Today’s post is primarily from 1 Corinthians 1.
This book of the Bible is an epistle, or a letter. It’s written by Paul to the church in Corinth. Corinth was a prosperous city because it was a major trading hub between Asia and western Europe. There were many diverse nationalities in that city, but many of Paul’s converts in the Corinthian church were believed to be Greeks. They were a people known for not just prosperity, but also their wisdom.
The first three verses begin with a greeting from Paul:
1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
2 To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ―their Lord and ours:
3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The language of the greeting affirms the concept of being Called by God. This is one of the points of Calvinism – an Irresistible Calling. The Bible explains that when we are Christians, it’s because of God’s Grace, not our works. We don’t accept God, as much as we are called by him. It isn’t our wills that save us, it’s the will of God. And that should cause great comfort; I know it does for me. Why? because my will can change frequently. I have trouble deciding things and making up my mind. Or if I do decide something, I will second guess, and change my mind. But having an assurance that my Christianity, My Faith, is because of God’s will and not my own makes everything much more secure and permanent. Whereas something that’s based on my will and my effort is insecure and changes as my mood or my temperament. Why is this a big deal? Being called versus accepting/deciding something??? Well in one case we are not the initiator, and therefore can’t take any credit, and in the other we allow for ourselves and our minds to take the credit for making the decision. Another interesting fact from the greeting is verse 3 where Paul writes “Grace and Peace.” This is something Paul writes a lot in his greetings, and I read that Grace is a Hellenistic or Greek style of greeting, and Peace, “Shalom” is a Jewish style of greeting, so when Paul writes Grace and Peace, he is writing to two audiences. But both Grace and Peace point to Jesus as well. So after Paul’s greeting he starts to write to the church
4 I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 5 For in him you have been enriched in every way―with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge― 6 God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. 7 Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. 8 He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
He begins his letter with a very complimentary tone. He says he is so thankful to God for them. On the surface it seems nice, but what is he thankful for? He’s thankful because God’s Grace was given to them, in Christ Jesus. You don’t have to look too far to see that the compliment and focus is not primarily about them, but it’s about God. In Verse 5 Paul is a little more specific. These people were very skilled. They were proud and strong that they were enriched with All kinds of Speech, and all knowledge. But the source of those skills and riches? In HIM you have been enriched. Verse 7. Therefore, since you were enriched by God, you do not lack any spiritual gift. Many Christians tend to think they are lacking something. I have written of this before. There are Churches out there that tend to leave their congregation thinking they are missing something. You didn’t get baptized in water yet? You haven’t spoken in tongues? You’ve never been on missions trips? You don’t memorize a new Bible verse every week? Years back, I was at a church that over time became overwhelming, because they always seemed to want more of me. I got the sense that it was never enough. Don’t get me wrong. Churches are important to help the community of believers grow, and we are called to be growing and changing Christians. But when you are in Christ, you don’t lack anything spiritual. You may have needs or be lacking physically, mentally, emotionally, or any number of other ways, but Spiritually, you lack nothing when you have Christ. Jesus Christ is Sufficient. And in verse 7 again, Paul calls these Spiritual Gifts. Not Spiritual Payments or Spiritual Wages. It’s not like, if we spend this certain number of hours in the church, and that many hours studying the Bible, then we earn a new Spiritual Badge, or level up. They are Gifts from God. Back in Verse 5. In Him, they have been enriched. That’s the passive voice. They didn’t enrich themselves. God Enriched them, through Jesus Christ. They lack nothing spiritually, if they have Jesus. He said in verse 5 they were blessed with speech and all knowledge. Are they omniscient? No, they have all knowledge necessary to understand grace and salvation. Are the Corinthians super saints that don’t need to grow anymore? Absolutely not! Keep reading the letter and you’ll see all sorts of things that they are still doing wrong.
7 Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.
