WWUTT 1502 Do Not Be Deceived (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) Part 2

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There are various ways in which 1 Corinthians 6 -9 has been translated into English, but whichever

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English translation you use, the message is clear that the sexually immoral will not inherit the kingdom of God when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ, that men and women of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

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Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study in 1 Corinthians 6 verses 9 -11.

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This is part two of examining this particular section. We are going to be talking about sexual immorality.

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There are things in this section that will be rather sensitive in nature, though I will be tasteful in the way that I present this, but I want you to be aware of the subject matter.

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I'm reading out of the Legacy Standard Bible, this is the Apostle Paul, writing to the church in Corinth.

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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 effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.

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And such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified, in the name of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God. Yesterday, we looked at this section mainly to understand the context.

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Though these verses are often singled out to confront sexual immorality, there's still a context that must not be overlooked.

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And Paul is telling the church in Corinth, these are who the unrighteous are. These will have no part in the kingdom of God.

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So you must either put them out from your midst, or you must not allow them to be your judges.

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Going back to verse 4, so if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint those who are of no account in the church as your judges?

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Who will be those who will not be in the kingdom of God to sit on a throne of righteousness with Christ and judge even angels in the end?

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Who will not be with us in that judgment? And these are those who Paul mentions.

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The unrighteous, who will not inherit the kingdom of God. Do not be deceived,

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Paul says. So don't be among them, and do not think that they have any part with you.

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Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals.

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And everything there in this list of vices, there in verse 9, those things all have to do with sexual immorality, even the idolatry.

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Because there in the church of Corinth, you have the temple of Aphrodite. And there was a time when that temple, which was quite famous in the ancient world, if not infamous, that temple employed a thousand priestess prostitutes.

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If somebody went to the temple of Aphrodite to sacrifice to that false god, what they did was they had sex with one of those priestess prostitutes on an altar.

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Now the temple sat on top of the Acrocorinth. If you go back to our introduction of the book of 1

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Corinthians, I mentioned that the Acrocorinth was this large mountain that was famous.

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It was a famous landmark to Corinth. When people would be in ships coming up on Corinth, they would see the

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Acrocorinth, that big mountain, before they would even see the city. The temple was on top of that mountain.

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So this was the kind of fame that this particular landmark had. Sailors would come in and they would go up to the

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Acrocorinth and they would get to have intercourse with one of these priestess prostitutes sacrificing to this false god.

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Now it's widely believed that the employment of that many prostitutes happened in a time prior to the church in Corinth, which was going on here in the first century.

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So it was probably about 100 years before this church. Nonetheless, that was quite a symbol of sexual promiscuity.

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It remained that way even during the time of the church there in Corinth. There may not have been as much promiscuity, but there was still plenty of that going on in the temple of Aphrodite.

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So that's how connected idolatry was with sexual immorality.

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Therefore, it falls among these sexual sins listed here in verse 9.

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Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, which is any kind of sexual immorality, any kind of sex outside of marriage, that's kind of covered by sexual immorality.

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But then Paul gets specific, which would include idolatry, adultery, and the effeminate and homosexuals.

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Now that's the way it reads in the Legacy Standard Bible and in the New American Standard Bible.

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There are other translations that read something different there in 1 Corinthians 6, 9.

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It doesn't say the effeminate and homosexuals. It rather might say something like those who practice homosexuality.

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That's what it says in the English Standard Version. So here is 1 Corinthians 6, 9 in the ESV. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

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Do not be deceived. Now, so far, all of that sounds exactly like the NASB and the

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LSB. But here's how it lists the sexual sins. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality.

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Now what's the difference there? Well, in the NASB and the LSB, it separates out the effeminate and the homosexuals.

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But in the ESV, it seems to have lumped them together in just this category of men who practice homosexuality.

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Now I've had some that have said to me, because I've taught so long from the ESV, and almost all of the

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What videos, there are a few that are exceptions, but almost all the What videos use the

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ESV. And part of the reason why I use the ESV in the videos and in a great majority of my podcast episodes is because the copyright on the

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ESV is just so user -friendly. I mean, Crossway really did want to make it available to anyone to use.

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And so they're very free with how people use their copyright. So that makes it the easiest to use.

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It's widely used. A lot of people have the ESV. It's almost becoming more popular than the

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NIV, if not more popular than the NIV. I think the NIV still outsells it. But nevertheless, the

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ESV is a very popular translation. Even the Gideons are using it now. So the Gideon Bibles that get distributed, they'll use

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King James and they have the ESV. It's also an essentially literal translation, which means it is as close to the original language as we're going to get in English.

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Now the NASB is also an essentially literal translation, but the

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ESV translators went for a little more readability than the NASB translators did.

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So that's why the ESV has more popularity. And plus, I mean, Crossway was just, again, they were so free with the usability of their translation, like how many people they will allow to use it.

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Whereas the Lockman Foundation, which owns the rights to the NASB and the legacy standard, they have not been as free with allowing people to use their translation.

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In fact, the Lockman Foundation is kind of renowned for being very poor marketers.

