Sermon Tone Analysis

So as I shared earlier, the city of Corinth was a very interesting city.

It was definitely the Las Vegas of its day…and probably even worse than that.

Corinth was a port city, one filled with all sorts of people from all sorts of places...

…and it was wealthy…all that port traffic brought with it a lot of money, and all that money bought a lot of excessive living.

On top of that, literally, from a hill overlooking Corinth there were reminders of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, and her cult of temple prostitution, and all throughout the city you had temples and shrines to various gods and goddesses…Corinth was a hub of worship and devotion to all sorts of pagan rituals and practices.

Now picture if you will the apostle Paul, a missionary of Jesus, coming to Corinth on one of his missionary journeys through the Roman Empire.

It wasn’t anything like the Jewish communities he had known in his previous life.

And I have to wonder, as he first wandered around Corinth and saw the kinds of things that were going on there, did he think to himself, “Well, if the message of Jesus can make a change here, it can make a change anywhere?”

And so he begins preaching, first in the Jewish synagogue, then to the non-Jewish folks in the city, the Gentiles to whom Paul saw himself as a special messenger.

And the Spirit of God begins to move, people come to faith in Jesus, a community is birthed filled with new converts to the faith, both Jewish and Gentile alike.

It’s not easy for Paul, but it bears fruit.

And Paul stays there for over a year.

Then his journeys move him on, but the church in Corinth holds a special place in his heart.

Then some time later, Paul starts hearing some things about this church in Corinth.

Not good things.

He hears about some issues and struggles they’re having, he’s getting disturbing stories of what’s happening in this congregation he loves so much.

And so he sits down…to write them a letter.

A letter meant to clarify what it means for them to live out their faith in Jesus in a culture so filled with sin and temptation…

…what it means for them to live out their faith in Jesus in a church so filled with different backgrounds and personalities…

…what it means for them to live out their faith in Jesus in a way that promotes unity, love, witness, and most of all the grace of Jesus Christ.

Along the way Paul tackles some pretty difficult topics:

Division…unity

Immorality…immaturity

Life…death…

But even though it tackles some tough questions and issues, 1 Corinthians is ultimately, I think, very encouraging to the church.

Because Paul is not writing this letter as a stern schoolmaster who’s disappointed in his students’ performance or their behavior.

He’s writing as a church father, he writes as a parent who wants nothing but the best for their child, and he’s willing to travel the hard and rocky path to get there.

He’s writing…out of love.

Which is evident right at the beginning of the book.

[1 Corinthians 1:1]

Paul’s greeting: STANDARD.

1) Identify self, 2) Identify recipient.

And notice how Paul describes himself:

PAUL, an apostle.

In Paul’s letters he sometimes starts off declaring, “Hey, it’s me, Paul, and I am an apostle.”

He does this because some people in the early church doubted this credentials and thought, “Why should we listen to him?

He’s no apostle.”

But he is.

He has been confirmed as an apostle.

And he reminds his readers of this from time to time.

“Paul…an apostle.”

It provides a context for the words of correction he’s about to offer the church.

He’s reminding them that he’s doing so out of his office, out of his authority…out of his calling.

Out of the position given to him by God.

He’s not some stranger who wandered in off the street and thought, “Hey let me offer you some advice.”

He is the one sent by God to lead the church.

That’s what the word “apostle” means…it literally means, “the one who was sent.”

Jesus used that language of sent-ness himself, saying to his disciples:

“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

Paul’s authority and identity, they’re not derived from his education or his resume, they come from God. They’re rooted in Christ.

He makes that very clear in verse 1.

He’s not an apostle simply because he says so, he’s “called to be an apostle…by the will of God.”

He is CALLED.

This is crucial for Paul.

Paul is saying that his understanding of himself is founded in God’s work, not his.

His leadership in the church is not based on his credentials or experience, it’s based on God’s call.

Later on in this letter he will write, “I don’t even deserve to be called an apostle.”

The immediately after that:

“But by the grace of God I am what I am.”

Paul knows who he is.

And he knows whose he is.

What an important lesson for us.

As we, like so many churches around the world, wrestle with that it means to be the church in a post-pandemic world, we need to remember that “being the church” isn’t about our own cleverness, it’s not about our own wisdom…it’s about the call of God.

We need to remember that we are all sinners saved by grace.

Saved by grace…and called to serve God, no matter what our backgrounds and experiences.

Think about it…nobody would have looked at the rag-tag group of guys Jesus picked and said “There’s a bunch of world-changers right there.”

And yet that’s exactly what they did.

By the grace of God.

So I think even here, in this standard form greeting, Paul’s making an important point about identity and calling.

Which is actually going to be a central theme in this letter.

Because essentially what’s going on is that the church in Corinth is going through an identity crisis.

They are caught up in peripheral and tangential issues that are tearing them apart, they are distracted and dis-associated from the identity given to them by God.

To put it simply…they’ve forgotten who they are...they’ve forgotten whose they are.

And Paul seeks to remind them right from the start.

And listen to the words he uses to do so.

“To…the church of God in Corinth.”

This is who you are, he says, you are the CHURCH OF GOD.

Good words to a congregation torn by factions and disunity, as we’ll find out next week.

Paul’s saying the church doesn’t belong to a person or a group, it belongs to God himself.

“To the church OF GOD” and then he expands that thought.

“to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called (there’s that word again) to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours.”

Paul is saying to the Corinthians, and by extension to us, THIS IS WHO YOU ARE.

You are the ones sanctified in Christ, you are the ones called to be his holy people.

Again, just as his apostleship was rooted in God, so is our identity as God’s holy people.

Contrary to popular belief, Christians don’t (or at least shouldn’t) suffer from a “holier than thou” complex.

Christians don’t somehow think we’re better than everyone else.

In fact, quite the opposite.

A Christian is someone who hears the call to be holy, and knows deep inside that we can’t fulfill it on our own.

Only IN CHRIST, as Paul writes, are we sanctified.

Only as we rest in our relationship with Jesus in a way that transforms us and makes us more like him…only then can we be the people he calls us to be.

It’s the image Jesus gives us in the gospel of John of the vine and branches.

“I am the vine…you are the branches.

If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.”

And isn’t that our desire for the church?

For this church?

To bear much fruit?

Jesus himself tells us, and Paul reminds us, that bearing fruit is only possible because of our relationship with the Savior.

You can have the best preaching, the most exciting music and programs, the most amazing building…but if the church isn’t living out of its relationship with Jesus it will ultimately lead nowhere.

And that truth can easily be forgotten, and that’s what’s happened in Corinth.

Next week’s reading makes that very clear: these people have forgotten who it is they belong to, who it is that gives them life and forms their identity.