Episode 183 - "The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God" - 1 Corinthians 6:9-11

1Cor. 6:9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

If we had not been following along in the text week after week and simply opened the Bible to this text, we might be struck by the directness of this writing and perhaps understand its meaning at a cursory level. But, we should not miss the conjunction “or” that begins this section. It should tell us that we’ve jumped into the middle of a conversation and, like jumping into the middle of any conversation, we’re probably going to miss critical elements of how this fits with the overall message Paul is sending to the Corinthian Christians

I summarize a key theme that Paul is driving home to these believers: "It is important that your lives and your behavior to each other look different to the world around you.”

In these three verses, I see four key truths Paul wants them (and us) to understand. The first is that the “unrighteous” will " not inherit the kingdom of God. If you are at all familiar with Paul’s writings in the New Testament, this should get your attention. Why? Because in Romans Paul says,

10 as it is written:

“None is righteous, no, not one;

11 no one understands;

no one seeks for God.

12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;

no one does good,

not even one. (Rom 3:10-12 citing Ps. 14:1-3 & Ps. 53:1-3

Essentially, we are all in trouble. No one can assume they are better than others or more deserving of God’s mercy than others because none of us are righteous and none of us deserve to inherit the kingdom of God. So, where is the hope? We’ll get to that.

The second key truth is that unrighteousness has characteristics. Paul lists some of these characteristics from verse 9 through verse 10. Summarizing once again, these characteristics include sexual immorality, idolatry which is an expression of valuing something more than God, and many other things, which are evidenced by people indulging their own selfish desires over the good of others. We have a problem in a culture that rejects the notion of absolute truth. If there is no absolute moral truth, then everyone can do what they want. Much of the conflict we see in our society today lies in the fact that we have competing relative truths. It says, “I want what I want because that is what is right and you are wrong.” This will never lead to harmony and peace within a family, community, church, or society at large.

The third key truth is that Christians are not above indictment of these unrighteous characteristics or exempt. Paul reminds them, “Such were some of you.” (v. 11) In other words, he’s saying, “You Christians have manifested these unrighteous characteristics in your lives in the past.” This reflects that truth from Romans 3, doesn’t it? There is no one who is righteous, not one. I am not more deserving of God’s mercy than anyone else because, like everyone else, I have acted unrighteously at times in my life.

This brings us to the fourth key truth and a return to the question, “Where is the hope?” The hope lies in how Paul follows that indictment. He says, “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” Jesus, the Son of God who is righteous, “washed” us. That’s a picture of us being cleansed of our unrighteousness. It is also by Jesus that we were “sanctified.” That means that having been cleansed of our unrighteousness; we were set apart for a holy and divine purpose. I take that to be inheriting and serving the kingdom of God. Finally, Paul says that we were “justified” by Jesus. This does not mean that God ignores our unrighteousness. It means we are declared not guilty. God cannot and does not ignore sin. The just punishment for sin was incurred by Jesus’ death on the cross. These Corinthian believers have appropriated these benefits of Jesus’ death on the cross through faith in him.

This should raise the question, “Why would a Christian who has received the benefits of Christ’s death on the cross want to continue practicing the unrighteous things they did for which Christ died? That is the fundamental issue with the man having sexual relations with his father’s wife. He was a professing believer, but his lifestyle was worse than the non-Christians. Paul’s counsel to them was for the purpose of correcting that and bringing him back into the community of faith.

Prayer: Lord, help us humbly pursue a life that is consistent with your holiness. Forgive us when we act in ways that are unrighteous and make our lives an enticement to the good news of Jesus.

Episode 148 - "Be quick to hear! Be slow to speak and become angry!" James 1:19-21

James 1:19   Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. (ESV)

I sure hope this study is encouraging or otherwise helpful to you. In the nearly three years I’ve been writing this blog and podcast, it has been my desire to share with you what I’m learning and getting out of the Scriptures. Making an effort to produce this once a week is a means to keep me accountable for working through a short passage and discovering or awakening a perspective that I’ve forgotten or let wane. James has a way of being direct and mincing no words. This section of his letter is no exception and I must confess that I need to embody the truth of this more than ever. Let’s break this down and meditate upon it for a little while.