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Anyway, there are those who would try to discourage me from using the ESV. And part of the reason why is because of the way the

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ESV translators worded 1 Corinthians 6 -9. So sometimes when somebody would contact me and say, don't use the

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ESV, they're a lot more liberal in their translation. Just look at what they did with 1 Corinthians 6 -9 versus what the

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New American Standard did with it. And so there are some that believe that the ESV translators softened the translation of this particular passage by making it say men who practice homosexuality rather than the effeminate and the homosexuals, the way it's worded in the

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NASB and the LSB. OK, I told you yesterday we were going to be talking about this and it could get kind of complicated.

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So I hope you're you're still tracking with me here. First of all, I hope it doesn't matter to you because I'm reading from the

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LSB anyway. But let me speak in defense of the English Standard version.

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And by the way, James White, who doesn't use the ESV, even he has spoken in defense of how how the

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ESV translators came into the wording of this particular verse, why they put men who practice homosexuality rather than the effeminate and the homosexuals.

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Here is the way that it literally reads in the Greek. I'm not going to sound out the Greek, but here is the here would be if we're taking the words in Greek and we're putting them exactly in English.

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Here's how it would translate the parallel translation from Greek to English. This is first Corinthians six, nine or not know you that the unrighteous ones of God, the kingdom not will inherit.

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Are you with me? I know it is because the wording is different in Greek to English, that it doesn't quite sound like it goes together.

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It sounds like Yoda talking rather than rather than something that we would say in English. But anyway, continuing on, not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals.

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OK, so that's how the wording literally comes out from the Greek into English, the words there that appear for effeminate and homosexual are

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Malakoi and Arsinoe Koite respectfully. Malakoi means effeminate or is translated effeminate.

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Arsinoe Koite is translated homosexual. Now, the word Arsinoe Koite had not existed in any ancient writing until Paul's letter to the

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Corinthians. So there are many scholars that believe that Paul is coining a new word here.

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And he's taking from the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the

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Old Testament and what is said there in Leviticus 1822 and Leviticus 2013.

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So Leviticus 1822 is this. You shall not lie with a male as with a woman.

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It is an abomination. And Leviticus 2013 says, if a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination.

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They shall surely be put to death. Their blood is upon them. So the penalty for a man committing a sexual act with another man is death.

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That's the penalty, according to the Levitical law. Now, as you read that in the Septuagint, when the

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Old Testament was taken and translated into Greek, the Greek word for man is

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Arsinoe. The Greek term for lies with or has sex with is literally what that what that's implying.

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The word there, the Greek word for that is Koite. And then a male lies with a woman.

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The male there is Arsinoe. So you have Arsinoe, Koite, Arsinoe, the way that the

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Septuagint is translated into Greek. And so the belief is that Paul took

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Arsinoe and Koite from Leviticus 1822. And Leviticus 2013, which condemns a man having a sex act with another man, sodomy with another man.

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And Paul took the two words that were together there, Arsinoe and Koite, and he put them together and he coins a new word.

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And so as that word is used here in this letter to the Corinthians, this would not have been mysterious to the

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Corinthians. We have scholars today that are looking at this and trying to study it, going, OK, where did this word come from?

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Where did Paul come up with this? But the Corinthians would not have been in mystery. So this at least was a widely enough used word, though we don't have any record of it in any ancient writings until Paul's writing in First Corinthians chapter six.

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That does not mean it was not used. It just means that any other ancient writings were not preserved. The earliest ancient writing that we have with that word is

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First Corinthians six. So he's using this word in such a way that at least it would have been recognized or known or understood by those

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Christians that were in the church in Corinth. And as he uses the word Arsinoe Koite, they would have recognized this as men who have sex with men, as a man lies with a woman.

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Now, you have some conspiracy theorists out there right now that are trying to invent these myths, like the word homosexual was not in the

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Bible until 1946, until it was it was added into the R .S .V. translation in 1946.

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You know what? Seventy five years ago, that was the the beginning of the word homosexual in an

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English translation. And it was to create an anti -gay stigma or homophobia against homosexual men.

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So it's like this conspiracy to make people hate gays, in other words. But before that translation, there was not some sort of condemnation against homosexuality.

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And that's just simply false. The word homosexual is a relatively new word. It's only about 100 years old in the

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English lexicon. And we're just talking about its presence in the English language. So therefore, it doesn't show up in an

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English translation of the Bible until the 1940s. That's not unusual. There's nothing about that that's even remotely suspicious.

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Here is how we read this particular verse in other translations that predate 1946.

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So just consider the King James Bible. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

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Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate.

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See, that's in the King James Bible, too, nor abusers of themselves with mankind.

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This is a man having sex with a man, which is an abuse act because sodomy is not natural.

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Pardon me for the way that I'm going to describe this here. OK, but it is the punishing of a man's anus.

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So it was considered abuse as far back as the translation of the

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King James Bible. Sodomy was not a pleasurable sex act. It was it was a sick abuse of one man to another man.

