OVERVIEW:
An appeal for unity (chapter 1); the wisdom of God versus the wisdom of this world (chapter 2); eternal building versus temporary building (chapter 3); understanding our stewardship (chapter 4); dealing with unrepentant sin (chapter 5); dealing with conflict in the body (chapter 6).
HIGHLIGHTS & INSIGHTS:
The city of Corinth was located on one of the most important east-west trade and travel routes in the Roman Empire. It was a financial center especially noted for commerce, culture, and absolute perverted corruption. Corinth was also the headquarters for the worship of Venus and for some of the mystery cults from Egypt and Asia. It was the fourth largest city in the Roman Empire.
The founding of the church at Corinth is detailed in Acts 18:1-17. The apostle Paul and his missionary team established this church, and Paul actually spent a year and half teaching and preaching in it. Yet, by the time Paul writes this letter, the church was totally operating in the flesh. In fact, Paul finds absolutely nothing for which to commend them in this entire letter! There is NOTHING this church was doing that should be used as a model in our church—or any church! They were completely messed up in their relationships with each other, their attitude toward sin, their approach to marriage, their liberty in Christ, the Lord’s Supper, exercising their spiritual gifts, and of all things, their belief in the resurrection! Surprisingly enough, even though there are no positive characteristics in this church worth emulating, there is actually an entire movement (the Charismatic Movement) that bases many of their beliefs and practices on things the Corinthian church espoused!
However, there were bigger problems in this church than just their abuse of spiritual gifts. In fact, God chose to not even address their abuse of the gifts until the end of the book (Chapters 12–14). The biggest problem this church was facing was the problem of DIVISION! Paul basically takes the entire first four chapters to address this cancer that often attacks the body of Christ. The fact that Paul addresses this subject first and more thoroughly than any of the other issues facing this church should speak volumes to us about how God feels about UNITY in His church and what issue we need to be most concerned about in our own local church. Personally, I’d rather partner for the cause of Christ with a genuine brother who mistakenly believes tongues are still for today, than to partner with a brother that uses his tongue to cause division in the local church! (See Proverbs 6:16–19.)
One of the most interesting things to note about this letter written to address so many sinful issues in the church is how many times God uses Paul to clear off a spot to speak directly to the pastors or elders of the church. We all certainly know, as the old saying goes, that “everything rises or falls on leadership” so surely it would be a quick fix to the problems in this church if Paul could just get the pastors to do their job, and exercise their spiritual authority and leadership, right? But do you know how many times Paul actually addresses the pastors of the church at Corinth in this letter? ZERO!
Now, does that mean that pastors don’t have a key responsibility in the leadership of the church, as well as the overall spiritual climate of the church? Absolutely not! It simply reveals the fact that in the body of Christ, we’re all in this thing together! All of us together are the body of Christ! Make no mistake, a pastor will most certainly give an account to God for how he led God’s people and how he provided oversight of the church. (Hebrews 13:17) However, each person will give an account for himself at the Judgment Seat of Christ! (Romans 14:12) In that day, none of us will be able to say, “Well, if my pastor would have just led/taught/preached/visited/ prayed or “whatever” better, or more than he did, I would have been different.” No, the lesson from the book of 1st Corinthians is that whether a church is operating in the flesh or in the Spirit, it is operating the way it is because of the members of the Body, not just a select few, and all of us need to shoulder the responsibility for our local church functioning according to the word of God! Each of us need to constantly be examining and judging our own lives, and what we’re actually contributing or not contributing to our own local church.
The Corinthians had written to Paul asking several questions they wanted Paul to address. (7:1) However, before Paul begins to answer those questions (beginning in chapter 7), there were other issues that the Spirit of God knew needed to be covered first. We have already mentioned the problem of division in the church that Paul dealt with in chapters 1–4. Many things are addressed in these first four chapters, but they ultimately all come back to the issue of a UNIFIED body versus a DIVIDED body. Chapter 1 and verse 10 is the clear statement of God’s will for unity in His church. It’s simply this: “Be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”
In chapter 5, Paul confronts the Corinthians about the fact that there was a man in their church that was involved in sexual sin with his father’s wife! (The way Paul words it, it is obviously his stepmother.) Rather than such a grotesque sin causing the Corinthian’s to be appalled, and even to mourn over how such an atrocity detracted from the glory of Christ in His church, they were actually bragging about it! It’s difficult enough to even fathom the depth and perversion of this man’s sin, much less to fathom the church’s perverted reaction to it! Paul is so incensed by it, he tells them that he has already passed judgment upon the man, and instructs the Corinthian’s on how they are to pass judgment upon him in a biblical manner as well. It’s interesting, in chapter 4, the Corinthian’s were casting judgment on people they SHOULDN’T. In chapter 5, they were failing to cast biblical judgment on those they SHOULD!
