15Because I was confident of this, I planned to visit you first so that you might benefit twice. 16I planned to visit you on my way to Macedonia and to come back to you from Macedonia, and then to have you send me on my way to Judea. 17When I planned this, did I do it lightly? Or do I make my plans in a worldly manner so that in the same breath I say, "Yes, yes" and "No, no"?
18But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not "Yes" and "No." 19For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not "Yes" and "No," but in him it has always been "Yes." 20For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God. 21Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, 22set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
Dig Deeper
When I first became a Christian I had a very immature attitude towards the leadership of the Church of which I was a part. I felt like everything that they did reflected the truth of the message that they were speaking. In my mind they were more than just representatives of God’s message, they were supposed to be the complete embodiment of it. If they failed in some way (at least in my opinion) then I would question the Church as a whole, and even God. One time, I recall not liking the way that one of the ministers of the Church behaved during a sporting event. That caused me to completely judge whether or not he was truly a man of God. It wasn’t an issue of sin, it was an issue of, whether (in my mind) a true man of God would act like that. This is precisely what was going on in principle in Corinth.
Paul had made plans for an extended visit to Corinth, but then had to change his plans to two shorter visits. This just provided more fodder for Paul’s critics who began to charge that this was yet another demonstration that he was no man of God. In their minds, no apostle would behave that indecisively. This was further evidence that he was not a legitimate apostle. God was a sure God who never changes, they reasoned, so his servant should be able to rely consistently on God’s guidance, not change his plans from one minute to the next. Rather than his schedule reflecting the consistency of the God who never changes, his critics charged that he made his decisions according to the flesh, that the Spirit was not at all at work in Paul’s ministry. His critics charged that no true ministry led by the Spirit would like this. Behavior like this raised questions in his critics mind (although they were apparently quick to jump on anything Paul did and examine it for fault) and they were trying to raise these same questions in everyone else’s minds. If they couldn’t trust Paul when it came to everyday things and promises, how could they trust him in the big things he was telling them about God, God’s nature, and how God was at work in the world and through them?
Paul’s answer is that, once again, what they perceived as a sign of his weakness, or that he wasn’t truly from God, is actually quite the opposite. He was firmly in the ministry and dispensation of God’s grace. His plans changed precisely because he was being led by the Spirit. Not coming immediately by sea, but rather coming more slowly by land would serve the dual benefit of getting to see them twice so that they might doubly benefit, but it would also give Paul the opportunity to send messengers ahead to prepare them for his visit. After his last, disastrous visit, Paul doesn’t want to show up and find them unprepared for his coming to be with them. Paul, though, is confident that his plans didn’t change because a lack of God’s guidance. No, they changed because of Paul’s response to God’s grace in his life. They need to know and trust that Paul’s plans changed because of God’s guidance not in spite of it. Because Paul is so confident of that, he reminds them that he doesn’t need to swear an oath by saying a double “yes” or double “no” (in the Jewish world the repetition guaranteed the truth of what was being said). He doesn’t need to do that, because his faithful witness that comes from God needs only one “yes” or “no”. This is the precisely the point Jesus laid down for His followers when he urged them to stay away from oaths, letting their “yes” be “yes” and their “no” be “no” (Matt. 5:33-37).
Paul is not trying to string them along with a false “yes” when he has no intention of coming. His ministry comes from God and is characterized by “yes.” There are, as Paul will describe, three areas that God’s answer is an affirmative one. First, Paul says that all the promises God has given to his people concerning solving the problem of exile between God and man, and death and sin have been answered decisively “yes” through Jesus Christ. Christ is the fulfillment of all of God’s promises, and in fact, He is the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament. Christ specifically fulfills the one grand promise (and all of the other secondary promises that supported that great promise) that God would bless the whole world through the one family of descdants of Abraham’s family. What this does not mean (as some prosperity gospel teachers are quick to assert) that all of the promises of natural wealth made specifically to the Old Covenant Jews will be fulfilled by being a Christian. What Paul means is that all of the natural things, like wealth, pointed to, have been fulfilled by and made complete in Christ. The one who already has Christ has all he or she needs; we don’t have Christ so that we can get all that we supposedly need. Second, Paul says the “Amen” is lifted up to God’s glory. Everything that God does can be affirmed by those in Christ with an “amen” (literally “let it be so”) because we know that God is faithful and whatever He does is for our benefit in the long run. Third, Paul says that we have a positive response from God by enabling us to stand firm in Christ. If the purpose of the Christian life is to enter into the life of the Messiah, then we have to grown into that assignment. God has confirmed our status with a definitive “yes” by offering us the means to stand firm and grow in the life of the Messiah so that what is true of Him is and will increasingly be true of us.
This work of growth is enacted by the Spirit, and just as Paul described three affirmative responses of God’s grace, he will now describe three aspects of the Spirit’s work in enabling us to stand firm. The first aspect of this is that we are anointed. “Messiah” means “the anointed one,” and as the entire New Testament is quite clear, what is true of the Messiah is true of His people. If he has been set apart in the way that a King or Priest would have been, then so have we. We are co-heirs with him and share in his status as the anointed one of God. The second aspect is that we have been sealed by the Spirit. In the ancient world, a seal was placed on an item to show that it was the property of or came from the sealer and also to protect it from being broken into. God has sealed his people with the stamp of the Messiah himself, demonstrating to the world that we share in His death and life, and thus, belong to Him. The third aspect is that we have the presence of the Spirit in our hearts (see Acts 2:38). This is a down-payment that guarantees that we will one day take part in the resurrection just as Christ, who has preceded us. We can’t stress this too often, for it is the Christian hope. The Messiah has been resurrected, and because we share his life, so will we.
Devotional Thought
One of the primary lessons that Paul weaves into nearly everything he teaches the Corinthians is the need for them to no longer regard things from a human point of view but from God’s. This is precisely what he is trying to teach them here. In what areas of your life do you still view things more from a human point of view than you do from God’s? What steps do you need to take to truly transform your mind in these areas?
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
2 Corinthians 1:8-14
8We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. 9Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, 11as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.
Paul's Change of Plans
12Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God. We have done so not according to worldly wisdom but according to God's grace. 13For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand. And I hope that, 14as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully that you can boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Dig Deeper
I couldn’t believe the scene I was observing during a volunteer workday. I was listening to a young man constantly whine about all of his problems. He was complaining to an older man about how little sleep he had gotten the night before. It didn’t just stop there, though, he continued to lament about how much his back and shoulder hurt from playing basketball and how difficult this made it for him to work. The older man listened patiently, never telling the younger man that he was currently suffering from a debilitating disease that would eventually take his life. That’s the odd thing about suffering. Usually those that complain about it the loudest, haven’t really experienced it. Those who have truly suffered don’t often mention it much. Paul was a man that suffered greatly but didn’t talk about it much unless he had a specific point to make. He didn’t make a show out of his suffering, so when he does talk about it, we should sit up and take notice.
What exactly happened to Paul is a mystery. He never gives us the details, and it is highly unlikely, at this point, that we will ever fully discover them. Whatever happened, we know that Paul endured incredible suffering in Ephesus. Some of it may be described in Acts 19, during the riot in the theater. This may have simply been the alarm clock that awakened the people in Ephesus to what a threat Paul and his teaching could truly be to them. This may have opened Paul up to great persecution, as people don’t take kindly to something that they perceive as a threat to their way of life. To add to what was happening in Asia, Paul was dealing with the incredible difficulties that were arising in his relationship with the Corinthians. This all left Paul in a terrible mental state. He talks in terms like ‘despairing of life’, which in our world would get him classified as clinically depressed. Paul’s response to this is incredible, especially for us who live in a world where any hardships lead most to get angry at God and reject Christianity. Rather than seeing his great persecution and resulting mental state as a reason to be angry with God, Paul sees it as a reason to praise Him. God was using this situation to teach Paul to rely on Him. This is a startling realization considering that Paul had already taught that he owed everything he was able to do to the grace of God (1 Corinthians 15:10). What this shows us was that when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians he still had some things to learn about relying on God and the meaning of the resurrection of Christ in the daily lives of Christians. Not only that, but Paul also believes he suffered but was not crushed because God delivered him. Paul is able to see adversity in its proper perspective because he knows that he does not need to view things from a worldly point of view but instead can trust in the God who will resurrect the dead. Paul is seeing thing from the perspective of his understanding of resurrection which puts everything in proper place for the Christian.
Paul has a theology that is not extremely popular in our day of user-friendly Christianity that is all about living your best and most comfortable life possible. He absolutely believes that God will deliver him from any deadly and dangerous situations in his life, but God will not keep him from those situations. Paul knows of no such thing as a trouble-free life, despite what is taught in our day, and as we will see in this letter, what was also being taught in his day. God will not keep us from trials but He will deliver us through them as we learn to rely on Him alone.
Paul’s critics would have had great folly with his sufferings. For most people in the ancient world, suffering was a sign of God’s punishment and disfavor. Not so, says Paul. The suffering is not at all a sign of God’s disfavor, but rather a sign that He wants his child to trust Him more fully. This was not a common or very popular message in Paul’s day, anymore than it is in ours. Yet, he wants the Corinthians to understand that this is part of the world-changing message of the gospel.
Paul desires that they should pray for him. Prayer matters and Paul needs theirs. When many people pray for something and it comes to pass, the thanksgiving will be all the more. For Paul when people worship and give thanksgiving to God something in the universe is set right again. The world is out of whack in a way that only giving thanks to God will set right. Worship is the way things were meant to be, and so engaging in it is a sign of what the world will be like one day.
It is this God of whom Paul will boast. Not the one who gives Paul everything for which he could possibly imagine but the one who allows him to endure suffering so that he may learn all the more to rely on God. Paul will freely boast about the things he has endured and learned because it gives glory to God (see 1 Corinthians 1:31; 15:9; 2 Corinthians 10:17; Romans 5:2; 15:17; Galatians 6:4; Philippians 3:3). We tend to view any boasting as inappropriate, but for Paul, it is not the act of boasting that makes the determination of whether or not it is acceptable, it is the content. It is also true that in the ancient world a boast was a bit different than the simple bragging that we tend to think of when we hear the word “boast”. Your boast in the ancient world was the thing on which you relied for your strength, your identity, and the thing that would often commend you before God.
Part of Paul’s boast is the work that he has done with the Corinthians and the way he has conducted himself with them. He has lived with all holiness and sincerity among them, but this is not a boast in himself, because his ability to do so comes from God. In his defense of his actions among them in verses 12-13, we begin to see some of the charges being leveled against Paul by his critics in Corinth. One charge must have been that Paul had something to hide, there was more to his conduct than met the eye. To that Paul responds that he has lived a life characterized not by shadows but by holiness and sincerity. Another charge against Paul was that he had hidden motives. To this charge, Paul answers that his conduct was not controlled by shrewdness or playing angles, but by God’s grace, given to him so freely. The third charge that Paul beings to answer, is that he didn’t always say what he meant. Paul says, however, that everything he writes is straightforward, understandable, and exactly what he means. Paul’s conscience is clear, he has nothing to hide, and he wants, above all, the Corinthians to be able to fully trust in the message that he has for them.
Devotional Thought
To get to the point that we face our own death and actually despair of life is probably the lowest point to which anyone can get. Yet, the best thing anyone can do, is to get to that point and then realize that they must trust God. We need to realize that our sufferings are not a sign of God’s displeasure or a proof of his lack of his existence. They are a vehicle through which we can learn to trust more fully in our God and creator.
Paul's Change of Plans
12Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God. We have done so not according to worldly wisdom but according to God's grace. 13For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand. And I hope that, 14as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully that you can boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Dig Deeper
I couldn’t believe the scene I was observing during a volunteer workday. I was listening to a young man constantly whine about all of his problems. He was complaining to an older man about how little sleep he had gotten the night before. It didn’t just stop there, though, he continued to lament about how much his back and shoulder hurt from playing basketball and how difficult this made it for him to work. The older man listened patiently, never telling the younger man that he was currently suffering from a debilitating disease that would eventually take his life. That’s the odd thing about suffering. Usually those that complain about it the loudest, haven’t really experienced it. Those who have truly suffered don’t often mention it much. Paul was a man that suffered greatly but didn’t talk about it much unless he had a specific point to make. He didn’t make a show out of his suffering, so when he does talk about it, we should sit up and take notice.
What exactly happened to Paul is a mystery. He never gives us the details, and it is highly unlikely, at this point, that we will ever fully discover them. Whatever happened, we know that Paul endured incredible suffering in Ephesus. Some of it may be described in Acts 19, during the riot in the theater. This may have simply been the alarm clock that awakened the people in Ephesus to what a threat Paul and his teaching could truly be to them. This may have opened Paul up to great persecution, as people don’t take kindly to something that they perceive as a threat to their way of life. To add to what was happening in Asia, Paul was dealing with the incredible difficulties that were arising in his relationship with the Corinthians. This all left Paul in a terrible mental state. He talks in terms like ‘despairing of life’, which in our world would get him classified as clinically depressed. Paul’s response to this is incredible, especially for us who live in a world where any hardships lead most to get angry at God and reject Christianity. Rather than seeing his great persecution and resulting mental state as a reason to be angry with God, Paul sees it as a reason to praise Him. God was using this situation to teach Paul to rely on Him. This is a startling realization considering that Paul had already taught that he owed everything he was able to do to the grace of God (1 Corinthians 15:10). What this shows us was that when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians he still had some things to learn about relying on God and the meaning of the resurrection of Christ in the daily lives of Christians. Not only that, but Paul also believes he suffered but was not crushed because God delivered him. Paul is able to see adversity in its proper perspective because he knows that he does not need to view things from a worldly point of view but instead can trust in the God who will resurrect the dead. Paul is seeing thing from the perspective of his understanding of resurrection which puts everything in proper place for the Christian.
Paul has a theology that is not extremely popular in our day of user-friendly Christianity that is all about living your best and most comfortable life possible. He absolutely believes that God will deliver him from any deadly and dangerous situations in his life, but God will not keep him from those situations. Paul knows of no such thing as a trouble-free life, despite what is taught in our day, and as we will see in this letter, what was also being taught in his day. God will not keep us from trials but He will deliver us through them as we learn to rely on Him alone.
Paul’s critics would have had great folly with his sufferings. For most people in the ancient world, suffering was a sign of God’s punishment and disfavor. Not so, says Paul. The suffering is not at all a sign of God’s disfavor, but rather a sign that He wants his child to trust Him more fully. This was not a common or very popular message in Paul’s day, anymore than it is in ours. Yet, he wants the Corinthians to understand that this is part of the world-changing message of the gospel.
Paul desires that they should pray for him. Prayer matters and Paul needs theirs. When many people pray for something and it comes to pass, the thanksgiving will be all the more. For Paul when people worship and give thanksgiving to God something in the universe is set right again. The world is out of whack in a way that only giving thanks to God will set right. Worship is the way things were meant to be, and so engaging in it is a sign of what the world will be like one day.
It is this God of whom Paul will boast. Not the one who gives Paul everything for which he could possibly imagine but the one who allows him to endure suffering so that he may learn all the more to rely on God. Paul will freely boast about the things he has endured and learned because it gives glory to God (see 1 Corinthians 1:31; 15:9; 2 Corinthians 10:17; Romans 5:2; 15:17; Galatians 6:4; Philippians 3:3). We tend to view any boasting as inappropriate, but for Paul, it is not the act of boasting that makes the determination of whether or not it is acceptable, it is the content. It is also true that in the ancient world a boast was a bit different than the simple bragging that we tend to think of when we hear the word “boast”. Your boast in the ancient world was the thing on which you relied for your strength, your identity, and the thing that would often commend you before God.
Part of Paul’s boast is the work that he has done with the Corinthians and the way he has conducted himself with them. He has lived with all holiness and sincerity among them, but this is not a boast in himself, because his ability to do so comes from God. In his defense of his actions among them in verses 12-13, we begin to see some of the charges being leveled against Paul by his critics in Corinth. One charge must have been that Paul had something to hide, there was more to his conduct than met the eye. To that Paul responds that he has lived a life characterized not by shadows but by holiness and sincerity. Another charge against Paul was that he had hidden motives. To this charge, Paul answers that his conduct was not controlled by shrewdness or playing angles, but by God’s grace, given to him so freely. The third charge that Paul beings to answer, is that he didn’t always say what he meant. Paul says, however, that everything he writes is straightforward, understandable, and exactly what he means. Paul’s conscience is clear, he has nothing to hide, and he wants, above all, the Corinthians to be able to fully trust in the message that he has for them.
Devotional Thought
To get to the point that we face our own death and actually despair of life is probably the lowest point to which anyone can get. Yet, the best thing anyone can do, is to get to that point and then realize that they must trust God. We need to realize that our sufferings are not a sign of God’s displeasure or a proof of his lack of his existence. They are a vehicle through which we can learn to trust more fully in our God and creator.
Monday, July 20, 2009
2 Corinthians 1:1-7
1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia:
2Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The God of All Comfort
3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
Dig Deeper
Just recently I found a box full of letters that my wife had kept. The letters were from me when I was in college and we were dating. As I read a few of them, the thing that struck me was, regardless of the length of the letter, I could immediately tell how I was feeling and what was on my mind in the first few lines of the letter. That’s the way it is for most people that write letters. Paul’s second recorded letter to the Corinthians is no different. We find out immediately what he is feeling, what is on his mind, and what the rest of this letter is going to be about.
It doesn’t take us long in this letter to realize that something has changed in the relationship between Paul and the Corinthians since he wrote the letter that we know as 1 Corinthians. Paul begins this letter in much the same way as he begins many of his other letters which was in a standard letter form for his day. Usually, though, he expands the greeting a bit, but this time he forgoes that, using a nearly standard greeting for his time. Paul, seemingly wants to get right to the point of his letter. He does, however, set some things down in the first two verse which lay the foundation for what he will say in the rest of the letter.
Paul stresses that he is an apostle or messenger, sent by Jesus Christ, but only at the will of God. Paul, in that statement, is showing that he feels he is a legitimate apostle because he has been chosen by the same will of the same God that sent Jesus as Messiah in the first place. We should also note that the scope of Paul’s letter has widened. His first letter was just to Corinth, but in this letter all the saints throughout Achaia are added. This demonstrates that the gospel has been spreading during the two-or-so years in between letters. Paul probably wants this letter to circulate throughout the entire area of which Corinth is a hub, to ensure that the opposition to him that has arisen in Corinth does note spread to the whole area. It was not possible to gain government recognition and secure a public building where all the believers in a region could meet together very often, so responding to false teaching was difficult. The only way to address common concerns was to circulate a letter like this one.
With the initial greetings out of the way, Paul moves into his opening prayer, which will let us know quickly what he is feeling and what the topic of this letter is going to be. It becomes quite obvious that Paul is consumed with thoughts of comfort and suffering. It is striking that there are 31 specific references to “comfort” (paraklesis) and “comforting” (parakaleo) in the New Testament; of those, 25 appear in Paul’s writings. Of those 25, 17 appear in 2 Corinthians and ten of those are in verses 3-7 of chapter 1. When one is mentioning comfort that often, it stands to reason that the presence of much suffering and affliction must be near. In fact, the term for “affliction” (thlipsis) appears only 45 times in the New Testament, 9 of them are in 2 Corinthians and 4 of those are in these verses here. Similarly, the word for “suffering” (pathema) appears 16 times in the New Testament; of those, 9 appear in Paul’s writings, 3 are found in 2 Corinthians, all being in these few verses here. As Paul opens this letter, he clearly has suffering, affliction, and corresponding comfort on his heart and in his mind.
So, why is Paul so focused on suffering and comfort? Much has happened in the short time between these letters. Situations have arisen which have caused Paul and the Corinthians great grief and have necessitated a switch from the gentle, teaching tone of the first letter to the more direct tone in the second letter, that leaves Paul justifying his own ministry to the very church that he helped create. The things that have happened will come out in the letter as we proceed, but we do need to fill in some gaps between the two letters. We know that Paul wrote at least four letters to the Church in Corinth. His first letter is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 5:9 (a letter which has not been preserved by the Holy Spirit); following that he wrote the letter we know as 1 Corinthians; after that came the severe letter referred to in 2 Corinthians 2:3-4 (another letter that has not been preserved by the Holy Spirit); finally, we have the book that we now call 2 Corinthians.
Paul had sent Timothy to Corinth as he had promised (1 Cor. 16:10-11). Once there, Timothy found the situation in Corinth had escalated with the appearance of Paul’s critics. Paul apparently decided to go to Corinth immediately to smooth things over, but the result had just the opposite effect. Paul would describe this as a very “painful visit” (2 Cor. 2:1), as the church called into question Paul’s authority and his version of the gospel. These other teachers had deceived many of the Corinthians into accepting a different gospel (cf. 2 Cor. 11:4). Paul then left Corinth for Ephesus in the midst of this rebellion against his apostolic authority (2 Cor. 1:23-2:5; 7:12). This was not, however, a cowardly act of running from the problem as the false apostles had portrayed it (2 Cor. 10:10-11; 11:20-21). While in Ephesus, Paul sent Titus with the painful and severe letter, warning them of God’s judgment and calling them to repent (2 Cor. 2:3-4; 7:8-16). Paul later reunited with Titus and discovered that his severe letter had caused the repentance of most of the Church (2 Cor. 2:5-11; 7:5-16). There was still a presence of rebellion against Paul, however, so he wrote 2 Corinthians from Macedonia, somewhere between 1-3 years after 1 Corinthians, and began to make plans to return to Corinth for the third time (2 Cor. 12:14; 13:1).
One thing that we need to remember, in order to make this section and the rest of the letter clear, concerning Paul’s way of thinking is that he believes that what is true of the Messiah is true of His people, and vice-versa. As we will see, some in Corinth wanted a Christian life that was all about victory and comfort, rather than suffering. Paul reminds his fellow Christians that when we are truly in Christ, we will experience both. Paul has been living out the life of the Messiah and makes it clear that because of that status, everything he does is out of concern for others, a point he taught throughout 1 Corinthians. Now they are seeing that in living color. Paul’s critics were claiming that his suffering and weaknesses were a sign that he was not a true apostle. Paul says, though, that he must go through suffering precisely because he is a true apostle, and he has unashamedly suffered because, in the end, it is for their benefit. Everything Paul does, he does for their sake, which is always the sign of true Christianity.
For us today, there is probably not a better example than 2 Corinthians than a godly individual dealing with an incredibly trying situation that could cause insecurity. Paul had labored and loved the Corinthian church and now they were questioning his very calling as an apostle and a servant of Jesus Christ. The letter of 2 Corinthians can, in many ways, serve as handbook of remaining secure in our position in Christ despite the temptation to spiral into insecurity based on what is going on around us. As we go through the remainder of the letter, keep your eyes and your heart open and watch how Paul deals with hurt and insecurity and remains firmly secure in his relationship with God and solidly consistent with his love for the very people that were questioning him and hurting him.
Devotional Thought
Paul stands firm in the belief that God has been at work in any suffering that he has gone through and any comfort that he has received. It is easy for us to recognize that comfort comes from God but we’re not usually as quick to acknowledge that the sufferings of Christ must also flow into our lives because we are His people. Do you embrace suffering and persecution as a sign that you are the Messiah’s, or do you try to avoid suffering?
To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia:
2Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The God of All Comfort
3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
Dig Deeper
Just recently I found a box full of letters that my wife had kept. The letters were from me when I was in college and we were dating. As I read a few of them, the thing that struck me was, regardless of the length of the letter, I could immediately tell how I was feeling and what was on my mind in the first few lines of the letter. That’s the way it is for most people that write letters. Paul’s second recorded letter to the Corinthians is no different. We find out immediately what he is feeling, what is on his mind, and what the rest of this letter is going to be about.
It doesn’t take us long in this letter to realize that something has changed in the relationship between Paul and the Corinthians since he wrote the letter that we know as 1 Corinthians. Paul begins this letter in much the same way as he begins many of his other letters which was in a standard letter form for his day. Usually, though, he expands the greeting a bit, but this time he forgoes that, using a nearly standard greeting for his time. Paul, seemingly wants to get right to the point of his letter. He does, however, set some things down in the first two verse which lay the foundation for what he will say in the rest of the letter.
Paul stresses that he is an apostle or messenger, sent by Jesus Christ, but only at the will of God. Paul, in that statement, is showing that he feels he is a legitimate apostle because he has been chosen by the same will of the same God that sent Jesus as Messiah in the first place. We should also note that the scope of Paul’s letter has widened. His first letter was just to Corinth, but in this letter all the saints throughout Achaia are added. This demonstrates that the gospel has been spreading during the two-or-so years in between letters. Paul probably wants this letter to circulate throughout the entire area of which Corinth is a hub, to ensure that the opposition to him that has arisen in Corinth does note spread to the whole area. It was not possible to gain government recognition and secure a public building where all the believers in a region could meet together very often, so responding to false teaching was difficult. The only way to address common concerns was to circulate a letter like this one.
With the initial greetings out of the way, Paul moves into his opening prayer, which will let us know quickly what he is feeling and what the topic of this letter is going to be. It becomes quite obvious that Paul is consumed with thoughts of comfort and suffering. It is striking that there are 31 specific references to “comfort” (paraklesis) and “comforting” (parakaleo) in the New Testament; of those, 25 appear in Paul’s writings. Of those 25, 17 appear in 2 Corinthians and ten of those are in verses 3-7 of chapter 1. When one is mentioning comfort that often, it stands to reason that the presence of much suffering and affliction must be near. In fact, the term for “affliction” (thlipsis) appears only 45 times in the New Testament, 9 of them are in 2 Corinthians and 4 of those are in these verses here. Similarly, the word for “suffering” (pathema) appears 16 times in the New Testament; of those, 9 appear in Paul’s writings, 3 are found in 2 Corinthians, all being in these few verses here. As Paul opens this letter, he clearly has suffering, affliction, and corresponding comfort on his heart and in his mind.
So, why is Paul so focused on suffering and comfort? Much has happened in the short time between these letters. Situations have arisen which have caused Paul and the Corinthians great grief and have necessitated a switch from the gentle, teaching tone of the first letter to the more direct tone in the second letter, that leaves Paul justifying his own ministry to the very church that he helped create. The things that have happened will come out in the letter as we proceed, but we do need to fill in some gaps between the two letters. We know that Paul wrote at least four letters to the Church in Corinth. His first letter is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 5:9 (a letter which has not been preserved by the Holy Spirit); following that he wrote the letter we know as 1 Corinthians; after that came the severe letter referred to in 2 Corinthians 2:3-4 (another letter that has not been preserved by the Holy Spirit); finally, we have the book that we now call 2 Corinthians.
Paul had sent Timothy to Corinth as he had promised (1 Cor. 16:10-11). Once there, Timothy found the situation in Corinth had escalated with the appearance of Paul’s critics. Paul apparently decided to go to Corinth immediately to smooth things over, but the result had just the opposite effect. Paul would describe this as a very “painful visit” (2 Cor. 2:1), as the church called into question Paul’s authority and his version of the gospel. These other teachers had deceived many of the Corinthians into accepting a different gospel (cf. 2 Cor. 11:4). Paul then left Corinth for Ephesus in the midst of this rebellion against his apostolic authority (2 Cor. 1:23-2:5; 7:12). This was not, however, a cowardly act of running from the problem as the false apostles had portrayed it (2 Cor. 10:10-11; 11:20-21). While in Ephesus, Paul sent Titus with the painful and severe letter, warning them of God’s judgment and calling them to repent (2 Cor. 2:3-4; 7:8-16). Paul later reunited with Titus and discovered that his severe letter had caused the repentance of most of the Church (2 Cor. 2:5-11; 7:5-16). There was still a presence of rebellion against Paul, however, so he wrote 2 Corinthians from Macedonia, somewhere between 1-3 years after 1 Corinthians, and began to make plans to return to Corinth for the third time (2 Cor. 12:14; 13:1).
One thing that we need to remember, in order to make this section and the rest of the letter clear, concerning Paul’s way of thinking is that he believes that what is true of the Messiah is true of His people, and vice-versa. As we will see, some in Corinth wanted a Christian life that was all about victory and comfort, rather than suffering. Paul reminds his fellow Christians that when we are truly in Christ, we will experience both. Paul has been living out the life of the Messiah and makes it clear that because of that status, everything he does is out of concern for others, a point he taught throughout 1 Corinthians. Now they are seeing that in living color. Paul’s critics were claiming that his suffering and weaknesses were a sign that he was not a true apostle. Paul says, though, that he must go through suffering precisely because he is a true apostle, and he has unashamedly suffered because, in the end, it is for their benefit. Everything Paul does, he does for their sake, which is always the sign of true Christianity.
For us today, there is probably not a better example than 2 Corinthians than a godly individual dealing with an incredibly trying situation that could cause insecurity. Paul had labored and loved the Corinthian church and now they were questioning his very calling as an apostle and a servant of Jesus Christ. The letter of 2 Corinthians can, in many ways, serve as handbook of remaining secure in our position in Christ despite the temptation to spiral into insecurity based on what is going on around us. As we go through the remainder of the letter, keep your eyes and your heart open and watch how Paul deals with hurt and insecurity and remains firmly secure in his relationship with God and solidly consistent with his love for the very people that were questioning him and hurting him.
Devotional Thought
Paul stands firm in the belief that God has been at work in any suffering that he has gone through and any comfort that he has received. It is easy for us to recognize that comfort comes from God but we’re not usually as quick to acknowledge that the sufferings of Christ must also flow into our lives because we are His people. Do you embrace suffering and persecution as a sign that you are the Messiah’s, or do you try to avoid suffering?
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
1 Corinthians 16:10-24
10If Timothy comes, see to it that he has nothing to fear while he is with you, for he is carrying on the work of the Lord, just as I am. 11No one, then, should refuse to accept him. Send him on his way in peace so that he may return to me. I am expecting him along with the brothers.
12Now about our brother Apollos: I strongly urged him to go to you with the brothers. He was quite unwilling to go now, but he will go when he has the opportunity.
13Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. 14Do everything in love.
15You know that the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and they have devoted themselves to the service of the saints. I urge you, brothers, 16to submit to such as these and to everyone who joins in the work, and labors at it. 17I was glad when Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus arrived, because they have supplied what was lacking from you. 18For they refreshed my spirit and yours also. Such men deserve recognition.
Final Greetings
19The churches in the province of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord, and so does the church that meets at their house. 20All the brothers here send you greetings. Greet one another with a holy kiss.
21I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand.
22If anyone does not love the Lord—a curse be on him. Come, O Lord!
23The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you.
24My love to all of you in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Dig Deeper
It is normal, even in our time, when writing a letter, to end it with some final words of encouragement, some exhortations, and final greetings. If there is a bit of a strain in the relationship between you and the one to whom you are writing you would probably stress a few items that you and the receiver have in common, things which would bind you together. In a few short verses, at the end of 1 Corinthians, Paul manages to do all of that. He encourages, exhorts, informs, teaches, and ties them together with him in their common relationship in Christ.
Paul plans to send Timothy to Corinth, but he seems to be a bit worried about the reception he will receive. It appears, from reading this and other of Paul’s letters that Timothy, although strong and courageous, did not seem to have an extremely forceful personality. He was probably not the flashy impressive type of teacher; he was exactly the sort of guy that the Corinthians might look down upon. Yet, he is exactly who Paul wants to send. Why? This is another brilliant move by Paul, affording them the opportunity to apply in a real-life situation, the things he’s been teaching them. If they accept a simple man like Timothy with open arms and accept his leadership, then they will have demonstrated the true sort of love and rejection of puffed-up ways that are talked about in this letter. In addition to that, having Timothy there with them, teaching them for a time, will create a strong tie between Paul and the Church in Corinth.
Paul then addresses the situation of sending Apollos. The phrase, now about our brother Apollos, seems to indicate that Paul is responding to something they inquired about. This makes it likely that the Corinthians had requested that Apollos come to them, as it is clear from earlier in the letter, that many in Corinth greatly enjoyed his style of teaching. Paul says he urged him to come (the word Paul uses can either be translated as “strongly” or “often”), but it will not work out right now. It is difficult to translate Paul’s next thought concerning Apollos. It could be that Apollos was unwilling to come at that time, as the NIV translates it. This could also be understood as saying that it was God’s will for him not to come. In either case, the important thing that Paul is stressing is that he desired for Apollos to come as soon as possible. This is another way of Paul tying the Church and himself together, while avoiding any hard feelings. Paul is demonstrating that there is no rivalry or division between he and Apollos, and that he is not in any way trying to keep Apollos from coming. The problem was not with Apollos or his ability to teach, the problem was with the value that the Corinthians were putting on that ability.
Paul then turns to military language to exhort and encourage the Church. Each exhortation builds on and comes out of necessity by executing the previous command. Paul says that he wants them to be on guard, always alert and ready for the attacks that will come on them as followers of Christ. When one stands guard, they will see the coming attacks and they must be firm in the faith. Doing that will require and necessitate them being men of courage, which is a necessary trait when the actual attacks come. Finally, in showing that courage they must be strong. Yet, this must all be tempered with love.
Paul creates another tie between himself and the Corinthians by praising the three men who have come to him from Corinth to bring their letter to him and carry his letter back to them. Paul supports these men not because they are supporters of him (as in those who follow Paul from chapter 1 because then he could just be accused of backing his own people, so to speak), but because of their strong example as men of faith. They have encouraged Paul and reinvigorated his spirit just as they had done for the Church in Corinth.
Even the greeting sent from Aquila and Priscilla was a brilliant act of relational discernment by Paul, one that created another tie between he and Corinth. They were Jewish Christians expelled from Rome (Acts 18:2), who had then gone to Corinth for some time. They were, no doubt, highly loved and respected, so Paul sends greetings from them. This not only reminds them of their affection for this couple but lets the Corinthians know that Aquila and Priscilla are firmly in the corner of Paul. Paul is not pulling out a bunch of political moves to manipulate them, he is trying, very strategically, to demonstrate his genuine love for them. This is demonstrated not only by what he says but even in the fact that he wishes to take the pen from his transcriber (perhaps Sosthenes, 1:1), and writes the final few lines in his own hand.
Paul ends by placing a curse on those who do not love the Lord. (It is possible that he is referring to those who had strongly opposed the spread of the gospel. These were primarily Jews, and thus, the curse mentioned would be specifically the curse of the Covenant from Deut. 28.) The final line is noteworthy in that Paul sends his love, but only to those in Christ, an idea that he has stressed throughout the letter. For Paul, this location and identification are the most important aspect of the Christian life. One to which we must all strive to conform.
Devotional Thought
The final ties that Paul creates between himself and the Corinthians are his salutation of grace and love. Are these two tings that characterize your life? Are you known for your grace and love? In what ways can you improve the manifestation of the grace and love of Christ in your life?
12Now about our brother Apollos: I strongly urged him to go to you with the brothers. He was quite unwilling to go now, but he will go when he has the opportunity.
13Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. 14Do everything in love.
15You know that the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and they have devoted themselves to the service of the saints. I urge you, brothers, 16to submit to such as these and to everyone who joins in the work, and labors at it. 17I was glad when Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus arrived, because they have supplied what was lacking from you. 18For they refreshed my spirit and yours also. Such men deserve recognition.
Final Greetings
19The churches in the province of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord, and so does the church that meets at their house. 20All the brothers here send you greetings. Greet one another with a holy kiss.
21I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand.
22If anyone does not love the Lord—a curse be on him. Come, O Lord!
23The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you.
24My love to all of you in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Dig Deeper
It is normal, even in our time, when writing a letter, to end it with some final words of encouragement, some exhortations, and final greetings. If there is a bit of a strain in the relationship between you and the one to whom you are writing you would probably stress a few items that you and the receiver have in common, things which would bind you together. In a few short verses, at the end of 1 Corinthians, Paul manages to do all of that. He encourages, exhorts, informs, teaches, and ties them together with him in their common relationship in Christ.
Paul plans to send Timothy to Corinth, but he seems to be a bit worried about the reception he will receive. It appears, from reading this and other of Paul’s letters that Timothy, although strong and courageous, did not seem to have an extremely forceful personality. He was probably not the flashy impressive type of teacher; he was exactly the sort of guy that the Corinthians might look down upon. Yet, he is exactly who Paul wants to send. Why? This is another brilliant move by Paul, affording them the opportunity to apply in a real-life situation, the things he’s been teaching them. If they accept a simple man like Timothy with open arms and accept his leadership, then they will have demonstrated the true sort of love and rejection of puffed-up ways that are talked about in this letter. In addition to that, having Timothy there with them, teaching them for a time, will create a strong tie between Paul and the Church in Corinth.
Paul then addresses the situation of sending Apollos. The phrase, now about our brother Apollos, seems to indicate that Paul is responding to something they inquired about. This makes it likely that the Corinthians had requested that Apollos come to them, as it is clear from earlier in the letter, that many in Corinth greatly enjoyed his style of teaching. Paul says he urged him to come (the word Paul uses can either be translated as “strongly” or “often”), but it will not work out right now. It is difficult to translate Paul’s next thought concerning Apollos. It could be that Apollos was unwilling to come at that time, as the NIV translates it. This could also be understood as saying that it was God’s will for him not to come. In either case, the important thing that Paul is stressing is that he desired for Apollos to come as soon as possible. This is another way of Paul tying the Church and himself together, while avoiding any hard feelings. Paul is demonstrating that there is no rivalry or division between he and Apollos, and that he is not in any way trying to keep Apollos from coming. The problem was not with Apollos or his ability to teach, the problem was with the value that the Corinthians were putting on that ability.
Paul then turns to military language to exhort and encourage the Church. Each exhortation builds on and comes out of necessity by executing the previous command. Paul says that he wants them to be on guard, always alert and ready for the attacks that will come on them as followers of Christ. When one stands guard, they will see the coming attacks and they must be firm in the faith. Doing that will require and necessitate them being men of courage, which is a necessary trait when the actual attacks come. Finally, in showing that courage they must be strong. Yet, this must all be tempered with love.
Paul creates another tie between himself and the Corinthians by praising the three men who have come to him from Corinth to bring their letter to him and carry his letter back to them. Paul supports these men not because they are supporters of him (as in those who follow Paul from chapter 1 because then he could just be accused of backing his own people, so to speak), but because of their strong example as men of faith. They have encouraged Paul and reinvigorated his spirit just as they had done for the Church in Corinth.
Even the greeting sent from Aquila and Priscilla was a brilliant act of relational discernment by Paul, one that created another tie between he and Corinth. They were Jewish Christians expelled from Rome (Acts 18:2), who had then gone to Corinth for some time. They were, no doubt, highly loved and respected, so Paul sends greetings from them. This not only reminds them of their affection for this couple but lets the Corinthians know that Aquila and Priscilla are firmly in the corner of Paul. Paul is not pulling out a bunch of political moves to manipulate them, he is trying, very strategically, to demonstrate his genuine love for them. This is demonstrated not only by what he says but even in the fact that he wishes to take the pen from his transcriber (perhaps Sosthenes, 1:1), and writes the final few lines in his own hand.
Paul ends by placing a curse on those who do not love the Lord. (It is possible that he is referring to those who had strongly opposed the spread of the gospel. These were primarily Jews, and thus, the curse mentioned would be specifically the curse of the Covenant from Deut. 28.) The final line is noteworthy in that Paul sends his love, but only to those in Christ, an idea that he has stressed throughout the letter. For Paul, this location and identification are the most important aspect of the Christian life. One to which we must all strive to conform.
Devotional Thought
The final ties that Paul creates between himself and the Corinthians are his salutation of grace and love. Are these two tings that characterize your life? Are you known for your grace and love? In what ways can you improve the manifestation of the grace and love of Christ in your life?
Monday, July 13, 2009
1 Corinthians 16:1-9
The Collection for God's People
1Now about the collection for God's people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. 2On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made. 3Then, when I arrive, I will give letters of introduction to the men you approve and send them with your gift to Jerusalem. 4If it seems advisable for me to go also, they will accompany me.
Personal Requests
5After I go through Macedonia, I will come to you—for I will be going through Macedonia. 6Perhaps I will stay with you awhile, or even spend the winter, so that you can help me on my journey, wherever I go. 7I do not want to see you now and make only a passing visit; I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits. 8But I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost, 9because a great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me.
Dig Deeper
While I was teaching high school we had an annual event called the Coin Clash. This was a school-wide fund raiser based on collecting coins from the students. The money was collected by homerooms and it became a large competition between each homeroom. The money, once gathered, would then be donated to a worthy cause that had been chosen for that year. This was important, but the competition also served another important purpose. It was held early in the school year when classes could still be difficult because there was so much diversity whether it was due to race, gang affiliations, or something else. The competition served as a powerful tool to bring the students in each class together. They ceased to be a class of individuals and became a team, and often, great friendships were built during the week.
What Paul is doing with this collection is not quite like those collections, but there was a similar concept involved. Rather than getting all of the Christians to raise money and compete together to create unity, he is asking that all of the Gentile Christians take up a collection for the Church in Jerusalem. No doubt, one of Paul’s motivations in doing this was to help out the Jerusalem Christians who had undergone incredible persecution and were now beginning to feel the effects of it. He has another purpose, though. There has been a great deal of misunderstanding and mistrust between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. It took a long time for the Jewish Christians to accept that the Gentiles could truly be viewed as equals within Christianity without also living by the visible markers of being a Jew. This collection would serve as a powerful sign and indicator that the the Gentiles are part of the same universal church body that the Jewish Christians are. It would, at least in Paul’s mind, build a great deal of unity between the two groups.
Paul doesn’t give us a great deal of detail in this passage concerning this collection, but when we piece together the various other passages that deal with this great project, the details begin to fill in (see 2 Cor. 8-9, Galatians 2:1-10; Romans 15:24-33). The collection was charity for a hurting church, but it was also an opportunity to break down the walls of hostility and mistrust that had been built between the Gentile and Jewish Christians. Generosity and love would span a bridge over the chasm of suspicion that had been created between these two factions of the Church. This plan will encounter great difficulties (2 Cor. 8-9; Acts 21), but none of that is in sight yet.
One thing that we can learn from this passage is that Christian giving had not become entirely systematized yet, although it is clear that there was a central location available to collect and store money as a Church. There are many principles laid down for giving here, though, that will be a part of any church that approaches giving in a healthy way. Giving should be done regularly (first day of every week); universally (each one of you); systematically (set aside a sum of money. . . saving it); proportionately (in keeping with his income); and freely (no collections will have to be made). Regular giving of any type is vital for a Christian community because it is both a regular exercise in self-sacrifice as well as a powerful reminder that all that we have comes from God and by giving we return just a small portion of that to him.
Another part of Paul’s plan is that he will not just send money to Jerusalem but he will send several men from Corinth, chosen by them, to go as well. This will serve the dual purpose of removing Paul from any suspicion of taking the money himself as well as generating a meeting, of sorts, between the Jewish Christians and several Gentile Christians. It is much easier to judge and develop prejudices against people that you don’t know; this will help greatly in breaking down those walls. In addition, it is much easier for churches to continue giving sacrificially when faces can be attached to the giving. Once the Corinthian brothers have gone to Jerusalem it will be much easier to continue to give in the future to people that they know and love.
Beyond that, though. It is vitally important to develop deep and lasting Christian relationships beyond the confines of our own church and, in our times, even beyond the confines of our own countries. It is far more than just a matter of boosting financial support from wealthier churches to less fortunate churches. Building personal relationships like this between churches does a world of good for both the recipient churches as well as the providing church. They both benefit from the building of relationships, the growing horizons of friendships, and the expanding of their vision of the universal scope of the body of Christ. Personal relationships like this can be more costly than just sending money, but there true value is priceless.
Paul then informs the Corinthians of his travel plans for the immediate future. He intended to spend the winter in Corinth (winter travel was difficult to the point of being nearly impossible and was dangerous) and then head out once again in the spring. When Paul came, he didn’t just want to spend a short time there and move on, he wanted to be able to really stay and enjoy some real time together. Yet, Paul always realized that plans might change. It is all dependent on the Lord’s will not his.
Paul, for the immediate future, however, will stay in Ephesus. He mentions that there are both encouraging and discouraging things happening at Ephesus. Paul understands, though, that it is the Holy Spirit who has opened a door of opportunity. Paul has clearly learned an important concept. Wherever the Spirit truly opens a door for the gospel to be spread, opposition is never very far behind. There will rarely, if ever, be a time when the gospel can be preached without also facing great opposition. This should both encourage and steel us. Doors will open, but opposition will come as well.
Devotional Thought
One thing that is implied in all of this talk of collections is the fact that Paul believed that giving to other Christians in need is the same as giving to the Lord Himself. Do you have that same attitude when it comes to giving? What about Paul’s desire for Christians from other parts of the world to develop relationships? Do you use your resources and time to take self-fulfilling vacations or do you use them to build relationships with Christians in other parts of the world?
1Now about the collection for God's people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. 2On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made. 3Then, when I arrive, I will give letters of introduction to the men you approve and send them with your gift to Jerusalem. 4If it seems advisable for me to go also, they will accompany me.
Personal Requests
5After I go through Macedonia, I will come to you—for I will be going through Macedonia. 6Perhaps I will stay with you awhile, or even spend the winter, so that you can help me on my journey, wherever I go. 7I do not want to see you now and make only a passing visit; I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits. 8But I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost, 9because a great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me.
Dig Deeper
While I was teaching high school we had an annual event called the Coin Clash. This was a school-wide fund raiser based on collecting coins from the students. The money was collected by homerooms and it became a large competition between each homeroom. The money, once gathered, would then be donated to a worthy cause that had been chosen for that year. This was important, but the competition also served another important purpose. It was held early in the school year when classes could still be difficult because there was so much diversity whether it was due to race, gang affiliations, or something else. The competition served as a powerful tool to bring the students in each class together. They ceased to be a class of individuals and became a team, and often, great friendships were built during the week.
What Paul is doing with this collection is not quite like those collections, but there was a similar concept involved. Rather than getting all of the Christians to raise money and compete together to create unity, he is asking that all of the Gentile Christians take up a collection for the Church in Jerusalem. No doubt, one of Paul’s motivations in doing this was to help out the Jerusalem Christians who had undergone incredible persecution and were now beginning to feel the effects of it. He has another purpose, though. There has been a great deal of misunderstanding and mistrust between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. It took a long time for the Jewish Christians to accept that the Gentiles could truly be viewed as equals within Christianity without also living by the visible markers of being a Jew. This collection would serve as a powerful sign and indicator that the the Gentiles are part of the same universal church body that the Jewish Christians are. It would, at least in Paul’s mind, build a great deal of unity between the two groups.
Paul doesn’t give us a great deal of detail in this passage concerning this collection, but when we piece together the various other passages that deal with this great project, the details begin to fill in (see 2 Cor. 8-9, Galatians 2:1-10; Romans 15:24-33). The collection was charity for a hurting church, but it was also an opportunity to break down the walls of hostility and mistrust that had been built between the Gentile and Jewish Christians. Generosity and love would span a bridge over the chasm of suspicion that had been created between these two factions of the Church. This plan will encounter great difficulties (2 Cor. 8-9; Acts 21), but none of that is in sight yet.
