 Okay, before we go into a little bit of what we did last week and cover today's content, would anyone be able to open us in prayer please? Yes, please. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you under the name of Jesus. We thank you for this day. We thank you for the class we are about to have. Could I just give this whole glass into your hands as we are learning about your truth. Help us to open our mind and heart and listen to it and understand the deep revelations of your word Jesus. We give Svita a moment to your hands. You guide her, fill her with your Holy Spirit and your wisdom and knowledge and understanding as she is teaching us. And I pray for all my classmates who are here and who are about to join. Help us to understand Jesus. You be our teacher, you guide us and help us to grow more in our relationship with you today. Help us to have a good Wifi connection throughout the session and let this class be done for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Thank you, Jefina. Okay, so let's do a quick review of what we covered last week and then we'll go into, we also have to answer two questions Jefina had asked in the last two classes. So we look at that and then go into today's content. Would anyone like to talk about some of the things we covered last week? So last week we looked at verse Corinthians 5-5 to 7-6. That's just some of what I was saying from chapter 5, I hope you can hear me. In chapter 5 we saw about, this chapter actually talks about the sexual immorality and Paul was saying that his correction is coming from the authority of Jesus and we also saw what it actually means for a person to be handed over to Satan and the ultimate goal was him to repent from the sin through the forgiveness of Christ. And then we also saw what this uneven bread means, it means sincerity and truth and I liked how you said grace without trust is just a fake love and trust without grace is just a set of rules. So both should actually come along and we also saw that nothing is a big sin or a small sin is actually a sin and that's what we talked about in chapter 5. In chapter 6 we talked about the judgment place that was in the market place which was a kind of entertainment for those people and we also saw whether it is okay to go to the courts and how to solve disputes among the believers and we came to know that firstly we should address with the person alone next to the church and next the outsider and we saw that Paul is calling the church to hold us over this place and we saw that there is no place for sin to exist in the body of Christ because it's contrary to the identity in Christ and we also saw that how Paul was saying like food is for the stomach is for the food absolutely meant that the body is for the sex and sex is for the body for those people and we talked the whole chapter actually talks about how to keep the church pure and holy and in the end we see like how we can keep ourselves also pure and holy and then in chapter 7 we talked about we just started I believe so so it's just told about we will see about the importance of sex with the marriage gift of single men staying in our marriage and yeah we just finished by this thought I believe so we were talking about it we just started and I just wrote this the body is given to each other so they should know to treat it with reverence so basically we talked about sexual immorality that's happening how to carry ourselves in holiness and how to carry our church influence thank you I think the best way to learn is to have to teach others so when you're repeating what you're learning it's just a good way to reiterate some of the things that you've learned in class so the reason why we like to go back to what we have done in the last class is just to gain some context before we go into today's today's passage so that we remember what were we talking about and how is paul then adding on to what he's saying what he has said before so before we continue or maybe we'll just before the break we'll just address those two questions but we can continue in the passage that we read so yes in the beginning of chapter 7 paul begins to talk about sex within marriage and he talks about how a husband and wife should honor one another through the giving of their bodies to one another so each of them gives a body to the other person without claiming authority over their own body and it is as we give our bodies to one another that we are able to both honor the marriage we're also able to show love to one another and that we're able to protect our marriage against temptation that comes from the outside so if we are not within our marriage using this gift of sex to express love to one another then what happens is that satan will bring it from the outside and so your marriage then is corrupted and broken because you have not taken the time to protect your marriage and you've not taken the time to show love to one another through sex which is restricted to marriage right though in scripture the only moral way to to practice sex is within the context of marriage and so if you are not doing it within the context if you are married and you're not doing it in your marriage then that that desire for sex is going to be there in each individual and so they will look to satisfy it outside of the marriage and so when paul is talking about this he's saying protect your marriage from temptation from allowing satan to come in and use something that you have not been doing in your marriage he's using that against you so this is the the main part the main content that he covers from verses one to five verse six he says but i say this as a concession not as a commandment so he's talking about that what he says in verse five he says do not deprive one another except with consent for a time that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer so he's saying you can do this but you don't have to there's not a command that you should take time off from sex and spend time in fasting and prayer he's saying if you choose to do this then after some time make sure that y'all are coming back together so while some people may think