I don’t think we have one here on the Thames Estuary, but over on the west side of the country in the Bristol Channel they have what they call a tidal bore. When there is going to be a very high tide, as the tide begins to come in, a large wave is formed that begins to sweep in along the estuary.

They call it the Severn Bore. It looks quite impressive. Surfers ride the wave; boats follow it in. In a way, it reminds me of the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came on the disciples of Jesus, its power flooding their beings, causing them to burst out in praise to God.

Of course to see a spectacle like the Severn Bore you have to be in the right place at the right time. I had the opportunity when I was at college in Bristol. It involved getting away from college early on a Friday, and getting to an appropriate place on the riverbank. As I stood there waiting I got talking to a man who had come to watch the bore. He was a local who had seen it often. He said to me, that what he found most amazing was not the bore itself; not the wave that led the tide in but the vast flood of water that followed behind it, millions of tonnes, filling the estuary, lifting the boat that before had been stranded on the mud and enabling them to float on their moorings.

As I watched the wave sweep up the estuary with the surfers and following boats it was impressive. But as I watched the millions of tonnes of water of the tide sweeping in behind the wave, I had to agree with my fellow spectator. Yes, that was far more impressive than the wave itself.

There are two aspects to the activity of the Holy Spirit. There is the spectacular aspect, the wave that shows itself in speaking in tongues, or falling to the ground. But then there is the powerful effect of the Spirit flowing into every area of the believer’s life, filling them with God’s love. Cleansing from sin. Motivating to love and serve God’s purposes.

For some people that happens very quickly. It did for the apostle Paul. From being a man who was filled with hatred and bent on persecuting the church, he was within a few days boldly witnessing to his faith to the people of Damascus, and not much later in Jerusalem.

For most of us, the effect is a lot slower. Rather more like a fairly low tide coming up the beach here. For the folk at Corinth, they had had the spectacular experience of the wave, they had received the gift of tongues, and in fact Paul could write to them ‘you do not lack any spiritual gift’. But there was still quite a lack of the evidence of the fruit of the Spirit in their behaviour.

Their lives were still firmly aground on the mud of the Greek culture in which they had been brought up. Their eyes still needed to be opened to the truths that would set them free.

That is still true of Christians and churches across our world today. People hear and respond to the gospel, they receive the Holy Spirit, but so often their behaviour is still far more determined by the culture in which they live, than by the teaching and example of Jesus.

Here in Britain for many Christians, our lives are far more influenced by the materialism and lax morals of our society than by the teachings of Jesus. We are too often aground in the mud of our prevailing culture, when we should be floating free at the direction of the Spirit.

On this day when we remember the coming of the Spirit, how can the Spirit help us to know that fullness of God’s presence? I believe that it will help us if we remember that one role of the Spirit, Jesus teaches us, is that the Spirit will guide us into all truth.

The Corinthians certainly needed guidance. I don’t think that we should be too hard on them. Many of them had come to Christianity from the ignorance of paganism. Unlike Paul, they had no grounding in the Old Testament scriptures. They had only had Paul teaching them there in Corinth for 18 months, and the influence of their prevailing culture was all around them.

Although Paul may well have told them all the theory necessary for the Christian life when he had been with them, knowing the theory is not the same as putting it into practice. On this Pentecost Sunday it is good for us to be reminded that the work of the Holy Spirit is not just our initial conversion, it is also the task of changing us into people who are more like Jesus. The Spirit does this by opening our eyes to see the truths of scripture not just as theory, but also as a way that we can live out our daily lives.

Materialism and moral laxity were every bit as rife in ancient Corinth. It was a centre for trade and commerce with all the scope for shady dealing and greed that we have in our world today. It was also notorious for it’s immorality, with its Temple to Aphrodite the Goddess of love with its scores of prostitutes.

These were the things that the church had to struggle with, and Paul is concerned because it appears that at the critical time when he had to write this letter they were losing the fight. ‘You have been completely defeated already’ he says to them. What was going on? It seems that they had not given up their old dishonest ways. They were cheating and lying to each other.

Besides that there were some members who were taking other members to court! I’m afraid human nature does not change. It still happens sometimes among Christians. I heard of a case of a young man who worked as an insurance agent selling car insurance to other young people in the church, but instead of paying the premiums he received from them to the insurance company, he pocketed the money himself.

Sometimes we even hear of clergymen suing their church or church authorities for unfair dismissal. Such behaviour is unbecoming of Christians and Paul tells the Corinthians so.

