1 Corinthians 6:9-11

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

Or have you all not known that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not stray from the path!  Neither the sexually immoral people nor the idolaters nor the adulterers nor the recipients of homosexual behavior nor the givers of homosexual behavior nor thieves nor the greedy nor the drunkard nor the slanderer nor the plunderer will inherit the kingdom of God.  And you all were some of these.  But you all purified yourself.  But you all were made holy.  But you all were made righteous in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

Thoughts for Today

First Thought:

Paul gives an incredible list of unrighteous behavior here.  I have a few points to make about this.  First of all, this is not an exclusive list.  Second, this is not meant as a list of “if you do these things, you have no hope.”  After all, at the end of this list Paul says, “you all were doing these things!”  So clearly Paul believes that people who do such things have hope!  People can be changed.  People can have their life redeemed.  People absolutely can know a different life from the sinfulness that naturally dwells within us.

What sinfulness do you need to escape?  Do you want to escape it?  How can you?

Second Thought:

Paul uses a really neat verb at the beginning of verse 11.  And we tend to skip right over it.  The verb is: “were.”  It’s an imperfect verb, which means that he is talking about behavior that occurred in the past for a time but that it no longer is going on.  This is the power of God!  We can be in a certain unrighteous pattern of life for a time; but God can bring us out of it and change who we are!  We don’t have to be the same, we can be a new creation in Christ!

Are you a new creation?  Has Christ transformed you?

Third Thought:

Paul gives us three more neat verbs as we end this passage.  “You all purified yourselves.”  Paul isn’t saying that we get rid of our own sins as we’ll see in the next verbs.  Rather, He is saying that we come repentantly and humbly to God, ready to have Him work in our lives.  “You all were made holy.”  Notice the passive voice, indicating that we do not actually make ourselves holy but rather He makes us holy.  “You all were made righteous.”  Again we have a passive voice verb, indicating that He makes us righteous; we do not accomplish it on ourselves.  God does all the hard work.  Our job is making ourselves ready to receive His work.

Do you get caught up in whether you are saved or not?  How does this actually point to our fear of not “doing enough?”  How does this point us to an inherent unbelief that it is actually God who saves us, redeems us, and makes us holy?  Why is it more important for us to worry about if we are ready to follow Him rather than whether we’ve done enough?

Passage for Tomorrow: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20