okay not not engaging in sex and only spending time in prayer that is a spiritual thing to do but the problem with that is that because those natural physical desires are there in us as humans we are opening ourselves to temptation and so if we don't satisfy that desire we actually we're actually not doing the right thing spiritually right we are allowing ourselves to be tempted we're giving room to satan to come into our marriages so he's saying don't consider only the spiritual things of fasting and prayer also consider that there is a physical need and that physical need should be satisfied because if you don't satisfy the physical need then it will become a place of temptation and a place where you can fall spiritually is that clear so it's a good balance for us also to understand that we are spiritual and physical beings we so the whole practice of asceticism where only the spiritual things are valued and physical things are forgotten so this like you give up all physical things and only pursue spiritual enlightenment or spiritual knowledge that is not what scripture teaches scripture very much acknowledges that we are physical beings that we have physical needs in every way right we need food we need we need our physical needs to be met there's so much teaching on how to share when if you have an extra cloak give one of your cloaks to someone in need so all of those things are very real needs that are acknowledged in scripture so apart from the spiritual to also acknowledge that our bodies have been given by God and the needs that we have the desires that we have are from God but there is a way in which those needs and desires should be met in a way that is approved by God and is ordained by God so let's go on to verse seven chapter seven verse seven if someone can read verses seven to nine so it is better to marry than to burn with passion thank you so here we read so paul is talking about his own his own position right he is single and he's saying that he wishes that everyone would be single would be unmarried but he's recognizing that this is a gift that he's received from God he's not able to be single because of his own decision but God has given him this gift of singleness and because he has that gift he's able to he's able to remain unmarried without falling into temptation so he's saying if you have that gift if if God has given you this gift then remain single but if you don't have this gift you have some other gift then you act according to gift that you have right so singleness actually was not very common in that day especially among Jews right Jews viewed marriage as the right thing to do because God had given the command to be fruitful and multiply so they viewed singleness as a sin because you're not following that command that original blessing that God gave to people so paul was not doing what was right by Jewish tradition and Jewish thought on the other hand there were philosophers who thought that marriage you shouldn't tie yourself down to marriage that if you get married you are somehow restricting yourself but they approved of you like expressing your sexual desires with prostitutes with outside of marriage but they didn't think that you have to get married and in fact they didn't encourage marriage so paul is not going in that direction right he's not saying don't get married but you can express your sexual needs in any other way saying if you have these sexual needs then you express it in the right context which is in the context of marriage but if you don't if you have the gift of singleness which God has given you and he'll talk a little bit more about that in the next two verses if you have that gift then it's better to stay unmarried and he'll also explain why it's better to stay unmarried so when he's talking about a gift he uses the word charisma which is a Greek word and it means gift of grace this is the same word that's used for the gifts of the spirit later on when paul talks in chapter 12 about the gifts of the spirit he uses the same word so it's definitely something that only the holy spirit can enable just like the gifts of the spirit come from the holy spirit this gift of singleness is from the holy spirit so it's an important gift for us to acknowledge and celebrate within the church I think we also very often can fall on one side or the other right we can fall on one side of thinking everyone has to get married that is the right thing to do it's the best thing for everyone but here paul is saying maybe not the best thing maybe you have a gift of singleness and you can use that to serve god more fully you can commit your time your energy your your attention your focus everything that you're doing can be focused on god whereas if you're married then you also have to think about your family your spouse and you have other responsibilities that are added on on the other hand we can fall on the other side of saying yes it's better to never get married to just say single to stay single so that you can focus on ministry but he doesn't go to that side either because he says that is only available to people who have that gift from god but if you don't have that gift then don't try and do it in your own strength or try and do it with your own with your own desires because you will face temptation and then you are opening yourself up to temptation so if you have self-control which is what he says in verse nine if you can exercise self-control then it's better not to marry but if you're not able to exercise that self-control then get married because otherwise you'll have all of these desires within you and how you express those desires will or may result in sin right so it's better to protect ourselves spiritually and get married in that case so there's a note here in your textbook that just kind of keeps us from misinterpreting this verse so some people say even if you're not married you have sexual desires that need to be expressed and so instead of burning with those desires better to just express it but that's not what this passage is saying right it's saying if you have those desires get married it's not saying you can just express