What a great start to the Biden presidency.
Have we heard from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) on this?
No. We heard from the Republican Leader of the House, who voiced his disgust:
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) at least took action.
Tens of thousands of troops, mostly National Guard, were sent to Washington, DC, to keep the capital safe before, during and after the inauguration, held on Wednesday, January 20, 2021.
Some of the troops were allowed to sleep in parts of the Capitol building, then, because Congress was in session after the inauguration, they were moved to a parking garage:
On January 21, Chad Pergram from Fox News reported:
Texas governor Greg Abbott (R) was so incensed, he requested that General Norris send the Texas contingent home:
Florida governor Ron DeSantis (R) also asked for his state’s troops to return home:
The outrage was intense, because the troops were accommodated elsewhere by the next day:
The National Guard have day jobs in their home states, so, understandably, they were unimpressed with having been left out in the cold during mobilisation. Howard Altman, managing editor of the Military Times, reported:
Here are other reactions:
It is unclear who issued the order to move them to the parking garage:
Later, it was alleged that a Democrat congressman from Massachusetts wanted the troops out because they weren’t wearing masks at a nearby Dunkin Donuts:
Disgusting.
Here’s more:
Legislators from both sides of the aisle worked to right the wrong.
Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema (R-Arizona) offered her office to the troops:
Madison Cawthorn (R-North Carolina), a freshman Congressman, personally delivered pizzas:
Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois), a military veteran who lost her legs in combat, worked tirelessly to make sure the decision was reversed:
Politico has more on the story but no real conclusions.
On Friday, January 22, Biden tried to make amends, but it was a lame gesture:
I am very glad this did not happen during President Trump’s inauguration in 2017.
In case you are wondering what he thought:
And, former President Trump also offered them accommodation:
Well, he was certainly the greatest president we will ever know.
Today’s commentary is a repost of St Paul’s verses on marriage, which I wrote in 2010:
1 Corinthians 7:1-16 – marriage, marriage to non-Christians
Paul discusses the reasons for marriage and preserving a marriage between a Christian and a non-Christian.
Last week’s post on unrighteousness is here.
Next time — 1 Corinthians 7:17-19
Below are the readings for the Third Sunday after Epiphany, January 24, 2021.
These are for Year B in the three-year Lectionary used in public worship.
Emphases below are mine.
First reading
After having been in the belly of the whale for three days for refusing to preach to the Gentiles at Nineveh, Jonah was washed up on land. God gave him a second chance to carry out His command. A humbled Jonah obeyed this time. Matthew Henry’s commentary has an excellent exposition on Nineveh — it was the largest city in the Ancient World at that time, positively massive. It is unfortunate that the Lectionary editors left out the part where the king of the city helped greatly by declaring a royal decree to don not only sackcloth and ashes but also fast. He also abided by that decree. I have included the missing verses (highlighted in purple). The irony with this story is that God gave Israel many prophets, who were persecuted and ignored, yet, this pagan city and its king repented immediately with one visit from Jonah.
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
3:1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time, saying,
3:2 “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.”
3:3 So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across.
3:4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”
3:5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.
6 The word reached[a] the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
7 And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water,
8 but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.
9 Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”
3:10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.
Psalm
In this Psalm, David confidently proclaims his trust in the Lord.
Psalm 62:5-12
62:5 For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him.
62:6 He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
62:7 On God rests my deliverance and my honor; my mighty rock, my refuge is in God.
62:8 Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Selah
62:9 Those of low estate are but a breath, those of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath.
62:10 Put no confidence in extortion, and set no vain hopes on robbery; if riches increase, do not set your heart on them.
62:11 Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God,
62:12 and steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord. For you repay to all according to their work.
Epistle
1 Corinthians 7 is about Christian marriage. That said, Paul takes great pains to point out that marriage is but a temporal state and that we should always have our hearts and minds on the world to come, our home in Heaven.
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
7:29 I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none,
7:30 and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions,
7:31 and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.
Gospel
Last week’s reading from John described how Jesus called Philip and Nathanael to be His disciples. In today’s reading from Mark, Jesus calls two more sets of brothers to join him: Simon Peter and Andrew as well as John (the Gospel writer) and James, the sons of Zebedee. John in verse 14 is John the Baptist.
Mark 1:14-20
1:14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God,
1:15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
1:16 As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea–for they were fishermen.
1:17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”
1:18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him.
1:19 As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets.
1:20 Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.
I still prefer ‘fishers of men’ (verse 17), which actually includes both sexes, but we are not allowed that usage anymore.
