1 Corinthians 8

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Jason

Reading for Wednesday, Sept. 5: 1 Cor 8

Paul turns his attention to another pressing matter in Corinth: food sacrificed to idols. Is this behavior permissible or not? Paul begins by affirming the Jewish monotheistic tradition: “We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one,” (v4). He goes on: “…for us there is but one God, that Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live,” (v6). This is the basis for Paul’s refusal to condemn the practice of eating food sacrificed to idols.

However, Paul also cautions the believers to exercise discernment. What is permissible may not necessarily be prudent, especially in matters concerning the younger / weaker in the faith. Paul urges the believers to a life of consideration, being ever attuned to the implications of their actions. If such a practice might cause another to stumble, then “I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall,” (v13).

What are the modern parallels to this unique circumstance in Corinth? Matters of judgment abound today just as surely as they did in Paul’s time. And even though this particular issue is no longer a threat to churches in the Christian West, Paul’s counsel is worthy of our consideration still. May we always consider the implications of our actions and the responsibility we have to the younger / weaker in the faith. And may their well being and spiritual growth trump our desire to express spiritual liberty and “knowledge.”

“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” (v1)

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1 Corinthians 7

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Jason

Reading for Tuesday, Sept 4: 1 Cor 7

With 1 Cor 7, Paul turns his attention to matters that the Corinthians have asked about, in particular the issue of marriage. Paul gives a wide range of teaching on the subject, beginning with his opening statement: “It is good for a man not to marry,” (v1). A careful reading of Paul’s comments here reveal the reason for this strong statement: the unmarried man is free from the obligation to please his wife, therefore he has more time to devote to the Lord. But Paul sees marriage as a necessary concession, particularly as a safeguard of self-control (v5).

Paul also gives teaching re: divorce and remarriage, quoting the teaching of Jesus in v10-11: “To the married, I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.” Paul offers no nuance or commentary to this statement, allowing the words of Christ to be heard on their own merit. But he does make a few qualifying statements re: what appears to be a particular situation in Corinth. In the case of a marriage between a believer and an unbeliever, Paul encourages the union to continue so long as the unbeliever is willing (v12-14). However, in the cases where the unbeliever deserts the believing spouse, Paul says, “let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace,” (v15).

But Paul sees great value in remaining in situations where our faithfulness can be used for God’s glory. “Nevertheless, each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him,” (v17). This is Paul’s counter to the circumcision group (v18). “Keeping God’s commands is what counts. Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him,” (v19-20). These situations hold great potential for the Kingdom of God. Strive for obedience and faithfulness, Paul says, and see how God will operate redemptively in your life.

Paul closes with more commentary on marriage. It seems that these situations were particularly relevant in the Corinthian churches. Providing this kind of teaching seems to be especially taxing on Paul. You get the impression he’d much rather be talking / writing about something else. But Paul isn’t through fielding questions from these believers. He has another matter to turn his attention to: the issue of food being sacrificed to idols.

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1 Corinthians 6

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Jason

Reading for Monday, Sept 3: 1 Cor 6

Paul’s comments in this section of the letter indicate even deeper struggles in the Corinthian church. The matter of lawsuits against fellow believers leads Paul to make some interesting theological statements here. (“Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? Do you not know that we will judge angels?”, v2-3.) Although these comments appear to be rooted in the deeply held Jewish concepts of creation and humanity’s command to exercise dominion over it — even the new creation someday — Paul’s primary point here is spelled out in v7: “The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already.” This kind of behavior is unbecoming of disciples, people who have given themselves completely to love of God and neighbor. Paul reminds these believers of their primary identity, the formative experience of their shared life together: “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God,” (v11).

Paul sees this issue on par with the aforementioned matters of sexual immorality, for each creates profound rifts in the body of Christ. What is permissible, per the letter of the law? (v12). As a citizen of these earthly kingdoms, we have the right to file suit when we’ve been done wrong. But what if we belong to another Kingdom? As for sexual immorality, some will argue that they’re simply following their natural impulse to its logical conclusion. Surely I’m not to blame for indulging this intrinsic appetite for gratification? (v13). But Paul counters this stream of thought as well: “The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body,” (v13).

Paul’s argument reaches its zenith in v15: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body?…But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.” What we do with our bodies matters very greatly. Paul urges the Corinthians to understand themselves as ambassadors for Christ, as living temples for the Lord (v19). His closing statement is a clarion call for us all: “You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.”

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1 Corinthians 5

Posted on August 31, 2012 by Jason

Reading for Friday, Aug 31: 1 Cor 5

1 Corinthians 5 is considered one of those “hard teachings” in the New Testament. Paul addresses one of the proofs of the lack of spiritual maturity among the Corinthian believers: “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife,” (v1). As if this weren’t bad enough, Paul notes the arrogance among the body, as if they wear this as a badge of their freedom (v2). This is nothing to be proud of! Paul mixes no words when he says, “Let him who has done this be removed from among you.” (v3).

A few words about this unique circumstance: The word Paul uses for “sexual immorality” is the Greek word porneia. Literally, it means “prostitution” but it also is used throughout the NT in a much broader sense describing sexual impurity in a variety of forms. The verb “has” indicates the situation is not a single occurrence but a continuing immoral affair. The fact that Paul does not describe this as incestuous implies that this man has likely taken his step-mother to be his wife. But that’s a bit of conjecture on the part of scholars. What we do know is that this behavior is unbecoming of the Christ-following community and Paul issues a word of judgment upon the perpetrator.

The reason for this is not merely punitive; it is redemptive, a summons to repentance: “You are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord,” (v5). Biblical excommunication is always focused on the hopeful return of the excommunicated. The figurative “hand him over to Satan” indicates a recognition of free will; if you choose to continue to live this way, we release you to your choice in full. This action follows the lead of a God who creates us with free will, yet gives us over to these impulses and desires, even when they run contrary to His ultimate desire for us (Romans 1).

Paul intends for this excommunication to call the sexually immoral brother back to an awareness of the richness he experiences in Christ. In the end, sin — no matter how appealing — pales in comparison to the richness of life in Christ. Withdrawing fellowship, although painful, stands as a final effort to call the believer back to the Lord. This judgment seems to be unique among disciples: “For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. ‘Purge the evil from among you.’ (v12-13).”

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1 Corinthians 4

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Jason

Reading for Thursday, Aug 30: 1 Cor 4

In our human weakness, we are incapable of realizing the “mysteries” of God (v1), but this is where the Gospel intersects our lives. The Gospel is completely God’s initiative, His revelation of the mystery of salvation on our behalf through Christ. Paul is an apostle and steward of this mystery, sharing it in fullness with the Corinthians, in the hopes they will flourish into maturity.

“Do not go beyond what is written,” (v6). Paul knows that the Scripture reveals Gospel to us because the Scriptures reveal Jesus. He holds up the Word as the normative template for receiving Gospel and warns of the dangers of moving beyond God’s Word. To that end, he has already quoted Isa. 29:14 (1 Cor. 1:19); Jer. 9:22–23 (1 Cor. 1:31); Isa. 64:4 (1 Cor. 2:9); Job 5:13 (1 Cor. 3:19); and Ps. 94:11 (1 Cor. 3:20). Paul’s preaching and teaching models that which he desires for the Corinthians.

But haughtiness is plaguing these believers. To counter this, Paul engages in rhetorical questions, bringing to light their arrogance (v8-13). Paul’s experience in following Jesus is much riskier and far less “blissful”, at least according to Corinthian standards. “We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored!” (v10). (Nobody ever said Paul couldn’t drop some sarcasm from time to time in order to prove his point!)

But then Paul speaks in tenderness: “I am writing this not to shame you but to warn you as my dear children,” (v14). He continues: “Therefore I urge you to imitate me. For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church,” (v16-17). Paul’s role as spiritual father to these believers leads him to act redemptively on their behalf, sending Timothy as a teacher and instructor. And what is held up is not just the way of Paul, but the way of Jesus that Paul is imitating. This is the key to spiritual mentorship and discipleship: we follow our examples as they follow Christ.

