Tag: Sexuality

1 Corinthians: Lawsuits and Lewdness | 3-9-2025

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Updated: 4/29/2026

Sermon Prep

The week before I taught this message my Dad flew into town to see my brother and I, which is where this picture comes from up above. It was a good trip and we had a lot of laughs, but like usual there was family tension too. Then again, that’s pretty standard for most people when their family visits. It throws off the typical day-to-day norms for a bit. If I remember right, this tension was partially related to this teaching and the fact that boys will be boys.

As for the prep for the passage of scripture, I did a lot of research given the content and felt like every line of text was a tightrope I needed to tread carefully. One person I borrowed heavily from was Trent Horn, along with Wesley Hill and William Loader. I also leaned on David Guzik who I will intermittently rely on when I want to wrap my head around a particular biblical text.

I was still pursuing a role change at my company and wanted out of my current sales heavy role for a customer success role plus writing my book heavily on the side when I had the time. Like usual, I put a lot of pressure on myself to be the best at everything, which had taken it’s toll a bit in the spring of 2025. I was just so hellbent on getting out of outbound sales roles that have defined the majority of my career where you’re calling dozens to hundreds of people per day selling them something that they usually don’t want. I’m just not built for sales, so as long as I’ve been in sales I’ve tried to get out of it too.

I don’t remember how many weeks I worked on this one, but it was a long time to really make sure I did my due diligence given everyone has an opinion on this text. Quite a controversial text I might add no matter what you believe about it. Anyways here’s the sermon recording and here’s my sermon notes below:

Sermon Notes

Opening Line

  • Story about brother bringing girlfriend to family reunion.

Intro

  • Today, most people care about the big 3: morality, politics; sexuality. This text has all 3.
  • Ch. 6 is the crescendo of Paul’s correction for the Corinthians to be set apart in Christ.

Main Point

  • For us, the message is the same: be united in Christ knowing the kingdom of God is here.
  • Living holy reflects God’s glory. By becoming like Jesus, we find a better way forward.

Lawsuits | 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 (NRSVue)

“[1] When any of you has a grievance against another, do you dare to take it to court before the unrighteous, instead of taking it before the saints? [2] Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? [3] Do you not know that we are to judge angels, to say nothing of ordinary matters? [4] If you have ordinary cases, then, do you appoint as judges those who have no standing in the church? [5] I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one person wise enough to decide between brothers and sisters? [6] Instead, brothers and sisters go to court against one another, and this before the unbelievers. [7]  In fact, to have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? [8] But you yourselves wrong and defraud—and brothers and sisters at that.”

  • The Corinthians took each other to court over trivial matters (1 Corinthians 6:1).
  • Vexatious litigation “is a legal proceeding that starts with malice and without good cause… [that’s] meant to bother, embarrass, or cause legal expenses to the defendant.” – Cornell Law School
    • Roman courts were notoriously corrupt in this shame/honor society, so the powerful could dominate the passive and powerless based on their influence.
    • A court jury was sport and 60yr old men served with 100s of people there.
    • “Why are you trying to find justice before those who are unjust before God?” – David Guzik
  • Christians in Jesus’ millennial reign will be appointed as judges (1 Corinthians 6:2-3).
  • “[4] His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.” (Revelation 12:4a NRSVue)
    • We’ll be a part of the final judgement for angels that fell away from God.
  • Paul sarcastically quips if there’s anyone wise enough to judge (1 Corinthians 6:5).
  • Some commentators now see chapter 6 as a dia-tribal (i.e. an argument to persuade an opponent). This is signaled by the phrase “Do you not know” (ouk oidate/οὐκ οἴδατε):
    • EX: “the saints will judge the world?”, “we are to judge angels”, and “wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God” with more throughout Ch. 6.
  • Unity matters more than being right and destroying each other (1 Corinthians 6:7).
    • “Christians ought to be possessed of generosity, mercy, and forgiveness.” –  Orthodox Study Bible