Have a blessed Sunday.
On Monday, January 18, 2021, former Supreme Court Justice Lord Sumption appeared on Julia Hartley-Brewer’s talkRADIO show to discuss the perils of lockdown:
From early last year, Lord Sumption has been a calm, rational opponent of lockdown.
Breitbart has a summary of the three-minute interview clip. Excerpts follow, emphases mine.
I am pleased that his stance has not changed:
Lord Sumption, who last month branded lockdowns “profoundly immoral” and “useless”, told talkRADIO’s Julia Hartley-Brewer on Monday: “We are in the process of turning a public health crisis into an economic, social, and educational disaster.
“We didn’t have to do this. One of the problems is that the government has never been prepared at least to acknowledge that it is necessary to weigh up one thing against another. We cannot have both: lockdown and a prosperous economy. The fact is that no country ever managed to reduce deaths by making itself poorer.”
He warned that this will have a long-term, generational effect:
Lord Sumption continued: “What we have is a lot of people in this country that because they are frightened, or in the case of the government because they are manipulative, are only prepared to look at part of what is actually a very complicated problem.
“You can’t just look at it as a public health issue because it’s a major economic issue. I’m not talking just about the prosperity of businesses, I’m talking about jobs, and how a generation of young people entering the job market is entering a void and the consequences of that are terrible.
“It’s going to live with them for years and years. Long after we’ve forgotten about COVID, they’ll be suffering from the consequences of this. The problem is that emotion is a tool for avoiding difficult choices and the idea that there are no difficult choices — in this case, that the answer is simply to lock down — is frankly absurd.”
Using independent sources, Breitbart supports Lord Sumption’s views about the economy and about the effect on NHS services in other areas:
A survey conducted by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) found that it is expected that around a quarter of a million small businesses will collapse as a result of the lockdown this year.
Reports since the beginning of the lockdowns have also revealed the cost to the nation’s wider wellbeing as NHS hospitals prioritised COVID care and cancelled other services, including a fall in chemotherapy attendance and early cancer referrals, and people dying on transplant waiting lists. There has also been a rise in people feeling depressed or suicidal.
The following graph shows that lockdown was — and is — not necessary. It shows deaths in England between 1971 and 2020. There was hardly an uptick last year:
LBC’s talk radio show presenter Maajid Nawaz has also been an outspoken opponent of lockdown.
Last Sunday, he put together an exhaustive thread — excerpts of which follow — about the dangers of lockdown worldwide, especially for children:
Lockdown is made for the middle class a) who have houses with gardens and b) who never have to worry about losing their jobs — public sector employees:
Ten months on, this is a never-ending downward spiral, where the rules change every few weeks and are often contradictory. More on that in another post.
As we are five hours ahead of the US, I have no idea what will happen today, Inauguration Day.
As such, it is worth noting that the White House has announced yet another Trump administration triumph, The 1776 Report, which lays out US history the way many of us remember it being taught. It also has a section on today’s pervasive political philosophies and explains why they are incompatible with American values.
The 45-page document also caught the eye of the well-known English commentator, James Delingpole:
Thanks to my reader, A C Harper, for providing the new link to The 1776 Report.
On Wednesday, January 13, 2021, investigative reporter John Solomon of Just The News appeared on Actionable Intelligence to tell host Eric Greitens that the January 6 siege on the Capitol was ‘pre-planned’:
It appears that President Trump did not have access to intelligence stating that the siege would take place, according to a Just The News article, also published last Wednesday.
‘Rush to judgement? Three crucial questions remain unanswered about Capitol siege’ states that the FBI and New York Police Department knew, but the White House did not (emphases mine below):
A senior intelligence official told Just the News he has found no evidence that the president, the White House or the National Security Council was alerted in formal intelligence briefings to the pre-warnings or suspicions of violence the FBI and NYPD have admitted they had.
Yet, last Wednesday, Nancy Pelosi and the House of Representatives impeached President Trump for a second time — unprecedented in US history — on the basis that he fomented the violence at the Capitol. That was after a six-hour debate with no due process for the US president.
Mitch McConnell says that he will not reconvene the Senate before the Inauguration on January 20 because of time constraints. The Senate would also have to vote whether to impeach or acquit Trump, but only after a trial, which, as we know from Trump’s first impeachment, takes several days. However, can the Senate impeach Trump once he becomes a private citizen again? Or is there something we don’t know about January 20?
It is also vital to know that Trump was still giving his speech to rallygoers at The Ellipse, next to the White House, when the siege of the Capitol was taking place:
… the official timeline of events constructed by the New York Times through videos shows protesters began breaching the perimeter of the Capitol a full 20 minutes before Trump finished his speech.
