Monday, September 17, 2018
Sex in the church
1 Corinthians 5:1
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife!
Recently I sat down with a member of the worship team of a church in the city to talk with him about his life and growth. After a few minutes, it occurred to me that this young man, talented as he is, is in the church but the ‘church’ is not in him. I started to advise him about what changes he needed to make, all of which seemed acceptable. However, when I suggested that he would have to bring an end to his sexually promiscuous he balked.
Clearly, from our key verse today, this matter of illicit sex in the church was always a problem. Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth is among the earliest New Testament document written and so it gives us a glimpse at the state of affairs in the early church.
Today, the Roman Catholic church has been rocked by the most frontal push back against decades of concealed abuse by Catholic priests around the world but especially in the United States of America and Europe. This pushback threatens to undermine the credibility, and popularity, of the Catholic’s current rock-star Pope as the Vatican struggles to finally confront in the open that which they seemingly comfortably kept in the closet.
Evangelicals and Pentecostals cannot gloat over the problems of Roman Catholics because the downfall of Pentecostal Rock Star Televangelists have been spectacular. The list of big-name preachers caught in brothels, paying for sex, carrying on affairs, harassing female church staff, and being caught in same-sex relationships which they condemned from pulpits, is growing every day.
The recent “prophecy” that a woman, a member of a church in Toronto, would die if she did not abort the child she was carrying for her pastor highlights the ridiculous state of sex in the church. The previously feared prophetic minister, whose wife is now pregnant with twins, must have had his prophetic credentials tarnished because the church member did not abort the child, yet both she and the child are alive and well and in court.
There is a very pretty and intelligent young lady that I know and who I expect to do very well in life because of her dedication to her educational pursuits and the support she receives from her family. But I remember that her mother shared with me how she was conceived in the church’s youth leader’s home while they were locked in his room reciting memory verses. I don’t think she could remember with verse they were on at the time.
There is every kind of illicit sex going on in our churches, fornication, adultery, paedophilia, incest, homosexuality, rape, group sex, and I could go on but this is too painful to write. It is painful for me because this is not merely a list of sexual deviance, this is a list to which I could put faces for each entry.
A friend of mine, who is a minister, Eworth Williams, recently posted this on his Facebook page, “Yesterday in church we had a practical session whereby we asked members about worst experiences they have had in the church in general across Guyana and how we can improve.” Now clearly this was an unscientific survey that my friend was conducting but the results are valuable and insightful anyway. He lists “sexual predators” second among the issues raised by members of the church that Sunday morning.
One of my favourite theologians, though controversial in many respects, is William Barclay. Barclay, at least twice in his New Testament commentaries, asserts that “It has been said that chastity was the one new virtue which Christianity introduced into the world.” Barclay is always at pains to establish how commonplace sexual immorality of every kind was.
Barclay, in his commentary on Ephesians, tells us that “It is certainly true that the ancient world regarded sexual immorality so lightly that it was no sin at all. It was the expected thing that a man should have a mistress. In places like Corinth, the great temples were staffed by hundreds of priestesses who were sacred prostitutes and whose earnings went to the upkeep of the Temple. In his speech Pro Caelio, Cicero pleads: ‘If there is anyone who thinks that young men should be absolutely forbidden the love of courtesans, he is indeed extremely severe. I am not able to deny the principle that he states. But he is at variance not only with the licence of what our own age allows but also with the customs and concessions of our ancestors.”
The writings of Paul in the New Testament, however, seem to have had very little effect on the church today. What Cicero pleads centuries ago seem to be our contemporary culture today, “it is expected that a man should have a mistress.” Last week, deep in the savannah’s in Guyana, away from telephone service and only occasional Internet from a satellite, I sat with colleagues talking in the dark as mosquitos attacked. I mentioned that for all the years of my marriage, almost 25, I never touched another woman. One of the ladies in our group got very concerned and spent the rest of the night trying to figure out what was wrong with me. She stopped just short of personally performing a physical.
Paul was severe in his treatment of those in church who practice sexual immorality, “I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral … Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites … will inherit the kingdom of God.”. 1 Corinthians 5:11, 6:9,10.
Think on these things:
- Are you involved in sexual sin?
- Have you ever been pressured into sex in the church?
- What systems does your church employ to guard against sexual immorality in church?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today for the Holy Spirit to help us to manage our sexuality to honour God.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex