Christians should not sin...but they do!

[12strings]

I happened to run across this passage in 1 Cor. 3, and thought it was an excellent example of The scriptures making a distinction between the salvation of a saint, and his/her level of spiritual maturity and level of obedience:

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?
What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.
According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.(1 Corinthians 3:1-17)

Here were have a disturbing juxtaposition of descriptive terms:
+God's temple, Gods field, God's building, will be saved, infants in Christ,
-AND YET...not spiritual, jealousy, strife, still of the flesh, suffering loss of reward because of their work.

Apparently both of these sets of descriptors CAN be true about the same people. Paul addresses some very serious sins in this book, and yet also in chapter one Thanks God for the grace that was given to them in Christ...so that they are not lacking in any gift.

I believe what we see here is a description of saved people who are none-the-less being disobedient in several areas. Now I'm not saying this should be our goal. No one should be happy if this passage describes them, it is obviously not a glowing commendation...

...But, we should, like Paul, give grace, mercy, and compassion, and yes correction to those believers who still struggle with sins, and thank God for whatever small evidences of grace we DO see in their lives.
__________________

 

[Yeshua1]

I happened to run across this passage in 1 Cor. 3, and thought it was an excellent example of The scriptures making a distinction between the salvation of a saint, and his/her level of spiritual maturity and level of obedience:



Here were have a disturbing juxtaposition of descriptive terms:
+God's temple, Gods field, God's building, will be saved, infants in Christ,
-AND YET...not spiritual, jealousy, strife, still of the flesh, suffering loss of reward because of their work.

Apparently both of these sets of descriptors CAN be true about the same people. Paul addresses some very serious sins in this book, and yet also in chapter one Thanks God for the grace that was given to them in Christ...so that they are not lacking in any gift.

I believe what we see here is a description of saved people who are none-the-less being disobedient in several areas. Now I'm not saying this should be our goal. No one should be happy if this passage describes them, it is obviously not a glowing commendation...

...But, we should, like Paul, give grace, mercy, and compassion, and yes correction to those believers who still struggle with sins, and thank God for whatever small evidences of grace we DO see in their lives.
__________________

Think that is what paul was trying to get across to us, in that we cannot live for God as he desires us too, UNLESS we cease striving in the flesh, and walk in the Spirit!

And NONE of us have arrived yet, as NONE will become sinless perfection while alive!

 

[Jon-Marc]

We don't HAVE to sin if we are in Christ, but we do so willingly due to giving in to our sin nature. Like Peter who actually walked on the water (until he took his eye off of Jesus and started to sink), we sink back into sin because we take our eyes off of Jesus and put them on our circumstances and allow our desires to take over, and then (like Peter) we sink.