TODAY IN THE WORD

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 2:1-5
My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power. - 1 Corinthians 2:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
A kindergarten teacher wanted to understand her students’ struggle to master the fine motor skills of writing, cutting, and tying their shoes. For a period of time, she decided to use her weaker hand for all of her own fine motor tasks. She soon understood how it felt to fumble clumsily with a pair of scissors or a pencil.

In his own ministry, Paul purposefully “disadvantaged” himself for the purpose of upholding the integrity of the gospel. There were methods and means he could have used that might have arguably been more persuasive, but he made the deliberate decision not to employ them. “I resolved to know nothing . . . except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (2:2). Paul did not avail himself of the rhetorical devices he could have used to make compelling arguments about Jesus. Instead, for Paul, there was only the cross and the God-Man, Jesus.

From portraits of Paul in the book of Acts, we know that he was capable of powerful oratory. He was well-versed in the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the contemporary poetry and literature of his day. Notice his address to the scholars and philosophers of Athens in Acts 17! But Paul, for all his academic and religious training, gave up the tactics of logical persuasion and argumentation, at least in Corinth, to focus all the power of his message on the Cross. And the Cross, as we’ve seen yesterday, doesn’t fit neatly into common-sense categories.

In the culture of Corinth (and the Roman empire at this time), men were admired and esteemed for their rhetorical abilities. If one succeeded in public speaking, he earned the iconic status that movie stars and professional athletes enjoy in our day. Today, beauty and athletic ability are the currency of fame; in the Roman empire, philosophical wisdom and rhetorical eloquence were sought-after gifts. The Corinthians obviously held these in high esteem, which is why Paul would not, in his preaching, capitulate to their terms and compromise the gospel in any way.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Everything seems upside-down in the kingdom of God. Weakness is power. Humility is strength. Foolishness is wisdom. But the force behind preaching that centers on this “foolish” gospel is the Spirit’s power. When the Spirit of God animates His Word with power, there is healing, conviction of sin, and worship. There are real encounters with the living God, and in His presence everything is possible. Must we, like the Corinthians, repent of worldly values that displace our allegiance to the crucified Christ?

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 2:6-16
You have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, and revealed them to little children. - Matthew 11:25
TODAY IN THE WORD
For 1,400 years, no one knew how to read Egyptian hieroglyphics. In 1799, some of Napoleon’s troops stationed in Egypt discovered a black basalt stone slab on which were written words from three different languages: 2 were forms of hieroglyphics, one Greek. After working diligently for 14 years, French linguist Jean-Francois Champollion cracked the code and translated the hieroglyphics.

Without translators, dictionaries, or diligent study, we can’t understand another language. Today’s reading shows us that spiritual realities and truths are communicated to us in a spiritual language. These truths are unintelligible to the world. Verse 7 describes this wisdom as “hidden.” What God knows, what God purposes and plans, and what God does—all this is incomprehensible to us. The senses we’ve been given in our physical bodies to perceive the material world—our eyes, ears, and minds—can’t perceive or apprehend the realities of the gospel. The Bible speaks of the gospel as a mystery, shrouded and hidden from human eyes (cf. Rom. 16:25; Eph. 3:9; Col. 1:26). That’s why spiritual understanding relies not on human cleverness but on the willing revelation of God.

This passage identifies three gifts for believers in Christ, each connected to a member of the Trinity. First, we know that God has prepared great wonders for those who love Him (v. 9). This verse echoes Isaiah 64:4, which identifies God’s help for His people who wait for Him. Second, believers have the “mind of Christ,” which makes it possible for us to receive His instruction (v. 16). Third, we have the Holy Spirit, who acts to reveal God to us and enables us to understand spiritual truth (vv. 10-14).

This passage should provoke great soberness, humility, and joy in us. Without an active work of God, no one can grasp the gospel. The most intellectually astute might fail to understand it. Our embrace of the cross of Christ is only possible because of the work of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We can rejoice that He hasn’t abandoned us to our own wisdom, senses, and understanding.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
This passage can help us pray for those we love who do not yet know God. We can pray that the Holy Spirit will provide the spiritual discernment to understand spiritual truth. We can pray that Jesus will bestow on them the mind of Christ. And we can pray that God the Father will prepare great wonders of salvation for them. Our own humility and joy in response to our salvation is also a powerful testimony to the powerful work of the Trinity in our lives.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 3:1-4
Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. - 1 Corinthians 3:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
Recently, some Christian colleges loosened rules for how students dress and spend their leisure time. One reversed its no-dancing policy for students and no-drinking policy for faculty and staff—a long overdue decision, some supporters argued; a harbinger of moral laxity, opponents disputed.

