1 Corinthians 4

Wow... Last night was the all-nighter at church, and I'm glad we don't do that more often. It's very difficult on the body. You do gain the night, but you lose a lot of energy, and most of the next day. That day being today. I did, however, get to go to the King's Senior Class Graduation. That was fun. They did a good job of making the time reasonable. Speeches were short and sweet, and it was quite organized. I got to be a flag bearer with Lindley Graham. That was fun. Well... I'm not sure how much time I have to write this entry, so I'll stop blabbing about my day and start getting to chapter 4.

It's 21 verses long, and starts with Paul telling the Corinthians that we as Christians are "servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God" (v.1). We are responsible for keeping and dispensing the words of the New Testament - the mysteries of God that have now been revealed. One requirement for these servants is that they are faithful (v.2). We need to be loyally obedient to Christ, taking up our cross daily as we also deny ourselves. However we need not worry what other people say of our faithfulness, but what God's verdict is with respect to our faithfulness. This was Paul's attitude as he expressed it in verse 3 and 4. Only God can decide for sure who has been faithful (v.4). Paul was even sure enough to say that he knew nothing against himself. He had a clear conscience before men and before himself and before God, but knew that since he was still imperfect he couldn't be justified by this fact (v.4). He reiterates the fact that only God can be the judge in verse 5. This verse is another verse on heavenly rewards, when God will judge who has been faithful and to what extent, at which point he will applaud us for our inner devotion.

The next section, as I read it, seems to imply that the Corinthians had been caught up in the sin of pride. Verses 6 and 7 contain Paul's rebuke of the Corinthians, showing them that they have no reason to boast - since everything they have was given to them, not earned or deserved. Then verses 8-13 are quite surprising, and I must wonder whether this was a mistake: sarcasm as a form of rebuke. I have often wanted to get sarcastic with some people who were being arrogant or hypocritical, but I resisted, fearing that I would become just the same as them. Perhaps Paul knew the correct attitude to be taken when doing this, and was careful enough to not fall into a pride of his own.

Basically in these verses Paul "praises" the Corinthians for being high and mighty while he and the other apostles are considered the lowest of the low (v.13), poorly cared for (v.11), and doing the work of slaves (v.12). He tells them that they are wise is Christ, while he and the apostles are fools and that they are strong, while he is weak (v.10). Certainly he couldn't have meant these things, as he was just rebuking them for being proud, so it would seem sarcasm is no new concept. Not even to an apostle. And here I was, thinking sarcasm was not an appropriate way to go about correcting.

Paul does explain himself in the last verses. He assures them that he is not simply their teacher, but that he cares deeply for them as a father (vv.14,15). In the same way, we should seek to be fathers to those we are discipling, not only teaching them, but caring for them as for family. After all, if they are Christians, they are family to us in Christ. We then also need to be examples to them, as if they were looking up to us as if a parent, which is what Paul intended when he exhorted them to imitate him. He was bold, but convinced that since he was following Christ, they could follow him and so be led to Christ.

Paul wanted to come to them, but could not come right away, so he sent Timothy, a trusted disciple (v.17). And apparently some didn't care (v.18). They took the "I haven't broken the law until I am caught" attitude. Paul challenged them, since he knew that probably they were not as powerful as they made themselves out to be. He explains that - excuse the cliche - although some people can talk the talk, they can't, or don't, walk the walk (v.19). The kingdom of God is about the walking (v.20). Walk with Christ - that is the power of God, not simply being able to give the right answer to every question.

Are you living by the power of God? Or are you just flapping your lips?

1 Corinthians 3:16-23

Sorry about that... I really had not enough time to write on all of 1 Corinthians 3. Hopefully that won't happen again, but then I can't guarantee it. A lot can be said when every word is truth. Today I will simply be finishing up the last part of chapter 3, which shouldn't be too long, but who knows what could happen??

Alrighty, time cruch ~ 1 hour till I must leave for the all-nighter ^_^. That'll be great fun.

Continuing straight from last week, verses 16-17 are quite disturbing to me. If you want to read this, it's very much like a threat. I like it, because people sometimes think the God of the New Testament and the God of the Old Testament are different (one being war hungry and the other being lovey dovey and ultra forgiving). Not here. No way. No how. God dwells in Christians, and if anyone tries to mess with that, they're on God's hit list. You don't want to be on God's hit list.

Now, the final verses of chapter 3 Paul devotes to cautioning the Corinthians to avoid relying on worldly wisdom. Verse 18 sounds much like Christ's view on leadership and rank in the kingdom of heaven. What that does for me is it further assures me that this is indeed from God, not from men. Who in their right mind would say "become a fool that you may become wise" (v.18)? What is that? Foolishness of God, that's what it is. And I'll take that any day over the wisest wisdom of man. The wisdom of man doesn't seem to be very impressive anyways when Paul starts quoting Old Testament scripture describing it (vv.19-20). Read it for yourself, I can't say it any better than God.

