14 I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. 15 For though you have countless[b] guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 16 I urge you, then, be imitators of me. 17 That is why I sent[c] you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ,[d] as I teach them everywhere in every church. 18 Some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. 19 But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. 20 For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power. 21 What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?
1 Corinthians 4:14-21 English Standard Version
Many Guides but One Father
As their primary steward in the mysteries of God and their father in the gospel, Paul felt responsible for the present state of the people of God in Corinth. He bent over backwards while presenting the simple gospel around him to put out the fires of division in Corinth being caused by a few arrogant individuals who thought themselves to be something special, forgetting that they had been given all that they had by Paul and by God. Paul asserts his fatherly authority over the Corinthian believers as the one who presented the simple gospel to them and sent their older brother Timothy with a letter from their mutual father to display Paul to them in person and in word through His letter. Paul urges the believers to imitate him as he imitates Christ–this is not to the exclusion of the other apostles, but in tandem with them as they imitate Christ as well. Those who were drawing people away to their exclusive tribes were claiming that Paul had abandoned them. They spoke down about him saying that the other apostles were real apostles having walked with Jesus, and that they should not fear this lesser apostle who obviously didn’t have all of the answers or wisdom that the likes of the letters from Peter showed. Paul refutes this notion later but for now says that He is making his way to them quickly and will see if there is any substance to the faith of these detractors and dividers of the people of God. Finally, he admonishes them that he would much rather come to them in a spirit of gentleness than with a rod of discipline from God.
6 I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers,[a] that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another. 7 For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?
8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you! 9 For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. 10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. 11 To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, 12 and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; 13 when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.
1 Corinthians 4:6-13 English Standard Version
And Would That You Did Reign
The Corinthian believers have everything that Paul and the rest of the Apostles pushing the borders of Christ’s influence on the earth could use. Besides for the wisdom of Christ, they have full access to the whole body of Christ, they are wealthy, they are well liked and they reportedly, ‘live like kings’. Paul’s situation is entirely different, and because of this he says that he wishes that the Corinthian believers were actually ruling–that they were full of the Spirit and using their influence for Christ and for obedience and unity’s sake because then the apostles would be ruling vicariously through them and with them and Paul would be comforted in his infliction knowing that his children were living lives of obedience to the Spirit and to Christ. But, he says, ‘you have everything you ever wanted’. They used the name of Christ to boost their own names, their own wealth and their own reputations. They aligned themselves with the apostle or teacher who seemed like the wisest according to the ways of the world and co-opted the gospel of Christ to suit their own means. They claimed that the table and house was theirs and so were found to be unfaithful Stewards. Paul will now address them as his children in the next section pleading for their repentance and return to the simple gospel they received from their spiritual father.
18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” 20 and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” 21 So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.
1 Corinthians 3:18-23 English Standard Version
The Wise of this World Distinguish Themselves
What craftiness God catches the wise in, what thoughts of self importance, what notions of irreplaceability, distinction and professionalism. The wise of this world promise good things to those who follow their wisdom as if they were there’s to give! They promise access to the universe, 5 keys to success, the life of our dreams, the husband or wife of our dreams and heuristics to make those difficult decisions a breeze. They have received a little bit of knowledge and deign to know everything and to market that knowledge to the world. The wise of this world distinguish themselves as being other.
When the wisdom of the world enters the church it enters by gradations of distinctions of belief as if to say that we are distinct because of our wisdom, “We are distinct because, in our wisdom, we believe the Bible,” when, if we truly believed the Bible, we would know that we are not distinct at all but that all things and all people are made freely available to all people. Communion is not ours to give and take, if we make ourselves distinct we make ourselves distinct unto ourselves and away from God. We would do well to remember that it is not our table we invite people to sit at, but the Lord’s, and at His table sit a great many people we alienate by claiming to be the only ones with valid invitations.
Paul’s final note is an interesting one that seems to echo Jesus’ promise in John 14 before he goes to the cross
12“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. 13Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14If you ask mee anything in my name, I will do it.
John 14:12-14
All things belong to everyone because everyone belongs to Christ and Christ belongs to God. Therefore all things are from God and whatever we ask in His name, He provides for us. For those paying attention, it is mind-bendingly unsustainable by the world’s systems and so we must become foolish by the world’s standards that we may become wise.
Writer and Editor of Ammi Ruhama Community Christian Union. Also published on Baseline Christianity.
