Bringing Glory To God

INTRO

Today, we start the first lesson in 1 Corinthians and our seventeenth lesson in the Pauline epistles. Corinthians is divided into two letters and was named after the city of Corinth, Greece. Mindi’s painting for Corinthians is another diptych—two paintings put together that tell the complete story. The nine hands in the first painting represent the nine corporate gifts of the Holy Spirit that can only be obtained through love. The veil from the second painting is seen at the top of the first painting and represents the Holy Spirit covering all of us in the body of Christ. Our phrase for the Messiah in 1 Corinthians (from 1 Corinthians 15:45) is TheLast Adam. The first Adam brought sin on humanity; The Last Adam would take on that sin as His own for humanity.

MacArthur explains, “With the exception of personal epistles addressed to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, all of Paul’s letters indicate the name of the city where the church addressed existed.”¹ Paul claimed authorship in verses 1 and 13 (1 Corinthians 3:4–6; 4:15). Paul wrote the letter from Ephesus in the last half of A.D. 55 during his third missionary journey (1 Corinthians 16:21). Paul planned to stay in Ephesus for three years, leaving at Pentecost in the spring, and then moving on to Corinth.

The city of Corinth was located 45 miles south of Athens on the Isthmus of Corinth, a narrow strip of land that connected Peloponnese to the mainland of Greece. That means the city of Corinth actually had two seaports—the Saronic Gulf on the east side and the Gulf of Corinth on the west. This was a major and dangerous sailing route. Ships took a short-cut across the isthmus by using large logs to roll the ships across the land, saving time and evading the danger, making the city of Corinth an important trade city. Corinth hosted the Isthmian games, an athletic contest of that period (the other was the Olympic games). MacArthur notes, “Even by the pagan standards of its own culture, Corinth became so morally corrupt that its very name became synonymous with debauchery and moral depravity. To ‘corinthianize’ came to represent gross immorality and drunken debauchery.”² Paul described this immorality in Romans 1:18–32.

Paul founded the church in Corinth on his second missionary journey (Acts 18:1). Paul first ministered in the synagogue, where he met Jewish believers, Priscilla and Aquila. Silas and Timothy later joined him there in ministry. Although most of the Jews rejected Paul’s message of Christ, Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, his family, and others, accepted it and followed Paul into the new church (Acts 18:5–8). Paul remained in Corinth for a year and a half before he was charged by Jewish leaders before the Roman tribunal for religious crimes. Paul’s charges were dismissed because he had not broken any civil laws. He left Corinth shortly afterward for Ephesus and then to Israel, taking Priscilla and Aquila with him.³ The church in Corinth had become divided and worldly. Paul addressed those issues in this letter.

TEACHING

1 Corinthians 1:1-9: Wiersbe summarizes verses 1-9 as “Called to Be Holy.”⁴ Paul began with identifying himself and Sosthenes, a leader of the synagogue (v. 1). After the Roman tribunal dismissed the charges against Paul, the Jews who had brought those charges beat up Sosthenes in front of the tribunal judge (Acts 18:17). Paul addressed the letter to all in Corinth who called upon Jesus as Lord (v. 2). Constable explains that verse 3 sums up Paul’s whole theological outlook.⁵ Paul gave thanks to God for the church in Corinth (v. 4) and pointed out that their lives had been enriched with the gifts from God of speech and knowledge (v. 5). Paul promised that the church would not lack any of the nine spiritual gifts while they waited on Jesus’ return (vv. 6–7). As we wait on Jesus’ return, He will give us whatever spiritual gifts we need at that time to do His work. Paul promised that Jesus would strengthen the church, and even though we still sin, we will be without accusation because of Christ (v. 8). Paul then reminded the church that God was faithful (v. 9).

In verse 8, Paul used the phrase, “the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The New Scofield Reference Bible explains that the phrase refers to the period of time after the rapture. It can also be found in Scripture as “’the day of the Lord Jesus Christ’ (1 Corinthians 5:5; 2 Corinthians 1:14), and ‘the day of Jesus Christ’ (Philippians 1:6), and ‘the day of Christ’ (Philippians 1:10; 2:16).”⁶ Where

6 The New Scofield Reference Bible, ed. by E. Schuyler English, et al. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 1233; quoted in Thomas L. Constable, Dr. Constable’s Bible Expository Study Notes; 1 Corinthians, p. 20; available online at https://planobiblechapel.org/constable-notes/.

does the rapture take place in all of this? When the rapture actually takes place doesn’t matter, because we’ll be ready since we’re eagerly awaiting His return.

1 Corinthians 1:10-25: Wiersbe summarizes verses 10–25 as “Called into Fellowship.”⁷ Paul encouraged the church to have no divisions but to be united (v. 10). Paul had heard about the rivalry among the members, especially as to whom they followed—Paul, Apollos, Cephas (Peter), or Christ (vv. 11–12). Paul reminded them Jesus had died for them, and they had been baptized in His name alone (v. 13). In fact, Paul had only physically baptized Crispus and Gaius and the household of Stephanas (vv. 14–16). Jesus alone is the priority. Instead, Christ sent Paul to evangelize with the message of His death on the cross (v. 17). The message of the cross is foolishness for those who are perishing; God’s power is given to us who are saved (v. 18). That foolishness is our human attempt to tell the story of Christ (vv. 19–22). The message of the crucified Christ was a stumbling block for the Jews and seen as foolishness by the Gentiles (v. 23). Yet God’s power and wisdom are given to all who are called, because He is greater than human power and wisdom (v. 25).

D. A. Carson wrote: “What would you think if a woman came to work wearing earrings stamped with an image of the mushroom cloud of the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima? . . . What would you think of a church building adorned with a fresco of the massed graves at Auschwitz? . . . The same sort of shocking horror was associated with cross and crucifixion in the first century.”⁸ Gordon Fee wrote:

“It is hard for those in the christianized West, where the cross for almost 19 centuries has been the primary symbol of faith, to appreciate how utterly mad the message of a God who got himself crucified by his enemies must have seemed to the first-century Greek or Roman. But it is precisely the depth of this scandal and folly that we must appreciate if we are to understand both why the Corinthians were moving away from it toward wisdom and why it was well over a century before the cross appears among Christians as a symbol of their faith.”⁹

CLOSING

Wiersbe summarizes verses 26–31 as “Called to Glorify God.”¹⁰ God calls the weak, the foolish, the insignificant, and the despised in the world to bring glory to Him. These will not boast of their own achievements but will boast only of the Lord (vv. 26–31). We, too, are called to bring all glory to Him.