TODAY IN THE WORD

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 9:15-27
I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. - 1 Corinthians 9:22
TODAY IN THE WORD
When Amy Carmichael began her missionary assignment in Japan, she insisted on wearing traditional Victorian dress: multiple petticoats, stockings, laced-up shoes, and a bonnet. But one day, bundled up in her thick woolen coat and her fur gloves, she made a visit to an older Japanese woman with the intention of sharing the gospel. The woman paid no attention to the message Amy shared. She was distracted by the curious gloves that Amy wore. Amy wept on her way home, saying, “Never again will I risk so much for so little! She traded her lace petticoats for a kimono.

Both Amy Carmichael and Paul are in a long line of missionaries who made these cultural choices about how they will live and behave in foreign contexts. The question prominent in the apostle Paul’s mind was, “Will what I choose advance or hinder the gospel?” He was committed to spreading the gospel and refused to make any choice that might cause someone to reject Christ on the grounds of his personal behavior.

First, he chose not to receive financial support from the Corinthian churches. Other churches did in fact give Paul money, but in Corinth he refused such support. His reasons may have been to avoid either being accused of greed (which characterized certain philosophers in Corinth) or of losing the independence of thought and action he had, were he to depend on either the church or a handful of wealthy patrons. Instead, he worked his day job, making tents. He had the right to earn his living from his ministry, but Paul determined to offer the gospel free of charge.

Not only did Paul forfeit his salary for the sake of the gospel, he forfeited other rights and freedoms, humbling himself to win as many converts to Christ as he can. As a minister to the Gentiles, he no longer subjected himself to the constraints of Judaism. And yet, when it was required of him to make adaptations so as not to offend a Jewish audience, he did so (cf. Acts 21:17-26).

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul showed tremendous flexibility in his choices. He did not abandon faithfulness to Christ, but he was able to discern which issues mattered and which didn’t. He asked the same of the Corinthians, especially when it came to eating meat sacrificed to idols. Some might accuse Paul of relativism, but Paul isn’t teaching that moral choices don’t matter. He demonstrated that love for Christ and others is more important than rights and preferences. Do we have such a disciplined commitment to Christ, which advances the gospel?

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 10:1-22
I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God. - Exodus 20:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
Judaism is a religion where meals have always mattered. The Passover Seder is a ritual meal commemorating the deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. The tithes, which God commanded His people to bring to the temple, were consumed as meals in the presence of God (cf. Deut. 14:23). Christians, having inherited a rich tradition of meal-sharing from their Jewish forefathers, now celebrate Christ’s death and resurrection through the Lord’s Supper.

In today’s reading, Paul draws parallels between the story of the Israelites and the experiences of the first-century Gentile Christians of Corinth. Not only is Paul teaching the content of the Old Testament Scriptures to the Corinthians, he also introduces a method for reading those Scriptures, whereby the Corinthian Christians are invited to find themselves in the history of Israel. While theirs is not a shared ethnic heritage (the Christians in Corinth are Gentile, not Jewish), spiritually they share the same ancestry. What happened to the Israelites serves as examples and warnings to Christians of the first century and to Christians today.

The parallels between the generation of the Exodus and first-century Corinthian Christians are unmistakable: both shared experiences of spiritual privilege. The Israelites tasted the divine Presence, drank spiritual drink from the rock in the desert, ate bread from heaven, and were baptized under the leadership of Moses. Similarly, the Corinthians had the blessings of baptism and participation in the Lord’s Supper. Nevertheless, just as the Israelites suffered the fierce wrath of God for their idolatrous practices, so, too, the Corinthian Christians needed to tremble at the prospect of God’s judgment.