One thing that we can learn from this passage is that Christian giving had not become entirely systematized yet, although it is clear that there was a central location available to collect and store money as a Church. There are many principles laid down for giving here, though, that will be a part of any church that approaches giving in a healthy way. Giving should be done regularly (first day of every week); universally (each one of you); systematically (set aside a sum of money. . . saving it); proportionately (in keeping with his income); and freely (no collections will have to be made). Regular giving of any type is vital for a Christian community because it is both a regular exercise in self-sacrifice as well as a powerful reminder that all that we have comes from God and by giving we return just a small portion of that to him.
Another part of Paul’s plan is that he will not just send money to Jerusalem but he will send several men from Corinth, chosen by them, to go as well. This will serve the dual purpose of removing Paul from any suspicion of taking the money himself as well as generating a meeting, of sorts, between the Jewish Christians and several Gentile Christians. It is much easier to judge and develop prejudices against people that you don’t know; this will help greatly in breaking down those walls. In addition, it is much easier for churches to continue giving sacrificially when faces can be attached to the giving. Once the Corinthian brothers have gone to Jerusalem it will be much easier to continue to give in the future to people that they know and love.
Beyond that, though. It is vitally important to develop deep and lasting Christian relationships beyond the confines of our own church and, in our times, even beyond the confines of our own countries. It is far more than just a matter of boosting financial support from wealthier churches to less fortunate churches. Building personal relationships like this between churches does a world of good for both the recipient churches as well as the providing church. They both benefit from the building of relationships, the growing horizons of friendships, and the expanding of their vision of the universal scope of the body of Christ. Personal relationships like this can be more costly than just sending money, but there true value is priceless.
Paul then informs the Corinthians of his travel plans for the immediate future. He intended to spend the winter in Corinth (winter travel was difficult to the point of being nearly impossible and was dangerous) and then head out once again in the spring. When Paul came, he didn’t just want to spend a short time there and move on, he wanted to be able to really stay and enjoy some real time together. Yet, Paul always realized that plans might change. It is all dependent on the Lord’s will not his.
Paul, for the immediate future, however, will stay in Ephesus. He mentions that there are both encouraging and discouraging things happening at Ephesus. Paul understands, though, that it is the Holy Spirit who has opened a door of opportunity. Paul has clearly learned an important concept. Wherever the Spirit truly opens a door for the gospel to be spread, opposition is never very far behind. There will rarely, if ever, be a time when the gospel can be preached without also facing great opposition. This should both encourage and steel us. Doors will open, but opposition will come as well.
Devotional Thought
One thing that is implied in all of this talk of collections is the fact that Paul believed that giving to other Christians in need is the same as giving to the Lord Himself. Do you have that same attitude when it comes to giving? What about Paul’s desire for Christians from other parts of the world to develop relationships? Do you use your resources and time to take self-fulfilling vacations or do you use them to build relationships with Christians in other parts of the world?
Friday, July 10, 2009
1 Corinthians 15:50-58
50I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."
55"Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?" 56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
Dig Deeper
As the battle raged on, suddenly Obi Wan Kenobi did something very strange in Star Wars: A New Hope; he raised his arms allowing Darth Vader to kill him. Why would he do that? Because in the world of Star Wars, once someone passes into the afterlife, they become even more powerful. Yet, the Star Wars conception of death is a sort of shadowy bodiless, ghost-like existence. It’s not quite death but it’s not quite life either. This is the sort of picture of life after death that was put forth by Plato and has been accepted by increasingly large portions of the Christian world since the 4th or 5th centuries. Yet this is not at all the sort of thing that Paul is teaching about in his longest passage on the resurrection. Paul believed in and taught bodily resurrection in a physical sense. He believed that in Jesus’ resurrection body, the world was given a glimpse into what resurrection looked like. Jesus was, after all, quite adamant that He was not a ghost; He had a physical body with flesh and bone (Luke 24:39).
Why then, does Paul say that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God? Does Paul not know what he is talking about here? Is he contradicting what he has said before or what Jesus said? Does he suddenly no longer believe in the bodily resurrection of the saints? Of course the answer to all of these questions is ‘no’. When Paul uses the term ‘flesh and blood’, he isn’t speaking technically. He is using a common figure of speech for regular sinful humanity. Jesus made it clear that the resurrection body was a physical, material body. Paul’s point then, is that human beings must be transformed before they can inherit the Kingdom of God.
This is what he says in verses 51-52. Not everyone, he says, will have to die in order to undergo this transformation (a point of confusion for some because of all of the talk of transformation and which led, in part, to Paul’s discussion of this very topic in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), but everyone will be transformed. It will happen in a flash, suddenly those dead in Christ will be raised to life in the age to come, while those still alive in Christ will be immediately transformed. In these two verses, Paul uses language similar to two other passages where he describes the moment of Christ’s return, Philippians 3:20-21 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. In 1 Thessalonians 4:16 Paul says that the coming of Christ will be like a great trumpet call, signaling what was happening. There he uses a picture of Roman citizens running outside the city gates to meet the Emperor and then accompanying him back triumphantly into the city (meeting in the clouds is the language of God’s presence, not bodiless spirits floating off into the clouds where heaven is; it is the time when the King will return to reign over His restored creation). In Philippians 3:21, Paul says that when we are transformed, we will be transformed so that our lowly bodies will be like Jesus’ glorious resurrection body. It is at that moment when the perishable will transform into the imperishable. The mortal will be clothed with the immortal, but nowhere in site is the idea that we will have anything less than material, physical bodies.
It becomes clear that in Paul’s new creation theology, all those in Christ will be transformed to enjoy glorious, incorruptible, immortal, imperishable bodies just like Jesus had after His resurrection. There is no shadowy ghost-like, spirit existence that would make Plato proud to hear of. That would be a compromise with death. If the soul somehow continued on without a body, then death would still rule victorious over the body, with Christ merely redeeming part of the human being. No, says Paul, death has been completely swallowed up in victory. The pagan world looked at death and realized that it could do nothing about it, so they simply accepted it and try to make it palatable. Even in the Jewish worldview, the best that could be done was to believe that God would do something about it in the future. Paul’s message is quite radical from either of those options. He is saying that God has already done something about death. He has completely defeated death through the Messiah, and those who are in the Messiah are guaranteed to share in that victory when they too, one day, will be resurrected.
Paul now takes the tone of one who is taunting and mocking an opponent that has been rendered powerless. He teases death itself by quoting from Isaiah 25 and Hosea 13, passages which point to the victory of God over death. God has removed the sting of death, it’s power has been swallowed up. Paul isn’t merely prooftexting a couple of passages to make his point, he is emphasizing that, once again, this is what all of the Old Testament Scriptures pointed towards. God has gained the victory over sin and death through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Paul, though, after taunting death a bit, doesn’t stress that this is the glorious hope to which we should all cling, although he certainly feels that way. He says that knowledge of this should strengthen our resolve to labor in the Lord. The work that Christians do and the suffering that Christians endure is not in vain. There is a correspondence between what we do in this present age and what happens in the age to come. If God is going to resurrect us in the future age, then what we do now with our time and bodies matters. The resurrection is our future hope, but it is not just a future hope. We have access to the life of the age to come and should begin living it. Paul does not explain exactly how what we do in this age will be carried on into the age to come but we know that it will happen. This is why we do what we do now, in this age. The transformation of the mortal into the immortal, the perishable into the imperishable, and the corruptible into the incorruptible is our present and our future hope for those in Christ. Our job now is to begin to anticipate, as a community of believers, that life now in the present age. We are to show the rest of the world what it looks like to live by the values of God’s age to come. Some will embrace it, others will reject those values, but living by them now will not be in vain. It matters now and will matter even more in the resurrection.
Devotional Thought
Do you live as though you are motivated by the hope of resurrection? Do you truly live and work as though what you do in this age will be woven into the tapestry of God’s future age? For Paul, it was the present and future hope of the resurrection that motivated him not to sit back and relax, knowing that he would be okay after death. Rather it motivated him to work all the harder for the Kingdom of God. Get resolved to have the same kind of motivation and effort that Paul had.
55"Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?" 56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
Dig Deeper
As the battle raged on, suddenly Obi Wan Kenobi did something very strange in Star Wars: A New Hope; he raised his arms allowing Darth Vader to kill him. Why would he do that? Because in the world of Star Wars, once someone passes into the afterlife, they become even more powerful. Yet, the Star Wars conception of death is a sort of shadowy bodiless, ghost-like existence. It’s not quite death but it’s not quite life either. This is the sort of picture of life after death that was put forth by Plato and has been accepted by increasingly large portions of the Christian world since the 4th or 5th centuries. Yet this is not at all the sort of thing that Paul is teaching about in his longest passage on the resurrection. Paul believed in and taught bodily resurrection in a physical sense. He believed that in Jesus’ resurrection body, the world was given a glimpse into what resurrection looked like. Jesus was, after all, quite adamant that He was not a ghost; He had a physical body with flesh and bone (Luke 24:39).
Why then, does Paul say that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God? Does Paul not know what he is talking about here? Is he contradicting what he has said before or what Jesus said? Does he suddenly no longer believe in the bodily resurrection of the saints? Of course the answer to all of these questions is ‘no’. When Paul uses the term ‘flesh and blood’, he isn’t speaking technically. He is using a common figure of speech for regular sinful humanity. Jesus made it clear that the resurrection body was a physical, material body. Paul’s point then, is that human beings must be transformed before they can inherit the Kingdom of God.
This is what he says in verses 51-52. Not everyone, he says, will have to die in order to undergo this transformation (a point of confusion for some because of all of the talk of transformation and which led, in part, to Paul’s discussion of this very topic in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), but everyone will be transformed. It will happen in a flash, suddenly those dead in Christ will be raised to life in the age to come, while those still alive in Christ will be immediately transformed. In these two verses, Paul uses language similar to two other passages where he describes the moment of Christ’s return, Philippians 3:20-21 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. In 1 Thessalonians 4:16 Paul says that the coming of Christ will be like a great trumpet call, signaling what was happening. There he uses a picture of Roman citizens running outside the city gates to meet the Emperor and then accompanying him back triumphantly into the city (meeting in the clouds is the language of God’s presence, not bodiless spirits floating off into the clouds where heaven is; it is the time when the King will return to reign over His restored creation). In Philippians 3:21, Paul says that when we are transformed, we will be transformed so that our lowly bodies will be like Jesus’ glorious resurrection body. It is at that moment when the perishable will transform into the imperishable. The mortal will be clothed with the immortal, but nowhere in site is the idea that we will have anything less than material, physical bodies.
It becomes clear that in Paul’s new creation theology, all those in Christ will be transformed to enjoy glorious, incorruptible, immortal, imperishable bodies just like Jesus had after His resurrection. There is no shadowy ghost-like, spirit existence that would make Plato proud to hear of. That would be a compromise with death. If the soul somehow continued on without a body, then death would still rule victorious over the body, with Christ merely redeeming part of the human being. No, says Paul, death has been completely swallowed up in victory. The pagan world looked at death and realized that it could do nothing about it, so they simply accepted it and try to make it palatable. Even in the Jewish worldview, the best that could be done was to believe that God would do something about it in the future. Paul’s message is quite radical from either of those options. He is saying that God has already done something about death. He has completely defeated death through the Messiah, and those who are in the Messiah are guaranteed to share in that victory when they too, one day, will be resurrected.
Paul now takes the tone of one who is taunting and mocking an opponent that has been rendered powerless. He teases death itself by quoting from Isaiah 25 and Hosea 13, passages which point to the victory of God over death. God has removed the sting of death, it’s power has been swallowed up. Paul isn’t merely prooftexting a couple of passages to make his point, he is emphasizing that, once again, this is what all of the Old Testament Scriptures pointed towards. God has gained the victory over sin and death through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Paul, though, after taunting death a bit, doesn’t stress that this is the glorious hope to which we should all cling, although he certainly feels that way. He says that knowledge of this should strengthen our resolve to labor in the Lord. The work that Christians do and the suffering that Christians endure is not in vain. There is a correspondence between what we do in this present age and what happens in the age to come. If God is going to resurrect us in the future age, then what we do now with our time and bodies matters. The resurrection is our future hope, but it is not just a future hope. We have access to the life of the age to come and should begin living it. Paul does not explain exactly how what we do in this age will be carried on into the age to come but we know that it will happen. This is why we do what we do now, in this age. The transformation of the mortal into the immortal, the perishable into the imperishable, and the corruptible into the incorruptible is our present and our future hope for those in Christ. Our job now is to begin to anticipate, as a community of believers, that life now in the present age. We are to show the rest of the world what it looks like to live by the values of God’s age to come. Some will embrace it, others will reject those values, but living by them now will not be in vain. It matters now and will matter even more in the resurrection.
Devotional Thought
Do you live as though you are motivated by the hope of resurrection? Do you truly live and work as though what you do in this age will be woven into the tapestry of God’s future age? For Paul, it was the present and future hope of the resurrection that motivated him not to sit back and relax, knowing that he would be okay after death. Rather it motivated him to work all the harder for the Kingdom of God. Get resolved to have the same kind of motivation and effort that Paul had.
Thursday, July 09, 2009
1 Corinthians 15:35-49
The Resurrection Body
35But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" 36How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.
42So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. 48As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.
Dig Deeper
There is a lot of attention these days on how many miles per gallons different cars get. When gas was under $2 (US) per gallon people didn’t seem to care all that much but when it goes over that price or even much higher, then suddenly people start getting concerned about it. People start to want smaller cars that get better miles to the gallon and many have turned to hybrid cars and even electric cars to achieve that. In every case, however, the discussion has to do with powers the cars and makes them go. No one imagines that the material that makes up the body of the car matters a whole lot. When people speak of changing cars to get something with better mileage, they are speaking of what powers the car not what materials make up the body. They want to make a change that will really matter and alter the actual performance of the car in a meaningful way.
If the central hope of the Christian faith is, as Paul has been pointing to, the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the subsequent future resurrection of all of those in Christ, then the obvious questions of how this will all work, begin to arise. What will the body be like? How will it happen? These are the very sorts of questions that Paul will begin to address in this dense section. But like the cars, it is important to know that Paul is not really concerned with what the body is comprised of, with what material it will be made of (there was simply no discussion of that as it was assumed that bodies in the resurrection would be just as physical as bodies are in our present age) but what the body runs on. Paul is discussing the animating force that powers our being and will.
The tone that Paul uses in the original Greek language for the questions of verse 35 suggest a mocking or skeptical tone, indicating a lack of belief in the whole process of actual bodily resurrection. It seems that many in Corinth had maintained the same view of death that their Greek-thinking compatriots had. They most likely held to the view that the resurrection would entail a separation of the body and soul, with the soul living on for eternity once it has escaped the prison of the body. Paul’s answer to them is that they are foolish for this skepticism. Resurrection is not some form of living on after death in spirit form, in a body that wouldn’t be visible to the natural human being, it is an actual reversal of death. That is the key. Those who experience the resurrection will actually die, but in Christ, death will be defeated and reversed as the natural body is transformed into something quite like the natural body, but also quite different.
In verse 44, Paul labels two types of bodies. One is the pre-resurrection “natural body” and the other is the post-resurrection “spiritual” body. This translation is misleading in that it implies that the bodies are somehow of a completely different composition. The question that Paul is answering is not the composition of the body, but rather what animates the body. Is it the soma psychikon, the body animated by the normal breath of life (the soul if you will), or is it the soma pneumatikon, the body animated by the Spirit of the living God? Paul is speaking in equal opposites throughout this passage as he talks of bodies that are perishable versus imperishable, honor (or glorified) versus dishonor, weakness versus power which culminates in a body that is sown a natural body that runs on the normal human soul versus the supernatural (a better translation than spiritual) body that will run on God’s own spirit.
