​Sexual immorality was a pervasive issue in first century Corinth.  The number of prostitutes in the city and extremely loose morals in Corinthian culture were famous throughout the known world.  Corinth was known as the place to be to partake in debauchery and all types of sinful and selfish pleasure.  The mentality of the city was “I have rights and will use those rights to get what I want and nobody can tell me no.” 
 
In the midst of this, God started a church and called people out from the evil culture that surrounded them, setting them apart to be His representatives to a broken world.  But transformation doesn’t typically happen overnight.  It’s a process.  The Corinthians came out of the ungodly culture, but did not rid themselves of all the trappings of their former life.  They tried to blend their Christian life and values with those held by the godless culture around them.

​As we’ve already seen in the last couple chapters, the church at Corinth was struggling with some serious sin issues.  They were turning a blind eye to sexual immorality within the church, allowing disunity and conflict to get out of hand, and in general letting culture and the world influence them more than the truth of God’s Word.  But as Paul starts to address these issues and bring strong words of rebuke, he also sprinkles in words of encouragement—reminding them who they are in Christ and that despite their struggles with sin, they are still redeemed children of God. They just needed to learn how to act and live like it

​Conflict is an inevitable part of doing life with other sinful human beings.  Some things will rub us the wrong way, miscommunication will arise, or someone will hurt someone else intentionally or otherwise.  When these things occur, emotions rise, tempers flare, and conflict ensues.  While conflict is a normal and expected part of life here on this broken planet and often outside the realm of our control, how we navigate conflict is within our sphere of control and should be different as followers of Jesus Christ.