God would not tolerate divided allegiance, and the Corinthians were on the precipice of idolatry. Paul warns them against sexual immorality, testing the Lord, and grumbling (vv. 8-9). Later in the chapter, Paul will denounce the act of feasting in pagan temples. For now, he illuminates their precarious spiritual standing. Their pride has given them a false sense of confidence, and Paul illuminates the Old Testament Scriptures as a word of warning.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The Corinthians lived in a pluralistic culture, just as we do. The word Paul speaks to them is relevant today. In what ways do we compromise our allegiance to God? Do we participate in idolatrous practices? We might want to consider our culture’s gods of sex, money, and power. Where have we casually shared fellowship with these gods? And what would uncompromised obedience to God look like in a culture like ours?

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 10:23-33
Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. - 1 Corinthians 11:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the past few decades, American churches have staked out positions on whether women could wear pants, whether drums or hand-held microphones could be used in worship services, whether Christian parents could send their children to public schools, and whether only the King James Version of the Bible could be used. Since the first century, the church in every time and place has had particular cultural issues that have prompted strenuous disagreement.

In today’s passage, Paul quotes Psalm 24:1: “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it” (v. 26). One issue dividing the Corinthian church concerned eating meat that had been offered to idols. Rather than characterize the issue as right and wrong, Paul provides an explanation for both the strong and the weak positions.

On a certain level, Paul agrees with the strong. They’ve been arguing that eating idol meat is ultimately meaningless since idols themselves are nothing. Yes, Paul says, the earth is the Lord’s. Everything belongs to Him. As long as we eat and drink with thankfulness, we are free to enjoy all that God has created and should not be denounced for the exercise of this freedom.

Paul doesn’t close the argument there, however. He is careful to retrace some ground, tempering the freedom of the strong for the protection of the weak. To the strong, he warns: don’t exercise your freedom in such a way that you cause a brother or sister to fall into sin. Don’t just think of yourselves, as if your rights and your freedoms were all that mattered. Think about the good of others. Does your freedom build them up or tear them down?

The way for the church to navigate these questions of conscience isn’t simply to determine what’s absolutely right and what’s emphatically wrong. For a Christian, Paul is quite clear that we’ve got extensive freedom. God invites us to enjoy His good creation. They key, however, is to always think of others first instead of ourselves. Our highest calling is love.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul’s given us a series of questions to ask in ambiguous situations. Going beyond the question of right and wrong, we can ask: How does this affect my brothers and sisters in Christ? Does it offend them and cause them to fall into sin? Does it burden them with regulations beyond the truth of Scripture? How does this affect God’s reputation? Does it ultimately glorify Him? And does this serve to advance the gospel? We must remember the example of Christ, who forfeited His rights for the good of others (see 1 Cor. 11:1).

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 11:1-16
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. - 1 Corinthians 10:31
TODAY IN THE WORD
Augustine St. Clare, a Louisiana slaveholder in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, claims he’s not religious. He’s cynical about religion, since preachers defend the institution of slavery from the pulpit. “Well, suppose that something should bring down the price of cotton once and forever . . . don’t you think we should soon have another version of the Scripture doctrine?”

Has each generation simply sought to interpret the Scriptures in such a way as to favor what we already want, and then to silence it should it challenge something we cherish? Today’s passage is difficult to interpret, and the temptation might be to qualify what Paul says in the opening verses of 1 Corinthians 11 as entirely cultural and in effect, dismiss what he is saying.

Without denying the text’s complexities, we can begin with what is clear in today’s passage. First, on the basis of the creation account as well as the dynamic of the marriage relationship, Paul explains that gender distinction does in fact matter. And though men and women are different, they are still interdependent. Neither inherently occupies a more important role in the church. In fact, Paul does not challenge here the practice of women praying and prophesying in the church. He wants to ensure, however, that they do so in suitable and seemly ways.

Women whose heads are uncovered while they pray (the original Greek language here suggests not that she lacks an actual veil but that her hair falls loosely on her shoulders) would resemble women praying in the pagan temples, where they did so with their hair unbound. This actually had serious implications, because women whose hair was not bound up might be mistaken for the equivalent of temple prostitutes. Thus, the discussion here about head coverings is consistent with the earlier exhortations regarding sexual immorality and Christian freedom.