Daniel L. Bacon
Commentary on Paul’s Letters to the Corinthian Church
ARC Guide Level 1 Ideal for those getting acquainted with our thought process at Ammi Ruhama Community.
1 Corinthians 3:10-17
10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled[b] master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
16 Do you not know that you[c] are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
1 Corinthians 3:10-17 English Standard Version
Wicker Dwellings and Roman Villas
Paul builds out the construction metaphor and says that if another builder comes on site, assumingly Peter or Apollos or any other mature believer, that they must build on top of the foundation that is Christ and will be either rewarded or suffer great loss based on the work they have done when it is tested by fire (likely persecution). He says that the proverbial work being done is the building of the temple of God which is done to specification (by the Spirit) and that anyone who thinks they can build using the materials they are used to building with like wood, hay and stubble; the usual iron age building materials for a double walled, wicker dwelling stuffed with straw for insulation and topped with a stubble roof, will find that these are unfit materials for the house of God and will burn up in the day of testing. These materials are used symbolically for the wisdom of the world, while the adornments of gold, silver and precious stones are symbolic of the wisdom from the Spirit. One type of dwelling comes from a deep, generational custom, especially among the farming community of building the same dwelling, the same way every ten to fifteen years and moving with the land when it goes fallow. The builder of the wicker dwelling builds only for themselves for the next 10-15 years. The builder of a Roman Villa, by contrast, does so not only for their own sake but for the sake of generations who would come after them. In this way, Paul sees his work and the work of Peter, Apollos and the other mature believers as progressive to the point of testing. If what is built on top of the foundation is made of wood hay and stubble, it will need to be rebuilt every ten to fifteen years and moved to where the soil seems more fertile as the common human wisdom says. However, if what is built is made with permanent things and adorned with gold, silver and precious stones like the temple of Solomon then the world will come to us to marvel at the beauty of the temple which we have built to God. The twist is that we collectively; the whole people of God who have received mercy are the temple of God built either with wood hay and stubble or adorned with silver, gold, and precious stones and headed for the day of testing. Will we burn up and move to more fertile ground to build another straw hut, or will we build the house of God on the foundation that is Christ and adorn it with silver, gold and precious stones?
Plural Not Singular
This is not a new passage to most of us. We have heard this passage preached again and again and again as a personal call to holiness, but it is in fact a continuation of Paul’s analogy of the one who plants and the one who waters, only this analogy focuses on the one who lays the foundation and the one who builds on it. It is Paul’s version of, “a house divided against itself cannot stand”. When Paul says, “do you (plural) not know that you (plural) are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells within you (plural),” this is another corralling statement by Paul to say that the Spirit of God is in all of us that we have all been given a portion of the Spirit of God and so when we dwell in unity we adorn ourselves as the temple of God with silver and gold and precious stones, and that the world sees us and marvels at the beauty of the temple and proclaims that Jesus was sent from the Father. However, when we live in our little enclaves we build ugly little huts of human wisdom for ourselves until the next wave of popular Christianity moves through and the fallow land around us causes us to burn our old models and move on to the next big thing; a slightly bigger wicker hut.
But I, brothers,[a] could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?
5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.
1 Corinthians 3:1-9 English Standard Version
The Through Thread
Paul asserts, if there was any question about where the Corinthians were on the spectrum of being naturally or spiritually minded, that they are in fact quite naturally minded; unobservant of spiritual things and, as a result, full of jealousy and strife, pitting Peter, Apollos and Paul against one another by claiming to hold exclusively to any one of their teachings as being distinct from another. Today we might say that they believed that they had distinct truth claims on the gospel of Christ. Paul’s point here is that they only saw their respective words, analogies and arguments for the gospel and not the through-thread of the Spirit of God which joins them all together. He uses the example of being a labourer in God’s field or a builder of God’s building.
From Simple Seeds and Stones
Paul relates his work in the gospel to sowing seeds or laying a foundation. Seeds were sown by broadcasting them which is literally walking for absolute miles back and forth casting the same seeds over a large area. Foundations were laid by digging a hole and dropping massive stones into the hole and surrounding them with smaller stones to fall between them to give a solid base to build on later. Both of these are rather boring, laborious jobs that rely on seeing the bigger picture to see the significance of what would otherwise seem to be busy work. Paul says that while putting seeds or stones in the ground might seem like simple work, it is this work that allows for others to come along and add water that activates the seed when the sun hits the soil around it allowing it to become a more complex fruit bearing plant. In the same way putting stones in the ground prepares the way for the more complicated work of building the walls, hanging doors or setting a roof on top. They are all the same work, for the same person and so are all connected. The point is that from the simple seed of the gospel comes the fruit of the life of one controlled by the Spirit, and from the foundation that is Christ comes a building made of precious stones–both themes Paul will return to later in the letter.