This new evidence raises the first compelling question that remains unanswered. How could Trump incite an attack that had already been pre-planned and was in motion before his speech ended?
Indeed.
Information began to emerge the weekend after the January 6 siege:
Since the weekend, major bombshell revelations already have substantially revised the initial story of a spontaneous mob overrunning an unsuspecting Capitol police force.
The FBI admitted Tuesday it received information ahead of the Jan. 6 tragedy suggesting some participants were planning a “war” on the Capitol, including killing officers and distributing maps of the complex. It alerted Washington D.C. law enforcement through the joint terrorism task force alert system. It also “disrupted” the travel plans of some of the suspected trouble-makers.
“We developed some intelligence that a number of individuals were planning to travel to the D.C. area with intentions to cause violence,” Assistant Director Steven M. D’Antuono said. “We immediately shared that information, and action was taken.”
The New York Police Department is reported to have given the Capitol Police similar intelligence warnings of impending violence.
The chief federal prosecutor in Washington declared Tuesday he is pursuing conspiracy charges, signaling the attacks on the Capitol involved multiple acts and multiple conspirators working in concert with each other. The prosecutor talked about the planting of carefully constructed IEDs as one such act. In other words, there was pre-planning for some elements of last Wednesday’s chaos.
In the video above, Solomon wonders what the Sergeants at Arms knew. One reports to Nancy Pelosi in the House and the other to Mitch McConnell in the Senate.
Solomon says that the Sergeants at Arms are the top security for both Houses of Congress. The Speaker and the Senate Majority Leader have very close working relationships with them. Did they receive this intelligence? We do not know at this point, but both resigned or were reassigned. The Capitol Police Chief, Steve Sund, also resigned. He said that neither Sergeant at Arms was willing to help Sund with reinforcements. The National Guard did not arrive until 5 p.m. that day.
A Gateway Pundit article summarising the contents of the video states that Solomon and his team have been stymied in their efforts for the release of information under FOIA:
Investigative reporter John Solomon dropped a bombshell on Wednesday night and said the DC police rejected his FOIA request for records pertaining to their investigation of the siege of the U.S. Capitol.
The DC police said release of the records would be ‘personally embarrassing’ and privacy invading to release the documents.
“We’re gonna fight for those documents but something tells me what’s in those documents has some very very big relevance to what happened on The Hill and the question I have is what did Nancy Pelosi know, what did Mitch McConnell know about these threats beforehand,” John Solomon told former Missouri Governor Eric Greitens. “If they didn’t know then, it’s an intelligence failure of the police. If they did know there’s something they didn’t tell us before we went into this impeachment.”
Also worth noting:
The US Attorney is bringing a conspiracy case which is further proof the siege was planned.
To say this situation is galling is the understatement of the month.
As lynnfay said in yesterday’s guest post, Trump had a lot of naysayers who never wanted him in office in the first place.
So far, this has been a deeply sad month in Trump’s life.
He’s the best president the US has had in living memory. It is a crying shame that a whole host of people have allowed or forced him, as the case may be, to end his four years in ignominy.
Today’s guest post comes from my reader lynnfay73, a retired adjunct professor, who, last week, expressed her dismay and disappointment with both of America’s political parties after the past two presidential elections, the events of January 6, 2021 at the Capitol and President Trump’s second impeachment in the House of Representatives.
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Pen letter to Republicans from a disheartened libertarian:
I will be sending this hard copy to every senator and representative in US.
I’ll also send it to The Detroit News where I’ve been published before, though I may be censored there.
Open letter to Republican politicians from a disheartened libertarian
Dear Republican Leaders,
We Americans couldn’t be more dismayed at the state of the country, and we couldn’t be more disappointed in you.
I wasn’t a Donald Trump fan. I voted in the primaries for Marco Rubio who I thought articulated freedom the best I’d heard in a while (and having decided Rand Paul was unelectable). Donald Trump was an acquired taste to say the least. He’s made some mistakes, he’s no politician, but nowhere near the extent of the mistakes YOU have made.
Before Donald Trump even took office, the Democrats were calling for impeachment. They were allowed every day on all networks, even Fox News, for four years to call him illegitimate. A Russian asset, a traitor. A NAZI, HITLER. Hollywood circulated memes of him beheaded, did plays with people killing him as Julius Caesar, Madonna called for blowing up the White House, DeNiro and Biden threatening to beat him up. They lied about his words, blatantly, and the left journalists never called them on it, knowing full well he never said white supremacists were “good people”–he expressly said he meant those people who wanted to preserve the statues, NOT white supremacists whom he condemned immediately. And that went on and on. The man is a lot of things, but he’s no racist. And let’s not forget Maxine Waters’ calls for violence against Trump, openly, and Pelosi tearing up the State of the Union address. To name a few things.
