12If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. 14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.
16Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? 17If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple.
Dig Deeper
As a high school basketball coach, I learned rather quickly that the foundation to each season was laid during the months leading up to the season itself. The hard work, conditioning, and training that a team put in during those off-season months usually determined the type of season they would have. A team without a good foundation would not have a good season. The only thing worse than that was to see a team that did all of the hard work and laid a solid foundation, to turn around during the season and squander it all with laziness and dissension. It’s foolish to try to build on a poor foundation; it is irresponsible to build an improper structure on a strong foundation.
In the preceding verses, Paul makes it clear to the Corinthian community that there is no other foundation than that of Jesus Christ. His concern now is that they are building a suspect structure on that rock solid foundation. Paul has already reminded them that they are part of the larger movement of the people of God, but they are also, in a sense, responsible for the building of their own local structure. He lays out for them that there are two sets of materials that could be metaphorically used in the building of their community in Christ. The two sets of materials are directly opposed to one another in type, in cost, and in durability. The first set of building materials, gold, silver, costly stones, are the type of materials that would be used in the building of a Temple. Although Paul doesn’t state that directly in verse 12, he will demonstrate in verse 16 that this is what he had in mind all along. The other set of materials are of the cheap sort that one would use to build a temporary structure, but not something eternal like a Temple for the holy God.
Paul’s concern here, though, is not as much with what is being built or the materials used, but rather with the builders themselves. God will achieve His desired results with someone else, if they are not willing, but Paul loves this group of people and wants them to build wisely. This is because a day is coming which will demonstrate the quality of their work. Paul alludes here to the Day of the Lord (1 Cor. 1:8) as the day when this work will be revealed by the fire of testing. In using this image, Paul uses a technique common to the Old Testament prophets. He speaks of a near future event, all the while he has the final consummating event in mind. In this case, the Day of the Lord will happen in one sense at the soon-coming (for Paul) day of judgment poured out on apostate Israel in AD 70. Yet, at the same time, Paul has an eye on, and uses imagery from the final judgment day that will occur at the glorious second coming of Christ. In a very real physical sense, the Church will be greatly persecuted during the time leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem, and a community built shabbily will clearly demonstrate that they have been built with shoddy materials. This will be a pointer, a picture of sorts, of the type of revealing process that will happen on the final day of this present age. It is at that time, that the righteous will be judged and rewarded (Matt. 5:12) for the good that they have done.
So does Paul mean to say that the world will be literally burned up with fire? Not likely. It is far more likely that Paul, in a manner similar to Peter in 2 Peter 3:7, is referring to the presence of God, the consuming fire (Ex. 24:17; Deut. 4:24; 2 Sam. 22:9; Ps. 18:8; Isa. 30:27, 30; Heb. 12:29) that will fill the physical dimension of the universe. It is this consuming fire of the Holy God that will burn up in judgment those opposed to him while refining and purifying His own (Mal. 3:2-5).
It is important to note that Paul assures the Church that even if they do make the foolish choice of building with shoddy materials, this will not disqualify them from the ‘age to come’. Paul affirms this in Romans 8:38-39 when he says: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Paul never argues, however, that we cannot separate ourselves from God based on our own free will decision. Paul doesn’t describe what he means by suffering loss but does offer some assurance that they will still make it through the flames of judgment.
In verse 16, Paul returns to the concept of the Temple, as the reason why the building materials are so important. In the Old Testament, every item used for the Tabernacle and Temple was specifically prescribed by God. The valuable materials used and the care with which they were used, pointed ahead in Paul’s thinking, to the care and precision that should be used by each body of Christ in the building of their community. He uses the word naos, for Temple, which is the word that described the inner sanctuary where the Shekinah glory of God dwelt, rather than heiron which was the word used for the structure of the Temple itself. Just as the presence of the living God dwelt in the Temple built by human hands, He now was dwelling in the inner Temple of the body of Christ.
Paul gives a warning here against anyone who would destroy God’s Temple. This is a stark warning indeed, yet the imagery should not be pressed too far. Since we know that the Kingdom of God cannot be destroyed (Matt. 16:18; Heb. 12:28), this language must be understood as Paul stressing the importance of the Temple, the people of God, not as an actual threat as though someone could completely destroy that Temple. It is more likely that Paul uses the word phtheiro, translated as destroy in the TNIV, in the sense of “defile” as is translated in the KJV. Thus, his point is that those who attempt to defile God’s new Temple or treat it as defiled will find themselves judged as defiled by God.
Devotional Thought
In this section, Paul is admonishing the community of Christ to build their section of God’s kingdom wisely and with timeless materials. In the Old Testament, Nehemiah and the men of Jerusalem completed the rebuilding of the wall around the city in less than two months by having each man focus on the section in front of his own house (Neh. 3). With what sort of materials are you building your small section of God’s kingdom? Are you and those in your Christian community building with gold, silver, and costly stones? What exactly does it mean for you to build with those materials? What are some ways in which you might build with wood, hay, or straw?
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
1 Corinthians 3:5-11
5What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 7So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. 9For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building.
10By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Dig Deeper
Many critics of the Bible have, over the years, argued that Paul is actually the founder of Christianity. They claim that Paul founded a religion that was quite different from what Jesus taught, and that he created a movement of which Jesus would not have approved. There is a sense in which Paul did found churches, in fact in his words he says, I laid a foundation as an expert builder. What is vital information in understanding Paul, however, is that he built on the foundation of Jesus Christ, for no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid. Paul certainly didn’t invent Christianity, and he wasn’t the only one teaching the same message. When any of them built churches, including Paul, they were doing so on the only foundation that any true church could ever be built, the Messiah. Truly, in Paul’s mind, the Church was built on the foundation of the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ.
There simply is no other foundation that can be laid in genuine Christianity other than the life of Christ. There is a lot of talk in our modern world in Christian circles about having faith in Christ but very few stop and consider what that faith actually means or what it is in. The faith we have is that God has reconciled sinners to himself through the life of Christ (2 Cor. 5:16) and has hidden us in the life of Christ (Col. 3:1-4). When we say that we have faith we are talking about having faith in the life of Christ as the means to God rather than having any faith in the merit of our own life. Christianity can never be built on anything other than dying to our self and entering into the life of Christ. Paul knows that the ultimate relationship of faith is that between Jesus and those who would enter into his resurrection life.
Paul’s primary point here, though, isn’t the relationship between himself and Jesus. He is mostly concerned between the relationship between he and the other teachers, including Apollos. He uses the image of a garden here to make his point. He may have planted the seed, Apollos came in and watered the seed, but all of the true work of growing, and all of the glory belongs to God alone. The work of any of the teachers and apostles is inconsequential when compared with God’s role in it all. Paul says that he and Apollos are but servants, a word which literally means ‘the one who waits at a table’. At a restaurant there is a cook who selects and cooks the food you have ordered, then there are different waiters and servers who bring it to you. Which waiter brings your food is really of no importance. This is Paul’s point. God has selected and cooked the meal, he, Apollos, and the other teachers are little more than waiters. There should be no special pride or significance attached to the one who brought the meal.
In exalting the gifts or style of one teacher over another the Corinthians have completely misunderstood the reality of the resurrection life available in Christ. All believers die themselves when they enter into Christ and should come to the realization that Paul did in Philippians 3:1-7. Everything that we might have thought was of value in our lives outside of Christ are actually quite the opposite. Paul says the things about him that used to cause him pride, he now sees as being a loss because they caused him to think that there was some sort of merit to his life. When the Corinthians began to exalt one teacher or another, they were buying into the worldly ideas of value and merit rather than realizing that the only thing that mattered was that they were all one in Christ and part of the same body.
This should stand out as a word of caution for us today. There is always a temptation to give special praise, honor, or significance to ministers, teachers, or those who have played a certain role in someone being baptized or a church growing. All of the real work and growth comes from God, not the servant. We should avoid any temptation to take any pride in the work that God has chosen to do through us. The glory is always due to God. The Corinthians, argues Paul, have become so worldly that they cannot see beyond the human ministers. They don’t realize that if there are any differences between them, they are differences that God has assigned each one, but there is no reason to esteem one of God’s servants more than another. They are after all fellow workers that belong to God. They are his field, his building.
In verses 8 and 10, Paul hints at the subject of whether or not the servants have done a good job in building on the foundation of Christ, but that is something that he will address directly in the next passage. Each one, he says, will be rewarded according to his own labor, and that each one should be careful how he builds.
Paul here has no no personal quarrel with Apollos. In fact, he has no problem singling out false teachers, so he is in no way implying that Apollos falls into that category. The assumption here is not that Apollos or Cephas are laying another foundation or building a shoddy building. Paul’s issue is with people who are attempting to play him and Apollos against one another as if there is a contest between them that is based on human standards of wisdom and rhetoric. We can assume that Apollos might come out on top based on those standards, but that isn’t Paul’s problem. He would have just as much of an issue with someone exalting him according to human standards. In fact, it is safe to assume that no one would agree with Paul here more than Apollos and Cephas. The only one that should hold any place of honor in the kingdom of God is Jesus Christ.
Devotional Thought
If Paul were to come to your church would he have to make the same point? Are you tempted to put certain people on a pedestal? It is one thing to recognize people for their hard work but quite another to begin to think of them as more important or better than others because of that work. Are you willing to be God’s servant, giving him all the glory, or do you seek out honor and attention when you have done some work for God?
10By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Dig Deeper
Many critics of the Bible have, over the years, argued that Paul is actually the founder of Christianity. They claim that Paul founded a religion that was quite different from what Jesus taught, and that he created a movement of which Jesus would not have approved. There is a sense in which Paul did found churches, in fact in his words he says, I laid a foundation as an expert builder. What is vital information in understanding Paul, however, is that he built on the foundation of Jesus Christ, for no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid. Paul certainly didn’t invent Christianity, and he wasn’t the only one teaching the same message. When any of them built churches, including Paul, they were doing so on the only foundation that any true church could ever be built, the Messiah. Truly, in Paul’s mind, the Church was built on the foundation of the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ.
There simply is no other foundation that can be laid in genuine Christianity other than the life of Christ. There is a lot of talk in our modern world in Christian circles about having faith in Christ but very few stop and consider what that faith actually means or what it is in. The faith we have is that God has reconciled sinners to himself through the life of Christ (2 Cor. 5:16) and has hidden us in the life of Christ (Col. 3:1-4). When we say that we have faith we are talking about having faith in the life of Christ as the means to God rather than having any faith in the merit of our own life. Christianity can never be built on anything other than dying to our self and entering into the life of Christ. Paul knows that the ultimate relationship of faith is that between Jesus and those who would enter into his resurrection life.
Paul’s primary point here, though, isn’t the relationship between himself and Jesus. He is mostly concerned between the relationship between he and the other teachers, including Apollos. He uses the image of a garden here to make his point. He may have planted the seed, Apollos came in and watered the seed, but all of the true work of growing, and all of the glory belongs to God alone. The work of any of the teachers and apostles is inconsequential when compared with God’s role in it all. Paul says that he and Apollos are but servants, a word which literally means ‘the one who waits at a table’. At a restaurant there is a cook who selects and cooks the food you have ordered, then there are different waiters and servers who bring it to you. Which waiter brings your food is really of no importance. This is Paul’s point. God has selected and cooked the meal, he, Apollos, and the other teachers are little more than waiters. There should be no special pride or significance attached to the one who brought the meal.
In exalting the gifts or style of one teacher over another the Corinthians have completely misunderstood the reality of the resurrection life available in Christ. All believers die themselves when they enter into Christ and should come to the realization that Paul did in Philippians 3:1-7. Everything that we might have thought was of value in our lives outside of Christ are actually quite the opposite. Paul says the things about him that used to cause him pride, he now sees as being a loss because they caused him to think that there was some sort of merit to his life. When the Corinthians began to exalt one teacher or another, they were buying into the worldly ideas of value and merit rather than realizing that the only thing that mattered was that they were all one in Christ and part of the same body.