Fulfilling the Assignment
Paul’s use of, ‘assignment,’ is not as permanent as it might sound. In the same way that his later use of, ‘gift,’ of the Spirit is not a once for all time gifting but rather a living manifestation of the Spirit of God. In the same way, our, ‘assignments,’ (some call them vocations) from God are less like homework or employment and more like listening to and obeying the voice of His Spirit. Too often we think of a “call into ministry,” as being a lifelong commitment to one job within the body in the same way that we think that, having once manifested the gift of administration, the Spirit won’t manifest Himself in us in other capacity and that, that’s our life’s purpose. What happens is that God uses us in some way, either to speak or to teach or to call people to Himself and it feels so good to be used by Spirit of God in any capacity that we attempt to reproduce the environment in which it happened. I felt this same pull after inviting a homeless man into my garden to live for a week. We walked very closely together for that week as we discussed spiritual things and worked on procuring more stable living conditions for him. I felt afterwards that God must want me to start a homeless ministry, but when I prayed and searched the scriptures for confirmation God asked me to let my experience of being used by the Spirit be what it was and to let it go and to continue to listen to His voice instead. He told me that if I went forward with starting a homeless ministry that it would be a hinderance to other’s responsibility to invite the homeless into their homes and feed them their food and walk with them for the week that He calls them to do that. My assignment had been completed; I listened and obeyed and was shown the state of the body of Christ as a result.
Paul had been assigned to sow seeds in Corinth. He did a bit of watering and harvesting while he was there as well as he attests, but his main assignment was to plant the pure seed of the gospel in their hearts and then leave it to the work of another whose assignment had been to water the seeds of the gospel. Paul generally allowed others to water and harvest, he took special interest in a few who he personally raised to full reproducing maturity in Christ but allowed the rest of the body to raise one another up to full reproducing maturity. He did not allow himself to be side tracked with the task of being the one to whom everyone outsourced their assignments–and neither should we. We all have our own listening and obeying to be getting on with, and only the Spirit knows our next respective assignments.
And I, when I came to you, brothers,[a] did not come proclaiming to you the testimony[b] of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men[c] but in the power of God.
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
Paul asserts that when he came to Corinth to proclaim the testimony (some manuscripts say, ‘mystery,’) of God, he allowed it to be a mystery and didn’t really express it in the format of a traditional oration; a well prepared and even better delivered speech. What he proclaimed was the fact that the Christ had come and was crucified. Keep in mind that it was always Paul’s habit to come into the synagogues first and so this message would not have reached the gentile believers until afterwards. We already know from 1:14-17 that Paul did not make it his mission to make many converts and baptise them as he did not consider it his mandate from the spirit; only to communicate the simple message that the Christ had come and was crucified. Paul also says that he made no effort to put on a show of physical prowess as he was sick and weak at the time when he came to them as well as trembling and afraid. His work was done rather out of his weakness in the demonstration of the Spirit (read: Paul’s manifestation of the Spirit through the fruit of the Spirit in his life) and of power, presumably the power of the gospel as previously stated in chapter one but also likely in miracles.
Further Thoughts
We don’t really know what to do with the fact that Paul did not present a succinct five point gospel message with an alter call and a baptismal pool ready to hand. We know his reasoning; that the people of Corinth would not put their faith in his wisdom but in the power of God to save; that is, in Christ. Paul’s frustration is that when the Corinthian believer’s encountered the wisdom of Peter and Apollos, meant for the spiritual digestion of more mature believers, they went ahead and placed their faith in human wisdom anyway. If we take anything from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians perhaps it should be that all truth is revealed truth that takes a certain tolerance to adjust to. If and when we are exposed to a concentration of truth that is higher than our tolerance we tend to think that it originated with the author or speaker and attribute to them the things of God and so slide into the slippery slope of leader worship which Paul was warning against.
