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The Corinthian church stood in need of discipline: the believers were not exhibiting harmony or purity in their relationships with one another. Although Paul loved them, they needed a reminder of how to live in accordance with Christ. As a result, he wrote 1 Corinthians, a corrective letter exhorting them to imitate him inasmuch as he imitated Christ (1 Corinthians 4:16).
In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul reminds the Corinthian believers of the unity that ought to be true of the church. Instead of dragging one another to court, our lives ought to be marked by our mutual love. Even if someone has done something wrong to us, we must choose the way of mediation as a testimony to the world—if it is possible to do so without compromising the truth of the gospel.
As agents of light, we must be a collective unity in Christ Jesus that draws people in through our love. One of our purposes in the church is to build one another up by using our spiritual gifts, praying for one another, and sitting under the tutelage of the Word. In such a way, we will be a witness to the world.
Not only should our lives reflect our love for one another through our unity and harmony, but our lives should be marked by purity. Instead of participating in sexual immorality, God calls us to a higher standard because our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit:
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? (1 Corinthians 6:19)
The prophet Jeremiah predicted this with the coming of the new covenant:
“But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” (Jeremiah 31:33)
This is an inside-out dynamic. Because of the Holy Spirit within us, God calls us to be holy, to be like Him. In such a way, as we imitate Christ, we will bear fruit for the gospel.
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This teaching is based on Ken’s Handbook to Scripture.
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