Just as he has in many other places in his letter, Paul is identifying the church as unique and separate from the world. The preservation of that identity matters for the integrity of the gospel.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
C. S. Lewis once noted that Christians need to distinguish between social and cultural norms that change in different times and places (he gave the example of modesty in Victorian England and the Polynesian Islands) and biblical principles that are true in all times and places (for example, chastity). Are you able to tell the difference between a principle and a preference? Are you willing to give up a preference for the sake of church unity and the advancement of the gospel?

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 11:17-33
Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body. - Ephesians 4:3-4
TODAY IN THE WORD
The Lord’s Supper, or Eucharist, is observed in many different ways in various church traditions, but one point upon which all Christians agree is its special significance. One theologian noted that in Jesus’ final moments with His disciples, He did not impart theory to them, but instead, gave them a meal. In the Lord’s Supper, we have a picture of redemption: Jesus, Son of God, is the bread of life who was broken for the sins of the world. We remember His life and death in a very earthly sort of way: at the table.

The Lord’s Supper in the times of the early Christians was celebrated as a communal meal. In the case of the Corinthians, this is exactly where the problems emerged. In Roman culture (and Corinth was a Roman colony), social conventions dictated that those of highest rank and social standing should be served the largest portions and better quality food. Instead of challenging those social conventions, the Corinthians capitulated to them. (They’ve been guilty before of accepting wholesale the messages of culture rather than reinterpreting their worldview according to the gospel. See August 3, 10, 11, 12.)

As the Corinthian Christians gathered for the Lord’s Supper, the rich were humiliating the poor by not sharing their food with them. The divisions in the church (which Paul has been boldly confronting throughout his entire letter) were falling along socioeconomic lines. The situation was so dire that Paul says their worship gatherings do more harm than good. They would be better off staying at home!

Paul brings them back to the gospel, to the message of Jesus Christ crucified. The new covenant community is called to unity and to selfless sacrifice, following in the footsteps of their Lord. The Lord’s Supper is an occasion for remembering and reflecting on their call to live as the body of Christ. To “recognize the body of the Lord” has a double meaning: first, we acknowledge the sacrifice of our Savior. Second, we recognize that we are part of His body, the church, in the practice of participating in the Lord’s Supper.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
On a personal level, each of us must try to reconcile our grievances with one another in our local community before we eat the Lord’s Supper. But on a more global level, the Lord’s Supper is also an invitation to think of other brothers and sisters in Christ in poorer parts of the world whose burden we are called to share. We must not be like the Corinthians, wallowing in our affluence without thought to Christians in distress. Could the Lord’s Supper provoke in us greater generosity to those in need around the globe?

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11
Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. - 1 Corinthians 12:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
In his 2006 book, The Blind Side, Michael Lewis examines the hidden heroes of football. For example, the virtually unknown players at the left tackle position are some of the highest paid players on the team. It’s their job to defend the blind side of the quarterback. The offense depends on their strength and agility. The left tackle doesn’t get the acclaim the quarterback does, but he’s arguably just as important.

To carry the team analogy further, the church is made up of all kinds of players: quarterbacks, running backs, offensive linemen, and kickers. Just as Paul teaches here in the first verses of chapter 12, the community of believers is a wide assortment of people whose gifts and service are equally as diverse. In the Corinthian church, there is clear confusion on the matter of spiritual gifts, and Paul dedicates the next three chapters of his letter to answering questions the Corinthians have posed to him on the subject.

The Corinthians have some fundamental misconceptions about spiritual gifts, which Paul must address. They had elevated certain gifts above others, most notably the gift of tongues (cf. 1 Corinthians 14). And no doubt those with the gift of tongues were boasting of some spiritual privilege and position. Perhaps they had even come to doubt that all members of the community were indwelt by the Spirit and endowed with gifts from Him.

