First Corinthians, chapter 6 verse.

24:54
We're going to jump into the second-half of Chapter 6 here.

24:57
This is how Paul starts it, he says. All things are lawful for me, but not all things are beneficial.

25:03
All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything.

25:08
Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy both one and the other.

25:15
The body is meant not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body.

25:21
And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power.

25:27
I would say most scholars at this point would recognize these as slogans.

25:32
It's still.

25:33
There's still people that see it differently, but I'm using for example here the new revised standard version, and they put quotation marks around.

25:42
The slogans.

25:44
All things are lawful for me is what the Corinthians are saying.

25:48
Paul's response?

25:49
But not all things are beneficial.

25:52
All things are lawful for me is what the Corinthians are saying.

25:55
Paul.

25:55
But I will not be dominated by anything.

25:59
The Corinthians are saying food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy both one and the other.

26:07
Some other scholars and I tend to go in this direction, would actually extend this whole quotation all the way out to here in verse 13.

26:15
So it would be the Corinthians saying food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food and God will destroy both. One of the other.

26:21
Like they're saying.

26:23
Hey, I can eat whatever I want because food's made for the.

26:25
Stomach's made for the food and God's going to destroy food in the stomach anyhow, so who cares?

26:31
That's, I think, more likely what's going on here, in which case Paul responds, the body is meant.

26:37
Not for sexual immorality.

26:39
Here we get to what we're really talking about, 'cause all the slogans are about food and Paul's talking about sex.

26:47
Right. So we're using kind of an analogy here of eating and drinking as opposed to having sex.

26:53
He's talking about.

26:55
The body is meant not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body.

27:02
And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. He's talking about resurrection there.

27:08
Which is important because he's countering their statement that God is going to destroy.

27:14
The body.

27:15
Oh gosh, just going to destroy all this.

27:17
And we know that once we get to chapter 15.

27:20
Some in Corinth, some of the Christians of Corinth did not believe in the resurrection.

27:25
He spends a whole chapter.

27:27
Trying to prove to them resurrection is our future as Christians.

27:32
So here he says, God raised the Lord talking about Jesus and will also raise.

27:38
Thus, by his power, look, you're going to keep your body if you're going to keep your body.

27:43
Cares about your body? If God cares about your body.

27:45
You should care about your body.

27:47
So he's using that as part of his argument to fight against this.

27:51
Permissive mindset that says, well, all things are lawful now.

27:56
Another thing people like to debate is like, well, where do they get that slogan from?

28:00
And a lot of people think Paul gave them the slogan.

28:04
You can imagine the scenario where Paul is is arguing with some of the Jewish Christians about the law.

28:11
And the question of well, should we can we eat clean and?

28:16
Can we eat unclean foods now that we're Christians and we can usually imagine Paul saying something like, well, all things are permitted, all things are all things are lawful.

28:25
And so.

28:25
Now they're applying it to sex and everything else, and he's like.

28:30
He's come. He has to come against it and clarify a little bit more.

28:34
That's, I think one possible scenario for it.

28:38
And then just a thing about food and the Romans, this is David Gill. He writes the Roman love of food is reflected in the cookbooks that have survived from antiquity.

28:47
Such as that attributed to apisseas, his recipes include.

28:52
Numidian chicken wrap it with fruit sauce, liver, sausage, anchovy delight without the anchovies.

29:00
And.

29:02
The Roma's new food?

29:04
Ladies and gentlemen, they did.

29:06
And they knew banqueting, and they they were into expensive foods, especially the high status Romans they would bring in imported food, and they would eat.

29:17
They knew how to eat and so that was something that really comes up in just a second here, so.

29:24
Paul has confronted their slogans.

29:28
How should they?

29:29
Look at the next verse, verse 15.

29:31
This is how they should think instead of thinking with those slogans, think this way. Do you not know?

29:37
That your bodies are members of Christ.

29:41
Should I therefore take the Members of Christ?

29:44
And make them members of a prostitute.

29:47
Never do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her, for it is said the two shall be 1 flesh.

29:57
But anyone united to the Lord becomes 1 spirit with him.

30:02
Sean S sexual immorality.

30:04
Or another translation, flee fornication.

30:08
Every sin that a person commits is outside the body.

30:11
But the sexually immoral person sins against the body itself.

30:15
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you which you have from God?

30:20
And that you are not your own. For you were bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body.

30:27
I think in verse 18 we actually have another slogan.

30:30
I would put it right around the word. Every sin that a person commits is outside the body.

30:35
That sounds to me like something that fits with all the other slogans that we've seen.

30:41
Here's the problem.

30:42
The Greek doesn't have quotation Marks and it doesn't have fancy spacing like we have today.

30:47
To indicate a different speaker.

30:49
It's just letter after letter after letter and in our oldest manuscripts. No spaces even between them.

