The sins of the Corinthians - 2 Cor 12:20-21

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Welcome to Adult Sunday School, Kootenai Community Church. We will be back in 2

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Corinthians, chapter 12. Odds are we're gonna finish it today. Pardon me?

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Well, we've got at least one more chapter that we can spend some time in, so. That's fine.

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I'm good with that. Just don't ask hard questions. Let's pray.

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Father, it's with anticipation and delight that we look into your word again, knowing that you have made it the evident revelation of yourself, your

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Son, and the Holy Spirit, and all of what is necessary for us to live productive lives for the

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Lord Jesus Christ. So today, as we look into it, we pray for discernment, for wisdom, and for obedience.

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There's a great deal of what we will be talking about in all of us, because before Christ, we were utterly depraved, and now, as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, it is those things that you are removing from us that are the most difficult, and we see that in the

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Corinthians. We thank you that you put everything unvarnished into your word, so that we would have the truth.

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Thank you for your truth, and we pray that it would be effective in our lives today, and thank you in Jesus' name.

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That sounded like an ominous warning, didn't it? Yeah, let's read chapter 12, verses 14, through the end of the chapter.

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2 Corinthians, and I got it right this time, 2 Corinthians, finally, 12, 14 through the,

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I think it's 21, yeah, 21. Here, for this third time,

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Paul says, I am ready to come to you, and I will not be a burden to you, for I do not seek what is yours, but you.

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For children are not responsible to save up for their parents, but parents for their children. And I will most gladly spend and be expended for your souls.

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If I love you the more, am I to be loved the less? But be that as it may, I did not burden you myself.

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Nevertheless, crafty fellow that I am, I took you in by deceit. Certainly, I have not taken advantage of you through any of those whom

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I have sent to you, have I? I urged Titus to go, and sent the brother with him. Titus did not take any advantage of you, did he?

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Did we not conduct ourselves in the same spirit, and walk in the same steps? All this time, you have been thinking that we are defending ourselves to you.

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Actually, it is in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ, and all for your up -building, beloved.

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For I am afraid that perhaps when I come, I may find you to be not what I wish, and may be found by you to be not what you wish.

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That perhaps there may be strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances.

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I am afraid that when I come again, my God may humiliate me before you, and I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past, and not repented of the impurity, immorality, and sensuality which they have practiced.

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Wow, what a way to end this bit. So, as we've progressed through this chapter, we've seen

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Paul remind the Corinthians how boasting is bad, but if necessary, he did it.

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We've seen him take on the accusation that he was in it for the money, that Titus was in it for the money, that all the others that were associated with him were in it for the money.

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And you know, the funny thing is, is I was talking with my wife this morning about sometimes when other people assume things about us, if there's a lifestyle of godliness and following the

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Lord, you know, we should start out with giving each other the benefit of the doubt. We should start that way.

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But don't do third -hand stuff. Go to the person. And so, I'm not sure that anybody did go to Paul.

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He's getting all this second, third, fourth, fifth hand. Have you ever played the game of telephone?

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I don't, you know, it's funny. It was only just a few years back that I discovered that that was the name of the game. I had always called it

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Tyrannosaurus Rex, because the only time I ever played it as a child, that was the first word that was used.

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And I thought that was the name of the game. That's what kids do. They think dumb things. But by the time that word got to the other end of the party,

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I don't remember what it was, but it wasn't about a dinosaur. And I don't know how much of that went on, but I know that it does go on, because that's human nature.

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We tend to like the negative more than the positive. We tend to, what do they say about news?

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No, well, no news is good news. They do say that. But it's like if it bleeds, it leads, you know?

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Stuff like that, I mean, that's just so macabre. But that's what it is. And so people were, who knows how a story gets started, but it begins to take on a life of its own, no matter where it's at.

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Even in the body of Christ, it can take on a life of its own. And that's why we need to go to one another.

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And these, apparently this wasn't happening in Corinth in a proper way. He says in verse 17,

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I've not taken advantage of you through any of those I have sent to you. Actually, before that, in 16,

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I didn't burden you. Nevertheless, crafty fellow that I am, I took you in by deceit. Remember, we talked about that.