Lewdness | 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (NRSVue)

“[9] Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, men who engage in illicit sex, [10] thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, swindlers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. [11] And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”

  • Corinthians believed everything would be destroyed and had a low view of their bodies. 
  • Paul reiterates the vice list from Ch. 5, but adds adulterers, men with men, and thieves.
    • We too have been justified, are being sanctified, and will be glorified.
  • There is a ton of debate about the terms that Paul uses here in 1 Corinthians 6:9.
    • The Mark 16 ending debate.
  • μαλακοὶ (Greek: malakoi) and ἀρσενοκοῖται (Greek: arsenokoitai)
    • Malakoi isn’t exclusively for homosexual, but a derogatory term meaning softies.
      • Could be male prostitutes or passive partners in same-sex relationships.
    • Arsenokoitai is a compound word and literally means “male-bedders.”
      • Also used in 1 Timothy 1:10-11 right after a reference to slave traders.
      • Paul invented this term as a way to clarify who he’s referring to, not to complicate or confuse his intended audience (i.e. Tuesday-Dummies).
        • Wesley Hill notes that arsenokoites has a “strong verbal connection to the Septuagint renderings of both Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, where both halves of the compound are used.”
  • The ancient world was not like our world and lines fall in very different places. Jews, Greeks, and Romans had different views of male same-sex relations.
    • “Roman law treated same-sex relations between citizens as a criminal offence, but tolerated it between a Roman citizen and someone inferior, like a slave or a foreigner. Romans sometimes deplored same-sex relations as a Greek disease and typically self-indulgent, to which Greeks responded by deploring the fact that Romans usually did not expect such relations to cease when a young man turned thirty… For Jews, including those who formed the Christian movement, same-sex relations were indications of the depravity of non-Jewish society. [Greeks approved of same-sex male relations under 30. They were seen to strengthen bonds between males and could be part of a mentoring relationship.]” – William Loader
  • 5 Views of Same-Sex Relations in the Bible
    • 1) Scripture does condemn same-sex relations.
    • 2) There was a ban on some same-sex relations, but it doesn’t apply now.
    • 3) Those who think there is an unqualified ban, but it’s archaic to apply that now.
    • 4) Scripture bans abusive same-sex relations, but not monogamous relations.
    • 5) Scripture doesn’t condemn same-sex relations.
  • Now this isn’t just a theology issue, but more so an interpretation issue when transmitting the original languages into English and understanding ANE cultures more.
    • Daniel B. Wallace has often said that “translation is a matter of interpretation.”
English Translation μαλακοὶ (malakoi)ἀρσενοκοῖται (arsenokoitai)Translation Approach View on Sam-Sex Relations
Berean Study Bible (BSB)men who submit to or perform homosexual actsmen who submit to or perform homosexual actsFormal1
English Standard Version (ESV)nor men who practice homosexualitynor men who practice homosexualityFormal1
The Message (MSG)use and abuse sexuse and abuse sexFunctional4 and 5
New American Standard Bible (NASB)homosexualshomosexualsFormal1
New English Translation (NET)passive homosexual partnerspracticing homosexualsOptimal1 and 3
New International Version (NIV)men who have sex with menmen who have sex with menFunctional1
New King James Version (NKJV)homosexualssodomitesFormal1
New Living Translation (NLT)male prostitutespractice homosexualityFunctional2 and 3
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVue)male prostitutesmen who engage in illicit sexOptimal2, 3, and 4
Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition (RSVCE) homosexualshomosexualsFormal1

Why It Matters

  • Who decides what the Bible means?
    • Apostolic tradition, the Pope and the Magisterium, scholarship, or you?
  • What did Jesus think about lawsuits and lewdness if he was just a man?
    • Now what if he was God too? How does that change our previous answer?
  • Read Matthew 5:39-42 aloud (lawsuits).

“[39] But I say to you: Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also, [40] and if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, give your coat as well, [41] and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. [42] Give to the one who asks of you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.”