Centuries after the church in Corinth, groups still use different criteria to evaluate spirituality. How do we preserve moral standards and a spiritual climate in our Christian communities? Some denominations value the manifestation of certain spiritual gifts to show that someone is spiritually mature. In other churches, the mastery of biblical knowledge is highly prized. For still other churches or denominations, someone is judged by how moral he is and how well he avoids certain highly visible sins.

The Corinthians judged one another by worldly standards of wisdom and eloquence and classified one another by these false categories. As Paul had argued, their standards were informed by the values of the culture, not the values of the cross. The result was factional in-fighting and attitudes of haughty superiority. Many within the church believed that they had attained a superior wisdom and spiritual standing, and this inflated their sense of self-importance.

Paul takes direct aim at their pride in the opening verses of chapter three. For those who take pride in their supposed spiritual maturity, he calls them worldly and infantile. In fact, he notes that he cannot even address them spiritually when they don’t have the spiritual maturity to understand or embrace what he says?

Paul radically redefines worldliness here. It isn’t the absence of spiritual knowledge (as the Corinthians might have thought) or moral laxity (as we tend to think). Worldliness is stubborn willfulness and inflated self-importance when it comes to matters of opinion. This attitude of pride and superiority leads to division and to jealousy. Haughty arrogance and self-certainty destroys the health of a Christian community. This is in direct contrast to the attitude of our Savior (see Phil. 2:5-11).

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
When we think about advancing in our spiritual life, we often set our sights on knowing more Scripture, serving more vigorously, and avoiding sin. And all these are good! But we also need to take inventory of our relationships. Do any of those relationships suffer from a willful pride in our heart? Do we esteem ourselves better than another? Have we valued unity in the body of Christ as much as Paul does in his letter to the Corinthians? If there are relationships in your church that you can take a step toward mending, do that today.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 3:5-17
And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. - Ephesians 2:22
TODAY IN THE WORD
Wheaton College recently hosted a panel of business leaders to discuss the topic, “Business as Mission.” They considered what it might look like to affect issues of global poverty and social injustice by establishing businesses in the poorest countries. One African man, when asked how to most effectively address the dire needs in Africa, answered, “Come and build relationships. Change happens in the context of relationship.”

His answer might not surprise us if we know a little something about African culture. It reflects the high priority Africans place on relationship and community. But it’s not the way we Americans think. We tend to prize the individual—his rights, his freedoms, and his potential.

That lens is one we have to readily acknowledge (and shed) when we come to a passage like the one we’ve read today. Paul isn’t addressing individual believers in this passage. The testing he alludes to in verses 13 through 15 isn’t the testing of one’s own individual spiritual life. The temple he refers to in verse 16 isn’t the individual body of the believer. This entire passage intends to defend the sacredness of the community of believers, the church. Paul uses three metaphors to explain this: the church as God’s field, the church as God’s building, and the church as God’s temple.

The field, the building, the temple—all belong to God. Although Paul, Apollos, and others have contributed to the work of building the church in Corinth, ultimately it’s been fully and completely the work of God. Paul planted, Apollos watered, but the church grew because God made in grow. Paul laid a foundation, others are building on that foundation, but the church stands because Jesus Christ Himself is the foundation. The church is the dwelling place of the Spirit of God, and none can destroy that temple without the judgment of God falling heavy upon him.

This means that the factions into which the church at Corinth has splintered are ridiculous. They deny the unity and sacredness of God’s church.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
How often do you think of your identity beyond individual categories? What would it look like to consider more seriously the importance of your participation in your church? Would you treat the relationships you share with your brothers and sisters as more sacred? Would you expend more energy toward building up and serving the local church of which you are a part? It is all too easy to have a consumer mentality toward church: what does it provide me? How am I growing? What different questions does the passage beckon us to ask?