Then they went on and weaponized Obama’s justice department to use Hillary Clinton bought and paid for (from Russians) dirty dossier which they used illegally (even by their own standards) to obtain illegal FISA warrants to spy on him and ruin Carter Page’s life by actually forging documents.
The press never changed the narrative and they severely threatened our Republic by doing all this. And the Never Trumpers are even more to blame. Lincoln Project? You have been a disgrace (and it appears maybe even degenerates) and you harmed the Republican party irreparably by not just staying quiet if he wasn’t YOUR cup of tea. The list is long on this. John McCain GAVE that dossier to the FBI and attacked Trump publicly as did Romney, and they wonder why they got the reaction they got. No excuse for that.
Then before this latest election, the left media and Big Tech and the Democrats censored the conservative news — true news, about the Bidens’ activities in Ukraine and China (the other phony impeachment crap was to hide and accuse people of what THEY had been doing for four years — using the justice department against a political opponent and covering up their own corruption). They have now carried that to the extreme that not only have they censored the president of the United States, they have silenced the conservative ability to communicate. And they are raising this unrest to fever pitch by these actions alone.
It is the height of hypocrisy to call this mess at the capitol “insurrection” when the left (and even the never-Trumpers) have been stoking just that for four years in an attempt to overturn a duly elected presidential election.
But what is the most egregious is that YOU are such cowards that instead of ALL standing up to force a ten-day investigation– into what is election practices half this country has no intention of accepting going forward– most of you chickened out in the elitist establishment hope that you could hold the senate but get rid of Trump. His list of accomplishments will not be appreciated for a while which is a very big shame AND you have divided this party irreparably. It is YOU who cost us Georgia, mostly because you refuse to insist on election integrity.
And that is why this happened on Jan. 6th, not because of Donald Trump.
None of us thought this election would be overturned. We wanted it investigated and we want election reform NOW. You cowards should have stood by him and insisted that this happen as the American people wanted.
No, this does not excuse violence (though the left excuses it any time they want to), but Donald Trump is not responsible for it. The left is responsible for it with all their actions of the last four years and YOU establishment elitists who are really nothing more than Democrats in disguise–YOU are responsible for it. No idea what you are doing in this party.
And had you had his back the whole time, he could have been more measured in his actions and responses all along. I wonder how any of you would have held up to this kind of abuse, never before seen in American political history.
I will be working to get rid of any of you I can: McConnell, Romney, Sasse, Kinzinger, Cheney, and the rest of you. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), John Katko (R-N.Y.), Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio), Tom Rice (R-S.C.), David Valadao (R-Calif.), and Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) who just voted to impeach Donald Trump.
There are some patriots here (even if their motives might be political) — Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes, Ted Cruz, Elise Stefanik, Mo Brooks, and more (and some who might be excused for arguing constitutional issues like states’ rights — Mike Lee, Rand Paul).
It’s fine if you didn’t prefer Donald Trump’s style; it is NOT fine that your arrogance and elitist superiority and cowardice (Democrats never would have done this–say what you want about their motives — they play hardball) have resulted in this country embarking on an authoritarian nightmare that could once never have been contemplated in America let alone practiced.
We won’t forget.
L. Fay
Adjunct Professor (retired)
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Lynn’s is an excellent letter. I am grateful she allowed it to be reprinted as a guest post.
The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.
Yet, it doesn’t tell the whole story.
My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.
Today’s reading is from the English Standard Version with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous[a] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,[b] 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
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Last week’s verses were about Paul’s censure of the Corinthians for going to civil courts to settle personal grievances, some of which were petty. He exhorted them to resolve their differences within their church community.
It is no surprise that today’s verses are not in the three-year Lectionary, although 1 Corinthians 12-20, condemning fornication, are in the readings for the Second Sunday after Epiphany, Year B, which happens to be today, January 17, 2021. Serendipitous, one might say.
Students of the three-year Lectionary know that the editors have been ever anxious not to offend.
A few years ago, I asked a fellow Anglican, who comes from a family of clergymen and who knows a lot about St Paul’s Epistles, about today’s verses with regard to church unions regardless of sexual persuasion. He said that Paul’s verses no longer apply, therefore, same-sex unions are okay in the Church of England and other denominations.
