Unsettled by the continuing lack of meaningful concern and action over disunity in the body of Christ I have set forward the same arguments you’ve been reading from this site since its inception into proper print format. The House that Stands: Seeking God’s Kingdom and Unity in the Body of Christis now available in print and as an e-book from Amazon.
Christians of all stripes have worked on meaningful solutions to all kinds of problems we have encountered in our time on this earth, but unity with God and with one another is not one of them. We pay tribute to the reality of the global church or even perhaps the church that transcends life and death but cannot grasp that most believers are nothing like us, and yet we are called to be as one with one another and God as God is one with Himself. The House that Stands attempts to guide the reader’s thoughts towards these foundational truths with medium to short chapters probing the depths of unity in the body of Christ as it relates to the Kingdom and House of God.
I’ve grown tired of lip-service calls for unity among the people of God without the hard theological and philosophical work of determining what the underpinnings of that unity are and if we can continue much in the same way and yet somehow do life together or if we need a fresh start. What I’ve written is a start towards those ends; contemplations that will be familiar if we’ve talked recently as they have been my focus for some time now. Some of it will be difficult to understand and other parts perhaps too simplistic, but none of it is meant to be read once and ticked off the list of reading material. These are my ever-present meditations, and I offer them for you to meditate on as well. The chapters are medium to short in length and while deceptively short, they should have you thinking along the lines of how exactly we are supposed to be as one with one another and God as God is one with Himself in our lifetimes.
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
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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.
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.
Unity in the Body of Christ as Innate Sameness, Wholeness & Purity
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Let’s revisit unity in the body of Christ. Unity is often presented in conversation as ‘sameness,’ within the body of Christ, and as a result we ask the questions like, “What are we supposed to be the same in”. This is not an overly terrible question, but it isn’t terribly helpful either as, when we answer with anything other than love, we get some pretty awful permutations of the body saying that we all have to believe one doctrine over another or have this hope over that one. So let’s leave the sameness track of the conversation of unity for a moment and examine the more wholistic concept of unity as wholeness, purity and innate sameness.
Let us assume that we have an apple. There are several questions we can ask about the apple. Is it a whole apple, is it purely apple and is it the same apple? When considering unity we usually only ask one of these questions, but all three of them and probably more are relevant in answering the question of the apple’s oneness.
The Whole Apple
Asking the first question, “is the apple whole,” is a very restrictive question. This may seem obvious but if parts of the apple are divided, missing or intentionally excluded then we do not have one whole apple. The apple is not one with itself.
The Same Apple
Asking if something is the same, is not like asking if it is whole. Let’s assume we have two halves of an apple, they are each one half of an apple and are therefore the same having the similar characteristics but neither are one whole apple. Also we could not say of a whole apple that it is entirely the same as anything other than itself. Even another whole apple would mean that we have two whole yet distinct apples; they are not one with one another.
The Pure Apple
This is again, not the same as asking if it is purely apple as in the event that a chunk is missing and has been replaced with some other piece of of fruit that has been cut to fit the space. The apple’s purity is intrinsically tied to its wholeness
The Whole, Same, Pure Body of Christ
If all of this holds true then the Word ought to support such a definition of unity in the body of Christ; and in fact, it does.
The Whole Body
21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
1 Corinthians 12:21-26 English Standard Version
The body then is not one unless all of the parts are present and, in Paul’s estimation, equally valued.
The Pure Body
1See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appearsa we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
1 John 3:1-3 English Standard Version
The impure body is not a unified body. If the world had never seen an apple then they wouldn’t recognise nor probably taste another example of an apple if it was presented to them to eat. Our unity then is secondarily in hope in that we ensure that we are individually and collectively pure children of God with not a hint of the world in us as we look forward to the most pure one’s coming.
The Same Body
4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
1 Corinthians 12:4-11 English Standard Version
As we can see from our example and Paul’s, we do not have a “similar,” spirit but the very same Holy Spirit of God who lives in us, among a list of other same things and we are therefore not a grouping of similar bodies but a singular body with the same elements. We are the very same people of God who have received mercy.
Further Study Needed
More study is needed to present this concept of unity to you. 1 Corinthians continues to be a loudhailer of unity in the body of Christ that I should be surprised more haven’t picked up on, except that we have poisoned its message with other concepts of ‘acceptable,’ divisions. More will follow accordingly.
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