Good morning.
Last week in our study, we examined the idea from 1 Corinthians chapter 13 of that which
love is not.
And we examined that love is not puffed up.
Love does not envy.
Love does not parade itself.
We’re going to continue that idea.
In chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians, as we examine a little bit more of what Paul has said to
the church at Corinth.
When my nephew asked me this morning, what’s the sermon about?
And I said, Love.
He said, Ooh.
And it’s interesting because when you think about how First Corinthians chapter 13 is
often studied, it’s often studied in the context of love, in different relationships, like
the marital relationship, like the interpersonal relationship.
But when you truly back into the text and examine the text and look at the text for what
it says in its context.
You understand that the immediate context of 1 Corinthians 13 is the love that Christians
within a congregation are to have for one another and the love they are to have for God.
This chapter is an exposition of what Jesus said when Jesus said the greatest commandment
in the law is to do this.
To love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength and
with all my thy mind, and that the second li greatest commandment of the law is like unto
it to love thy neighbor as thyself.
Paul is not simply writing about the relationship between people who love one another as
husband and wife.
He is writing about the binding that binds Christians together.
He is writing about the bond.
That brings us together in fellowship that will never be loosed in all eternity.
Go to the end of chapter thirteen.
And notice what Paul writes.
Chapter thirteen, verse ten, but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in
part will be done away.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but
when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now we see in a mirror dimly.
But then face to face.
Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I am known, and now abide faith, hope,
love.
But the greatest of these.
Is love.
Paul, as he’s writing about these abiding attributes of Christianity, set in stark
contrast in the context to the fading miraculous gifts that will ultimately go away
entirely from the first century church and the second century church as those who were
handed those gifts by the laying on of the apostles’ hands die off.
He says, as we see these things disappear, there are three things that will continue to
abide within the body of Christ.
And it is faith, it is hope, and it is love.
And so Paul is not just writing about the relationship between husbands and wives.
Now, can you take all of the principles that Paul enumerates here and say, you know what,
if husbands and wives were to treat one another in these ways, they would most certainly
have a loving relationship differing gr vastly from the world?
Absolutely.
But to open this chapter and to immediately think concerning a marital relationship versus
the body of Christ relationship is to do damage to the context.
Paul says, this is how the body of Christ behaves.
But specifically in our discussion this morning, this is how the body of Christ does not
behave.
He begins, as we notice here in the text, picking up in this text, we read chapter 13,
verse 1: Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but how
Not love, I have become a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am
nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,
but have not love, it profits me nothing.
Love suffers long and is kind.
Love does not envy, does not parade itself.
Is not puffed up.
Verse five is where our discussion comes from this morning.
Love does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does
not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in truth.
This morning we’re going to examine a number of these things that
Paul says, love does not do.
And we’re going to begin with this one, and here in verse 5, where Paul says, Love does
not behave rudely, as the New King James translates it.
The idea here is to behave in an unbecoming, disgraceful, or indecent way, to act
disgracefully, to behave improperly.
To behave in a way that is incoherent and at odds with Christianity, specifically in
relationship to your brother or sister in Christ, in this context.
Paul says love refuses to embarrass.
Love refuses to humiliate.
Love refuses to dishonor your.
Brother or sister in Christ.
As Paul examines this, bear in mind, as we already discussed last week, Paul is not
writing this in the abstract.
Paul is writing this to a congregation of which he has already enumerated every single one
of these things as things they are guilty of doing.
Turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter 7.
Paul in chapter 7 is going to begin answering questions that have come from the church at
Corinth.
You might remember we mentioned last week.
Chapters 1 through 6 of the book of 1 Corinthians deal with problems existing within the
body of Christ in Corinth.
Deal with things that Paul has heard and have been reported to him concerning things that
are going on.
And he addresses those problems and he addresses the spiritual condition of carnality or
fleshly mindedness that is causing these problems to persist.
But in chapter 7, he begins, chapter 7 down to about chapter 15, he is going to begin to
address questions that the church at Corinth has sent him since he left.
So if you think about the book of Acts and you think about the events of Paul’s missionary
journeys, Paul will come into a city, he will be there for a while, he will teach, he will
convert people, he will build up the body of Christ from nothing, generally speaking, and
then he will move on to the next city, usually when persecution arises.
And Paul remained at Corinth for 18 months, one of the places where he stayed longer than
many other places.
He built quite a relationship with them during that time that he was there.
