Time for a Tune-up
-1-
The Apostle Paul's First Letter to the Church at Corinth, Greece
The opening verse:
1Co 1:1 ¶ Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
First, a few words about the author ... the writer. (actually God is the author):
Paul did not always go by this name ... his given name was Saul.
He shared a bit about himself in Acts 22:3 ¶ “I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our fathers’ law, and was zealous toward God as you all are today.”
And in Philippians 3:5 “(I was) circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee;”
So Paul, (or Saul) was, by all the standards of the day, a good Jew. But as he grew to early manhood he developed a hatred for those Jews who had turned their backs on Judaism and became followers of Jesus. We have no record of whether or not he ever had met Jesus in the flesh or if he saw Him crucified. As a Pharisee, he most certainly would have heard and been a part of the discussions of how to get rid of Jesus.
After the day of Pentecost the church just seemed to 'explode' in size. So Paul took it on as his 'mission in life' to stamp out the followers of Jesus.
The church had elected seven men to assist in the tasks of operating a church that had grown from 120 people to 4 or 5 thousand people. This was a church that assembled every day .. and ate their meals together.
One of the seven was a young man named Stephen. As opportunity presented itself, Stephen preached the gospel in public. He laid it out in simple and blunt words. He said, "Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.” Acts 2:22
He literally pointed his finger at them and said, “You killed Him!”
The listeners grew intensely angry and formed a lynch mob. They bombarded him with stones and killed him. Standing by and encouraging the mob, was Saul.1
But God had plans for Saul. As he approached Damascus, carrying letters of authority to arrest any and all Christians that he might come across ...
“ ... suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? "Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked. "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," he replied. Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do." Ac 9:3-6
What a dramatic encounter with Jesus! Not many people come to Christ like that!
As instructed by Jesus, Saul went into the city to a particular address. Then God spoke to a minister by the name of Annanias. God told him that the 'Christian Hater' called Saul was about to pay him a visit, but not to fear, he was a changed man. Annanias objected. The Lord told him, "Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. Acts 9:11-15
In the opening verse of First Corinthians, Paul mentions that it was Jesus who called him to be an Apostle. While on earth Jesus, from his larger group of disciples had chosen twelve and appointed them as Apostles. Jesus knew full well that one of the twelve, Judas, was not a true believer. The choice was intentional. After Judas betrayed Jesus to be crucified, he felt badly enough about it to commit suicide. This left only eleven apostles.
Should there be only twelve apostles or does the number matter? Peter thought it mattered and he did something about it. Just before the day of Pentecost, Peter, without instruction from God to do so, read a verse from the Psalms that indicated the position held by Judas needed to be re-filled. He talked the group into choosing a person to take Judas' place.
In the Revelation we can read about the new eternal city having twelve foundations, each one having a name of one of the apostles. We have no problem saying that Judas' name will not appear on one of them. But what about it? Will the newly elected apostle (called Mathias) have his name inscribed there? Possibly, but I don't think so. I believe the twelfth name will be that of Paul. He is an apostle. But simply his saying so, was not evidence enough. He received a lot of opposition to his apostleship. Very subtly in the opening verse of this chapter we see Paul defending his position.
Paul ... a 'called' apostle ... by the will of Jesus Himself.
Some time had to pass before Saul, now called Paul, would be seen as a truly changed man. No Christians would trust him at first. A Christian by the name of Barnabas was brave enough and trusting enough to reach out to Paul with support and advice.
A new church in the city of Antioch, Syria was becoming a very effective ministry for God. Barnabas was part of this congregation. When the time seemed right Barnabas sought out Paul and invited him to Antioch and included him in ministry.
The Holy Spirit spoke to the church (we are not told in what form He spoke) and mentioned both Barnabas and Paul by name, and telling the church to commission them to missionary work. The pair of them set out on a church planting tour. They took with them John Mark, a nephew to Barnabas, and went first to the island of Crete. This had been home to Barnabas and his relatives. As they were leaving the island at the west end of it, John Mark decided to stay go back to Antioch. Meanwhile Barnabas and Paul went north to the mainland and continued evangelising and planting churches.
The tour being completed they spent a while back home in Antioch. It may have been a year or so when Paul suggested that they retrace their steps and see how the new churches were doing.
So Barnabas suggested asking John Mark to join them ... but Paul strongly disagreed. Barnabas insisted on taking Mark, so the two of them set off without Paul. Paul then found another person who would go with him, and they set out in the opposite direction, to visit the churches on the mainland in reverse order to what Barnabas would be doing.
