Year 2, Week 43, Day 3 Bible Reading Observations

Year 2, Week 43, Day 3

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of 1 Corinthians 1-4.

Today’s reading begins the Book of 1 Corinthians. This letter of Paul to the church at Corinth was written possibly three to five years after he started the church during his second missionary journey. The Book of 1 Corinthians consists of Paul’s response to reports about the church there: “For it has been reported to me” (1Corinthians 1:11); but also in response to a letter that the church had written to him: “Now concerning the matters about which you wrote” (1 Corinthians 7:1a). A basic purpose of the book of 1 Corinthians is to exhort the church to live like what they most truly are—God’s holy people: "To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:2). 1 Corinthians 1-4 is a response to reports of division within the church. 1 Corinthians 1 begins the dealing with the matter of divisions: “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment” (1 Corinthians 1:10). 1 Corinthians 2 addresses the fact that a major influence for the disunity of the church was personality driven driven by false notions of wisdom: “And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom…And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom” (1 Corinthians 2:1-3). 1 Corinthians 3 locates their disunity in their spiritual immaturity: “But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:1). 1 Corinthians 4 admonishes the Corinthians believers to follow Paul’s pattern of focusing  upon the Cross and displaying God’s wisdom: “For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me” (1 Corinthians 4:15b-16).

One of the things that struck me from today’s reading was the Apostle Paul’s declaration that the world and the church had very different perspectives on wisdom and foolishness: “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Corinthians 1:20). The world thinks they are smarter than God and that God must explain and justify Himself to them, but God demolishes such folly. Both the message of the Cross and the manner in which the Cross is proclaimed is folly to those who are on the road to perishing, but it is God’s power to those whom God is saving: “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart” (1 Corinthians 1:18-19, quoting Isaiah 29:14). Paul explains how God made worldly wisdom look foolish through what he preached: a crucified Messiah. This message pleased God because He wisely planned to save believers through what the “wise” world considered folly: “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).

Paul highlight two different kinds of worldly wisdom: “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:22-24). The Jews expected the Messiah to deliver them powerfully from bondage and thought crucifixion signified that God had cursed the victim, so they rejected a crucified Messiah as revolting. The Gentiles sought what they perceived to be rational and beautiful and thought crucifixion signified a criminal’s defeat, so they rejected a crucified Messiah as absurd and ugly. A crucified messiah—to both the Jews and the Gentiles—seemed like an oxymoron, that is a contradiction of terms. The term “crucified” connotes shame, weakness, failure, loss, scandalous evil; while the term “Messiah” connotes grandeur, strength, success, victory, highest honor. But these terms are not contradictory to God In fact, God put the two seemingly contradictory terms together to confound worldly wisdom—both Jewish and Gentile versions.

However, the crucified Messiah expresses God’s power and wisdom and is the means by which God would call people to Himself: “but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” When the Gospel message is preached—a message that the world deemed foolish—nevertheless, God saves people by powerfully enabling them to respond to the message ensuring that they will. Ironically, for the most part, the ones that God saves—brings to Himself through the preaching of the Cross, are deemed low status, not high status: “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are” (1 Corinthians 1:26-28). And Paul clarifies why God does this in the way He does: “so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:29).

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe