Character at Corinth

You know what they say about the perfect church. If you search for the perfect church and find it, don’t join it because then it won’t be perfect anymore. If we needed any evidence that the church of Jesus Christ in this world is not perfect, well then, The Church at Corinth is exhibit A. But before we wade into the mud, Paul reminds us of seven positive characteristics of the church. That is what we will look at today in 1 Corinthians 1:1-9. Listen for God’s word to you…

 

Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,

² To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:

³ Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

⁴ I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. ⁵ For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge— ⁶ God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. ⁷ Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. ⁸ He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Before we talk about the seven positive characteristics of the church that Paul highlights here, allow me to say a few words of introduction to the Corinthian correspondence as a whole.

 

There is a person mentioned in Acts 18, which we looked at last week, who’s fame allows us to date the Corinthian correspondence fairly precisely. That person is Gallio who lived from 5 BC to AD 65. He was the brother of Seneca who was the tutor of Nero.

 

Gallio’s tenure as proconsul in Corinth can be fairly accurately dated to AD 51-52. Thus, we know that Paul must have written 1 Corinthians sometime in the mid 50s of the first century. 

 

Corinth was, in Paul’s time, the largest town in Greece. It was an important seaport, a garrison town, and a strategic road-junction. Corinth was also the capital of the Roman province of Achaia. As J. B. Phillips tells us, Corinth “would have been full of a cosmopolitan crowd, and even in those days was a byword for immorality, probably largely because of the highly organized worship of Venus (Aphrodite).”

 

Paul’s correspondence with Corinth was not as simple as it may appear on the surface. By examining 1 and 2 Corinthians we learn that Paul wrote more than two letters to this church.

 

Paul refers to a “previous letter” which may actually be contained in 2 Corinthians 6:14 to 7:1. If you read from 6:13 and then skip to 7:2 of 2 Corinthians, you will find that it runs very smoothly.

 

After writing this first letter, Paul was visited in Ephesus by “Chloe’s people” (1 Corinthians 1:11). This delegation from Corinth brought word to Paul of the divisions in the church.

 

1 Corinthians 1-4 was written in reply and Timothy was about to take that letter to Corinth when something else happened (1 Corinthians 4:17).

 

Three men (Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus) arrived with more news and a letter from Corinth (1 Corinthians 16:17). Paul thus added to 1 Corinthians 1-4 chapters 7 through 16 in reply to the questions posed by the Church at Corinth. Timothy then took the whole of 1 Corinthians to Corinth.

 

That, however, was not the end of the story. The situation got worse in Corinth. Thus, Paul decided to visit them for a second time. But that visit was disastrous and painful (2 Corinthians 2:1).

 

As a result of this second visit, Paul decided to send yet another letter by the hands of Titus (2 Corinthians 2:13; 7:13). This “severe letter” is probably contained in 2 Corinthians 10-13.

 

When Titus did not return right away, Paul got worried. And so, he set out to meet him in Macedonia (northern Greece). In response to the encouraging report from Titus, Paul wrote 2 Corinthians 1-9.

 

Now, one does not have to know all of that background to benefit from reading the Corinthian correspondence, but I think, as we go along, you will see how this history helps to make sense of it all. 2 Corinthians, as we have it now, is undoubtedly not one letter, but rather a collection of letters that Paul wrote to Corinth.

 

With that background in mind, let us look together at the 7 positive characteristics of the church that Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 1:1-9…

 

Called

 

Paul begins this letter by saying that he is a called apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God. 

 

Paul uses the normal form for a first century letter, but he invests it with new meaning, introducing from the get-go some of the major themes he is going to touch on in the letter.

 

Various forms of this word are used throughout 1 Corinthians, and it appears 4 times in these first 9 verses.

I wonder: do you have a sense of calling in your life? Paul knew that he was called to be an apostle, that is, a sent one of Christ Jesus. He knew that this was part of God’s will for him.