The Corinthian church came into being about two thirds of the way into this tour. After Paul had planted a church in the city of Thessalonica, he went south to Berea and did the same. Then he came all the way south to Athens, Greece, and plants a church there. He went from Athens westward to Corinth and began a congregation there, spending up to a couple of years with them.
Paul was not the only missionary to have input into the lives of the Corinthian church people. Apollos was there for a period of time, as was the Apostle Peter. We will have more to say about that later on.
From Corinth Paul went to Ephesus and then to Jerusalem for Pentecost, ending up back 'home' in Syria at his home church in Antioch.
Several years later Paul and Silas make a third missionary journey to re-visit the churches.
Paul is writing to the Corinthians from Ephesus. This would be close to his third year in Ephesus. Although this letter is called 'first' Corinthians, it is not really his first letter. He had written one a year or so earlier. We know this by reading 1 Corinthians 5:9: ¶ I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people.
Who is his companion, Sosthenes? By reading the account in acts 18:1-17 we discover that as Paul used his 'normal' approach for evangelism, (attending Jewish synagogues on Saturday and starting conversation/debates), and that, in this case, the actual ruler of the synagogue, Crispus, became a believer.
Many of the Jews were growing angry with Paul because he kept insisting that Jesus, whom they killed, was, and is, the Messiah, so he had to stop coming to the synagogue. He rented the building next door. Crispus and a number of new Jewish believers came with him there, and a church was formed. The replacement leader of the synagogue was a person named Sosthenes. By the end of the chapter we read that he was severely beaten. That tells us that he too, became a believer. No wonder they beat up Sosthenes so badly - two of their leaders converted to Christianity. They needed to make 'an example' out of him.
We note in our opening verse that Sosthenes is with Paul. What we gather from that is, as Paul made his decision to leave Corinth for Ephesus, Sosthenes joined Paul's missionary team. Or another possibility is that Sosthenes came to Paul on his own a bit later .
Paul is going to address some very serious issues that the Corinthian church is having. He will issue some direct commands. He will want to be obeyed ... so he underlines his authority ... “I am a 'called' and duly appointed apostle of Jesus Christ, and as such I have authority to command you in this way ... and by the way, one of your own people, Sosthenes is here ... and he stands with me in what I am about to write.”
1Co 1:2 To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:
“To the assembly' of God ... meeting in Corinth” ... How big a church can you see in your mind's eye? What does their building look like? What mental picture are you imagining here?
It may not look like what you just imagined. In those days all churches were house churches. That means, when one house got too crowded, the group would split into two groups, and then there would be two churches ... well, not really ... it was still called one church, even when they had split fifty times or more. They were meeting in many homes but still comprising just one church.
Now let's take a look at who is being addressed. Do you notice how Paul refers to the Corinthian Christians? He call them 'sanctified'. That simply means 'set apart for a specific reason or purpose' or special. Then he calls them 'saints'. That means 'Holy ones'. And then he adds, 'And this is for anyone out there who calls on the name of Jesus with us'. That makes it clear, Paul is not writing this for the 'world' or for 'the ungodly', or for the 'unsaved'. This letter is not a gospel tool to lead people to Jesus. This will be a letter to tell Christian people how to become better Christian people.
But there is something here that is not readily apparent, so I will point it out. The 'saints' to whom Paul is writing, if we were to be the judge ... are anything but saints. This is a church filled with some seriously UNGODLY behaviour. You will be shocked when you see just what was going on. And yet he calls them SAINTS!
What should that tell us? Our standing may be very different from our walk.
What am I saying? Let me illustrate it with one of my favourite passages in the Bible.
Ps 40:1 ¶ «To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.» I waited patiently for the LORD; And He inclined to me, And heard my cry.
2 He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, Out of the miry clay, And set my feet upon a rock, And established my steps.
3 He has put a new song in my mouth—Praise to our God; Many will see it and fear, And will trust in the LORD.
Notice the two phrases ... 'set my feet' and 'established my steps'.
All of us were born 'safe'. Not 'saved', but safe. That is, if you had died shortly after you were born, you would have gone to be with Jesus, without needing baptism, without needing to have 'called on the name of Lord' to be saved.
But then, something happened to each one of us. As we grew older, learnt to walk and talk, as we learnt to think with a bit of maturity ... we discovered sin and sinfulness. We discovered a new feeling called guilt. Let's read about it in scripture.
Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. Romans 7:9.
Paul said in Romans 7:9 “I was ALIVE without the law once ...
