In chapter 3 Paul compared the letters of recommendation that the false apostles were using to authenticate themselves and attempt to discredit Paul, to the changed lives that the people represented. Nobody can argue with a changed life and there is a reason that testimonials are used for commercials, advertising, and weight loss. When people see someone with the same struggle is able to overcome it, they have hope and are willing to try. Paul told them that they themselves were like living letters testifying of not only his discipleship of them, but of Christ Himself. He also takes this comparison another step by comparing the stone tablets of the law to the spirit of God because the law was not sufficient to cleanse sin, it only convicted of sin and made us aware, but the Son of God died and cleansed us from sin and His Spirit, not the law is what changes us from the inside out. We aren’t changed by simply knowing what is wrong. We are changed when the Spirit comes in and changes our hearts. This is why Paul reminds them (and us) that our confidence is in Christ and not ourselves. Paul did not need letters of recommendation to prove that he was a legitimate apostle. His confidence was in Christ so the churches he started flourished and grew all over the place because what is of God will grow. If our confidence is in God, we will need nobody to affirm us, but we will grow and flourish so much that the change in us will be evident to all. Paul used one more comparison when he talked about Moses using a veil over his face to speak to the people because immediately after talking to God his face would be changed and he would glow for a while until the glory of God faded from his face. The people could not handle the glory of God and they didn’t understand it just as the Jews are unable to see the fulfillment of Scripture points to Jesus as the Messiah until the day that God unveils their eyes. We are this way too without the Spirit of God. When Jesus sent us “the comforter” in his place he promised to guide us into truth. There are things that we can only see by the revealing of the Holy Spirit. There are things we can only understand when the Holy Spirit teaches us. There is truth that will only come to light when Holy Spirit shines a light on it, and spiritual gifts activated only by the Holy Spirit. This is why Paul said the letter, or the law kills (because we will literally die trying to fulfill it) but the Spirit gives life. We need the Holy Spirit to lead, guide and teach us because our confidence is not in ourselves or the law, but in Christ.

2 Corinthians 2 is a continuation of Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth after making a disciplinary visit to them. He is still full of pain and is expressing his deep love for them, even to the point of telling them he wrote to them with an anguished heart full of tears. He expresses his compassion to their pain as he navigates through the repair process in his relationship with this church that he started. From Paul’s writing it sounds like there was one particular person among them that was responsible for causing the division and the erroneous teaching in the church that Paul had been talking about in his previous letter. Since Paul is obviously writing to the church, they all know what took place during his visit, but reading his letter from our perspective feels very much like we are observing the back end of a conversation. We weren’t there for Paul’s visit, but since we read his previous letter, we know enough about what was going on in the church before he got there, and we know that Paul came to administer some authoritative church discipline as the founding apostle. We also know from Paul’s previous letter to the church (1 Corinthians) that there were prideful teachers among them teaching erroneous doctrine and leading many from the church back into sin and embracing the idea of living a duplicitous life. Paul had called them out for claiming to be Christ-followers while blurring the lines so far that they were engaged in blatant sin, and teaching this “everything is permissible” doctrine to the people and leading them off course. This same teacher or teachers who were being financially supported by the church were also the divisive ones Paul spoke of who were making an issue out of which leaders the people were following, trying to discredit Paul as a legitimate apostle because of his choice to work for his own needs instead of using his apostolic rights to burden the church. It may have been one leader, and it may have been a few, but from this letter it appears that the church disciplined one particular man, and now Paul was calling for them to forgive him and affirm their love for him so that he wouldn’t be overwhelmed in his grief. Paul told them that if they forgive him, so does he and cautioned them at the importance of this man’s restoration so that Satan is not able to use this as an opportunity to divide. The most important thing out of this was the restoration of unity in the church. Paul reminded them (and us) that what happens with us in the church doesn’t just happen in private. It’s put on display for all to see. The world is watching how we live, how we respond to things, how we treat each other, how we love (even and especially in times of discipline) and whether we are being honest and sincere in our walk and are authentically living out what we say we believe. Paul ends this part of his letter by describing the church as a fragrance of Christ to the world. To those who are perishing, we are like the smell of death, but to those being saved we are an aroma of life because we are teaching and living out the true gospel out of sincerity and not selling it like a cheap gimmick.