30:55
So forget about quotation marks.

30:58
So it's up to us to discern, OK.

31:01
This something that Paul is saying.

31:03
Paul saying every sin.

31:05
That a person commits is outside the body? Or is that something the Corinthians are saying? If the Corinthians are saying it?

31:12
That's a very permissive sort of.

31:13
So it's just outside the body and maybe they're talking about the body of Christ.

31:18
You know I'm. I'm.

31:19
I'm doing this over here at the brothel where I'm doing this over here at my friend's house.

31:24
I'm not doing it in church.

31:26
Or maybe they're saying their physical body because that's another obvious meaning of the word body here.

31:32
Every sin that a person commits is outside. Doesn't touch my soul. Doesn't touch my heart, my mind.

31:38
It's just, it's just the body. Something like.

31:41
And so I think Paul's coming against it, but the sexually immoral person sins against the body itself.

31:49
Either which way you take that I think the message is clear.

31:54
Je Smith.

31:55
The notion that the body was morally irrelevant, that sin was an internal matter of motives and intentions.

32:01
Not an external matter related to the body was commonplace.

32:06
Was in this environment that the slogan.

32:09
Every sin that a person commits is outside the body, with its belief that bodily actions were morally irrelevant.

32:15
Could come to expression.

32:17
All right, so now we must ask what was going on?

32:20
What sort of prostitution are we talking about here?

32:23
Kind of pornea.

32:24
There are three major options for what you could have been talking about.

32:28
The first is temple prostitutes, which the older scholars tend to go with because they thought Strabo.

32:34
And his quote was talking about the Corinth of Paul rather than the Corinth that was destroyed from before.

32:40
So.

32:40
That view is now falling out of.

32:42
They're not thinking that they're going up to the temple to use.

32:45
Prostitutes there.

32:47
Another.

32:48
It's not possible, but it's unlikely.

32:51
A second possibility is that it's talking about going to the brothel where you would go and you'd you'd pay a couple of coins and you do your business, and then you leave.

33:02
1/3 possibility though is banquets.

33:08
And this is not something we have. I don't think. I mean, I don't know what you're into but.

33:14
I've never been at a banquet where prostitutes were just like part of the night's activities, but apparently that was a very common thing at wealthy people's homes in the 1st century. In a city like Corinth.

33:29
Cicero talks about this and one of the big things that happens is when a young person becomes a man, when he becomes an adult, when he becomes of age, he's now allowed to attend these banquets and Cicero writes about it in Pro Kyle, 48, he says.

33:43
If there is anyone who thinks that youth should be forbidden affairs even with courtesans.

33:49
He is doubtless eminently austere.

33:51
I cannot deny it, but his view is contrary not only to the licence of this age, but also.

33:57
To the custom and concessions of our ancestors. For when was this not a common practice?

34:04
When was it blamed?

34:05
When was it?

34:07
When in fact, was it that what is allowed was not allowed?

34:12
Just to explain, Quarterzans are high end prostitutes that would have conversation with you during the dinner and then sex with you after the dinner.

34:18
To clarify that.

34:21
They're not just friendly people and they're getting paid.

34:25
OK.

34:25
That's what makes them a prostitute instead of a.

34:28
Just in case anyone wasn't sure that distinction there, Cicero is saying look, who could ever forbid our young men from enjoying prostitutes after dinner at banquets.

34:39
That's what he just said.

34:41
He's a fairly austere guy. Not as much as Cato, but Cicero is a very famous orator from Rome, writing in 56 BC.

34:49
So about 100 years before the 1st Corinthians was written, Bruce Winter goes on and on about this and I think he's got an interesting point.

34:58
He talks about this in his book after Paul left Corinth and says gluttony and drunkenness.

35:02
We're an accepted part of social life in Corinth, as were the promiscuous.

35:08
After dinners for grand dinners such as the series of banquets given by the President of the Ismayan Games for the citizens of Corinth, traveling brothels could be brought in.

35:18
By the host to cater for guests after the dinner in the place where it was held, the elite.

35:23
Who gave private banquets to which they invited clients, as well as other guests?

35:29
Provided not only for their physical hunger, but also for their sexual appetites.

35:34
It needs to be noted that one Cor 6/12/20 does not state that Christians actually went to brothels.

35:41
They were having sexual intercourse with prostitutes in the context of a dinner, the strong adversative, but used on both occasions in 612 was Paul's way of giving clear warning against choosing the path of gluttony and ******* that epitomized conduct at banquets attended by young men who.

36:01
The freedom of adulthood.

36:03
If Christian youth affirmed that they had come of age and all was now permitted, Paul countered with a statement that not everything was beneficial.

36:12
Fornication, like drunkenness, was one of the grounds for exclusion from the Kingdom. Chapter 6, verses 9 through 10.