I replied that I am ever wary of people who say certain verses in Scripture no longer apply, unless there is a good explanation for it through scholarly hermeneutics. He told me I was dated and really should get up to speed on these things.
At this point, readers can take his word for it or they can read on … noting that not all of what is stated below is my opinion, but that of Scripture.
After Paul finishes with the subject of civil lawsuits, he goes on to list a number of serious sins, all of which are highly popular today (verses 9 and 10). We can substitute ‘wrongdoers’ for ‘unrighteous’ in verse 9.
As I’ve been reading through 1 Corinthians, Paul could have been writing it for us. Millions of Christians, myself included in a past life, are/were like the Corinthians. We can rationalise anything, because we live in an environment which thrives on and condones sinful behaviour. Respectability and godliness began going out the window at the end of the 1960s with a popular slogan, ‘Let it all hang out’. In the 1970s, another saying, ‘If it feels good, do it’, was all the rage.
Need I say more?
Like the Corinthians, many of us are ruled by carnal compulsion, which, if not corrected through repentance, leads to the road of perdition.
Matthew Henry, whose commentary was published in 1706, put it rather tersely (italics in the original, bold emphases mine):
Those who knew any thing of religion must know that heaven could never be intended for these. The scum of the earth are no ways fit to fill the heavenly mansions. Those who do the devil’s work can never receive God’s wages, at least no other than death, the just wages of sin, Romans 6:23.
John MacArthur wrote today’s sermon in 1975. He has lived all his life in southern California. I do wonder how he copes. Anyway, he introduced his sermon with these words:
I teach you the Word of God not just to teach it, but so that you’ll respond to it. We talk about the authority of the Word of God in order that you might come under that authority. The objective of the ministry then, as I see it, is to ring a people to a place of submission to the Word of God. Then you can solve every problem by simply introducing a biblical principle that deals with it and the people will conform to the principle.
So often I talk to ministers, and they don’t do that. They don’t teach the Word of God, and they don’t build into their people a submission to the Word of God. And then when a problem comes, and they offer a biblical solution, the people can’t relate to that. They assume it’s just another opinion, because they don’t have the mind of submissiveness to the Word of God.
That is so true.
In his wisdom, MacArthur begins not by censuring but by saying that God — through Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross — can forgive all our sins through our repentance. Therefore, because of that, we should forgive our brothers and sisters their sins against us:
… there is nothing that you have ever done in your life that is outside the forgiveness of God, and that’s the standard. Right? You’re to forgive one another, even as God, for Christ’s sake, has forgiven you. When you come to Christ and believe in me and receive Jesus Christ, is there any sin at that point that is unforgivable? Absolutely not. It doesn’t matter what it was: whether it was a moral issue; whether you were the vilest, rottenest, lowest reprobate on the earth; whether it was a religious issue and you were the world’s worst false teacher; it doesn’t matter what it is, if you come and kneel at the cross to receive Christ, there is nothing that is unforgivable.
If you were a soldier who pounded a nail into the hand of Jesus Christ, if you were a soldier who rammed the spear into his side, if you were a mocker who spit in His face, that is all forgivable. All of it is forgivable. “And as Christ has forgiven you” – 1 John 2:12, “all your trespasses”– that’s the standard by which you forgive one another. There is nothing that is unforgivable. Nothing. Now, that’s a high standard, isn’t it?
You say, “But you don’t know what he did to me.”
I don’t care. There is nothing. You don’t know what you did to God either, and He forgave that, and that’s the standard.
MacArthur gives us more insights on the Corinthians:
Now, sadly, the Corinthians were openly disobeying this principle. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 6. This is a simple principle, frankly, people. It just really isn’t that tough. But the Corinthians were absolutely ignoring it. Instead of forgiving each other, every time somebody did something wrong, they’d sue them. And they were dragging them into court all the time over every petty little thing. They were gouging each other; they had a gross lack of life, bitterness, vengeance, recompense, self-seeking, unforgiving spirit, robbery; they were extorting and swindling each other. All of this going on within the church, just gouging each other. Instead of forgiving, every little thing became a case for the courts.
And so, Paul writes 1 Corinthians chapter 6 to the beleaguered Corinthian church that has managed to manifest about every sin conceivable. And in 6, he deals with the sin of suing each other instead of forgiving each other. The New Testament principle is very clear, people; we are to forgive one another, and it couldn’t be more clear than that.