This is the heart of the issue for Paul. In this age, our bodies are given life and characterized by the ordinary human spirit, but in the age to come, those who have experiences the resurrection will have bodies animated by the Spirit of God Himself. This is why he says that our current natural bodies are sown perishable, in dishonor, and in weakness. What Paul means is that the current use of bodies, is not the ultimate purpose for which they have been made. Since the fall of man we have been marred by the effects of sin, subject to death, and become the mere image bearers of sinful human fathers (Genesis 5:3). In Christ, though, we will be raised to bodies that fulfill their true purpose, being raised imperishable, in glory, and in power. Through the Spirit, we will have our natures transformed to natures like God so that sin and death will no longer have power over us, and although we will have free will (as God does), we will no longer be able to sin because it will go against our very natures, the animating force of the Spirit of God. They will be imperishable, glorified, and in power. This is what will power our bodies, which is far more important and profound than a simple discussion of what the body is made of, a discussion that can only come about if we accept the Greek philosophical point that the material realm is bad and must be escaped by the soul.
This is what Paul means with his explanation of verses 38-41. God has created all different kinds of bodies with different purposes and properties. Within the bodies of humans, we bear the seeds of the intended purpose and glory that man was to have. This is not to say that Adam had a resurrection body and lost it due to sin. The resurrection body is something new, something for which man was intended. Paul’s metaphor of a seed does not mean to imply that once we die, the seed of our bodies will flower into something new. His point is that just as a seed has all of the characteristics and ability to be a flower inside of it, so our ‘natural’ bodies have all of the characteristics and ability to be the imperishable, incorruptible resurrection body. The contrast between our new bodies and our bodies in the present age is that when a body is animated by the Spirit it will not wear out, it will not die. There are all kinds of flesh, Paul says. Man has one kind of flesh. It is not that we are going to have a different kind of flesh in the age to come, it is what animates that flesh that is of true importance.
Paul begins in verse 45 to state explicitly what he has had in mind all along. He is describing a new creation, a re-writing of Genesis 1 and 2. There are two kinds of humanity, the body animated by the natural human spirit and the one animated by the Spirit of God. The resurrection body will be the realization of what we were made for in the first place. The prototype of this resurrection body has already been rolled out through the last Adam, Jesus Christ. He is the one worthy of entering into the age to come. He lived without sin and thus had the right to become the truly human being. Those in Christ will experience all of this when He returns. Paul uses the word ‘heaven’ as the place of God’s presences where he keeps things safe before their great unveiling (Col. 1:3-5; 1 Pet. 1:3-5; Acts 3:19-21). This does not, in Paul’s mind, mean that we will die and go to heaven, and become the new type of resurrected human there. No, God will somehow bring the resurrection, the renewal of humanity and all things from heaven to earth. At the time of the coming of Christ, He will transform the bodies of Christians who are still alive, and raising the dead to the same renewed deathless, glorified, body. Up to this point, we all have one thing in common, the fact that we share in the earthly likeness of our common ancestor, Adam. The glorious hope for the Christian, however, is that we will one day be transformed and our bodies will be redeemed (Rom. 8:20). We will become in fact what we are in position now as Christians. While we are in Christ positionally at the present time, we will, on that day of resurrection, actually bear His likeness for eternity.
Devotional Thought
The hope of the Christian in resurrection is that we will have our natures transformed so that we will be animated by the Spirit of the living God. We will no longer be subject to temptation and sin. We will have natures that are incapable of sinning. How much does this motivate you in the present age? Take some time to today to think about the resurrection and what it means for us. Praise God for His incredible plan for mankind.
35But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" 36How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.
42So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. 48As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.
Dig Deeper
There is a lot of attention these days on how many miles per gallons different cars get. When gas was under $2 (US) per gallon people didn’t seem to care all that much but when it goes over that price or even much higher, then suddenly people start getting concerned about it. People start to want smaller cars that get better miles to the gallon and many have turned to hybrid cars and even electric cars to achieve that. In every case, however, the discussion has to do with powers the cars and makes them go. No one imagines that the material that makes up the body of the car matters a whole lot. When people speak of changing cars to get something with better mileage, they are speaking of what powers the car not what materials make up the body. They want to make a change that will really matter and alter the actual performance of the car in a meaningful way.
If the central hope of the Christian faith is, as Paul has been pointing to, the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the subsequent future resurrection of all of those in Christ, then the obvious questions of how this will all work, begin to arise. What will the body be like? How will it happen? These are the very sorts of questions that Paul will begin to address in this dense section. But like the cars, it is important to know that Paul is not really concerned with what the body is comprised of, with what material it will be made of (there was simply no discussion of that as it was assumed that bodies in the resurrection would be just as physical as bodies are in our present age) but what the body runs on. Paul is discussing the animating force that powers our being and will.
The tone that Paul uses in the original Greek language for the questions of verse 35 suggest a mocking or skeptical tone, indicating a lack of belief in the whole process of actual bodily resurrection. It seems that many in Corinth had maintained the same view of death that their Greek-thinking compatriots had. They most likely held to the view that the resurrection would entail a separation of the body and soul, with the soul living on for eternity once it has escaped the prison of the body. Paul’s answer to them is that they are foolish for this skepticism. Resurrection is not some form of living on after death in spirit form, in a body that wouldn’t be visible to the natural human being, it is an actual reversal of death. That is the key. Those who experience the resurrection will actually die, but in Christ, death will be defeated and reversed as the natural body is transformed into something quite like the natural body, but also quite different.
In verse 44, Paul labels two types of bodies. One is the pre-resurrection “natural body” and the other is the post-resurrection “spiritual” body. This translation is misleading in that it implies that the bodies are somehow of a completely different composition. The question that Paul is answering is not the composition of the body, but rather what animates the body. Is it the soma psychikon, the body animated by the normal breath of life (the soul if you will), or is it the soma pneumatikon, the body animated by the Spirit of the living God? Paul is speaking in equal opposites throughout this passage as he talks of bodies that are perishable versus imperishable, honor (or glorified) versus dishonor, weakness versus power which culminates in a body that is sown a natural body that runs on the normal human soul versus the supernatural (a better translation than spiritual) body that will run on God’s own spirit.
This is the heart of the issue for Paul. In this age, our bodies are given life and characterized by the ordinary human spirit, but in the age to come, those who have experiences the resurrection will have bodies animated by the Spirit of God Himself. This is why he says that our current natural bodies are sown perishable, in dishonor, and in weakness. What Paul means is that the current use of bodies, is not the ultimate purpose for which they have been made. Since the fall of man we have been marred by the effects of sin, subject to death, and become the mere image bearers of sinful human fathers (Genesis 5:3). In Christ, though, we will be raised to bodies that fulfill their true purpose, being raised imperishable, in glory, and in power. Through the Spirit, we will have our natures transformed to natures like God so that sin and death will no longer have power over us, and although we will have free will (as God does), we will no longer be able to sin because it will go against our very natures, the animating force of the Spirit of God. They will be imperishable, glorified, and in power. This is what will power our bodies, which is far more important and profound than a simple discussion of what the body is made of, a discussion that can only come about if we accept the Greek philosophical point that the material realm is bad and must be escaped by the soul.
This is what Paul means with his explanation of verses 38-41. God has created all different kinds of bodies with different purposes and properties. Within the bodies of humans, we bear the seeds of the intended purpose and glory that man was to have. This is not to say that Adam had a resurrection body and lost it due to sin. The resurrection body is something new, something for which man was intended. Paul’s metaphor of a seed does not mean to imply that once we die, the seed of our bodies will flower into something new. His point is that just as a seed has all of the characteristics and ability to be a flower inside of it, so our ‘natural’ bodies have all of the characteristics and ability to be the imperishable, incorruptible resurrection body. The contrast between our new bodies and our bodies in the present age is that when a body is animated by the Spirit it will not wear out, it will not die. There are all kinds of flesh, Paul says. Man has one kind of flesh. It is not that we are going to have a different kind of flesh in the age to come, it is what animates that flesh that is of true importance.
Paul begins in verse 45 to state explicitly what he has had in mind all along. He is describing a new creation, a re-writing of Genesis 1 and 2. There are two kinds of humanity, the body animated by the natural human spirit and the one animated by the Spirit of God. The resurrection body will be the realization of what we were made for in the first place. The prototype of this resurrection body has already been rolled out through the last Adam, Jesus Christ. He is the one worthy of entering into the age to come. He lived without sin and thus had the right to become the truly human being. Those in Christ will experience all of this when He returns. Paul uses the word ‘heaven’ as the place of God’s presences where he keeps things safe before their great unveiling (Col. 1:3-5; 1 Pet. 1:3-5; Acts 3:19-21). This does not, in Paul’s mind, mean that we will die and go to heaven, and become the new type of resurrected human there. No, God will somehow bring the resurrection, the renewal of humanity and all things from heaven to earth. At the time of the coming of Christ, He will transform the bodies of Christians who are still alive, and raising the dead to the same renewed deathless, glorified, body. Up to this point, we all have one thing in common, the fact that we share in the earthly likeness of our common ancestor, Adam. The glorious hope for the Christian, however, is that we will one day be transformed and our bodies will be redeemed (Rom. 8:20). We will become in fact what we are in position now as Christians. While we are in Christ positionally at the present time, we will, on that day of resurrection, actually bear His likeness for eternity.
Devotional Thought
The hope of the Christian in resurrection is that we will have our natures transformed so that we will be animated by the Spirit of the living God. We will no longer be subject to temptation and sin. We will have natures that are incapable of sinning. How much does this motivate you in the present age? Take some time to today to think about the resurrection and what it means for us. Praise God for His incredible plan for mankind.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
1 Corinthians 15:29-34
29Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them? 30And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? 31I die every day—I mean that, brothers—just as surely as I glory over you in Christ Jesus our Lord. 32If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised,
"Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die." 33Do not be misled: "Bad company corrupts good character." 34Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God—I say this to your shame.
Dig Deeper
People who go through college endure a lot: sleepless nights, endless hours of study, countless hours of research and paper writing. College can be difficult. Sometimes it can feel like a pressure cooker. Yet, people continually subject themselves to it. Why? Because of the promise that comes upon completion. People know that the promise of a degree and a better job are worth all of the pain and hard work of going through college. Neither the difficulties of the Christian life nor the rewards of the life of the age to come and resurrection really compare with the struggles or rewards of college, yet it is a similar concept on a much larger scale. After a brief interlude concerning the nature of the order of the universe, and the role of resurrection in that universe, Paul will now return to a few more examples of the results of their denial of the resurrection. If they continue to deny the truth of resurrection then the things that they do and go through don’t make much sense. It would be far more silly than someone who would go through college and then get no degree and get no job.
Verse 29 offers an argument of contradiction. Why would people be baptized for the dead if the dead are not raised at all? In other words, why would the Corinthians take part in the actions of which they have taken part if they’re going to believe what they believe? It would make no sense. Either their practices should change or their beliefs need to. But what does Paul mean by baptism for the dead? This has been a notoriously difficult verse to understand over the years. This is a verse on which an entire offshoot cult of Christianity, Mormonism, has built a doctrine and practice of being baptized for dead family members that were not converted into their beliefs. Taking aside the fact that a doctrine should never be built on one difficult-to-understand verse, this verse need not be nearly as mysterious as some have made it out to be.
Despite the speculation and conjecture of many fanciful commentators over the years, there is no evidence that the Corinthian church ever engaged in a baptism for dead relatives or friends. The earliest record of any such practice comes from some 2nd century Gnostic groups; a practice that was soundly criticized by the orthodox Christian Church. Plus, Paul never mentions such a practice anywhere else, nor does any other New Testament writer. So, what does Paul mean here? This verse could just as easily be translated “those who are baptized because of the dead.” With this understanding, it becomes quite clear. Paul was most likely referring to non-Christians who were baptized following the death of a Christian relative. Part of the original motivation for their conversion was, no doubt, the desire to be re-united with their loved ones in the resurrection. But if they have now been swayed to believe that there is no bodily resurrection, then what was the point? Regardless of the specific meaning of the phrase, Paul’s point is still that their actions don’t match up with a denial of the resurrection.
Denial of the resurrection has far deeper implications than merely being contradictory in a few practices. It cuts to the very heart of Christian life. If the dead will not be raised, why go through the persecutions that the early Christians faced? Why live as prey, constantly on guard against the predator Satan and his agents? Paul says he dies every day. He probably means two things by this. One is the literal persecutions that he faces that truly felt like he was constantly on the precipice of death. The other aspect is the demand of the Christian life to lay down one’s life, to die to self, and to enter into and remain in the life of Christ. Why do all of this if it is for naught? And make no mistake, Paul feels that if there is no resurrection, then Jesus is not Christ and Lord, and everything is pointless, a point he has already made in verses 12-19 of chapter 15. If there was one thing the Corinthians knew for sure, though, it was that Paul loved them and gloried in their status in Christ. He wants them to know that just as surely as he loves them, he dies every single day. The only possible explanation for both of those things is that Christ did raise from the dead, did appear to him, and has guaranteed resurrection for all of those who enter into Him.
Paul’s reference to the wild beasts he fought in Ephesus is unlikely to be literal, rather he is giving a specific example, one that the Corinthians were apparently familiar with, of the persecution and trouble he had faced in his ministry time in Ephesus. The point is clear. This struggle is all for naught if the dead are not raised. Paul does not mean to say that resurrection is the only thing worth hoping for in the Christian life and if it is not going to happen, then to the garbage heap with the whole thing. No, his point is that the resurrection is the lynchpin which holds all of the Christian belief and hope together. If you pull out the lynchpin of resurrection (and for Paul the resurrection of Christ and the promised resurrection of those in Him are so inextricably linked that it’s hardly worth trying to separate the two) then the whole house of cards comes crashing down. Without resurrection there is no true Christian faith, there is just another empty religion. And if that’s the case, then they might as well just behave like the gladiators who were well known for their feasts and parties the night before going off to their probable death in battle. If there is no resurrection, forget all of this hardship and denial, they should just make the rest of their lives one big party.
Paul, then quotes a Greek poet, Meander, when he says “bad company corrupts good character”. His point is fairly obvious. The Corinthians are supposed to be the people of God, living increasingly as genuine human beings, being a light to the world and showing the world how to live a life reconciled to God. In short, they are resurrection people. Yet, how can they do that if they keep allowing their belief system to be improperly influenced by pagan beliefs such as a denial of the resurrection? It is quite possible to allow the ideas of the pagan culture around to seep in and influence Christian thought to such a degree that it ceases to be Christian thought and belief. Paul wants them to stop being so influenced by foolish beliefs and thoughts of pagans, those who are ignorant of God. In the process of being influenced by these pagan thinkers, they have left their senses and become equally ignorant. Of this, they should be ashamed; they should know better. Paul was calling them, just as surely as he is calling us, to identify and weed out ignorant, pagan thinking from their worldview and view the world through God’s eyes and the reality of the resurrection and the age to come.
Devotional Thought
The Corinthians were struggling with mixing Christian beliefs with those of the surrounding culture and coming out with something that was no longer the true Christian faith. Many Christians today continue to do that when it comes to the resurrection, but we surely do it in other areas as well. What areas of the Christian belief have you mixed with beliefs from our culture? How can you recognize if you have indeed fallen prey to that? What can you do about it?
"Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die." 33Do not be misled: "Bad company corrupts good character." 34Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God—I say this to your shame.
Dig Deeper
People who go through college endure a lot: sleepless nights, endless hours of study, countless hours of research and paper writing. College can be difficult. Sometimes it can feel like a pressure cooker. Yet, people continually subject themselves to it. Why? Because of the promise that comes upon completion. People know that the promise of a degree and a better job are worth all of the pain and hard work of going through college. Neither the difficulties of the Christian life nor the rewards of the life of the age to come and resurrection really compare with the struggles or rewards of college, yet it is a similar concept on a much larger scale. After a brief interlude concerning the nature of the order of the universe, and the role of resurrection in that universe, Paul will now return to a few more examples of the results of their denial of the resurrection. If they continue to deny the truth of resurrection then the things that they do and go through don’t make much sense. It would be far more silly than someone who would go through college and then get no degree and get no job.