This should stand out as a word of caution for us today. There is always a temptation to give special praise, honor, or significance to ministers, teachers, or those who have played a certain role in someone being baptized or a church growing. All of the real work and growth comes from God, not the servant. We should avoid any temptation to take any pride in the work that God has chosen to do through us. The glory is always due to God. The Corinthians, argues Paul, have become so worldly that they cannot see beyond the human ministers. They don’t realize that if there are any differences between them, they are differences that God has assigned each one, but there is no reason to esteem one of God’s servants more than another. They are after all fellow workers that belong to God. They are his field, his building.
In verses 8 and 10, Paul hints at the subject of whether or not the servants have done a good job in building on the foundation of Christ, but that is something that he will address directly in the next passage. Each one, he says, will be rewarded according to his own labor, and that each one should be careful how he builds.
Paul here has no no personal quarrel with Apollos. In fact, he has no problem singling out false teachers, so he is in no way implying that Apollos falls into that category. The assumption here is not that Apollos or Cephas are laying another foundation or building a shoddy building. Paul’s issue is with people who are attempting to play him and Apollos against one another as if there is a contest between them that is based on human standards of wisdom and rhetoric. We can assume that Apollos might come out on top based on those standards, but that isn’t Paul’s problem. He would have just as much of an issue with someone exalting him according to human standards. In fact, it is safe to assume that no one would agree with Paul here more than Apollos and Cephas. The only one that should hold any place of honor in the kingdom of God is Jesus Christ.
Devotional Thought
If Paul were to come to your church would he have to make the same point? Are you tempted to put certain people on a pedestal? It is one thing to recognize people for their hard work but quite another to begin to think of them as more important or better than others because of that work. Are you willing to be God’s servant, giving him all the glory, or do you seek out honor and attention when you have done some work for God?
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
1 Corinthians 2:14-3:4
14The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:
16"For who has known the mind of the Lord
that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.
On Divisions in the Church
1Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? 4For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not mere men?
Dig Deeper
As a high school teacher at an inner-city school, it was not completely uncommon to have students come to class high, especially after lunch. Of course, we sent them to the office to be suspended, but I always wondered why they thought that was okay to do. When asked, nearly every one of them came up with the same reason. They all felt that the drugs made them better students and sharper mentally. The effect was quite the opposite, really. They thought the drugs were making them better and more attuned to what was going on, but they actually made them noticeably worse.
When the Corinthians were giving into the mind set of the world around them, this is exactly what they were doing. They were accepting that the wisdom of the sophists and philosophers, with all of its accompanying arrogance and arguments, made them more spiritual. The reality was, however, that it made them less spiritual. It, in fact, made them incapable of discerning the true spiritual wisdom for which they should be craving. They evidently believed that a bit of Christian truth mixed with the flash and belief system of the sophists might make them even better Christians; yet the truth was it did nothing but expose their immaturity and lack of spiritual discernment. The evidence of this immaturity was their in-fighting over who followed who.
This fighting, in fact, was evidence that they had not fully accepted their death and new life in Christ. They were trying to operate in the life of Christ while still embracing the values and mentality of the present world. That simply won’t work. That’s why Paul called on his readers in his letter to the Romans to no longer “conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is” (Rom. 12:2). Earlier in that same letter Paul reminds them that “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind controlled by the sinful nature is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. The sinful mind is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God” (Rom. 8:5-8). The Corinthians were faced with this choice. Were they going to seek after the values of the flesh or were they going to learn to operate from the mindset of the Spirit?
In making his argument, Paul sets up a distinction between two types of people. He refers to those who are driven and led by the Spirit of God as spiritual. The other group is translated as ‘worldly’ here but could also be rendered ‘merely human’ or better yet, ‘soul-ish’. The meaning that Paul wants to convey is worldly as opposed to spiritual. The spiritual person is controlled and led by the Spirit, but the worldly person is controlled and led by their own soul or nature, the normal human way of thinking and acting. The spiritual person lives in a different realm of understanding than does the worldly individual. It would be like listening to a speech in Russian, which you understand, in a room full of people who only understand English. The spiritual person will see and understand things that are foolish babblings to the worldly man.
This is not to say that Paul believes that this should puff up the spiritual person in any way. The fact is, however, that the spiritual person lives and operates on a different plane. He makes judgments from a spiritual perspective rather than a mere natural perspective. The judgments that worldly men make, and their opinions, should have no effect on the man who is operating in the spiritual perspective. Paul uses the words of Isaiah 40:13, “For who has known the mind of the LORD, that he may instruct him,” to make this point. The expected answer would be that no human can know the mind of the LORD, but Paul answers that the spiritual person has the mind of Christ. Paul has already said that the Messiah has “become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). It is not a big leap, then, for Paul to argue that we also have access to the mind of the Messiah. That means that there is no limit, if we have the Spirit within us, to the depth of wisdom that we can explore.
The Corinthians may have been supposing that Paul was including them as part of the spiritual people. When he came to them, he could only teach them basic things, because they were not yet ready for the deeper teaching. This may also answer a charge leveled against Paul, that he only taught them basic things while the other teachers that came later were much deeper and more exciting. The deeper teaching of the other teachers had only appealed to their eagerness for social and spiritual status. It had appealed to their pride not strengthened their spirits, which of course, was a charge against them, not the teachers. This was a demonstration they were still not ready. Their behavior was putting on display the fact that they were still thinking as natural, worldly humans, not a spiritual people with the mind of Christ. In fact, Paul subtly shifts in this passage from them behaving as mere humans (2:14), to being so human that anyone would notice (3:1), to making a conscious decision to resist the spirit rather than showing no evidence of it (3:3). When the church engaged in the cult of personality, they were demonstrating that they were unspiritual and not ready for the deeper wisdom and teaching that he deeply desired to give to them. The real irony of this situation is that the more they argued about who they followed, and who was more spiritual, they more they displayed that they were not spiritual at all.
Devotional Thought
Are there any areas of your life that you have switched things around like the Corinthians did? Some times the things we do, which we think makes us look spiritual, actually demonstrate our lack of spiritual discernment and maturity. Think of one specific area in your life in which you have been operating on the merely human level and need more spiritual maturity. What do you need to do to develop a deeper spiritual maturity in that area?
16"For who has known the mind of the Lord
that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.
On Divisions in the Church
1Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? 4For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not mere men?
Dig Deeper
As a high school teacher at an inner-city school, it was not completely uncommon to have students come to class high, especially after lunch. Of course, we sent them to the office to be suspended, but I always wondered why they thought that was okay to do. When asked, nearly every one of them came up with the same reason. They all felt that the drugs made them better students and sharper mentally. The effect was quite the opposite, really. They thought the drugs were making them better and more attuned to what was going on, but they actually made them noticeably worse.
When the Corinthians were giving into the mind set of the world around them, this is exactly what they were doing. They were accepting that the wisdom of the sophists and philosophers, with all of its accompanying arrogance and arguments, made them more spiritual. The reality was, however, that it made them less spiritual. It, in fact, made them incapable of discerning the true spiritual wisdom for which they should be craving. They evidently believed that a bit of Christian truth mixed with the flash and belief system of the sophists might make them even better Christians; yet the truth was it did nothing but expose their immaturity and lack of spiritual discernment. The evidence of this immaturity was their in-fighting over who followed who.
This fighting, in fact, was evidence that they had not fully accepted their death and new life in Christ. They were trying to operate in the life of Christ while still embracing the values and mentality of the present world. That simply won’t work. That’s why Paul called on his readers in his letter to the Romans to no longer “conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is” (Rom. 12:2). Earlier in that same letter Paul reminds them that “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind controlled by the sinful nature is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. The sinful mind is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God” (Rom. 8:5-8). The Corinthians were faced with this choice. Were they going to seek after the values of the flesh or were they going to learn to operate from the mindset of the Spirit?
In making his argument, Paul sets up a distinction between two types of people. He refers to those who are driven and led by the Spirit of God as spiritual. The other group is translated as ‘worldly’ here but could also be rendered ‘merely human’ or better yet, ‘soul-ish’. The meaning that Paul wants to convey is worldly as opposed to spiritual. The spiritual person is controlled and led by the Spirit, but the worldly person is controlled and led by their own soul or nature, the normal human way of thinking and acting. The spiritual person lives in a different realm of understanding than does the worldly individual. It would be like listening to a speech in Russian, which you understand, in a room full of people who only understand English. The spiritual person will see and understand things that are foolish babblings to the worldly man.
This is not to say that Paul believes that this should puff up the spiritual person in any way. The fact is, however, that the spiritual person lives and operates on a different plane. He makes judgments from a spiritual perspective rather than a mere natural perspective. The judgments that worldly men make, and their opinions, should have no effect on the man who is operating in the spiritual perspective. Paul uses the words of Isaiah 40:13, “For who has known the mind of the LORD, that he may instruct him,” to make this point. The expected answer would be that no human can know the mind of the LORD, but Paul answers that the spiritual person has the mind of Christ. Paul has already said that the Messiah has “become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). It is not a big leap, then, for Paul to argue that we also have access to the mind of the Messiah. That means that there is no limit, if we have the Spirit within us, to the depth of wisdom that we can explore.
The Corinthians may have been supposing that Paul was including them as part of the spiritual people. When he came to them, he could only teach them basic things, because they were not yet ready for the deeper teaching. This may also answer a charge leveled against Paul, that he only taught them basic things while the other teachers that came later were much deeper and more exciting. The deeper teaching of the other teachers had only appealed to their eagerness for social and spiritual status. It had appealed to their pride not strengthened their spirits, which of course, was a charge against them, not the teachers. This was a demonstration they were still not ready. Their behavior was putting on display the fact that they were still thinking as natural, worldly humans, not a spiritual people with the mind of Christ. In fact, Paul subtly shifts in this passage from them behaving as mere humans (2:14), to being so human that anyone would notice (3:1), to making a conscious decision to resist the spirit rather than showing no evidence of it (3:3). When the church engaged in the cult of personality, they were demonstrating that they were unspiritual and not ready for the deeper wisdom and teaching that he deeply desired to give to them. The real irony of this situation is that the more they argued about who they followed, and who was more spiritual, they more they displayed that they were not spiritual at all.
Devotional Thought
Are there any areas of your life that you have switched things around like the Corinthians did? Some times the things we do, which we think makes us look spiritual, actually demonstrate our lack of spiritual discernment and maturity. Think of one specific area in your life in which you have been operating on the merely human level and need more spiritual maturity. What do you need to do to develop a deeper spiritual maturity in that area?
Monday, April 27, 2009
1 Corinthians 2:6-13
Wisdom From the Spirit
6We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9However, as it is written:
"No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him"— 10but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.
6Tog spreek ons wysheid onder die volwassenes, maar 'n wysheid nie van hierdie wêreld, of van hierdie wêreld se heersers, wat vergaan nie. 7Maar ons spreek die wysheid van God, wat bestaan in verborgenheid wat bedek was en wat God van ewigheid af voorbeskik het tot ons heerlikheid, 8 wat niemand van die heersers van hierdie wêreld geken het nie--want as hulle dit geken het, sou hulle die Here van die heerlikheid nie gekruisig het nie-- 9 maar soos geskrywe is: Wat die oog nie gesien en die oor nie gehoor en in die hart van 'n mens nie opgekom het nie, wat God berei het vir die wat Hom liefhet. 10 Maar God het dit aan ons deur sy Gees geopenbaar, want die Gees ondersoek alle dinge, ook die dieptes van God.