This ties in with today’s verses because the Corinthians, like many of today’s Christians (myself included, at one time), falsely distinguished between their salvation and their sinfulness. In other words, they thought that, because they were Christians and had freedom in Christ, they could sin in serious ways and they would still be redeemed.
Paul kicks that notion into touch.
MacArthur elaborates:
… what he does here is really a potent thing. Look at verse 9, and we’ll start there. “Don’t you know” – he says – “that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?”
Don’t you realize that you who are sons of the kingdom are on the opposite end of everything from the unregenerate? They don’t even inherit the kingdom. They’re not even a part of the same dimension. They’re not even in the same sphere. They don’t even exist in the same world. They don’t breathe the same air. They don’t have the capacities that you have. There are two completely different groups. The unrighteous do not inherit the kingdom of God. They have no part with you. You have no business acting like them, and you have no business taking your problems to them. How could those who are not even in the kingdom judge the subjects of the kingdom. Ridiculous. The unrighteous won’t have any part in the kingdom in the future; they don’t belong in God’s kingdom. Why do you go for them to give you judgment, and why are you behaving like those who aren’t in the kingdom when you are?
And then he gives this catalog that’s just potent. He says, “Be not deceived” – that is, don’t think your salvation and your lifestyle are two different things. Don’t be deceived. The kind of activities that the world does have no place with you. You can’t get away [with] that.
As for the sins Paul lists, MacArthur gives a flavour of the world in 1975. I was in school then. He’s got it spot on, no exaggeration. I remember it well:
… here’s the world’s lifestyle. Number one, fornicators, sexually immoral. I don’t think anybody even has to make a comment about that today. Immorality is absolutely incredible. In some of the airports where I was stopping this week, you know, I would go in to get a magazine or to get some gum or something, and you know you can hardly walk in and out of the place without seeing this plethora of sex splattered all over the magazine rack. It’s just indulged to the point where you can’t believe that people are so tolerant. Fornicators, that’s characteristic of our world. Sexual immorality. And it’s always been that way, and today it seems more blatant than ever.
Then idolaters, false religion. I read all the time that the false systems of religion are growing more rapidly today than they ever have in their history. There are statistics to show that the cults are growing at an all-time rate. Idolatry. Worshipping false Gods and false religious systems.
Next, adulterers. Unfaithful in marriage. Wife swapping. Unfaithfulness. All of this kind of activity goes on incessantly in our world. No different than then.
That is what the 1960s sexual revolution, as it was called, ‘achieved’, for lack of a better word.
MacArthur has a fulsome description of another aspect of what the Bible considers to be sexual immorality and swapping gender roles. Parts of what he has to say were okay to express in 1975, less so now. Just to clarify, he is talking about the sin not the sinner in biblical terms. However, he offers a historical perspective from ancient times to the Bible to the Greek language to the present day:
Then you have a very interesting word, the word “effeminate.” Effeminate is only – that word malakos is only used once in the New Testament, and that’s right here. A very unusual word. And it has to do with perversion. And the best that we can understand what it means, it means this: to exchange one sexual role for another.
One of the characteristics of the ungodly is to exchange sexual roles. Now, it seems to be general enough to include almost anything. It could be something perhaps as simple as a transvestite, somebody who wears the clothes of the opposite sex, which is very common. Interesting, I read an article that said in the Southern California area, one out of every ten women that you see aren’t. Now, I don’t – I can’t verify those statistics, and I don’t know how they did when they made the test, but that’s what the thing said.
But it can go further than that. It can go to the place of sexual changes and all kinds of sexual aberrations. It can even include any kind of exchange, any kind of exchange of the roles of the sexes.
An interesting comment on this I find in Deuteronomy 22:5, that we’ve commented before in several of our discussions, but I would just point – you don’t need to look it up – Deuteronomy 22:5 says this, “The woman shall not wear that which pertains unto a man. Neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.” God does not want anything that even smacks of an exchange of the roles of the sexes. This is forbidden. This is characteristic of unregenerate, unrighteous, ungodly people who are not a part of the kingdom of God. And it was a part of the society of that day. And I think even women’s lib and that kind of thing borders on this, where you are exchanging the roles.
You see, if you can start to do that, you can break it down, you make everybody dress alike, and then you take away the authority submission principle in the home, and you wipe out the family. You destroy the whole basis of a home. And you’ve destroyed the nation and the – and the pattern of passing on the revelation of God is really wiped out, because it’s to be passed from parents to children – and destroy the family and the chain of revelation can be broken at that point.