Most mind boggling verses in the Bible I've come across in the Bible so far: 21 and 22. When I first read 21 I thought to myself "Everything is the Corinthians? Well... maybe he doesn't really mean that and he's just being... philosophical or something." So I read on. And what did I find? I found verse 22! Surprise! Paul then clarifies: yes indeed, life, death, Paul, Apollos, Peter, the world! All are theirs! Shoot, it's all mine too! Wow. God is good isn't He? I'm not really sure of all the implications of what Paul means by saying "These things are yours," but John MacArthur seems to think Paul means that God has provided all these good things for us. Awesome, but something in me says there's more. Maybe I'm just being greedy and power hungry... Well, let's not have that shall we?! Onto verse 23.

It simply says believers belong to Christ as Christ belongs to God. That is so encouraging to me, because that tells me that our relationship with Christ is (or should be) the same as Christ relationship with God. And that relationship is the most intimate relationship ever. It's oneness! Some religions want to be one with nature. We'll do them one better here. Let us strive to be one with Christ, just as Christ is one with God. That sounds like an amazing adventure, with great rewards at the end as well! For those of you who haven't started - or who aren't working towards that end at the present - I highly recommend it.

Well, thats all for today. Forgive me if it seemed rushed, but I hope it wasn't any less encouraging! Come back tomorrow for chapter 4!

1 Corinthians 3:1-15

Another glorious day! It's kinda funny... I feel more busy now that I'm out of school than when I was in school! Perhaps it's just because I have so much free time I feel like I need to fill, and when I don't have anything to fill it with, I can turn to this! I'm always doing something... It's great, I highly recommend it. Now: on to chapter 3!

Forgive me that I forgot to mention this, but I would definitely advise you to have a Bible while you go over these since I don't quote every verse I reference. It's best to hear what God has to say straight from God's word. It has a bit more power that way. I use NKJV so if you have one of those it would be easiest to follow.

Chapter 3 is 23 verses long and begins with Paul in verses 1-4 condemning the divisions and strife among them. He goes so far as to say that these behaviors place them in the "carnal" category. It seems that unity is quite a big deal, and anger between brothers and sisters in Christ is unacceptable. Once again (if you remember from chapter 1) the sort of divisions he's talking about sound eerily like present day denominations... I am still trying to decide however, whether this present day battle is a battle over separations in the church, or false teaching? Perhaps its a mix of both, who knows? I just know that Paul never intended church to be the way it is today. If someone has insight, don't hesitate to share!

Another one of those "in passing" moments caught my eye in these few verses as well. Paul makes mention of milk and solid food as representation of truths in the gospel that are to be taught based on a certain spiritual maturity level. Now, I know there isn't much chance of determining a certain standard for this. "When they have given 50% of their earnings to the church, then you can tell them that lots of people go to hell" or something ridiculous like that... Obviously we as humans can't really come up with a definite standard for spiritual maturity since we can't see the heart, but Paul seemed to know they weren't ready for what he wanted to tell them since they were still acting like carnal people (v.3). Now, that doesn't exactly explain a standard, but I certainly don't want God's truth held from me because of what I do, even though God's grace wont be held from me based on what I do. This, I suppose, gives me at least one more incentive to follow God and commit myself to Him, letting Him live through me, since if it were up to me... Well I would know very much lets just put it that way.

Wow... Time to move on, we still have 19 verses to go! This next section is on the longer side and indeed has much more to say, although I'll do my best to keep it reasonable.

Paul continues from the last section by reasoning with the people of the church who claim to be "of" a certain person. Perhaps they were accrediting their salvation to that person because Paul asks "Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord have to each one?" What the Corinthians apparently didn't understand is that they were not saved by Paul or Apollos. They weren't following Paul's gospel, they were taught the Gospel of Christ and believed it. Again, this bears great resemblance to denominations (in my opinion) as some are named for those who founded them. Paul explains that we as witnesses and preachers of the gospel are not responsible for saving people: "So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase" (v.7). Only God can make people grow into Him, our job is to provide the necessary information and truths in order to make that happen.

Paul then describes in the next paragraph the Christian life in general. He says that our foundation that we build our life on should be Jesus Christ, but to be careful what we build on it (v.10). It is possible to be saved, yet still waste my life doing worthless things through my own strength, and in the end when it is tested by fire it will become clear how I spent my life. Each person will then receive a reward based on what remains after it is tested (vv.14). This should not be confused with punishment for sin. Christ paid that penalty for all Christians - we will never have to endure that if we have accepted his gift. However, their are heavenly treasures and rewards spoken of in various places in the New Testament - this being one of the - and this is how God will decide what each person gets. Sadly, some people may get nothing and "be saved, yet so as through fire" (v.15).