In 2 Corinthians 1 Paul is writing the church at Corinth after having what he described as a painful visit with them that was for their benefit. He had been writing to them about a lot of things that were out of order and had even threatened in a parent kind of “don’t make me come down there” way. After his visit to them he was trying to repair and bring comfort to them. He knew the discipline was hard, but necessary, and in true fashion, the church had accused Paul of being unreliable because he changed his plans for visiting them. I’m speculating here, but this seems like a defensive argument, and this is what humans do when we feel attacked. We find fault in the person we feel is attacking us to deflect from the correction. Paul was sounding a little bit defensive in his response to them but this is a reminder that even though he was an apostle, he was still also human. After explaining his change of plans Paul writes to them about their pain in a compassionate kind of way while also relating to them with his own pain. He describes his suffering in Asia as having a near death experience so bad that he wished for death. He encouraged them that together in their pain they can bring comfort to each other. This is what stuck out to me in the reading today. When we are hurting, and especially hurting because we have been corrected, we tend to act like we are the only ones hurting. When we remember that other people are hurting too it brings us together. Paul seems to be trying to accomplish that by relating to them in their pain and sharing his. He reminds them (and us) that when we share comfort during our own pain we are able to bring comfort to each other.

1 Corinthians chapter 15 is a very heavy chapter. Today I found my mind blown as I read. Paul was clarifying the gospel once again by also listing all of the eyewitnesses that were still alive and could attest to the resurrection of Jesus. Paul added himself as an “abnormaly born” witness since his encounter with Jesus was a little bit different. Paul spent a lot of time establishing the importance of the resurrection since there is no salvation without resurrection. Apparently, there were some in the church at Corinth that were saying there was no resurrection of the dead because he was addressing them by asking “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?” He clarifies this importance of this point as the whole cornerstone of the gospel because without the resurrection of Jesus there would be no salvation. Without the resurrection we are all still stuck in sin and the gospel is for nothing, but because of the physical resurrection of Jesus we know that we will also be resurrected spiritually. Paul used several examples of physical and spiritual resurrection to prove how important this is. The first comparison was Adam, the first man made of flesh that brought sin and death to all of mankind because of his disobedience, but Jesus was the heavenly ‘Adam’ that died physically to give us that spiritual resurrection, so to deny that there is a resurrection is to deny salvation. At this point Paul tells the church at Corinth “Do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals. Come to your senses and stop sinning, for some people are ignorant about God and I say this to your shame.”  The second example Paul used was that seeds that are planted in the ground are dead and buried, and when they are planted in death they are changed and ‘resurrected’ into something new. They break down and die as seeds, but they come up with new and changed bodies in the form of flowers and plants. Paul has two analogy points here. One is that the seed has to die in the ground before it can resurrect, and the second point is that the seed that is planted will look much different when it comes up. The seed is not much to look at in the first place, but when planted it dies and breaks down in the ground and it is changed in body and form into something much more beautiful and much more fruitful. In verse 42 Paul said “Sown in corruption, raised in incorruption, sown in dishonor, raised in glory, sown in weakness, raised in power, sown in a natural body, raised in a spiritual body.” We are like that seed and when we say yes to Jesus, we say yes to die to our flesh just like Jesus did, so we can resurrect into something more fruitful and more beautiful. Paul told the church “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and corruption cannot inherit incorruption.”  Unless we die to our flesh, we can’t inherit the kingdom of God. This means we can’t continue on in our sin and expect to resurrect from it. Jesus died and resurrected physically so that we could die and resurrect spiritually, but we can’t resurrect without first dying to our flesh like he did. Paul told the church “I die daily” and this is what we are to do. When we die to our flesh, and our selfishness, we are changed into something fruitful and beautiful that God can use.

In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul continued writing to the church at Corinth about order in the church with the use of spiritual gifts. God gave lots of spiritual gifts, including a heavenly prayer language to us when we are baptized in the Holy Spirit, but Paul encourages the church to use prophesy as the preferred gift when the church is gathered publicly because it edifies and encourages everyone. He reminds the church that even though we can all speak in our heavenly language at will, nobody is encouraged unless there is an interpreter present, so it’s better to prophesy in our known language so that everyone can be encouraged. What I really pulled out of this is that God is a God of order. There is a common misconception among charismatic circles that the only way the Holy Spirit comes is by spontaneous interrupting and taking over. It somehow seems more spiritual as if something we did in worship caused Him to come into our presence and show up. Truthfully, he is full of order and if we are also in order, we will seek Him early and come into his presence, He will show us things ahead of time so we can share them in a proper order. When we are in the word daily and we seek him early in the morning, he will show us things so that when the time is appropriate and he leads us, we will be prepared and able to share the things that he has shown us. When I was in the hospital, God really started talking to me about order. Before I got sick, I was fatigued and struggled to wake up most mornings. I read and wrote my devotionals in the mornings, but I was always behind schedule, distracted and running late. When I was in the hospital, I started a rhythm of waking up with the sun and starting my day with my devotional time and prayer. This sets my day in order and allows me to meet with God before I have to start doing things. This order is so important, and I believe it matters in everything that we do. If we look at scripture, we find this to be true everywhere. God was very orderly and precise in the creation of earth, his instructions for the ark of the covenant, his instructions to Noah for building the ark and taking in the animals, and all of the Old Testament law instructions. God has always been a God of order and detail, so why would we treat the spiritual gifts, or our lives any differently? If we will follow God’s order and put Him first in everything, He will speak to us and equip us, and we will find less often times that we are caught by surprise because nothing is a surprise to God. He knows everything we will face today, and if we seek him early, he will show us things we need to be ready for. The same order applies in everything else we do. God is not chaotic. He is very orderly in everything he does, and he wants us to walk in his order so that we are not only obedient to his order, but efficient in doing his work.