The message of the gospel is special revelation from God to everyone who receives it. There are some who say that if special revelation is not saying anything new then we don’t need to hear it. That it would be like a special report flashing across a news screen about old news everyone already knows. But if we applied the principle of “If it’s not new we don’t need it,” to the Bible then we could cut out the majority of the Bible as most of it is God repeating Himself ad nauseum to generation after generation after generation of people who are the recipients of special revelation from God even though he told someone else that one time–in fact, we could cut out most of the New Testament as He isn’t saying anything new there that isn’t deeply rooted in the Old Testament! The mystery of the Gospel is that God reveals Himself afresh to each one who receives it so that we do not place our faith in a leader’s wisdom or a culture’s wisdom or an ethnic wisdom that would exclude anyone who proclaims Christ and Him Crucified.
26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards,[c] not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being[d] might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him[e] you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 1:26-31 English Standard Version
The Nature of Shame
Paul writes to the Corinthians an aspect of God that is rather uncomfortable for the sitting people of God who have received mercy, and that is that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Or, as Paul writes, “God uses the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are”.
Those who have been called by God unto salvation and to the repair of the interface have to be an unassuming people by necessity. This is largely because the assuming people will have already been well entrenched in their symbiotic organisations and be too comfortable to make any substantial repairs to the interface which, frankly, works just fine for them; and why fix what’s not broken?
But God uses the people that are not strong by the world’s measure to bring to nothing the people who are:
The unrighteous to shame the righteous,
The sexually divergent to shame the chaste,
The Gentiles to shame the Jews,
The women to shame the men,
The slaves to shame the free.
What is shame then, but the offering of grace and mercy by God to those we thought were not deserving? I will take it a step further in light of adversarial unity. What is shame but when God blesses those who curse us when we won’t? What is shame but when God loves our neighbours when we won’t? What is shame but when a church opens across the road who are reaching people with the Gospel who vote differently than we do? What is shame but when a child sees what it took an adult a lifetime and a doctorate to see; and who speaks the truth without reticence or thought of payment?
We pay lip service to the levelling nature of the cross, but the result of God’s grace to us is that all hierarchies of distinction in the body are done away with until we are all one in the mind of Christ Whatever gradations of so-called righteousness that remain as a result of our organisation and structure; those things we pride ourselves in will be our shame and our humbling before God.
18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach[b] to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
1 Corinthians 1:18-25 English Standard Version
Christ the Simplicity and Weakness of God
The news about the cross to the Jews was a sign that God had rejected Jesus and a logical impossibility that he could be a god to the Greeks who sought after wisdom. In all of their seeking for signs and seeking after wisdom both the Jews and the Greeks were blindsided by Christ. His message is completely removed from their respective preoccupations and so is seen as the rock that sent the Jews headlong while they were making some lofty connection in their minds and completely out of box insane for those who had spent their whole lives seeking after forms and logical consistency. Paul says that this is a fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy:
therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”
Isaiah 29:14 English Standard Version
When Jesus came on the scene in the full power of the Spirit of God it was outside of any of the Jew’s well discerned theories of who the Christ would be and what He would do. For the Greeks, seeing these flagrant violations of natural order, logic and wisdom but for it to work was astounding! Christ was the walking, talking repairman of the primary interface and nobody saw it coming but those who were personally told by God Himself that the Messiah had come quietly in the night in simplicity, and weakness.
10 I appeal to you, brothers,[a] by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. 12 What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
1 Corinthians 1:10-17 English Standard Version
Gospel Minimalism
In verse 10 Paul starts his appeal with what seems to us to be four wildly unrealistic demands on the body of Christ. 1. Agree on everything 2. Don’t be Divided 3.Be of the Same Mind 4.Be of the same judgement. At face value there is nothing more to say but, he better tell us how to do that! He doesn’t immediately answer that question, what he does instead is write a state of affairs as it has been reported to him by Chloe, a certain mature believer and her household. The long and short of it is that when Paul and Timothy came on the scene they presented the simple gospel with little to no extrapolation. Paul says that they were so minimalist with their presentation of the gospel that they only baptised 3 named individuals and one household. Sometime after they left these believers came into contact with the writings of Peter and Apollos and were understandably blown away by their depth of knowledge of God and the Christian life and found themselves asking, “why didn’t Paul teach us these things? Maybe he doesn’t know! Maybe he’s not a real apostle…maybe I would rather follow after one of these men, because they seem to know what they’re talking about more than Paul does”. Others in the group found this to be sacrilege to the teachings of Paul and said about Peter and Apollos’ teaching, “this is not the simple gospel that Paul taught us. We are going to stay faithful to the God of Paul”. Chloe and her household saw the writing on the wall and wrote to Paul to tell him all of this. Paul concludes this section with an interesting comment. He says that if he had presented the gospel with words of eloquent wisdom then the cross of Christ would have been emptied of its power. People would have said, “that’s a great argument! I will follow Paul!” and they would have continued in their sin.