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He took them in by deceit by not making them pay for him to minister to them. He didn't give them a bill, and they were upset about that.

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And he didn't take advantage of them through Titus and the others that were sent by him to minister to the

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Corinthian church. He urged Titus and Timothy to go, or Titus, excuse me, and he says in verse 18,

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Titus didn't take advantage of you, did he? Didn't we conduct ourselves in the same spirit and walk in the same steps?

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This is what we talked about last time. He's telling, he's setting them up right now. What is going on in Corinth is what goes on in most, most bodies of Christ, because bodies of Christ are inhabited by people.

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I know someone who said, you know, this planet would be a good, pretty nice place if it wasn't for the people. That's kind of extreme, and they were not willing to start with themselves, no.

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So it was hypocrisy at best. But, so going on in the

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Corinthian church was what is typical in most believers, bodies of believers. They were penitent and impenitent, and at any given time, that's true of any body of Christ.

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And if we think it's not true of us, we're fooling ourselves. This is the most wonderful body of Christ I've ever been in, but we all put our pants on and dresses on one leg at a time, don't we?

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And we all know how to sin just fine. We never had to take sinning, 101. Evil, 102.

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Lying, 103, you know, or any of that. It's natural, and as God is working it out of us, we are grateful.

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And so then Paul reminds the Corinthians, he said, you thought we were defending ourselves. No, all of this has been about building you up.

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And part of building someone up is helping them get, by God's grace, removing what is holding them back in their lives, as well as building up what needs to be given to them to forge ahead in their lives.

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He said it was for their upbuilding, beloved. He reminds them that they are beloved.

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And so that's where we ended up in verse 19 last week. And that's kind of a, if you look at it as a preliminary, because he's about to list a catalog of apparently what was still going on among the impenitent in Corinth.

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And these are not, this is not stealing someone's nerf ball and then giving it back an hour later.

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This is, of course, they didn't have nerf balls in first century Greece, but that's, or yeah, first century Greece, but that's different.

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So Paul is concerned about what's gonna happen when he comes this third time. Remember he wrote the difficult letter and got the news from Titus that some people had repented.

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And it was good news, really good news, that the church was on the move forward. So he says in verse 27, and that's where, or excuse me, verse 20, and there's no 27 in this chapter.

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That's like Proverbs chapter 32. He says in verse 20, starting out this morning, he says, for I am afraid that perhaps when

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I come I may find you to be not what I wish and may be found by you to be not what you wish, that perhaps there will be strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances.

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Now that's quite a list. And it's quite a disconcerting list. To have to be, he's afraid he's gonna find

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Corinth to be not what he was hoping because of those things. And he's afraid that they're gonna find him not to be what they thought he would be because he's gonna have to deal with those things.

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It would have been nice, he would love to come to Corinth and just settle into fellowship there and break bread with them and have a wonderful time.

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But it was not to be. So in his preparation to visit the Corinthian church again, Paul has a few concerns.

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He does not want to find them full of the difficulties that have characterized that church. They should be applying the biblical principles that he and others have been teaching them and they should be doing that.

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If they would be doing that, these difficulties would subside. They would move along in their sanctification.

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So you wanna advance it to 248? So this is how we're gonna do it this morning because I forgot my clicker.

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They would move along in their sanctification. Born again, Bible believers.

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No question that there was many of those in that church. But sometimes we get stuck in our sanctification and some of them, that's what was happening.

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Some of them were just not dealing with things. So his concern when he arrived in Corinth for the third time would be that he would find a lack of repentance in some of the congregation for the sins they were committing.

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Remember that earlier in this epistle, he commended them for many in the church actually repenting.

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Go to the next slide. But God who comforts us, but God who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus and not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted in you as he reported to us your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me so that I rejoiced even more.

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For though I caused you some sorrow by my letter, remember the letter we don't have, the severe letter.

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Though I caused you some sorrow, sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it. For I see that that letter caused you sorrow, though only for a while.

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Now I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance.

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Big difference. And you were made sorrowful according to the will of God so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us.

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For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret. Let me stop there.

