Bought With A Price

Authority Applied to the Body

From the fifth chapter of 1 Corinthians forward, the theme that binds Paul’s various concerns together is this: applying the authority of Christ to the Body of Christ (the Church). Church discipline, the effects of individual sin on the whole community, the congregation’s testimony to the wider world — all of these matters point to the obligation believers have to one another. Our bodies are not ours alone, because we have been bought with a price.

“[Paul] suffers them not even to wait for his presence … but, as if on the point of expelling some contagion before it has time to spread itself into the rest of the body, he hastens to restrain it.”

— John Chrysostom

LISTEN TO SERMONS

Part 1: The Courts of the Church (1 Corinthians 5.1-5)
Rev. J. Mark Bertrand