As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. (1 Peter 1:14)
The Dangers of Ignorance
Ignorance is a dangerous thing. We can think that we are doing something that is perfectly OK, only to discover that it is deeply harmful.
In the first half of the twentieth century, many people smoked. No-one saw anything wrong with it – a pleasant past-time like having a pint down the pub. Some doctors even suggested that smoking actually improved your health.
It was not until the early 1950s that it was conclusively shown and accepted that smoking led to lung cancer – a killer disease. Up until then many people had been ignorant and died an early death as a result.
In 1 Peter 1:14 it says,
“As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.” (1 Peter 1:14)
Peter is saying that before his readers became Christians they had behaved as they did because they were ignorant of God, his ways and his guidance. Now, they have come to know God’s ways and so they must live differently.
In our reading this morning, Paul tackles the church in Corinth about their attitudes to wrongdoing and focuses on sexual immorality in particular. He says four times: ‘don’t you know’? In other words, are you still ignorant? Are you still pursuing this wrong way of living, because you have not understood the truths that God has now revealed to you in Christ?
He is concerned, because their ignorance on these issues could prove catastrophic.
Increasingly today as people come to faith out of a culture that has lost touch with a Christian understanding of sex or as Christians have allowed themselves to become more influenced by the society around them than the teaching of the Bible, there is a danger that many are falling into sexual behaviour that is ultimately harmful to them, the church and their relationships around them.
So let’s explore the three areas of ignorance that Paul tackles in this passage around the issues of sex. In the hope that we can be less ignorant and so learn the Christian approach to sex, one that is ultimately for our good, our blessing and our joy.
Ignorant about the Gospel – 6:9-11
Importantly as we talk about sex, it is important that we really understand the gospel, that is what the good news of Jesus actually says and what becoming a Christian means.
We sing a hymn called, ‘Just as I am’, which emphasises the great truth that you do not have to do anything or become anything to be welcomed into God’s family and to become inheritors of eternal life. The Corinthians and many people today are happy to accept that, but what they and many Christians seem to have forgotten is that as a Christian you cannot, ‘stay as you are.’ Jesus calls us to repent as well as to believe, not to change in order to come to God, but to come to God in order to change our behaviour.
In our passage, Paul lists a whole load of sinful behaviours and then says powerfully, “this is what some of you were.” We can assume that for each of these behaviours there was a Christian in the Corinthian church, who had lived in that way before they came to faith. There were people who had been adulterers, thieves, greedy, slanderers and so on. They had lived in ways incompatible with being a follower of Jesus.
In coming to Christ, they were transformed. They were cleansed of all sin and guilt. God’s memory of their wrongdoing was washed away. They became part of God’s holy people and they were put into a relationship with God, where they were no longer condemned for past wrongs. They came as they were and were totally accepted. This is grace, this is good news.
But, this transformation shows itself in terms of change. Paul is saying that if they continue to habitually sin in these ways, then it shows that they have not really been accepted and changed. We don’t change in order to come to God, but we come to God, that our behaviour is changed.
What’s the fuss with sexual sin?
So, we are called to change, but why such an emphasis on sexual sin? For some in the Corinthian church, sexual sin did not matter. Chapter 5, mentioned a particular bad example of a man sleeping with his father’s wife, but in this section, the issue is sexual sin more generally. Some of the Corinthians thought that it was fine for Christians to do whatever they like with their bodies. “All things are lawful for me!” they said, “Everything is permissible for me.” If the Jewish food laws no longer mattered for Christians, why should Jewish scruples about sex be applied to non-Jewish Christians.
Paul’s response to this anything goes attitude to sex, was to accuse them of being ignorant about their bodies and about the nature of sex.
Ignorant about our Bodies – 6:12-15,19-20; 7:3-4
Firstly, he accuses them of being ignorant about the importance of their bodies. The Corinthians like many people of their time, probably thought of the body as a kind of container for the soul. The two were separate, the body was temporary, but the soul might live on in some way. They thus believed that whatever you did with your physical body did not affect your soul.
As Christians, they probably thought that faith was merely to do with the soul and had no relevance to the body. So what you did with your body, including having sex is irrelevant to your spiritual life.
Paul could not disagree with this idea more. He emphasises how much our bodies do matter, they are not just a container for the real us. They are the real us. When Paul speaks about the body he means more than our flesh, blood and bone. It refers to the totality of who we are, our whole personality, emotional state and well-being.
Firstly, In 6:14 he reminds the Corinthians that our eternal future is not a disembodied spiritual one, it is a bodily one. Jesus was raised bodily from the dead and so we one day will be given transformed resurrection bodies – he talks a lot more about that in chapter 15. Our bodies are not temporary, they are eternal and so what we do with our bodies matters.
Secondly, in verse 15 he tells us that our bodies are members of Christ. We are not just united with Christ spiritually, but our physical presence in this world, becomes Christ’s presence in the world. What we do with our bodies is linked with how we represent Christ. What we do with our bodies matters.
Thirdly, in verse 19, he tells us that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. This links with the previous point. Whereas most people in the Bible thought that you went to a temple to meet with your god, Jesus created a radically different concept, where God is met in the bodily witness of Christians in community. Our bodies matter to God.
