Lessons From 1 Corinthians – Lesson 1
During the years that I was a Trustee or a Deacon I remember the big high profile, high priced preachers would come thru.
And before we prayed and before the man went out to preach the pastor would ask them, out of all the Bible what do you find is the hardest book to teach.
And without any hesitation they would answer Corinthians. And the pastor would ask which one and they would say both. No explanation given. They would both just shake their heads, yep. And then pray for the services and walk out.
I was always confused by that, every time. The only difficult book to teach in the Bible is Leviticus. And the reason that is, is because we know that everything in all of those sacrifices had some symbolic meaning that pointed to Jesus. Who He is or what He was going to do.
But we are not given clarification in the Bible on what a lot of that means. Some of it we are but not all of it. So with Leviticus there is a lot of I don’t know or I am not sure, or we think it might be pointing to.
And then there are verses in Leviticus about what color the hair is coming out of a place on the skin. And many other things like that and so there is a lot of I don’t know and that makes it difficult to teach.
You do not have that issue with Corinthians.
To this day I still have no idea for sure why they found it so difficult. And it was not just the 3 preachers I heard asked that question. One time the pastor said in response, I have asked a lot of preachers and they all say the same thing.
This is why 1st and 2nd Corinthians seldom get preached thru. All of God’s word is profitable and I believe all of it should be taught. And maybe if I live long enough we will get thru the entire Bible.
There is a lot of useful teaching in both of these books. Many things that all Christians should know and that are helpful in our walk with Christ.
One of the main lessons that we will see throughout is that God’s perfect, boundless, merciful, wonderful love does not go away with God having expectations on the way we live.
Yes we can blow it. We can make huge mistakes. And no matter how bad, God still loves us. No matter how bad, He does not leave us. He does not forsake us. We are still saved.
And yet while that is all true, we can hurt God and bring shame to His name. He is worthy of Christians who will grow and try to live like He wants.
God is Love and God has a right to have some expectations.
Understanding the balance of those two and understanding that both are true is an important principal of Christianity.
A lack of understanding of this is at epidemic levels in Christianity today. There were many times where I would address living for Jesus either in my adult Sunday school class or in preaching, and the attacks would come.
The most common is crying legalism. No, legalism is doing works to get saved. That has zero to do with the topic at hand.
I would try to get them to understand that there is a huge difference between have to and should.
I will say that again. There is a huge difference between have to and should. And we need to keep that in mind as we go thru Corinthians.
The have to is to understand that I am a sinner, and realize that I need a savior, that I cannot save myself, I cannot make up for my sin and work my way to heaven, and then choose to believe and call upon Jesus to save me with a repentant heart.
That is the have to. All of us in this room have done that. People either do that or hell. People must do that to be adopted into God’s family.
After that then comes the should. We had a free will before salvation to get saved or not. And after we get saved God does not take our free will away.
The choice now is just different. The choice after salvation is how close do I want to walk with God. How much do I want to please Him. How thankful to Him am I going to be with my daily life.
All of those kind of choices are shoulds. So teaching what the Bible has to say about living for Jesus is not legalism. So with that said, let’s start in 1st Cor. Chapter 1.
We have touched on some of this recently so we will not read the whole thing.
1 Cor 1:3 Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Cor 1:4 I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ;
This is a letter of correction. And we saw the same thing in Colossians, which will be written years later. Paul will take the same approach then to the Colossians.
Paul does not start out this letter of correction with putting them down. He does not start with yelling. He is going to get really stern with them. He is going to get a little hard.
But first Paul declares that he wants them to have grace and peace from God.
And before he gets into any of the correction, Paul is going to give assurances of their salvation.
Notice he says from God our Father. Paul is saying they are saved. They have the same Father.
And Paul confirms that they have been given the grace of God. Verse 4. for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ;
They are saved. And Paul says that he is thankful for it and thanks God always on their behalf.
Paul continues in this opening statement to give assurance of Salvation and to lift Jesus up.
1 Cor 1:5 That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge;
1 Cor 1:6 Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:
They are enriched by Him. That can only be said of saved people. And Paul says that their salvation testimony was confirmed in them.
And one of the evidences of that in those days was having the sign gifts, which were temporary until the Word of God was finished.
1 Cor 1:7 So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:
Again notice Paul says of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ours. Another place Paul is saying you are saved.
And remember this is a letter of correction. And as you will see a hard letter of correction.
1 Cor 1:8 Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
When you get saved, you get eternal life. That means it never goes away. Always saved. Here is a promise that Jesus will keep them all the way and that Jesus will confirm their salvation unto the end.
And yes today they have problems and are to be blamed in some things. But Paul gives hope and assurance that in the end Jesus will purify them and in that day they will be blameless.
This corruption will put on incorruption one day.
And again at the end of verse 8 is in the day of our Lord. Our Lord. Another statement that they are saved.
And Paul is still not done with this.
1 Cor 1:9 God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
God is faithful. He will not fail to do this. You are kept until the end. It is a done deal. And then he states that they are in fellowship of Jesus and again he says our Lord. Ours.
Not once or twice but over and over and over again in the opening statement of this letter, this truth is declared. You are saved, saved, saved. All the way to the end. You cannot lose it. God is faithful. He is our Lord.
And remember this is not only a letter of correction, but a hard letter of correction. And it starts out giving those it is written to assurance of their salvation.