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When God brings sorrow into your life that causes repentance, you never regret that repentance.

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You never say, you know, actually, I'd like to go back to that vomit and eat it again.

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You don't. You're sorry. That is one of the evidences of a Christian, that their sin makes them ill.

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They don't like it. They see it in themselves, they reject it, and even a besetting sin, they want it gone.

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Depends on what kind of steps you take to get it gone, but nevertheless, they were sorrowful to the point of repentance.

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And he says it produces a repentance without regret. Moving on in that verse. Leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.

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There's no hope in the sorrow of the world. No hope. You're just evil. Deal with it.

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You can't deal with it. Verse 11. For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you, what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong in everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter.

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So the sorrow that many of them experienced in Corinth was a sorrow that produced amazing results, especially in first century.

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I mean, I can imagine people in the community just amazed at how old,

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I don't know any Greek names, so I won't spit them out, but old Joe turned out. What is different about him?

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I don't even like to be around him anymore. He doesn't do the things he used to do. You know, that's an evidence of godly sorrow.

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Repentance means a turning away, a turning away and doing something different.

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So the Greek word here, though, translated afraid, is not some idea, next slide, not some idea of worry.

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It is the word that means an intense, deep -seated anxiety. It's from this Greek word that we get the

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English word phobia. Are you really glad that spiders can't fly?

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And cows too, but that's another reason, a different reason for that. Paul was deeply concerned about what he might find when he got to Corinth, and so he gave us a list of things that apparently were going on in Corinth.

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These are the things that he was deeply concerned about. He was afraid if he got there, this is what he might find. So from that, we can infer that he was implying that among the unrepentant, this is what was going on in Corinth.

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These are not just minor, well, there is no such thing as a minor sin, so I should disabuse us all of that.

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Sin is sin, but there are some sins that have far worse effects on us.

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Well, I don't need to go into that. This is a well -taught crowd, and you know that. Here we have a list of the things that were apparently going on in Corinth that he was concerned about.

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These are serious sins. Strife, next slide. Strife, this is, it's characteristic of unbelievers, but in the

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Christian church, these things ought not to be. It is the contention and conflict that results from deep animosities and dissension.

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It is one of the deeds of the flesh, and it is characteristic of selfishness. It is actually characterized by an affection for dispute, someone who likes to not get along, who likes to poke and push and prod and just be just evil in that way.

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This is characteristic of people who like confrontation and dissension. So this was going on in the

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Corinthian church among the unrepentant and among the unbelievers that were there, and unfortunately, once that gets started, it takes some serious, people with serious intentions to follow

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Christ to get it stopped, so strife, contention, wrangling, and it's a readiness to quarrel.

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Well, you think that, huh? How about this? It's someone who isn't the kind of person that wants to dispassionately discuss things.

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They wanna debate and they wanna knock you down, and that's what was going on. Next slide.

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Jealousy. Jealousy is a result of self -centeredness, and it's actually a person who's suspicious of others and looks at them as potential rivals.

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By God's grace, the leadership in this church, we look at each other as our betters.

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When I grow up, I wanna be just like the other three, and I really do. I mean, I listen to their teaching.

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I go, wow, why am I even up here? Well, they gotta fill a gap. They get tired, you know?

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So, and that's what is characteristic of believers. Not that I'm lifting myself up, but it's not characteristic of looking at each other as potential rivals of believers, and as potential rivals, excuse me, as believers of believers.

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Let me re -say that. It is not characteristic of believers that they look at each other as potential rivals.

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We're looking to see if we can't serve the other person. What do they need? How can I help them? What's going on in their lives?

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And so, consequently, you have, we should actually have a healthy, godly competition at taking care of one another, rather than tearing each other down.

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This is what jealousy does. It's a nasty, nasty sin. Next slide.

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Angry tempers translates the Greek word from which we get the word rage. It's the explosive, vituperative anger that harms others and destroys relationship.

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The bad thing, well, I can't say anything good about rage. It's the kind of anger that explodes, and the lava gets on people who aren't even involved.

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It's just awful. And it's, Peter. Yeah, it's actually been with us forever.