Paul was born a Jew ... when was he ever without the law? Answer: From the time of his birth and into his young boyhood ... until 'the commandment came and sin sprang to life and I DIED'
Paul DIED a spiritual death when the knowledge of right and wrong became real to him. This means, as a little boy, if he were to have died physically, he would not have gone to be with Jesus, he would have gone to Hell.
From the point at which he DIED until the point that he became a believer as a young man, could have been about 30 years or so.
This is also your experience and mine. We all, at one time, were safe. Then we all died spiritually and found ourselves hopelessly sinking in the 'miry quicksand'. We realized the hopeless, lost and dead condition of our souls. Sorry for our sins we turned from them and called out to God to save us and give us the eternal life that Jesus bought for us on the cross.
As we called out to Him, he lifted us out of the quicksand. That is salvation. He set us on a solid rock. That is our secure 'standing' in Him. That is when we can say, 'Glory! I'm saved!' It was not by our efforts to climb out of the pit that we got saved. It is all because Jesus reached his hand down to us, and lifted us out. Salvation is the work of Jesus, totally.
But after he set us on the rock and cleaned us up ... what did he do then? He established my steps.
We all have a 'walk' after we have been pulled out of the quicksand that was pulling us down to hell. That 'walk' becomes more steady, stable and sure footed as we allow God to 'establish' us. It is not our walk that got us out of the miry clay, is it? Jesus did that. It was totally Jesus who did that. But the walk that we have ahead of us can be be as steady and straight as we want it to be ... by allowing Him to establish us.
Getting back to the Christians of Corinth ... and the fact that Paul called them 'saints', we understand that he means ... everyone who has been lifted out of the miry clay and set on a rock ... is a called a 'saint'. - A holy one. - One who was made holy as Jesus was pulling them out of the mud ... and washing them clean as he set them on the rock.
Now these 'holy ones' start out in their 'Christian Walk'. As we will see in the next short while, their walk was not all that Christian. And yet ... they were saints. How does that make you feel? Do you remember when you were sinking in sin, knowing you were headed for Hell? Do you remember when you called out to Him to save you ... and He did? He made you a saint that day.
Is your daily walk a Christian walk? Does it need establishing? Well, that is why we are here. We can all learn from the corrections that Paul 'laid' on them.
1Ac 8:1 ¶ Now Saul was consenting to his death. At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.
Ac 22:20 ‘And when the blood of Your martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by consenting to his death, and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.’
1Co 1:1 ¶ Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
First, a few words about the author ... the writer. (actually God is the author):
Paul did not always go by this name ... his given name was Saul.
He shared a bit about himself in Acts 22:3 ¶ “I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our fathers’ law, and was zealous toward God as you all are today.”
And in Philippians 3:5 “(I was) circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee;”
So Paul, (or Saul) was, by all the standards of the day, a good Jew. But as he grew to early manhood he developed a hatred for those Jews who had turned their backs on Judaism and became followers of Jesus. We have no record of whether or not he ever had met Jesus in the flesh or if he saw Him crucified. As a Pharisee, he most certainly would have heard and been a part of the discussions of how to get rid of Jesus.
After the day of Pentecost the church just seemed to 'explode' in size. So Paul took it on as his 'mission in life' to stamp out the followers of Jesus.
The church had elected seven men to assist in the tasks of operating a church that had grown from 120 people to 4 or 5 thousand people. This was a church that assembled every day .. and ate their meals together.
One of the seven was a young man named Stephen. As opportunity presented itself, Stephen preached the gospel in public. He laid it out in simple and blunt words. He said, "Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.” Acts 2:22
He literally pointed his finger at them and said, “You killed Him!”
The listeners grew intensely angry and formed a lynch mob. They bombarded him with stones and killed him. Standing by and encouraging the mob, was Saul.1
But God had plans for Saul. As he approached Damascus, carrying letters of authority to arrest any and all Christians that he might come across ...
“ ... suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? "Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked. "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," he replied. Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do." Ac 9:3-6
What a dramatic encounter with Jesus! Not many people come to Christ like that!
As instructed by Jesus, Saul went into the city to a particular address. Then God spoke to a minister by the name of Annanias. God told him that the 'Christian Hater' called Saul was about to pay him a visit, but not to fear, he was a changed man. Annanias objected. The Lord told him, "Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. Acts 9:11-15
In the opening verse of First Corinthians, Paul mentions that it was Jesus who called him to be an Apostle. While on earth Jesus, from his larger group of disciples had chosen twelve and appointed them as Apostles. Jesus knew full well that one of the twelve, Judas, was not a true believer. The choice was intentional. After Judas betrayed Jesus to be crucified, he felt badly enough about it to commit suicide. This left only eleven apostles.