11 Want wie van die mense weet wat in 'n mens is, behalwe die gees van die mens wat in hom is? So weet ook niemand wat in God is nie, behalwe die Gees van God. 12 Ons het ewenwel nie die gees van die wêreld ontvang nie, maar die Gees wat uit God is, sodat ons kan weet wat God ons uit genade geskenk het. 13 Daarvan spreek ons ook, nie met woorde wat die menslike wysheid leer nie, maar met dié wat die Heilige Gees leer, sodat ons geestelike dinge met geestelike vergelyk.
6 Ke sithetha ubulumko phakathi kwabagqibeleleyo, ubulumko ke obungebubo obeli phakade, nobabaphathi beli phakade ababhangayo. 7 Sithetha ubulumko bukaThixo obusemfihlekweni, obo ke bufihlakeleyo, awathi uThixo ngenxa engaphambili, kwangaphambi kwawo amaphakade, wabumisela uzuko lwethu; 8 ekungabangakho namnye wabaphathi beli phakade ubaziyo (kuba, ukuba babebazi, ngebengayibethelelanga emnqamlezweni iNkosi yozuko), 9 njengoko ke kubhaliweyo, kwathiwa, Izinto ezingabonwanga liso, nezingaviwanga ndlebe, Nezingathanga qatha entliziyweni yomntu, Zizo uThixo awazilungisela abo bamthandayo. 10 UThixo wazityhila kuthi ke ngoMoya wakhe; kuba uMoya uphengulula zonke izinto, neenzulu zikaThixo.
11 Kuba nguwuphi na kubantu ozaziyo izinto zomntu, ingenguwo umoya womntu okuye? Ngokunjalo nezinto zikaThixo akukho namnye uzaziyo, ingenguye uMoya kaThixo. 12 Ke thina asamkelanga moya wehlabathi; samkele uMoya ophuma kuye uThixo, ukuze sizazi izinto esazibabalwa nguThixo; 13 esizithethayo nokuzithetha, kungengamazwi anokufundiswa bubulumko babantu, kungawo anokufundiswa nguMoya oyiNgcwele: izinto ezizezomoya sizilungelelanisa namazwi la angawomoya.
Dig Deeper
When I coached high school basketball, we would begin each season with two weeks of strenuous running and conditioning before we ever got to the actual basketball stuff. The conditioning seemed foolish to many of the players, and many quit as a result. Running and conditioning wasn’t all that there was to our preparation, however. It was the stuff that the players had to really want to get through before we could get the basketball training that was both challenging and fun. There was much for them beyond the early conditioning but they couldn’t get to the purely basketball stuff that they would really enjoy and that would really make them better players until they got their basic conditioning down.
This is something of what Paul is telling the Corinthians here. His message seemed foolish to the Greeks and scandalous to the Jews, but this isn’t all Paul has to offer. He has deep and profound wisdom for them, but it is only for those who have fought through the challenges of faith. It is for the spiritually mature that can handle and appreciate it. It seems, as we will see as this letter progresses, that some were criticizing Paul for shallow and elementary teaching. What they don’t understand is that Paul has teaching about the life of Christ that was deep beyond what they could possibly understand but they were not yet ready for that. God had revealed the deep mysteries of the life of Christ to them but they had to understand the basic principles involved in the resurrection life available in Christ before they could move on to the deeper wisdom that the Spirit has in store for them.
Yet, he wants them to know, this is still not the same kind of wisdom that the sophists and philosophers of the present age offer. The wisdom that Paul is offering comes from the ‘age to come’ not the present age. This is wisdom that will only make sense to people who have already entered the ‘age to come’ during the present age, the people who believe in the resurrected son of God. Trying to give this wisdom to people who have not grasped the power and truth of the Resurrection is like trying to describe what blue is to someone who has been blind from birth.
This introduces one of the main concepts that Paul wants the Corinthians to understand. The world can be divided into two main epochs: the present age and the ‘age to come’. The present age is the current age of the world that is marked by rebellion against God. The ‘age to come’, though, is the time when God’s will shall be done on earth perfectly. It is the time when God will rule his creation definitively and bring an end to all the forces that would oppose him. Paul believes that this ‘age to come’ has broken through into the present age in Jesus. With his death and resurrection, Christians actually have the ‘age to come’ inside of them even though we still live in the present age. Christians, then, live lives of anticipation of this time. We live the life of the age to come which is being stored in heaven, the place of God’s presence where His will is done (cf. Matt. 6:10), until Christ returns bringing the resurrection and the age to come with him (1 Pet. 1:3-5).
Thus, Paul argues that none of the rulers of this age can understand this wisdom because it is a wisdom of the ‘age to come’. It would be like sticking a round peg in a square hole. Wisdom from the ‘age to come’ won’t fit into the understanding of those who only know of the present age. What does Paul mean, though, when he says that rulers of this age proved that they didn’t understand this wisdom or they wouldn’t have crucified Jesus? He is referring to the political powers of Rome, the religious powers of Judaism, and the spiritual powers of the kingdom of Satan. They all combined to work together for what they thought would be a rousing victory, but was actually the very thing that sealed their defeat. This is what happens when forces operating on the wisdom of this present age try to come against the wisdom of God and the ‘age to come’. In killing Jesus, they signed their own death certificates. Paul describes this moment of victory as taking place both at the Cross when it was implemented (Colossians 2:15) and at Jesus’ final appearing when it will be achieved fully (1 Corinthians 15:23-28). Jesus himself had said that “unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Those who love their life will lose it, while those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (Jn. 12:24-25). The life in Christ became available only through the death of Jesus on the Cross. The rulers of this age thought they were brining the worst weapon they had available to them to bear on the Son of God, but all that did was make his greatest victory available to him. He fell to the ground and died but that death brought life to all those who would also be willing to die and enter into that life.
Paul reveals another theme of the letter of Corinthians here as he references the work of the Spirit. God has prepared incredible things for those who love him, an Old Testament way of saying God’s people. He has revealed the wisdom of the ‘age to come’ through the work of his own Holy Spirit, not some lesser being. The Holy Spirit, the very presence of God, is given to all of God’s people in the Messiah.
This doesn’t mean that Christians have all the knowledge about God that is available. What it does mean is that Christians have access to the mind or wisdom of God. The people of God may explore and learn, through the leading of the Holy Spirit, the wisdom of God. But, in order to understand and appreciate this, they must have spiritual maturity. They must be ‘spiritual’, a concept that Paul will go on to explain.
This is a wonderful reminder that the Christian life has a veritable potpourri of wealth and knowledge in store for us to explore and uncover. It is far more than a set of beliefs or a study series that we can go through a couple of times and memorize. It is a quest of a lifetime that requires dedication and discipline. So many Christians and non-Christians alike view the life of Christ as some sort of restrictive set of rules that keep them from enjoying life but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The life of Christ is just that, a life. It’s not a set of doctrines, beliefs, or rules. It is a bottomless wealth of understanding, wisdom, peace, joy, and love, waiting to be explored, mined, and embraced.
The second reminder for us in this passage is that this gospel message necessarily challenges the social, religious, and political power of the world. It is not a set of religious beliefs that can be tucked away into a corner of our life, that doesn’t effect any other part of our life. It is the very realization that we are the citizens of a different age and we need to act like it. If we truly embrace and live the resurrection life of Christ it will challenge the rulers o the world. We will stand out as completely different from those who live by the values and principles of the world.
Devotional Thought
Does your Christian life reflect a disciplined and dedicated quest to learn the knowledge of wisdom of the Spirit? Develop a plan that will open up your life to consistently learning from the Spirit. Remember, your holiness will always be limited by your depth of knowledge of God’s word.
6We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9However, as it is written:
"No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him"— 10but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.
6Tog spreek ons wysheid onder die volwassenes, maar 'n wysheid nie van hierdie wêreld, of van hierdie wêreld se heersers, wat vergaan nie. 7Maar ons spreek die wysheid van God, wat bestaan in verborgenheid wat bedek was en wat God van ewigheid af voorbeskik het tot ons heerlikheid, 8 wat niemand van die heersers van hierdie wêreld geken het nie--want as hulle dit geken het, sou hulle die Here van die heerlikheid nie gekruisig het nie-- 9 maar soos geskrywe is: Wat die oog nie gesien en die oor nie gehoor en in die hart van 'n mens nie opgekom het nie, wat God berei het vir die wat Hom liefhet. 10 Maar God het dit aan ons deur sy Gees geopenbaar, want die Gees ondersoek alle dinge, ook die dieptes van God.
11 Want wie van die mense weet wat in 'n mens is, behalwe die gees van die mens wat in hom is? So weet ook niemand wat in God is nie, behalwe die Gees van God. 12 Ons het ewenwel nie die gees van die wêreld ontvang nie, maar die Gees wat uit God is, sodat ons kan weet wat God ons uit genade geskenk het. 13 Daarvan spreek ons ook, nie met woorde wat die menslike wysheid leer nie, maar met dié wat die Heilige Gees leer, sodat ons geestelike dinge met geestelike vergelyk.
6 Ke sithetha ubulumko phakathi kwabagqibeleleyo, ubulumko ke obungebubo obeli phakade, nobabaphathi beli phakade ababhangayo. 7 Sithetha ubulumko bukaThixo obusemfihlekweni, obo ke bufihlakeleyo, awathi uThixo ngenxa engaphambili, kwangaphambi kwawo amaphakade, wabumisela uzuko lwethu; 8 ekungabangakho namnye wabaphathi beli phakade ubaziyo (kuba, ukuba babebazi, ngebengayibethelelanga emnqamlezweni iNkosi yozuko), 9 njengoko ke kubhaliweyo, kwathiwa, Izinto ezingabonwanga liso, nezingaviwanga ndlebe, Nezingathanga qatha entliziyweni yomntu, Zizo uThixo awazilungisela abo bamthandayo. 10 UThixo wazityhila kuthi ke ngoMoya wakhe; kuba uMoya uphengulula zonke izinto, neenzulu zikaThixo.
11 Kuba nguwuphi na kubantu ozaziyo izinto zomntu, ingenguwo umoya womntu okuye? Ngokunjalo nezinto zikaThixo akukho namnye uzaziyo, ingenguye uMoya kaThixo. 12 Ke thina asamkelanga moya wehlabathi; samkele uMoya ophuma kuye uThixo, ukuze sizazi izinto esazibabalwa nguThixo; 13 esizithethayo nokuzithetha, kungengamazwi anokufundiswa bubulumko babantu, kungawo anokufundiswa nguMoya oyiNgcwele: izinto ezizezomoya sizilungelelanisa namazwi la angawomoya.
Dig Deeper
When I coached high school basketball, we would begin each season with two weeks of strenuous running and conditioning before we ever got to the actual basketball stuff. The conditioning seemed foolish to many of the players, and many quit as a result. Running and conditioning wasn’t all that there was to our preparation, however. It was the stuff that the players had to really want to get through before we could get the basketball training that was both challenging and fun. There was much for them beyond the early conditioning but they couldn’t get to the purely basketball stuff that they would really enjoy and that would really make them better players until they got their basic conditioning down.
This is something of what Paul is telling the Corinthians here. His message seemed foolish to the Greeks and scandalous to the Jews, but this isn’t all Paul has to offer. He has deep and profound wisdom for them, but it is only for those who have fought through the challenges of faith. It is for the spiritually mature that can handle and appreciate it. It seems, as we will see as this letter progresses, that some were criticizing Paul for shallow and elementary teaching. What they don’t understand is that Paul has teaching about the life of Christ that was deep beyond what they could possibly understand but they were not yet ready for that. God had revealed the deep mysteries of the life of Christ to them but they had to understand the basic principles involved in the resurrection life available in Christ before they could move on to the deeper wisdom that the Spirit has in store for them.
