With Apologies - Some Thoughts on Individualism

I want to apologize for the tardiness in blogging of late.  My excuse is that I've just begun a new Semester of teaching and with that comes a great deal of admin and preparation at the beginning.  Now that I'm three weeks in, it's beginning to look fairly normal and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Of course for my students it's just beginning.  That light at the end of the tunnel is their first exam!

This week I'm teaching the first six chapters of Paul's letter to the Corinthians.  If you're interested the class web page has the notes from the two previous weeks on Galatians and Thessalonians, and as of Friday will have the Corinthian, part 1, notes on it.  You're welcome to look at the notes if you would like to.  The class web site is http://epollasch.wordpress.com/

As I worked my way through the letter Paul wrote to the Corinthians I ran across this very familiar verse:
1 Corinthians 6:12 (ESV)
¹²  “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.





Hope you notice that Paul says "all things are lawful (permissible) for me" twice in one sentence.  Taking a look a little further in the letter, he says it again.  1 Corinthians 10:23 (ESV) 
²³  “All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.

The principle Paul affirms flies in the face of our culture's mandate of individualism above all other things.  I've heard it over and over as I've discussed life issues with people...

"You can't tell me what to do..."

"Don't judge me, I have a right..."

"That's what you believe, but I don't believe that..."

The Corinthians, in context, had been using the phrase "all things are lawful for me" as a way of excusing behavior that allowed them to do whatever they wanted to do - even to the point of immoral behavior.

NOW, there's a word that we don't find tossed around in culture anymore - "Immoral".

Paul, to be sure, had preached that the Gospel brought freedom for Christians to be free of the law's obligations - or to say it another way - to be free of the obligation to perform the various laws of Judaism to prove that one was a believer.  Paul never meant for the law to be set aside as a principle on how to conduct oneself in terms of morals and ethics.  One can be a Christian, free of the law, and is still obligated before God to tell the truth, to not lie, to honor parents, to love the neighbor as yourself.  We don't do these things to fulfill the law and therefore work for our salvation...we do so to live in a place of freedom before God.  

Christ Jesus has taken away our sin, but this does not mean that everything we do might be good for us to do.  Not everything that we might allow into our lives is beneficial.  

Freedom is a mark of the Christian faith - freedom from sin, freedom from guilt, freedom from performing and also freedom to love, freedom to forgive, freedom to be graceful and merciful, like Jesus.

How can we more thoroughly walk out our relationship with Jesus and discover the way of freedom?  That's what I want to ask my students when I get to this passage on Thursday night.

Peace