Should there be only twelve apostles or does the number matter? Peter thought it mattered and he did something about it. Just before the day of Pentecost, Peter, without instruction from God to do so, read a verse from the Psalms that indicated the position held by Judas needed to be re-filled. He talked the group into choosing a person to take Judas' place.
In the Revelation we can read about the new eternal city having twelve foundations, each one having a name of one of the apostles. We have no problem saying that Judas' name will not appear on one of them. But what about it? Will the newly elected apostle (called Mathias) have his name inscribed there? Possibly, but I don't think so. I believe the twelfth name will be that of Paul. He is an apostle. But simply his saying so, was not evidence enough. He received a lot of opposition to his apostleship. Very subtly in the opening verse of this chapter we see Paul defending his position.
Paul ... a 'called' apostle ... by the will of Jesus Himself.
Some time had to pass before Saul, now called Paul, would be seen as a truly changed man. No Christians would trust him at first. A Christian by the name of Barnabas was brave enough and trusting enough to reach out to Paul with support and advice.
A new church in the city of Antioch, Syria was becoming a very effective ministry for God. Barnabas was part of this congregation. When the time seemed right Barnabas sought out Paul and invited him to Antioch and included him in ministry.
The Holy Spirit spoke to the church (we are not told in what form He spoke) and mentioned both Barnabas and Paul by name, and telling the church to commission them to missionary work. The pair of them set out on a church planting tour. They took with them John Mark, a nephew to Barnabas, and went first to the island of Crete. This had been home to Barnabas and his relatives. As they were leaving the island at the west end of it, John Mark decided to stay go back to Antioch. Meanwhile Barnabas and Paul went north to the mainland and continued evangelising and planting churches.
The tour being completed they spent a while back home in Antioch. It may have been a year or so when Paul suggested that they retrace their steps and see how the new churches were doing.
So Barnabas suggested asking John Mark to join them ... but Paul strongly disagreed. Barnabas insisted on taking Mark, so the two of them set off without Paul. Paul then found another person who would go with him, and they set out in the opposite direction, to visit the churches on the mainland in reverse order to what Barnabas would be doing.
The Corinthian church came into being about two thirds of the way into this tour. After Paul had planted a church in the city of Thessalonica, he went south to Berea and did the same. Then he came all the way south to Athens, Greece, and plants a church there. He went from Athens westward to Corinth and began a congregation there, spending up to a couple of years with them.
Paul was not the only missionary to have input into the lives of the Corinthian church people. Apollos was there for a period of time, as was the Apostle Peter. We will have more to say about that later on.
From Corinth Paul went to Ephesus and then to Jerusalem for Pentecost, ending up back 'home' in Syria at his home church in Antioch.
Several years later Paul and Silas make a third missionary journey to re-visit the churches.
Paul is writing to the Corinthians from Ephesus. This would be close to his third year in Ephesus. Although this letter is called 'first' Corinthians, it is not really his first letter. He had written one a year or so earlier. We know this by reading 1 Corinthians 5:9: ¶ I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people.
Who is his companion, Sosthenes? By reading the account in acts 18:1-17 we discover that as Paul used his 'normal' approach for evangelism, (attending Jewish synagogues on Saturday and starting conversation/debates), and that, in this case, the actual ruler of the synagogue, Crispus, became a believer.
Many of the Jews were growing angry with Paul because he kept insisting that Jesus, whom they killed, was, and is, the Messiah, so he had to stop coming to the synagogue. He rented the building next door. Crispus and a number of new Jewish believers came with him there, and a church was formed. The replacement leader of the synagogue was a person named Sosthenes. By the end of the chapter we read that he was severely beaten. That tells us that he too, became a believer. No wonder they beat up Sosthenes so badly - two of their leaders converted to Christianity. They needed to make 'an example' out of him.
We note in our opening verse that Sosthenes is with Paul. What we gather from that is, as Paul made his decision to leave Corinth for Ephesus, Sosthenes joined Paul's missionary team. Or another possibility is that Sosthenes came to Paul on his own a bit later .
Paul is going to address some very serious issues that the Corinthian church is having. He will issue some direct commands. He will want to be obeyed ... so he underlines his authority ... “I am a 'called' and duly appointed apostle of Jesus Christ, and as such I have authority to command you in this way ... and by the way, one of your own people, Sosthenes is here ... and he stands with me in what I am about to write.”
1Co 1:2 To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:
“To the assembly' of God ... meeting in Corinth” ... How big a church can you see in your mind's eye? What does their building look like? What mental picture are you imagining here?