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 3:18-23
It is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends. - 2 Corinthians 10:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
Beauty pageants, Disney princesses, and Barbie: in recent generations, they’ve fueled the ire of some and sparked cultural debate. The ideal of feminine beauty plastered on magazine covers and media screens seems dangerously unattainable, and considering the power of digital photo enhancement, altogether false.

The standard we use to compare ourselves matters. We judge ourselves by how we look, how smart we are, and how successful we deem ourselves to be.

What about in the church? The point that Paul makes in the final verses of chapter three is that we can’t be too careful when choosing the standard by which we judge ourselves, especially in the area of spiritual maturity.

The Corinthians had imbibed the cultural values of their day. They bought into the lie that what matters most is how eloquently one speaks and how much one knows. What mattered most in Corinthian culture was the so-called wisdom one had attained. This had created a dangerous disunity in the church. Each faction boasted of their superiority, and the church divided into “haves” and the “have-nots.”

Paul’s criticism is clear. Their self-judgment was deluded. They had been deceived. By judging themselves according to false, worldly standards, they had arrived at erroneous conclusions. They were not wise; they were fools. And if they thought themselves to be wise, they needed to cling more closely to the foolish message of the cross and to Jesus Christ, the supreme Fool.

In these final verses of chapter three, Paul inverts a popular saying of Greco-Roman philosophy of that time: “The wise man possesses all things.” It was a way of saying that wisdom, or Sophia, mattered more than anything else. Paul’s argument goes something like this: “All things are yours, but you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.” It encapsulates his whole argument of chapter three: everything belongs to God, and this truth unifies the church and defeats human pride.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
It is so easy to judge ourselves by false standards, isn’t it? The world defines our worth by our physical attractiveness, our earning power, and the success of our families. When we judge ourselves by these standards, we can be led falsely into either shame or pride. But the standard Paul sets up throughout the entire letter of 1 Corinthians is radically defined by God: we have the standard of Christ crucified, the foolish wisdom of God who is “our righteousness, holiness and redemption” (1:30).

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 4:1-7
Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. - Romans 14:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
This year, Toyota executives have been called before congressional panels to answer questions regarding the safety of their vehicles. Reports of unintended acceleration (and injuries and death) have obviously alarmed the general public, and these executives were called to give an account for their products.

All of us are accountable to someone. If we work for a company, we’re accountable to our boss. When working for the government, we’re accountable to the taxpayer. But as servants of the Christ, we’re accountable to the Lord. Paul makes the case that neither he nor any other apostle can or should be judged by the Corinthians. Later in the letter, we learn that the Corinthians were in fact second-guessing his authority and performance as an apostle (cf. 9:3). But Paul dismissed their criticism by explaining that he and the other apostles have been appointed by God and are ultimately accountable to God. No other judgment but God’s matters. The Corinthians, who think they are so wise, are not in a position to judge Paul, and Paul certainly doesn’t make it his goal to please them or curry their favor. The tone of the letter and the force of his criticisms are evidence enough of that.

Paul even disqualifies himself from the task of judging his own heart. Though his conscience is clear, he does not presume to be the final word in his own judgment. When Christ returns, He will judge. He is the arbiter of what is true. He can evaluate the motives of our hearts. And He is the only one whose commendation matters.

Again and again, Paul deals a blow to human pride and arrogance. Our ability to judge the hearts of others—even to judge our own motives completely—is flawed. Everything we have, we’ve been given by God. There is no reason for boasting of the privileges and gifts we’ve received. And there cannot be boasting before the Lord’s return, for only then will we finally know the truth of the content of our character, our conduct, and our service.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
This passage teaches us never to presume that we are fully blameless in any given situation. We can rationally analyze any situation and deduce that our methods and motives have been pure. But the truth is that we cannot with certainty understand ourselves. There are unexplored places in our hearts and minds we do not know. Peter was an example of this. “Lord, I will die with you!” he declared emphatically when only a short time later, he denied the Lord three times. Pray the words of Psalm 139:23-24 and trust God to be the judge.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 4:8-20
For Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses. . . . For when I am weak, then I am strong. - 2 Corinthians 12:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
In A.D. 155, Polycarp, the 86-year-old Christian bishop of Smyrna, was brought into the city arena where the Roman governor demanded he swear allegiance to Caesar. The crowd murderously chanted, “Death to the godless! Death to Polycarp!” Refusing to renounce Christ, Polycarp was tied to the stake, and the straw and wood kindling were doused with oil and the fire lit.

