Ponderings on 1 Corinthians Chapters 1 – 4: (5)

“For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.’

“Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” (1 Cor. 1:17 – 25).”

I embarked on the present reflections (chapters 1 – 4 of 1 Corinthians) because I was pondering 1 Corinthians Chapter 2, and as I meditated on Chapter 2 I considered its immediate context and saw the unity of the first four chapters of Paul’s letter. Even when we remind ourselves that chapters and verses were not in the original manuscripts, it can be awfully hard to move beyond the visual starts and stops of chapters and verses – it can be difficult to capture the flow and context of what we read; or better yet, to be captured by it.

Consider the connectivity of 1:17 with 2:4 - 5: “not in cleverness (wisdom) of speech, so that the Cross of Christ would not be made void” (1:17); “not in persuasive words of wisdom…so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God” (2:4 – 5).

There is division in the Corinthian church, and this division is the result of the Corinthians living as “mere men” (1 Cor. 3:3), they are “mere men” because they are living not in the Spirit, but as “men of flesh” (1 Cor. 3:1). The Gospel which Paul brought was not preached according to the wisdom of man, lest the Cross and its transforming power be nullified.

I think there is a tension here that we fail to confront. It is a tension that was not acknowledged in my seminary experience. Furthermore, I have never read about this tension in any preaching books or articles – I do not mean that no one has ever addressed the tension, I only mean that I have never read anything about the tension. This is the tension between effective communication and “the foolishness of the message” (of preaching). Christ crucified is “a stumbling block” and “foolishness” (1:23). Yet, effective communication means presenting the Gospel in such a way that our audience can understand it…at least understand enough to respond to it. Beyond that, this tension applies not only to the initial preaching of the Gospel, but to the life of the Church (2:6). Perhaps, with respect to Church-life, we have the same principle as found in Galatians 3:1-3, having begun in the Spirit do we now seek maturity in the flesh, in the natural? What is true of justification is also true of sanctification and glorification – we are either people of the Spirit or people of the “natural”.

We can be such well-trained communicators that we do not need the Holy Spirit – this is the tension. In fact, I don’t think we really need the Holy Spirit to do much of what we do, and perhaps we don’t need Him to do anything that we do because we can do what we do well. We have become pretty good sociologists and marketers and advertisers and…sad to say…at times entertainers. If we have a problem in the church we can hire a consultant or change leadership.

I wonder if our failure to share the Gospel is due in part to our buying into the wisdom of this age? After all, in marketing you certainly don’t want to turn the prospective customer off, you don’t want to offend the marketplace. Yet, the Gospel of the Christ of the Cross is foolishness, a stumbling block, and an offense. When we mitigate the Cross we deny the Christ of the Cross. Consider 1:27, the Gospel will “shame the wise…the strong”.

A counterweight to this is 1 Cor. 9:19 – 23 in which Paul writes that “I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some.” So we are to use wisdom in communicating, and yet…it is not the wisdom of this world…for when we use the wisdom of this world the Cross of Christ is made of no effect (1:17). But do we really believe this?

Early on in my pastoral ministry I realized something that frightened me; I could prepare and deliver a pretty good sermon all on my own without God’s help. Why didn’t we discuss this in seminary? I am thankful for my training, but I also know that unless my training is transformed by the Cross that it is dangerous.

As I ponder 1 Corinthians chapters 1 – 4 I also wonder if I really believe what Paul is writing. I wonder if we really believe what Paul is saying…saying, I might add, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

During the past year or so I’ve been spending time in the Patristics, or Church Fathers; these are the orthodox writings of Christians who lived in the early centuries of Christianity. I have been excited about their sacramental and Christocentric encounter with Scripture – they looked for Jesus everywhere in the Bible, and in doing this they were being faithful to Jesus Himself – for Jesus revealed Himself through the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms (see Luke 24). To the Church Fathers Jesus Christ was everything, and in this they mirrored the Apostles – consider 1 Cor. 1:30 – 31. They ate from a rich table while we eat frozen dinners. (As an example; Augustine’s vision of Christ and His Body in the Psalms is expansive, he “sees” the fulfillment of Christ’s prayer in John 17 – we are truly called to live in koinonia with the Trinity).

