Shalom, shalom; peace, peace in the name of Yeshua. This is Crystal Sharpe and welcome to the Ancient Scrolls program.
I do have a website called ancientscrollsonline.com, all one word: ancientscrollsonline.com if you want to take a look at it.
The good news is Yeshua is returning. I believe His return is imminent.
Today, we will continue to examine First Corinthians 6 and briefly look at Romans 16 to make a point concerning Corinthians 6. In First Corinthians 5, we will take a look at the fellow in the Messianic assembly having intercourse with his father’s wife, as well.
I have invited a friend of ours, Apostle George Gates, to do a couple of programs at the end of the month to speak on the issue of women not having permission to speak in a church environment in the first century AD. He will enlighten us on the culture of that time and why Paul said some of the things he said concerning women ministers. We must take in account the Gentile women in pagan cultures worshipping goddesses, and these women were now attending synagogues and house meetings. So, we will see what George brings to the table for us to examine on some of these passages. My hope is that it will set some of you free from the oppressive man-made traditions of men.
Alright, let’s review last program. From Acts 18, we understand that Paul established the Messianic Synagogue in Corinth around 51 AD. About four years later Paul had to address some division and immoral activities that had crept into the assembly. Scholars say there was were at least four letters that were written to the Messianic synagogue in Corinth. Two of the four letters were preserved and canonized in our Bible.
In this surviving letter that is called First Corinthians, Paul crafts it concerning certain issues of immorality and division in the synagogue, those who had separated themselves under banners of different teachers. He instructed them to be under one banner, that of Yeshua. Their slogans were: I am of Apollos, I belong to Paul, I follow Cephas. In this letter He reprimands them over this disunity and encourages them to unify under Yeshua.
Because of these slogans used by the Messianic synagogue, I had gone ahead and pursued another slogan used among them in I Corinthians 6:12, All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. I should not have gone too quickly making some points on it, but we will pursue that more fully today.
Shema
Shema O Israel, the LORD God, the LORD is ONE.
Psalm 24
The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof; the world and those who dwell therein.
Father YHWH,
Thank You so much for being God. You are the King of the Universe, King over heaven and earth. We appreciate You for Your kindness, Your mercy, for the everlasting love You have for Your creation. We pray to be cleansed from all unrighteousness, intentional and unintentional. We thank You for the cleansing blood of Yeshua; for His virgin birth, His death, His burial, His resurrection, His ascension, the pouring out of His Holy Spirit, and His imminent return. Thank You, Father, this world system as we know it will be destroyed. We pray protection over Your people from this pestilence, this coronavirus, this plague that has been introduced because of our sins. I pray You remember the good works of Your people. Send Your Spirit of repentance today upon the lost in this nation. We pray Your righteousness and justice will prevail over the darkness in the hearts of this nation. We pray these things in Yeshua’s name, amen.
So, First Corinthians 6:12
All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any to mean that whatever Torah was against is now acceptable to practice; because, according to some, Paul somehow destroyed the Word of God.
Yet before Paul states this he reprimands them for being thieves, homosexuals, pederasts, drunkards, adulterers, idolaters and greedy; he then went on to say they would not inherit the kingdom of God. If all things are lawful, if adultery was lawful, why would he then say they would not enter into the kingdom of heaven?
In the 5th chapter of First Corinthians, Paul blisters the assembly for boasting that one member was having sex with his father’s wife. This was unheard of even in the pagan culture (I suppose one or two things were possibly taboo in the Corinthian culture) but not in the Messianic synagogue. But then all things are lawful, right? Paul used the passage from Leviticus 18:8 against this behavior: do not have sex with your father’s wife.
In First Corinthians 5 verse 3, Paul said he judged this man, For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so done this deed.” This would cause some people to hyperventilate that Paul judged this man. You hear some people say: “You can’t judge me!” Well, Paul did, he judged him and told the assembly to excommunicate him, to put him in exile until he repented of it.
The NKJV states: All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. I Corinthians 6:12
In that culture teachers, philosophers instructed that one may indulge in pleasure, but not to overindulge since one’s desires may eventually control them. Everything must be done in moderation. Hence, we have Paul parroting their culture’s slogan from their secular teachers: all things are lawful (all pleasure is lawful), but all things are not helpful (but all these pleasures may not be beneficial). All things are lawful for me (all pleasure is lawful), but I will not be brought under the power of any; meaning I will not be controlled by my addiction. I will not allow my addiction to control me.
Yesua said, John 8:34, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.”
Anyway, I hope this brings some clarity to this often-abused verse taken out of context.
All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.
Verse 13, Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
Alright, again some would misinterpret half this verse Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, to mean they are permitted to eat anything: rats, bats, cats, dogs, mice, maggots, cockroaches, monkeys, horses, crows and vultures that eat rotting carcasses, and the largest excrement eating rat of all—the pig. I happen to disagree with that misinterpretation.
