1 CORINTHIANS (Letter 46, Larry Crabb’s 66 Love Letters)

I Never Give Up On My People: My Plan Will Succeed

We can believe that the end of the story God is telling is good, but it may be a stretch to believe that how He is getting us there is good.

C.S. Lewis worte ehtn his wife died: “I don’t think I’m in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not So ther’s no God after all, but So this is what God’ really like.”

By this point of reading the Bible we should be convinced that God has not promised to protect us in this life from things that scare the daylights out of us or to provide us with what we think we need to trust God. But what He has promised is to change us, to make us enought like His Son that we’ll be able to love Him and love otheres no matter what goes on in us or in our life, no matter what we struggle with or how many bad things happen to us.

If Paul couldn’t get through to the Corinthians, who’s going to get through to us?

Corinth was a pagan culture so the Corinthians who became Christians came into the church with a lot of baggage but we’ve got baggage too.

Paul continued to tell God’s story of love to quarrelsome, arrogant, and selfish people. Paul knew they were still living according to the saying that Corinthians loved to repeat: “All things are lawful for me”. But neither Paul nor God gave up on them.

Summary of what Paul was saying:

–Turn away from haughtiness, the wisdom of this world, and a spirit of entitlement.

–Deal decisively with blatant sin; resolve differences within the church community, not through the legal system; deny yourself the pleasures of sex outside marriage; let love for God drive your decision to marry or to remain single, and if you marry, let love for God and for your spouse control your sexual activity; and exercise your freedom, not go get your own way but for the common good.

–Spiritual leadership is an opportunity to serve, not to gain recognition. Joy depends on giving, not getting.

–Steer clear of every form of idolatry, blatant or suble.

–God longs to enjoy His people’s worship, to delight in their unselfish exercise of the gifts His Spirit has given them; to take pleasure in seeing His community, His way of relating, mirrored in their relationships; and to be honored in their genuine commitment to encourage each other without displaying themselves.

The climax of this letter is resurrection! Without resurrection, belief that a good story is unfolding now is impossible.

He stayed in Corinth for a periodof about a year and a half to two years, preaching the gospel and making tents for a living. He had found a couple who had come from Rome, named Aquila and Priscilla, who were also tent makers, and he stayed with them and led them to Christ. He formed a church in their home.

The change God brings about comes slowly. Only in dark nights will hope burn bright enough to sustain our faith and release His love.

1 CORINTHIANS:  From Ray Stedman

Click here for entire Bible Summary from Ray Stedman

The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians is a very important letter for us because it so thoroughly captures the problems that we face as moderns living in this modern age.

So the two major forces that were active in this city, creating the atmosphere in which the Corinthian church had to live, were these: intellectualism and sensualism.

Indulging in sexual pleasure was regarded as a normal, proper part of life and no one ever thought twice about it.
If we think we are living under conditions where sensualism is rampant and worship of sex is widespread, these conditions do not yet approach those of the Christians who had to live in Corinth.
This city was the heir of the great thinkers of the Golden Age of Greece – Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all had their followers within the city of Corinth. They were people given over to the love of wisdom.

If you never remember anything else of First Corinthians, at least remember this verse, because everything in this letter is built around it:
God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. {1 Cor 1: 9 RSV}
There is the central thing in the Christian life – we are called to share the life of the Son of God. That is what fellowship is – it is sharing. Fellowship with anyone is sharing time, and this is what God has called us to.
First of all, a great section dealing with what we might call the carnalities; that takes you from Chapter 1 through Chapter 11.

Then there is a closing section, from Chapter 12 through Chapter 16, that deals with what Paul himself calls the spiritualities – the carnalities versus the spiritualities.

The carnalities included everything that was wrong with this church; the spiritualities were what they needed to correct it.
Therefore, this letter is especially written to those who live in a sex-saturated, wisdom-loving atmosphere and are trying to live as Christians in the midst of all the pressures that constantly come from these two areas.
In the first section, there are three major areas that Paul deals with:
· First of all, the problem of divisions,
· Then there was the problem of scandals in the church
· Finally, he took up certain questions that were troubling them.