They went through a lot while he was there.
Go read Second Corinthians.
You’ll read about the things that he endured when he was there.
But in chapter 7, he’s going to begin answering questions they’ve sent to him.
You notice chapter 7 and verse 1.
Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me.
So beginning in chapter 7, he’s changing gears, as it were, and he’s going to now answer
their questions.
The first one he deals with is on marriage.
They are in a period in Corinth of being persecuted.
They are in a period where they’re going to go through more persecution.
They are dealing with hardships over hardships inside the body of Christ and outside the
body of Christ.
And one of the questions they have is how to deal with marriage.
City of Corinth was a city known for its idolatry.
But it was known for its idolatry in a promiscuous, fornicating.
It was known to be the city like if you could give a a a a current day representation like
Las Vegas.
To be a Corinthian was to be stated to be one who was loose morally, loose sexually, loose
relationship-wise, loose in all of these ways.
And the Corinthian brethren are having to deal with this.
All you have to do is step back to chapter six.
And notice chapter 6 in verse 9, he says, Do you not know the unrighteous will not inherit
the kingdom of God?
Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals,
nor sodomites.
Five sins in the Corinthian context that every one of them dealt with a sexually immoral
act.
Because even to say idolater in a Corinthian context meant and carried with it a
connotation of a sexually immoral act.
He says these things then verse ten, nor thieves nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor
revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.
And such were some of you.
Paul, as he writes to them, says, I know your background, because I converted you.
I taught you.
I’m your father in the faith.
And they’re going to write to him concerning matters dealing with marriage and the
marriage relationship.
The very first thing he will say concerning these things, he says, Let every man have his
own wife, verse 2.
And let every woman have her own husband, let the husband render to his wife the affection
due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband.
The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does.
Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.
Do not deprive one another except for consent for a time, that you may give yourself to
fasting and prayer, and come together again, so that Satan does not tempt you because of
your lack of self control.
By this I say as a concession, not as a commandment.
Now, Paul in this text is going to be filling in questions and answers that are arising
because the Corinthians already know what Jesus taught on marriage.
Paul is going to be answering questions they have concerning what they already know.
So throughout the text of 1 Corinthians chapter 7, Paul’s going to say, The Lord said
this, but not me.
When he gives you that sort of statement, he’s saying, Jesus already said this, I’m not
telling you anything different.
Then he’ll say, The Lord didn’t say this, but I’m saying this.
He’s not saying, I’m gonna give you a different doctrine than Jesus.
He says, I’m gonna answer your question, which comes up about a subject of which Jesus did
not speak.
Some will try to come to 1 Corinthians chapter 7, and they will try and argue that 1
Corinthians chapter 7 nullifies Matthew chapter 19 on Jesus’ teaching concerning divorce
and remarriage.
It does not.
But the context that I want us to focus on is later on down in the text, chapter 7.
He says, beginning in verse 32, I want you to be without care.
He who is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord.
But he who is married cares about the things of the world, how he may please his wife.
Paul says, I want you in this current situation, in the persecution that you’re dealing
with, in the hardship that you’re suffering right now, I want you to know that if you have
the option to remain unmarried and care for spiritual matters.
Over physical matters, that you should do that.
You should focus on God instead of physical things.
Because the person who’s married has made a covenant agreement to care for, to provide for
their spouse.
They have a God-given obligation to care for physical things because they have an
obligation to their spouse.
He says, the person who’s unmarried can care for the things of the Lord, how he may please
the Lord.
He can set God, the Lord, as his highest priority.
He can go where the Lord directs him, and he doesn’t have to worry about what that means
for his wife, for his children, for his family.
That’s what Timothy did, by the way.
When Timothy decided as a young man to join himself to Paul and to begin going on these
missionary journeys, he cared for the things of the Lord.
And he didn’t prioritize marriage relationships in the physical sense.
But then notice what else he says.
There is a difference between a wife and a virgin.
The unmarried woman cares for the things of the Lord that she may be holy both in body and
in spirit, but she who is married cares for the things of the world, how she may please
her husband.
He says, uh You’ve got a wife, you’ve got a daughter.
You have a daughter who can care for the things of the Lord.
She can focus entirely on the spiritual matters because she doesn’t have a husband that
she has to provide for and has to care for and has to please.
But the wife can’t do that.
She has a relationship.
Now it doesn’t mean, and he is in no way saying, that you can’t have a wife who is
spiritually focused on God as her first priority.
