The Strand Study Bible

Written From Ephesus During Paul’s Third Missionary Journey

I CORINTHIANS 5:8 - 6:9

1887

is sacrificed for us:

against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints? The promise to faithful saints to rule and reign with CHRIST (Fulfilled - Rev 20:4,6) 2 Do ye not know that 9 the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? P 3 Know ye not that 9 we shall judge an- gels? how much more things that pertain to this life? P 4 If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church. 5 I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren? 6 But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers. 7 Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer your- selves to be defrauded? 8 Nay, ye do wrong, and 10 defraud, and that your brethren.

1. or, “the Feast of Unleavened Bread” - Exo 12:15 & Deut 16:3 2. Mt 18:15-17 & Rom 16:17-18 & I Thess 5:14 & II Thess 3:6,14-15 & I Tim 6:3-5 & II Tim 3:5 3. I Pet 4:15-18 4. I Tim 6:5 5. I Cor 4:12 & I Pet 2:23 & 3:9 & Mt 5:44 & Rom 12:14 & Acts 23:1-5 6. Jn 7:24 & Lev 19:15 & I Cor 2:15-16 & 6:1-5 7. Rom 13:1-4 8. Mt 18:15-17 9. Fulfilled - Rev 20:4,6 (Saints to Reign) (See - Psa 49:14 & Dan 7:18,22,27 & Obad 21 & Mt 19:28-29 10. I Thess 4:6

Staying right with God means “Learning to keep the Seven Feasts”

8 Therefore let us keep the 1 feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Believers who are under discipline are to be avoided 9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: 10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or ex- tortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. 11 But now I have written unto you 2 not to keep company, 3 if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, 4 or covet- ous, or an idolater, or a 5 railer, or a drunk- ard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. 12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not 6 ye judge them that are within? 13 But them that are without 7 God judgeth. Therefore 2 put away from among yourselves that wicked person. I Corinthians 6 Christians should not go to court against one another Date Written - Spring of AD 57 1 Dare any of you, 8 having a matter

9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idola- ters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 5:8 According to verse 8, if we as believers are going to live for good and for God, we are going to have to keep the feast (stay on a spiritual schedule by scheduling spiritual activity into our lives). NOTE – Seven different Feast Days were incorporated into the lives of God’s people in order to help them “stay right” with God. The very first feast mentioned in Scripture is the Feast of Passover (Lev 23:1-5). Whereas getting right with God meant sacrificing a lamb ( Lev 1: 1- 2 ), “staying right” with God meant keeping the seven Feasts ( Lev 23:2 ). 5:11 Christians who “fornicate” (practice sex outside the boundaries of God-ordained standards - Heb 13:4 a ) are to change how they behave or face being shunned by the Church until they are willing to do right ( I Cor 5: 1- 5 a and II Thess 3:14-15). Joseph M. Stowell in Radical Reliance notes:

One of the great shams in our generation is the idea that all the rewards of satisfaction, security, and sustenance can come from liberated sexual experiences. This generation has invested deeply into the notion that the rewards of intimacy can be had in a series of quick hits with a variety of sexual partners. But now even that hope has dimmed. One issue of U.S. News & World Report ran a cover story entitled “The Trouble with Premarital Sex.” The subtitle made the point: “Americans Don’t Think It’s Too Much of a Problem. Maybe They Should.” The article argued that the idea that sexual freedom delivers intimacy is a mistaken notion. Perhaps Jennifer Grossman, a thirty-year-old single woman and contributor for MSNBC-TV, gave the most telling statement in a sidebar interview entitled “Was It Good for Us?” Grossman, identified by the author as a self-described libertarian, said: I used to complain to my mother, who is a liberal, about how boyfriends seemed commitment shy. And she would say, “Well why buy the cow if the milk is free?” We’re in the sexual promised land now, the milk is free, people are surfeited with sex–and yet we’re starved for love… The safe-sex jingle–“You’re sleeping with everyone your lover has ever slept with”–has added resonance now: You’re sharing emotional space with those ex-wives and the girlfriends… The acceptance, even encouragement of premarital sex makes it very difficult to sustain the fantasy that we are loved alone. Jennifer’s musings are telling. Promiscuity promises everything and delivers very little. As she notes with such clarity, we have a deep desire in our souls to be loved exclusively, and the “sexual promised land” does not fulfill