First, we have what I understand is an imperative. He says, “Know (this)!” It is his way of getting our attention and implying, “I’m telling you something important for you to understand and value so that you will do it.” He qualifies his audience as “My beloved brothers” (v. 19) What he wants them to know is out of his love for these believers. It’s not a warning to his enemies or unbelievers but a passionate imploring for the spiritual benefit of other believers. Let’s accept that this applies to us as well.

The imperative has three elements. The first is “be quick to hear.” What does that mean? I suspect it means what we call active listening. It seems to me that it suggests that we turn our focus from off ourselves and toward others. In the age of social media that we’re in today, everybody has a soapbox. People have opportunities to share their mind and their opinions. But that’s not being quick to hear. That is being quick to speak. James is telling us that we need to be the opposite. 

While the immediate context seems to indicate that “being quick to hear” is speaking of our willingness and effort to listen to others, I cannot help but consider that the “speaker” in the preceding verse 18 is none other than God. James says, “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth.” (v. 18) Perhaps James wants us to consider that we also need to be listening to God’s word of truth in order for it to accomplish what God wills for our lives.

While we are to be quick to hear, the other two elements are something in which we should be slow. We should be slow to speak and slow to anger. How interesting it is that nearly 2000 years later, we know exactly why these are paired together. If we don’t like what we hear, perhaps we aren’t actively listening and seeking to understand the perspective of the speaker. If we take offense to it and become angry, what are we inclined to do? We quickly offer our retort or argument. Being quick to anger and being quick to speak often go hand-in-hand. 

Verse 20 is what I suspect is James’ chief concern in this instruction. It is God’s righteousness being displayed through our actions of humility by being quick to hear but slow to speak and slow to anger. I don’t think about that enough. Too often, it’s easy to listen and carefully speak when the conversation is going agreeably. But what if it’s not? What if the message or the tone of the message was offensive to me? It is very easy to become angry and speak back quickly. James says that’s not demonstrating God’s righteousness, and that’s what we should really be about as Christians.

Verse 21 begins with “Therefore.” At seminary, we are taught that whenever we see the word “therefore,” we should go back and read the preceding text to see what it’s there for. In other words, James is about to continue giving more imperatives on how these believers should live and the reasoning or justification for doing this is in light of what he said earlier. 

James tells them to “put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness.” (v. 21) Why? Because God wants us to reflect or manifest His righteousness through our actions. It seems to me that James is suggesting that if our pride manifests a lack of self-control regarding our tongue, then it’s likely that we have little self-control over other areas in our life. Our priority is to take inventory of what in our life is counter to God’s righteousness and seek the Lord to help us turn from those things.

How can we do that? I think James points us in the right direction when he says, “receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” (v. 21) The instruction to “receive with meekness” speaks of humility which is the antithesis of pride. To do this, we must be quick to hear and slow to speak. What are we to receive? “The implanted word.” What is that? At the very least, it is the message about Jesus and the cross. That is a message of the Son of God humbling himself to enter into the world of his own creation as a human without sin and laying down his life for the sin of others. Is there any greater manifestation of humility in the history of the world? Nothing comes close to it. Through God’s eternal plan, He chose to do this and hand it to us. The idea of God implanting this word speaks of the extent God goes to in order to make this truth and this hope available to humanity. Here he instructs us to “receive it.” His humility was a significant component in this act. Our humility is required to receive this implanted word. We cannot think of ourselves as being “good enough” on our own. We cannot think of ourselves as being “too bad for God to forgive.” Both of those concepts demonstrate a form of pride. One says, “I’m good enough. I don’t need Jesus to die for me.” The other says, “God isn’t really that loving or that powerful to forgive what I’ve done.” 

James says, that implanted word is “able to save your souls.” That begins with our conversion and salvation, but also speaks of how God’s word working in our life delivers us from troubles that pride and sin lead us into.

Let’s boil this all down into a prayer for this week.

Heavenly Father - Make your implanted word confront the pride in my life. Allow your will and your word to produce your righteousness in my life so that others will see Jesus and not me.