36:20
Now once again, if you back up to verse 12, Paul's talking about food.

36:26
Why is he talking about food?

36:27
Could just be kind of like an analogy of like, a bodily appetite to.

36:32
Or it could be that the context of the sex was food, that they were having banquets, and they were eating.

36:40
This extravagant food and this is not all the Corinthians. This would not be all of them.

36:45
Would be that minority who were wealthy and who had access to.

36:48
World Most Corinthians were just eating barley cakes and just salted fish.

36:53
The basics of life to survive, but your higher end Corinthians would be invited to these parties and they they would have to flee fornication. They would have to get up and leave before.

37:06
The whole **** part started.

37:10
Or just not go but sometimes not. Going is not an option if it's business related or if there's something else going on.

37:18
So you might have to just limit yourself.

37:20
Martin writes Pornea quintessentially represents the invasion.

37:25
The body.

37:26
The man by penetrating the prostitute is himself penetrated by the sinful cosmos. He penetrates himself with sin.

37:36
Well, Paul says, is your defiling Christ.

37:39
This is not a Luke warm statement.

37:44
He.

37:44
If you have relations with a prostitute, you are now one flesh with her.

37:50
You are already 1 spirit with.

37:52
You are part of the body of Christ.

37:53
Are taking Christ's body.

37:55
And uniting it to he's trying to.

37:58
He's trying to shock them.

37:59
This is this is a really, you know, I know when I quote Dale Martin using the the word penetrate it grabs your attention, right.

38:07
Like Paul's doing that.

38:08
Grabbing their.

38:09
He's like you're you're using.

38:12
Christ members to have sex with this woman.

38:15
What's the matter you like?

38:17
What it's doing here?

38:18
1st Corinthians 615 says do you not know that your bodies are members of?

38:23
Should I therefore take the Members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? And then, he says never.

38:30
All right, let's talk about modern.

38:33
I know you're thinking to yourself those crazy Corinthians.

38:36
Were so immoral.

38:39
News flash. We have prostitutes too.

38:41
They're undergoing a bit of a rebranding as sex workers. Rather than calling them prostitutes.

38:48
Our society pays prostitutes to have sex with each other and then film it, and that's what we call ***********.

38:55
*********** is made of two Greek words, the word ****.

39:00
Which is the word for prostitute and the word graffo, which means to draw or write.

39:06
So you're drawing.

39:09
You know what I mean?

39:11
And what's interesting, this word porny or pornia?

39:14
It means sex that is outside of.

39:17
Sex is inappropriate in some in some sense, right?

39:21
And in ***********, you don't.

39:22
You don't pull up a video and watch like a really loving husband and wife satisfy each other in a wholesome and loving manner, like that's just not how it genre in ***********.

39:36
Today.

39:38
Last October, an Australian woman had sex with 100 guys in one setting.

39:47
This month, this month, a British woman set her goal to break the record.

39:55
The record was 919 guys in a row, one woman by a Kentucky woman.

40:02
So I guess as Americans, we own the title.

40:06
But this British woman said no, I'm going to break.

40:08
And she had sex with 157 men in 12 hours.

40:14
An act that got her an article in the New York Post with the title only fans star slammed as revolting for betting 1057 men in 12 hours. This is so sad.

40:30
And here's the problem, when we start saying OK, well, yeah, their society was crazy.

40:34
Think our society is crazy.

40:36
Look, wire wire. Women doing this because guys are paying for it and some of those guys are Christians.

40:43
Like Paul says, we're not here to judge the world.

40:46
Sinners are going to sin, but if you are naming the name of Christ.

40:50
This is not appropriate.

40:52
We don't support this sort of thing or actually visiting prostitutes or having ****** after dinner.

40:58
Should all stop doing that immediately enough of of this topic for now.

41:04
We're going to look at same sex relationships as we continue through our class on 1st Corinthians.

41:13
Well, that brings us.

41:14
To a close.

41:15
What did you think? Come on over to restitudio.org and find episode 588.

41:20
Sexual immorality and leave your questions, comments and feedback there.

41:26
Someone named Josh C wrote in on episode 566 Kingdom Ambassadors.

41:32
Saying quote most people who listen to me disagree on all kinds of points.

41:37
That's him quoting me in the episode.

41:40
He goes on as a Canadian.

41:43
Who, because of your work, is fascinated with the Kingdom of God.

41:46
Count me as one.

41:49
This podcast, as well as Sam Tedeman's has given me quite a bit of food for thought on this topic and the Trinity among others.

41:58
This has even changed how I evangelize last summer at the Canadian National Exhibition, I joined other Christians at a booth to preach the gospel.

42:07
We had these walking sticks with beads that present the gospel in salvation in Christ.