1 Corinthians 13 is well known as “the love chapter”. Most everyone has heard it because it is traditionally read aloud at weddings. But in the context of this writing, Paul was still talking to the church at Corinth about unity and love within the church. He was teaching them about spiritual gifts and the roles and offices of leadership in the church when he told them he was going to show them a “a more excellent way”. From the previous chapters we read, they were behaving selfishly and not treating each other well and Paul was about to break it down for them. From here on out we read about all the grandiose things we could possibly do that look spiritual, followed by all kinds of negative comparison statements if I don’t have love behind what I’m doing because it doesn’t matter how angelic I sound, or how generous I look if my heart is missing the motive of love. And none of it even matters if I’m just doing these things to look good. The rest of the chapter tells us what love is, and what love is not. What I really pull out of this is that love is intended to drive the selfishness out of us all by teaching us to sacrificially put the greater good of others ahead of our own selfish wants and desires. This is not to say that we become people pleasers and do what other people want us to do in a co-dependent sort of way. There is no place for selfishness anywhere in love. Not by the giver, and not to be expected by the receiver. Love thrives and everyone wins when we all push our selfishness away and sacrifice for the greater good of others. That is why Paul went down the list of not only what love is, but what love is not.

Here is a list of whatlove does not do:

• Does not envy (not jealous of success, favor or giftings)
• Is not boastful (not prideful or rude)• Is not conceited (not full of self or our own opinions)
• Does not act improperly (not inappropriate, hurtful, abusive, or controlling) Is not selfish (does not expect others to accommodate or give)
• Is not easily provoked (not quick to get angry or offended)
• Does not keep a record of wrongs (forgives offenses as they come and does not continuously bring up past mistakes)
• Finds no joy in unrighteousness (does not expect others to tolerate our wrongdoing)

Here is a list of what love is:

• Patient (fruit of the Spirit)
• Kind (fruit of the Spirit)
• Rejoices in the truth (transparent and open, not secretive, or intentionally deceptive)
• Bears all things (Goes through the hard things with people)
• Believes all things (Believes in the other person’s best intentions and motives)
• Hopes all things (Hopes for the best in others in spite of past failures)
• Endures all things (Suffers through hard times with an expectation of better things to come)

We all battle selfishness naturally, but as I read through these lists, I could see where our past wounds and hurts add to our natural selfishness and play such a strong role in our unloving behaviors and responses. When we have been hurt, (and we all have been hurt) we tend to carry those hurts into our other relationships, but we don’t always realize what we are doing. If we don’t address those past hurts, we might inadvertently punish innocent people for the wrongdoings of those who have previously hurt us and find ourselves tempted to either try to control others under a masked attempt to prevent them from hurting us, or negatively prejudge their motives and intentions out of our own desperate attempts to protect ourselves emotionally. Sometimes we prejudge other people’s motives because we ourselves have done wrong, so we automatically assume everyone else has or will do the same. Either way, by nature, we make unfair assumptions and are suspicious of the intent and motives of others before finding out the facts. We have all been deceived and hurt before and nobody wants to be the fool. But according to scripture, love demands that we hope for the best and believe in the best intentions of others first. This is not to say that we naively believe everyone and everything. It means that we choose to believe the best first, but if they lie to us or prove to have a track record or pattern of deception, we don’t ignore the facts. In other words, we are supposed to give the benefit of the doubt first and allow them to prove themselves righteously before we make assumptions or pre-judgments of what they might do or might have done. This is vulnerable. This leaves us wide open for hurt and devastation, but this is what makes love so powerful. If we are not completely open and vulnerable, we will never experience the beauty of love, no matter how real it is. When Jesus died for the world, it was the most vulnerable expression of love that could possibly be given because he did it while being mocked, abused, hated, and scorned. Love is sacrificial and He didn’t protect himself from the anguish and the hurt so that we could experience the fullness of all His love. If we could really grasp the power of this kind of love it would truly change us forever. Paul ends this chapter reminding us that out of everything we will ever experience, faith and hope are necessary while we are here on this imperfect earth, but it will not be necessary in heaven so the most important thing and the only thing that will actually last for all eternity is love.

In 1 Corinthians 12 Paul introduces the gifts of the Spirit and what they are used for. Verse 7 tells us that the purpose of these gifts is to produce what is beneficial. Although all of the gifts are important, there is not one that is more important than another. They are all given to us by the same Holy Spirit so the one that is needed in the moment is the one that will bring comfort, healing, encouragement or even instruction. Paul continues to explain that the body of Christ is also made up of many functioning parts that do different things, so none of us are able to say to each other that we don’t have need of someone else. Each of us brings something different and functional to the church, and we need every person and their unique function. This sounds simple and self-explanatory, but many people struggle with trying to find their place or their purpose in the church because they see others with more prominent looking gifts and they feel like they are not gifted, or maybe don’t know what their gifts are. Not only do we have people who don’t know their gifts, but we have those who feel their gift is more important and are prideful in their position.  A few chapters back Paul was addressing the disunity within the church of Corinth and in just the last chapter they were celebrating the Lord’s Supper, but the wealthy and those who believed themselves to be more dignified or important were selfishly demanding the best seats at the dinner and the poorest among them didn’t even get a seat at the table. It seems to me that this just might be what Paul was trying to address here. The main point that I pulled out of this is that everybody has a seat at the table and we all are needed.

In 1 Corinthians 11 Paul was still addressing things within the church that were being done out of order. One of which was the right order and structure for doing things in their public assemblies. There were cultural practices about head coverings that were not being respected and were imitating the ways of pagan religion. This was a common problem with the church at Corinth because many believers were living a double lifestyle of proclaiming to be Christ followers, but many were abusing their “freedoms” and blurring the lines by participating in pagan activities that were demonic. This problem also carried over into their celebrations of the Lord’s supper as well. At a time that they should have been sharing in a dinner together, thinking about the sacrifice Jesus made at the cross and celebrating communion with self-reflection and examining themselves before God, they were acting selfishly toward each other, demanding priority to themselves by wealth class so that the wealthy people sat in the dignified places, ate all of the food and got drunk, and the poor were overlooked, hungry and humiliated. The whole communion service went from a holy, commemorative celebration to a wild party that very much resembled some of the pagan celebrations. This was the exact opposite of what the Lord’s supper was supposed to be and Paul was telling them that the way they were treating each other and the way they were conducting themselves was bringing judgment on them. Paul took it a step further by saying that whoever drinks of the cup and eats of the bread unworthily, without self-examination, is guilty of sin against the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul told them that this is why many of them were sick and many had died in their sin. He told them (and us) that if we would self-examine our own hearts, and judge ourselves, we would not be judged and condemned to death with the rest of the world. Instead, we would be disciplined by God and changed. This is such and important topic because Christians spend so much time trying to get away from judgment. Nobody wants to feel guilty or condemned, but the order God intended is that we judge ourselves and allow God to discipline us and change us so that we aren’t judged with the rest of the world in the end. If we resist this process and refuse to change, we will be no different from the rest of the world. Being Christ followers means that we evaluate ourselves daily, allow God to show us our issues so we can pick up of our cross (and say NO to our flesh) to follow Him. We can either do this daily, or do whatever we want now and be judged and condemned with the world in the end.

In 1 Corinthians 10 Paul uses the rebellion of the Israelites as an example to show the church at Corinth a picture of themselves. He reminds them that even though they all ate and drank from the same spiritual rock, God wasn’t pleased with most of them, and God allowed an entire generation (minus a few) to die off before the promised land because of their rebellion and idolatry. Paul was cautioning the church because many of them had taken on the attitude that “everything is permissible” so far that it had blurred lines into actual duplicitous living and even moved into sexual immorality for many of them. Paul warned them that there is no temptation so great except what is common to man and that God will not allow so great a temptation without providing a way to escape it. He cautioned them that their pride will cause them to believe they can stand, but they need to be careful that they don’t fall. There were those in the church who believed as Paul did, that eating meat that was once offered to idols was not an issue because idols don’t actually exist, but some of them had taken it to another level. They were going beyond just purchasing meat at the meat market with a clean conscience, and some of them pushed it so far that they were participating at actual demonic events where they were actively sacrificing to idols. Paul cautioned them that though they knew the idols weren’t real, that didn’t mean that the demonic activity they were associating themselves with wasn’t real because they were sacrificing to demons and not to God. Paul challenges them in verse 22 asking if they were provoking God to jealousy because you can’t drink from the cup of the Lord and also from the cup of demons, and you can’t share at the Lord’s table and also at the table of demons. Paul was definitely talking to two different groups of people within the church. There were those who were living in duplicitous rebellion, and then there were those who just wanted to buy meat at the market with a clean conscience. Paul lands back on those who were just trying to live with a clean conscience. He reminds them to buy their meat without unnecessary questions for the sake of their own conscience, and to give thanks to God for the meat they received because everything on the earth belongs to God.

