Sermon Tone Analysis

Background

It was the capital city of the province Achaia.

This tells us this was a major city.

Roman Corinth was prosperous, cosmopolitan, and religiously pluralistic, accustomed to visits by impressive, traveling public speakers and obsessed with status, self-promotion, and personal rights.

From a Jewish or Christian viewpoint, as with any pagan city, its inhabitants were marked by the worship of idols, sexual immorality, and greed.

This doesn’t sound too different from society today.

This is encouraging because if they’re going through the same things that we’re going through today, that must mean what Paul writes to them must apply to us.

The purpose of 1 Corinthians is to correct certain misunderstandings that the church had about subjects such as sexual immorality, greed, idolatry, wisdom, and so on.

Bottom line: This church had issues!

Chapter 1

What is a Christian?

1 Corinthians 1:4-9

V. 4) Paul thanks God for grace given to the Corinthians.

When was the last time you thanked God for giving someone, other than yourself, something?

V. 5) Paul focuses on thanking God, not the Corinthians, for what He has done for them, not for what the church has done.

It sometimes makes me cringe when I hear churches saying “Look what we’re doing for people” or “Look at all the good this church is doing” We need to get into a mindset of “Look what God is doing through us.

He’s giving us wisdom and gifts and grace.”

V. 4-9) If you ever wondered what the definition of a Christian is, look right here!

A Christian is someone who has been given God’s grace.

They have been given spiritual gifts from God including wisdom and knowledge of Himself.

Someone who is eagerly waiting the return of Christ who knows, and doesn’t doubt where they’re going when they die.

And someone who is in active fellowship with Jesus.

Same Mindset

1 Corinthians 1:10-17

V. 10) Paul is begging that the Corinthians get on the same page.

He uses the phrase “by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” because he needs to express how serious this is, but also to bring unity among them.

By using the word our, he shows commonality among the Corinthians.

I love what this commentary says “Unity in a local church cannot be based on race, class, or social or economic circumstances.

The only common factor in otherwise diverse Christian congregations such as Corinth is every member’s relation to Christ.”

Paul uses an example of baptism here.

Some people believe that baptism is required for salvation and some people don’t.

Paul wants to stress the importance of preaching the cross of Christ over everything else in this section of his letter.

One of the biggest debates in the church today is baptism.

Is it required for salvation?

Some people believe it is, others don’t.

Again, Paul is emphasizing the subject of the cross and minimizing debates that ultimately don’t matter.

One commentary says “It would appear that Paul followed the example of Jesus in this matter.

Christ preached, and delegated baptism primarily to his disciples (John 4:1-2 “1 Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John 2 (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples),” Paul followed the same practice; he proclaimed the gospel and left baptism primarily to his converts, who supervised the ongoing life of the church.”

As someone who has been taught that baptism is only an outward expression of an inward commitment, I want to say this.

I’m going to teach the importance of baptism regardless of its salvation implications.

That may sound reckless, but hear what I’m trying to say.

If you’re a Christian, you believe baptism is important.

You’re going to get baptized or encourage people to get baptized anyway so why argue about it?

When Paul talks about them being united and having no divisions among them in this sense, he is saying “I want you to preach the message of the cross.

If you don’t agree on anything else at least be unified on this.”

He goes into more detail in verse 18.

The main point of this chapter is that we need to be unified.

We’re Not All That

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

People in this world are divided into one of two categories.

Saved or perishing.

There is no human logic to explain the cross of Christ.

There is no way we could make any sense out of God’s decision to send His perfect son to die an excruciating, painful death when He had the ability to speak sin out of existence; however, if He would have done that, we wouldn’t have a choice but to worship Him because there would be no other choice.

God desires for you to choose Him.

It pleases God when a lost person gets saved.

So the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.

God uses that “foolish message” to save His people from Hell and it pleases Him to do so.

Do you want to please God? Lead people to Christ!

Jews were constantly requesting a sign in the gospels.

Greeks were big on human wisdom.

Plato, Aristotle, etc.

God Hates Pride

1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Everything that you have is from God.

All your skills, talents, gifts, and wisdom all come from God almighty.

You may have gone to school and done well for yourself, but it is only by God’s grace that you still have breath in your lungs.

If you’re going to boast in anything, boast in the Lord.

If you’re going to give anything glory, give glory to God.

Stop disqualifying yourself because you’re not educated, strong, talented whatever.

God just wants you to show up!

He’ll take care of the rest.