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Back in my day, it was raging against the machine, you know, raging against the man. The man's holding you down.

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No, I'm just too dumb to get a better job. You know, that was all it was. So yeah, but today, it's elevated, and it's a sad thing when we elevate something so destructive.

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There are no redeeming virtues of rage. God has a certain type of anger that is a good thing.

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It's a productive thing. We must be very careful, because guess what we aren't? What aren't we?

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We're not God. We're people, and our anger can easily, easily get out of control, and I think that's what was going on, some of what was going on in Corinth.

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Angry tempers. Actually, the word thumos, yeah, breathing hard, indignation.

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It's an explosion. It's just an explosion. All of us have been around people like that. Do you like to be around people like that?

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I was like that. I was, decades ago, and God has removed it, thankfully.

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I mean, it's awful. When I think back, why didn't those people just kill me and be done with it, you know?

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That's what you do with an angry, with a rabid dog, you kill it. So next is disputes.

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You wanna go to the next? Next is disputes. This is a result of divisiveness and partisanship.

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It shouldn't be any partisanship in the church. I'm not of Apollos, and you're of Paul, and you're of Peter, and you're of Jesus.

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We're all of Jesus, all of us, and all of us are obligated to one another.

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That kind of thing prompted Paul to deal early on in the Corinthian church with those who chose

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Apollos, and Peter, and others, those who split off behind Peter and said they were followers of Paul.

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It produces factions and division, and if there's somebody in church, in a body of Christ, in leadership, and all of a sudden they realize that people are splitting off behind them, if they're a godly person, they're gonna stop that.

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They're gonna put a stop to that right now. That is not, that should not be a feather in your cap that people think you're cool that way.

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It should be a, you should recognize that this is a divisive thing, and what have I, the first thing you should do is search your soul.

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What have I done to cause this? Is there something I've done that would cause people to split off behind me?

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So who do you, go to the others. Go to those who you get counsel from and find out.

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Don't let this happen. Don't let disputes, and then again, I'm talking about Corinth, not about Kootenai.

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I don't see that here. But it was producing factions and division, and it was bad.

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Yes, oh, I've seen it happen.

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I've been in churches where one person who was in a position of responsibility kind of thought a little bit different than everybody else, only it wasn't a little bit.

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It was actually underlined, underlain by some deep, deep misunderstanding of Scripture, and a group of people started following them, and it created a faction, a little clique in the church.

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Well, you guys are smart, but we know better than you. That's what it'll produce.

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It'll produce nothing good. We don't, we submit to one another. Now, if bad teaching's going on and needs to be dealt with, needs to be dealt with summarily, and don't hide your head and say, maybe they'll quit doing it.

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No, they won't. No, they won't, and it'll get worse and worse until there are multiple factions in the church, and it sounds like that might've been what was going on in Corinth.

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The question was, what did that look like? And so, that's what it looked like. I think that was kind of your question.

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I got to talking and forgot your actual question, because I, was there another question?

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I thought I saw a hand start to go up. Okay, so, next slide.

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Evil speaking, backbiting, evil reports.

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This is open public vilification. You know that, I'm not gonna do that.

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I'm not gonna pick one of you in here and do this, because I'll only try and pick one of you and do something if it's nice, but this is where you publicly say something about somebody else that is either untrue, or you just, you shouldn't be saying it.

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You should've dealt with it with them. And sometimes, they do something wrong. Don't air it in the public square.

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Go to them, go to them, love them. Work on setting it straight. This is a public, it's where we get the word slander.

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It's the idea of detraction, railing, trying to cut someone else down and let other people know just how bad they are.

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Not a good thing. It's not to be, if a believer, and since I'm on camera,

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I can do that now. I don't have to say air quotes. If a believer is doing that, I would question their salvation.

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Now, I don't know their heart, but this is just not characteristic of blood -bought believers.

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Backbiting, insults, evil reports. The next one, and this is one of the most, to my way of thinking, next slide.

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One of the worst things is gossip. Gossip, and I think

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I've told this story before. A woman had come to a counselor for relief from her internal pain, and she was a known gossip, and the counselor knew that.