  • Read Matthew 19:4-6 aloud (lewdness).

“[3] Some Pharisees… asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?” [4] He answered, “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ [5] and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? [6] So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.””

  • Argument from silence to understand Jesus’ view on sexuality (i.e. John 21:25).
    • Agrapha: floating passages credited to Jesus by oral tradition (i.e. Acts 20:35).
  • We’re called to be Christ-like in body and soul.

Power Text

  • Do as Jesus did and live with eternity in mind, instead of just the earthly.
  • Integrity in your reputation and sexuality is one of the primary responses to God’s grace.

Outro

  • As the Holy Spirit’s temple, how we live directly impacts how others see God.
    • To be Christ-like means to become like him and live as he lived.
    • This is the way. Now go walk by faith.

Final Thoughts

Looking back at this one, I think there was great research here and yet it was a bad sermon. Not to say I did a bad job or anything in the delivery, but the main aim of preaching or teaching is clearly communicating a common theme. In this message, I got carried away with trying to do too much and the main point of the passage got lost in the sauce. By trying to teach so much in one sitting, our congregation was quite confused and that’s on me for failing to deliver. If people don’t know what to takeaway from a homily or sermon, then you’ve failed on the whole as a communicator. I should’ve broken this message into two 30 minute messages and taken my time with the text at hand.

In the end, by leaning into nuance showing all sides the message was too nuanced and didn’t clarify what we as the church believe. All of the extra detail confused several people and I had to send a private message clarifying to our leadership what we believed about this text. It also didn’t help that a family who did eventually leave our church entirely did so partially because of this message being so nuanced. It was just another straw on the camels back that eventually broke for them in the summer. That loss of members still makes me sad to this day.

For me, I took the criticism and decided from this point forward to only teach sermons around the 30 minute mark. Anything beyond that point I now see as getting stuck down rabbit holes and not keeping the main thing the main thing. With that said, Godspeed and Jesus bless.

Don’t Find The One, Be The One

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Photo Cred: (1) | Updated: 5/4/2022

I’ve never really had anything to add to the purity culture conversation until now. For the uninitiated, this was a Christian subculture movement in the late 1990s, which influenced how parents raised their kids in the 2000s to roughly the early 2010s. This was in response to a lot of cultural artifacts of that time: celebrity sex tapes, normalization of hook-up culture, online pornography, the AIDS epidemic, and even the internet boom of the 1990s.

Purity Culture Defined

Now were there other factors during this period of time? Of course, but this helps set the stage for why the purity culture movement began and what was the root of parents’ fears. The introduction of the new always brings the reversion back to the old for some. This happens with everything.

In this case, it was the reversion back to old ideas about dating. Like arranged marriages by a church congregation or even the Christian concept of courtship. This time, it just had a new spin. That spin is what spun an entire generation into sexual shame.

Under immense pressure to balance the natural inclinations of adolescence with the fear-mongering led by thought leaders at the time, people were stuck in a state of never knowing if they handled their dating life right. Doubts on if they were even good enough to be with someone because they weren’t virgins or “pure” enough. It was a movement that had good intentions at first, but with awful execution ended in disastrous results.

When a movement is rooted in fear and not grace, it always ends poorly. The purity culture movement was rooted in the fears of its time, not in the grace of God. Given it was grounded in the former and not the latter, Christians recoiled from what they thought was God’s hate. Instead of emulating God’s love in their relationships and enjoying the grace that’s supposed to be found within them.

From side hugs and purity rings to parents having to meet each other to decide if this was a “good” relationship, it was the norm for a lot of kids at this time. Even the perversion of modesty to the point of being a tool to elicit the young to be ashamed of their own bodily desires was standard malpractice. Then again, these repulsive symptoms were more of a theological problem than anything. At least, that’s where I think it starts.