those desires outside of marriage on the other hand if you have some bondage to sexual sin if you have some temptation or some kind of sexual sin that has control over you don't look at marriage as the escape from that sin so a lot of people think once I get married I'm not going to have this temptation anymore for example pornography a lot of people think if I get married then I won't be tempted to watch pornography but that is a sin and that is kind of different from marriage it is a wrong view of sex and can have bondage over you so marriage is not going to free you from bondage to that kind of sin it's Jesus who frees us from bondage and marriage is just a good and right way to express our sexual desires let's go on to verses 10 to 16 would somebody be willing to read those verses for us please 10 to 16 now to the merit I command now to the merit I command yet not I but the Lord a wife is not to depart from her husband even but even if she does depart let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband and the husband is not to divorce his wife but to the rest I know the Lord say if any brother has a wife who does not believe and she is willing to live with him let him not divorce her and a woman who has a husband who does not believe if he is willing to live with her let her not divorce him for the unbelieving husband is sentified by the wife and the unbelieving wife is sentified by the husband otherwise your children would be unthemed but now they are holy but if the unbeliever departs let him depart a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases but God but God has called us to peace for how do you you know all wife whether you will save your husband or how do you know all husband whether you will save your wife thank you so here paul gives a few instructions or commandments and he's distinguishing between what is a clear commandment from God and what are some things that he himself is telling the church to do now even though he said it's it's very important where he's distinguishing right so he's making that point to distinguish but at the same time because he is someone who had received so much revelation from God and had walked so closely with God even these instructions for us we take as authoritative because it has come from paul in this context right so he's still giving us instructions and we're still going to consider them as important instructions because of his relationship and his revelation from God so this first part verse 10 he's giving a clear commandment from the Lord the wife is not to depart from her husband that is very clear so that doesn't mean the husband is able to depart from the wife right just because he said a wife is not able to depart her wife is not allowed to depart so he goes on to say if she does a part let her remain unmarried or be reconciled and her husband is not to divorce his wife so he's made it very clear divorce is not acceptable by according to the Lord right yet not I but the Lord says her wife is not to depart and her husband is not to divorce his wife so in scripture there are just two instances when divorce is allowed and we can see that where Jesus talks to the Pharisees in Matthew 19 3 to 11 so they come to him because divorce was something that men were practicing quite liberally whenever they felt like it they would decide that they were going to divorce their wife for any small reason which may not be very different from our present context where divorce is so common so they were going to Jesus to get an excuse to be able to divorce right so we we want to just have a confirmation from somebody in authority that it's okay to go divorce our wives but what does Jesus say he says he goes back to Genesis when God first created Adam and Eve the first man and woman and first instituted marriage he says a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh so when you have become one what God is joined together let no man separate right and then the Pharisees ask why did Moses allow that a certificate of divorce can be given if it is against God's will that so that people should divorce why did Moses allow it so here Jesus states to he states this one reason of sexual immorality so he says it is not God's will for you to be divorced but because people's hearts are hard there is divorce allowed in certain circumstances okay and the one he mentions here is sexual immorality if somebody commits adultery this is the only time that it is okay for you to divorce them and marry someone else if that is not the case if you divorce and you get married then you are committing adultery so we see here one context in which divorce is allowed but we cannot pick up our own reasons right that there's something wrong with this person I didn't know about it before and now I know it and I don't like this thing about them so I'm going to get divorced none of those things are allowed according to scripture another case in which divorce is allowed is divorce is permitted by God is if there is abandonment so if the person the spouse leaves the person alone and never returns then in this case divorce is permitted because they have not left their spouse the spouse has left them and is unwilling to come back so we'll see Paul talk about that in verse 15 so when he's saying God has said divorce is not allowed he's mentioning this within the context of the whole of scripture where we also see that sexual immorality is one reason when divorce is permitted but God's ideal is always that there be reconciliation so in verse 10 we see let her remain unmarried or be reconciled so you can never get divorced and remarry unless there has been sexual immorality or abandonment but you can try and be reconciled to your husband right instead of getting divorced or if you got divorced try and come back and be reconciled to your husband so that reconciliation is the greek word is catalaso which is a mutual change so both parties bringing in a willingness to come together to make the change that's needed to make the marriage work we go on to verse 12 to 13 so here Paul says now this is not a commandment from the Lord this is me speaking