The Patristics had an intertextual experience with Scripture (that is, they incorporated the entire Bible into their thinking, their teaching, their writing – seeing it as an integrated whole displaying Christ) that is foreign to our experience. While they generally had due regard for history and linguistics, they wanted to see Christ above all, and in this desire they sought to be transposed from the earthly to the heavenly so that they might behold Jesus Christ and draw others to Him.  At the same time they could hold a thought, a line of exegesis, an argument, and work with it, explore it, and search it out – to a degree that causes our modern minds with their short attention spans to implode.

Many of them also suffered for Christ, both within and without the professing church – for heresy has always been with us and I suppose it will continue until our Lord Jesus returns. Theirs was a faith forged in pressure, often pain, and sometimes death.

Yet again, just as I became aware that I could preach a pretty good sermon without the Holy Spirit, I also became aware that I could do some decent “Bible study” without the Holy Spirit – I could read the Bible without seeing Christ, without being touched by Christ, without being transformed into the image of Christ. And again, I wondered why we didn’t discuss this in seminary. Have our seminaries become captives of the world’s academia? Well, I don’t know the answer to that; maybe it is an issue of degree…maybe it depends on the school…maybe it is (and always has been) a lurking danger.

I have on my shelf commentaries on the Bible written by folks I respect, and yet when I read them it is not unusual to see a writer – scholar move from the Bible to the world’s thinking, then back to the Bible and then back to the world – paying homage to the Word of God one moment, and then paying homage to this present age in the next. I don’t think we can serve both God and worldly academia – the evidences that this present age demand before it shows respect are not always (seldom?) compatible with the Cross of Christ. Well, it’s complicated and I may be rambling. Perhaps we should confess that, “If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond servant of Christ,” Galatians 1:10b. Perhaps Galatians 1:10 ought to be in front of every author, every preacher, every pastor, every seminary professor…and every Christian.

Do we need the Holy Spirit? Are we encountering Jesus Christ as we read the Bible? Are we seeing the Face of God? Is the Word of God active in our lives (Hebrews 4:12, 1 Peter 1:22 – 25)?

I Was A Stranger And You Took Me In

Well now, I see there is an attempt by refugees from Honduras to make it to the United States.

Someone should have informed them about the S.S. Saint Louis. Someone should have told them about the fact that only five Americans are included in the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations....then they would know what to expect.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/us-government-turned-away-thousands-jewish-refugees-fearing-they-were-nazi-spies-180957324/


https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/statistics.html

"I was a stranger and you did not invite me in." Matthew 25:43.

Are we engaged in religious self-delusion in this country?

Social Justice and Race

Pastor John Carpenter, of Danville, VA., has written a thoughtful article on "social justice", particularly as it relates to "race". I encourage you to ponder it - link below.

https://www.christianpost.com/voice/social-justice-statement-scandal-evangelical-conscience.html

Ponderings on 1 Corinthians Chapters 1 – 4: (4)

“Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you. Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one would say you were baptized in my name. Now I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void.” (1 Corinthians 1:10 – 17).

In the passage preceding the above (1:1 – 1:9), Paul affirms the work of God in the Corinthian Christians, reminding them of who God in Christ is and who they are in Christ. Paul now turns his attention to the fact that the Corinthians are not living as who they really are – the sons and daughters of God – but rather as “mere men” (3:3). This line of argument continues through Chapter Four. In these chapters Paul will take his readers to task for living as mere men, for schisms, for naturalistic reasoning, for destroying the sanctuary of God, for arrogance; concluding with a reminder that he, Paul, is their father in Christ and that the “kingdom of God does not consist in [naturalistic] word but in power.”

Is it too much to suggest that the chaos and sin that Paul deals with in the balance of this letter (chapters 4 – 16) are the result of the sin and chaos identified in chapters 1 – 4?

Pondering verse 1:10: “…that you all agree…” This phrase literally means “that you all speak the same thing.” Here is an image of a people who agree to the point that for a stranger to listen to one speak is to listen to all speak. (As Paul makes clear elsewhere (chapters 12 – 14) in this letter, this does not preclude individuality or diverse giftedness.)