Just a guess. But right here could be just one of the reasons many preachers think it is hard to teach Corinthians. I think there are actually many things that either they don’t like or that do not fit with what they do. This is just one of them.
Many preachers love to call people’s salvation into question. Cause them to doubt.
I have heard things like this literally hundreds of times.
If you are doing… fill in the blank…., could it be could it be that you are not really saved.
And this one, I don’t ever want to question anyone’s salvation, but …. And then they do.
Or how about this one. I can’t see into your heart. I think everyone here is saved, however, I never want to take the chance and pass up giving an invitation to get saved when it is in the text we preach.
They have been trained that the goal of preaching is to bring conviction. They work during the entire message to convict and build upon it and then some more.
You are not good enough, you do not measure up. You are a sinner.
So telling people that are in need of correcting, you are saved, saved, saved. That does not fit their system. So teaching something that goes against your system could very well be one of the things that makes Corinthians hard for them to teach.
After Paul lays the foundation that they are saved and can’t lose it, and that they both have the same Lord, and that they have assurance of eternity.
Paul is going to get into the first area that needs correcting.
And this has to do with what do you use as a measuring stick for preaching.
What qualities, what aspects of preaching do you put a high premium on? What are your standards by which you judge preaching as good? And what standards does God use.
The Corinthian’s were wrong on this issue, and it was having negative consequences to their spirituality and their walk with God.
This is a huge issue today as well. It is also something that most today get wrong.
In verses 10 thru 16 we learn that there is divisions in the Church and some are bragging that they are of the eloquent preacher Apollos. And others bragging that they are of Cephas. Paul gets on them about this.
Apollos was good with words. He could be eloquent. He could hold people’s attention with the wisdom of words. He was a worldly preacher from Alexandria.
And people fall for that. Many will use eloquence and wisdom of words as their measuring stick for preaching. How well do they get people to the altar? How good are they are working people up into an emotional fit? Sad to say but many use those things as their measuring stick for how good the preaching is.
Paul starts right off speaking against this.
1Co 1:17 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
Paul who is an apostle, a man called and send by God. Says God did not send me to preach the gospel with wisdom of words.
And tells us how bad that is. Why is that bad? Because if a man preaches the gospel with man’s wisdom of words, then that makes the cross of Christ of none effect.
Preaching like that, with wisdom of words, actually takes away from the power of the gospel. It actually can make it of none effect. That kind of preaching puts the focus on the man doing the preaching.
It puts the focus on the man’s speaking ability. On his reasoning power, on what the man thinks. These are all the wrong un-biblical standards that many use as a measuring stick for preaching.
Paul keeps on this. He is just getting warmed up.
1Co 1:18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
1Co 1:19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
1Co 1:20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
1Co 1:21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
God has chosen, just simple preaching. Which is just simply in clear plain language, saying what the Bible says.
God’s word calls it by the foolishness of preaching. That is God’s method. Not great oration. Not great speaking ability.
The wisdom of man says different. It says you must hold their attention. You must bring this or that into your message, you must add some humor. You must bring tears, you must appeal to more than one emotion in every message.
And then somewhere along the way they started adding that you must appear smarter than the congregation by changing the Bible with the Greek.
This is the wisdom of men that is taught in Bible colleges. But that is not God’s way.
God’s way is just a simple repeating of what it says in His Word. That takes man’s ability and manipulation out of it. The foolishness of just plain simple repeating what the Word says, that is what God has chosen.
That is God’s measuring stick for the quality of the preaching. God’s way is for a man to get out of the way. God’s way is to let God’s Word be God’s Word. Unchanged and not manipulated.
This way God gets all the glory. God gets all the credit for anything that God does with it in a life and in a heart.
1Co 1:22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
1Co 1:23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
1Co 1:24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
1Co 1:25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
And here it comes in verse 26. Paul has been warming up to this and now here it comes.
1Co 1:26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
Apollos considered himself all of those. Wise, mighty in speech and noble. We learn this in Acts where we are introduced to him.
1Co 1:27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
1Co 1:28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
1Co 1:29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.
Moses could not speak well. He was the opposite of eloquence, the opposite of Apollos. And God chose Moses.
Many of God’s good preachers will tell of how when they were called, they at first refused because they felt they were not talented enough.
Bingo. They were right. That is why God chose them! God chooses the foolish things of the world, God chooses the weak things, the base things.
God chooses men who do not have the talent. That way they simply just go with God’s word. And when God does something, then God gets all the glory.
1Co 1:30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
1Co 1:31 That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
A preacher should get zero, and I mean zero glory. God’s way is not to try to impress people with preaching, God’s way is not to put a premium on eloquence or speaking ability or in a man’s wisdom.
God’s way is for the simple foolishness of repeating God’s Word and to let God do all the work bring whatever conviction is needed.
God’s way is for a man to not try to wisely manipulate those hearing into something or an emotional fit. God’s way is for a man to leave all the work in God’s hands and simple just say what God’s Word says. Plain and simple.
This is another truth that goes against the practice of many preachers. This might be another reason they find teaching Corinthians so hard.
God’s standard. God’s measuring stick for preaching is a huge issue. It was one of the big root problems in Corinth.
Because if the preaching is wrong, then that affects so much. It may be eloquent and entertain people and hold their attention.
But it stifles real meaningful growth. It takes glory away from God and gives it to talented men. It was a big problem in the Corinthian church and it is a huge problem today.
A problem that most will not address and certainly will not even recognize as a problem.