According to a 2015 Deloitte Survey, 6 out of 10 Millennials chose to work for their current employers due to their “sense of purpose.” What we value gives us purpose or a “pointe” in life. Just as organizations have values, individuals do also. Most people have 5 to 7 core values that identify who they are. For the Christian, we are to be “in the world, but not of it.” We are to be different than the world – in our values, in our beliefs, in our character and in our behavior. The pointe in Corinth addresses the Christian’s place in culture.
The Pointe in Corinth
How does a Christian interact with the culture? What is the practical way of being “in the world,” but not “of the world?” Paul develops a very important principle in his letter to the Corinthians. The city of Corinth was a smorgasbord of Mediterranean culture. Many of the lifestyles ran opposite of the direction of the Gospel. Paul emphasizes a secret to living in a diverse culture by stating it at the beginning and at the end of the letter’s section about living a life distinct from the world.
The first bookend is: “Everything is permissible for me”–but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”–but I will not be mastered by anything (1 Corinthians 6:12 NIV).
The second bookend is: “Everything is permissible”–but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible”–but not everything is constructive (1 Corinthians 10:23 NIV).
Let’s look at the same “bookends” from the Message translation.
Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I’d be a slave to my whims (1 Corinthians 6:12 MSG).
Looking at it one way, you could say, “Anything goes. Because of God’s immense generosity and grace, we don’t have to dissect and scrutinize every action to see if it will pass muster.” But the point is not to just get by (1 Corinthians 10:23 MSG).
The Pointe in Corinth Has Two Bookends
Paul reminds us that everything is permissible – we are no longer under a system of Law that dictates our every behavior. We are motivated not by an attempt to earn salvation, but by an appreciation for the salvation freely given. We are motivated from a sense of love for God, not a fear of what He might do.
Paul puts two bookends on the “everything is permissible” truth. First he says make sure you are not mastered by anything. If your behavior has become addictive – difficult for you to control or stop – you are no longer the master, but the slave. Under the Law, we were slaves to sin. Why in the world would we want to become slaves to any behavior – whether sin or not – under grace?
The other bookend is every bit as important. Just as a shelf of books would topple over without two bookends, the truth of “everything is permissible” topples without the second truth: not everything is constructive. The first bookend speaks to your personal spiritual growth. The second bookend speaks to the effect of your actions on someone else’s spiritual growth. The pointe in Corinth about a Christian living in a diverse culture is to understand the relationship between behavior and grace.
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