Verse 29 offers an argument of contradiction. Why would people be baptized for the dead if the dead are not raised at all? In other words, why would the Corinthians take part in the actions of which they have taken part if they’re going to believe what they believe? It would make no sense. Either their practices should change or their beliefs need to. But what does Paul mean by baptism for the dead? This has been a notoriously difficult verse to understand over the years. This is a verse on which an entire offshoot cult of Christianity, Mormonism, has built a doctrine and practice of being baptized for dead family members that were not converted into their beliefs. Taking aside the fact that a doctrine should never be built on one difficult-to-understand verse, this verse need not be nearly as mysterious as some have made it out to be.
Despite the speculation and conjecture of many fanciful commentators over the years, there is no evidence that the Corinthian church ever engaged in a baptism for dead relatives or friends. The earliest record of any such practice comes from some 2nd century Gnostic groups; a practice that was soundly criticized by the orthodox Christian Church. Plus, Paul never mentions such a practice anywhere else, nor does any other New Testament writer. So, what does Paul mean here? This verse could just as easily be translated “those who are baptized because of the dead.” With this understanding, it becomes quite clear. Paul was most likely referring to non-Christians who were baptized following the death of a Christian relative. Part of the original motivation for their conversion was, no doubt, the desire to be re-united with their loved ones in the resurrection. But if they have now been swayed to believe that there is no bodily resurrection, then what was the point? Regardless of the specific meaning of the phrase, Paul’s point is still that their actions don’t match up with a denial of the resurrection.
Denial of the resurrection has far deeper implications than merely being contradictory in a few practices. It cuts to the very heart of Christian life. If the dead will not be raised, why go through the persecutions that the early Christians faced? Why live as prey, constantly on guard against the predator Satan and his agents? Paul says he dies every day. He probably means two things by this. One is the literal persecutions that he faces that truly felt like he was constantly on the precipice of death. The other aspect is the demand of the Christian life to lay down one’s life, to die to self, and to enter into and remain in the life of Christ. Why do all of this if it is for naught? And make no mistake, Paul feels that if there is no resurrection, then Jesus is not Christ and Lord, and everything is pointless, a point he has already made in verses 12-19 of chapter 15. If there was one thing the Corinthians knew for sure, though, it was that Paul loved them and gloried in their status in Christ. He wants them to know that just as surely as he loves them, he dies every single day. The only possible explanation for both of those things is that Christ did raise from the dead, did appear to him, and has guaranteed resurrection for all of those who enter into Him.
Paul’s reference to the wild beasts he fought in Ephesus is unlikely to be literal, rather he is giving a specific example, one that the Corinthians were apparently familiar with, of the persecution and trouble he had faced in his ministry time in Ephesus. The point is clear. This struggle is all for naught if the dead are not raised. Paul does not mean to say that resurrection is the only thing worth hoping for in the Christian life and if it is not going to happen, then to the garbage heap with the whole thing. No, his point is that the resurrection is the lynchpin which holds all of the Christian belief and hope together. If you pull out the lynchpin of resurrection (and for Paul the resurrection of Christ and the promised resurrection of those in Him are so inextricably linked that it’s hardly worth trying to separate the two) then the whole house of cards comes crashing down. Without resurrection there is no true Christian faith, there is just another empty religion. And if that’s the case, then they might as well just behave like the gladiators who were well known for their feasts and parties the night before going off to their probable death in battle. If there is no resurrection, forget all of this hardship and denial, they should just make the rest of their lives one big party.
Paul, then quotes a Greek poet, Meander, when he says “bad company corrupts good character”. His point is fairly obvious. The Corinthians are supposed to be the people of God, living increasingly as genuine human beings, being a light to the world and showing the world how to live a life reconciled to God. In short, they are resurrection people. Yet, how can they do that if they keep allowing their belief system to be improperly influenced by pagan beliefs such as a denial of the resurrection? It is quite possible to allow the ideas of the pagan culture around to seep in and influence Christian thought to such a degree that it ceases to be Christian thought and belief. Paul wants them to stop being so influenced by foolish beliefs and thoughts of pagans, those who are ignorant of God. In the process of being influenced by these pagan thinkers, they have left their senses and become equally ignorant. Of this, they should be ashamed; they should know better. Paul was calling them, just as surely as he is calling us, to identify and weed out ignorant, pagan thinking from their worldview and view the world through God’s eyes and the reality of the resurrection and the age to come.
Devotional Thought
The Corinthians were struggling with mixing Christian beliefs with those of the surrounding culture and coming out with something that was no longer the true Christian faith. Many Christians today continue to do that when it comes to the resurrection, but we surely do it in other areas as well. What areas of the Christian belief have you mixed with beliefs from our culture? How can you recognize if you have indeed fallen prey to that? What can you do about it?
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
1 Corinthians 15:20-28
20But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 23But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. 24Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27For he "has put everything under his feet." Now when it says that "everything" has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. 28When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.
Dig Deeper
I had a Geography teacher when I was in high school who, if nothing else, ran a rather tight ship. Things were very well organized and the classroom discipline was tight. Then one Monday we came into class and found out that our regular teacher would be gone for what turned out to be two weeks. Things quickly got chaotic while he was gone. The students didn’t listen to the substitute and had quite a bit of fun making her life difficult. What’s worse, the classroom that had been so orderly and truly beautiful, quickly fell apart. Then, as quickly as it began, it was over. Our teacher came back on Monday and he quickly set things to rights. By the time we arrived on Monday morning, the classroom had already been restored and it didn’t take him long to put the classes and the students back in line either.
Paul believed that the entire world has been completely out of whack since the Fall of Adam and Eve described in Genesis 3. Not just mankind, but also our environment has gone horribly wrong. Genesis 3 makes it clear that a human being got us into this situation and now, a human being would get us out. For Paul, the resurrection was the demonstration that the King had returned and had set about the job of setting things right in the universe. Yet, this could be a source of great confusion due to the Jewish expectations of resurrection. They believed that the resurrection would indeed be the thing that set things right in the universe, but that it would include all of the righteous at the end of the present age, not one person in the middle of the age. The Jews were waiting for the Kingdom of God to come at the resurrection. Now Paul was telling them the fact of Jesus’ resurrection was the clear signal that His Kingdom was available now.
Christ’s resurrection, in fact, was a guarantee that those who entered into His life would be rewarded with everything that Christ had secured including the resurrection. This is his point in using the very Old Testament picture of the firsfruits. Jewish farmers would take the very first of their crops, the firstfruits, and by faith would offer them to God. It was a seen as honoring God and was a promise from God and a demonstration of faith that the rest of the harvest would be coming. Thus, the entire crop was consecrated to God. His point is that the resurrection of Christ, who is our firstfruits, was a promise from God of the general resurrection for all those in Christ. If Christ was raised from the dead then so would those in him because what is true of the king is true of his people.
Paul continues in his Old Testament imagery, explaining that all men and women were descendants of Adam. Adam, because of his sin, had brought death to the whole human race and put us in subjugation to sin. Every human being is born into Adam and so, we are born to die. The key to understanding what Paul is saying here lies in the little phrase ‘in Christ’. For those who have entered into Christ, a concept that was almost always on Paul’s mind, all will be made alive. Those in Christ are able to escape the death that is our fate in Adam. Yet, everything in its time. Christ was the firstfruits, the marker that death had been overcome. In the meantime, the righteous will wait until he returns. Then we will all experience the resurrection that his resurrection points to and promises to us.
When Paul speaks of the concept of being in Christ, he is referring to the process of laying down our lives (Gal. 2:20) and being baptized into the death and life of Christ (Rom. 6:1-14). It is this faith that allowed Paul to describe believers as being hidden in Christ (Col. 3:3) and clothed with Christ (Gal. 3:27), beginning the ongoing process of putting off our old lives and putting on the new life of Christ (Eph. 4:21-24). For Paul, being in Christ meant many things, not the least of those was having a share in the resurrection and the age to come. But that was not just a future hope. Those who laid down their lives could enter into God’s future reality now in the present age. We can begin to live by the values and in the reality of that future age right now and spread the rule of that life, the kingdom of God, to a world around us that is still in Adam.
This future age, that we live and anticipate in the present, is the time when all things in the universe will be set to rights; they will be put back as God intended His universe to be. All order will be restored to all things. Paul certainly believes that Christ is reigning in His kingdom in the present age. Yet, he has not yet accomplished the final purpose of His reign, to set all things straight. That will come in due time. On that day, often known as the Second Coming, the task will be accomplished once-and-for-all. How will we know that the day has come? It will be the day when all the righteous experience the resurrection; it will be impossible to miss. At that time, the authority and dominion that had been given to man, lost to Satan, and taken by Christ, will be returned to the Father. Christ must, as Psalm 110 (the most quoted Psalm in the entire New Testament) says, reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. On that final day, all enemies, including death, the ultimate enemy, will be defeated and finally destroyed.
In verse 27, Paul quotes from Psalm 8, saying that God “has put everything under his feet.” Psalm 8, though, is referring to man in his original state. This is how God intended man to be; we were made to have dominion over God’s creation. Sin, however, makes us less than human. Christ was free of sin and thus, the genuine human being. Because of this status as being a genuine human being, he has secured the ability for all of us who would enter into Him to become genuine human beings as well.
In describing this process of all things being put under the feet of Christ, Paul wants to ensure that there are no misunderstandings. In his discussion of all things being put under Christ’s feet, he wants to be clear that this does not include God, by whom he meant the Father. Paul here never uses the word Trinity, but clearly he is thinking in trinitarian terms. Paul is not saying that the Father is superior the Son in essence or type. He is talking about order. Jesus is eternally the Son who remains in humble subordination to the Father. They share unique glory and essence (Philippians 2:9-11). As the early Church Fathers described it, the Father eternally begets the Son (which means that the relationship between the Father and Son is that the Son has no beginning but proceeds from the Father eternally in relationship). If everything comes from the Father, the Son is the one through whom it comes (1 Corinthians 8:6). Once all things have been made subject to the Father once again, Christ will also be. As theologian N.T Wright says “Paul envisages the entire cosmos sorted out at last, put into the shape the creator intended; and part of that shaping is the status of Jesus himself, revealed as the Father’s true and only Son.”
Devotional Thought
The resurrection of believers hasn’t happened yet. Things haven’t been totally to rights yet. But the resurrection of Christ is the guarantee for those who are in Him. Is this your true hope? Is this the thing that drives you through life and compels you? If not, what does?
Dig Deeper
I had a Geography teacher when I was in high school who, if nothing else, ran a rather tight ship. Things were very well organized and the classroom discipline was tight. Then one Monday we came into class and found out that our regular teacher would be gone for what turned out to be two weeks. Things quickly got chaotic while he was gone. The students didn’t listen to the substitute and had quite a bit of fun making her life difficult. What’s worse, the classroom that had been so orderly and truly beautiful, quickly fell apart. Then, as quickly as it began, it was over. Our teacher came back on Monday and he quickly set things to rights. By the time we arrived on Monday morning, the classroom had already been restored and it didn’t take him long to put the classes and the students back in line either.
Paul believed that the entire world has been completely out of whack since the Fall of Adam and Eve described in Genesis 3. Not just mankind, but also our environment has gone horribly wrong. Genesis 3 makes it clear that a human being got us into this situation and now, a human being would get us out. For Paul, the resurrection was the demonstration that the King had returned and had set about the job of setting things right in the universe. Yet, this could be a source of great confusion due to the Jewish expectations of resurrection. They believed that the resurrection would indeed be the thing that set things right in the universe, but that it would include all of the righteous at the end of the present age, not one person in the middle of the age. The Jews were waiting for the Kingdom of God to come at the resurrection. Now Paul was telling them the fact of Jesus’ resurrection was the clear signal that His Kingdom was available now.
Christ’s resurrection, in fact, was a guarantee that those who entered into His life would be rewarded with everything that Christ had secured including the resurrection. This is his point in using the very Old Testament picture of the firsfruits. Jewish farmers would take the very first of their crops, the firstfruits, and by faith would offer them to God. It was a seen as honoring God and was a promise from God and a demonstration of faith that the rest of the harvest would be coming. Thus, the entire crop was consecrated to God. His point is that the resurrection of Christ, who is our firstfruits, was a promise from God of the general resurrection for all those in Christ. If Christ was raised from the dead then so would those in him because what is true of the king is true of his people.
Paul continues in his Old Testament imagery, explaining that all men and women were descendants of Adam. Adam, because of his sin, had brought death to the whole human race and put us in subjugation to sin. Every human being is born into Adam and so, we are born to die. The key to understanding what Paul is saying here lies in the little phrase ‘in Christ’. For those who have entered into Christ, a concept that was almost always on Paul’s mind, all will be made alive. Those in Christ are able to escape the death that is our fate in Adam. Yet, everything in its time. Christ was the firstfruits, the marker that death had been overcome. In the meantime, the righteous will wait until he returns. Then we will all experience the resurrection that his resurrection points to and promises to us.
When Paul speaks of the concept of being in Christ, he is referring to the process of laying down our lives (Gal. 2:20) and being baptized into the death and life of Christ (Rom. 6:1-14). It is this faith that allowed Paul to describe believers as being hidden in Christ (Col. 3:3) and clothed with Christ (Gal. 3:27), beginning the ongoing process of putting off our old lives and putting on the new life of Christ (Eph. 4:21-24). For Paul, being in Christ meant many things, not the least of those was having a share in the resurrection and the age to come. But that was not just a future hope. Those who laid down their lives could enter into God’s future reality now in the present age. We can begin to live by the values and in the reality of that future age right now and spread the rule of that life, the kingdom of God, to a world around us that is still in Adam.
This future age, that we live and anticipate in the present, is the time when all things in the universe will be set to rights; they will be put back as God intended His universe to be. All order will be restored to all things. Paul certainly believes that Christ is reigning in His kingdom in the present age. Yet, he has not yet accomplished the final purpose of His reign, to set all things straight. That will come in due time. On that day, often known as the Second Coming, the task will be accomplished once-and-for-all. How will we know that the day has come? It will be the day when all the righteous experience the resurrection; it will be impossible to miss. At that time, the authority and dominion that had been given to man, lost to Satan, and taken by Christ, will be returned to the Father. Christ must, as Psalm 110 (the most quoted Psalm in the entire New Testament) says, reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. On that final day, all enemies, including death, the ultimate enemy, will be defeated and finally destroyed.
In verse 27, Paul quotes from Psalm 8, saying that God “has put everything under his feet.” Psalm 8, though, is referring to man in his original state. This is how God intended man to be; we were made to have dominion over God’s creation. Sin, however, makes us less than human. Christ was free of sin and thus, the genuine human being. Because of this status as being a genuine human being, he has secured the ability for all of us who would enter into Him to become genuine human beings as well.
In describing this process of all things being put under the feet of Christ, Paul wants to ensure that there are no misunderstandings. In his discussion of all things being put under Christ’s feet, he wants to be clear that this does not include God, by whom he meant the Father. Paul here never uses the word Trinity, but clearly he is thinking in trinitarian terms. Paul is not saying that the Father is superior the Son in essence or type. He is talking about order. Jesus is eternally the Son who remains in humble subordination to the Father. They share unique glory and essence (Philippians 2:9-11). As the early Church Fathers described it, the Father eternally begets the Son (which means that the relationship between the Father and Son is that the Son has no beginning but proceeds from the Father eternally in relationship). If everything comes from the Father, the Son is the one through whom it comes (1 Corinthians 8:6). Once all things have been made subject to the Father once again, Christ will also be. As theologian N.T Wright says “Paul envisages the entire cosmos sorted out at last, put into the shape the creator intended; and part of that shaping is the status of Jesus himself, revealed as the Father’s true and only Son.”
Devotional Thought
The resurrection of believers hasn’t happened yet. Things haven’t been totally to rights yet. But the resurrection of Christ is the guarantee for those who are in Him. Is this your true hope? Is this the thing that drives you through life and compels you? If not, what does?