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And the one who gave was considered the abuser. The one who received was considered the effeminate.

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So some scholars believe that the effeminate is the recipient of that sex act.

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And the abuser is the one who is giving, who is initiating the sex act.

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So the ESV translators, rather than singling those two terms out with the giver and the receiver of a homosexual act, they just decided to translate it men who practice homosexuality.

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And there's not anything wrong with that. It is not a softening of the term. And like I said, even James White defends that particular translation because he knows what's going on there.

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He knows what they're trying to do. Now, there are other preachers that I've heard that have said they're going to use the new

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American standard or the legacy standard because of the direction that the culture is going with men believing that they can become women.

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So because of the way it's translated in the new American standard Bible, you have a direct prohibition against men acting effeminate.

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So the effeminate will not inherit the kingdom of God, nor will homosexuals inherit the kingdom of God.

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And that's perfectly fine. Like, I understand why somebody would want to use the translation because of that particular reason.

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But all I'm providing here is a defense for the English standard version, at least in this section of our of our exposition of this verse that the

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ESV translators have not done anything wrong, nor were they trying to soften that term. It very plainly condemns men who practice homosexuality.

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Let me read a couple of other translations here, because there are some interesting ways in which this particular verse has been worded.

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So this is the Christian standard Bible. This is a very recent translation of the Holman Christian standard.

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So the Christian standard says, don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God's kingdom? Do not be deceived.

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No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers or males who have sex with males.

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So they do something similar to what the ESV translators do. Here is the New International version.

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Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who have sex with men. Here's the

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New Living translation. Those who indulge in sexual sin or who worship idols or commit adultery or are male prostitutes or practice homosexuality.

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Let's continue on here with the literal standard version. Do not be led astray. Neither whoremongers.

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There you go. That's the way they translate the pornoi, which comes out sexual immorality.

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So neither whoremongers, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor sodomites.

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The New King James version uses the word sodomites. So from the

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New King James, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites.

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I want to find the Geneva Bible here because I liked the way the Geneva worded this.

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You get a kind of a flashback into the ancient language here. Even more so, I think, than the King James Bible, which was 1611.

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This is the Geneva Bible from 1599. Here you go. Verse 9. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?

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Be not deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor wantons, nor buggerers.

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Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God.

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Now, see, that's very cultural. Wantons or buggerers. You would have to understand what those words meant in that context at that time in 1599 that the

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Geneva translators would apply them there for those particular

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Greek words. Malakoi and arsenokoite. So wanton is sexually unrestrained.

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It's really not a direct translation of Malakoi. So it's just somebody who has no restraint when it comes to sexual appetites.

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That's what wanton means. Buggerers is one who buggers. Well, what does that mean?

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Well, that was actually their word at that time in 1599 for sodomites.

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And that really blows up the whole the myth that there was no reference to homosexuality until the 1946 translation.

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And that's when it created homophobia in the Bible. Now, they know total nonsense that is not consistent with scripture at all.

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The Bible has clearly condemned from Old Testament law to the

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New Testament has clearly condemned homosexual acts, homosexuality of any kind that is worthy of the fire of hell.

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Jude even talks about it in Jude, verse seven, as being the very thing that had wrought the fire of God upon Sodom and Gomorrah.

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Their unnatural sexual desire. And now Sodom and Gomorrah serve as examples of the eternal fire of judgment so that we would understand these sexual appetites, these desires of the flesh will be judged by God so that we would not go that way so that we would not be deceived, as the apostle

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Paul is saying to the church in Corinth here. But we would desire the righteousness of God being pure, even in our bodies.

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That's where Paul is going to go next as he continues this rebuke here in First Corinthians, chapter six.

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He's going to call for sexual purity in the remaining part of this chapter. As for today, that is the conclusion of our lesson so that we would understand the usage of that word there, homosexual, how it's been translated in different ways, even in the

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English Bible. But it's very clear the condemnation against homosexuality.

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And tomorrow, I'm going to argue even further than this, not just the act itself, but even the desire for that thing, like some have taken what is translated in the

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ESV, where it says those who practice homosexuality and they have said, well, see, it's only the act of homosexuality that's condemned.

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A person could have an orientation of same sex attraction and there's nothing wrong with that.

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No, even that orientation is sin. And we'll talk about that further tomorrow when we come back to this passage.

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Let us understand the call to purity that is upon each and every one of us. It's not purity culture. It is the command of God that we be pure, even in our bodies, in light of what

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Christ has done for us by giving his body as an atoning sacrifice with his death on the cross.

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for giving us your son, Jesus Christ, who died for us, rose again from the grave, ascended into heaven where he is seated at the right hand of God and all who believe in him.

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We are forgiven our sins. We are given a place in your eternal kingdom and we are promised life forevermore in fellowship with you in glory.

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Teach us to turn from our sin and desire what is holy and tell others as well to repent and seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

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And all that we need will be added to us and more in Jesus Christ, our Lord. In his name we pray.

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Amen. For more about our ministry, visit us online at www .tt .com.