In 1 Corinthians 9 Paul was talking about laying aside the rights he had as an apostle to be able to enjoy the fruit of his labor in the form of material items.  There were those who had considered Paul to be “illegitimate” because he was not among those who were being financially supported by the church. But Paul had founded this church and he and Barnabas traveled the world full time to teach and preach the gospel, so he should have had the right to have been supported financially by the church and chose not to. Paul reminded them that under the old law those who served as priests ate from the sacrifices brought to the temple because they did not have an inheritance of their own. Instead, Paul and Barnabas were traveling and working for their own financial expenses to not burden the churches, or hinder the gospel, but he wanted them to know that he technically should have the right to material expenses, which were secondary to the spiritual meat he was providing to the church, but he was giving up that right because he felt a stronger pull to run with a different kind of excellence. Instead of living a life enjoying the benefits he was entitled to, he said that instead he had made himself a slave to the gospel in the hopes that he might win more people to Christ. What I really pull out of this is that although we do have certain benefits and rights to blessing, we should live our lives with an excellence of serving and working so that more can be accomplished. Paul talks about the fact that running with this kind of excellence is a spiritual discipline that keeps us from becoming prideful and it keeps our character in check. Our focus should not be about what blessings or rights are due to us, but what can we give or give up for the greater good of the gospel, and what rights can we sacrifice to make sure the gospel is the priority. We might have the right to an apology, but lay it aside. We might have the right to be vindicated in a situation, but lay it aside. These are the disciplines that make us excellent and shine a light on the gospel.

In 1 Corinthians 8 Paul talks about meat that is offered to idols because this was a common stumbling block to the Gentiles who grew up serving other gods and now were faced with the moral questions in their minds of whether this was ok. Paul explains how our knowledge of things we understand can damage people who are weaker in their faith, and we have to be humble and careful that we don’t use our knowledge to hurt. Paul very well understood that since there technically are no other gods, even if others choose to believe there are, there would be no harm in eating meat that was offered to such an imaginary god. However, since so many of the Gentile believers grew up this way and there was a moral struggle in their minds at the thought of eating meat that was offered to idols, Paul tells the church that need to use their knowledge wisely. Instead of talking someone out of this moral crisis, they needed to avoid the meat because talking them out of the moral crisis is not setting them free of it. It damages their sin conscience because something inside them feels wrong about it, even though we understand in our own minds that there is nothing wrong. If we talk someone out of something they feel to be wrong, we are in the wrong because we cause them to sin in their own minds and hearts. Obviously, we don’t struggle with meat offered to idols, but there are plenty of other convictions that people have. It’s tempting to want to set people free of some of these convictions based on our own knowledge and freedom of understanding, but according to this passage, that is not the right thing to do. WE need to allow people to have their convictions, so they don’t sin against their own conscience and hurt their relationship with God. To talk them out of their conviction would be wrong on our parts and we need to see it this way so we aren’t guilty of leading someone into sin and guilt. I never really looked at this way and I have probably tried reasoning people out of what I felt was a religious idea, and thought that I was helping. Reading this has really opened my eyes to the fact that it’s not something we should take lightly. If the heart feels wrong, it is wrong and we need to stop trying to be Holy Spirit on behalf of other people.

In 1 Corinthians 7 Paul addresses marriage and life situations. I have read these passages many times but as I read them this morning, I picked up on something very different about the heart behind it all. What Paul was trying to communicate the most was that because he was single, he was able to devote all his energy, time, and affections toward serving God. He recognized that not everyone can live that way in content singleness, so he was telling the church, it’s better that they get married than to try to abstain and obsess about wanting to get married, and it’s better that every man have a wife so he can be sexually fulfilled then to live life distracted by unmet sexual desire. He then addresses all the different life scenarios and he reminds married people that they have committed themselves so completely to their spouse that they are one, and therefore their bodies belong to each other. This scripture can easily be misinterpreted to sound abusive, but it’s actually the complete opposite when you look at it with it’s intended unity. We don’t demand from one another in marriage, we give ourselves to each other unselfishly in all areas of marriage. This is obviously the challenge as we all struggle with selfishness, but the heart behind all of it is that both partners are laying aside their selfishness to serve and love each other. This can only be done with a heart of unity. Paul also addresses spouses that have gotten saved, but their spouses were still unsaved. He encourages these spouses to hang on to their unsaved spouse as long as they are still happy to be married to them because their influence could end in the spouse’s salvation and it’s better for the stability of the kids. His point is that you shouldn’t divorce them just because they are unsaved, and it makes you unequally yoked. Instead, you should stay married, influence your spouse, and pray for their salvation. Paul encourages everyone else that rather than trying to seek out changes in our life situations, our pursuit for God should be our priority. He encourages single people to live in contentment with a desire to serve Christ as the primary desire, he encourages them not to obsess about getting married, but tells them if they end up finding someone they love, go ahead, and get married. The heart that I picked up on behind all of this was that we shouldn’t be focused on trying to get in or out of relationships. Our energy is best spent on serving God with a content heart, but since we are so relational, he set out the parameters and boundaries for all kinds of different life scenarios. Sometimes it feels like reading that passage is like walking through a minefield of “do and do not”, but the heart behind it all is that our passion and energy should be for serving God.