The Modern Myth Of The One

What bothered me the most about this whole thing was the prevalent concept of the one and how that framework warped everything going into this movement. Which then bled into our current relationship climate of the #MeToo era. How all modern dating is based on the lie of the one. A theological misconception that has ties to determinism, God’s sovereignty, and a blatant misunderstanding of what it means to become one in marriage.

How is this the root? Well, it starts with some believing that everything is determined by God. A sort of manifest destiny, but instead of land promised by God it’s people in this case. Those people are the one.

The person you were destined to marry no matter what. It’s this idea I believe laid dormant in the subconscious of Christians until the purity culture movement awakened this aged-out concept. A framework that gave rise to a lot of these conventions we mock now.

Then again, what does the Bible actually say about this? What is God’s design for relationships really? Put simply, the Bible doesn’t promote the one. Rather it does promote becoming the one for someone else. Let me explain.

Becoming The One vs. Finding The One

We could go in a lot of different directions, but for now I just want to zero in on the book of Ruth. Why? Well, it dispels this lie of the one quickly with a simple question. Who was the one for Ruth? Was it Mahlon or Boaz?

Her first husband Mahlon was married to her for 10 years, provided in the famine-infested land of Moab, and married Ruth when she was fairly young. Her second husband was Boaz, grafted her into the family of Jesus, and married Ruth when she was middle aged. The first husband gave away his health to provide, while the second gave away his wealth to provide.

The former was equivalent to a blue-collar worker if he worked in our time. The latter was a man of valor whose military service allowed him to benefit from the spoils of war. When you think about it, neither of them were the one but rather became the one she needed.

Mahlon became the one in that he sacrificed everything to care for Ruth. Boaz then became the one in that he shared everything to care for Ruth. Both men became the one over time.

A good, godly relationship isn’t about finding the one. It’s about becoming the one for the sake of someone else. That you love someone so much you change to become better for them and to them. Not to say you shouldn’t choose wisely who you end up with, but you’re not agreeing to a completed person. You’re agreeing to being there as they are made complete in Christ.

Like God commands, they fully committed themselves to Ruth. Loving sacrificially and being there. At the time, Mahlon was the best possible choice for Ruth and later on Boaz was the same. Of course it’s conjecture since we only know snippets of their life, but their character bleeds through the page. Where we progress, God perfects. Marriages thrive when God guides them. Grace is our guide, not fear. Becoming the one is a grace-guided process.

Although, this could be distorted into a work-mentality where you have to do all of these self-help hacks to appear to be better. That’s not what becoming the one means. Becoming the one isn’t about performance, but patience and persistence.

The humble heart in asking God to better you so that you can be the best possible spouse in your marriage. An acknowledgement that your starting point is bad and only God can restore your soul to its best. The idea of the one is an attractive cultural myth, while becoming the one is simply self-actualizing into who God designed us to be in him. One is chasing after the winds of the world, yet the other is weathering the storms of a holy covenant and promise.

Final Thoughts

Having been in the most serious relationship of my life currently that’s heading towards marriage now, I just see this flaw so much more clearly. Our culture taught our brains to go after plastic-bound porn stars and the powerful with influence, instead of ordinary people that look and act just like us.

What makes the person you end up with special isn’t status or a lack of stretch marks, but the extraordinary fact that God made them and you get to be with them. Modernity has killed the mundane. Public image defines us more so than being imagers of God. We need to change that toxic perspective that has hurt a lot of people.

Don’t look for the perfect person because you’ll never find anyone close to that sinful standard. Rather, become someone who is by God’s sanctification transforming you into the one for someone in your life. Don’t find the one, be the one. With that, Godspeed and Jesus bless.

Footnotes

  1. https://www.pexels.com/

A Renewed Purity | 4-24-2019

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Photo Cred: (1) | Updated: 4-18-2020

[This was a sermon I gave to the youth group at my local church when serving there as a youth leader. It was about 25 minutes and was focused on helping students understand relationships and sexuality. This was apart of a series of sermons given on the subject that paralleled our church’s main service series on the same topic.]

