Jan 16, 2022
Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 6:9-20
The background to this section of 1 Corinthians 6 is the occurrence in the church in Corinth of church members taking other church members to court. Paul reasons that believers must not take other believers before a state judge because, for the most part, these judges are unbelievers. "When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?" (1 Cor 6:1).
This text is forbidding believers from taking other believers to a civil court, with the reasoning that the church, given authority by God, has sufficient wisdom to judge its own people. "Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers?" (1 Cor 6:5,6).
Paul buttresses his argument by highlighting a difference between Christians and unbelievers, namely that unbelievers will not inherit the kingdom of God. "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?" (1 Cor 6:9).
What follows is a list of some sins of which unbelievers are guilty. Of course, Christians remain sinful people while on this earth, but the idea here is that people who are characterized by their sins are "the unrighteous" … and have not been changed by God's awakening power … and such "will not inherit the kingdom of God."
Corinthian Christians had been such unrighteous people, "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" (1 Cor 6:11). This is the wondrous tribute to God's grace and power concerning every one of us who belong to God.