Many Christians still suffer violent persecution across the globe, and the possibility of martyrdom was real for apostles like Paul, who suffered innumerable hardships. Commitment to Christ and missionary work cost them material comfort and personal reputation. Hunger, thirst, homelessness, public ridicule—these followers paid a high price for faith in Jesus.

Contrasted with the willingness of the apostles to suffer hardship for the gospel is the Corinthians’ attitude of entitlement. They saw themselves as meriting the treatment of kings! We’ve already seen how the Corinthians had been lured into the corrupt and godless value system of the culture around them. They prized the wisdom of the world rather than the Cross. And because they saw themselves as already possessing this worldly wisdom, it had only served to inflate their self-regard. In fact, Paul notes that they are so self-satisfied that they have no hunger for the things of God (v. 8). Paul had to challenge such arrogance, and he does so by holding up as example the suffering of the apostles.

If God had meant for each of His followers to achieve the stature of kings and queens, why had He subjected the apostles to such public humiliation? In verse nine, God is compared to a victorious Roman general who parades triumphantly after battle through the city, His enemies trailing behind Him in procession. Surprisingly, those at the end of the procession aren’t the enemies of God. They are the apostles themselves! No special, privileged treatment is reserved for the apostles. Instead, they are humiliated in the worst kind of way, having become “the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world” (v. 13).

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What demands have we put on God? Do we believe that we deserve certain things from Him or that we should be exempt from hardship? Would we rather be content with the trappings of the world’s comfort and success than eagerly pursue the kingdom of God? The suffering of the apostles proves that while God is certainly good and faithful, bad things can happen to His people. In fact, the Bible promises suffering to those who want to follow Christ faithfully (2 Tim. 3:12). Our hope is that God’s strength is made perfect when we are most weak.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 5:1-13
Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? - 1 Corinthians 5:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
In recent years the Roman Catholic Church has been riddled with scandal and charged with complicity in numerous accounts of child abuse by clergy. Victims who were sexually abused as children by their priests have come forward to say that church leaders knew of the abuse and yet refused to do anything about it. Are silent church leaders any less guilty than the abusers themselves?

Paul levels a charge of complicit sin against the Corinthians in today’s reading. With the knowledge of the church, a man was still publicly enjoying an incestuous relationship with his father’s wife. It’s a grievous sin that even the pagans themselves would have disdained. The church had done nothing about it. In fact, Paul describes their attitude as arrogant (once again)!

What we have in this passage are solemn words of instruction. First, Paul wants his readers to understand what it means to be the church. The blood of the Passover Lamb, Christ, has given us a distinct identity as God’s covenant community. The moral standards to which we are held are different than the moral standards of the prevailing culture. Not only that, but the way we treat church members who compromise those standards is different than the way we would treat those outside the church.

When flagrant sin has been committed in the church, and when there has been no remorse or repentance (as seems to be the case here), the church’s first reaction should be grief (v. 2). We hardly need explosive, self-righteous tirades. We need tears. We are called to grieve the power of sin to destroy fellowship with God and the integrity of the church’s identity.

Grieve, we must, and with that sorrow we must also exclude the guilty person from our fellowship (v. 9). This is an act of hope. By handing “this man over to Satan” (v. 5), by removing him from the protection and privilege of one belonging to the church community, we pray fervently that his new vulnerability will renew a fear of God and ignite repentance.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Church discipline is rare today, probably because we’re confused about our responsibilities and the biblical commands. This case from 1 Corinthians contains several elements to guide us. First, this man’s sin was egregious; second, he was continuing in that sin publicly and shamelessly. We don’t need to be scouring each other’s lives to find places of moral failure, but when there is shameless, unrepentant, and public sin in our church, that must be dealt with. Matthew 18:15-20 gives us further instruction for this process.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 6:1-11
If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment? - 1 Corinthians 6:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 2009, Jonathan Lee Riches earned the honor in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s most litigious man: he had sued scores of people, including the coach of the New England Patriots and Martha Stewart. How did Riches handle the prestigious nomination to a world record? Why, he sued, of course.