Yet, he wants them to know, this is still not the same kind of wisdom that the sophists and philosophers of the present age offer. The wisdom that Paul is offering comes from the ‘age to come’ not the present age. This is wisdom that will only make sense to people who have already entered the ‘age to come’ during the present age, the people who believe in the resurrected son of God. Trying to give this wisdom to people who have not grasped the power and truth of the Resurrection is like trying to describe what blue is to someone who has been blind from birth.
This introduces one of the main concepts that Paul wants the Corinthians to understand. The world can be divided into two main epochs: the present age and the ‘age to come’. The present age is the current age of the world that is marked by rebellion against God. The ‘age to come’, though, is the time when God’s will shall be done on earth perfectly. It is the time when God will rule his creation definitively and bring an end to all the forces that would oppose him. Paul believes that this ‘age to come’ has broken through into the present age in Jesus. With his death and resurrection, Christians actually have the ‘age to come’ inside of them even though we still live in the present age. Christians, then, live lives of anticipation of this time. We live the life of the age to come which is being stored in heaven, the place of God’s presence where His will is done (cf. Matt. 6:10), until Christ returns bringing the resurrection and the age to come with him (1 Pet. 1:3-5).
Thus, Paul argues that none of the rulers of this age can understand this wisdom because it is a wisdom of the ‘age to come’. It would be like sticking a round peg in a square hole. Wisdom from the ‘age to come’ won’t fit into the understanding of those who only know of the present age. What does Paul mean, though, when he says that rulers of this age proved that they didn’t understand this wisdom or they wouldn’t have crucified Jesus? He is referring to the political powers of Rome, the religious powers of Judaism, and the spiritual powers of the kingdom of Satan. They all combined to work together for what they thought would be a rousing victory, but was actually the very thing that sealed their defeat. This is what happens when forces operating on the wisdom of this present age try to come against the wisdom of God and the ‘age to come’. In killing Jesus, they signed their own death certificates. Paul describes this moment of victory as taking place both at the Cross when it was implemented (Colossians 2:15) and at Jesus’ final appearing when it will be achieved fully (1 Corinthians 15:23-28). Jesus himself had said that “unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Those who love their life will lose it, while those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (Jn. 12:24-25). The life in Christ became available only through the death of Jesus on the Cross. The rulers of this age thought they were brining the worst weapon they had available to them to bear on the Son of God, but all that did was make his greatest victory available to him. He fell to the ground and died but that death brought life to all those who would also be willing to die and enter into that life.
Paul reveals another theme of the letter of Corinthians here as he references the work of the Spirit. God has prepared incredible things for those who love him, an Old Testament way of saying God’s people. He has revealed the wisdom of the ‘age to come’ through the work of his own Holy Spirit, not some lesser being. The Holy Spirit, the very presence of God, is given to all of God’s people in the Messiah.
This doesn’t mean that Christians have all the knowledge about God that is available. What it does mean is that Christians have access to the mind or wisdom of God. The people of God may explore and learn, through the leading of the Holy Spirit, the wisdom of God. But, in order to understand and appreciate this, they must have spiritual maturity. They must be ‘spiritual’, a concept that Paul will go on to explain.
This is a wonderful reminder that the Christian life has a veritable potpourri of wealth and knowledge in store for us to explore and uncover. It is far more than a set of beliefs or a study series that we can go through a couple of times and memorize. It is a quest of a lifetime that requires dedication and discipline. So many Christians and non-Christians alike view the life of Christ as some sort of restrictive set of rules that keep them from enjoying life but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The life of Christ is just that, a life. It’s not a set of doctrines, beliefs, or rules. It is a bottomless wealth of understanding, wisdom, peace, joy, and love, waiting to be explored, mined, and embraced.
The second reminder for us in this passage is that this gospel message necessarily challenges the social, religious, and political power of the world. It is not a set of religious beliefs that can be tucked away into a corner of our life, that doesn’t effect any other part of our life. It is the very realization that we are the citizens of a different age and we need to act like it. If we truly embrace and live the resurrection life of Christ it will challenge the rulers o the world. We will stand out as completely different from those who live by the values and principles of the world.
Devotional Thought
Does your Christian life reflect a disciplined and dedicated quest to learn the knowledge of wisdom of the Spirit? Develop a plan that will open up your life to consistently learning from the Spirit. Remember, your holiness will always be limited by your depth of knowledge of God’s word.
Friday, April 24, 2009
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
1When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.
Dig Deeper
One of the great mysteries of life is trying to determine why we are here, how we got here, in short, what is the meaning of life. The Jews believed that they knew the answers to those questions. They were God’s people, here for God’s purposes. This doesn’t mean that the Jewish worldview wasn’t still full of mysteries, though. Although they knew that God had called them to be his people for his purposes, there was still a profound mystery for the Jew when it came to knowing what that exact purpose was and what God was going to do with them and through them in the future. Much of the Old Testament consists of people trying to penetrate that truth and determine what God’s purpose was and where his people would fit into that purpose.
What the Jews were still contemplating, Paul declares clearly. He says that all of history, all of God’s purposes, past, present, and future had been revealed in Jesus the Messiah. Paul had first come to them around 50 AD, about five years before this letter was written. He spoke, he reminds them, a message that although foolish to the world, in fact contained all the mysteries of God and his purposes.
One of the reasons that Paul would classify the gospel as a mystery, still, was the fact that the last place anyone would look for the answer to the secrets of life was on a cross of execution in a small, rebellious outpost of the Roman Empire. God chooses the weak and seemingly insignificant things of the world. The message of the gospel seemed weak and unlikely, which was exactly the condition of the Corinthian Christians when they were called, and the same condition of Paul when he came to speak to them for the first time. The full reason that he speaks of the gospel as a mystery, though, was that in Paul’s time, the word “mystery” was used a little differently than we use it. It more carried the meaning of something that had been concealed that was now revealed. God’s purposes, in other words, that had been concealed up to this point were now revealed in the life of the Messiah.
Imagine Paul’s situation. He was going to speak before some of the most intellectually impressive people of his time, in a city that valued and prized intellectual excellence. Yet he did not have any impressive or superior worldly message or technique with which to argue his message. He had nothing but a few stammering words about a strange event that had taken place twenty years previous in a city that few of them cared much about. This message would make no sense and the most likely reaction of the majority would be one of derision and ridicule.
His words were not wise and persuasive, but they had some sort of power all their own. Where that power came from is clear. It came from the Holy Spirit. In what form it came from, we can only speculate. Perhaps Paul is referring to the accompaniment of special healing miracles, but he may just be referencing the inner moving of the Holy Spirit in the spirit of each individual. The most likely explanation, however, is that the demonstration of power to which Paul refers is not any sort of worldly power or anything that would be impressive by worldly standards at all, but rather the simple and shocking message of the gospel itself. In Romans 1:1-6, Paul declares that his gospel is the declaration that Jesus Christ has raised from the dead. In Romans 1:16, he goes on to say that this gospel is the power of God to bring salvation to all men. The demonstration of power to which he likely refers, then, is the message of the crucified and risen Christ. That is the power of God. That’s not something that would impress someone looking at things from a worldly point of view but those who looked at things from God’s point of view (cf. 2 Cor. 5:14-21) would realize that this is how God has acted to set things right in His creation. The simple gospel of Christ crucified and raised from the dead is the power of God on display to the entire world. This gospel didn’t have a world kind of power either. It had a power that could not be explained. It was the power to change people’s hearts, lives, and minds.
What separated those who responded to this power from those who rejected it? Paul is clear that it all comes down to faith. He doesn’t describe explicitly what he means by faith in this verse but in Romans 10:9, Paul says that faith consists of declaring that Jesus is Lord and believing that God raised him from the dead. In chapter 15, when Paul summarizes the basic gospel message that he announced to them, he speaks of Christ’s death and resurrection. But here, he says he spoke of nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Why would he do that? Does Paul mean that he spoke of only the death of Jesus and never mentioned his resurrection? No, what Paul means is that he emphasized the crucifixion, he didn’t try to cover it over, or candy-coat it. No decent person would speak of crucifixion in the ancient world. It was horrible, revolting, and degrading. It would be like going to a fancy restaurant, standing up, and announcing to everyone that you once saw a bunch of rats gnawing at the corpse of dead homeless person in an alley behind the restaurant. Paul wanted to be clear that by emphasizing the crucifixion, he wasn’t trying to pull any impressive rhetorical tricks. He wasn’t blowing into town and glossing over certain details to try to please the crowd. No self-respecting sophist would do what Paul did. He spoke plainly of the embarrassing and weak things. He let the power and mystery of the gospel speak for itself. The testimony and new-found faith of the Corinthian Church was a testament to the true power of his message.
Devotional Thought
When Paul announced the gospel, he was clear that its life-changing power came from the Holy Spirit, not from any fancy techniques or up-to-date methods. The trendy message in the religious world today is that we must use market-driven and popular techniques to attract people to the gospel. Do you believe that or do you believe that the raw power of the gospel is enough? When we preach nothing but the raw Word of God, the Spirit will move. Try it and see what happens.
Dig Deeper
One of the great mysteries of life is trying to determine why we are here, how we got here, in short, what is the meaning of life. The Jews believed that they knew the answers to those questions. They were God’s people, here for God’s purposes. This doesn’t mean that the Jewish worldview wasn’t still full of mysteries, though. Although they knew that God had called them to be his people for his purposes, there was still a profound mystery for the Jew when it came to knowing what that exact purpose was and what God was going to do with them and through them in the future. Much of the Old Testament consists of people trying to penetrate that truth and determine what God’s purpose was and where his people would fit into that purpose.
What the Jews were still contemplating, Paul declares clearly. He says that all of history, all of God’s purposes, past, present, and future had been revealed in Jesus the Messiah. Paul had first come to them around 50 AD, about five years before this letter was written. He spoke, he reminds them, a message that although foolish to the world, in fact contained all the mysteries of God and his purposes.
One of the reasons that Paul would classify the gospel as a mystery, still, was the fact that the last place anyone would look for the answer to the secrets of life was on a cross of execution in a small, rebellious outpost of the Roman Empire. God chooses the weak and seemingly insignificant things of the world. The message of the gospel seemed weak and unlikely, which was exactly the condition of the Corinthian Christians when they were called, and the same condition of Paul when he came to speak to them for the first time. The full reason that he speaks of the gospel as a mystery, though, was that in Paul’s time, the word “mystery” was used a little differently than we use it. It more carried the meaning of something that had been concealed that was now revealed. God’s purposes, in other words, that had been concealed up to this point were now revealed in the life of the Messiah.
Imagine Paul’s situation. He was going to speak before some of the most intellectually impressive people of his time, in a city that valued and prized intellectual excellence. Yet he did not have any impressive or superior worldly message or technique with which to argue his message. He had nothing but a few stammering words about a strange event that had taken place twenty years previous in a city that few of them cared much about. This message would make no sense and the most likely reaction of the majority would be one of derision and ridicule.
His words were not wise and persuasive, but they had some sort of power all their own. Where that power came from is clear. It came from the Holy Spirit. In what form it came from, we can only speculate. Perhaps Paul is referring to the accompaniment of special healing miracles, but he may just be referencing the inner moving of the Holy Spirit in the spirit of each individual. The most likely explanation, however, is that the demonstration of power to which Paul refers is not any sort of worldly power or anything that would be impressive by worldly standards at all, but rather the simple and shocking message of the gospel itself. In Romans 1:1-6, Paul declares that his gospel is the declaration that Jesus Christ has raised from the dead. In Romans 1:16, he goes on to say that this gospel is the power of God to bring salvation to all men. The demonstration of power to which he likely refers, then, is the message of the crucified and risen Christ. That is the power of God. That’s not something that would impress someone looking at things from a worldly point of view but those who looked at things from God’s point of view (cf. 2 Cor. 5:14-21) would realize that this is how God has acted to set things right in His creation. The simple gospel of Christ crucified and raised from the dead is the power of God on display to the entire world. This gospel didn’t have a world kind of power either. It had a power that could not be explained. It was the power to change people’s hearts, lives, and minds.