He reminds them that as Christians they are a people who have come to the light, they are people who are committed to facing up to the truth about themselves. It’s the world’s way to tell lies, it’s the world’s way to cheat and to attempt to put the blame on others.

There are two aspects of Jesus teaching that they were not putting into practice. Firstly, they are ignoring Jesus injunction that if we have a dispute with a fellow Christian we should first of all talk to that individually privately to put the matter right. If that fails then we should take along one or two others. It is all set our in Matthew 18v15. Within the church we should be able to settle our differences without going to court. The fact that things had got that bad at Corinth was evidence of defeat in the lives of some of those folk.       

Secondly, Jesus set an example and taught the way of loving our enemies, of turning the other cheek, of being willing to bear the cost of wrongs inflicted by others. The behaviour of some at Corinth fell a long way short of that.

As we have said before, they were immature. They wanted the blessings of Christianity without facing up to it’s challenges. They were unwilling to face up to the hard work and pain of honest relationships with each other. We can sometimes be tempted to have that same attitude among us. Sometimes we avoid facing our own or the failings of others. We just relating at a very superficial level. We put on a respectable veneer. God calls us to know and be known. Part of the work of the Spirit is to enable us to relate in true fellowship.

What does Paul say in this situation? He deals with the problems by reminding the Corinthians again about the whole basis of their relationship with God. It is on the basis of repentance. He lists the typical sordid vices that characterised the population of Corinth. Read v 9-10.

‘And that’ says Paul ‘is what some of you were. 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.’ Its wonderful what God has done in Christ for sinful men and women.

But the gospel is a gospel of repentance. Repentance means turning away from sin. Changing direction. If you look in the bible, there is the consistent theme of repentance all the way through. It’s in the Old Testament.

In the New Testament John the Baptist preaches it, Jesus preaches it; Peter preaches it on the day of Pentecost. When we see what Paul preached we find he preached it too: Acts 17v30- ‘God commands all people everywhere to repent.’ What a bold, sweeping, unambiguous statement. The work of the Holy Spirit is to help us to walk in repentance; to leave and but behind us the sinful ways we used to live by.

Finally, the one besetting sin that Paul has to deal with once again in this chapter is the one regarding immorality. It seems he was concerned what a potentially dangerous temptation it was for the young Christians there. You see the Greeks had devised a way to make their religions compatible with whatever sexual indulgence people were inclined towards. It was based on their teaching that life is divided into two spheres. There is the spiritual, which is good, and of value. And there is the physical which is evil, and of no importance. They had coined the phrase ‘all things are permissible to me’ which Paul quotes twice here.

The implication of this is that it doesn’t matter what you do with your body, it doesn’t matter what sexual perversions you indulge in or what diseases you get or spread because your body is doomed to destruction anyway.

This idea that ‘all things are permissible to me’ was in some ways very similar to the freedom of the Christian message. Salvation is free; we don’t have to earn it, we don’t have to offer animal sacrifices, we don’t have to be circumcised. We don’t have to follow the Jewish rules about clean and unclean foods.

Paul answers this excuse in two ways here:

a.)    ‘Everything is permissible to me, but not everything is beneficial’. Some forms of behaviour are destructive; to ourselves as well as to others. Such things should be avoided.

b.)    ‘Everything is permissible to me, but I will not be mastered by anything’. One of the characteristics of sinful behaviour is that it enslaves people. People can be enslaved to lying or to drugs or to sinful sexual activity. When people indulge in sinful behaviour they become enslaved to sin, and sin is an evil, destructive master. 

This idea of the spiritual being good and physical being evil, also sounds very similar to Christianity. But there is a difference. God is spirit. But we know that in Jesus God entered a human body. The word became flesh. We know that Jesus rose with a body, a changed, resurrection body. We look forward to a life in heaven, not as invisible spirits but with resurrection bodies of our own.

But more than that, as Christians our bodies are vehicles for the Holy Spirit that God has placed within each one of us. We are not our own we have been bought with a price. We should treat our bodies accordingly.

What Paul sought to teach the Corinthians was that they needed the reality of God’s presence in every area of their lives. If you read the story of the first day of Pentecost, in Acts chapter 2 you see a wonderful picture of what life was like; the love, the fellowship, the joy, the harmony.

May we allow God’s Spirit to so dwell in each and every area of our lives, and in the life of our church so that all might see God’s glory and God’s love.

Amen.

Return to top of page