Doesn’t mean that.
It means that in every scenario, in every situation, she also has to also consider her
husband.
She can’t exclusively focus on the Lord.
It doesn’t mean that a man who is unmarried, or sorry, a man that is married cannot be
faithful to God, cannot keep God as his highest priority.
It simply means that he better also remember he’s got a wife and care for the things of
his home.
He says, Now this I say, verse 35, for your own profit, that not that I may put a leash on
you.
But for what is proper, that you may serve the Lord without distraction.
There’s his point.
Highest priority, singular focus, exclusive interest, service to the Lord.
He says, But if any man thinks he is behaving improperly, by the way, that is the exact
phrase to behave rudely over in chapter 13.
It’s the only other place in 1 Corinthians that it’s used.
Paul says, if any man thinks he is behaving improperly toward his virgin, the idea here is
a daughter who is unmarried.
Think about the first century context, what we know about the first century and what we
know about even Old Testament times.
If you had a daughter who was unmarried, that was generally frowned upon.
It it was generally considered that, you know, her role in life was to find a husband, to
raise children.
And here is a man who has a daughter, a virgin who is.
Unmarried, who is not given to a man.
And he says, if you are in your conscience feeling as though you are behaving improperly
towards her by not giving her in marriage.
He says, if you if a man thinks he is behaving improperly toward his virgin, if she is
past the flower of youth, and thus it must be, let him do what he wishes.
He does not sin, let them marry.
He says, You got a father.
Who’s being asked by some young courting man to give his daughter’s hand in marriage?
And he’s looking and saying, You know what?
If I allow my daughter to remain unmarried, she can care for the things of the Lord.
But if I give my daughter’s hand in marriage, she’s gonna care for the things of her
husband.
He says, But your conscience is bothering you because of her age, because of her
situation.
You may think perhaps that if you say no to this suitor.
That she’ll never have the opportunity to fulfill that role that God has blessed women
with in marrying and raising children.
And you do not want to behave improperly towards your daughter.
He says, It’s okay.
Give her a hand in marriage.
It’ll be okay.
Now that’s kind of a setting.
That’s where the direct word is used in 1 Corinthians.
But now let’s go to a few more examples that are perhaps in nature more what Paul had in
mind in 1 Corinthians 13.
1 Corinthians chapter 13, beginning, or sorry, chapter 8, beginning in verse 9, Paul is
dealing with an issue concerning those who eat food.
That has been offered to idols.
In Corinth, you would find, if you walked into the marketplace, people who are vendors
selling food.
And you’d be like, if you were not from Corinth, you you might say, I don’t know anything
about the Corinthian matters.
I just walked in, there’s food to buy.
Buy the food, take it home and eat it.
And you know, as a Christian, if you walk into Corinth and you buy food at the
marketplace, that the food
Originated with the Lord, everything comes from the Lord.
If it belongs to the Lord, it belongs to the Lord, and everything’s good.
But the Corinthian who grew up in Corinth, who lives in Corinth, who’s a Christian, knows
that that food from that vendor has been offered first as a sacrifice at an idol, and that
the remainder of the sacrifice is now being sold in the marketplace.
And Paul says, some of you are having a matter of conscience problem with eating that food
because you know it’s been offered to an idol.
Now it’s being sold at the marketplace.
It’s being bought in the normal you go to Walmart and you go, where did this pork come
from?
A pig.
What happened when the pig died?
He died!
But in Corinth, you would go, what happened when the pig died?
Well, he was offered to our goddess Diana.
You go, oh.
What is it still?
Pork.
What is it still?
Dead meat?
Ready to be eaten?
What is it still?
A pig that was once alive that died?
You know this.
And Paul says, if you’re knowledgeable concerning these things and you understand
Scripture, that’s fine.
But notice verse 9, he says.
But beware lest somehow this liberty of yours, the ability to go in the marketplace and
with a clear conscience, buy the food, take it home, prepare it, eat it, knowing that it
belongs to the Lord, that it came from the Lord, no matter who it was offered to in the
moment of its death.
Okay?
He says, but beware lest somehow this liberty of yours becomes a stumbling block to those
who are weak.
For if someone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will not the
conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat those things offered to idols?
And because your knowledge, because of your knowledge, shall the weak brother perish for
whom Christ died?
But when you thus sin against the brethren and wound their weak conscience, you sin
against Christ.
Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat lest I make my
brother stumble.
Paul says, you go so far as to take your liberty too far.