Finally, Jesus does not just save our souls, he redeems our bodies. His death on the cross was the price he paid to save us body and soul. He gave his body, to save our body. In that sense our bodies belong to him, we cannot use them in ways that contradict his will, but need to honour God with our bodies.
The thrust of Paul’s argument is that faith is not a purely spiritual thing, what you do with your physical body really does matter.
Ignorant about Sex – 6:16-18
But, Paul was also clear elsewhere, that some of the things that Jews did with their bodies, i.e. circumcision and not eating certain foods no longer mattered. The Corinthians were probably arguing, that if these things no longer constrained Christians, why should we be constrained when it comes to sex.
Paul’s response is to say, that they are ignorant about sex. Sex impacts us at an emotional level far more powerfully, than any food we eat.
In verse 16 he quotes from Genesis 2 the foundational verse on marriage and sex:
“The two will become one flesh.”
He applies this to having sex with a prostitute and explains that when you have sex with someone you are at an emotional level gluing yourself to them. Sex was designed to create a deep emotional unity between husband and wife in marriage, to help create a permanent bond and as a way to bring children into the world – in the context of a united mother and father. In the context of marriage, sex is a good and positive thing and in chapter 7, Paul encourages sex within marriage.
But outside of marriage, it acts as an emotional glue between two people, when such a bond is in appropriate. Paul says, how can you take your body, which belongs to Christ and emotionally glue it to a prostitute? It is an offense to Christ and emotionally and spiritually damaging to yourself and the prostitute.
This is why Paul says in verse 18, that to sin sexually is to sin against your own body. It is in a sense to emotionally glue yourself to someone who you are not meant to be sticking to. When you do that you damage your own body emotionally and the body of the person you have sex with.
When I went to university the biggest rule they stressed about our university rooms, was no blue tac. When you stick a poster to a wall with blue tac, it looks great, but when you come to take the poster down, the blue tac often pulls away some of the paint from the wall leaving a horrible mark. The same is true of sexual relationships. They look great while they last, but when they end, they leave an emotional scar.
That is why sexual abuse is worse than normal abuse. Because it leaves powerful emotional scars on people.
That is why sleeping around is so unhelpful, because it leaves people emotionally scarred and damaged, perhaps making it harder for them to eventually settle in a permanent long term relationship. Certainly, no-one can argue that the sexual revolution of the 1960s has not created a society full of people emotionally scarred by broken sexual relationships.
That is why adultery is so wrong. In chapter 7, Paul says, that as husband and wife you have a kind of ownership over each others bodies. In becoming one flesh, you have united with each other. To take your body that belongs to your husband or wife and unite it with someone else causes deep pain and loss to the other. In my ministry, I have seen the effects adultery has had on betrayed wives and it has been utterly devastating.
It is also why, living together before marriage, although not as emotionally scarring as adultery or sleeping around is also wrong. People often live together as a way of testing whether marriage is right. But if the act of sex is a powerful expression of permanent emotional union, of gluing together two people, having sex before you’ve made that commitment is at best a powerful lie and at worst is uniting two people who may not wish to stay united and condemning them to emotional pain when the separation happens.
As Christians, we need to grasp hold of a Biblical knowledge of what sex to understand why Jesus calls us to a better way with sex, to reserve it for marriage.
Homosexual Sex
But what about same sex couples? If they are in a permanent relationship is it not OK for them to have sex?
This is a big debate in the Church of England at the moment and the Church’s General Synod is completely split on the answer. Many who would want to see the church fully accept same sex marriage, would want to simply dismiss what the Bible says on this issue as no longer relevant. Others, however, would argue that the Bible does allow for same sex marriage.
I and many others are not convinced. In this passage two words are used for homosexual activity. Some argue that they refer not to homosexual sex generally, but to abusive homosexual relationships or to a relationship between and older man and a younger boy. The problem is that Paul uses a word that literally means, ‘one who sleeps with a male.’ There is no hint that abuse is an issue or that one of those involved is too young. In fact Paul could have used other Greek words to make clear that this is what he was referring to, but he doesn’t. On face value this seems to be a general prohibition of any kind of sex between two males.
And this is not the only place in the New Testament. In Romans 1, Paul, also makes it clear that same sex is wrong and the word also appears in 1 Timothy 1 in a list of sins.
This is not to say that people who engage in same sex sex or who identify themselves as gay or lesbian are barred from God’s salvation. The gospel is as much for them as anyone else. God’s free offer of salvation is for all including those in the LGBT community. We should show the same love, compassion, kindness and welcome to them as we would to anyone who comes into our church and share with them the good news of Jesus. We do not have to change to come to Christ, but we come to Christ that he may change our behaviour.
There were many who would describe themselves as gay or lesbian who spoke for the orthodox Biblical view on sexual morality at General Synod. I met someone who goes to a local church, only recently, who said he was gay, but is committed to a celibate life. There is an ordained minister in a nearby church, who used to be a regular at gay nightclubs, but has now turned his back on all of that. As Paul said, to the Corinthians, this is what some of you were… But now you are Christs!
Let us like them commit to using our bodies to honour Christ and fleeing from Sexual Immorality.
St. Luke's Church Ramsgate 