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.
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.
I don’t write commentary on the scriptures very much, but as I am currently studying through Paul’s letter to the Corinthians I thought I would share what I am learning and the thoughts that are readily coming to my mind as I attempt to do justice to the teachings of the Word.
1 Corinthians 1:1-3
1 Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes,
2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 1:1-3 English Standard Version
Author(s)
This letter is attributed to two men but written in the voice of only one of them. These two men are the Apostle Paul (formerly Saul of Tarsus) and Sosthenes [meaning; “safe in strength” Strong’s G4988]. We are aware of the Apostle Paul, but there is some debate over the identity of the second man. Some scholars believe Sosthenes to be the very same chief of the Synagogue who was beaten by the crowds in Acts 18, some think that he is some other Sosthenes as, apparently, it was a popular name at the time. Who he is in actuality is of little value to us, because, as previously mentioned, Paul’s voice is the dominant of the two in this letter. It can be assumed that certain people within the Church would know who he is and his relevance for being named as the co-author of this letter. They are likely writing from Ephesus around 55AD.
Recipients
Paul is writing to the entire church in Corinth. The quite modern idea of local churches had a few millennia yet to come about, and the robust message of global church unity in the initial chapters gives us no reason to believe that this was meant to be read by one particular house in Corinth. It is a circulatory letter that would have travelled first in and around Corinth and then outside of the city to a broader audience.
The Greeting
Paul’s greetings are never gratuitous outpourings of word salad. They foreshadow his themes and underlying message in the letter and so they deserve to be paid the utmost attention.
Sanctified in Christ Jesus
Paul calls the Corinthians, “sanctified in Christ Jesus,” meaning that they have been set apart as holy. A theme we will see visited in chapter 6. Those who are set apart are by definition saints and Paul includes them with everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord (to be saved). Paul reminds them of their unity with the whole body as a result of their common God.
Further Thoughts
Sanctification can often receive the definition of the high state and process of ethereal spirituality that happens to us when we receive the love and mercy of Jesus. Please allow me to bring the word out of the clouds and down to our hands. The potter ‘sanctifies,’ a lump of clay to be a pot and, ‘sanctifies,’ another to be a mug. A wood turner sets apart a particular plank to be turned into a spoke or a plate. A baker divides a lump of dough sanctifying each ball to be formed into loaves. Sanctification simply means that we have been set apart for a purpose. There is nothing special about the lump of clay, the plank of wood, or the ball of dough and everything special about the intention of the one who sets it apart. To be sanctified is to be made useful by the master; not only to have been definitively set apart to be made useful but ultimately to be used by God for the purpose God has set us apart to fulfil.
While sanctification can rightly be defined as a linear process which we undergo in life it should also be well remembered that the God who is working it out in us exists outside of time and space, and so, we have simultaneously been set apart, started and are the finished useful work of Christ from the moment of our salvation. A ‘new,’ believer is as much a finished work as the believer who has been saved for 40 years and both have the unmitigated responsibility of repairing the interface with one another, which includes tearing down the secondary interfaces that are our notions of progression being anything to do with us, and, therefore, anything we ourselves can boast in. Paul will address this in the coming chapters.
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