It may not look like what you just imagined. In those days all churches were house churches. That means, when one house got too crowded, the group would split into two groups, and then there would be two churches ... well, not really ... it was still called one church, even when they had split fifty times or more. They were meeting in many homes but still comprising just one church.
Now let's take a look at who is being addressed. Do you notice how Paul refers to the Corinthian Christians? He call them 'sanctified'. That simply means 'set apart for a specific reason or purpose' or special. Then he calls them 'saints'. That means 'Holy ones'. And then he adds, 'And this is for anyone out there who calls on the name of Jesus with us'. That makes it clear, Paul is not writing this for the 'world' or for 'the ungodly', or for the 'unsaved'. This letter is not a gospel tool to lead people to Jesus. This will be a letter to tell Christian people how to become better Christian people.
But there is something here that is not readily apparent, so I will point it out. The 'saints' to whom Paul is writing, if we were to be the judge ... are anything but saints. This is a church filled with some seriously UNGODLY behaviour. You will be shocked when you see just what was going on. And yet he calls them SAINTS!
What should that tell us? Our standing may be very different from our walk.
What am I saying? Let me illustrate it with one of my favourite passages in the Bible.
Ps 40:1 ¶ «To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.» I waited patiently for the LORD; And He inclined to me, And heard my cry.
2 He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, Out of the miry clay, And set my feet upon a rock, And established my steps.
3 He has put a new song in my mouth—Praise to our God; Many will see it and fear, And will trust in the LORD.
Notice the two phrases ... 'set my feet' and 'established my steps'.
All of us were born 'safe'. Not 'saved', but safe. That is, if you had died shortly after you were born, you would have gone to be with Jesus, without needing baptism, without needing to have 'called on the name of Lord' to be saved.
But then, something happened to each one of us. As we grew older, learnt to walk and talk, as we learnt to think with a bit of maturity ... we discovered sin and sinfulness. We discovered a new feeling called guilt. Let's read about it in scripture.
Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. Romans 7:9.
Paul said in Romans 7:9 “I was ALIVE without the law once ...
Paul was born a Jew ... when was he ever without the law? Answer: From the time of his birth and into his young boyhood ... until 'the commandment came and sin sprang to life and I DIED'
Paul DIED a spiritual death when the knowledge of right and wrong became real to him. This means, as a little boy, if he were to have died physically, he would not have gone to be with Jesus, he would have gone to Hell.
From the point at which he DIED until the point that he became a believer as a young man, could have been about 30 years or so.
This is also your experience and mine. We all, at one time, were safe. Then we all died spiritually and found ourselves hopelessly sinking in the 'miry quicksand'. We realized the hopeless, lost and dead condition of our souls. Sorry for our sins we turned from them and called out to God to save us and give us the eternal life that Jesus bought for us on the cross.
As we called out to Him, he lifted us out of the quicksand. That is salvation. He set us on a solid rock. That is our secure 'standing' in Him. That is when we can say, 'Glory! I'm saved!' It was not by our efforts to climb out of the pit that we got saved. It is all because Jesus reached his hand down to us, and lifted us out. Salvation is the work of Jesus, totally.
But after he set us on the rock and cleaned us up ... what did he do then? He established my steps.
We all have a 'walk' after we have been pulled out of the quicksand that was pulling us down to hell. That 'walk' becomes more steady, stable and sure footed as we allow God to 'establish' us. It is not our walk that got us out of the miry clay, is it? Jesus did that. It was totally Jesus who did that. But the walk that we have ahead of us can be be as steady and straight as we want it to be ... by allowing Him to establish us.
Getting back to the Christians of Corinth ... and the fact that Paul called them 'saints', we understand that he means ... everyone who has been lifted out of the miry clay and set on a rock ... is a called a 'saint'. - A holy one. - One who was made holy as Jesus was pulling them out of the mud ... and washing them clean as he set them on the rock.
Now these 'holy ones' start out in their 'Christian Walk'. As we will see in the next short while, their walk was not all that Christian. And yet ... they were saints. How does that make you feel? Do you remember when you were sinking in sin, knowing you were headed for Hell? Do you remember when you called out to Him to save you ... and He did? He made you a saint that day.
Is your daily walk a Christian walk? Does it need establishing? Well, that is why we are here. We can all learn from the corrections that Paul 'laid' on them.
1Ac 8:1 ¶ Now Saul was consenting to his death. At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.
Ac 22:20 ‘And when the blood of Your martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by consenting to his death, and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.’