Thursday: He Lives Like a Corinthian
WEEK 27
THURSDAY
HE LIVES LIKE A CORINTHIAN
1 Corinthians 6:18-20
We have been studying Paul’s turning from the extreme negative to the extreme positive. This illuminating sentence tells of the mighty transition: “Right away, he began to preach about Jesus in the synagogues. ‘He is God’s Son,’ he declared” (Acts 9:20). One moment he was persecuting Jesus, and the next moment he was proclaiming Jesus—from the absolutely negative to the absolutely positive. And proclaiming the most absolutely positive assertion that language has ever been called on to make: Jesus is the Son of God! The pendulum had made the full swing and stayed there for the rest of Paul’s glorious life.
The great believer in Jesus began to be the great believer in humanity; faith in the Son of Man began to be faith in the sons of men. This faith—that the worst could become the best, that the weakest could become the strongest, that the most down-and-out could become the most up-and-on-top—throbs through the whole of his life and letters and impact. Note this amazing result, and among a people of whom it was said of any low-down profligate, “He lives like a Corinthian.” The Corinthian was the lowest watermark of morality, a result depicted in these words:
Don’t be deceived. Those who are sexually immoral, those who worship false gods, adulterers, both participants in same-sex intercourse, thieves, the greedy, drunks, abusive people, and swindlers won’t inherit God’s kingdom. That is what some of you used to be! But you were washed clean, you were made holy to God, and you were made right with God in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. (1 Cor 6:9-11)
That moral and spiritual positive out of that moral and spiritual negative! No wonder a new, solemn joy went through that ancient world that sin and evil had met its match; people could attain to that hitherto impossible thing for the multitudes—goodness!
I saw a public dump that had been transformed into an amphitheater, beautified with glorious flowers and used as a vesper circle: from a dump to devotion, from waste to worship! This had happened in Corinth!
O Christ Jesus, you are the mighty Redeemer of our waste humanity, making filthy rags into writing paper upon which you write your thoughts. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: All my contacts today will be redemptive; I’ll touch everything with God’s touch.