In the United States, the most litigious nation in the world, we’re well acquainted with the subject of today’s reading: lawsuits. The Corinthians also lived in a litigious culture. There are some differences between the historical context and what should be true today. The majority of plaintiffs in the Corinthian context would have been wealthy and privileged. The judges, too, would have shared a high social status. This corrupted the legal system. court cases were a sham. Lawsuits were decided in favor of those with the most money, power, and social standing.

The Corinthians participated in this unjust system. Apparently, believers within the church were taking other believers to court. And based upon the historical evidence, the privileged and wealthy were cheating and defrauding their poorer brothers. Paul would not tolerate such behavior in the community of saints, and he gives a number of reasons why.

First, he frames the issue as an eschatological one, calling to mind eternal realities. In eternity, we will judge the angels. Can it be, then, that no believer in the Corinthian church is competent for judging disputes of “trivial matters” today? (Notice Paul’s ironic use of the word, wise, in verse 5.) Can these cases be rightly discerned by “the wicked,” those who will not inherit God’s kingdom?

The real question concerns identity. Just as in the case of flagrant sin in the church, unlawful court cases between believers compromised the church’s identity. We are God’s people, God’s family. We are brothers and sisters. Not only does this bear on our relationship in heaven, but it must impact the way we relate to each other here and now.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul challenges the Corinthian believers to be willing to suffer wrong and be cheated rather than do anything to compromise the unity and integrity of the church. Whether or not you’ve actually brought a formal lawsuit against another believer, maybe it’s true that you’ve drawn up a list of “charges” against another brother or sister. You’ve spent time enumerating the ways you’ve been wronged. You’ve tallied the offenses and declared a verdict. What might God say to you today through today’s reading?

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20
You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. - 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
TODAY IN THE WORD
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published in 1850, provoked a maelstrom of public outrage at the institution of slavery. The novel gives voice to the suffering of slaves, such as this Kentucky slave named George: “Why, now comes my master, takes me right away from my work, and my friends, and all I like, and grinds me down into the very dirt! And why? Because he says, I forgot who I was. . . . I am desperate. I’ll fight for my liberty to the last breath I breathe!”

To George, freedom was something worth dying for. And freedom is central to the gospel of Jesus. Paul preached and wrote extensively about the freedom Jesus Christ purchased for us on the cross: the freedom from sin and the freedom for restored fellowship with God. But the Corinthians had been abusing their freedom in Christ. Today’s reading brings us to the first of several examples of that abuse.

Their freedom had been used to justify sexual misconduct. It might have been that the Corinthian men were continuing in the accepted cultural practice of visiting prostitutes. But their promiscuity might also have been broader than that. The line of defense by which they had justified their actions sounds something like this: In Christ, we are free to do what we want. There is no law that forbids us these sexual pleasures. And of what consequence is it really, for do our physical bodies matter? The stomach for food, food for the stomach—and well, we know why we have our sex organs!

Paul counters their rationalizations with a theological framework. Here he seizes yet another opportunity to address the subject of identity: every Christian believer is part of the body of Christ. This isn’t merely a symbolic or mystical reality. It means that our physical bodies, every appendage, organ, and skin cell, belong to God. Our bodies do matter. They will one day be resurrected just as Jesus was raised bodily.

Do we dare join what is holy to what is defiled? Can we carelessly desecrate the dwelling place of God?

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We easily slip into Gnostic thinking, a danger many of the early Christians also faced. Gnosticism taught that the spiritual was good and the material was bad. With such a view, it would be easy to diminish the importance of the body. But this passage today clearly challenges that kind of thinking. Our bodies matter to God, and this will force us to confront a number of things in our own lives: body image, sexual behavior, eating practices, and addiction to unhealthy substances.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 7:1-24
Keeping God’s commands is what counts. - 1 Corinthians 7:19
TODAY IN THE WORD
Legalism is an ever-present danger in the church. It’s tempting to find confidence by the rules we’re keeping. Legalism confuses universal biblical truth with the preferences of any one community, and then asserts its own spiritual superiority over others not adhering to its rules and preferences.

The struggle of the Corinthians with legalism in today’s reading might seem surprising, given our earlier study of their abuse of freedom. In fact, both problems plagued this church. Someone (or some faction) in the community had reportedly been teaching that it was best for everyone, married and unmarried alike, to remain abstinent. And just a chapter earlier, Paul was forbidding the Corinthians from having gotcha146 with prostitutes! It may be that because the Corinthian community was fractured by dissent, one faction had been reveling in their “freedom” in Christ while another had been forbidding every kind of sexual activity. Notice that both extremes are rooted in a disregard for the bodies God has created.