42:13
One of the beads represented heaven as a future hope. When I preached, I changed it to represent the new heavens and new Earth and went on passionately talking about the Kingdom of God. I am thankful for channels like yours and your book to open.

42:28
My eyes to this key central theme of scripture.

42:32
Well, Josh, welcome.

42:33
So glad to have you writing and contributing to the community.

42:38
It certainly is a journey that we're all on and really the first step is being willing to say I could be wrong.

42:48
There may be truth out there that I don't have.

42:51
Let's search the scriptures and see whether this is so.

42:55
That's the old Berean exercise from Acts 17.

42:57
And as we apply that over and over, we will find.

43:02
Probably, hopefully.

43:03
But probably several different beliefs that need to change or get updated or expand to meet the challenge of Scripture.

43:13
I look at Scripture as a lion that needs to be uncaged and let it have its way with our doctrine, and if something stands up against the test of reading scripture against it, then let's keep it.

43:26
And if something false, then hey, it was never that good anyhow.

43:30
So why are we?

43:31
I do want to point out something on this phrase. New heavens, new earth. I fear that.

43:36
Some people, when they hear that they think new universe, as if God is going to literally destroy the entire heaven and earth and by heaven people are thinking outer space and earth. This is not at all.

43:53
What this phrase means, especially in revelation in revelation?

43:57
It's talking about a.

43:58
He saw a new sky and a new land.

44:00
He was in the regular situation where he recognized this guy.

44:04
Recognized the land.

44:06
And then he saw a new sky in a new land.

44:08
Wasn't a new.

44:10
It wasn't a new planet.

44:11
It was just the same old planet renewed in a future age where things looked different.

44:20
And so he described it as new heaven and a new earth, but not in the sense of a new universe.

44:25
Isaiah, we see this and it's the idea of creation.

44:29
But.

44:30
He says creation in.

44:32
I believe it's 65 or 66.

44:34
He's not saying creation in a Genesis sense.

44:37
He's talking about.

44:39
He's talking about new creation.

44:41
Talking about.

44:42
Taking something that's old and making it new again.

44:46
That's the idea of restoration, and I think that's really the best category for us to think with when we read scriptures that say something like new heavens and new Earth.

44:57
Or that employs creation language to talk about the end.

45:00
Look, if there's no continuity between our world now and the world to come, then it really cheapens our experience here. And it basically says we can just do whatever we want and trash the place.

45:13
Which I don't think is at all part of the creation stewardship mandate of Genesis 1 and 2.

45:21
And this is precisely what the Gnostic Christians were doing. The Gnostics were saying this universe is garbage.

45:28
It was the ill-fated attempt of a rebellious eon or lowercase G God to rebel.

45:37
And it's good that it gets destroyed, and none of it matters.

45:40
We can do whatever we.

45:41
And let's ascend to the higher realm.

45:45
And I think there was a touch of that in Corinth in the 1st century as well, because Paul spends an entire chapter.

45:51
Arguing for resurrection and what's interesting too, is even in the chapter we just discussed the second-half of Chapter 6.

45:57
And he has this little statement where he starts talking about resurrection, like out of nowhere.

46:01
And I think it's because people were adopting this.

46:04
Antinomian mindset, fuddrom stomachs for food all things are.

46:09
And so forth, where they're just like, well, my body doesn't matter anyhow.

46:12
Just going to be.

46:13
I'm gonna get a new body.

46:15
Or I'm not going to have a body at.

46:16
My soul is just going to transcend to a higher reality and Paul comes against that quite strongly.

46:22
Like, no, you're getting your old body back.

46:25
This is.

46:26
You're you're not escaping into the ether.

46:29
And you're not getting somebody else's body or a fresh body that has no continuity with your existing body.

46:37
Resurrection is the idea that the old body comes back to life.

46:40
And as soon as I say that, I know that half of you out there like you.

46:45
About cremated people.

46:46
Or what about people who don't have any body parts left or fragments left?

46:51
I guess God will have to figure that out.

46:53
I'm sure he will be fine.

46:56
Doing what he needs to do to make that happen, but for the other 99.999999% of us who have bones or ashes somewhere, then that is exactly what God is going to use to make our new bod.

47:08
Body and so there is continuity.

47:12
My.

47:12
My point is, there's continuity between our world and the world to come, and our bodies and the resurrected.

47:19
I'm not saying we're going to have all the same flaws or problems. I think everything's going to be upgraded. I think that's pretty clear from Scripture. But there is a continuity.

47:29
So that's something to think.

47:31
Thanks everyone for listening here to the end. If you'd like to contribute financially, you can do that on our website, restitudio.org.

47:40
And if you don't mind, please share this episode with others if you think others might be interested in hearing about it.

47:46
That's going to be it for.

47:47
I'll catch you next week and remember, the truth has nothing to fear.