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Dr. Manny Arango
Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango, and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the journey. All right, fam. We are 1, 2, 3, 4. We're four days into our journey into First Corinthians. Today we've got 1 Corinthians, chapter 11 through 14. And all of this focuses on the worship gathering, okay? When Christians gather together as the ecclesia, those who have been called out the assembly. And this is huge for all of us. Now here's. I'll give kind of some context, okay? I'll always give context clues, nerdy nuggets, timeless truths. You'll listen to to them, like as we go. Also, if you haven't done today's reading, it's a great place to stop. Pause this episode, go do the reading for the day, and then come back here. I'm not going anywhere. Okay? Just pause it. Come back. Really? The content that I'm sharing will make the most sense if you've actually done the reading. So Paul has something to say about the worship gathering. We're actually going to go to chapter 11, verse 20. When you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat. So you're trying to. You're trying to celebrate communion, but I'm telling you right now, y'all are failing, okay? It's not the Lord's supper that you eat, for in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. That this is designed for you to do together. You're not just communing one on one with Jesus. You're supposed to be communing together. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What, do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not. The first issue that Paul has is that, yo, the communion time is really rough. Okay? First of all, you're supposed to be sharing a love meal together. You're supposed to be sharing things in common. And one person is eating before another person even gets there. One person doesn't have food to eat. Some people are eating food that other people should be eating, and people are getting drunk. Okay? This ain't communion. This is a ratchet mess. What in the World is going on. Now, let me give you a context clue, okay? Context clue. One of the underlying themes throughout the entire book of Corinthians is that in Corinth, I don't know if you remember this from a couple days ago, I told you that Corinth is built on trade. And because of that trade, Corinth is a very, very wealthy city. It is actually at the crossroads of north and south Greece, but it's also the crossroads of east and west. It's an isthmus. And the isthmus is actually 3 1/2 miles wide, 10 miles long. And they created this. They couldn't dig, like a canal. Multiple people tried to dig a canal. Actually, Julius Caesar attempted to dig a canal to connect the. I think it's the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean. I think. Don't quote me. Fact check me, all right? I think it's the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, or maybe it's the Adriatic, I don't know. Okay, you go look at a map, okay? But what I do know is that there's three and a half mile long isthmus, well, ten miles long, three and a half miles wide. And because Nero tried to get a canal dug out, actually Alexander the Great attempted to do it. And because there was no canal, it actually took 250 miles to sail around southern Greece to reach one end to the other. So they had actually built this mechanism to get a boat out of the water and onto dry ground and roll it three and a half miles to the other side, which is obviously faster than sailing all the way around, 250 miles. And because of that, I mean, trade equals wealth. So there's a lot of wealthy people in this church. We get clues about this all throughout the letter. First of all, we're going to get a ton of clues about this in Second Corinthians, because the Corinthians don't like the fact that Paul is poor and doesn't dress well and is kind of homeless and gets beaten up a lot. They're kind of ashamed. They're kind of like, bring Apollos back. He's handsome and dresses nice and has like the fancy Greek. We like that guy. And so there's gotta be a lot of tension between these wealthy snobs and Paul as an apostle. The other thing that we see is way back in the beginning of the book, like kind of towards chapter five, is we're going to get legal disputes. And it was very common in the ancient world for wealthy people to just sue each other for. For fun. Okay. Just. Just suing one another. Just very litigious culture in that way. And Paul's got to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop doing that. The reason I need to stop doing that is because for a lot of the wealthy people in Corinth, this is their first time in a congregational setting with poor people. Okay? So this influences the communion, the Lord's Supper. What's happening is that a lot of the wealthy people that are part of the church are probably paying for the food, and they're eating up all the food. And then poor people are part of the church, and they're not getting any food. And so Paul's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wealth is not something you flaunt. Wealth doesn't give you status in the church. We don't use wealth as a tool to build up ourselves. We use wealth as a tool to build a kingdom. And so if you're. If you're gonna. You're more than welcome to be wealthy and be a part of the church, but if you're gonna be wealthy, you have to drop the pride that comes along with the wealth. If you're gonna be wealthy, then you're gonna have to adopt a humble lifestyle and a