From the beginning, Paul wants to establish why and by whom the gifts are given. Spiritual gifts are given by the Holy Spirit, and everyone who confesses the lordship of Christ has the Spirit. Nothing more is required to demonstrate the indwelling of the Spirit—no spectacular or miraculous manifestation. Every believer has a spiritual gift, and the gifts differ in expression. The list, which Paul gives in our reading, is not meant to be exhaustive. Rather, it’s to confirm the point that spiritual gifts are diverse! And the purpose for spiritual gifts is that their exercise would enhance the common good, not simply to feel important or good about ourselves.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Each believer has been given an ability from God to help others and to proclaim the lordship of Jesus Christ. Not all will preach or teach, but everyone has the capacity for influencing the lives of others for good and for reflecting the glorious body of Jesus Christ. Are you exercising your gift to help the church and bring glory to God? Or do you doubt that you are one of the “gifted” Christians? Numerous inventories for discovering your spiritual gift exist, but a good place to start is by asking trusted Christian friends what gifts they observe in your life.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31
If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. - 1 Corinthians 12:26
TODAY IN THE WORD
The church in Haiti was not destroyed when the buildings collapsed in the January 12 earthquake. Gersan Valcin, pastor of a church in Port-au-Prince, was visiting one of his church members when a destitute woman approached whose shoes had fallen apart. The church member took off her own shoes—the only pair she owned—and gave them to the woman, who still had many miles to travel.

Here is a picture of the kind of actions and attitudes to which Paul calls the Corinthians in verse 26 of our reading today. As the church of God, we must compassionately identify with those among us who hurt. Moreover, when members of our body are honored, we celebrate together. This isn’t mere sympathy or polite applause. With the kind of a radical unity in the body of Christ that Paul has been urging, we actually feel for one another. As followers of Jesus, we become like Him and take on each other’s pain and celebration in an incarnational way. In Christ, our stories and our lives really matter to others.

We can see what Paul is doing as he answers the questions the Corinthians have posed to him on the subject of spiritual gifts. He’s using his answer as an occasion to retrace some of his themes of the letter. We must remember that the fundamental problem the Corinthian church faced was its disunity. The disunity has expressed itself in multiple ways: believers had taken one another to court, the community had divided over the issue of whether one can eat meat sacrificed to idols, factions developed between sexual immorality and sexual asceticism, and the Lord’s Supper had become another occasion of the rich shaming the poor. Spiritual gifts were another arena where the Corinthians had despised one another.

Paul teaches that every member of the body is indispensable. We cannot do without what might seem to be the weakest of our members. As infinitely complex and beautiful as the human body, the diversity of the church is there by God’s creative design.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Seminary president in Port-au-Prince, Jean Dorlus, spoke of the cooperation between Americans and Haitians in the relief and rebuilding efforts in the wake of the earthquake. For all the praise he offered, he also noted, “Oh, Americans—they would be almost perfect people except for one thing: if they would listen!” His words challenge us to remember that as the body of Christ, in order to function in a healthy way, we’ve got to listen to one another. Real listening is the prerequisite for real compassion and unity.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. - 1 John 3:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
William Wilberforce, one of the more well-known members of the Clapham Sect, worked tirelessly in Parliament to abolish the British slave trade. But it was Hannah More, a lesser known member, who wrote this on the subject of notable Christian service: “We are apt to mistake our vocation by looking out of the way for occasions to exercise rare and great virtues, and by stepping over the ordinary ones that lie directly in the road before us.”

This notion is at the heart of Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 13. What matters most isn’t always our greatest achievements, spiritual or otherwise. When considered in the light of what will endure, all of the spiritual gifts, whether tongues or knowledge (which the Corinthians esteemed) or prophecy (which Paul valued), have secondary importance. What matters most is that we’ve acted for love and in love. Love will be the final criterion for our spiritual lives. And love is what will distinguish the Christian life and community.