Well... Chapter 3 still has a lot left to say, and I don't have a lot of time left to say it! I'll be putting up the rest of it tomorrow for those who are interested. I hope you enjoyed 1 Corinthians 3:1-15. Thanks for reading.

1 Corinthians 2

Alrighty... Chapter 2!!!

This chapter is actually on the shorter side - at just 16 verses, but I'm sure we'll discover it isn't any less meaningful than the last chapter we went over.

If you remember from chapter 1, Paul had asserted that he did not come "with wisdom of words" (1:17). This chapter begins with Paul doing just about the same thing in his usual, what I am tempted to say, overly humble state. He simply came to them "declaring the testimony of God" (2:1). The first few verses outline, I think, how we are supposed to act as witnesses for Christ. We need not know every argument for the existence of God. Paul said he knew "nothing...except Christ Jesus and Him crucified" (2:2). We as witnesses are responsible for knowing nothing but the facts of what we believe and what Christ has done in our lives. This message is powerful, because it then becomes not our smooth speech or persuasive logic that connects people to God, but God Himself working in them! (2:4,5) Paul understood what it meant to be a witness of Christ. I want to have the confidence that he had, not needing to know every facet of physical evidence for God in order to validate my faith. A man with experience trumps the man with evidence.

For the rest of the chapter (vv.6-16) Paul speaks about spiritual wisdom, how we as believers can come about it, and why non-believers can't have it.

...I must take a break from the path this chapter follows and go to a different subject. Hopefully I won't do this often, because as I explained yesterday, if I went through every facet of the large amount of scripture I plan to truck through, I would be stuck here forever (that would be nice - dont get me wrong, but then what chance would I have to apply my learnings to my life. After all that is the point isnt it?) and we cant have that. I realized upon reviewing this chapter that many of the most profound sayings in Scripture - the ones that seem to hold the most truth and that dive deepest into the heart of God - are the ones that we miss because they seem to be said "in passing." For example, verse 6 reads as follows: "However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing." Now, yes, that is an good verse on wisdom. That probably seems like the maint point of the verse, and you'd probably be correct in saying so.

But take a look at this: "the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing" (v.6). !_! Wow. Those are some strong words, and looking at this chapter as a whole, we would miss the implications of such a phrase. I just thought I'd alert you that both views of scripture are necessary - the general, basic, fundamental truths as a foundation, and then those details that seem so obscure but have endlessly wonderful implications such as this one. (I just wrote 2 paragraphs because of 10 words that i read). I'll leave you to explore those. Perhaps I should just make a section at the end of each blog with phrases that caught my attention...

Back to verses 6-16. Spiritual Wisdom. Paul reiterates in verse 7 that some things taught in scripture are a "mystery." They cannot be understood without the Holy Spirit in us! (v.10) That is the one difference between Christians and non-Christians isn't it? We have the Spirit in us. And He is the only one qualified to teach us these things - Paul makes an analogy: "For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God" (v.11). Only Evan can tell you for sure what is going on inside Evan - doctors might be able to tell that I'm dreaming (by looking at the movement of my eyeballs when im asleep), or that I'm thinking(by checking out my brain waves), but to tell what I'm thinking is impossible for them. Only I can tell you what I'm thinking, and you will then have to trust me to be telling the truth. In the same way, only the Spirit of God can tell you what the mind of God is like! Therefore, those who do not have the Spirit of God cannot know the mind of God.

Paul then gives us one of the reasons we have the Holy Spirit in us: "that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God"(v.12). Again asserting that the Holy Spirit teaches us (or better understood: helps us to understand) (v.13) and that spiritual things are foolishness to the "natural man" (v.14).

Verse 15: Too intruiging for me to attempt to explain: "But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one."

Paul ends in verse 16 assuring believers than we can know the mind of God because we actually have the mind of Christ! amazing...

Well, that will have to do for today. I hope this is helping those who read to think more about spiritual matters and that it might be encouraging to all. Tomorrow is 1 Cor. 3!

1 Corinthians 1

Alright, I've gotten a request to continue "blogging." The thirsty for more comment convinced me, plus the fact that I haven't been totally focused on my reading or anything. So I'll be starting a new series on 1 Corinthians, hopefully being able to do a chapter a day. As a chapter is a fair amount for each day, obviously I cannot examine every cross reference and dig into the deepest depths of every verse. That would take years, if not forever (who knows really how deep this book goes?). I'll be doing a little overview of each chapter, inserting my thoughts here and there - these obviously not to be taken immediately as absolute truth.