So, you know Satan wants to wipe out sex roles. They are illustrative – aren’t they? – of the church and Christ. And so, that illustration is muddied and destroyed, and away Satan goes to this area. And so, here, characteristic of unregenerate people, they are effeminate. That is they exchange their true identity sexually for the opposite role.
For the next two paragraphs, church membership of those of other sexual persuasions was a big deal in many conservative Protestant churches. However, at the same time — 1975 — the Catholic church my family and I belonged to had a young, gay, atheist organist. The nun who was in charge of pastoral care hired him. But I digress. MacArthur says:
Another word, it says in verse 9 at the end, “abusers of themselves with mankind,” which is a long phrase for homosexuals. You people are always today, in the church – you know, I just read where the Methodist Church has now decided that they’re going to admit homosexuals and all of this. This goes on all the time, just a rather incessant situation today of, “Oh, we’ve got to take these people in; they’re wonderful people; they just have a little different slant on things, and so forth and so on, and that we need to be very tolerant of them. It’s one of those things that doesn’t really matter; it’s only a biological factor, blah-blah; we have to minster to them and so forth and so on.”
And, of course, right here in L.A., we have a homosexual church, Metropolitan something Church … We’re not saying that this is unforgiveable, and we’re not saying that we don’t love these people. We’re saying this is a sin that God hates and that characterizes unregenerate people.
MacArthur discusses what went on at Sodom, and, contrary to what we read today, what went on there had nothing to do with ‘hospitality’, which is today’s modern theme about Sodom and Gomorrah:
The word that is used in the Bible is frequently connected with sodomy. 1 Timothy 1:10 talks about it. Sodomy. The word “sodomy” comes from Sodom. The sin of Sodom, which was destroyed, you know, by fire – the sin of Sodom was the sin of homosexuality. The people lusted after the angels that appeared at Lot’s house, and that became the first biblical illustration of homosexuality, that terrible perversion.
By the time of the writing of the Corinthian letter, homosexuality was so widespread that it was unbelievable. Fourteen out of the first 15 Roman emperors were homosexuals. Socrates was a homosexual. Plato was most likely a homosexual. He wrote his dialogue called “The Symposium on Love,” and the basis of it is homosexual love. Nero, who was reigning around this period, took a boy named Sporus and had him castrated and lived with him as wife. And when Nero died, Sporus was then passed on to Otho, who was the next emperor. So, this was just pattern of living in those days. This is characteristic of their former life.
I’ll continue with MacArthur’s sermon, because, in Henry’s era, people were still God-fearing, for the most part. Yes, there was sexual immorality, along with a depraved underground men’s movement that appeared in London during the subsequent Georgian era, but nothing that was mainstream.
Today, gays and lesbians can start their own families — as appropriate — by adoption, artificial insemination or surrogacy. Surrogacy is still very controversial in many countries. I have more of a problem with that than I do adoption or artificial insemination.
Personally, I would rather have gays and lesbians in the Church than outside of it. However, that goes against Paul’s teachings, too.
That said, never mind me. Let’s focus on Scripture here.
Moving along, has anyone noticed how certain acts of theft, especially shoplifting, are no longer considered crimes? The police in Britain don’t even want to know. A few weeks ago, I read of a proposed law in Seattle whereby anything that is not a felony would be decriminalised. That’s pretty serious, because you could be maimed permanently in a mugging or have your house robbed and be ignored by the police. What are we coming to as a society?
MacArthur looks at theft and greed as it was 46 years ago:
… verse 10 says they also are characterized as “thieves” – and the word here means petty theft; this is crime. It could refer to just kind of street crime. And then it – this is characteristic of today, there’s no need to even give you statistics on that, it’s apparent to everybody that crime keeps getting higher and higher and higher and higher statistically speaking.
And then it says the characteristic of the worlds is that they’re “greedy” or “covetous,” and I don’t know that any of us are unaware of this. We see it in the paper, people demanding more and more, more and more, more and more, never enough, never enough. It’s incredible the amount of money that people are demanding. Greed is just taking over our society …
He looks at drunkenness. I’m surprised he did not tie drug abuse in with this, because, even in the 1970s, there were a lot of young people who said they didn’t drink but they definitely used drugs instead. I knew several. To them, drugs were better, ‘less addictive’, so they claimed:
“Drunkenness.” Some of you may have seen on television the other night the terrible story that they gave, a documentary about people beginning to be drunkards when they’re eight years old, alcoholic children. And all the way through life we just keep producing more and more of these kinds of people.
He goes on to the other sins:
And then he goes to talk about slanderers or “revilers,” people who abuse with the tongue. And our society is loaded with those kind of people. No question about that.