Monday, July 06, 2009
1 Corintihans 15:12-19
The Resurrection of the Dead
12But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
Dig Deeper
Our society has become prolific in its ability to train people to make decisions without any thought to the repercussions of the choices they make or beliefs that they hold. You have for instance, millions of people claiming that there is no such thing as absolute truth without giving the slightest thought to the repercussions of that. If there is no absolute truth, then there can not rightly be any laws or standards at all because what one person believes to be good and true, others could simply say is bad and restrictive. Another example of action without thought of repercussion is the millions of teens making decisions about their sexual behavior without any thought to the fallout form their decisions.
There was a significant presence of Christians in Corinth that were denying the fact of a future resurrection in the age to come. It is unclear whether they believed that full freedom in Christian living and their spiritual awakening was the resurrection, of sorts. Or it is also possible that they were teaching that when people died they went to heaven as bodiless spirits, and that this was the resurrection. In either case (probably a little of both, with the first position being the more concerning for Paul), Paul wants the Corinthians to think this thing through and understand the repercussions of their position. If they don’t believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ and the future bodily resurrection of all believers who are in Christ, then that has some serious implications on their faith that they apparently have not thought through.
Paul begins by wondering how they can believe that there is no resurrection of the dead considering the fact that they would have heard much teaching on the fact of Christ being bodily raised from the dead and entering into the resurrection. If there is no such thing as resurrection, they had better be clear on the fact that this means that they must also believe that Christ was not resurrected. Why is this true logically? Because for Paul, what was true of the Messiah was true of His people. If His people were not going to be raised, then Christ was never raised. If Christ was resurrected, then so would His people be.
Paul then follows the logical conclusion of the belief system being espoused by some in Corinth. If Christ has been not been raised, then the preaching of the gospel is pointless. It is a useless exercise in futility. We are only able to enter into the life of Christ by dying to our own life and being raised up to His because Jesus was God. For Paul, the resurrection (combined with the things that Jesus did and taught) was the reason that we could know that He was God. Everything that makes the Christian life worth living, then, was based on the understanding that He was God in the flesh. If Jesus was not raised from the dead then all of that goes away, and there is not point in preaching about a dead, failed Messiah.
If preaching is useless in the scenario that there is no resurrection, then faith is also futile. The ultimate point of belief in Jesus is that He was God, had defeated death, and now allows those who believe in Him to enter into His life and experience the resurrection as well. This is the point of faith. If you take that away, then Christian faith is a monstrous exercise in futility.
It gets even worse, Paul wants them to know. It’s not just that their faith would be an empty powerless faith. The rejection of the resurrection would also make the apostles liars. They have been claiming, teaching, and preaching that they personally witnessed the resurrected Christ. If there is no resurrection then they are not just sadly mistaken, the men around whom the Christian community has been built are outright liars. This is, no doubt, a personal appeal of sorts on the behalf of the apostles. Are they really willing to say that those who counted their entire purpose in life as serving as the eyewitnesses of the resurrection of Jesus Christ are nothing more than hucksters or liars?
Next for Paul comes the two largest implications of the rejection of the resurrection. The Christian belief was that in Christ’s death, He had overcome sin by taking it upon Himself. Christ had lived the perfect life and was thus able to pay the fine incurred by sin of all men who would enter into His life. In dying and raising back to the resurrection life, Christ had also defeated death. The defeat of death and sin were intertwined and available to all who would believe in this ability to enter into His life. Preaching being profitless, faith being futile, the apostles being liars, this was all child’s play compared to these final two implications. If Christ has not been raised, then there is no escape from sin and death still has dominion in the world. The Corinthians clearly had not thought this all the way through. In denying the resurrection of believers into the age to come, they have denied the very heart of the Christian faith. Paul, says that if this is true, if they are right, then Christ has not defeated sin and death and all those who have died believing that they had entered into His life and were about to experience the resurrection, were completely wrong. They have died and are lost with no hope of salvation if Christ has not been raised.
Paul brings his powerful argument to a close with one more implication. If the resurrection of Christ and the bodily resurrection of those in Him is not true, then the only thing that Christ can effect, for those who believe in Him, is the present age. What a sad reality, says Paul. If the present age is all that the believer gets, then Christians are to be pitied above anyone else. This is because, despite what many Christian groups would like to teach these days, the Christian life is not about experiencing your best life now. It is about laying your life down and picking up the life of Christ, with the knowledge that one day we will all join him in the age to come, having been resurrected just as he was. This is our hope. This is, as Paul will say later in this chapter, the reason that Christians do what they do in the present age.
Devotional Thought
If the resurrection is not true, then Christianity is reduced to being another religion along side all others, in the general marketplace of beliefs. Are there any aspects of the Christian faith that you have, in practice or belief (for instance, the absolute devotion to God’s people or the call to seek the Kingdom of God first), denied and thus, sapped Christianity of its true message and power? Have you thought through the implications of all of that?
12But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
Dig Deeper
Our society has become prolific in its ability to train people to make decisions without any thought to the repercussions of the choices they make or beliefs that they hold. You have for instance, millions of people claiming that there is no such thing as absolute truth without giving the slightest thought to the repercussions of that. If there is no absolute truth, then there can not rightly be any laws or standards at all because what one person believes to be good and true, others could simply say is bad and restrictive. Another example of action without thought of repercussion is the millions of teens making decisions about their sexual behavior without any thought to the fallout form their decisions.
There was a significant presence of Christians in Corinth that were denying the fact of a future resurrection in the age to come. It is unclear whether they believed that full freedom in Christian living and their spiritual awakening was the resurrection, of sorts. Or it is also possible that they were teaching that when people died they went to heaven as bodiless spirits, and that this was the resurrection. In either case (probably a little of both, with the first position being the more concerning for Paul), Paul wants the Corinthians to think this thing through and understand the repercussions of their position. If they don’t believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ and the future bodily resurrection of all believers who are in Christ, then that has some serious implications on their faith that they apparently have not thought through.
Paul begins by wondering how they can believe that there is no resurrection of the dead considering the fact that they would have heard much teaching on the fact of Christ being bodily raised from the dead and entering into the resurrection. If there is no such thing as resurrection, they had better be clear on the fact that this means that they must also believe that Christ was not resurrected. Why is this true logically? Because for Paul, what was true of the Messiah was true of His people. If His people were not going to be raised, then Christ was never raised. If Christ was resurrected, then so would His people be.
Paul then follows the logical conclusion of the belief system being espoused by some in Corinth. If Christ has been not been raised, then the preaching of the gospel is pointless. It is a useless exercise in futility. We are only able to enter into the life of Christ by dying to our own life and being raised up to His because Jesus was God. For Paul, the resurrection (combined with the things that Jesus did and taught) was the reason that we could know that He was God. Everything that makes the Christian life worth living, then, was based on the understanding that He was God in the flesh. If Jesus was not raised from the dead then all of that goes away, and there is not point in preaching about a dead, failed Messiah.
If preaching is useless in the scenario that there is no resurrection, then faith is also futile. The ultimate point of belief in Jesus is that He was God, had defeated death, and now allows those who believe in Him to enter into His life and experience the resurrection as well. This is the point of faith. If you take that away, then Christian faith is a monstrous exercise in futility.
It gets even worse, Paul wants them to know. It’s not just that their faith would be an empty powerless faith. The rejection of the resurrection would also make the apostles liars. They have been claiming, teaching, and preaching that they personally witnessed the resurrected Christ. If there is no resurrection then they are not just sadly mistaken, the men around whom the Christian community has been built are outright liars. This is, no doubt, a personal appeal of sorts on the behalf of the apostles. Are they really willing to say that those who counted their entire purpose in life as serving as the eyewitnesses of the resurrection of Jesus Christ are nothing more than hucksters or liars?
Next for Paul comes the two largest implications of the rejection of the resurrection. The Christian belief was that in Christ’s death, He had overcome sin by taking it upon Himself. Christ had lived the perfect life and was thus able to pay the fine incurred by sin of all men who would enter into His life. In dying and raising back to the resurrection life, Christ had also defeated death. The defeat of death and sin were intertwined and available to all who would believe in this ability to enter into His life. Preaching being profitless, faith being futile, the apostles being liars, this was all child’s play compared to these final two implications. If Christ has not been raised, then there is no escape from sin and death still has dominion in the world. The Corinthians clearly had not thought this all the way through. In denying the resurrection of believers into the age to come, they have denied the very heart of the Christian faith. Paul, says that if this is true, if they are right, then Christ has not defeated sin and death and all those who have died believing that they had entered into His life and were about to experience the resurrection, were completely wrong. They have died and are lost with no hope of salvation if Christ has not been raised.
Paul brings his powerful argument to a close with one more implication. If the resurrection of Christ and the bodily resurrection of those in Him is not true, then the only thing that Christ can effect, for those who believe in Him, is the present age. What a sad reality, says Paul. If the present age is all that the believer gets, then Christians are to be pitied above anyone else. This is because, despite what many Christian groups would like to teach these days, the Christian life is not about experiencing your best life now. It is about laying your life down and picking up the life of Christ, with the knowledge that one day we will all join him in the age to come, having been resurrected just as he was. This is our hope. This is, as Paul will say later in this chapter, the reason that Christians do what they do in the present age.
Devotional Thought
If the resurrection is not true, then Christianity is reduced to being another religion along side all others, in the general marketplace of beliefs. Are there any aspects of the Christian faith that you have, in practice or belief (for instance, the absolute devotion to God’s people or the call to seek the Kingdom of God first), denied and thus, sapped Christianity of its true message and power? Have you thought through the implications of all of that?
Friday, July 03, 2009
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
The Resurrection of Christ
1Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
9For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
Dig Deeper
All societies and people groups have a story (metanarrative). More specifically, they have a founding story; a story that tells how they came together and began as a people. It is this story that tells the people who they are, where they are going, and what their purpose is. For the Jews, their story was the events surrounding the Exodus and the entry into the promised land. For Americans, our story is that of the early settlers coming together under the leadership of the Founding Fathers, becoming a nation dedicated to a democratic republican form of government, giving eventual freedom for all. In this chapter, Paul is going to bring together the founding story, the meta-narrative, of the new Christian community and demonstrate not only what it is but why it matters in the way that they conduct themselves as people committed to loving others and putting their interests ahead of their own. This metanarrative was the resurrection of Jesus Christ. For Paul, that event changed everything.
We have to be clear that resurrection was not a belief in the raising of the spirit, it was the belief that Jesus had died and then had his body transformed into a resurrection body (a new body yet somehow related to his pre-death body; Paul will more fully explain the resurrection body later in the chapter) Paul sees the resurrection of Christ as the very thing that shapes everything else Christians do. It has been just under the surface as the guiding factor in everything he has written. If the issue was sexual immorality, the resurrection said don’t do it, because what you do with your body that will one day be resurrected with Christ, matters. If the issue was communion, the resurrection said that the meal must be done in the proper manner, because it was a taste of the resurrection and the age to come. If the issue was the use of spiritual gifts, the resurrection said that love was to be the overriding determining factor, because it was the only thing that would last into and would be the language of the age to come.
Not only is a proper understanding of the resurrection vital to the Christian community because it is the founding story on which all of their beliefs and practices are built, but it was also another area of misunderstanding for those in Corinth. We will find in verse 12 that part of why Paul is writing this section is that the Corinthians were denying the physical resurrection of the dead. At least among some in Corinth, there was a belief in dualism between the spirit and the body. They believed that the spirit was separate from and superior to the body and had, as we’ve seen, behaved in extreme ways to show their spiritual status and freedom and their belief that the spirit could not be denigrated by what the body did. One thing that Greeks and Romans in the ancient world were sure of, was that there was no physical resurrection after death. They believed that the spiritual world was superior to the physical world and that the good of dying was that a person’s spirit would finally be released from the prison of their material body. It was not existence after death that the Greeks took issue with, it was the idea of a physical resurrection of the body.
What Paul presents in this passage today is not new information. He is reminding them of something with which he assumes they are quite familiar because he has already taught them this. This belief in resurrection is among the foundations of the Christian gospel. In fact, the death and resurrection of Christ is the gospel (Rom. 1:3-4; 2 Tim. 2:8-11; Col. 1:28-29). The gospel is the declaration that Jesus is the Messiah and the true Lord of the world as evidenced by his defeat of death. We should not miss the urgency with which Paul reminds them of this. Apparently, he believes that the message of the gospel that he preached to them must be held to tightly or they are in danger of drifting so far from the truth that they will find themselves clinging to something else (v. 2).
In verses 3 and 4, Paul says that Jesus died and was raised according to the Scriptures. To what Scriptures is he referring? He is not referring to the gospels which probably haven’t been written (or at least not widely circulated) yet. He is also not referring to a few verses pulled out of the Old Testament here and there that have been fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Christ (although there are many). What Paul has in mind is the fact that all of the Old Testament pointed to the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. The Old Testament Scriptures were a story without an ending until Christ came. He is the ending that has given the Old Testament meaning and has opened up to the world to continuing story of God bringing a people unto Himself.
What Paul writes down from verses 3b through at least verse 7 appears to have been an early Christian creed with which the Corinthians, and all Christians at the time would have been familiar. This creed can be reasonably dated to within 2-3 years after Jesus’ death and was obviously already well known twenty years after Jesus’ death, when this book was written. In this list of people to whom the risen Christ appeared, Paul singles out Peter, reaffirming his status in the Church, despite his earlier betrayals. He also gives special attention to James the brother of Jesus, an example of one who was not convinced by Jesus’ ministry until he saw the resurrected Christ. Paul also mentions the appearance to all the apostles, a special group that went beyond the twelve. Evidently to be an apostle one had to have seen the risen Christ and be sent as his messenger into the world to be a witness of that event. Finally Paul mentions himself (this may have been part of the early creed with Paul changing ‘Paul’ to ‘me’ or it may have been an addition altogether). The word translated ‘abnormally born’ is a violent word that actually means untimely birth as in ‘aborted’ or ‘stillborn’. It underlines the suddenness and radical change that Paul went through in his experience with the risen Christ and subsequent change of direction in life. Paul continued, even twenty years later, to be amazed at his calling and realize that he did not earn or deserve his status as an apostle. It was only the grace of God that allowed him to work for God. He saw working for God, and being able to lay down his life and enter into Christ’s life as a great privilege that was all a result of God’s grace.
The message of the resurrection, Paul reminds them, is the very message that was preached to them, regardless of who preached it. It was the foundation of their faith and belief and the very message that led to their new status in Christ. In fact, the resurrection was so foundational that Paul feels an urgent need to fix the cracks in their understanding of it before the whole building of their faith tumbles to the ground. That is what he will now turn to.
Devotional Thought
The message of the resurrection is so powerful because Christianity isn’t just a set of beliefs or doctrines. It is a way of life based on the fact that a powerful new way to live had broken into the world through Jesus’ defeat of death. Do you live that way? Do you boldly announce this message without fear?
1Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
9For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
Dig Deeper
All societies and people groups have a story (metanarrative). More specifically, they have a founding story; a story that tells how they came together and began as a people. It is this story that tells the people who they are, where they are going, and what their purpose is. For the Jews, their story was the events surrounding the Exodus and the entry into the promised land. For Americans, our story is that of the early settlers coming together under the leadership of the Founding Fathers, becoming a nation dedicated to a democratic republican form of government, giving eventual freedom for all. In this chapter, Paul is going to bring together the founding story, the meta-narrative, of the new Christian community and demonstrate not only what it is but why it matters in the way that they conduct themselves as people committed to loving others and putting their interests ahead of their own. This metanarrative was the resurrection of Jesus Christ. For Paul, that event changed everything.
We have to be clear that resurrection was not a belief in the raising of the spirit, it was the belief that Jesus had died and then had his body transformed into a resurrection body (a new body yet somehow related to his pre-death body; Paul will more fully explain the resurrection body later in the chapter) Paul sees the resurrection of Christ as the very thing that shapes everything else Christians do. It has been just under the surface as the guiding factor in everything he has written. If the issue was sexual immorality, the resurrection said don’t do it, because what you do with your body that will one day be resurrected with Christ, matters. If the issue was communion, the resurrection said that the meal must be done in the proper manner, because it was a taste of the resurrection and the age to come. If the issue was the use of spiritual gifts, the resurrection said that love was to be the overriding determining factor, because it was the only thing that would last into and would be the language of the age to come.