We must remember that Paul wasn’t waxing eloquent on the theme of love for the purposes of poetry. 1 Corinthians 13, before it became a common passage to be used in weddings, was included in a letter to a church whose sins of pride and arrogance, whose misuse and misunderstanding of spiritual gifts, and whose socioeconomic differences had become sources of division. Paul hasn’t pushed the pause button on his main themes of his letter, but in this chapter, he gives feet to the character of love. It is the force that he knows can unify the Corinthian community.

When the Corinthians decide to love, the factional infighting and envious quarreling in the community will end (cf. 1:11, 3:3). When the Corinthians begin to love, the exercise of spiritual gifts will build up, rather than divide, the community. When the Corinthians consider controversial questions of Christian faith and practice, and when love governs that discussion, the unity of thought and mind to which Paul first called them will be realized (1:10).

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Love can heal what pride has injured. It can bind up the places where we’ve been wounded and where trust has eroded. In a commentary on 1 Corinthians, one New Testament scholar says, “Love requires the formation of character.” He means to highlight that what Paul has described in this chapter isn’t necessarily how we feel love for others but how we show love. To love is to need a radical inner transformation. To love is to depend on Christ, whose example defines for us what love is (1 John 3:16).

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 14:1-25
Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church. - 1 Corinthians 14:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 2010, Chinese authorities undertook a massive campaign to correct thousands of signs in English. A sign that should read, “Caution! Floor is slippery!” instead declared, “Slip and fall down carefully!” “No Smorking!” signs abounded to ban cigarette smoking in certain areas. Instead of “Keep off the grass!” a sign exhorted: “Please don’t disturb me. I am sleeping and will feel pain.” American companies trying to market their products in Chinese haven’t always fared any better. KFC’s “finger-lickin’ good” slogan was translated as “eat your fingers off.” And the original attempt to translate Coca-Cola into Chinese was rendered, “Bite the wax tadpole.”

Cultural miscommunication between speakers of different languages is how Paul describes what was happening in the church of Corinth. The Corinthians were speaking in tongues in their public worship gatherings, but as their speech was unintelligible to one another, it did not benefit the community. Because of the overemphasis on tongues (and what might have been a neglect of gifts like prophecy), their worship gatherings hummed with a noise like a hack with a clarinet to his lips or the muffled bugle call on the battlefront. They don’t promote the encouragement and instruction of the believers.

Paul is not sidelining the gift of tongues. He is not faulting the Corinthians for having the gift or even wanting it. He speaks in tongues and recognizes the value of tongues for one’s personal edification. But he is reminding them of the purpose of spiritual gifts and how they are to function in the public worship assembly. The Corinthians should never use their gifts, especially not tongues, to inflate their own self-importance or to draw more attention to themselves during corporate worship.

Spiritual gifts are given for the common good, and when the community gathers, priority should be given to the gift of prophecy (and presumably, other gifts, such as knowledge and teaching, v. 6). The exercise of spiritual gifts should always have the intent to build up the church.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul’s teaching to the Corinthians challenges us in a relevant way today. How eager are we to have spiritual gifts and use them? The implication is that our gifts are not static. It isn’t as if the spiritual gifts we receive when we’re first converted are the only gifts we’ll ever have. The text invites us to consider prayerfully asking God to endow us with spiritual gifts. With faith and a desire to build up the church, we must seek God and trust Him to use us in the body of Christ as His servants.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 14:26-40
All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. - 1 Corinthians 14:26
TODAY IN THE WORD
With social networking sites and the ubiquity of Internet access, churches and pastors are exploring how to use these technologies to reach their communities. Craig Groeschel, senior pastor of LifeChurch.tv, a cyber church, admits, “We were blown away at how people could actually worship along [online]. The whole family will gather around the computer, and they’ll sing and worship together. Instead of trying to get people to come to a church, we feel like we can take a church to them.”