What separated those who responded to this power from those who rejected it? Paul is clear that it all comes down to faith. He doesn’t describe explicitly what he means by faith in this verse but in Romans 10:9, Paul says that faith consists of declaring that Jesus is Lord and believing that God raised him from the dead. In chapter 15, when Paul summarizes the basic gospel message that he announced to them, he speaks of Christ’s death and resurrection. But here, he says he spoke of nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Why would he do that? Does Paul mean that he spoke of only the death of Jesus and never mentioned his resurrection? No, what Paul means is that he emphasized the crucifixion, he didn’t try to cover it over, or candy-coat it. No decent person would speak of crucifixion in the ancient world. It was horrible, revolting, and degrading. It would be like going to a fancy restaurant, standing up, and announcing to everyone that you once saw a bunch of rats gnawing at the corpse of dead homeless person in an alley behind the restaurant. Paul wanted to be clear that by emphasizing the crucifixion, he wasn’t trying to pull any impressive rhetorical tricks. He wasn’t blowing into town and glossing over certain details to try to please the crowd. No self-respecting sophist would do what Paul did. He spoke plainly of the embarrassing and weak things. He let the power and mystery of the gospel speak for itself. The testimony and new-found faith of the Corinthian Church was a testament to the true power of his message.
Devotional Thought
When Paul announced the gospel, he was clear that its life-changing power came from the Holy Spirit, not from any fancy techniques or up-to-date methods. The trendy message in the religious world today is that we must use market-driven and popular techniques to attract people to the gospel. Do you believe that or do you believe that the raw power of the gospel is enough? When we preach nothing but the raw Word of God, the Spirit will move. Try it and see what happens.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
1 Corinthians 1:26-31
26Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29so that no one may boast before him. 30It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."
Dig Deeper
Our society has perfected a cult of fame like no other time in the history of the world. We have created entire industries that are built around this cult of fame. In the American, western society, we have spent a great deal of time separating the important people from the nobodies. Most people spend a great deal of their time either trying to become a somebody, or stay a somebody. Very few Americans actually choose to be a nobody or want to voluntarily stay that way.
Corinth was a city that was not all that different from modern America in many ways. They, like many in our society, had an obsession with being somebodies. There were the typical ways of becoming a somebody such as being born into a wealthy or powerful family. In Corinth, though, they also gave special attention to those who could speak well, reason well, and argue well. They idolized intellect and rhetorical skills. They were the people who became the somebodies in Corinth, those who were wise by human standards.
Paul calls his original readers to remember that before they became Christians, most of them would have been counted in the nobody category. Most of them weren’t from wealthy, powerful, or influentially political backgrounds. Probably none of them were famous or intellectual speakers. They were not wise, influential, or of noble birth, in words that echo Jeremiah’s from Jeremiah 9:23, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches’”.
Paul has laid out the human situation, but God, he says has turned things upside down. He has changed things dramatically in making the nobodies of the world, somebodies. God took the foolish to shame the wise of the world. He chose the weak to shame the strong. He chose the lowly and despised to shame the important things of the world. God has a way of using the weak and incapable so that everyone can understand that things are happening because of His power and strength, not our own abilities. The important thing for them to realize was that God took the initiative in all of this. He came and chose them, he called them, he justified them. It is only because of God’s gift that God has given them the same status in his eyes that Jesus Christ holds (this is part of what Paul means by saying you are in Christ Jesus).
What Paul is teaching the Corinthians here is really at the very heart of the gospel of the resurrection of Jesus and his victory over death. Christ lived a perfect life, defeated death, and made that resurrection life available in both the present age and in the eternal age to all who would believe in his life. But this is exactly what so many in Corinth were apparently struggling with. In order to truly grasp the life of Christ one must understand that there is no value to their own life. The only life of value, the only life that can bring them to God or show the wisdom of God is the life of Christ. In Philippians 3:1-7, Paul lays out the truth that not only was the things about his life that seemed to be of worldly value, not valuable, they actually counted against him as a loss because they induced him into thinking that there was some sort of value in his life. What he learned is what the people of Corinth and all people must learn. Our lives, regardless of how important or valuable they might seem, are of no value when it comes to reconciling with God or attaining to the resurrection. Only the life of Christ can do that.
When the Corinthians began to argue about who they followed, the underlying motivation was to exalt themselves. When we argue about the supremacy of our position or group or whatever it may be, it is usually really a way of puffing our self up. Paul reminds the Corinthians, in no uncertain terms, that any status they may have is solely at the discretion, mercy, and grace of God. By human standards, they were nothing. Why would they then, begin to think that what they are matters. That’s worldly thinking. That’s the sure sign of someone who is no longer viewing the world from a Godly perspective. They have, in fact, got nothing to boast about. Everything they have is a gift from God (Paul will state this again in 4:7), a gift they did not deserve. You can’t rightly brag about anything that you didn’t earn or do on your own.
Paul’s point is that anyone in Christ, has no ground on which to stand and boast about themselves. This was common in their culture. Someone who wanted to make themselves appear as a somebody, would boast about how important or talented they were, or at the very least about how important they were because of the importance of the one they followed. No Christian, however, should boast or even worry about their status, because they, more than anyone, should realize that everything they have is a gift from God. This should be quite instructive for those of us who live in a time when the concept of self-esteem is so valued. There is nothing more important, we are told, than having a high self-esteem. Even many Christians have bought into that way of thinking. I have seem entire “Christian” curriculums aimed at improving someone’s self-esteem. Yet, this is a mindset that is completely contrary to the gospel of Christ. Christians don’t need self-esteem, we need a sober estimation that there is nothing of value in our lives. Rather than trying to polish the brass on the titanic of our lives, we need to realize that our identity comes from being in Christ. That is where our comfort, our value, and our identity come from, and that is all a gift from God that we cannot nor ever will earn.
Paul, in bringing up this topic, is alluding to two Old Testament passages. The first is Deuteronomy 7, where God reminds Israel that they are what they are, only because God has chosen them. Paul also quotes from Jeremiah 9:23-24, where Jeremiah speaks out against the exact type of boasting that Paul is warning against. Anyone who would boast, says Jeremiah, should boast that they know and understand the Lord. Throughout this whole line of reasoning, Paul is drawing upon the theme of wisdom from Proverbs 1-9, in which wisdom is depicted as a human. In Paul’s thinking, Jesus Christ, is the true wisdom. Being in Christ means being, at last, a genuine human being, called and chosen to live by God’s wisdom rather than the world’s.
Devotional Thought
In what areas of your life are you still trying to be somebody in the eyes of the world? What do you need to do or give up to realize that the only boasting you need to do is the kind of boasting that talks about what God has done for you?
Dig Deeper
Our society has perfected a cult of fame like no other time in the history of the world. We have created entire industries that are built around this cult of fame. In the American, western society, we have spent a great deal of time separating the important people from the nobodies. Most people spend a great deal of their time either trying to become a somebody, or stay a somebody. Very few Americans actually choose to be a nobody or want to voluntarily stay that way.
Corinth was a city that was not all that different from modern America in many ways. They, like many in our society, had an obsession with being somebodies. There were the typical ways of becoming a somebody such as being born into a wealthy or powerful family. In Corinth, though, they also gave special attention to those who could speak well, reason well, and argue well. They idolized intellect and rhetorical skills. They were the people who became the somebodies in Corinth, those who were wise by human standards.
Paul calls his original readers to remember that before they became Christians, most of them would have been counted in the nobody category. Most of them weren’t from wealthy, powerful, or influentially political backgrounds. Probably none of them were famous or intellectual speakers. They were not wise, influential, or of noble birth, in words that echo Jeremiah’s from Jeremiah 9:23, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches’”.
Paul has laid out the human situation, but God, he says has turned things upside down. He has changed things dramatically in making the nobodies of the world, somebodies. God took the foolish to shame the wise of the world. He chose the weak to shame the strong. He chose the lowly and despised to shame the important things of the world. God has a way of using the weak and incapable so that everyone can understand that things are happening because of His power and strength, not our own abilities. The important thing for them to realize was that God took the initiative in all of this. He came and chose them, he called them, he justified them. It is only because of God’s gift that God has given them the same status in his eyes that Jesus Christ holds (this is part of what Paul means by saying you are in Christ Jesus).
What Paul is teaching the Corinthians here is really at the very heart of the gospel of the resurrection of Jesus and his victory over death. Christ lived a perfect life, defeated death, and made that resurrection life available in both the present age and in the eternal age to all who would believe in his life. But this is exactly what so many in Corinth were apparently struggling with. In order to truly grasp the life of Christ one must understand that there is no value to their own life. The only life of value, the only life that can bring them to God or show the wisdom of God is the life of Christ. In Philippians 3:1-7, Paul lays out the truth that not only was the things about his life that seemed to be of worldly value, not valuable, they actually counted against him as a loss because they induced him into thinking that there was some sort of value in his life. What he learned is what the people of Corinth and all people must learn. Our lives, regardless of how important or valuable they might seem, are of no value when it comes to reconciling with God or attaining to the resurrection. Only the life of Christ can do that.
When the Corinthians began to argue about who they followed, the underlying motivation was to exalt themselves. When we argue about the supremacy of our position or group or whatever it may be, it is usually really a way of puffing our self up. Paul reminds the Corinthians, in no uncertain terms, that any status they may have is solely at the discretion, mercy, and grace of God. By human standards, they were nothing. Why would they then, begin to think that what they are matters. That’s worldly thinking. That’s the sure sign of someone who is no longer viewing the world from a Godly perspective. They have, in fact, got nothing to boast about. Everything they have is a gift from God (Paul will state this again in 4:7), a gift they did not deserve. You can’t rightly brag about anything that you didn’t earn or do on your own.
Paul’s point is that anyone in Christ, has no ground on which to stand and boast about themselves. This was common in their culture. Someone who wanted to make themselves appear as a somebody, would boast about how important or talented they were, or at the very least about how important they were because of the importance of the one they followed. No Christian, however, should boast or even worry about their status, because they, more than anyone, should realize that everything they have is a gift from God. This should be quite instructive for those of us who live in a time when the concept of self-esteem is so valued. There is nothing more important, we are told, than having a high self-esteem. Even many Christians have bought into that way of thinking. I have seem entire “Christian” curriculums aimed at improving someone’s self-esteem. Yet, this is a mindset that is completely contrary to the gospel of Christ. Christians don’t need self-esteem, we need a sober estimation that there is nothing of value in our lives. Rather than trying to polish the brass on the titanic of our lives, we need to realize that our identity comes from being in Christ. That is where our comfort, our value, and our identity come from, and that is all a gift from God that we cannot nor ever will earn.
Paul, in bringing up this topic, is alluding to two Old Testament passages. The first is Deuteronomy 7, where God reminds Israel that they are what they are, only because God has chosen them. Paul also quotes from Jeremiah 9:23-24, where Jeremiah speaks out against the exact type of boasting that Paul is warning against. Anyone who would boast, says Jeremiah, should boast that they know and understand the Lord. Throughout this whole line of reasoning, Paul is drawing upon the theme of wisdom from Proverbs 1-9, in which wisdom is depicted as a human. In Paul’s thinking, Jesus Christ, is the true wisdom. Being in Christ means being, at last, a genuine human being, called and chosen to live by God’s wisdom rather than the world’s.