Introduction

For a lot of reasons, the world is a different place than the one our parents grew up in when they were our age. According to Professor Scott B. Rae (2), for the first time in American history “the number of households headed by single adults [is] greater than those headed by married couples.” Basically, when our parents grew up, being married was the norm and being single was weird.

Now it’s the opposite: being single is the norm and being married is weird. So why is being single still not socially accepted, even though there are more singles than couples in America? Is being single weird? Not exactly.

Like every first world country, America no longer sees the need to be married or have sex as often as former generations. In fact, most first world countries seem to have this problem. For instance, in Japan roughly 35% of Millennials are virgins due to circumstances like work fatigue, social anxiety over relationships, and even addiction to technology (3). Because of the rise in automation in America, this might happen here too where less and less people are going to be romantically active and will remain single to pursue other things.

With all of that in mind, being single is not that bad. No for real, being single is super underrated. I mean, single people can literally go and do whatever they want when they want. For instance, I just got my ticket to see Avengers: End Game in IMAX opening weekend, I’m planning my vacation in Florida to see World’s Strongest Man for my birthday, and two other vacations later in the summer to go chill somewhere else.

Why? Because I do what I want within reason. But in a culture obsessed with relationships and sex, what should life be like for those of us who are single? For those of us who are just not with someone at the moment?

In 1 Corinthians 7:7-9, Paul writes about us singles when he says,

“Yet I wish that all men were even as I myself am. However, each man has his own gift from God, one in this manner, and another in that. But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them if they remain even as I. But if they do not have self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.”

Here in this text we have three main takeaways: being single is preferred, being single is good, and being single is for the self-controlled. To start, we’ll look at how being single is preferred.

Singleness Is Preferred

As Christians, we don’t have the same goals as the world. We are not about fulfilling the American dream where you get a job, go to college, find a career, get married, have kids, get a house, and so on. We are all about seeing people made alive in Christ. Showing others what it means to know God and make God known. Everything that we do must be completely centered on Jesus and sharing the Gospel to help the hurting.

Single people are not tied down with the stress or worries of a family life. Therefore, we are way more effective in helping those who are hurting. I see this a lot firsthand in my life where married people can’t always help you because of family responsibilities, but singles can in those moments.

When Abe [a former student in the youth group that graduated from high school a year before this sermon] was kicked out of the house he was staying at because he was homeless for months and was crashing at multiple people’s places, Andrew [the youth pastor] could not help him out. I woke up, picked him up, and he stayed the night at my place with my family. The next day, we got him the help he needed by having him return home shortly after that incident to figure out his young adult life. This is something that I’ve done multiple times not only for Abe, but others as well who needed help immediately. I got up and got to work when someone had a need.

Singleness is preferred because of the ability to get up and go whenever a need must be met in the community. Instead of worrying about a family, I worry about everyone as if they were my family. Growing up, I’ve always had this mental image from God that I’m to be a bridge for all people.

That my life would be one of continuously humbling myself and allowing people to walk all over me, so that they can be reconciled with God and those they disagree with in life. That God would use me to connect and bring people together in unity. Rather then division in the name of social conformity to this side or that side of the culture [When I shared this message, I expanded on this idea much more, but don’t remember what exactly I said].

Singleness is preferred in the kingdom of God because of how effective we can be in serving others. Is being single better than being married? No, not at all. They are equal from an eternal perspective. In Heaven, no one will be married or single. Why? Because we are there to love God and others, not ourselves. Both gifts are equal, but only one can effectively help more people.

Singleness Is Good

God’s gifts are always good. In Matthew 7:9-11, Jesus explains how much better a gift is from God than the gifts from those who love us. How even when we with our best intentions give something to someone we care about, it doesn’t even come close to the gifts that God gives us. One of those gifts is whether we are married or single.