There are those who are telling us that the needin the church today is to capture again the spirit of the age in which we live. There could be absolutely nothing further from the truth than that! The job of the church is to correct the spirit of the age.

So the apostle answers these schisms and factions and divisions by confronting them with the word of the cross – the word
that presents the cross the Christ as that instrument by which God cuts off all human wisdom, not as being worthless in its own narrow realm, but as being useless in solving the major problems of man.
When we understand this, we realize that we will never begin to learn until we first learn that we do not know anything. When we come to appreciate the word of the cross, we understand that in the cross of Jesus Christ, God identified with us in every way, and nailed Him up to die as being useless as far as solving any of the problems of mankind is concerned. It proceeds on a totally different principle than the wisdom of the world. And when we accept that, the apostle says, we begin to discover that true, secret, hidden wisdom that unfolds little by little the answers to the problems of life. We begin to understand ourselves and to see why this world
is what it is, and where it is heading, and why all the confusion and the difficulties and the problems exist, as the deep things of God, the wisdom which God has hidden in Christ, is unfolded to us through the teaching of the Spirit by the Word of God. It is a wonderful section.
And Paul says, “I’m not going to waste any time at all arguing with you about Socrates or Plato or Aristotle, or any other wisdom of men: They have their place, but when it comes to solving the deep-seated problems of human nature, there is only one wisdom that can touch it, and that is the word of the cross.”

God intends men to learn things, he designed us that way; but it must be knowledge based upon a right beginning and we are called
back to the principle set forth in the Old Testament, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, {Prov 9:10a RSV}

Chapters 5 and 6 both deal with this matter of immorality, and the apostle points out that the defense of the Christian must not be derived from any moral standards outside himself – it is not “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not” that keeps people free from sexual problems and pressures, but rather it is the recognition that their bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit. Everywhere we go, he goes with us, and is in us, and, in that sense, everything we are doing is done in the presence of the Son of God himself.

Then he dealt with four major questions – marriage, offending God, women, and the Lord’s table.

it is good for men and women to be married, and because of the temptation to immorality, he says, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. Then he shows them that it is also right to have a single life.

The “law of love.” That is the law that says, “I may be free to do it, but if I am really putting a stumbling block in somebody else’s path, I won’t do it” – that is the law of love.

The Christian woman fulfills her ministry to her Lord in being subject to her husband – equality, cooperation, and yet submission.

Then there was the question concerning the Lord’s table; there were certain ones who were not having any insight into what they were doing, and so the apostle had to show them that everything the Christian does must be done realistically and with a recognition that it is done as unto the Lord.

Chapter 12 through the rest of the book, is dealing with the great spiritualities, the correction to these carnalities. You do not correct these things by just trying to straighten yourself out.

1 Cor 12:1 – Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed.

God has sent different gifts within the body, and we all function as these gifts are put to work.

Chapter 13 – This is a wonderful chapter, because it sets forth for us the value of love, the portrait of love, and the power of love.

Chapter 14 – Paul takes up another problem that was causing confusion in the church – the misuse of one of the gifts, the gift of tongues, and the presence of the false gift of tongues that was at work in that church as it is in our society today. In the correction for these abuses, he tries to focus the whole weight of this section on the importance of the gift of prophecy (to proclaim divine insight in a way that influences people).

Chapter 15 – Its great emphasis is on the resurrection. If Jesus Christ was not raised from the dead, then, as the apostle says in this chapter, we are hopeless. 1 Cor 15:58 – Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

Chapter 16 – 1 Cor 16:13-14 – Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love.

1 CORINTHIANS – David Jeremiah (Understanding the 66 Books of the Bible)

Key thought: Christians are to live more like citizens of heaven than citizens of earth, which requires uo to exhibit healthy hearts and united churches.

Key Verse: My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. 1 Corinthians 2:4-5

Key Action: Ask the Lord of the Church to restore the selfless love that only He can give and grow.