Further Thoughts
The power of the message of the cross rests in our giving full credit to God for our salvation and not the efficacy of the message preached. Consider the half hearted message preached by Jonah,
“Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”
Jonah 3:4 New International Version
Jonah travelled one day into a three day wide city and preached a 2 second message and it spread like wildfire. When it reached the King he declared that everyone would repent in sackcloth and ashes before God and they did. God relented in their punishment and all glory went to God. Consider also those who later only preached Christ after Paul had been imprisoned. Paul was such a gospel minimalist that he was able to take joy and comfort in the fact that the gospel was being preached even if it was under that pretence. God would still receive the glory. The division that resulted in Corinth came from the world of the Greeks where even a teacher and his disciples differed and taught different messages so the concept of a unified mind was out of these young disciples context for how things work in the world. Paul presented the gospel not as a rational, logical wisdom teaching, but, as he writes in Romans, as the power of God unto salvation to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, 5 that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— 6 even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— 7 so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
1 Corinthians 1:4-9 English Standard Version
God’s Grace
As Paul often does in his introductions, he thanks God for key events in the lives of his recipients. In this letter he thanks God specifically for His grace having been given to the people at Corinth. He cites the confirmation of the Holy Spirit having been given to them and the confirmation of that grace being every manifestation or, ‘gift,’ of the Spirit. He says that they were, “enriched with all speech and knowledge,” leaning into what he will discuss later about having been given everything that they have in Christ and not having something we ourselves can boast in as being unique or of ourselves. The speech and knowledge giftings may also be an indication that they understood the gospel really well and could communicate it just as well, and as Paul says, they were not lacking in any gifting of the Holy Spirit, but were lacking in the application of service and love to their fellow believers which is addressed in chapter 13.
Welcome to the Main Event
Paul links his thanksgiving over the Corinthians having been given all of the above gifts to the return of Christ. It can be tempting when we read the word, “wait,” to think that we are sitting in our seats reading the literature waiting for the main event of Christ’s revealing. It is the main event, but we didn’t come alone and are surrounded by others who are also waiting for the unveiling of Christ. These others have needs, the same as we do and the Spirit of God in each of us has provided for those needs. It is the unveiling of Christ we are waiting for, which will come up later in Paul’s discussion of following after himself or Peter or Apollos, which, if we stick with our analogy, would be like waiting for the unveiling of our sweaty bus driver instead of the arrival of the King. Paul says that these gifts of the Spirit that we have been given are for sustaining us until the unveiling of Christ. They give us value to one another, to be of service to one another and render us “guiltless,” on the day of Christ.
Paul ends his tiptoeing around the issue by reminding them of God’s faithfulness to do what He said He would do and by reminding them that their proverbial bus has only just started towards the main event where everyone is travelling and waiting and caring for one another and enjoying the fellowship of their common love and expectation at the second coming of Christ.
Further Thoughts
Grace is “God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense,” which is just more words we only just barely understand. Imagine the most wealthy, most famous person you know putting on an event to which they invite the whole world. This person says that they will pay for all of the expenses it takes to get to the event and will feed and provide for everyone there to come and see their unveiling and be a part of the new project they are doing which involves giving all of us full access to their wealth which none of us could deplete if we wanted to. All we have to do is set out, and invite people along the way and bear one another’s burdens while we connect with others going the same direction along the road. Consider that the value that God gives us is not ours to boast in–none of us did anything worth inviting us to travel to this event. The use of our existing wealth to fund an air conditioned bus might make us and others more comfortable but we are all headed in the same direction no faster than anyone else. Children are being born on this journey, people get hungry, thirsty, and weary. Where the buses break down, we build permanent structures and the drivers start to think they can kick people off their bus and think that all of a sudden they are not on the road to see Christ anymore but instead they leave the bus and are surrounded by infinitely more travellers on their way to see Jesus. Around the broken down buses some build homes and dig gardens along the road. Some dig new roads that branch off of the narrow path thinking they can get to the destination faster than the main route. Some stop altogether and dig down their roots as having arrived already and send out messengers to bring people to their broken down bus and to their saviour but still sweaty bus driver. We have not moved beyond the problems that the Church in Corinth were experiencing in 55AD, in fact, we experience the very same problems with varying severity. The division in the body of Christ has never been more sever and so the letters to Corinth are more applicable than ever.
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