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And I don't know if this is a true story. I haven't been able to verify that, but it's a good analogy of what happens.

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He took her to the top of a local mountain, a local hill, with a feather pillow, in a windstorm.

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And he said, now cut the pillow open. So she cut the pillow open, and he said, now fling it over your head. And the feathers went everywhere.

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He said, now I want you to gather every feather. So that's what gossip is like. You fling that stuff to the wind, and it goes everywhere.

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It's the quiet, behind -the -back defamation of someone as you're trying to destroy their reputation.

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There isn't a good reason for gossip, ever. Go to the person, keep it to yourself, and sort it out.

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If you have ought against your brother, leave your gift at the altar, and go and make it right.

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I think that's in, I don't remember which chapter of Luke, but it's in the early chapters of Luke. I should have looked that up for you.

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There's your assignment for the week. It's the idea of a whisper, and it's actually almost an onomatopoeic word, it's sithus, sithus.

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It's a whisper, whispering campaign behind somebody's back to bring them down, to bring them down to where you think they ought to be.

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It's a secret detraction. But it never remains secret. It gets out, and it hurts, and it detracts.

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Any questions or comments about any of these? Yes, Mattel. Yes. So, for example, and I'm not gonna mind my stealing, but someone out here in the parking lot steals, you've got 10 bucks.

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This actually happened to my wife recently. Her lock quit working on her door, and they were in Missoula, and I always try to get her to keep change in her,

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I'm weird, I know, but change in her ashtray, so that if you get someplace and you're a buck short or something, you got a buck.

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They stole it, I think there was $8 in there. Well, that was a sin, and it was bad. And I'd like to find that person.

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I don't know what I'd do, eight bucks. It's like the guy who wanted me to shoot someone for shoplifting some underwear.

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I said, over underwear? You gotta be kidding me. So, but that doesn't have any kind of effect like backbiting and spreading secret stories behind someone's back to destroy them.

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And yes, you're right. Some sins have far worse consequences, especially temporal consequences.

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All of them separate us from God, all of them. Every single one of them, yes. Matthew, so don't pay attention to me.

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It wasn't even Luke. Luke doesn't know anything, does he? Matthew 5 .24,

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so the only thing I had right was it was in the Bible. And it was early in whatever book it was in.

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Oh, I should've looked it up. Don't gossip. So some of this was going on in the

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Corinthian church, and I think it was probably what spread this insidious idea that he was in it for the money, that he was doing the collection for Jerusalem, for the saints in Jerusalem.

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Remember we talked about that, especially in chapters eight and nine, where he was urging the Corinthians to pick back up that collection you started a year ago.

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You guys were actually the first, and everybody else got the bug from you to help out the saints in Jerusalem.

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Pick that back up, make it happen. Titus will be there to collect it. And so the people probably, someone probably went, who knows what he's, but all it takes is to say to one of your buddies, he probably wants some of that money for himself.

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And then your buddy says, well yeah, as a matter of fact, the last time he was here, he wouldn't even, he didn't talk to me.

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And so anybody who doesn't talk to me must be a thief. So then he tells the next person, and pretty soon it's a whispering campaign against Paul and against Titus and against all the people that were doing good things for that church.

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That's what gossip does, it's evil, it's wicked. Next, next slide. Arrogance.

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This is, if you ever are prompted by God to pray for me, this is an area that I can be prayed for.

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I'm an arrogant jerk most of the time. I need prayer there. Sometimes I think

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I'm worth more than I am. I'm just dust. Arrogance is where all of these things come from.

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The holier -than -thou attitude of superiority. One who is unapproachable and convinced that they are

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God's gift to the world. It comes from a Greek word that means to be swollen up.

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You know the old story, he can't get his head through the door? That's where it comes from. That's, we got it right from the

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Greeks. His head is so big, he can't get through the door. Oh yeah, I've just got hinge marks on each side, and you know.

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So it's like an air bellow. It's like, if it wasn't for me,

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I remember years ago, one of the times, my boss, the guy who owns Army Surplus, he's a

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Christian, but he's kinda, I think you know him, don't you, Jim? Not really well.