You’re going into the idol’s temple.
You’re sitting down at the idol’s table.
And you’re eating the food, and you go, I know the food is just food.
The temple’s just a gathering place.
It’s a building with four walls and a roof.
It all belongs to God.
But he says, You’ve got a weak brother over here that sees you sitting at an idol’s
temple, sitting at an idol’s table.
And they go, Well, if he’s sitting there, he must know that it’s okay to worship that
idol, and so I’m gonna go worship that idol too.
And he says, through your liberty, you’ve caused someone with a weak conscience to stumble
to sin.
And now you’ve sinned through your liberty.
Paul is accusing them of behaving improperly with the freedom they have in Christ, to
being only interested in themselves.
Chapter eleven.
Another example of this is found in chapter eleven, verse one.
Paul will write, Imitate me as I also imitate Christ.
Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions
just as I delivered them to you.
But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, that the head of every woman
is man, and the head of Christ is God.
Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonors his head.
Paul is writing to them in a context of a first century Corinthian, Grecian, Roman
background.
In the context in which they actually lived.
And he says there’s a symbology here that you need to appreciate that when a man comes
before God, he is to give honor to the one who is head over him.
And that’s God.
He says, it is important for you to realize that the head of man is Christ.
The head of Christ is God.
And that if you come forward and you are behaving in a way that culturally said describes
something different than that God is your head, you are dishonoring God.
But then he goes on to say, but every woman who prays or prophesies with her head
uncovered dishonors her head.
For that is one and the same as if her head were shaved.
In Corinth, in the first century, a woman with a shaved head was saying something about
herself.
She was declaring herself to be a priestess to the goddesses that committed adultery and
fornication.
You could clearly identify who they were, walk through the street, look for a woman with a
shaved head.
Paul says, in the cultural context, a woman without her veil on.
By the way, this covering here, the word here describes a veil, the way you would see it
in an Islamic nation today.
This is not a small little cloth on top of your head.
This is not the coverage equivalent to what a Jewish man might wear on the top of his head
today.
This is a veil.
This is a veil in view of the same type of context as when Jacob married the wrong woman
because she had a veil on and all he could see was her eyes.
When some good and well-meaning, very conscientious brethren discuss head coverings today
in the context of the worship assembly, they are not being appropriate with the text when
they’re talking about a cloth on top of someone’s head.
This is a veil.
This is a covering.
And I don’t know anyone who teaches that a woman needs to be in the assembly in a
Christian context with a
Islamic type veil over her face.
But if they’re going to deal it with it in the context that Paul’s dealing with it in,
that’s the context.
That’s the description of this garment.
He says, But if a woman in the Corinthian context, in the time that he is writing, is if
her head is not covered.
Let her also be shorn, but if it is shameful for a woman to be shorn or to be shaved, let
her be covered.
He says, if you can’t do this one because of what it implies, you can’t have your head
uncovered.
In this context, because it is improper and you know it, is what he’s saying.
He says, For a man indeed ought not to have ought not to cover his head, since he is the
image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of man.
For man is not from woman, but woman from man.
Nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man.
For this remo reason the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of
the angels.
Nevertheless, neither is man independent of woman, nor woman independent of man in the
Lord.
For as woman came from man, even so man also came through woman, but all things are from
God.
He says, I understand.
When you go all the way back, you say, God gave everybody.
He says, I agree with you.
But God also gave people roles.
God also gave a context in which you live and which you need to respect what something
says about you in regards to authority.
See, Paul is establishing that it is improper for a woman to declare both through action
Or through posture, or through apparel, or through attitude, that she has no reason to be
in subjection to the person God said she should be in subjection to.
You see, this is about a woman behaving such a way as to reject God’s roles for man and
woman.
And Paul says, not within the body of Christ, you don’t.
He goes on to say judge among yourselves.
Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered?
Does not even nature teach you that if a man has long hair it is a dishonor to him?
But if a woman has long hair it is glory to her for her hair is given to her for a
covering, but if anyone seems to be conscientious, we have no such custom nor do the
churches of God.
Paul gets to the end of this discussion because it is a cultural discussion.
It is a context of the life they’re living in, the context they’re living in discussion.
And Paul says, if you’ve got somebody who they can’t do this without violating their
conscience,
We’re not binding this as doctrine.
We have no such tradition in the churches of God.
His point is this is what you should do that is best within the current Corinthian
culture.
