Bought with a Price

This morning I want to focus on two verses at the end of 1 Corinthians 6—verses 19-20.

While you are turning there, let me quickly review the context for you. Paul is six chapters into this epistle. Almost from start to finish, 1 Corinthians focuses on various problems in the Corinthian church. And some of these were serious problems. The church was divided; they were tolerant of gross sins they should have purged from their midst, including a case of incest (mentioned in chapter 5). They had people making a mockery of the Lord's table, treating it like one of the drunken celebrations that characterized Roman religions. Their corporate meetings were chaotic. False teachings were beginning to come in. And Paul deals with all those things in 1 Corinthians.

Our text comes at a point where Paul is dealing in particular with sins of the flesh. All of Chapter 5 is a rebuke because the church was tolerating this case of open sexual immorality "of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans," according to 5:1. This man was apparently cohabiting with his father's wife. It's not clear whether that was his mother or step-mother, but either way, it was gross sin, and Paul instructs them to excommunicate the man for the sake of purity in the church. Keep this incestuous man's situation in mind, because it's an important part of the immediate context of our text, and we'll return to it...