In 1 Corinthians 6 Paul is talking about the things that have control over us. He starts off by saying “Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is helpful, everything is permissible, but I will not be brought under the control of anything.” This sounds at first like a sin free-for all, but what Paul is communicating is that the condition of the heart is what causes sin. When a desire becomes more than a desire it will lead us. This becomes problematic because we are following Jesus, but when we have an unchecked desire, that desire will pull for control and lead us. We are no longer being led by Jesus because we have allowed something else in and that thing is now leading us. This is dangerous ground because it can lead us far enough away that we don’t come back. We have all seen this happen in the big things like drug and alcohol abuse, and in this chapter, Paul uses food as the topic because that was a big deal with the Jews because of all their forbidden food laws. The point is anything that has enough pull on us can be harmful. Even the act or desire for control itself is a powerful thing because we are no longer being led by Jesus. We have taken the wheel and are attempting to control what cannot be controlled. It’s an illusion in our minds to think we can control other people or situations, or our circumstances and yet, this is one of the most controlling forces we will ever fight against. In fact, I think the desire to control is one of the most universal struggles that we all share. This is why we have to keep an eye on anything that pulls us and submit it to Jesus immediately, before it gains too much ground. The deeper we allow it to pull us, the harder it is to get out. Paul takes this further when he gets into sexual immorality. He explains how our sexuality joins us to the person we are involved with because sex was designed for marriage, and it joins us to the person we marry. If we are immoral with our sexuality, we are joining ourselves with that immorality and when we are in Christ and we try to sin in this way Paul raises the question: “Don’t you know that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit?” If we are joined in marriage with Christ, our dabbling into sexual immorality brings prostitution into our marriage relationship with Jesus. Not only do we sin against God, but we violate our own body when we sin sexually. Paul distinguishes a firm point that anything else we do is outside of our body, but sexual sin is a violation against both God and ourselves.

In 1 Corinthians 5 Paul clarifies the topic of judgment in the church, and to me, his message couldn’t be more clear. He was hearing reports of sexual immorality within the church. The church at Corinth was proud of their lack of judgment while this man’s willful sin continued on unaddressed.  Paul is frustrated that instead of being filled with grief over this man’s condition, they were actually prideful and boasting instead. Paul used an analogy of yeast when he warned them that sin spreads like yeast within the dough, and by allowing this man to continue among them would cause a culture of more sin to spread within the church. Paul advises them that they need to address this man and “turn him over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that his spirit may be saved”. This sounds so harsh and unloving, but Paul is actually concerned for the soul of this man who is willfully living in continued sin. He knows that if this man is removed from the church to go live out his sin, he will suffer some consequences that will change his heart and bring him into repentance. Paul continues in his clarification that when he was talking about not associating with people who are living in sin, he wasn’t talking about the world He was talking about the believers who claimed to be followers of Christ who were a part of the church but were living their lives in a duplicitous way. He was calling out the Christians within the church who were living out life together claiming to be Christ followers, but were also living without a conscience to their sin. Not just those in sexual sin but Paul was also calling out all of those within the church who those were living a regular lifestyle of being greedy, or abusive, drunk, or dishonest. Paul is warning them that they shouldn’t associate with believers that were acting this way. He further clarifies that he is not talking about the sinners of the world, and he says “what business is it of mine to judge outsiders? This is such an important point because the church seems to have things very backwards. Christians in our American culture are trying to treat our country as a whole, like it is the body of Christ, but this fight to change our country and judge the unsaved people in it should be happening within the actual church. Change is supposed to be with us and among us. We aren’t here to cleanse our country of sin. We are here to follow Christ and bring lost and broken people in with us so they can be reconciled to the father who loves them and is trying to reach out to them.  We can’t do this if we are tied up in our own sin issues. Our own sin makes us ineffective and completely unfruitful.  This is why judgment and accountability for sin belongs in the church, not in the world. If we can get this right as the body of Christ it would literally change the world because the world would actually see us living and loving our lives in full surrender to a God who loves and pursues people.

