Transcript
Tara Leigh Cobble (0:02)
Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Leigh Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap. Yesterday in Acts 18, we met the people of the church in Corinth. Paul went there on a missionary tour and stuck around for 18 months. He likes to check in on them from time to time, and he sends them letters in response to what he hears. Before he wrote First Corinthians, he wrote them another letter that we haven't found. We call it 0 Corinthians. He references it in the section we'll read tomorrow. Then at some point later, he sent this letter, First Corinthians, to address some really upsetting problems he'd been hearing about, as well as some questions they had. Before we jump in. This is your friendly reminder to slow down when you're reading Paul's intros. They aren't fluff. They are steeped in theology. Okay, here we go. Paul spends a lot of time in this letter correcting things the Corinthian church is doing and believing it carries the weight of a rebuke. But he opens with some encouraging reminders before launching into the problem areas. In 17 9, he says that Jesus will sustain them to the end and will make them guiltless. He says that since God is the one who called them into his family to begin with, God will be the one to keep them there, because what God initiates, he will sustain and he will fulfill. When you're about to be confronted with all your sin, it's nice to be reminded that none of it changes the way God views you. None of it revokes your status as his beloved child. The first problem Paul addresses today is that the people are divided over their favorite leaders in the church. There are some things worth dividing over for sure, but these aren't those things. None of this is about doctrine or theology at all. This is a popularity contest. This is about being part of the in crowd. Worshiping their teachers is idolatry. Paul isn't the one who died for them. All Paul does is plant some seeds. He has zero power to make those seeds grow. That's on God. God is the one who gives the growth. He also mentions that his job isn't to baptize people. He's not diminishing the importance of baptism so much as pointing out that it's secondary to preaching the gospel. And that all checks out with what we've mentioned about it not being the act of baptism that saves a person. Otherwise, Paul would have been adamant about it here. He goes on to say that the gospel Makes no sense to those who don't believe the gospel. It's foolishness. It's not easy to grasp the value of the gospel. Sometimes its message doesn't line up with what we're looking for. The Jews were seeking signs. The Greeks, like those who met in Athens, were seeking knowledge. But all Paul had brought them was the Gospel of Christ, which threw a wrench in things for the Jews and which seemed crazy to the Greeks. It's so easy to dismiss the Gospel, but for those who do believe it, it is the power that enables everything they do. Somehow, Paul says the people of the Corinthian Church who are unpolished and lower class actually got it. They understood the Gospel. Paul says God intentionally chose them because they understood what it's like to be at square one. Spiritual poverty. They are not under the illusion that they have anything to offer God, unlike the self righteous Pharisees or the educated Greeks. And because of that, they gained the righteousness and wisdom of Christ. What a trade off. So these guys don't need to boast in whatever teacher they're following, including him. They should boast in the finished work of Christ. Paul wants to help those who've been given the wisdom of God to grow in the wisdom of God. And the only way to do that is to be in communication with the Spirit of God, because he's the one who imparts wisdom. But don't imagine yourself sitting on a cloud meditating. That's all well and good, but it's imperative to note that one of the primary ways to communicate with the Spirit is through reading Scripture. Jesus affirmed that the Spirit is the one who wrote this book. So what we're doing every day, when you open up the Bible and read it, that's you listening to the Spirit of God speak firsthand, unfiltered.