Would Paul endorse replacing the physical gathering of the body of believers with a virtual church experience from one’s smart phone? From our study of 1 Corinthians, the answer is arguably “no.” Of course the Corinthians weren’t tempted to do church via iPhone, but they did struggle to understand our corporate identity as the people of God. We haven’t always understood why it is that the church exists and why it is that we gather each week for worship. The Corinthians treated the worship gathering as a place to showcase their spiritual gifts. We often look for the feel-good experience of church. Both attitudes fail to see that God meant for us to seek not to be strengthened, but to strengthen when we gather.

Paul’s summary comments are offered in today’s reading. The believers should gather together to hear from God’s Word and to speak to God through prayer and praise. They are called to be expectant and eager to witness the spontaneous movement of the Spirit of God for the purpose of the common good. While there’s freedom in the gatherings (it’s unlikely that they had bulletins outlining exactly what would be said and when), nevertheless, there are restrictions put in place. These restrictions, such as forbidding more than one person from talking at a time or requiring interpretation for a person speaking in tongues, do not restrain the Spirit but promote order.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What is your attitude toward Sunday gatherings at your church? Do you hope for inspirational music and a message with rhetorical flourish? Do you intend to socialize with your friends? None of these things are inherently wrong, but they can distract us from more important things. How are you serving others in the church? Are you eager to join with believers to praise God? Spend time today in prayer for your church service tomorrow, that the members will be unified in using their gifts together to worship the Lord and build up one another.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 15:1-34
Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful. - Hebrews 12:28
TODAY IN THE WORD
For the sake of the gospel, missionaries like John and Betty Stam and Nate Saint gave their lives to share Jesus with people who had not heard of Him. For the sake of the gospel, D. L. Moody gave up a lucrative business career to reach the urban poor and marginalized with the message of salvation. For the sake of the gospel, thousands of unheralded Christians have ministered in prisons, taught Sunday school to unruly children, adopted orphans, given up vacations in order to participate in mission trips, or worked to free people from the bonds of slavery.

What is this gospel, that could compel people to action like this? As Paul nears the end of his letter, he returns to what is the fundamental issue at hand, the very theme with which he began: the gospel. In chapter 15, Paul defines what the gospel is and what its implications are for the Corinthians and indeed, for all believers.

In verses 3 through 5, Paul is citing what may be one of the earliest of Christian creeds. It announces that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and then raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are the cataclysmic events of history. They have fulfilled the story God began with the nation of Israel, which He has carefully recorded in the Scriptures. The gospel is both an Old and New Testament story of God’s person and work with His people.

The gospel isn’t just a story rooted in past events. The gospel provides an expectant hope for what is to come. Jesus, having died for our sins and been raised, now lives to destroy the enemies of God. God’s kingdom will finally and fully come through Jesus at the end of time. Our bodily resurrection is a witness to this future redemption of the world.

Because of the salvation secured by Christ and verified through the resurrection, we are compelled to act. As we share the news about Jesus with others, we are participating in God’s promise to renew all creation.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Some people like to force a divide between doctrine and doing—and then emphasize whichever element they prefer as most important. But theology and practical ministry can’t be split apart; they inform each other. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is full of the connections between sound theology and life together in the church. The ability to know God and the ability to serve others are both rooted in the truth and power of the gospel, the message of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 15:35-58
There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away! - Revelation 21:4
TODAY IN THE WORD
In his book, A Grace Disguised, Gerald Sittser describes his journey of grief. In one tragic car accident, he lost his wife, his mother, and his youngest daughter. The book offers no easy answers about the problem of suffering. As hopeful as the book is, it’s also honest about loss. Sittser admits, “We recover from broken limbs, not amputations.” Through the pain, Sittser holds onto the hope of the gospel: “The Easter story tells us that the last chapter of the human story is not death but life.”