In 1 Corinthians 4 Paul was trying writing to the church at Corinth because after he had established their church they started chasing after other leaders who were not living out the gospel. They were prideful and full of their own worldly wisdom so much to the point that they were living well and were not suffering any persecution. Their success boosted their pride because it gave them the impression that they were living well. In fact, Paul even commented kind of sarcastically that they looked like they were living so well that it would almost seem that Christ had returned, and they were already reigning together. Paul uses this as a pause moment as if to say “I sure wish that were the case for the sake of all of us” but he returns to his point. The truth was that the church at Corinth had strayed after some clever sounding teachers who had led them into humanistic ideas that sounded pretty truthful and logical from a carnal and logical mind. Because of this teaching they seemed to have thought they figured out how to live and fit into the world and be successful, while their pride caused them to believe they were somehow still walking out their lives for Jesus. In fact. They were so convinced of it that they were teaching these ways to other people and feeling pretty proud of their success and their so-called “wisdom.” So much so that they were spreading this way through the church. Paul was trying to remind them that when he established them as a church, he came to them as a father and wanted them to imitate Him. He reminded them that while they were off looking successful, the real apostles were out in the thick of things being treated like trash by the world because the gospel they were preaching was the one of surrender and servanthood. None of which appeals to the world or the carnal mind. The real apostles were humble men who were out preaching the pure gospel while also working hard with their hands as tent makers in order to support themselves so they wouldn’t be a financial burden to the church. Paul was appealing to the church he started at Corinth to remember that he had come to them as a father, and that he desperately wanted them to see that his fatherly care for them was for their good. He was sending this message through Timothy warning them that he would be coming to see them soon and he hoped that they would repent because he could either come to them with a disciplinary father’s heart, or he could come to them with a spirit of gentleness knowing they had repented. He concludes this with a “how do you want this to go?” kind of ultimatum, but from the attitude of a loving father because he still very much saw himself as their spiritual father who recognized that his kids were following the wrong crowd. This really hit home as I read because I see so much of this in the current Christian church. So many people are living their lives in a duplicitous way. They will tell you they are Christians, and they will quote little sayings and scriptures, but they are not at all surrendered over. Like the church at Corinth, they believe they have figured out a successful way to function and fit into the world by adopting some of the world’s “values”, while also still believing that they are faithfully serving God because they simply say they believe. Somehow, we equate “belief” with things we agree with even if we don’t do them. If I know it takes hard work and discipline to work out and eat well to get in shape, I can say that I believe it to be true, but I would be a liar to say that my “belief” equates to my actually living it out. We can say we believe anything, but the proof of our integrity is in what we do with that belief in our actual daily life. We violate our own conscience every time we say we believe something that we don’t actually do. There is a psychology term defined as “cognitive dissonance” that has actually been proven by neuroscientists to show that when we live in this state, it actually causes damage to our brains. I’m not trying to get scientific, nor psychological. My point is that science is just now catching up and figuring out the truths that God has established from the beginning of time. The world puts down the truth of the gospel because it sounds like utter foolishness to them. They don’t have the spiritual eyes to see it, but Christians in America need to wake up and return back to the foundational truth written in the Word of God and stop chasing after the American Dream. Jesus is coming and His word warns us that we are in danger of being found asleep with our lamp wicks unlit. Those of us who are awake and living this daily life need to wake up the sleepers and provoke them to serve God with all their hearts. Their salvation depends on it!

In 1 Corinthians 3 Paul was telling the church at Corinth that he was unable to speak to them with the kind of spiritual depth that they should be ready for because they were too immature and fleshly-minded. He continued to talk about their envy and their strife with each other, and the pride and rivalry that they carried by idolizing their leaders as proof of that immaturity. He reminded them that we are all just servants of Christ and that the foundation that Paul laid when he initially presented them with the gospel, was watered by Apollos, who was known to be a very eloquent speaker and teacher. This would have been viewed competitively to the contrary of Paul, who by his own admission commented that his public speaking was not very impressive. Paul is reminding them that none of this is supposed to be about the servant who is sharing the message because it is God’s wisdom, and it is God who provides the growth. The immaturity in taking pride in whom they were being taught by as a superior source to another was evidence that they were focused on the wrong things and missing the point of it all. And if they were using the fancy, eloquent words of wisdom they were hearing from Apollos to share with others so they could look and sound impressive and wise, they were also missing the point. The recognition for a thriving and growing church was not supposed to be given to any man at all because the whole point of it all is that we are all following Christ. Paul talks about the importance that the foundation we lay when we share the gospel with others and reminds us that we are accountable for the integrity of what that is. It will either stand up to the test or it will fail and reveal our motives. He cautions them that as they go and teach others, if they think they are wise, but are just sharing out of their own minds, or from the ideas they were hearing from others, rather than simply communicating the gospel of truth, the foundation that they lay will be revealed and tested. If it is their own human “wisdom” that they are sharing, it won’t stand up to the tests of life. Their “wisdom” and advice to those they are teaching won’t stand up to the tests of life unless they are teaching them God’s ways. This is something we all really have to be really careful about. If we are counseling and advising people based upon our own experiences, emotions, and ideas we will lead them with our own foolishness, emotions and flesh and the council we give them will not go well for them. But if we are reading God’s word daily and are in prayer, we will pull wisdom from the truth of God’s word and council them with Scripture instead of our own ideas, we will be laying a firm foundation and it will stand up to the tests of life.