But if to do so would violate your conscience and cause you to sin, culture doesn’t ever
have that much binding over a Christian.
Ultimately, you behave the law and you obey the law of God and not the culture of man.
But if you can stay inside the culture and not cause a stumbling block for someone else,
not declare something you don’t intend to declare by your actions, causing people to
believe that you are ungodly, you are unrighteous, you are living in a way that is in
rebellion against God and against man, he said, then by all means follow the cultural
norms so that you can proclaim.
Godliness.
And people will understand what you’re doing.
But if it violates your conscience, you can’t do it.
Okay?
He’s talking about not behaving in a way that is inappropriate toward one another.
He then goes in chapter 17, or chapter 11, verse 17, to discuss the situation with the
Lord’s Supper.
Paul will write to them.
And he will say, Now in giving these instructions, I do not praise you, since you come
together not for the benefit, uh not for the better, but for the worse.
For first of all, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions
among you, and in part I believe it.
For there also must be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized
among you.
Therefore, when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper.
For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others, and one is hungry and
another is drunk.
Paul says, You’re coming together as another example of how you are behaving improperly
toward one another.
He says, You come together and everybody brings their own food to the supper.
But when some of you get there, you sit down and eat.
And when others of you get there, you sit down and drink.
And when others sit there, they get there, they don’t have anything.
And you didn’t leave anything for them.
Because you’re there pretending this is a common meal and not what it is, the supper of
our Lord.
He goes on to say, For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others, and one
is hungry and another is drunk.
What do you not have houses to eat and drink in?
Or do you not or do you despise the church of God and uh
I’ll get my words out, or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have
nothing?
Now you remember this idea of behaving rudely.
It is to behave improperly, it is to embarrass, it is to bring reproach upon or to degrade
someone else.
Paul says, Do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing?
Do you not know what you’re doing to your brethren when you behave this way?
He says, What shall I say to you?
Shall I praise you in this?
I do not praise you.
For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on
the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread.
And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take eat, this is my body which is
broken for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.
In the same manner he also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant
in my blood.
This do as often as ye drink it in remembrance of me, for as often as ye eat this bread
and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord’s death till he comes.
Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup brink drinks this cup of the Lord in
an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup, for he
who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not
discerning the Lord’s body.
Paul, as he writes to these Corinthians, says, Here’s what you’ve done.
Because you don’t care about the Church of God.
Because you don’t care about your brethren.
You have taken this memorial of our Savior’s death, and you’ve turned it into nothing more
than a common meal focused on your self gratifying actions.
You’ve turned it into nothing but that which is
Common.
And he says, when you do that, you have brought judgment on yourself.
You sit there and pretend to partake of the Lord’s Supper, and instead you condemn
yourself because of how you’re treating your brethren and how you’re taking that which is
holy and making it common.
Paul will write as he continues.
He says, For this reason, many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.
He says, You’ve got brethren who are so poor, they’re so destitute, they are so
impoverished that the one opportunity they would get to have a meal would have been in
your assembly.
And you betrayed them.
You withheld it from them by arriving first and eating it all and leaving nothing for
them.
And he said, Some of them are weak, and some of them have died because of how you are
behaving.
He goes on to say, For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.
But for if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.
But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord that we may not be condemned with the
world.
Therefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.
But if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home.
You want a common meal?
If you’re hungry and you’re just ready to eat, you can’t possibly wait on your brethren.
Go home and eat.
Stop turning the Lord’s Supper, the Lord’s memorial, into your opportunity for food.
He says, if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, lest you come together for judgment,
and the rest I will set in order when I come.
See, Paul says, when it comes to love, love does not behave rudely.
Because Christ tells us that as we consider our role in this life, it is to love the Lord
our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength and all our mind, and
to love our neighbor as ourselves.
As we prepare to offer the invitation, consider this.
How are you behaving toward your brethren?
How are you behaving toward God’s people?
Because how you behave towards God’s people is a demonstration of your love for God.
If you’re here and you’re outside the body of Christ, we encourage you to open the Word of
God and to understand what God has done in sending his Son to die on the cross for your
salvation, for your redemption, for your remission of sins.
But if you’re a member of the body of Christ and you have neglected the body, you have
been interested only in yourself, you have been focused on you and not Christ, not the
bride for which he shed his blood.
May I encourage you to read the words of 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and say, does this
describe how I
I have behaved toward the body of Christ.
If you have need of the invitation, why not come?
As we stand and as we