Not only is a proper understanding of the resurrection vital to the Christian community because it is the founding story on which all of their beliefs and practices are built, but it was also another area of misunderstanding for those in Corinth. We will find in verse 12 that part of why Paul is writing this section is that the Corinthians were denying the physical resurrection of the dead. At least among some in Corinth, there was a belief in dualism between the spirit and the body. They believed that the spirit was separate from and superior to the body and had, as we’ve seen, behaved in extreme ways to show their spiritual status and freedom and their belief that the spirit could not be denigrated by what the body did. One thing that Greeks and Romans in the ancient world were sure of, was that there was no physical resurrection after death. They believed that the spiritual world was superior to the physical world and that the good of dying was that a person’s spirit would finally be released from the prison of their material body. It was not existence after death that the Greeks took issue with, it was the idea of a physical resurrection of the body.
What Paul presents in this passage today is not new information. He is reminding them of something with which he assumes they are quite familiar because he has already taught them this. This belief in resurrection is among the foundations of the Christian gospel. In fact, the death and resurrection of Christ is the gospel (Rom. 1:3-4; 2 Tim. 2:8-11; Col. 1:28-29). The gospel is the declaration that Jesus is the Messiah and the true Lord of the world as evidenced by his defeat of death. We should not miss the urgency with which Paul reminds them of this. Apparently, he believes that the message of the gospel that he preached to them must be held to tightly or they are in danger of drifting so far from the truth that they will find themselves clinging to something else (v. 2).
In verses 3 and 4, Paul says that Jesus died and was raised according to the Scriptures. To what Scriptures is he referring? He is not referring to the gospels which probably haven’t been written (or at least not widely circulated) yet. He is also not referring to a few verses pulled out of the Old Testament here and there that have been fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Christ (although there are many). What Paul has in mind is the fact that all of the Old Testament pointed to the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. The Old Testament Scriptures were a story without an ending until Christ came. He is the ending that has given the Old Testament meaning and has opened up to the world to continuing story of God bringing a people unto Himself.
What Paul writes down from verses 3b through at least verse 7 appears to have been an early Christian creed with which the Corinthians, and all Christians at the time would have been familiar. This creed can be reasonably dated to within 2-3 years after Jesus’ death and was obviously already well known twenty years after Jesus’ death, when this book was written. In this list of people to whom the risen Christ appeared, Paul singles out Peter, reaffirming his status in the Church, despite his earlier betrayals. He also gives special attention to James the brother of Jesus, an example of one who was not convinced by Jesus’ ministry until he saw the resurrected Christ. Paul also mentions the appearance to all the apostles, a special group that went beyond the twelve. Evidently to be an apostle one had to have seen the risen Christ and be sent as his messenger into the world to be a witness of that event. Finally Paul mentions himself (this may have been part of the early creed with Paul changing ‘Paul’ to ‘me’ or it may have been an addition altogether). The word translated ‘abnormally born’ is a violent word that actually means untimely birth as in ‘aborted’ or ‘stillborn’. It underlines the suddenness and radical change that Paul went through in his experience with the risen Christ and subsequent change of direction in life. Paul continued, even twenty years later, to be amazed at his calling and realize that he did not earn or deserve his status as an apostle. It was only the grace of God that allowed him to work for God. He saw working for God, and being able to lay down his life and enter into Christ’s life as a great privilege that was all a result of God’s grace.
The message of the resurrection, Paul reminds them, is the very message that was preached to them, regardless of who preached it. It was the foundation of their faith and belief and the very message that led to their new status in Christ. In fact, the resurrection was so foundational that Paul feels an urgent need to fix the cracks in their understanding of it before the whole building of their faith tumbles to the ground. That is what he will now turn to.
Devotional Thought
The message of the resurrection is so powerful because Christianity isn’t just a set of beliefs or doctrines. It is a way of life based on the fact that a powerful new way to live had broken into the world through Jesus’ defeat of death. Do you live that way? Do you boldly announce this message without fear?
Thursday, July 02, 2009
1 Corinthians 14:26-40
Orderly Worship
26What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. 27If anyone speaks in a tongue, two—or at the most three—should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. 28If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God.
29Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. 30And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. 31For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. 32The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. 33For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.
As in all the congregations of the saints, 34women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. 35If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
36Did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? 37If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command. 38If he ignores this, he himself will be ignored.
39Therefore, my brothers, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. 40But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.
Dig Deeper
When I was about twelve years old, I happened upon 1 Corinthians 14:34 quite by accident. I attended a private Christian school and had become bored during a chapel service, so I began paging through the Bible for something to do. Once I discovered this verse it quickly became my favorite in the whole Bible. I certainly quoted to every girl I saw, and since we attended school in a church building, I often pointed out the fact that I believed girls should not talk in our school so as not to violate this verse. Is this what Paul intended, though, in his discussion on order in the worship service? Did Paul wish to give the directive that women should not speak in church or was I taking this verse out of context?
We must remember that the issue being dealt with here is proper order in worship. Paul wants the Corinthians to apply genuine love to the occasion of their corporate worship so that everyone who attends can be built up and edified. The Corinthian worship service had spiraled into chaotic displays of self-aggrandizement. What Paul addresses, then, must be understood as him dealing with specific issues to the Corinthians. This means two things for us. First, we must work hard to pull out the universal principles of what Paul is saying, without holding woodenly to instructions that were meant to deal with specific situations and were not meant for us. Second, we do not know the entire situation that led to Paul’s words. This means that at times we are left to speculate and recreate the best we can (for other examples, see 1 Cor. 5:1-5, 9-11; 15:29; 2 Cor. 2:5-11; 11:12-15; 12:7-8; Gal. 5:11-12; Phil. 3:2; Phlm. 18), but we have to admit that, at times, we simply do not know the exact situation which makes certain interpretations difficult, if not unlikely.
Paul’s instructions concerning the number and nature of those who speak in tongues is quite clear and should have brought a great deal of order and sanity to that topic. He also wanted to limit the number of speakers that gave prophecies. Once they had given their prophecy, others are told to carefully weigh what they have said. This might be the same thing as the gift of discernment (12:10) which indicates that there was no guarantee that those who had the gift of prophecy also had the gift of discernment. This makes it seem likely that the prophets were not the best persons to evaluate the messages of one another (this can still be true today where often the average church member is better able to determine how well the speaker has communicated his message rather than other preachers who can get absorbed with technique or the finer points of theology). Verse 30 seems to indicate that some prophecy is to be recognized as more urgent and given preference to other, more prepared prophecy. Through it all, order should reign and the prophets need to remember that they are, ultimately, in control of their own spirit of prophecy. Order is important because God is not a God of disorder but of peace.
We can certainly take to heart the principles of order in worship in passages like this, but we should be careful to not insist that we somehow restore church worship services back to this exact model. This passage is not intended to serve as a blueprint or model for Christian worship not can it function in that way. It was written to deal with specific issues in the Corinthian church during a unique time in the church’s history. Trying to duplicate the order of worship and utilize the specific gifts like prophecy that they had during this unique time, would be a mistake and would be to take this passage outside the realm of its intention and its purpose for us which is to guide us towards the principle of orderly worship that puts the interests of the body ahead of our own individual interests.
This leads us into verses 34-35. There are numerous proposed understandings of these verses. Is this a universal command to be followed literally in all churches? That seems impossible, because it would clearly contradict the right for women to speak in the important roles of public prayer and prophecy in 11:5. [Also, J.M. Bassler, in his commentary on 1 Corinthians, asks some pointed questions, “How can women like Euodia and Syntache (Phil. 4:2-3), Prisca (Rom. 16:3; 1 Cor. 16:19), Mary (Rom. 16:6), Junia (Rom. 16:7), and Tryphaena and Tryphosa (Rom. 16:12) function as co-workers in the churches if they cannot speak in those churches? How can Phoebe fulfill the role of deacon (Rom. 16:1-2) if she cannot speak out in the assembly? (note that most translations change the word describing Phoebe to “servant” but it is the same word that is usually translated “deacon” in this context)”] There are, as stated, many possible ways to interpret these verses and nearly each commentator has their own particular spin on it.
There are two, however, that seem the most likely and the most in line with both the cultural situation at the time in Corinth as well as Paul’s line of reasoning. The first has to do with the seating arrangement of men and women in this culture. Men and women would have likely been seated separately, including husbands and wives. To add to this situation in Corinth, most of the women were under-educated and would have spoken local dialects rather than the formal Greek that was most likely used during worship. In the atmosphere of chaos and noise, it is possible that the women were starting to call across the aisle to their husbands to ask questions. This may also have been encouraged by the practice of prophesying at the oracle at Delphi nearby, where prophecies were given in response to questions, including questions about purely personal matters. Thus, the women are told to keep silent in this situation and ask questions of their husbands when they get home. The second possibility is that Paul is continuing the instructions on carefully weighing the interpretation of prophecy. In this important and authoritative matter, the women should follow the law of the created order and submit, waiting quietly. If they had questions about the discernment process, they could respectfully ask their husbands when they got home. In my estimation, the former explanation seems more likely than the latter. In any case, Paul goes on to remind them that they are part of a large body of Christ and shouldn’t be doing things that lead to disorder, especially when it doesn’t match up with what the other churches all practice. The body of Christ should seek, whenever possible, to unify not only within the local congregation but also with other congregations of believers.
Paul brings this argument to a close and is careful to warn them not to forbid speaking in tongues, something that might have been tempting after reading this passage. Paul’s intention was not to squash any spiritual gifts, only to organize the worship service and ensure that gifts were being used in an appropriate manner.
Devotional Thought
Paul obviously saw order and planning in worship as extremely important (although, certainly one can go too far in that direction). When you play a role in the corporate worship do you do it haphazardly or do you put careful, thought, effort, and planning into your part? What doe sit say about your esteem for God or for fellow believers if you are asked to lead some aspect of the worship service and you don’t prayerfully prepare and take seriously the task you have been given?
26What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. 27If anyone speaks in a tongue, two—or at the most three—should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. 28If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God.
29Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. 30And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. 31For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. 32The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. 33For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.
As in all the congregations of the saints, 34women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. 35If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
36Did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? 37If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command. 38If he ignores this, he himself will be ignored.
39Therefore, my brothers, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. 40But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.
Dig Deeper
When I was about twelve years old, I happened upon 1 Corinthians 14:34 quite by accident. I attended a private Christian school and had become bored during a chapel service, so I began paging through the Bible for something to do. Once I discovered this verse it quickly became my favorite in the whole Bible. I certainly quoted to every girl I saw, and since we attended school in a church building, I often pointed out the fact that I believed girls should not talk in our school so as not to violate this verse. Is this what Paul intended, though, in his discussion on order in the worship service? Did Paul wish to give the directive that women should not speak in church or was I taking this verse out of context?
We must remember that the issue being dealt with here is proper order in worship. Paul wants the Corinthians to apply genuine love to the occasion of their corporate worship so that everyone who attends can be built up and edified. The Corinthian worship service had spiraled into chaotic displays of self-aggrandizement. What Paul addresses, then, must be understood as him dealing with specific issues to the Corinthians. This means two things for us. First, we must work hard to pull out the universal principles of what Paul is saying, without holding woodenly to instructions that were meant to deal with specific situations and were not meant for us. Second, we do not know the entire situation that led to Paul’s words. This means that at times we are left to speculate and recreate the best we can (for other examples, see 1 Cor. 5:1-5, 9-11; 15:29; 2 Cor. 2:5-11; 11:12-15; 12:7-8; Gal. 5:11-12; Phil. 3:2; Phlm. 18), but we have to admit that, at times, we simply do not know the exact situation which makes certain interpretations difficult, if not unlikely.
Paul’s instructions concerning the number and nature of those who speak in tongues is quite clear and should have brought a great deal of order and sanity to that topic. He also wanted to limit the number of speakers that gave prophecies. Once they had given their prophecy, others are told to carefully weigh what they have said. This might be the same thing as the gift of discernment (12:10) which indicates that there was no guarantee that those who had the gift of prophecy also had the gift of discernment. This makes it seem likely that the prophets were not the best persons to evaluate the messages of one another (this can still be true today where often the average church member is better able to determine how well the speaker has communicated his message rather than other preachers who can get absorbed with technique or the finer points of theology). Verse 30 seems to indicate that some prophecy is to be recognized as more urgent and given preference to other, more prepared prophecy. Through it all, order should reign and the prophets need to remember that they are, ultimately, in control of their own spirit of prophecy. Order is important because God is not a God of disorder but of peace.
We can certainly take to heart the principles of order in worship in passages like this, but we should be careful to not insist that we somehow restore church worship services back to this exact model. This passage is not intended to serve as a blueprint or model for Christian worship not can it function in that way. It was written to deal with specific issues in the Corinthian church during a unique time in the church’s history. Trying to duplicate the order of worship and utilize the specific gifts like prophecy that they had during this unique time, would be a mistake and would be to take this passage outside the realm of its intention and its purpose for us which is to guide us towards the principle of orderly worship that puts the interests of the body ahead of our own individual interests.
This leads us into verses 34-35. There are numerous proposed understandings of these verses. Is this a universal command to be followed literally in all churches? That seems impossible, because it would clearly contradict the right for women to speak in the important roles of public prayer and prophecy in 11:5. [Also, J.M. Bassler, in his commentary on 1 Corinthians, asks some pointed questions, “How can women like Euodia and Syntache (Phil. 4:2-3), Prisca (Rom. 16:3; 1 Cor. 16:19), Mary (Rom. 16:6), Junia (Rom. 16:7), and Tryphaena and Tryphosa (Rom. 16:12) function as co-workers in the churches if they cannot speak in those churches? How can Phoebe fulfill the role of deacon (Rom. 16:1-2) if she cannot speak out in the assembly? (note that most translations change the word describing Phoebe to “servant” but it is the same word that is usually translated “deacon” in this context)”] There are, as stated, many possible ways to interpret these verses and nearly each commentator has their own particular spin on it.
There are two, however, that seem the most likely and the most in line with both the cultural situation at the time in Corinth as well as Paul’s line of reasoning. The first has to do with the seating arrangement of men and women in this culture. Men and women would have likely been seated separately, including husbands and wives. To add to this situation in Corinth, most of the women were under-educated and would have spoken local dialects rather than the formal Greek that was most likely used during worship. In the atmosphere of chaos and noise, it is possible that the women were starting to call across the aisle to their husbands to ask questions. This may also have been encouraged by the practice of prophesying at the oracle at Delphi nearby, where prophecies were given in response to questions, including questions about purely personal matters. Thus, the women are told to keep silent in this situation and ask questions of their husbands when they get home. The second possibility is that Paul is continuing the instructions on carefully weighing the interpretation of prophecy. In this important and authoritative matter, the women should follow the law of the created order and submit, waiting quietly. If they had questions about the discernment process, they could respectfully ask their husbands when they got home. In my estimation, the former explanation seems more likely than the latter. In any case, Paul goes on to remind them that they are part of a large body of Christ and shouldn’t be doing things that lead to disorder, especially when it doesn’t match up with what the other churches all practice. The body of Christ should seek, whenever possible, to unify not only within the local congregation but also with other congregations of believers.
Paul brings this argument to a close and is careful to warn them not to forbid speaking in tongues, something that might have been tempting after reading this passage. Paul’s intention was not to squash any spiritual gifts, only to organize the worship service and ensure that gifts were being used in an appropriate manner.
Devotional Thought
Paul obviously saw order and planning in worship as extremely important (although, certainly one can go too far in that direction). When you play a role in the corporate worship do you do it haphazardly or do you put careful, thought, effort, and planning into your part? What doe sit say about your esteem for God or for fellow believers if you are asked to lead some aspect of the worship service and you don’t prayerfully prepare and take seriously the task you have been given?
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