In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul is explaining the difference between those who have spiritual eyes to see and those who do not. What I really pulled from this is that the gospel is like a hidden treasure that has to be desired to be seen. The Jews had (and still have) all kinds of prophesy pointing directly to the Messiah but because their focus was natural and not spiritual, they were unable to see all of the pointed signs and God allowed them to embrace their spiritual blindness in order to pursue the Gentiles and bring salvation to the rest of the world. We are living in a culture of spiritual blindness, but our culture believes themselves to be the most enlightened and “woke” generation because they pride themselves on a humanistic level to be the source and the way. They mock, defy and they shame anyone who does not agree or accept their views as intolerable and wrong. Unfortunately, Christians who are not following the gospel completely are hung up in some sort of category of their own that doesn’t fit the gospel, and it doesn’t gel with the humanistic thought of the world either. If Christians actually followed the gospel in it’s purity, the fact that every single human being was created in the image of God would drive everything we say and do toward the love of God in reconciling people to Him instead of telling them why they are not accepted by Him. If we as Christians put away worldly ideas and rejected the culture that wants so much to influence us, we would see God’s actual truth with spiritual eyes and allow His love to reconcile hearts to a Father who loves them and is waiting for their arrival. This is the beautiful hidden treasure of the gospel, and if we are looking with natural eyes we will miss it!

In 1 Corinthians 1 Paul addresses some divisions within the church because he was hearing reports about rivalry between them over whom they were following. Some would say they were with Apollos, and some would say Cephas, or some would say “I’m with Christ.” Paul challenges this by asking “Is Christ divided?” He reminds them that this is one gospel and not about the leaders or the people who preach the gospel or baptize people into the church. Paul restores the emphasis that the gospel is not supposed to change. It should be spoken the same by all because it was given by Christ Jesus who is not divided and does not change. From here he reminds us that the gospel looks foolish to those who believe they are wise, but it’s God’s power to those of us who are saved. Everything we believe and do in life hangs from the gospel of Christ and if we are not all in, we miss the point completely and the things that we do just become religious activity. Paul requotes from the law and old prophetic scripture that says “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will set aside the understanding of the experts” This continues to be true today, as most people try to pick apart the gospel with worldly views and humanistic opinions of our current culture. Even Christians who have bought into the culture pull back from parts of the gospel calling it “outdated” or “old fashioned”. It’s unpopular and completely rejected by those who believe their human wisdom is superior, but to those of us who are Jesus followers, the gospel is the full truth and it is what guides our entire lives.

Reading in Romans 16 Paul started off by acknowledging some women of the church who had served and worked. Then he acknowledged some couples and gave greetings to a long list of people before cautioning the church about divisive people and warning them to watch out for the dissensions they cause and the obstacles that they try to promote that were contrary to the gospel they had been taught by Paul. He firmly warned them to avoid them all together and Paul wasn’t shy at all in going as far as to say that they don’t serve Jesus Christ because they serve their own appetites. This is warning is a very small section, but I felt it held a lot of weight. We tend to want to debate with people who disagree with us or somehow attempt to educate people in their doctrine, but truthfully, we have to be very careful because when we do this, we are also entering the conversation from a level of the mind and not necessarily being led by the Holy Spirit. We have so much more opportunity to find ourselves in these kinds of conversations because of social media. There are things we will never be able to convince with the intellectual mind and when we try to do this we become arrogant in our approach. We need to pray for people who are misled before trying to counsel them out of it. The Holy Spirit can reach the heart in ways we can’t. Sometimes the dissensions that are contrary to the gospel are about other people. People who are talking about other people and rushing to judgment about their lives, their motives, and their private business. This should not be happening in the church, but unfortunately where there are people gathered, there are all levels of maturity and immaturity all together. When people get together, they talk, and if they are immature in their faith they will talk about people and their private family situations and out of their immaturity they pronounce their judgment on them. Paul is boldly calling out that people who are doing this are not serving God. They are serving their own appetite for gossip and judgment. Paul sternly warns us to stay away from people like this. I personally shut down anyone who would try to gossip to me about someone else’s life situation and I firmly remind them that the person they are talking about is accountable under a leader who is guiding them. My go-to is stop them right away and pray for a spirit of unity. There is no place for gossip or dissension in the church and it should be the responsibility of each one of us to shut down any that comes in our direction, but I love that Paul ended this warning on a strong and powerful note by saying “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” People will talk, but ultimately, God has the final word.