1 Corinthians 10:23
“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.
Today’s verse is a quote of a quote. Paul is responding to some cheap and easy rhetoric in a letter the Corinthians had sent him. In that letter, the Corinthians had been dumbing down Paul’s teaching on the grace of God till it meant nothing more than “do whatever you like and God will overlook it.” The Corinthians torque Paul’s words into meaning, “everything is right and nothing is wrong.” Paul reminds them that this is like saying, “Everything is right and nothing is left.” And the slogan the Corinthians appear to have settled on to sum up this cartoon of Paul’s thinking was, “All things are lawful.” So Paul takes time in his reply to the Corinthians to set everything straight. His reply, in a nutshell, is, “Jesus frees us to transcend the law with goodness, not ignore the law like criminals.” We are not under law for the same reason a grown man is not under his kindergarten teacher, not because we are now free to steal cookies and pull our sister’s hair, but because the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ has written law on our hearts and made us grownups who do not need such supervision. We reach the country where everything is permitted by letting Jesus fashion us into people who only desire what is good.