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He's kinda caustic, but he's a good man. I don't mean that in an unkind way. He's just, what's a better word?

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He cuts through stuff. He's right to the point. I remember one time I was waxing eloquent,

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I thought, and he goes, you know, Razor, the Holy Spirit did just fine before you came along.

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And I remember thinking, he did? How is that? No, I didn't.

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Actually, at one point, I finally got it. Oh, okay, hmm, that's a good point. So, next word before we get too carried away here.

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Disturbances. This is the destabilization and disorder that comes from all of these other interactions in the body of Christ.

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It is confusing, hurtful, damaging, and ultimately a misrepresentation of what the body of Christ be doing.

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If you know that there's different teaching coming from different elders, if you know that there's different opinions, not that we all aren't able to have our own opinions and stand on our own two feet, that's not what

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I'm talking about, but Scripture tells the truth, and if we all have a different opinion about what that truth is, that causes unrest and discontent in the body of Christ.

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Well, who do I go to? What do I do? How do I know it's true? Well, first of all, you're supposed to be

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Bereans. You're supposed to be studying the word of God yourself, because none of us up here has a corner on the

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Holy Spirit, ever. But God wants, he wants unity around his word and around the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Not unity that compromises, but unity that brings together around Christ.

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So this is a ah, ah, katastasia. Ah in Greek means against, or undoing, or anti.

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It's instability, it's upheaval, almost anarchy. So there was apparently a part of the

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Corinthian church that was struggling so much that they couldn't, there was some anarchy going on in there.

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And the kind of anarchy that would allow them to tolerate someone living with his father's wife.

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That takes some serious anarchy in the body of Christ. Well, as Peter has pointed out, a lot of things are celebrated today.

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And I didn't think it could get this dark. And some of my more knowledgeable Christian friends have told me, baby, you ain't seen nothing yet.

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Whatever's talked about in the books of Timothy, it's gonna get really dark. But the

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Lord is the light, and I'm not worried about it as much as I used to be. I'm not worried about it at all. I know he writes the last chapter.

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These sins in the three more listed in verse 21 were a plague on this church. Indeed, they are a plague on any body of Christ, anywhere.

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Paul was concerned that when he showed up back in Corinth the third time, there would still be some exhibiting these bad traits, these sinful traits.

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He didn't want to see that happen. He taught them, others had come in and taught them. He had bent over backwards.

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They had the scriptures. They should have known better. Now, that's not to say there weren't plenty in the church that he praised back in the earlier chapters, because they were coming around.

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They were celebrating the body of Christ. They were celebrating one another, serving one another, coming together. So any other comments about verse 20 before we move to the last verse?

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And I think we're gonna make it. Latham, do you want me to repeat all of that,

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Peter? Here it is. Women are jerks. How's that?

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Did I get it? Let me respond to that. Yes, yes and yes. But the leadership in the church, if they let that happen, they are worse.

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But that doesn't mean that you stomp and you plow and you smack and you, that means you lovingly come alongside and bring the scriptures and the word of God.

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And if there's no repentance, then maybe something else has to be done. Beyond that has to be done. But these things, many of these, if they're nipped in the bud, if you will, they don't flower.

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And what's happened in the modern body of Christ, where we have what you're talking about, this emotional leading of the church, is because the leadership in particular bodies of Christ have not seen fit to stop that before it got a full run.

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And so now it's like any virus. It spreads, it spreads and spreads. And any other comments about that?

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Yes, yeah,

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Matthew chapter 18. Before you get to the discipline, Galatians chapter six. If a believer is caught in a sin, and that's the

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Greek word in chapter six, I believe it's verse four, is a tripping up. Go to them, you that are spiritual.

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But be careful of yourselves, because you can be, you know, I should just go to Galatians and not mess up what

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God said perfectly. I'm gonna get it here. I'm not gonna do what

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I did with Luke. Poor Luke, he just got blamed for something. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, there we go.

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Galatians chapter six, verse one. Brethren, even if a man is caught in any trespass, caught, and the word there means to be tripped up, to be grabbed, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.

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King James says meekness. Each one looking to yourself, lest you be tempted.