Here is why. Paul is not talking about food that is consumed through the mouth and goes into the stomach. He isn’t talking about a being hungry stomach or stomach appetite; he is speaking about human desires; desires, appetites that are sexual. This is a euphemism for them saying that the body was made for intercourse.
This is another slogan. The Messianic synagogue has adopted from the culture around them the idea that the body is permitted to have everything it desires, everything it craves. Paul knows that human desires are tainted with sin, and sin desires to master the person sinning for its own evil purposes. Sin is a beast.
I mean, Paul explains it for us what he is aiming at: Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
Romans 16:17-18 is an example
Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them. For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ(well, that is rather final: they do not serve the Lord. Some would be offended at Paul for judging), but their own belly (their own lusts of the flesh), and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple.
In this Messianic assembly at Corinth, some of them have gravitated toward some form of libertine, Hellenistic, perhaps incipient-Gnostic teaching that what a person did physically mattered very little, because the internal person was apparently saved. I have come across individuals who thought these same things. But Paul corrects that error and says, verse 20: For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. Verse 20.
As what people do physically does truly matter. The behavior that had surfaced in Corinth, ran very much against how “you were washed . . .you were sanctified . . .you were justified in the name of the Lord Yeshua, the Messiah and in the Spirit of God. Verse 11 I Corinthians 6
Okay, one final word on All things are lawful for me. In Greek it would read: Panta moi exestin. We are going to focus on the word exestin that is usually translated lawful. The Greek word exestin should be defined as “it is allowed or permitted.”
The right Greek word for lawful would be nomimos or nomos. First Corinthians 6:12 does not have that Greek word, it has exestin. That verse should be rendered: All things are permitted me, or All things allowed me.
The Complete Jewish Bible translates Paul saying to the Greeks there: You say, “For me everything is permitted”? Maybe, not everything is helpful. “For me, everything is permitted”? Maybe, but as far as I am concerned, I am not going to let anything gain control over me.
So, I hope this has been helpful in understanding this verse in First Corinthians 6:12
14, And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power.
I am going to read this from a source:
The high regard that God as Creator has for the human body, was witnessed by the Messiah event, and how the Son was not just executed, but subsequently raised from the dead (15:20). Being in Yeshua, redeemed men and women are innately connected to Him not just in terms of salvation from sins, but in the culmination of their salvation, which will be witnessed at the resurrection of the righteous and the redemption of the whole being. Yeshua’s resurrection was only the first step in the general resurrection of God’s people that will occur on the last day. Yeshua’s body and the believer’s body, are therefore eternal, for God will also raise us up; the eternal nature of the believer’s body should affect his or her present behavior. What they do with their bodies now is important. I Corinthians 15:42-49. ESV Study Bible and I Corinthians for the Practical Messianic, pg 125 of 397 (Kindle)
I am going to go over this and then end the program.
15, Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Certainly not!
16, Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For “the two.” He says, shall become one flesh.”
17,But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
18, Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
I am going to go over this and then end the program.
Here we see something more than just a physical coupling of two people, or in some cases, orgies; sexual intercourse entails the joining together of persons with all their spiritual associations. There is a transfer, transmission of demonic spirits to both parties.
And we particularly see this if the prostitute is a cult follower, meaning the union of two people becomes an act of worship of a god or goddess.
This opens the spiritual portals within us and demonic presences enter our lives. The spirits that enter are more addictions, spirits of poverty and disease. Whatever that person has is transferred to you because you have become one. What ever you have will be transferred to them as well. The end of it is that a person will be seven times worse than they were before according to Matthew 12:43-45
The better thing would be like Paul instructed: Flee sexual immorality. Find someone to be a life long partner with; marry them. Repent of past acts of sexual indiscretions. Let’s look at this portion of verse 18
Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
Sexual sin as I stated forms a spiritual connection with the other person, it is different than other sins like drunkenness, or thievery, because there isn’t this becoming one flesh. A bottle of liquor isn’t flesh, being an addicted gambler isn’t being intimate with another flesh; the one flesh union is only with two people being intimate.
19. Or do you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
20, For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
God has redeemed us, we were bought with a price (which means freeing a slave, some times paying a ransom). This price contrasts starkly with the demeaning price to paid to hire a prostitute.
Anyway, that is all I have. I am at the end of the program.
If it is God’s will, I will be here next program. Remember to walk by faith, not by sight. Ask God to cleanse you of all unrighteousness every day. Keep your spiritual garments clean from spot, wrinkle and blemish. Do two things this week: love and forgive. Love God and love your neighbor.
Ricco Cortes will sing the Aaronic priestly blessing.
