1st Corinthians Week 1

Intro

Good morning

Welcome to Grassroots Church this morning

We are starting a new series today that I am actually really excited about. We’ve gone through a few books in my 4.5 years here. Jonah, Revelation, Acts, but if there is one book in scripture that applies to our culture today without much explanation, its 1st Corinthians. In fact both of Pauls letters to Corinth that are in our Holy Scriptures apply extremely well. And we are planning to tackle both books in the next year.

But I love 1st Corinthians a lot. I have since 2011 desired and dreamed that if I am ever a pastor I want to take the church through this book. The reason? Our church when we lived in Columbus, GA did a whole year in the 2 Corinthian letters and it was arguably the most formative preaching in my life.

I must admit, I do not know how long this series is going to be. I do know we will, at the very least, take a month break from 1st Corinthians in September, but other than that, this series could go on for a long time.

I was talking to someone this past week about it, and I said, “Sometimes there are books you do that you can omit some stuff…like traveling passages or something” but the more I’ve been reading 1st Corinthians, and diving into many commentaries and doing word studies over the past month or so, the more I was like….We cannot skip anything. IT’s just that good and applicable to the church today.

So, we are going on this journey together.

Also, you will find each week, a little reading guide that we have made up with some that I want to encourage you all to take one and use it throughout the week.

Let’s prepare our hearts and minds together

A little background

1 corinthians is one of the earliest Christian texts we have, preceding only by Thesselonian letters and Galatians. , written anywhere between 51 AD and 57 AD.

We know Paul spent time in Corinth, about 18 months directly following his time in Athens. And had success and some trials there. Leaving Corinth when some from the Synagogue wanted him dead.

Paul

We’ve talked a little about the Apostle Paul.

-Born in Tarsus (In modern day Turkey) only a few years after Jesus was born

-Tarsus was a Hellenistic town—meaning it was heavily influenced by Greek philosophy and mythology

-His early education would’ve included a lot of Greek Philosophy and thought. Which is put on display in his debate in Athens.

-Paul was born to a devout Jewish family who sent him away in his teenage years to become a disciple in Jerusalem.

-His teacher was a man by the name of Gamaliel, who is the one who defended Peter and the Apostles in Acts 5. Gamaliel was a prominent Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin, and took the title of “Teacher of Teachers” (basically the main Jewish theologian) from Nicodemus when he died.

-So we know that Paul was highly educated, extremely zealous…and deeply devoted to cause of Christ.

Corinth

Destroyed in the 2nd Century BC

Julius Caesar rebuilt the city in 44AD as, in many cases, a “Vegas” for the Roman Empire. It was a city that was populated by Freedmen who were sent there upon their freedom.

It was a very wealthy city due to its strategic placement. To get from Rome to Athens or the other great cities like Ephesus, you would have had to go through Corinth rather than risk the dangerous islands and seas around the Peloponnesian Peninsula.

This meant that almost all trade and goods made its way through Corinth. Making it a very important city in the 1st Century. IT was so important that the Empire made Corinth, not Athens, the provincial capital of Greece.

Values:

Freedom

Sex

Pluralism

Status was everything in the city.

-Mattered a great deal what others thought

-Clothes and who you hung out with were key

-Education—They closely associated themselves with public educators called “Sophis” or “Wise ones”

-Each person attached themselves to a teacher

-Mannual labor was beneath the Sophis

-Disciples of a sophis would devote their lives to them

-Distanced themselves from “Rival” sophists” —If you don’;t follow my teacher then you don’t belong

-You would pay a fortune to become a disciple

-Paul was considered at first to be another sophis

-He was comparable intellectually with the other teachers

-Paul deviated by not charging anyone to hear him speak

-Paul continued to work with his hands

-Paul lived in Corinth for 18 months

Corinthian Church

Exploring together a church that is in crisis. A church that has allowed the pressures and ideologies of society to creep in and take hold.

The Corinthian Church can be summed up in Spiritual zeal but with communal immaturity. Not fully willing to abandon their old selfs (which is addressed in 2 Cor. 5), but seeking out loopholes and ways to claim membership in the Body while also living how they want to live.

Paul ministers directly after his time in Athens and he does so in the same manner, by reasoning or dialoguing with both Jews and Greeks. But Corinth was slightly more wild than Athens and the cultural proclivity was even more epicurean or hedonistic than Athens. We see this in chapters 5-7. necessarily a problem within the church itself at this moment. But it could be. Obviously, division/rivalry is a key aspect of the Corinthian church.

Primary Corinthian Church issues:

1) Strong in Zeal and Spiritual Pursuits but they were overestimated their maturity in Christ

Leads to becoming unteachable

Twisting Pauls words to find loopholes and to justify their way of living

2) Allowing the cultural norms to creep in like choosing a teacher, division, sexual immorality…etc.

3) Their gatherings lacked order and were often chaotic and “showy” (e.g. the focus on tongues above teaching in Chapter 14)

4) There seems to have been a doubt in the resurrection of Christ (chapter 15).