the previous one was a clear commandment from God and now Paul says okay now not what God has commanded but what I am advising is that if you are married to an unbeliever then don't divorce them if they are willing to remain with you so whether it's a husband who's married to a believing wife or a wife married to a believing husband if your spouse is not a believer but they are willing to stay remain with you then don't divorce divorce them now this is not saying that you can marry an unbeliever this is saying if you are married and you have become a believer because because all of these people were first first generation believers right they had come to faith at that time so they may have already been married and then come to faith so he's saying if you were married in this context right you were already married and now you've become a believer but your spouse is not a believer then don't try to divorce them because divorcing God has already you've already come together you've already become one now you cannot divorce them because you've become a believer instead stay in that marriage if they are willing to remain with you if they are willing to remain married to you and he explains further why he is saying that so he says here for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband otherwise your children would be unclean but now they are holy so this is something that's quite amazing right so earlier we see where he forbids having sex with the prostitute because he says how can you take what belongs to God that is a member of God's Christ body take that and bring it together with a prostitute so you're defiling the body of Christ because you have engaged with the prostitute you've engaged in sin now on the other hand you think you can take this same body that is holy this body that is a member of Christ's body and be in relationship with your husband or wife and you will actually make that person holy so in one case where you were defiling the body of Christ here you are taking the holiness and you are impacting your spouse so that's the difference between sex when it is in the context of marriage and sex when it is outside of marriage in the context of being married having sex with a prostitute so beautiful thing where because it's happening in the context of marriage it's happening in a way that is in line with God's will God will use that to bless your spouse because you are a believer he will bless your spouse and he will bless your children the children that are born through your union with your spouse now there was a lot of questions in that day and it's actually I think similar to things we've seen in history and maybe present day where the status of children that were from a mixed cultural background would be questioned right so in the Greco-Roman view if there are children from two different cultures what is their status because it's very clear if it's in the Roman culture this is their status if they're Greek this is their status but if it's a Greek and Roman mixture then what is that child status on the Jewish side it was if there's a mixture of religions what is the status of the child is that child accepted within the Jewish community so those were the questions that were asked so here Paul is saying as believers if you are a believer and your spouse is an unbeliever and you were already married before you became a believer then your children will be considered as holy so he's giving a clear status of they are blessed they are sanctified because they are their birds within the context of this marriage okay but he also goes on to distinguish between what it means to be sanctified and what it means to be saved so in verse 16 he he says how do you know whether your husband will be saved or whether your wife will be saved he's not saying that being sanctified means they are saved there's a difference okay they're going to be in some way special to the Lord because they are in a family with this believer but they will not be saved because of that believer that there's a difference okay I hope that's clear okay but in verse 15 we see the second grounds for divorce right where divorce is allowed if the believer depart if the unbeliever departs let him depart a brother or sister is not under bondage in some in such cases but God has called us to peace right so where the unbeliever says no I don't want to be married to you and they leave you in that case you do not have to remain married to you don't have to stay married to them because they have chosen to leave you and you can't force somebody else to stay in a relationship with you it has to be a mutual mutual agreement right between husband and wife so he says in that case you are free you are not you don't have to remain under that agreement of marriage okay so we'll just look at also 1 Peter 3 1 to 6 yeah maybe I think we just need to read the 1 verse the 1 Peter 3 1 I can read that for us so it says wives in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that if any of them do not believe the word they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives so the same kind of teaching where where Peter in this case is saying the same thing he's saying wives and husbands so wives submit to your husbands so that when they see your life they will become a believer based on your conduct they see your life and they are convinced about who Christ is when they see your life so this is again the context of one being a believer and the other being an unbeliever in this case where the wives are believers the husband is an unbeliever so he's saying submit to your own husband so that they may see Christ in you and maybe they will be won over to Christ okay we have just a few minutes so we'll just go to uh Jeffina's questions and then when we come back we'll continue in this so there were two questions that Jeffina had asked in the last two classes the first one was that Paul had expressed a desire to go back to Corinth after he had visited them the first time so his first visit was during his second missionary journey and he spent about 18 months there and then during his third missionary journey is when