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1 Corinthians 3

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Jason

Reading for Wednesday, Aug 29: 1 Cor 3

With the cross set before them, Paul is now ready to delve into some of the issues plaguing the Christians in Corinth. They have not attained the level of maturity befitting the mind of Christ (v1-2), as they continue to be consumed with jealousy and strife (v3). Specifically, factions have broken out among them: a camp of Apollos followers, a camp of Paul followers. Paul sees these divisions as arbitrary, yet insidious. “What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth,” (v5-6). Paul rebukes the Corinthians for these petty divisions, hearkening them back to an emphasis on God and His work: “So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth,” (v7).

Paul then shifts to the metaphor of a building. Paul takes pride in his work as a foundation-layer, but his heartfelt desire is for these Christians to continue to be “built up” into the kind of community God desires. How does this sort of building occur? By committing ourselves to work that is eternal in nature. “Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw – each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire,” (v12-15). Paul makes it clear he isn’t talking about salvation here. But he is talking about the kind of work that endures. Often times, we can be consumed with matters that seem important at the time, yet in the eternal scope, these are nothing more than gold, hay, straw. What matters is the kind of work that builds upon the true foundation: “For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ,” (v11). What would it look like if we committed ourselves to only talking about matters of eternal significance? What would our churches look like if our people determined only to contribute toward matters of eternal importance? Are we wrong to talk about the ball game in the hallway? No. But perhaps if we were a bit more intentional in our speech and thought, we could look back someday and recognize that we contributed to the great building project of the Lord, building upon the foundation of Jesus Christ.

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1 Corinthians 2

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Jason

Reading for Tuesday, Aug 28: 1 Cor 2

Paul continues to hammer away at the centrality of the cross: “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified,” (v2). This is more than a template for his preaching ministry; for Paul, the cross holds the key to life itself. Paul’s vision is cruciform, that his entire being would be conformed to the image of the cross. He understands that this sort of existence appears as weakness to the worldly, but he insists that our faith rest not in “the wisdom of men but in the power of God,” (v5). And as Paul will remind us, God’s power is most profoundly demonstrated through weakness.

How is that some receive this Gospel for the “Good News” it is while others reject it as foolishness? Paul helps us understand the spiritual “players” involved in this process as well: “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God,” (v12). Through faith, God mediates His own Spirit to us, countering the wisdom of the world and “interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual,” (v13). It’s as if the Spirit equips us with new lenses, replacing our old way of seeing through “worldly” eyes with a deeper level of vision, one of true clarity and spiritual insight. Lest we should boast, we remember this is all grace, the complete gift of God.

But this leads to yet another gift that Paul mentions at the end of the chapter. The Spirit works to bring discernment, yet the “natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him” (v14). Blessed with the Spirit of God, the believer’s mind is also conformed, culminating in this glorious statement: “But we have the mind of Christ,” (v16). Even our thought life is capable of being redeemed, transformed by the Spirit’s work to form us into the image of Christ. We’re reminded that this mind is one focused on humility, service, and obedience (Phil. 2:5-11). This is the mind Paul desires for us (Phil. 2:5). And this is the mind for which we strive.

A mind formed around the cross.

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1 Corinthians 1

Posted on August 28, 2012 by Jason

Reading for Monday, Aug 27: 1 Cor 1

Paul begins his letter to the Corinthians in a fascinating way: he addresses these believers as those “called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours,” (v2). Saints! These people? As we read through this letter, we might find ourselves asking, “Paul, are you sure this is what ‘saintly behavior’ looks like?” But Paul is insistent — these believers with all their foibles and struggles and outright brokenness….these are the people Paul considers saints by right of the cross. Sometimes we’re our own worst critics; we can berate ourselves, feeling worthless, hopeless. Our lives feel like a sinking ship and we simply can’t bail water quickly enough to stay afloat. We feel rather “unsaintly”, I suppose. But we need to hear this word, just as the Corinthians before us. Paul insists on this title, “saint”, as an apt description of our newfound identity in Christ. Keep that in the back of your mind as we read through Corinthians together.