Sittser’s book offers a thoroughly Christian view of death, the only view that makes sense of the hope of resurrection. In order to fully appreciate the doctrine of the bodily resurrection of believers (a doctrine the Corinthian believers had failed to understand), we’ve got to face the reality of death in all of its horror. Death is our bitter enemy. It robs, and it destroys. It is the cruel weapon of Satan himself, whose every ambition it is to plunder the goodness of God’s creation and destroy life.

It’s the resurrection of our bodies and the redemption of all creation, which shouts the joyful chorus that Christ has won! He has defeated Satan! War, disease, starvation, decay—the fiercest weapons of the enemy will be destroyed on the day when Jesus returns to earth, and all believers are given new bodies, spiritual bodies.

Whereas the philosophers in the time of the Corinthians conceived of enlightened spirituality as the state of the soul escaping the body, the Christian doctrine of resurrection affirms the goodness of the body. In the resurrection, our souls don’t escape to heaven in a disembodied form. We will put on a new body of a different sort: imperishable, immortal, strong, and glorious.

The doctrine of resurrection fuels our energy for obeying and serving Christ in this life. Because of the resurrection of Christ and the promise of the resurrection of our own bodies, we do not believe or hope in vain.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Perhaps you’ve recently had someone close to you die, and you’ve struggled with the anger you’ve felt as a result. Maybe even your anger has been directed toward God. This passage of 1 Corinthians 15 tells us it’s perfectly appropriate to be angry about death. It is not God’s good plan for His creation! But death is not the final word; it will once and for all be destroyed. The resurrection of Christ guarantees it. If you are comforting a friend who’s grieving the death of a loved one, comfort them with the hope of the resurrection!

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 16:1-24
My love to all of you in Christ Jesus. - 1 Corinthians 16:24
TODAY IN THE WORD
John Adams and his wife, Abigail Adams, wrote over 1,100 letters to each other during the period of their courtship and John’s political career. Their correspondence is rich with the details of the turbulent times leading up to the Revolutionary War and the infancy of the American democracy. Their letters have provided historians with information about the political happenings of the day as well as the ordinary routines and concerns of the American family at that time.

A letter is a fascinating window into the world of someone else. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians provides such a window. Reading the Corinthians’ mail, we start to understand what it must have been like to belong to this newly converted Gentile community. There was still confusion about the fundamental truths of the gospel. They continued to puzzle over questions of Christian life and practice. The pagan philosophies of their day held sway over their moral and spiritual imaginations. We know now why Paul several times compared them to immature children!

For all their abundance of spiritual gifts and direct contact with Paul, we have blessings today that the Corinthians didn’t. For instance, the Scriptures were still being written in their generation, and their teaching was sporadic at best, relying upon correspondence with Paul (1 Corinthians may have been the second of a three-letter exchange) and the frequency of his visits (infrequent, we infer from chapter 16). Before we judge this church too harshly and revel in our own superiority, we should note that we continue to struggle with some of the same issues in the 21st century.

Paul ends the letter like he started it. After all the time spent to correct and rebuke them, he now affirms his confidence in them. God’s grace in their lives will prevail, despite their many serious problems. He returns to the theme of love in chapter 16. He urges the Corinthians to do all that they do in love and to express that love in tangible ways to one another. He affirms his love for them in an intensely personal way, writing the words in his own hand.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
First Corinthians 16 may seem like a laundry list of last-minute afterthoughts from Paul. He discusses travel plans. He arranges for the collection of an offering promised beforehand for the poor in Jerusalem. He affirms the ministry of Timothy and Stephanas. But one important conclusion we draw from this chapter is the attention to the interconnectedness of the church throughout Asia: from Ephesus, to Jerusalem, to Galatia, and to Corinth, they were all brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. “There is one body . . . and one Lord” (Eph. 4:4, 5).

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Jonah 1:1-2
The word of the LORD came to Jonah. - Jonah 1:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created a kind of robot fish. Made from a soft polymer and looking something like a trout, these “robofish” imitate the movements of real fish. They can be released into any body of water, which they then proceed to map and measure, thanks to their electronic brains. Their software also enables them to gather data on pollution, oil spills, and other undersea phenomena. The U.S. Navy is among those interested in the robot fish, which are relatively inexpensive at just a few hundred dollars each.