To set the record straight about sex and marriage, Paul answers a letter that the Corinthians had written to him previously. He had been asked to either validate or refute this teaching on sex. Paul answers this way: first, gotcha146 is reserved for marriage. Second, within the confines of the marriage relationship, husbands and wives should enjoy sex frequently.

The reasons are two-fold. First, a wife’s body belongs to her husband, and the husband’s body belongs to his wife. Second, the temptation to sexual immorality is real. When husbands and wives enjoy healthy and meaningful sex in their marriage, this serves to protect them from sinfully pursuing their passions and pleasures in illicit relationships.

The key verses of today’s reading are verses 17 and 24. They explain in part how it is that we must understand and live out our identity in Christ. One godly saint echoed Paul when he said, “Our sanctification does not depend as much on changing our activities as it does on doing them for God rather than for ourselves.”

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
This weekend, take some time to think through your own identity. On a sheet of paper, make a list of the words you would use to describe yourself. When you have finished, review your words in light of what 1 Corinthians has said about our identity. Are there any attributes that you rank too highly? Do you need a stronger grasp of your membership in the body of Christ? In your prayer time, ask God to shape your understanding of your actions and attitudes as a Christian.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 7:25-40
I am saying this . . . that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord. - 1 Corinthians 7:35
TODAY IN THE WORD
The movie, The Bucket List, is the story of the unlikely friendship between two men, one a corporate executive, the other an auto mechanic. They’ve landed in the same hospital room, and both are facing unwelcome diagnoses and their own mortality. But courageously and humorously, they set off together on the adventure of doing what they had both always meant to do before “kicking the bucket.” Every dream and ambition mattered now that time was short.

Paul writes with a similar kind of urgency in the second half of 1 Corinthians 7. In verse 26, he refers to “the present crisis.” In verse 29, he emphasizes, “The time is short;” and in verse 31, he concludes, “This world in its present form is passing away.” Sooner rather than later, he expects Jesus’ visible, bodily return to earth, and time is running out to tell the world about the good news. He passionately wants the church to be on a mission in the last days.

Because Paul anticipated Jesus’ imminent return, he encourages unmarried believers in the Corinthian church not to marry. As he answers their questions from the previous letter (this time about those single or betrothed but not yet married), he does so with the sole aim of securing their “undivided devotion to the Lord.” He is not, as some have argued, against marriage. He does not promote celibacy as the most spiritual of choices. But he does teach that an unmarried person is free from the distractions of a married person and more able to concern himself with the things of God.

From our vantage point, we now know what Paul did not: that Jesus would not return in his generation. That doesn’t mean, however, that the Scriptures are somehow in error. Paul even tempers the tone of this discussion with disclaimers like, “I think that it is good,” and “In my judgment.” He has reasoned that if one can choose freely not to marry, exercising self-control in the area of sexual purity, this is best. However, no one sins by choosing to marry (v. 28).

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The church can be a very difficult place for singles. They see the ideal of marriage and family promoted (as it should be), but they often feel exempt from the blessings of God. The church needs the biblical understanding provided by today’s passage. Singleness is also a gift from God! If we’re married, we should be satisfied in our situation and seek to glorify God through our marriage. And if we’re single, we can embrace the freedom and flexibility we have to serve God.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 8:1-6
Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. - 1 Corinthians 8:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
Like any major city in the Roman Empire, Corinth’s streets were lined with shrines and statues of pagan gods. Feasts in the pagan temples celebrated birthdays, weddings, and other important social events. These feasts would have been hard to avoid, especially for the wealthier members of the Corinthian church. The question the Corinthians posed to Paul in their letter was a real problem: Could they eat meat that had been used in the pagan sacrifices?

In Pauline fashion, he takes the next three chapters to answer their question fully. Based on an understanding of what happened at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, the question might have warranted a straightforward answer. There, the apostles and elders had gathered to decide whether or not the Gentile Christians should obey Jewish law and tradition. They formally decided no, but they did author a letter asking the Gentile Christians to abstain from eating of meat that had been sacrificed to idols. Apparently, they feared that this issue had the potential to divide Gentile and Jewish Christians.