In chapter 6, Paul confronts the Corinthians on the fact that they were taking others within their own local body to court and suing them! Later in the chapter, he addresses other instances of sexual sin that were taking place by those in the church who professed to know Christ!
Listen folks, this was one messed church! And, as we’ll find in our reading over the next several days, we’ve really just begun to scratch the surface of their carnality! But all of this ugliness brings up something that is very beautiful and important for us to see. Notice, that before Paul begins to address the sin problems in this church (which actually begins in chapter 1 and verse 10), he takes the first nine verses to greet them. What is absolutely astounding in this passage is the words Paul uses to describe the people in this incredibly carnal and sinful church. Check this out…
In verse 2 of chapter 1, Paul refers to the Corinthians as “them that are SANCTIFIED (or holy!) in Christ Jesus.”
In verse 8 he says of them, that the Lord Jesus Christ will “CONFIRM you unto the end that you may be BLAMELESS in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
In verse 9, he refers to them as those who “were CALLED unto the fellowship of his (God’s) Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Wow! How could Paul possibly refer to such a sinful group of people as this, using such commendable terms as that?! Really? I mean, in light of the horrific things we’ve already discussed that they had allowed into their lives personally and into their church corporately, how could they possibly be referred to as “sanctified…blameless… confirmed…and called?” There is only one reason, and it is the fact that in verse 2, he says that the Corinthian’s were “in Christ”! That little phrase encompasses and encapsulates one of the most incredible spiritual realities in the entire New Testament! Because, the moment we called on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to save us, we were placed “IN CHRIST”! As we will see in Ephesians 1:4 in next week’s reading, God the Father chose that to be our standing (position) before the foundation of the world, and He did it for the simple fact that it was His desire for us to constantly be “holy and without blame before Him in love.” The only way that could ever happen (and I do mean ever!), is for God to see US the way He sees His SON! That’s exactly what it means for us to be “in Christ”! When God saved us, the Spirit of God “baptized” us INTO CHRIST, or, “placed us into” Christ (1st Corinthians 12:13), and then He sealed us with His Holy Spirit to guarantee that we will remain “IN CHRIST”, until what Ephesians 4:30 calls, “the day of redemption.” That means, we will be sealed all the way to the Rapture, which is “the day” our BODY will be “redeemed”, making it a glorified body, which is a body that is incapable of sinning!
You might be thinking, “But how can God see me as ‘holy and without blame before him in love,’ when the reality is, there are times when I am anything but ‘holy’, and I have plenty for which I can be ‘blamed’, and I’m certainly not worthy of His ‘love’?” The answer is this: the spiritual reality of being “in Christ” is what we often refer to as a POSITIONAL truth. That means that it is a spiritual placement, or a spiritual position that we have received from God, that remains constant regardless of our spiritual PRACTICE, because it is based on Christ’s merits, not our own. This is why Paul refers to these carnal and sinful believers in Corinth as “holy” and “unblameable”! It was because of their POSITION “in Christ”, not because of the actual PRACTICE of their lives! But don’t miss this… What Paul constantly does throughout his writings in the New Testament is teach us who we are “in Christ” or, “in our POSITION”, and then he sets before us the spiritual goal of seeing our PRACTICE (the actual living of our lives) match our POSITION (who God made us “in Christ”)! That is really the entire essence of the Christian life—becoming in our PRACTICE who God made us in our POSITION the day He saved us! Oh, my brothers and sisters, may that become our goal today, and every day, until we receive a glorified body “like unto His (Christ’s) glorious body”! (Philippians 3:21)