Devotional Thought
In what areas of your life are you still trying to be somebody in the eyes of the world? What do you need to do or give up to realize that the only boasting you need to do is the kind of boasting that talks about what God has done for you?
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
Christ the Wisdom and Power of God
18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written:
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
20Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
Dig Deeper
Many people look back now and realize that Abraham Lincoln was one of the great public speakers in American history. Yet, Lincoln himself often poked fun at his own speaking abilities. He made great hay with the technique of pointing out how learned and eloquent his debating or political opponent was, while he, as he often pointed out, was not nearly as eloquent. He spoke a simple message and did not try to sway anyone with flash and dash. The irony of all that, however, was that he could turn out a beautifully eloquent and timeless speech better than nearly anyone. Perhaps the big difference was that, although he was capable of doing that, this is not what he put his trust in. What was important to Lincoln was the truth and sincerity of his message.
This is precisely what Paul is doing here. Paul sets about to contrast the wisdom of the world, wisdom that was so admired in Corinth, with the wisdom of God. In doing so, he perhaps has a bit of fun. In denouncing worldly wisdom and fancy speaking techniques, Paul demonstrates that he is every bit as capable as any sophist of delivering a finely crafted phrase. Truly, Paul is capable of producing a wonderful work of flowing and balanced rhetoric, but that is not where he hangs his hat. For Paul, the message that Christ was crucified and defeated death through resurrection was his gospel. That was the power of his message and his ministry.
This passage may be flowing and beautiful, but his original message when he first came to the Corinthians was not. His message was the simple, unadulterated message of the gospel. The Corinthians would have quickly realized, though, that this wasn’t a brilliant new philosophy. This was madness. He wasn’t speaking about something that would stimulate the intellect, Paul was preaching about an executed criminal from a race that everyone despised. This is not a message that would appeal to the Gentiles, but it didn’t do much for the Jews either. The word translated ‘stumbling block’ here, means something that would entrap them in sin, a scandal. Paul’s point was that this was not a message that was going to impress anyone who was listening from a worldly point of view. It was foolishness to Gentiles, and scandalous blasphemy to the Jews. But the foolishness and scandalous message didn’t stop at a crucified Messiah. It got even crazier from a worldly perspective. This crucified Messiah was resurrected by the power of God, making the power of his resurrected life and his path of suffering for the benefit others available to those who would die to themselves and enter into his life. This was sheer madness to both Jew and Gentile alike.
Notice that Paul says, in verse 18, those who are being saved. The New Testament picture of salvation is not a moment of new birth that happens in a once-for-all instance. It is a process that will continue through our lives and only end at the glorious resurrection of the saints. This is why Paul could say, in 2 Corinthians 3:18, that we “are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” The Christian process of salvation is the gradual restoration and transformation of human beings into the image of God, a process that continues throughout our lives and will only be culminated in the resurrection of those who are in Christ. The hope of the resurrection is key for Paul as it distinguished the Christian faith from the pagan religions whose hope in their religion lied solely in this life in the form of health, wealth, prosperity, and rescue from peril and then culminated in release of their soul from the evil physical world. Resurrection put the things of this present age in proper perspective but also retained the reality that what we do in the present age matters because God will restore His creation one day (Matt. 19:28; Acts 3:21; Rev. 21:1-5).
When Paul got up to speak the message of the Cross, he let it do its own work. He didn’t try to trick or manipulate anyone into listening to his message by using fancy words or the latest speaking techniques. He spoke the simple story of Jesus and let the truth of it stand on its own. Sure, he can spin a few fancy sentences together like any of the great speakers, and he does so now to make a bit of a teasing point. He didn’t do that when he first came to them, though. He spoke nothing but the raw message of Christ crucified. Preaching that message released a different kind of power than the one the world was familiar with. It was the power of God. It may have seemed like ridiculous scandal through the eyes of the world, but it was the very power of God to those that would hear with spiritual ears. This doesn’t mean that Paul simply told the story of the crucifixion and nothing else. He is, in a shorthand sort of way, referring to the gospel message that Christ, the Davidic Messiah, was crucified, resurrected defeating death and making that resurrection available to all those who would lay down claims to their own lives and trust in his (cf. Rom. 1:1-6; 1 Cor. 15:1-10; Col. 1:23; 2 Tim. 2:8-11).
Paul could have made the point that God’s wisdom and power would blow away that of the world, but he doesn’t. He makes his point even stronger by saying that God’s foolishness is wiser than any human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than any human power or strength. Paul wasn’t speaking an appealing announcement of some mighty king that was establishing an impressive kingdom, although in a sense that is exactly what he was doing. He was speaking the absurd message of God dying at the hands of the Romans in a backwater, insignificant part of the world. This crucified criminal was supposedly beginning a kingdom that did not derive its power from anything that could be perceived in this world. It was a kingdom in which the weak and foolish were just as welcome, if not more so, than the wise, powerful, and impressive. The foolishness was, in the world’s perspective, the life of Christ. It seemed an absurd concept to the world, and still does, but it is the only way to resurrection and to God (Jn. 11:25; 14:6).
As he said in Romans 1:16, this message of the resurrection of Christ and its availability to those who would enter into and trust in his life (cf. Rom. 1:3-6), was one of which Paul was not ashamed. He would preach this sort of foolishness because he knew that this kingdom had the power to change the world. When people listened to this message it changed things. It changed people, it changed their perceptions, it changed their priorities, it created new communities and a new reality.
Devotional Thought
Paul says that “to us who are being saved,” the message of the cross is “the power of God.” Have you truly unleashed the power of God in your life. Have you completely surrendered and turned over every aspect of your life to God, or have you tried to cling to the wisdom of the world? The problem is that when we try to hang on to worldly wisdom, it limits the ability to truly unleash the power of God in our lives. What piece of worldly ‘wisdom’ do you need to let go of in order to fully realize the power of the message of the cross in your life?
18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written:
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
20Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
Dig Deeper
Many people look back now and realize that Abraham Lincoln was one of the great public speakers in American history. Yet, Lincoln himself often poked fun at his own speaking abilities. He made great hay with the technique of pointing out how learned and eloquent his debating or political opponent was, while he, as he often pointed out, was not nearly as eloquent. He spoke a simple message and did not try to sway anyone with flash and dash. The irony of all that, however, was that he could turn out a beautifully eloquent and timeless speech better than nearly anyone. Perhaps the big difference was that, although he was capable of doing that, this is not what he put his trust in. What was important to Lincoln was the truth and sincerity of his message.
This is precisely what Paul is doing here. Paul sets about to contrast the wisdom of the world, wisdom that was so admired in Corinth, with the wisdom of God. In doing so, he perhaps has a bit of fun. In denouncing worldly wisdom and fancy speaking techniques, Paul demonstrates that he is every bit as capable as any sophist of delivering a finely crafted phrase. Truly, Paul is capable of producing a wonderful work of flowing and balanced rhetoric, but that is not where he hangs his hat. For Paul, the message that Christ was crucified and defeated death through resurrection was his gospel. That was the power of his message and his ministry.
This passage may be flowing and beautiful, but his original message when he first came to the Corinthians was not. His message was the simple, unadulterated message of the gospel. The Corinthians would have quickly realized, though, that this wasn’t a brilliant new philosophy. This was madness. He wasn’t speaking about something that would stimulate the intellect, Paul was preaching about an executed criminal from a race that everyone despised. This is not a message that would appeal to the Gentiles, but it didn’t do much for the Jews either. The word translated ‘stumbling block’ here, means something that would entrap them in sin, a scandal. Paul’s point was that this was not a message that was going to impress anyone who was listening from a worldly point of view. It was foolishness to Gentiles, and scandalous blasphemy to the Jews. But the foolishness and scandalous message didn’t stop at a crucified Messiah. It got even crazier from a worldly perspective. This crucified Messiah was resurrected by the power of God, making the power of his resurrected life and his path of suffering for the benefit others available to those who would die to themselves and enter into his life. This was sheer madness to both Jew and Gentile alike.
Notice that Paul says, in verse 18, those who are being saved. The New Testament picture of salvation is not a moment of new birth that happens in a once-for-all instance. It is a process that will continue through our lives and only end at the glorious resurrection of the saints. This is why Paul could say, in 2 Corinthians 3:18, that we “are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” The Christian process of salvation is the gradual restoration and transformation of human beings into the image of God, a process that continues throughout our lives and will only be culminated in the resurrection of those who are in Christ. The hope of the resurrection is key for Paul as it distinguished the Christian faith from the pagan religions whose hope in their religion lied solely in this life in the form of health, wealth, prosperity, and rescue from peril and then culminated in release of their soul from the evil physical world. Resurrection put the things of this present age in proper perspective but also retained the reality that what we do in the present age matters because God will restore His creation one day (Matt. 19:28; Acts 3:21; Rev. 21:1-5).
When Paul got up to speak the message of the Cross, he let it do its own work. He didn’t try to trick or manipulate anyone into listening to his message by using fancy words or the latest speaking techniques. He spoke the simple story of Jesus and let the truth of it stand on its own. Sure, he can spin a few fancy sentences together like any of the great speakers, and he does so now to make a bit of a teasing point. He didn’t do that when he first came to them, though. He spoke nothing but the raw message of Christ crucified. Preaching that message released a different kind of power than the one the world was familiar with. It was the power of God. It may have seemed like ridiculous scandal through the eyes of the world, but it was the very power of God to those that would hear with spiritual ears. This doesn’t mean that Paul simply told the story of the crucifixion and nothing else. He is, in a shorthand sort of way, referring to the gospel message that Christ, the Davidic Messiah, was crucified, resurrected defeating death and making that resurrection available to all those who would lay down claims to their own lives and trust in his (cf. Rom. 1:1-6; 1 Cor. 15:1-10; Col. 1:23; 2 Tim. 2:8-11).
Paul could have made the point that God’s wisdom and power would blow away that of the world, but he doesn’t. He makes his point even stronger by saying that God’s foolishness is wiser than any human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than any human power or strength. Paul wasn’t speaking an appealing announcement of some mighty king that was establishing an impressive kingdom, although in a sense that is exactly what he was doing. He was speaking the absurd message of God dying at the hands of the Romans in a backwater, insignificant part of the world. This crucified criminal was supposedly beginning a kingdom that did not derive its power from anything that could be perceived in this world. It was a kingdom in which the weak and foolish were just as welcome, if not more so, than the wise, powerful, and impressive. The foolishness was, in the world’s perspective, the life of Christ. It seemed an absurd concept to the world, and still does, but it is the only way to resurrection and to God (Jn. 11:25; 14:6).
As he said in Romans 1:16, this message of the resurrection of Christ and its availability to those who would enter into and trust in his life (cf. Rom. 1:3-6), was one of which Paul was not ashamed. He would preach this sort of foolishness because he knew that this kingdom had the power to change the world. When people listened to this message it changed things. It changed people, it changed their perceptions, it changed their priorities, it created new communities and a new reality.
Devotional Thought
Paul says that “to us who are being saved,” the message of the cross is “the power of God.” Have you truly unleashed the power of God in your life. Have you completely surrendered and turned over every aspect of your life to God, or have you tried to cling to the wisdom of the world? The problem is that when we try to hang on to worldly wisdom, it limits the ability to truly unleash the power of God in our lives. What piece of worldly ‘wisdom’ do you need to let go of in order to fully realize the power of the message of the cross in your life?
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
1 Corinthians 1:10-17
Divisions in the Church
10I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. 11My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. 12What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas"; still another, "I follow Christ."
13Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? 14I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. 16(Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don't remember if I baptized anyone else.) 17For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
Dig Deeper
A few months ago, my wife, my oldest son, and myself were all traveling to South Africa. We got all settled on our plane that was traveling from London to Johannesburg. It was a fairly full flight but there were a few empty seats. We were seated in the middle column of seats on a plane that had three seats on each side and a middle aisle of four seats. My son was seated on the aisle seat to my left while my wife was sitting to my right, and then on her right, on the other aisle seat, was someone that we did not know. The flight attendant was, no doubt, confused by the fact that my son and wife are a different skin color than I am and made the assumption that we were not together. She came up to me and offered me a chance to move to another seat where I might be “more comfortable.” I won’t speculate as to her inner thoughts that day, but the mistake she made was in thinking that I could be separated from my family. I simply was not willing to do that just so I could be a little more comfortable. Of course some people might be willing to do that for a mere twelve hour flight, but the incident points to a deeper truth. You just don’t split families up. Families, by definition, stay together. They are not something that should split up or be divided lightly. This is true of biological families as surely as it is true of church families.
Many churches have suffered through the sort of thing that Paul is dealing with here. Members of the church begin to split off into factions, following one man or another, or splitting over a belief of doing things a certain way. Issues like this usually don’t arise over serious doctrinal issues, but rather over issues of faction and preference. Nearly all of these type of splits have one thing in common, they have lost sight of the centrality of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If not dealt with, these factions will get more pronounced and tear a church apart. This is the type of thing that Paul was facing here in Corinth. Paul had been the first one there in Corinth, telling them about Jesus Christ, and many were bent on following Paul and his brand of teaching. After being converted in Ephesus, Apollos had come to teach for a time in Corinth. Apollos was learned in the Scriptures, and was a powerful and effective teacher. Many people obviously preferred Apollos and the way that he taught, and began to identify themselves as Apollos’ disciples. To add to that, many others began to identify themselves as followers of Cephas (Peter). It is not clear whether or not Peter ever actually went to Corinth, but many felt that they were his followers. Then there was the group that said they followed Jesus. Everyone else was with this leader or that leader, but they were just following Jesus. This is an-all-too-common power play in situations like this: “Thanks for your little opinions, now let me tell you what the Lord’s opinion is, that’s what I’m going to follow.”
Many people think of the early church in overly romantic terms. They have a picture of a church that is a near-perfect community, happily carrying out Jesus’ words to love one another. The reality is not that simple. Right from the start, it’s clear that the churches had to struggle to become the type of people Jesus called them to be. In verse, 10, however, Paul states his entire purpose for writing this letter, and lets us know what the primary problem had been: divisions were arising in the congregation over issues that Christians shouldn’t be dividing over. Paul had, evidently heard oral reports which let him know that the situation was a bit more serious than the Corinthians may have let on in their letter to him. Paul is wise enough to know that these sorts of ideological divisions are serious and can lead to more serious and permanent physical divisions in the family of Christ.
In verse 13, Paul confronts them squarely with how silly it is, if their factional arguments were carried to the full extent of their logic. Can the Christ be split up into little pieces? His obvious point is that the Church is the Messiah, they are the body of Christ, and cannot be split into pieces anymore than the person of Christ could have been. Then he asks them if he was crucified for them. Again, the answer is obvious because the statement is absurd (Note that Paul wisely does not mention Peter or Apollos here, although he easily could have, so that it does not appear that he is attacking them in any way). Nor, he points out, were they baptized into the name of Paul. They have forgotten that the central, unifying theme of their community was Jesus Christ. They are the body of Christ not a bunch of little bodies following other teachers. The fact is that Christ did die for them and they were baptized into his life. That’s exactly the problem. They were arguing over differing viewpoints and favored teachers but they were baptized into one body to become one entity. They all shared in the one life of Christ. It by nature is something that should not be divided.
Corinth had been destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC and rebuilt by Julius Caesar in 44 BC. They were quite proud of being a very Roman city on Greek soil, and were equally proud of their reputation as a city with a lively and superior intellectual life. Particularly popular in Corinth were a group of traveling teachers called sophists. Sophists would come into a town and teach their philosophy, gathering disciples for themselves in each town. Once they left, the disciples of various sophists would argue with one another over whose teacher was the greatest.
The Corinthians had clearly allowed themselves to fall into this worldly way of thinking. They were not thinking as a new community of the Lord Jesus Christ. They were behaving like the culture around them. They had been caught up in their world of eloquent oratory and zealous followings of those great speakers. Paul will quickly address the value of this sort of wisdom. He is going to explain to them that they must choose between the wisdom of the world and the power of the Messiah.
Paul completes this passage by downplaying who baptized them. This is not, as some groups have argued, proof that baptism is unnecessary. Quite to the contrary. It was Paul who said that we are clothed with Christ at baptism (Gal. 3:27). Paul assumes that they have all been baptized and understand the significance of it (see 1 Cor. 1:13 and Acts 18:8). Paul actually shows in this passage that two things are necessary for a person to call himself a follower, in the Christian sense, of another person. First, Paul would have to die for that person; and second, they would have to be baptized into the name of Paul. This parallels quite perfectly with the Christian teaching that Christ died for us, and we clothe ourselves with him at baptism. Baptism is a vital part of the Christian gospel and community as the point where our faith and God’s grace intersect, but Paul was called to preach. There is no special significance in who actually does the baptizing. Paul is not speaking about baptism here, but about their attitudes about who baptized them.
Finally, it is common in the NT language where “not” doesn’t negate one of the two items but prioritizes them. For example, Paul tells Ananias in Acts 5:4 that he has not “lied to men, but to God. He had, of course, lied to men, but lying to God was the most important thing. Paul, then is arguing that preaching and baptism are both important, but that faith and repentance that accompanies preaching is a prerequisite for baptism.
Devotional Thought
What is your attitude when it comes to the leaders of your church? Do you view them as fellow servants of King Jesus? Sometimes we have the tendency to base our experience in our Christian community heavily dependent on our positive or negative feelings about the leaders in our church. When we do this, we are guilty of the same thing that Paul is bringing up concerning the Corinthian church. It means that we have lost site of the centrality of Jesus. In what ways do you tend to put too much praise or too much criticism on the shoulders of the leaders in your church? What do you need to do to put Jesus back at the center rather than men?
10I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. 11My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. 12What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas"; still another, "I follow Christ."
13Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? 14I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. 16(Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don't remember if I baptized anyone else.) 17For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
Dig Deeper
A few months ago, my wife, my oldest son, and myself were all traveling to South Africa. We got all settled on our plane that was traveling from London to Johannesburg. It was a fairly full flight but there were a few empty seats. We were seated in the middle column of seats on a plane that had three seats on each side and a middle aisle of four seats. My son was seated on the aisle seat to my left while my wife was sitting to my right, and then on her right, on the other aisle seat, was someone that we did not know. The flight attendant was, no doubt, confused by the fact that my son and wife are a different skin color than I am and made the assumption that we were not together. She came up to me and offered me a chance to move to another seat where I might be “more comfortable.” I won’t speculate as to her inner thoughts that day, but the mistake she made was in thinking that I could be separated from my family. I simply was not willing to do that just so I could be a little more comfortable. Of course some people might be willing to do that for a mere twelve hour flight, but the incident points to a deeper truth. You just don’t split families up. Families, by definition, stay together. They are not something that should split up or be divided lightly. This is true of biological families as surely as it is true of church families.
Many churches have suffered through the sort of thing that Paul is dealing with here. Members of the church begin to split off into factions, following one man or another, or splitting over a belief of doing things a certain way. Issues like this usually don’t arise over serious doctrinal issues, but rather over issues of faction and preference. Nearly all of these type of splits have one thing in common, they have lost sight of the centrality of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If not dealt with, these factions will get more pronounced and tear a church apart. This is the type of thing that Paul was facing here in Corinth. Paul had been the first one there in Corinth, telling them about Jesus Christ, and many were bent on following Paul and his brand of teaching. After being converted in Ephesus, Apollos had come to teach for a time in Corinth. Apollos was learned in the Scriptures, and was a powerful and effective teacher. Many people obviously preferred Apollos and the way that he taught, and began to identify themselves as Apollos’ disciples. To add to that, many others began to identify themselves as followers of Cephas (Peter). It is not clear whether or not Peter ever actually went to Corinth, but many felt that they were his followers. Then there was the group that said they followed Jesus. Everyone else was with this leader or that leader, but they were just following Jesus. This is an-all-too-common power play in situations like this: “Thanks for your little opinions, now let me tell you what the Lord’s opinion is, that’s what I’m going to follow.”
Many people think of the early church in overly romantic terms. They have a picture of a church that is a near-perfect community, happily carrying out Jesus’ words to love one another. The reality is not that simple. Right from the start, it’s clear that the churches had to struggle to become the type of people Jesus called them to be. In verse, 10, however, Paul states his entire purpose for writing this letter, and lets us know what the primary problem had been: divisions were arising in the congregation over issues that Christians shouldn’t be dividing over. Paul had, evidently heard oral reports which let him know that the situation was a bit more serious than the Corinthians may have let on in their letter to him. Paul is wise enough to know that these sorts of ideological divisions are serious and can lead to more serious and permanent physical divisions in the family of Christ.
In verse 13, Paul confronts them squarely with how silly it is, if their factional arguments were carried to the full extent of their logic. Can the Christ be split up into little pieces? His obvious point is that the Church is the Messiah, they are the body of Christ, and cannot be split into pieces anymore than the person of Christ could have been. Then he asks them if he was crucified for them. Again, the answer is obvious because the statement is absurd (Note that Paul wisely does not mention Peter or Apollos here, although he easily could have, so that it does not appear that he is attacking them in any way). Nor, he points out, were they baptized into the name of Paul. They have forgotten that the central, unifying theme of their community was Jesus Christ. They are the body of Christ not a bunch of little bodies following other teachers. The fact is that Christ did die for them and they were baptized into his life. That’s exactly the problem. They were arguing over differing viewpoints and favored teachers but they were baptized into one body to become one entity. They all shared in the one life of Christ. It by nature is something that should not be divided.
Corinth had been destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC and rebuilt by Julius Caesar in 44 BC. They were quite proud of being a very Roman city on Greek soil, and were equally proud of their reputation as a city with a lively and superior intellectual life. Particularly popular in Corinth were a group of traveling teachers called sophists. Sophists would come into a town and teach their philosophy, gathering disciples for themselves in each town. Once they left, the disciples of various sophists would argue with one another over whose teacher was the greatest.
The Corinthians had clearly allowed themselves to fall into this worldly way of thinking. They were not thinking as a new community of the Lord Jesus Christ. They were behaving like the culture around them. They had been caught up in their world of eloquent oratory and zealous followings of those great speakers. Paul will quickly address the value of this sort of wisdom. He is going to explain to them that they must choose between the wisdom of the world and the power of the Messiah.
Paul completes this passage by downplaying who baptized them. This is not, as some groups have argued, proof that baptism is unnecessary. Quite to the contrary. It was Paul who said that we are clothed with Christ at baptism (Gal. 3:27). Paul assumes that they have all been baptized and understand the significance of it (see 1 Cor. 1:13 and Acts 18:8). Paul actually shows in this passage that two things are necessary for a person to call himself a follower, in the Christian sense, of another person. First, Paul would have to die for that person; and second, they would have to be baptized into the name of Paul. This parallels quite perfectly with the Christian teaching that Christ died for us, and we clothe ourselves with him at baptism. Baptism is a vital part of the Christian gospel and community as the point where our faith and God’s grace intersect, but Paul was called to preach. There is no special significance in who actually does the baptizing. Paul is not speaking about baptism here, but about their attitudes about who baptized them.
