I was born in 1959 in Newport News, Virginia. My parents moved to Hampton when I was a toddler, and my mother lived in the same home until 1998, three years after my father’s death. I was born in a world of two-parent families: mom and dad were both there. There were very few single moms living around us, and not too many single men lived there, either. I think we may have known only a few divorced people. There were only three channels on the TV and then PBS. We played outside often. Someone was always getting together a football, basketball or baseball game. The window repair business was wildly successful in our neighborhood - or would have been if dads like mine weren’t so talented.
The neighborhood was part of our community life. My parents knew many of the people along our one-mile street, and they were friendly with many other families in the neighborhood. We went to church every Sunday, and most people did the same. You were a Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, or Episcopalian for the most part. Most of my parents’ generation attended the same church as long as they lived in our neighborhood.
It wasn’t a perfect world. Our neighborhood was all white. Eventually other races and nationalities began to move into the neighborhood as civil rights laws ensured equal access to housing. The reaction of many to those changes was not generally positive, although it was peaceful.
It was a very different world than today. The changes to our culture have happened at a dizzying pace. Divorce began to affect our own family, something almost unheard of. Now the divorce rate is staggering. No one that I knew back then would have imagined a world with so many people being sexually active apart from marriage or openly living together without a marriage commitment. Abortion was illegal in Virginia until 1973. There were numerous babies available for adoption, and of course, many young women facing unplanned pregnancies. My wife Caron came from a family of three adopted children who were all from areas near the city of her birth (Baltimore, MD). Nowadays, the number of adoptable children is too low for families to do what Caron’s did, largely due to readily available abortions.
I said it Sunday: I was born in Newport News and woke up in Corinth! We are going to spend some considerable time studying the first letter to the church at Corinth. It will dispel some of the myths about the “New Testament” church, that it was the perfect, idyllic church to be a part of. But think about the power of the gospel in a city like Corinth, or Rome, or Ephesus. Despite the challenges of living out the Christian faith in a pluralistic society, Christianity thrived and advanced, and idolatry did not. As we shall see, it meant the church faced significant challenges, including the reality of people slipping back into the lifestyles from which they had emerged.
What kind of city was Corinth? In addition to being a city of great commerce and influence, Corinth was the Vegas of the Greco-Roman world. It was bad enough that a verb was added to the Greek language: to “Corinthianize” someone. That’s saying a lot given what we know about the moral practices of that day. Temples in the city offered sex with women, men, and children. It wasn’t illegal; in fact, it was a part of the religious ceremonies of the day. In effect, child sexual slavery was an accepted norm.
What kind of church was the Corinthian church? On the one hand, the Corinthian church was very vibrant in its worship (1 Corinthians 12 and 14), authentic supernatural gifts of tongues (speaking in unknown languages, real and understandable ones), and prophecy (direct messages from God communicated unmistakably and clearly to the prophet, and through him or her, to the church). Other amazing spiritual gifts were active as well. On the other side, numerous problems existed including factions loyal to various teachers, lawsuits among church members, sexual immorality of kinds that even shocked the neighbors, and disrespect of the poor by the rich.
There were gay people in the church. Or, at least people with same-sex relationships in their past who were now fully converted to Jesus Christ, and living celibate lives with the encouragement of their Christian family.
Into this confusion the Paul writes clear and compelling gospel wisdom to the church at Corinth. Remember, the temples there closed down! Thus, it seems to us that this book of the Bible promises great wisdom for us who seek to follow Christ in discipleship in our day.
It is easy for those of us who remember a different kind of America to get gloomy about the new culture to which we woke up. In Jesus Christ, we can have not only hope, but great hope, that we have power ourselves to change and grow, and hope in Christ to offer those around us who have grown dissatisfied with the poisoned water of sin, and long to have rivers of living waters flowing out of their hearts.
We look forward to exploring this book with you! Small group leaders will have materials to help them lead you to more in-depth Scripture study and real-life application. If you aren’t in a group, Grouplink starts up on the 28th to help you learn and grow with others alongside you. Come and join us this fall as see what God has to say about whole living in a broken world!
In Him,
Don