1 Corinthians 6:9 Commentary and Bible Study

Then comes an apostolic list of sins, and he proceeds to deal with sin among the people of God. Now verses 9 and 10 are very important to what follows, but we are familiar with them. They have been listed in the previous chapter. Some of you, the apostle hints, are not truly converted. You are in a very perilous position. ‘Know ye not’ – what is the reasoning here? How can believers do things which will cause unbelievers to be sent to hell? Doesn’t it concern us? ‘Be not deceived’ – wake up, he says. ‘Sin brings people to hell. Are you saved?’ seems to be the challenge. ‘How can you do these things; defraud each other, and steal from each other. I don’t think it was going on to any great extent in Corinth, but it was obviously happening to need these strictures. There is something very important about this particular list of sins. They are all sins that ‘should not be named’ among believers. We have to say this very carefully, because nothing should give us license to sin; but there are different families of sin. Even though we have been given a new nature at conversion, there is still residual sin within us because of the sinful, corrupt nature within us. There are some sins – and this is no excuse for them – that steal across us, and we fall, and we submit to them. There are sins that slip in, like pride or moments of dishonesty and excuses. Well, they should never happen; but they are sins which constantly, even if in a small way, sneak in, and you are fighting against them all your life. And you couldn’t possibly say, ‘I will guarantee that in this week I will be absolutely pure and free from any taint of pride or selfishness or unkindness.’ You cannot absolutely guarantee that. You are doing your level best, and you will lay hold on the power of God. But there are other sins concerning which you ought to be able to say, ‘That will not happen in my life this week, this month, this year. That will be completely avoided, and out’, and this is the nature of this list. ‘Fornicators’ is a term which covers all kinds of sexual misconduct and immorality. There are three terms, well, four terms for sexual sins in this list; but ‘fornicator’ is a general term here. The Greek word which is used is a general word for all kinds of sexual impurity and lust and sin; including actions, including pornography gazing, and so on. ‘Idolaters’. Of course a Christian man or woman should not be into idolatry or false religion at the same time as true religion; it is outrageous, unthinkable. Whether it is some kind of mystical or false spiritualism, which belongs to past culture, a Christian person should never be an idolater.Adultery is very specifically violation of the marriage bed, unfaithfulness within marriage. There should not be a Christian man or a Christian woman ever who is unfaithful to husband or wife. It is a wholly avoidable sin for Christians.‘Nor effeminate’ – that is a word that was not in the same list in the previous chapter. There are one or two translations that really get to the heart of the Greek on that: ‘men who make women of themselves’ is one attempt, and that is accurate, because the Greek actually says ‘soft’, but the implication is men who make women of themselves. ‘Nor abusers of themselves with mankind’, homosexuals. That was not in the previous, but it was implied under the word fornicators.