Today is my first day back in the office since Monday, June 28th. No, I wasn’t on an extended vacation with my new bride. As many may know, I’ve was out with Band of Survivors from June 28-July 23, and then I was on staff at Central Bible Leadership Institute (CBLI) from July 30-August 8. After a much needed vacation last week, I’m glad to get things into a gear once again.
While I was at CBLI, I was challenged by the Lord to really dig into the Bible on a very consistent basis. That shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone. If we want to follow Christ, we’re going to want to be with Christ, and that means spending time reading His teachings for life and following this example written there. So I recently started reading 1 Corinthians. It’s a book in the New Testament that I’ve never really studied deeply before, so I was compelled to go for it.
In short, 1 and 2 Corinthians are short letters that the apostle (a fancy way of saying church leader) Paul wrote to the church in the city of Corinth (hence the name Corinthians). While I was doing some research, I came to read a lot about what issues the church in Corinth was facing, and thus why the author (a dude named Paul) felt that he needed to write them. One of the major issues the church was facing was sexual immorality (not sexual immortality – that’s weird, and way, way different). And here’s the reason why: One of the things Corinth was known for was its 12 temples (place of religious worship), and one of them was dedicated to the Greek goddess Aphrodite. The main problem was that the temple allowed prostitution in the name of religion. At one time, the temple actually had 1,000 “priestesses” that served as prostitutes. The problem was so bad and so well known to those in and around Corinth that the phrase “to Corinthianize” came to mean “to practice sexual immorality”. Isn’t that bonkers?
It’s even crazier to think about what it must have been like to live as a Christian in this setting. We’re faced with sexual immorality in tons of ways in our own day, but a religious center that actually offered a thousand prostitutes. That’s ridiculous! Even still, God’s people are called to purity, and that church was no different. They were called to uphold the plan that God has created for all people. One man, one woman in a committed marriage relationship. That’s God’s beautiful and freeing context for sex. And what sticks out to me the most is the fact that under such circumstances, Paul is able to remind the Corinthian church that, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
In the face of rabid prostitution, in the face of all-invasive pornography and sexual innuendos, and in the face of day to day temptation, there is a way out. Stand on the promise God’s given us in his Word: “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you” (James 4:7).