humble disposition and a humble demeanor. And so for a lot of these Corinthians, they really just don't know how to be in relationship with people who are poor. There's a socioeconomic divide. Now, there's two things that we can say about that. Number one, praise God for the church. The church is really, from its infancy or from its inception till now one of the only places in society where people from different socioeconomic backgrounds can be in the same sanctuary, in the same church, in the same space, be a part of the same congregation. And for me, as an individual whose parents were both poor, I can honestly say that the cross pollination is actually what began to break the curse of poverty off of my life. That I was attending a church as an elementary school student and a middle school student and a high school student, and there were wealthy people in the church, because the number one thing that makes someone poor is not the amount of money that they have in the bank account, but it's their relationships. Let's take my aunts. My aunts are poor not because of the amount of money that they have, but they don't even know anybody who's wealthy. They don't have wealthy friends. There's no one that they know that could give them a loan for a business idea that they have. The moment that Jesus is around wealthy people. He's no longer poor. So to call Jesus poor is actually not really true, because poor people only know other poor people. And the thing that makes you poor is not the amount of money you have, but really your relationships. And if. If I have. Think about this. I may not own a yacht, but if I know someone with a yacht, I could get on a yacht. So that means I have access to a yacht. And if I have access to a yacht, this is the same as owning the yacht. Like, the relationship is actually the thing that brings people out of poverty and into wealth. And there's this opportunity that only the church really provides. Church is one of the only places where rich people or wealthy people and poor people commingle become friends because they're becoming brothers and sisters in Christ. And Paul says, this is an awesome thing. This is great. But you gotta know how to act around people who come from a different background than you. You can't sue poor people for fun. You're gonna ruin their life. You do this with your rich friends. You can't do this with people from different socioeconomic classes. And now maybe you're saying, oh, that's crazy that I can't believe there's such a division between classes. What are you talking about? That's life. For if you are wealthy, it actually takes effort for you to engage with people that aren't wealthy. So this is just reality. This is humans. Humans tend to live in certain neighborhoods if they have enough money, and they live away from poor people. And that's just. Is what it is. There's a division because of socioeconomics. And that's what's happening in the communion. The wealthy people are bringing all the wine and bringing all the food and enjoying it because it's theirs, and they have a right to drink it and a right to eat it because it's theirs. But what Paul is communicating throughout the entire letter is we don't just do what we have the rights to do. Of course you have the right to do it. But the moment you operate in your rights, this is no longer the Lord's supper. Now it's a potluck. And now you're not even being loving to your neighbor or to your brothers and sisters in Christ. So that's the context that we really need in order to understand what's happening in these passages of scripture. What if I told you that what you're learning in this video was just the tip of the iceberg? The Bible department is actually powered by arma. What is arma? I'm so glad you asked. ARMA is an online subscription based platform that we designed to help people, everyday people, learn the Bible for themselves. We started ARMA so that anybody, anywhere could have access to trustworthy and entertaining Bible and theology content. In addition to this podcast, we have over 60 courses on individual books of the Bible, on theology topics, and on some hot topics like homosexuality, tithing and women in ministry. But really, ARMA is a community, a community of people that I've gotten to know. A community where thousands of people are currently finding family, asking questions and nerding out on the Bible together. If you want a community to read the Bible with you this year, or if you want to dive into some deeper theological content, or if you want more exclusive access to me and the entire armor team, how about you go to thebibledepartment.com I'll be sure to post the link in the description of this video. Let's make this your year to become a Bible nerd. Next we get on to the rest of the worship gathering. Okay, and he wants to talk about speaking in tongues. All right, he starts talking about spiritual gifts and then here we go. In chapter 14, pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. So remember, this whole chapter about love in 13 is not separate from everything else going on in this section 11 and 14. Because now Paul's like, hey, guess what matters more than all the spiritual gifts? That you love one another. But I want you to prophesy. For one who speaks in a tongue not to men, but to God. For one who understands him, but he utters mysteries in the spirit. On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesy builds up the church. You can see, like Paul wants us to not focus on what we get out of church, but what we offer to the