The Trinity gives us the image of how we ought to live, for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit speak the same thing; indeed, as John Chapter 17 makes clear, we are called into the very koinonia of the Trinity and that koinonia is to be our fountain of life; being our fountain of life it is our fountain of unity. But how can we speak the same thing if we do not all think the same thing? If the Christ of the Cross is not our nexus of thinking and affection, if our hearts and minds are drawn elsewhere – whether to Paul or Apollos or Peter, it is not likely we will be speaking the same thing. (See also Ephesians 4:1 – 16; Philippians 1:27 – 2:18).     

“…and that there be no divisions among you…” Schism works directly against the will of God in Christ, it violates the nature of the Trinity (speaking in the natural), and it works against the prayer of Jesus (John 17). While Jesus prays that we may be “perfected into one” (John 17:23) we glory in our doctrinal and practical “distinctives”; or we glory in our own versions of Paul, Apollos, and Peter. As I once said to a coworker who was caught-up in a popular television minister to the virtual exclusion of reading the Bible, “____ didn’t die for you.”

There is tension in all of this for, as the NT makes clear, there is such a thing as false teaching, there is apostasy, there is heresy. There is doctrine that is heretical, and there are practices that are heretical – harmony at the expense of the truth of the Gospel is poison.

Nevertheless, we ought to ask ourselves, “What is our center of gravity? How do we think about the Church of Jesus Christ?” Do we think of the Church before we think of our local congregation or our denomination or tradition? Do we put the Church before the church? Are we guilty of putting our own denominational or “distinctive” houses before the House of the LORD? (See the prophet Haggai.)

Perhaps worse, are we practicing the way of Jeroboam (1 Kings 12:25 – 33) and fashioning idols for our people to worship lest they wander away from our local congregations? Naturally we will not call them idols, we would never make idols would we? Are we attracting and retaining people with a message other than the Gospel? Other than the Cross?

Again, there is a healthy tension for doctrine matters, the Nicene Creed matters, holy living matters. But…is our mission to promote unity in the Body of Christ? Are we seeking to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4)? Well, as a people we have only to look around and we’ll have our answer – there is precious little cooperation among local congregations, between pastors, between traditions and denominations – at least in the West. We cannot explain this away and excuse it. We have a fractured witness, and a fractured witness does not refract the glory of Christ. Since Jesus links our witness to the world with our love for one another and our unity you would think we’d be more concerned about the fragmented status quo…but of course we aren’t.

“…but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.” If we are to speak the same thing we must think the same thing, and here Paul exhorts the Corinthians to be made complete, or “knit together”, in the same mind and the same judgment, or way of thinking and looking at things. The Greek word for “made complete” can also be translated “knit together” and it can have the sense of something that was torn apart being knit back together to be made whole and complete. So there is hope for us, but I think it is a hope that we must intentionally lay hold of, focus on, talk about, and work to obtain.

A few months ago I read a newsletter from a friend who pastors a church in a certain region, and I was taken aback by a statement that his church was the only church of his particular tradition in that region and that it was therefore important that his readers consider supporting his ministry. I know that there are other Gospel-preaching churches in my friend’s immediate location, granted, they are not of my friend’s “tradition”, and granted they may not even be my particular cup of tea, but I know they preach the Christ of the Cross. I wondered at the “us and them” mentality – a mentality I have had myself. How can I work with others if I have such a way of thinking? Am I only interacting with pastors outside my tradition from a sense of charitableness? Am I up here and are they down there?

More often than not I don’t know my own heart, but I pray that I’ll focus on our communion (koinonia) in Christ when I meet pastors and Christians from other Gospel traditions with a high view of Scripture.

I want the people I serve to think of themselves as Christians, as disciples of Jesus, before they think of themselves as being within “this” or “that” tradition. I want our core identity to be Jesus Christ and the Church; it seems to me that any other core identity is problematic.

Jesus Christ made our unity in the Trinity a focal point of His prayer and desire. Paul confronts schism and its results in 1 Corinthians, and throughout his letters he appeals to our unity in Christ. If we cannot lament the schismatic condition of the professing church, if we cannot repent of it, if we cannot truly seek to inculcate a sense of the universal Church in the hearts and minds of our congregations…do we have much of a future in the chaos and anarchy of our world? Are we being faithful shepherds?