A fair sized chapter, at 31 verses long it takes up 2 pages and then some in my MacArthur Study Bible, and most of those are notes. It would seem that Paul has a way of conveying many more ideas than the words he writes, no?

An intoduction to this book: 1 Corinthians (as well as 2 Cor.) was written by Paul, as the first verse indicates, and is named for the church of the people to whom it is addressed, Corinth (indicated also by the second verse). Corinth was located in southern Greece, and prospered as a major trade city, since captains would pass over the ithsmus with their boats on rollers in order to avoid the otherwise long and dangerous 250 mile journey by sea. Corinth also hosted the Isthmian games, apparently second only to the Olympic games, and as a result of all the people traffic, became extremely morally corrupt, even when compared to the godless standards of the day. Some of these sins such as incest, were still discovered among church members! Obviously, Paul needed to address these issues.

Paul begins by asserting his apostleship and introducing also a friend who was with him named Sosthenes. John MacArthur explains in his notes that since the letter Paul was about to write was meant to rebuke and correct, he needed to present himself as an apostle speaking the very words of God, implying that rejection of his words would be rejecting God.

In light of the circumstances in which he writes this letter, the first few verses are quite amazing to me, because had it been I writing, 1 Corinthians would not have started out this kindly. Paul begins by addressing the Corinthians as saints(v.2), sancitified(v.2) and enriched(v.5) by Christ. He tells them that he is always thankful(v.4) to God for them as they fall short in no gift(v.7). Paul often used this method of speaking with people, first affirming where they had gone right, then alerting them of their faults.

Now, verse 8 catches my eye. It reads as follows "who [Jesus Christ] will also confirm you to the end, that you may be* blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." The bold word is the one that sparked my curiosity. This word is often associated with perfection, which most people - if not everyone - believes to be impossible in this life. Interesting...

In this next section (vv.10-17), Paul admonishes the Corinthians in their dissent over certain issues. The Corinthians had been quarelling amongst themselves over "who they were of." I'm really not sure what that means, but Paul quoted them in verse 12: "'I am of Paul,' or 'I am of Apollos,' or 'I am of Cephas [Peter],' or 'I am of Christ.'" Notice that he doesn't try to say that following him is right and others iswrong (in fact he does just the opposite in vv. 14-17), nor does he say that those who claim to be of Christ are right, and everyone should agree with that group. No, he admonishes everyone for dissenting with eachother and encourages them to be unified in their testimony (v.10). Maybe you can see the correlation between the Corinthians and the churches of today? What is Paul saying about denominations? Perhaps we should be doing more to remain unified as Christians rather than separated between denominations... would that not help our testimony? I cannot count how many times I have heard the line "you Christians cant even agree on what you believe, look at all your denominations!"

Onto the next section! This one is a really fun one... I'm including the end of verse 17 as well as vv.18-25. This chunk of Scripture is really freeing in that it allows us to escape from the burden of explaining away Scripture. It openly admits that there are some things that non-believers simply will not be able to handle without the help of the Holy Spirit. Basically it starts at verse 17 where Paul seems to imply that if those who had been saved had been saved by "wisdom of words" (ie. eloquent) that the power of the Gospel would actually be weakened! Verses 18-25 are basically him repeating the idea that God's message is foolishness to the gentiles and a stumbling block to the Jews. It's ironic really, if anyone hears something along the lines of: "What your gospel? Savior on a stick? Hahaha!" that person should be further convinced of the truth of what the Bible teaches, since Paul predicts this will be said of the cross, right here in verse 23: "but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness." We don't have to be ashamed of our foolish gospel, though: "but to those who are called [a reference to the elect, which people also seem to have trouble with] Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God" (v.24), explaining that: "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men" (v.25).

In the last part of this chapter, Paul informs the Corinthians of a curious fact among those who are believers. "For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called" (v.26). Not many of the great people according to the world's standards are called to be believers. This affirms Christs motto of the last first and the first last. This is not to say that smart people are less likely to be saved, or buff people wont come to Christ as easily simply because they are buff, but it certainly would imply that humbling oneself is an integral part of coming to God. As long as we rely on our own strength or our own smarts, God isn't going to seem necessary, and therefore we won't be willing to come to Him. After all, what would be the purpose? Paul explains the reason why God does this in verse 27: "God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty." God wants us to know that He alone is strong, that He alone is wise, and therefore that He alone is worthy of worship.

Paul ends with a quote from Jeremiah 9:24 "He who glories, let him glory in the Lord."**

Thanks for taking time to read my 1 Corinthians 1 overview - I'll attempt to go through chapter 2 tomorrow! (This one took about an hour and a half so we'll see...) Leave me comments. ^_^ Time for me to go, hope you found this insightful!

*Italics denote implied words in the original greek text that are technically not there.
**In this case, the words were italicized in my Bible to denote a quote.