Sermon Tone Analysis

The Imperfect Church

The Intolerant Church

Introduction

The phrase “out of left field” is one we use today to refer to something that we didn’t necessarily expect to happen.

The phrase finds it origins in baseball, as a runner was making his way towards home plate and gets thrown out at home by the left-fielder.

Since the runner would be facing home, his back would be to left field, meaning he wouldn’t be able to see the ball coming towards him from behind.

So if the ball was thrown “out of left field” it came as a surprise to the runner, something he could not have seen coming.

“Out of left field” is definitely a phrase we could use to describe the text we are looking at today in .

So far, Paul has been making clear, logical, linear arguments.

We come to expect this from such an intellectual like him.

His arguments are clear, concise, and compelling.

They build on each other coming to these powerful crescendo moments.

He’s been discussing division, wisdom, the Gospel, his authority…all leading up to confronting several specific issues of sin in the Corinthian Church.

After confronting the church over a significant sexual sin in chapter 5, and before he continues addressing further issues of sexual sin in chapters 6-7, he inserts these out-of-place verses about lawsuits among Christians.

Didn’t really see that one coming.

Doesn’t seem to fit, in fact it seems to interrupt.

Yet since we are slowly making our way through the letter, and if we dig into what is going on behind the scenes, it all makes perfect sense.

Paul is simply continuing to address the primary issue of the letter: The Church refuses to sever ties with its pagan culture.

The Church isn’t being The Church.

The Church once again is acting like the world.

- When one of you has a dispute with another believer, how dare you file a lawsuit and ask a secular court to decide the matter instead of taking it to other believers! 2 Don’t you realize that someday we believers will judge the world?

And since you are going to judge the world, can’t you decide even these little things among yourselves?3 Don’t you realize that we will judge angels?

So you should surely be able to resolve ordinary disputes in this life.

4 If you have legal disputes about such matters, why go to outside judges who are not respected by the church?

5 I am saying this to shame you.

Isn’t there anyone in all the church who is wise enough to decide these issues?

6 But instead, one believer sues another—right in front of unbelievers!

7 Even to have such lawsuits with one another is a defeat for you.

Why not just accept the injustice and leave it at that?

Why not let yourselves be cheated?

8 Instead, you yourselves are the ones who do wrong and cheat even your fellow believers.

9 Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves.

Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, 10 or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God.11

Some of you were once like that.

But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

TS – Four elements that Paul highlights:

1. SHOCKING PROBLEM

To our surprise, maybe even to their surprise, it is this issue that seems to rile Paul up the most.

The first six verses that expose this shocking problem are the harshest ones in the entire letter.

He frames the text with a series of in-your-face rhetorical questions, verse one and verse six bracket the paragraph with statements of horror at what is happening, and verse five is his most biting sarcasm.

What is it about this issue in particular that lights such a blazing fire with Paul?

v. 1 - When one of you has a dispute with another believer, how dare you file a lawsuit and ask a secular court to decide the matter instead of taking it to other believers!

The very first word in the original Greek is “Dare!”

He is appalled at this.

Christians are taking other Christians to court to settle their issues.

In our world it may not seem like such a huge deal since we are so used to culture that delights in suing one another.

Turns out, so did the Corinthians.

The Greek culture was such that this was quite the common practice.

The language here is clear that this is not referring to criminal court (those issues are always to be settled there).

This is referring to civil court.

Two people who have some sort of issue between them (likely a property/money issue because of words he uses in v. 7-8), settle it in court.

This was normal.

This happened all the time.

You get wronged, someone cheats you out of some money…the solution is simple, take them to court.

Once these people became Christians, this practice did not stop.

Apparently it had not occurred to them that their faith in Christ might inform how they deal with issues and disagreements.

Perhaps Jesus has a better way for believers to behave with one another.

His primary problem with this is that these Christians are appealing to a secular court to administer justice, instead of taking the issue to other believers to settle it.

Now, right before this at the end of chapter 5, Paul has just concluded his judgment against this man who was sinning so grievously.

In so doing, he gave us a great truth about how the Church is to function.

– 12 It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning.

13 God will judge those on the outside; but as the Scriptures say, “You must remove the evil person from among you.”

The Church governs itself.

It judges those inside, makes those calls for itself, and administers justice.

But what the Church does not do is make judgements against the outside world.

That’s God’s job to judge.

The inside judges the inside.

The inside doesn’t judge the outside.

Here is what the Corinthians were doing…though the inside doesn’t judge the outside, they were inviting the outside to judge the inside!

He then goes on in chapter 6 to explain why this is such a problem:

v. 2-3 - 2 Don’t you realize that someday we believers will judge the world?

And since you are going to judge the world, can’t you decide even these little things among yourselves?3 Don’t you realize that we will judge angels?

So you should surely be able to resolve ordinary disputes in this life.

He appeals to two truths here: 1) Christians are going to judge the world/angels at the Final Judgement.

What does that mean?

Well, he does not mean that you and I are going to sit next to Jesus at the final judgment and help decide who goes to Heaven or Hell.

All he means is that since we are united with Christ, we stand with the One who is Judge over all things.

So if we are on the side of the Judge, not the judged, in eternity, can’t we make some simple decisions now about less important things?

Which leads to the second truth he appeals to: 2) these issues they are running to court to settle are relatively minor issues.

V. 2 says “these little things” which is a superlative meaning that these issues could not be smaller than they are.

They are insignificant.

V. 3 calls them “ordinary disputes,” a phrase that means issues of everyday life.

So their appearances in court are not over these life-changing, traumatic issues.

They are minor inconveniences that come up in normal life…yet they are blowing them out of proportion in an effort to get some money out of it.

Notice v. 4 - 4 If you have legal disputes about such matters, why go to outside judges who are not respected by the church?

This phrase “not respected” means “have no standing.”

Meaning that Paul’s primary concern here is not that the court system was pagan and corrupt, though research proves it absolutely was.

His primary concern is that it is not the Church.

Add to that the fact that every time Paul uses the term “believers” in these verses, it is the Greek word adelphos…brothers.

These issues are family issues, not to be taken outside the family.

These are brothers and sisters in Christ who love you, whom you love, and are to be trusted to help you.

Verse 5 is the most biting statement he makes, dripping with harsh sarcasm, and verse 6 caps off his concern with yet another horrified reaction.

V. 5-6 - 5 I am saying this to shame you.

Isn’t there anyone in all the church who is wise enough to decide these issues?

6 But instead, one believer sues another—right in front of unbelievers!

Back in 4:14 he told them that he wasn’t saying those particular things to shame them.

But this, this is absolutely to shame them.

They ought to be ashamed, embarrassed that they would do such a thing.

Isn’t there anyone who is wise enough to handle this?

That’s a slap in the face.