So what are they supposed to do? Eagerly Wait for Jesus to be Revealed. So now that they have everything they need spiritually, God gave them every spiritual gift, speech and knowledge, what’s their job? Wait… Wait for Jesus to be Revealed. These people were proud of all sorts of qualities that they had, and Paul said, “Oh You speak well. A gift from God. You are knowledgable? Thank God for enriching you that way. What are you going to do with all those skills and gifts? Those things that you are so good at? Wait for God. The ball is in his Court. It’s his turn. Still. After you gained so much knowledge and developed your speech. Keep waiting. Don’t just twiddle your thumbs. Wait EAGERLY. This isn’t a waiting that is idle.
Years back I read a book by Jerry Bridges called the Discipline of Grace. And he uses an analogy about waiting. The waiting is kind of like a farmer waits for the crop. He plows the field, fertilizes the ground, plants the seed, waters the crop, pulls the weeds, but God makes the plant grow. The farmer can’t Make things Grow. The farmer can’t take a seed and make it grow. He can make conditions favorable for growth, but he can’t make things grow. There are always some seeds that don’t sprout. Some seed companies boast over certain percentage that will grow, but there are no guarantees that any given plant or seed will take. The farmer can do all sorts of things that tend to make seeds sprout and germinate, but there comes a point where he just has to wait. That’s similar to how our spiritual growth is.
8 He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Verse 8 is another concept that’s one of the 5 points of Calvinism, called Perseverance of the Saints. He will Keep you firm in the end. If you are His, You will persevere; so that you will be Blameless on the Day of our Lord Jesus. We are mortal, and some day, it’s guaranteed that the world will end, or at least it will end for us. This Biblical promise says that we will be “Kept Firm”- We will be Blameless on that day. Are we perfect? No. All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. We are not perfect. He uses the word Blameless, because although we aren’t righteousness, we have a righteousness that is Given to us. (Imputed upon us, or transferred into us). We aren’t just, but we are justified. We aren’t holy. But we are sanctified, or Made Holy. It’s a gift that we don’t deserve, which is the definition of Grace. We are made blameless, not because of any of the things we do or don’t do, but because of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. We are blameless, not because we don’t deserve any blame, but because Jesus has taken that blame upon himself and imputed that: Those sins and transgressions, that lawlessness and disobedience. All that was worthy of blame, he took from us and placed it upon himself, and paid the price, the wages of our sin. And because of that, we read in verse 9, God is faithful to those that he called into this fellowship with His Son. Jesus Christ, our Lord. We have fellowship with Jesus in his death and his resurrection (what we symbolically celebrate with Baptism), and we will have fellowship with Jesus for Eternity. If we have been called by God to this fellowship. This is the Gospel. We are sinful, Jesus is sinless. We should be punished. Instead He was. We should be condemned and forsaken. Instead He was. And the perfect eternity that only He deserved will be shared by those of us who believe. To understand and believe this only it’s sufficient. If you were to take away anything from this post, or the entire Bible, it’s that truth. That’s the message of the cross. From verses 10-17, Paul talks about a specific issue of division over leaders. It’s a good message but I won’t go into it today. We’ll jump ahead to verse 18
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
This message, this Gospel, this crucifixion, this is what we Christians celebrate at church every Sunday. It may seem foolish. It may seem like a fairy tale or a myth. It may seem like a waste of time. But to those of us who are being saved, that message has power. I have seen it’s effect firsthand. It is a message that changes lives and gives hope to the hopeless. It is a message that shows God’s Justice and his Mercy. It shows His wrath towards sin and His love for His people by reconciling them and forgiving them. It shows God’s forbearance and patience and his wisdom.