For the married, the gift is pretty obvious. The woman will honor and respect her husband in all things, while the husband will let all of his desires die and give his wife everything that was his own. You see, true love is not sexual, but sacrificial. This is demonstrated when the two love each other day-in and day-out, even when they don’t like each other everyday.

But what about us who are single? Think of it this way: if you remove the romantic element out of the equation, what is the difference between the love of a couple and the love of friends? Nothing. They’re the same sacrificial love. In the end, there is no greater love than putting someone else’s life above your own. Whether that’s romantically with your spouse or the camaraderie of friends. Both gifts, marriage and singleness, are expressions of true love. A type of love that looks out for the needs of others before the needs of yourself.

I love how Gary Thomas describes love in his book, The Sacred Search, where he says “Infatuation fills your eyes with what you’re getting, but let the Bible fill your mind with what you’re committing to give (4).” Lust is all about what you can take from someone, yet love is all about what you can give someone. Remember: lust takes, but love gives. In the kingdom of God, singleness is a good gift that demonstrates the same sacrificial love we see in marriage, but expressed differently.

Singleness Is For The Self-Controlled

When it comes to singleness, self-control is an important aspect of that gift from God. We sadly have many cases where those who are single don’t show self-control. From priests sexually assaulting kids to teen pregnancy, the lack of self-control is everywhere in our culture. There are more examples of no self-control than there are of self-control.

In this respect, there tends to be two types of people who lack self-control. Those who should be married, but are not and those who should be single, but are not. For the former, they are mentioned here in 1 Corinthians and Paul tells them that it is better to marry than to constantly wrestle with lust.

On the other hand, there are those who know they should be single and yet are doing everything they can to find a relationship. Both these people have the same problem: being a control-freak. They are trying to control their desires without the designer who gave them these desires in the first place. No human can control sin. That’s your pride saying that you have everything under control.

In reality, self-control is really when we give up trying to solve the problem on our own and get help from God. Our self-control is by the power of the Holy Spirit. We cannot stop sin, but we can escape it. There is always a way of escape from sin and that is the quickest path to purity. Sadly, we would rather be stubborn in sin than have self-control in the Holy Spirit.

No matter where we are relationally, we must remember that we are God’s first before we are anything to anyone else. Self-control in the kingdom of God is giving Jesus control of all our struggles and trusting that he will bring us through them. It’s when people decide to solve these temptations on their own that they lose control.

Before we pray and breakout into small groups, let me end with this quote from G. K. Chesterton (5),

“In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

Conclusion

To sum up what Chesterton said, don’t remove a fence until you know why it was put there in the first place. Not all borders need to be crossed or at least not yet, especially when it comes to this stuff. Being single is normal. The gift of singleness is preferred, good, and for the self-controlled. Don’t throw away your gift of singleness until you know why God gave it to you in the first place. Let’s pray and we’ll break up into small groups.

–

I distinctly remember this sermon because of how much prep and research was utilized on my part. Given the subject and audience, I didn’t want to paint an inaccurate picture of singleness from the Christian perspective. So I studied a lot of sources and tried to whittle down those ideas as much as possible into a coherent sermon, which I think was fairly effective.

When it came to this series, we were struggling a lot with how to approach explaining God’s view on relationships and sexuality to a generation that has seen more pornography than any generation previously. That’s exposed to so much inappropriate material online and is essentially numb to the fact that they are too young to be engaging in said activity. This is wrong and we hoped that with this sermon series we could steer them in a direction long-term that would greatly benefit their emotional intelligence, mental health, and spiritual maturity.

Was it a success? Somewhat. Some students took the advice of us and other professionals we brought in like third-party counselors for this issue, but there will always be those who are non-receptive to what is being said. With that, Godspeed and Jesus bless.

Footnotes

  1. https://www.pexels.com/
  2. Moral Choices: An Introduction to Ethics, P. 278
  3. https://youtu.be/4pXSJ35_v2M
  4. The Sacred Search, P. 67
  5. https://www.chesterton.org/taking-a-fence-down/