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Bear one another's burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ. So when we see that happening, don't let it get to third and fourth hand.

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Go to the person. Look at verse four, she said. And I already closed Galatians. That means that you're gonna wait for me to find it again.

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Verse four. But each, good, good on you, Naphel. But let each one examine his own work, for then he will have a reason for boasting in regard to himself alone and not in regard to another.

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Examine yourselves. Be certain that you don't get caught in the temptation to put this person down, to reign him in.

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No, no, to expose them to the word of God's truth so that they might repent, as Paul said.

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Any others before we move to 21? You don't want me to finish this book, do you? It's a good chapter.

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So verse, oh. Oh yeah. I am afraid that when I come again, my

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God may humiliate me before you, and I may mourn over those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, immorality, and sensuality which they have practiced.

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Now, just for, I love to do this so you know what some of the thought has been found through the centuries.

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There are some who believe that this list is incompatible with the glowing reports that Paul gave in chapter seven.

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They adduce that it is a different letter. Come on, give me a break. Others suppose that this being one letter, there was a great lapse of time between writing seven and later parts of the letter.

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Still others, and this is the idea I like, simply acknowledge that part of the congregation was penitent and part wasn't.

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And he dealt with both in the same letter. Because it wasn't a letter to an individual, it was a letter to a church.

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And Paul didn't believe in bologna, bologna sandwiches. Nice, bologna, nice, you know.

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He gave them everything they needed to become more effective for Christ in their own lives.

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So Paul is deeply concerned about the humiliation he might experience because he wrote an early, as he wrote earlier in this epistle, the

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Corinthians were his letter known and read of all men. That's 2 Corinthians chapter three verse two.

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Paul was not afraid of being humbled by God. He did not want to be humiliated by the Corinthians. By God through the

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Corinthians. He might have to mourn over the continual dissension and sinfulness of many in this flock.

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Some of them were still impure. And they had the Holy Spirit and the tools not to be impure.

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This word is associated with sexual sin in the New Testament, next slide. Ah, you see the ah, that means not pure.

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Catharsia, catharsis, cleaning up, not clean. It's a word that means, pure means pure because it's unmixed.

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Ah, catharsia means mixed with evil. Now what happens if I give you a glass of water and I have extract of cow dung and I put one drop, okay, a quart of water, a gallon of water, and I put one drop of that extract in it, are you gonna drink it?

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You chickens, you smart people. It's mixed with, you can't mix sin in, you can't mix a little sin in.

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It contaminates, it leavens the whole lump. And anybody that thinks that they can get away with a little, just a little sin, they're fooling themselves.

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Paul was deeply concerned about that. He might have to mourn over the continual dissension and sinfulness of many in this flock.

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Some of them were still impure. This word is associated with sexual sin in the New Testament. Remember the Corinthians lived in a tremendously immoral part of the

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Roman Empire. So lest I give myself airs, you know, we live in a pretty normal part of America where there's not a lot of that.

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I mean, there's stuff, all kinds of stuff going on in the background. But in 1st century Corinth, this was normal. It was normal to go to the temple prostitutes at night.

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It was normal for them to descend into the city and ply their wares, the whole city. And so if you were serious about remaining pure,

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I don't know what kind of locks they had, but you should lock your door, bolt it, put the chain on, and stick a chair in front of it so they couldn't get in.

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That's the idea. They weren't doing that. Some of them weren't doing that. It's moral uncleanliness.

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Some of them were still struggling with the sin of immorality. Next slide. Pornia, that's where we get the word for pornography.

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This is a word that translates to Greek, idea that refers to any sexual act outside of marriage.

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So there were still some in the church struggling with this. I mean, this is overt.

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It just ought not to be heard of among believers. Moving on.

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Next slide. Unless there's questions or comments. You know you can always jump in. Just raise your hand.

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If I see you and I don't wanna answer your question, I'll just look away. And some were still struggling with sensuality.

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A, there's that A again. Paul associates this with public sins like carousing, drunkenness, and sexual promiscuity.

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This was, again, evidence of the immorality that was going on, especially in that part of Greece.