The more I’ve read through this text, the more a quote kept popping into my mind.

Christian churches are not as a rule, model communities of good behavior.

They are, rather, [to be] places where human misbehavior is brought out in the open, faced, and dealt with.

- Eugene Peterson

In other words, the church isn’t the place where we need to put on the face and the mask and pretend like everything is okay. It’s a place where we must bring our baggage, our hurts, our issues, our sin and collectively lay out in the open and at the feet of Jesus.

And this church is a church that Paul is forcing to bring that stuff out and address those spiritually depraving issues.

1 Corinthians

1st Corinthians is actually the 2nd letter

1 Cor:5:9

1 Cor:7:1

Order of Correspondence up to this point:

Paul wrote a letter…The lost 1st letter

Received a response from “Chloe’s People” 1:11

Paul responded…1st Corinthians is his response.

I want to say, when we read through this book over the next few months, we must acknowledge the Tone here:

This isn’t really an encouraging tone

Paul isn’t necessarily happy with them.

So as we read this, I want us to work towards entering into the mindset of the initial readers. How must they have been feeling when reading this?

How would we feel if we received a letter like this?

So, let’s begin the journey…1 Corinthians 1:1-3

3 Things

1 Corinthians 1:1–3 CSB

Paul, called as an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will, and Sosthenes our brother: To the church of God at Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called as saints, with all those in every place who call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord—both their Lord and ours. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Even though this is a short, 3 verse introduction to the letter, there are some distinctive things Paul is already getting across to the corinthian congregation.

1st Thing, Paul is addressing his Apostleship. That he did not declare himself an apostle, but was Called—or Summoned into the role of an Apostle.

In the first century, before the church had a lot of organization to it, the Apostles were the doers, the practitioners of the faith. They were called to plant churches and to hold those congregations to account.

I think we all hav a proclivity to take ownership of the church. This is my church.

And in many times that ownership leads us into some difficult things:

If we see the church as “ours” we can fall into...

-Getting rid of uncomfortable theologies

-Not liking one speaker or another

-Allowing cultural norms to creep into how we practice our faith and what we are called to have faith in

-When we see a church as our possession, we are far more likely change stuff according to what makes our lives easier rather than living up to what God is calling us to do. We try to fit the church into our chaotic worlds rather than see our collective call as the church as central to our existence.

But Paul says 3 key things in these verses

-1) Paul makes it clear right off the bat that the church is God’s

-2) This short passage tells us something about Christians:

a) Christians are consecrated (or made Holy) in Jesus Christ

Christians are sanctified in Jesus Christ. The verb to consecrate (hagiazo) means to set a place apart for God, to make it holy, by the offering of a sacrifice upon it. Christians have been consecrated to God by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. To be a Christian is to be one for whom Christ died and to know it, and to realize that that sacrifice, in a very special way, makes us belong to God.

b) There is a word also used here that builds off of “Sanctified” or hagiazo.

The other word is Hagios---which has been translated in many English versions as “saints.”

The Letters to the Corinthians An Apostolic Introduction (1 Corinthians 1:1–3)

Hagios describes a thing or a person that has been devoted to the possession and the service of God. It is the word used to describe a temple or a sacrifice which has been marked out for God. Now, if people have been marked out as specially belonging to God, they must show themselves to be fit in life and in character for that service. That is how hagios comes to mean holy, saintly.

c) Paul addresses his letter to those who have been called in the company of those who in every place call upon the name of the Lord. Christians are called into a community whose boundaries include all earth and all heaven. It would be greatly to our good if sometimes we lifted our eyes beyond our own little circle and thought of ourselves as part of the Church of God which is as wide as the world.

3) This passage says something about Jesus Christ:

In the first 10 verses of this letter, Paul mentions Christ 10 times. Paul knows that this letter is going to be a difficult one. And instead of coming to the people with laws, rules, and books of discipline, or strategies to get better…Paul is coming to the people in the Power of Jesus Christ.

And here we find the first declaration of Who Jesus is....

Believe it or not, there is a correction in the text that Paul makes.

In English translations, they’ve mostly placed what is called an Em Dash after “our Lord”

This is a qualifying mark. Almost like a parenthesis…but it is actually Paul expanding on the idea.

Christ is not simply “our” Lord…but he IS Lord of all regardless of belief. Yes we can declare Jesus as our Lord…but the truth is that Jesus is Lord of all.

Much like God in the book of Jonah, regardless of what the Ninevites believed, God was still their creator and Lord.

Conclusion

So, to begin our journey into Corinth,

I want us to reflect on or place ourselves as the recipients of this letter. Allow this letter to speak to our current situation. To challenge us and stretch us and grow us. Read this as it is to us.

And we must remember:

This church belongs to Christ and we are called to participate in it, invest in it, and grow with it

We are made Holy, called to live Holy, and are to see our church belonging to the universal church in the world.

That regardless, Christ is Lord and our lives are to be reflective of that reality.

Let’s pray together.