Two phrases immediately help us understand more fully who we are in Christ: “sustain you to the end” (v8) and “God is faithful” (v9). Saints are not those among us who live some sort of blissfully sinless existence; you can put that guy in the same category as Sasquatch, the Lochness Monster, and magical rainbow-colored unicorns! Rather, saints are those who are sustained to the end by the faithfulness of God. In our study of Romans 1, we looked at v17 and how the righteousness of God is revealed to us through faith. Our faith? Well, in part. But God’s faithfulness toward us is (I believe) what Paul primarily has in view. Our faithfulness has done nothing to reveal the Gospel; it is only through His enduring faithfulness that we even know of the Gospel. So our “sainthood” is contingent upon HIS faithfulness, sustaining us through all of our brokenness until we reach completion on the other side.

Paul’s thesis in this letter is revealed in v18: “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” The cross is central to Paul’s understanding of everything. The world hears the story of the cross as foolishness. How can one find life through death? True life is found in the acquisition of power, not through its relinquishment! Or so the argument goes. The message of a sacrificial Messiah was unfathomable in a culture where humility was considered a weakness, a liability.

But Paul holds up the cross of Jesus as the key to life, the complete demonstration of Jesus’ teaching that the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve (Matt. 20:28). The power of God is manifest through Jesus’ willful position of weakness. The Gospels demonstrate Jesus as being in complete control of the situation as he dies. He submits his will to the will of the Father in prayer. He allows the soldiers to take him into custody. He prays for these perpetrators as they nail him to the cross. In the end, he chooses death, willfully giving up his spirit and committing himself to the Father. What the world sees as an act of weakness and humiliation, we see as the ultimate expression of power and love. In the cross, the imperial emblem of pain, torture, and death, we now see life, redemption, and healing.

This is why Paul preaches Christ crucified (v23).

Because it’s the only message worth preaching.

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1 Timothy 6

Posted on August 28, 2012 by Jason

Reading for Friday, Aug 24: 1 Timothy 6

Paul’s mentorship of the young Timothy is an instructive model for our day. Paul just pours himself into Timothy, instructing him and guiding him away from controversy and deeper into a ministry of the Living Word. His words here rival a Vince Lombardi halftime speech for their motivational quotient: “Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses,” (v11-12). And Paul goes on: “I charge you in the presence of God…and of Christ Jesus…to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord,” (v13-14). Paul doesn’t mince words — this is a high calling. But Timothy has to be encouraged in the knowledge that Paul deems him worthy, deems him capable of living into this calling. This is what mentors do — they see us at our worst, yet they continue to believe in and point us toward the best version of ourselves we can become.

I once read that in order for a boy to grow into the kind of man God intends him to become, he needs the example of another man in his life. I’ve had several such mentors in my life and I’ve written about them from time to time on this blog: Johnny Markham, Lee Milam, Gary Bradley — men who, like Paul with Timothy, have put their arms around me as a young minister, teaching and instructing and (on occasion) rebuking me along the way. Their examples have been consistent, their encouragement toward me persistent. Maybe the greatest blessing has been the fact that they’ve believed in me, believed I was at least capable of service and ministry at some level. And that belief has truly made all the difference in my life.

So, on behalf of every Timothy out there, today we give thanks for our Pauls, for our spiritual fathers in the faith, the men and women who reach out in love, showing us the most excellent way.

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1 Timothy 5

Posted on August 27, 2012 by Jason

Reading for Thursday, Aug. 23: 1 Tim. 5

Although Timothy is not to let any one despise him for his youth (4:12), he is still commanded to approach his elders in a spirit of respect and love. “Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father. Treat younger men like brothers, older women like mothers, younger women like sisters, in all purity,” (5:1-2). Although Paul will argue against many of the prevailing social norms that separate Jews and Gentiles, he also sees great value in the mutually respectful tenor of familial relationships, which forms the basis of his teaching in these verses.

Paul turns his attention to a particularly important subject in body life: carrying for those in need, specifically the widows in the church. Paul reinforces the familial obligation as the primary means of provision for widows (perhaps drawing on Jesus’ teaching against those who would declare the right of “corban”, material gifts devoted to God). But Paul also spells out criteria for helping those who are truly in need. The takeaway for us is to seek generosity coupled with discernment. It is interesting that Paul does not recommend an indiscriminate pattern of generosity; instead, stewardship requires the set of criteria Paul offers. The goal is not to withhold blessings from those in need; far from it. The goal is to provide for those who are truly in need, while encouraging individual family units to help in ways that are appropriate.

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