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Peter connected it to lust, drunkenness, and sexual promiscuity. He also used it to describe the homosexual vice of the men in Sodom.

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Make no mistake, that is the comeback that's happening in this day and age that is part and parcel of what was evil in Corinth.

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And it's evil everywhere, no matter when, no matter how. But it's no more evil than these other sins here.

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Impurity. It's just some of it has far greater consequences, long -term, short -term.

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This word means licentiousness, wantonness. It's conduct, and I don't know if there's any more of this anymore, but the definition is it's conduct that is shocking to public decency.

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I sure hope we continue to have some form of genuine public decency, an idea of public decency, so that we're still shocked.

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But the day's coming, maybe, when that won't happen. So, closing this out,

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Paul's overriding concern was that those practicing these things would either repent, or turn to Christ, or turn back.

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Repent and turn to Christ, or turn back. Return to Christ. I have an opinion, and this is just my opinion, that most of this was probably unbelievers in the church, that it infiltrated the church.

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At least, I really hope it was. But there were probably plenty of believers. I mean, gossip, anybody never gossiped?

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I don't want to embarrass anybody, so if there's one of you that hasn't, though, I'd sure like you can take me right under your wing.

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Anybody never lied? Anybody never had an angry outburst? All of this happens.

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God gives us the grace to stop it. Whatever the situation is, concern was for their welfare.

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And he pointed to remarks that they need to repent, even of sin they committed in the past. Don't let it, and I'm not talking about commit sins of your ancestors, but when you remember something that you did, that you didn't make right, figure if you can find out how to make it right.

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You know, I remember one time I did that. I had someone come into my store who

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I had offended in the deep past. I didn't know the offense was that big. But I was moved by God's spirit to bring it up and apologize.

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I couldn't believe this person was in my store. They weren't a surplus type of person, it was weird. And they'd never met him since.

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And so I said, you know, you remember this situation that happened, blah, blah, blah? And they started crying. I think they remembered.

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And I said, can you ever forgive me? And they did, they did.

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Now, I'm not into going and stirring up things, but if there's someone that you need to have, you need to make something right with it, you know you did.

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Paul wanted them to do that. So, closing out, this chapter spans the difficult situation of Paul being required to boast in order to demonstrate to the

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Corinthians his true apostolic calling, his recognition that God's grace is always sufficient for everything.

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No matter what comes up in life, his grace is always sufficient for everything that we must go through.

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And his willingness to continually love and work with the Corinthians, Paul's willingness to continually love and work with the

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Corinthians, whether it meant giving them of himself, or it meant helping them to find repentance from studying and applying the word of God.

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This is the difficult task he had to face, and God gave him the strength to do it. And he ends this chapter,

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I don't wanna come, let me get to the end of the chapter. Just, I wanna read the last two verses again.

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I don't wanna find this, I'm afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you not to be what I wish. What does he wish?

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Not that they be like him, carbon copies, but that they be genuine, humble followers of Christ.

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That's all, that's all. Not many Pauls, all of them their own people, all of them their own abilities by God's grace, but that they be genuine followers of Christ, and that it be evidenced by not being striving, by not being jealous, by not having wrathful outbursts.

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No disputes, slanders are taken care of, gossip is ending. Disputes are not happening.

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Arrogance has become a sin of the past in this church, and disturbances aren't happening because those things are being taken care of.

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May it be in the body of Christ, so that when they look at us, they really do say, see how they love one another.

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That's what Jesus wanted. So, any comments or things before we pray? We made it. That just means you gotta go through chapter 13 with me, though.

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Okay, let's pray. Father, nothing in your word is put there by chance.

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Everything is put there specifically by the will of your Holy Spirit. And so, this chapter, while we look at it historically and in context, recognizing that these are issues that Paul was dealing with in Corinth, while we do that, we know that everything that is happening then, that was happening then, happens now.

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Might we be about the business of continuing to deal with those very sins that he talks about in chapter 12, verses 20 and 21?

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In our own lives first, and then as necessary, by your grace, as Nathael reminded us, in humility in the lives of others.

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We know you love us, and we know that your grace is sufficient for all these things, and for that, we are grateful. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.