Finally, it is common in the NT language where “not” doesn’t negate one of the two items but prioritizes them. For example, Paul tells Ananias in Acts 5:4 that he has not “lied to men, but to God. He had, of course, lied to men, but lying to God was the most important thing. Paul, then is arguing that preaching and baptism are both important, but that faith and repentance that accompanies preaching is a prerequisite for baptism.
Devotional Thought
What is your attitude when it comes to the leaders of your church? Do you view them as fellow servants of King Jesus? Sometimes we have the tendency to base our experience in our Christian community heavily dependent on our positive or negative feelings about the leaders in our church. When we do this, we are guilty of the same thing that Paul is bringing up concerning the Corinthian church. It means that we have lost site of the centrality of Jesus. In what ways do you tend to put too much praise or too much criticism on the shoulders of the leaders in your church? What do you need to do to put Jesus back at the center rather than men?
Monday, April 20, 2009
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
1 Corinthians 1
1Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
2To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:
3Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thanksgiving
4I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 5For in him you have been enriched in every way—in all your speaking and in all your knowledge— 6because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. 7Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. 8He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.
Dig Deeper
A friend of mine recently became engaged. Everyone who knew him, knew that it was coming. Why? It was because you couldn’t have a conversation with him without hearing the name of his now-wife several times. She was at the center of his thoughts all of the time. This is the sort of thing going on with Paul here. In the first nine verses of his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul mentions Jesus Christ nine separate times. He is at the center of everything that Paul does. This is a good thing to keep in mind, because without that understanding, this letter can come across rather argumentative or bossy. The fact is, though, that Paul was motivated by Jesus Christ in every thought, word, and action, and he wants the Corinthians to be that way too.
Paul knows what it means to be in Christ and to be part of the resurrected life of Christ both in the present age and in the age to come. The church in Corinth was a young and immature group of Christians that no doubt passionately loved God but didn’t yet know how to live the life of Christ that they had entered. Throughout this letter, Paul will patiently explain to them the meaning of their life in Christ and how the gospel of the resurrection directly affects that life. To fully understand Paul’s arguments throughout this letter, we have to remember that Paul is so motivated by Jesus Christ because he knows that the resurrection of the Messiah is the very heart of his message. The declaration that the Son of God had defeated death and risen from the dead was Paul’s gospel (Rom. 1:3-4; 1 Cor. 15:1-9; Col. 1:23; 2 Tim. 2:8). If they are to live the life of Christ to the full then they needed to understand the full meaning of the resurrection in the present and in the future. Only then could they embrace the life of Christ to which they were called.
Most of the Corinthians were not Jews, they were Gentiles. They did not understand what it meant to have God as the very center of every area of their lives. They were living a different story without the understanding that they were being swept up into the new narrative of what God was doing in the world through his new assembly of ‘called out ones’ (which is what is meant by ekklesia or the word ‘church’ in v. 2). He calls them the church of God rather than the church of Corinth, reminding them to whom the assembly belongs. Paul wants the Corinthians to understand that Jesus is shaping them into a new sort of community, a new sort of people, and in order to become that new type of people, they must learn to have Jesus at the very center of their life and thinking, the way Paul does. From the onset, then, Paul stresses two important things about being a Christian: it involves being set apart and it involves being a part of a group created by God that extends beyond their local congregation. It is worth noting that we must understand this as a letter from Paul to them, first and foremost. It is not a letter directly written to us. When we have that proper understanding, then we can begin to learn the timeless truths for ourselves that Paul was teaching the Corinthians.
Paul sets all this up in verse 1 by reminding the readers that he is an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God. Apostle means ‘one who is sent’. Everything that he wants for them is a result of his being sent directly by Jesus. This calling did not come from his own will or sense of vocation, but from the will of God. He has been sent to help them to learn how to put Jesus at the center of their lives. He tells them in verse 2 that they are called to be holy, literally ‘set apart’. They have become part of God’s new story. He also wants them to see that they are but one part of that grand story. They are being joined together with God’s children everywhere to take part in this incredible new work of God, that of crafting a holy and sanctified people that will represent Him to the world. The only thing necessary for entry into this people is to call upon the name of the Lord, a typical early Christian phrase denoting God’s grace given out at the time of their baptism, which for Paul, was the time when one entered into the life of Christ, an extremely important concept for Paul to which he will appeal time and again in calling on them to conform to the life that they had been given in Christ.
Paul begins his letter (most ancient letters began with a greeting and a thanksgiving) by thanking God for the work he has already done in them. He also reminds them that the grace they have experienced is only available as a result of Jesus Christ coming into the world. One cannot separate the grace of God, shown to man, from the work and person of Jesus Christ. The practical result of this grace was that they had become a community that was growing in their speech and their knowledge. They had become a community of learners and had been confirmed as such by the fact that they had been given every sort of spiritual gift. So much so, as we will see, that the possession of these gifts had come to cause a problem.
That discussion will come in due time. For now Paul reminds them that Jesus will keep them strong to the end. He had called them in the past, would sustain them in the present, and will complete his work in the future. The present sign of that future promise is the incredible fellowship that they now share with other believers in Jesus Christ. They had become, in many ways, more interested in their own lives and desires than in living the life of Christ rooted firmly in a proper understanding of the resurrection of Christ and those in him. Paul wants his beloved children in Christ to realize that they don’t need to grasp after extra spiritual experiences, pleasures of the world, or anything else, because they have everything they will ever need in the life of Christ. In the present age, they have every spiritual blessing available to them in the life of Christ. They have the resurrected life of Christ, one that will anticipate and guarantee their place in the resurrection in Christ in the age to come. God has called them into this life, this fellowship, and so they can rest assured that God will do everything in His power to keep them faithful to that life. That doesn’t mean that Paul believes that they cannot become faithless and leave that life, but rather that they can rest assured that God will provide them in Christ with all of the strength they need to remain faithful to the end.
Devotional Thought
In writing this letter, Paul realized that what he would be telling the Corinthians would become a part of the work that God was doing in sustaining them, bringing the work he had begun in them to completion. The letter itself was a part of the process. In reading this letter now, we must realize that this letter will become part of the process through which God shapes and molds us into his people of ‘called out ones’. The key to allowing Scripture to have its full effect on us is to become what we read, not just to read it. We must let the words of God transform us as we meditate on it. Make a determination that you will read this letter with such a goal. Pray each day that God will use the words of this letter to transform you into the type of person and a part of the type of community that he desires.
1Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
2To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:
3Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thanksgiving
4I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 5For in him you have been enriched in every way—in all your speaking and in all your knowledge— 6because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. 7Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. 8He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.
Dig Deeper
A friend of mine recently became engaged. Everyone who knew him, knew that it was coming. Why? It was because you couldn’t have a conversation with him without hearing the name of his now-wife several times. She was at the center of his thoughts all of the time. This is the sort of thing going on with Paul here. In the first nine verses of his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul mentions Jesus Christ nine separate times. He is at the center of everything that Paul does. This is a good thing to keep in mind, because without that understanding, this letter can come across rather argumentative or bossy. The fact is, though, that Paul was motivated by Jesus Christ in every thought, word, and action, and he wants the Corinthians to be that way too.
Paul knows what it means to be in Christ and to be part of the resurrected life of Christ both in the present age and in the age to come. The church in Corinth was a young and immature group of Christians that no doubt passionately loved God but didn’t yet know how to live the life of Christ that they had entered. Throughout this letter, Paul will patiently explain to them the meaning of their life in Christ and how the gospel of the resurrection directly affects that life. To fully understand Paul’s arguments throughout this letter, we have to remember that Paul is so motivated by Jesus Christ because he knows that the resurrection of the Messiah is the very heart of his message. The declaration that the Son of God had defeated death and risen from the dead was Paul’s gospel (Rom. 1:3-4; 1 Cor. 15:1-9; Col. 1:23; 2 Tim. 2:8). If they are to live the life of Christ to the full then they needed to understand the full meaning of the resurrection in the present and in the future. Only then could they embrace the life of Christ to which they were called.
Most of the Corinthians were not Jews, they were Gentiles. They did not understand what it meant to have God as the very center of every area of their lives. They were living a different story without the understanding that they were being swept up into the new narrative of what God was doing in the world through his new assembly of ‘called out ones’ (which is what is meant by ekklesia or the word ‘church’ in v. 2). He calls them the church of God rather than the church of Corinth, reminding them to whom the assembly belongs. Paul wants the Corinthians to understand that Jesus is shaping them into a new sort of community, a new sort of people, and in order to become that new type of people, they must learn to have Jesus at the very center of their life and thinking, the way Paul does. From the onset, then, Paul stresses two important things about being a Christian: it involves being set apart and it involves being a part of a group created by God that extends beyond their local congregation. It is worth noting that we must understand this as a letter from Paul to them, first and foremost. It is not a letter directly written to us. When we have that proper understanding, then we can begin to learn the timeless truths for ourselves that Paul was teaching the Corinthians.
Paul sets all this up in verse 1 by reminding the readers that he is an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God. Apostle means ‘one who is sent’. Everything that he wants for them is a result of his being sent directly by Jesus. This calling did not come from his own will or sense of vocation, but from the will of God. He has been sent to help them to learn how to put Jesus at the center of their lives. He tells them in verse 2 that they are called to be holy, literally ‘set apart’. They have become part of God’s new story. He also wants them to see that they are but one part of that grand story. They are being joined together with God’s children everywhere to take part in this incredible new work of God, that of crafting a holy and sanctified people that will represent Him to the world. The only thing necessary for entry into this people is to call upon the name of the Lord, a typical early Christian phrase denoting God’s grace given out at the time of their baptism, which for Paul, was the time when one entered into the life of Christ, an extremely important concept for Paul to which he will appeal time and again in calling on them to conform to the life that they had been given in Christ.
Paul begins his letter (most ancient letters began with a greeting and a thanksgiving) by thanking God for the work he has already done in them. He also reminds them that the grace they have experienced is only available as a result of Jesus Christ coming into the world. One cannot separate the grace of God, shown to man, from the work and person of Jesus Christ. The practical result of this grace was that they had become a community that was growing in their speech and their knowledge. They had become a community of learners and had been confirmed as such by the fact that they had been given every sort of spiritual gift. So much so, as we will see, that the possession of these gifts had come to cause a problem.
That discussion will come in due time. For now Paul reminds them that Jesus will keep them strong to the end. He had called them in the past, would sustain them in the present, and will complete his work in the future. The present sign of that future promise is the incredible fellowship that they now share with other believers in Jesus Christ. They had become, in many ways, more interested in their own lives and desires than in living the life of Christ rooted firmly in a proper understanding of the resurrection of Christ and those in him. Paul wants his beloved children in Christ to realize that they don’t need to grasp after extra spiritual experiences, pleasures of the world, or anything else, because they have everything they will ever need in the life of Christ. In the present age, they have every spiritual blessing available to them in the life of Christ. They have the resurrected life of Christ, one that will anticipate and guarantee their place in the resurrection in Christ in the age to come. God has called them into this life, this fellowship, and so they can rest assured that God will do everything in His power to keep them faithful to that life. That doesn’t mean that Paul believes that they cannot become faithless and leave that life, but rather that they can rest assured that God will provide them in Christ with all of the strength they need to remain faithful to the end.
Devotional Thought
In writing this letter, Paul realized that what he would be telling the Corinthians would become a part of the work that God was doing in sustaining them, bringing the work he had begun in them to completion. The letter itself was a part of the process. In reading this letter now, we must realize that this letter will become part of the process through which God shapes and molds us into his people of ‘called out ones’. The key to allowing Scripture to have its full effect on us is to become what we read, not just to read it. We must let the words of God transform us as we meditate on it. Make a determination that you will read this letter with such a goal. Pray each day that God will use the words of this letter to transform you into the type of person and a part of the type of community that he desires.
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