20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
Our wisdom can’t compare to God’s wisdom. Our strength cannot compare to God’s strength. Our righteousness or goodness can’t compare to God’s Righteousness. The problem is we humans are good at comparing things. We can figure out how to rank stuff. I am smarter than him, but dumber than her. I am stronger than her, but not as strong as that guy. I am pretty good, but not as good as Mother Teresa. I am sometimes bad, but I am no felon. It gets dangerous to compare ourselves to each other, because we can lose perspective. Some of the most prone people are the exceptional ones. I work with a lot of smart people, and it’s true what is said. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. It’s possible to be too smart for your own good. That type of person seems to think they have all the answers. I have a friend who is a really good at math and game theory; but he thinks he knows everything. The Winter Olympics came on, and they had highlights from curling. He started rambling on about how their strategy was all wrong. He watches 5 minutes of curling every 4 years, and somehow thinks his opinion on the strategy of this game is better than people who have trained their whole lives for this Olympic event. It’s a decision trap to be overconfident. Especially when our confidence is in ourselves. The Jews were confident in their Righteousness and ability to know and follow the laws. The Greeks were confident in their Wisdom. At that point in History the great military powers like Rome were confident in their strength. But our confidence is only as good as our comparison. When we compare ourselves to God, the whole idea crumbles. That’s why Paul calls the Gospel a stumbling block. All of a sudden our strength, our wisdom, our righteousness or whatever it is that we cherish fails us. We get to the foot of the cross and find ourselves lacking. It destroys our pride to realize that we need Jesus.
26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things―and the things that are not―to nullify the things that are,
God’s plan was to destroy our pride. What separates us from God is our Pride. Our Pride gives us the idea that we can rival God and take his place ourselves. Adam and Eve wanted to have His knowledge if they just ate from the tree that was forbidden. Pride and Prideful desires lead us to try and usurp God’s throne. Sin means following our own rules and desires instead of His will. And once we commit sin, Pride is what prevents us from repenting. God chooses to break down this pride by using foolish things to shame the wise, weak things to shame the strong. Compared to the Roman soldiers and centurians, Jesus looked weak, but it was God’s plan to shame the strong with the weak.
29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God―that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”
Verse 29 explains that When we truly see God for who he is, and ourselves for who we are, we have nothing to boast about. Verse 30. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus. Who is the Him? It’s because of “who” that you are in Christ Jesus? It’s not a choice you made. God made the choice to Give us Christ Jesus and elect us. Jesus Christ himself is the cause of this good that we get. It is by God’s Holy Spirit that we have an interest in any of these blessings. Where does this leave us? We Universally and Absolutely are dependent upon God and his mercy and Grace for all things that are good. God is all-sufficient, we are absolutely dependent. God’s glory is revealed in our dependence and his sufficiency. We tend to take our weaknesses and hide them, or ignore them. We try and develop them in secret so they aren’t so bad, or we will highlight our strengths and obscure the weaknesses. But being in touch with our weaknesses reminds us of our dependence upon God. Being in touch with our weaknesses allows us to see God in a greater light, because his Greatness makes our greatest strengths even seem infinitely lacking by comparison. Our greatest strength is closer to our greatest weakness than God’s awesomeness. If anyone wants to read an entire 9 page sermon about our dependence, this is a sermon written by a preacher named Jonathan Edwards. He lived in the 1700’s, so his English is kind of proper and advanced, but his sermon is worth a read.
http://www.jonathan-edwards.org/Dependence.html
Getting in touch with our weakness takes practice, and it’s something we need to hear over and over again. Paul wasn’t done writing about weakness in the first chapter of 1 Corinthians. He mentioned this many times through 1st Corinthians. And even that wasn’t enough because he had to write other letters to the Corinthians. One of them is in our Bibles too. In 2nd Corinthians he writes about a personal weakness and struggle that he was dealing with. He wrote this in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Our weaknesses remind us of our dependence on God. Our weaknesses show us that where we lack, there God will provide his Grace and his Power. Our weakness is not just “taken account of” in God’s plan for us, our weakness is a major part of God’s plan for us. Our weakness and pains can be ways God reveals himself to us. There are many ways that pain can cause restoration and renewal. Sometimes a pain, hardship, or difficulty can teach us a lesson. Sometimes, pain and hardship is a fruit of the seeds we sow. In John 9:1-3 there is a story of a blind man. Jesus was asked, “Who sinned, that this man is blind? His parents or him?” But the man wasn’t blind because his parent’s sinned, or he sinned. He was blind so that God could be glorified and the power of Jesus could be revealed to those who were present. Our pains might not have a miraculous ending or a clear answer as to why. But when we look at them correctly, we can find our absolute dependence and God’s all-sufficiency. We can turn our hardships into something that Glorifies God. Eventually we can delight in them and we can view them as Paul does and say that “When I am weak, then I am strong.”