church for the building up of the church. This is moving from and remember, Judaism is a group based identity. Judaism is Eastern. So the group matters more than the individual. Paul is ministering in Corinth. This is now Greek, a Greco Roman background and a Greek oriented people mindset, worldview. So this is more individual than group based. So you could see how Paul is really hammering this. He's really giving them an Eastern perspective, a Jewish perspective to balance out how Western and how Greek they are in their orientation and in their thinking. So Paul then gives order, okay? He's like, hey, if you've got a prophetic word. I need somebody to interpret. Don't give multiple prophetic words. He wants there to be order. So this is verse 25 of chapter 14. What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. Not I have the right to speak in tongues, or I have the right to sing a song, or I have the right to preach. But. But I have a responsibility to build up the church. That is a mindset. That's a mindset shift that Paul wants him to make. If any speak in a tongue, let there be only one or most three in each in turn, and let someone interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God. Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. Order. There's two extremes. So I've given you context clues, giving you a nerdy nugget. Let me kind of give you some thoughts. Okay, There are two extremes when it comes to spiritual gifts, at least in the church. There's cessationism, which believes that the gifts have ceased to exist, hence the word cessationism. Okay, ceased to exist. And then there's what I would call sensationalism, which if people aren't falling out, if demons aren't being cast out, then we didn't really have a good church service. And Paul really disagrees with both of these. Okay, Paul's gonna be like, wait a second. No one should be stopping the spiritual gifts from happening in church. How did we ever believe that the gifts have ceased to exist? But also, Paul is adamant that there be orders, that there be structure. And so maybe I always like to use this analogy. I think about Sunday morning, church on Sunday morning. As for the unbeliever, I think that church on Sunday morning should be full of new people. My dream one day is to lead a church and start a church. And the church that I've been a part of definitely feel this way, where I want people to feel comfortable inviting their friends to church. You don't have to. Have to be scared that something weird's going to happen. So Sunday morning is for the unbeliever. And I think Paul would actually agree with that. So here's what the analogy that I want us to kind of think about. If we think about Sunday morning and we think about a, A car dealership, the. The. The car dealership is Sunday morning. And when you go into a showroom, it's nice shiny cars, you know, salespeople who are friendly. And because they're trying to sell cars now at that same car dealership, they do oil changes, but they don't do those oil changes on the showroom floor. Most of the times if you go around the side, there's a place for tire rotations and oil changes. And that's what Christians need. Christians need the oil change. That means demons need to be cast out. People need to learn how to speak in tongues. They need to get filled with the power of the Holy Ghost. Like those things need to happen. But do they need to happen on the showroom floor when we're trying to win people to Jesus? Maybe not. Maybe it would be good to have a Sunday night service or a midweek service or a Wednesday night Bible study where Christians can get their needs met. But the worst thing in the world are these two extremes. The church that only cares about the lost and nobody gets discipled. Okay, that's one extreme. And then the church where everyone's discipled but nobody's reaching anybody. So all the Christians get their needs met, but God has all these other lost children, and you have only child syndrome. We want to avoid these extremes. We want to avoid the extreme of cessationist, and we also want to avoid the extreme of sensationalism. We want to avoid the extreme that all we care about is evangelism and no one gets discipled. And we also want to avoid the extreme of overly fed, fat Christians who are eating up the Word and, and getting their needs met, but aren't mobilized and are not active. We want balance. And I think that is what Paul is advocating for and that, that's my timeless truth that will never get old. Balance will never, ever, ever fail to be relevant. And sometimes in a desire to pursue something, we do things in a very lopsided way, in a very imbalanced way. And I think Paul's desire for the church, not just this church in Corinth, but I think Jesus desire for the church, the bride, the global church, is to operate in tension and in balance. That's my timeless truth for the day tomorrow. Okay, Tomorrow we got 1 Corinthians 15, and then we're gonna close the book with chapter 16. So first Corinthians, chapter 15 and 16 tomorrow. I'm proud of you. I hope that you've enjoyed Corinthians and I hope that you're enjoying reading through the Bible this year. I'm so glad that you've invited me into that process with you. I'll see you right here tomorrow. Peace. Love you guys. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department Podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show at thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram hebible department. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.