And then “extortioners,” swindlers, people who are rip-off artists, con artists, people who are able to swindle.
All of these things are categories in which the world is defined by the Word of God. We have a world full of those people.
Paul ends this section of his letter with a reprimand that contains hope, eternal hope (verse 11).
Paul tells the Corinthians that some of them came from these groups of sinners, but that since they found Christ, they have been symbolically washed in His blood and became sanctified. As such, they were justified in God through His Son and the Holy Spirit.
Henry explains:
How glorious a change does grace make! It changes the vilest of men into saints and the children of God. Such were some of you, but you are not what you were. You are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of Christ, and by the Spirit of our God. Note, The wickedness of men before conversion is no bar to their regeneration and reconciliation to God. The blood of Christ, and the washing of regeneration, can purge away all guilt and defilement. Here is a rhetorical change of the natural order: You are sanctified, you are justified. Sanctification is mentioned before justification: and yet the name of Christ, by which we are justified, is placed before the Spirit of God, by whom we are sanctified. Our justification is owing to the merit of Christ; our sanctification to the operation of the Spirit: but both go together. Note, None are cleansed from the guilt of sin, and reconciled to God through Christ, but those who are also sanctified by his Spirit. All who are made righteous in the sight of God are made holy by the grace of God.
The last word goes to Henry, with a highly practical application of today’s verses:
Note, It is very much the concern of mankind that they do not cheat themselves in the matters of their souls. We cannot hope to sow to the flesh and yet reap everlasting life.
That is something to truly ponder and apply to our own lives.
It is much easier to live under the light yoke of holiness than the millstone of sin.
Next time — 1 Corinthians 7:1-16
Below are the readings for the Second Sunday after Epiphany, January 17, 2021.
These are for Year B in the three-year Lectionary used in public worship.
Emphases below are mine.
First reading
In an era without prophets, the Lord called upon young Samuel, Eli’s student. Eli’s sons had blasphemed the Lord, and Eli had not punished their iniquity. The Lord told Samuel of the judgement He would pass upon Eli and his sons. Matthew Henry wrote a moving commentary on these verses, well worth reading for its insights.
1 Samuel 3:1-10, (11-20)
3:1 Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD under Eli. The word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.
3:2 At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room;
3:3 the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was.
3:4 Then the LORD called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!”
3:5 and ran to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down.
3:6 The LORD called again, “Samuel!” Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.”
3:7 Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.
3:8 The LORD called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the boy.
3:9 Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.'” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
3:10 Now the LORD came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”
3:11 Then the LORD said to Samuel, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle.
3:12 On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end.
3:13 For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them.
3:14 Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever.”
3:15 Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the LORD. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli.
3:16 But Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son.” He said, “Here I am.”
3:17 Eli said, “What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.”
3:18 So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, “It is the LORD; let him do what seems good to him.”
3:19 As Samuel grew up, the LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground.
3:20 And all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the LORD.
Psalm
Matthew Henry’s commentary says that Jewish scholars consider this to be David’s finest Psalm. It is about God’s omniscience. It is also a celebration of human life (verses 13 and 16). Henry counsels that if we apply our hearts and our faith when we recite this Psalm, we will benefit our personal holiness and comfort, thanks to divine grace.
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
139:1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
139:2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.
139:3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
139:4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.
139:5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
139:6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.
139:13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
139:14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.
139:15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
139:16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.
139:17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
139:18 I try to count them — they are more than the sand; I come to the end — I am still with you.
Epistle
Here we have a rare occasion of the Lectionary editors allowing a reading warning against fornication. It is a rare occurrence, because it is apparent to those who know the Lectionary that no offensive verses should be included in church readings. Serendipitously, 1 Corinthians 6 appears in my Forbidden Bible Verses post for tomorrow, January 17, 2021.
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
6:12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.
6:13 “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food,” and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
6:14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power.
6:15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!
6:16 Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, “The two shall be one flesh.”
6:17 But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
6:18 Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself.
6:19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?
6:20 For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.
Gospel
Jesus chooses His disciples. Note Nathanael’s reaction (verse 46): ‘Can any good come out of Nazareth?’ Our Lord Jesus was born and lived in the world in the humblest of circumstances, including His home town.
John 1:43-51
1:43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”
1:44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.
1:45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.”
1:46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
1:47 When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”
1:48 Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”
1:49 Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
1:50 Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.”
1:51 And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
Three of these readings are on the theme of ‘Call me, Lord’ and spiritual readiness, into which the Epistle from Paul ties nicely.
A good celebrant should be able to tie all four together into a cohesive and powerful sermon.