In Corinth, the church was pre-dominantly Gentile, but the issue of eating idol meat was still divisive. One side touted their own position: idols are nothing; consequently, eating idol meat is also nothing. Paul seems to agree with them on the matter of whether it was sinful to eat the meat, but he was concerned about a deeper issue in the church. Rather than delivering a simple black-and-white decision, Paul challenged the attitude of arrogance he saw fueling this debate.

As they have on other issues, the community has fallen into the trap of valuing what they know over and above everything else. Knowledge has trumped Christian character, and Paul wants to reorient them towards the priority of love. His reasoning goes something like this: You can know something, but if you have used that knowledge to become proud, you have missed what is most important. Pride is the evidence you failed to know love, which is what really counts in God’s economy. Whether they ate or didn’t eat the meat was less important than how they treated their fellow believers.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul is building towards the climax of his letter in chapter 13 where he describes what Christian love looks like. His teaching on love echoes some of the last words of Jesus: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). Consider the spiritual practices of your life. Are you simply seeking more knowledge? Or do you desire to become more loving? Humbly ask someone who’s known you a long time whether he or she sees you growing in your ability to love.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 8:7-13
When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. - 1 Corinthians 8:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
The language of rights is woven into the fabric of American identity. Our Declaration of Independence asserts inalienable human rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our Constitution offers a Bill of Rights, guaranteeing freedom of speech, religion, and the press. Valuing freedom has been central to being American.

Our readings the next few days will explore the subject of “freedom” within the context of Christian community. Paul intends to show us that there will be occasions where we’re called to forfeit certain rights in deference to another believer. The opening of chapter eight launches us into the question of whether or not it is permissible to eat meat that has been sacrificed to idols. A certain faction of the Corinthian church proudly claimed to have the answer. They are “free” to eat meat sacrificed to idols. With such knowledge, they have acted in careless disregard to their brothers and sisters. They boldly attended public feasts in the pagan temples, and their actions have emboldened the “weaker” believers to compromise their conscience and follow suit.

On the one hand, these “stronger” believers have reasoned correctly: idols are nothing. Eating meal offered to idols was morally neutral ground. But this did not acquit them—there was more to this question than simple definitions of right and wrong. Paul is clear. Freedom and knowledge are not to be prized and protected above anything else. Indeed, the “strong” must lay down their freedoms for the purpose of protecting the unity of the community and the spiritual health of each of its members, especially the “weak.” In the process of reasoning out the answer to the question of eating idol meat, the Corinthians overvalued knowledge and neglected love.

Disunity, factions, and pride had impaired the church in Corinth. They threatened the integrity of the gospel and the message of the Cross. And now, Paul raises this issue of unity to even higher stakes. When we sin against one another, we sin against Christ.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul is not saying in this passage that each of us must be bound by the conscience of every member of our church. Consider the difficulty and impracticality of having to understand all the varying (and conflicting!) convictions held by even a small group of believers. Paul challenged the Corinthians’ behavior, not because they had disagreed, but because the stronger brothers flouted their freedoms and “emboldened” the weaker brothers to sin. “Make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way” (Rom. 14:13).

[Soldier4Christ]

Stewardship Strength
August 18, 2010
 
"Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied." (1 Samuel 17:45)
 
Our Lord Jesus taught us to expect ongoing instability until He returned (Matthew 24:6). Sometimes, it seems, we must be reminded by circumstances that this world is not our home!
 
Psalm 2 is a rather important perspective for God's people to keep in mind. Physical circumstances often seem rather bleak, and the "bad guys" seem to have it their way much of the time (Psalm 73). But we are continually reminded that their apparent success should not trouble us (Psalm 37:1; Proverbs 3:31-34; etc.), for "he that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision" (Psalm 2:4).
 
"For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).
 
This verse encourages the ministry of the Institute for Creation Research. We see ourselves as fighting the "imaginations" and the "strong holds" of those who would dare to set themselves against the authority of Scripture and the evidence of the Creator and His creation. The Western world has embraced the anti-God and anti-gospel message of evolutionary naturalism as its religion. ICR wages spiritual warfare against that terrible lie. The battle is very specialized in our world today. God has brought dedicated "warriors" to ICR to engage the enemy, and we invite you to join us in that mission with your support and intercessory prayer. HMM III