he wrote first and second Corinthians so while he was traveling through Ephesus and Macedonia so in Ephesus is where he wrote first Corinthians and in Macedonia is where he wrote second Corinthians uh so her question was did he ever go back to Corinth because he expresses a desire to go back uh so he expresses that desire while he's on his third missionary journey so from Macedonia in Macedonia he writes second Corinthians and from Macedonia he went to Greece okay so Corinth is in Greece uh it isn't clear whether he actually went to Corinth in that time but because he was in Greece it is very possible that he did go to Corinth during that time so if we see Acts 22 to 3 it says uh from Macedonia they finally arrived in Greece and they spent three months in Greece so they were there for about three months so it's quite possible that they went to Corinth during that time the second question she'd asked about was the spiritual protection over the church so we had looked at um I think it is chapter six or is it chapter five let me just pull it up yeah it's chapter five verse five uh where Paul is uh this first Corinthians chapter five verse five Paul is talking about the man who is having sex with his father's wife and so he says hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord um and we were talking about what does it mean for someone to be handed over to Satan uh so uh we had looked at um what the meaning of it is and how we see it played out in this Corinthian um in the Corinthian context right in the in verse 13 he says expel the wicked person from among you so he's basically telling them to send this person outside of the church this person is no longer going to be included within the body of Christ because he is bringing corruption and he's bringing sin into the body of Christ uh but this body is supposed to be holy and so uh anyone that's sinning has to be removed from the body and uh he said that when he's being removed from the body he's being removed from fellowship and communion with other believers and also from spiritual protection that covers uh the church um so one side of that spiritual protection is the fact that um as believers we are called into fellowship to encourage and to sharpen one another in our faith right we uh uh we help one another stay in step with God we help one another stay accountable uh to continue to walk with the Lord and that's why fellowship in the church is so important uh so when we're saying that he's removed from that fellowship he no longer has that kind of encouragement from other believers and so he's um weakening his own spiritual standing he's he doesn't have other people he can depend on other people who will correct him other people who will encourage him and uh help him walk in faithfulness to God to God on the other hand uh there is uh Christ covering over the church so uh we can turn to Ephesians 1 118 onwards 18 to 22 so the whole of Ephesians talks a lot about the church but we'll just look at two passages from Ephesians so Ephesians 1 18 to 22 um I'll just read that it says I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people and his incomparably great power for us who believe that power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms far above all rule and authority power and dominion and every name that is invoked not only in the present age but also in the one to come and God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church okay so um Christ is given this place of authority and power over every other power that exists and then Christ himself is placed as the head over all these things and over the church and then if we go on to the end of Ephesians Ephesians 5 29 it's talking about the husband and wife relationship and then he's saying he's talking about the husband and wife and saying how the husband should protect and love his wife and also take care of her body and then he says in verse 29 for no one ever hated his own body but instead he nourishes and protects and cherishes it just as Christ does the church okay so Christ is given this headship over the church Christ is in a power in a place of position authority power dominion and he is put as the head over the church and in that place of authority he uh covers the church he protects it he nourishes that he uh takes care of it and so all those who are part of the body of Christ uh can experience that protection it's like how if we compare it to our families right uh the father kind of acts as the one who takes care of the family who is um taking care of their needs protecting them from dangers that are around whatever those dangers might be and uh in the same way and in a much greater way Christ does that over the church as and um in Ephesians specifically talking about the husband and wife how the husband protects the wife uh yeah he says Christ protects the church so um I think we just have a minute is there any other questions that anyone would like to ask yeah good so as we are looking this chapter seven uh I just wanted a little more definition on verse 16 uh where it says how do you know life whether you will save your husband or how do you know what's been whether you will save your life uh so does it talks about salvation or uh yes it is specifically talking about salvation so that's how we know that when he's talking in verse 14 about being sanctified being made holy uh that is different from what he's saying in verse 16 so he's saying yes your spouse and your children will be uh they will be holy um but verse 16 he's saying you how do you know whether they will be saved so stay in that marriage so that you can influence them so that they can be saved uh but don't leave the matters thinking I'm a believer they are not a believer um so we can't be together instead stay there with the desire to see them saved uh so like uh first Peter also talks about first Peter three one to six also talks in the same way of uh that they may be one over two Christ so the goal is salvation for our family so stay in the marriage so that your uh spouse will be saved okay let's just take a break and then we'll be back at 10 o'clock thank you