Talk about a good “fish story”! The book of Jonah doesn’t include robots, but it is definitely the best “fish story” in the Bible. This month’s devotional study covers Jonah as well as two other “minor” (meaning short in written length) prophets, Nahum and Haggai. Jonah ministered during the reign of Jeroboam II (793-753 B.C.), perhaps beginning around 760 B.C. His hometown was Gath Hepher, northeast of Nazareth and about 500 miles from the

Assyrian city of Nineveh (2 Kings 14:25). God sent Jonah on a mission to that foreign city around the same time as Amos and Hosea were warning the northern kingdom of Israel of impending judgment for pride and idolatry.

The book of Jonah is a historical narrative and more closely resembles the stories of Elijah and Elisha than it does the oracles and visions found in other prophetic books. Jonah is also unusual in that it focuses on a foreign nation. This should not surprise us, however, since God’s care and plan for the nations is evident throughout Scripture. Part of the meaning of this story, in fact, is Jonah’s need to repent of his sinfully limited perspective on God’s love. The Literary Study Bible identifies the main genre of this book as satire, that is, “the exposure of human vice or folly.” In this sense, the book is not so much about the repentance of Nineveh as it is about a certain foolish prophet. Other key themes of the book include mercy, sovereignty, and obedience.

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
God loves all peoples and all nations. Adam and Eve were not the ancestors of one nation, but of all humanity. The Lord promised Abraham not just that he would thrive but that “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Gen. 12:3). In his vision, John saw “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9). How incredible that we are part of His plan for the world!

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Read: Jonah 1:3-10
Jonah ran away from the LORD. - Jonah 1:3
TODAY IN THE WORD
Scientists studying the migration patterns of purple martins and wood thrushes recently found that these small birds can fly more than 300 miles per day. Tiny devices called “geolocators” were attached to the birds’ backs to enable the researchers to track them from northwestern Pennsylvania to Central and South America and back. They also found that these birds returned north at least twice as fast as they migrated south, perhaps due to the pressing need to find a mate and build a nest.

Like these birds, the prophet Jonah was determined to cover some serious distance. He wanted to run as far and fast away as he could from God’s command and the city of Nineveh. This was obviously a sinful choice. But what motivated his disobedience? It seems that a kind of ethnocentric jealousy or misplaced national loyalty was at work in his heart. Under Jeroboam II, during the time Jonah ministered, the boundaries of Israel expanded nearly to those under Solomon. Jonah may have hoped a period of national blessing was beginning. In that case, he would have welcomed the idea of God judging Nineveh and would have been very resistant to bringing God’s message—which he accurately understood as not only threatening judgment but also offering mercy (4:2)—to Israel’s chief enemy, Assyria. In short, Jonah refused to accept that God loved Nineveh and fled from God’s call to be the messenger of His love.

Jonah headed for Tarshish, which was in the opposite direction and about as far away as one could get from Nineveh. As a prophet, surely he must have known how futile this was! God was justly angry and pursued Jonah with a storm. The Nineveh mission was important to Him, and there was no chance He would let His prophet’s disobedience go unpunished. While the ship’s sailors jettisoned cargo and called uselessly on their “gods” to save their lives, Jonah didn’t bother—he knew God was hunting him down! Even so, he did not reveal his spiritual state to his shipmates until after God exposed him through the casting of lots (see Prov. 16:33).

TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Jonah displayed theological understanding but divorced it from what he did. He knew God was loving, powerful, and sovereign, but refused to tell the Assyrians and acted as though he could run, hide, and thwart God’s purpose. Sometimes we are guilty of this sin. We know God loves our neighbor, then act as if He doesn’t. We know God is powerful, then act as if it depends on us. We know God is sovereign, then worry about the future. May the Lord forgive us!