Pure Living: Contagion

1 Corinthians 6:12-20 The recent health scare going around has us chanting the phrase, “wash your hands”, avoiding common social actions such as shaking hands and cancelling events where a lot of people gather. We are running as fast as we can from covid-19 because it is so contagious. But there is a much greater contagion to which we have become immune, immorality.

The problem with sin in the Church is simple, it spreads quickly and infects everyone. Paul says being involved in sexual immorality is not an individual thing, it involves the whole church (see vss 15-16). We are not Christians standing alone, we are a part of one Body. If one part is infected, the whole is infected just as we can’t get covid-19 in just our big toe or the tip of our nose.

Paul is making sure we understand that we can’t split a human into two, one part physical and one part spiritual. What we do physically affects the spiritual because we are one person. In the same way, when one person in the Body of Christ sins, they become spiritually sick and that spiritual illness can spread from there. It is a serious thing but we all too often do not take it seriously. Is that right? Paul says, “Never! Flee!

Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. -James 4:8 NIV