 

But that is not all. In verse 9 Paul says to the Christians in Corinth, “God is faithful, through whom you were called…” Called to what? “Called to the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

 

Sosthenes, who is mentioned as sending this letter, along with Paul, is an example of this larger calling to the fellowship of Jesus. Sosthenes is a somewhat unusual name. It is mentioned only one other time in the New Testament, in Acts 18:17. You may remember from our reading in Acts 18 last week that during Paul’s ministry in Corinth, Crispus, the synagogue ruler, became a follower of Jesus. Sosthenes was the next fellow to take charge of the synagogue. When the Jews brought Paul before Gallio and Gallio dismissed the charges against Paul, the crowd ended up turning on Sosthenes. It seems reasonable to assume that this Sosthenes, like Crispus before him, became a follower of Jesus. And having been a prominent leader in Corinth, he joins Paul in sending this letter to the Church there.

 

Speaking of “church”, do you know what the word means? The word “church” means “called out ones”. Do you realize that you too are called? You are called to the fellowship of God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. God has called you to a relationship with himself through Jesus Christ, and along with that, he has given you a job to do, just as he gave to Paul.

 

It is not just pastors who have a Christian calling. We all have such a calling, to belong to God through Jesus, and to serve him. How we are to do the latter is something we each must discover. As we will learn later in this letter, each member of the body of Christ has been given a spiritual gift and it is those gifts of the Spirit that determine how we are to serve the Lord.

 

Set Apart

 

The second character trait of the church that we read here is that the church and the individual Christians within the church are set apart to belong to Jesus. Paul says we are “sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people”. The words “sanctified” and “holy” mean to be set apart.

 

The Jewish temple and the vessels in the temple were holy in the sense of being set apart to belong to God. The Jewish people also were called a holy nation, set apart as God’s possession.

 

The Greek word for “holy”, “hagios”, is sometimes translated as saint. A little boy was once asked what a saint was. Immediately thinking of the stained-glass windows in his church he said, “A saint is someone whom the light shines through.” I like that. It is a statement of what we are all called to do and to be—people whom the light shines through.

 

Those Who Call

 

Paul writes this letter not only to the Church at Corinth, but to “all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours.”

 

Those who are called are also those who call. Those who are called to belong to God through Christ are also those who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

I love what William Barclay says about this…

 

The Christian is called into a community whose boundaries include all earth and all heaven. It would be greatly to our good if sometimes we lifted our eyes beyond our own little circle and thought of ourselves as part of the Church of God which is as wide as the world.

 

This universal vision continues into the next phrase. Paul points out that the Lord that the Corinthians call on is also his Lord. Again, Barclay says helpfully, “No man, no Church, has exclusive possession of Jesus Christ. He is our Lord but he is also the Lord of all men.”

Grace & Peace

 

After identifying himself and the Church to which he writes, he wishes all the recipients of this letter: “Grace and peace … from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

 

Grace is the characteristic word of the Christian Scriptures. It appears 114 times in the New Testament compared to 10 times in the Old Testament. 

 

Grace is also Paul’s characteristic word. He uses the word 80 times in his letters. 16 of those appearances are in the Corinthian correspondence.

 

“Charis” means undeserved favor. As I talked about a few weeks ago, when we closed out our study of Revelation, grace is “God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense”.

 

Peace is the characteristic word of the Hebrew Scriptures. The word is used 156 times in the Old Testament and 93 times in the New. Paul joins this word with grace 13 times in his correspondence. It is his characteristic greeting to his brothers and sisters in Christ.

 

Do you want to know how to recognize the Apostle Paul when you meet him in heaven? He is the one who will come up to you and greet you with the words, “Grace and peace!”

 

Peace in Hebrew is “shalom”. It means not only peace of mind, but peace in all dimensions of one’s life. Similarly, the Greek word εἰρήνη means wholeness. Peace is the condition when all essential parts of one’s life are joined together. 

And, like grace, peace is the gift of God. Paul says in Galatians that peace is part of the fruit of the Spirit; peace is what the Holy Spirit produces in us and through us when he dwells within us. And here in 1 Corinthians he says, “I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.”

Enriched & Not Lacking

 

Paul says of the believers at Corinth and of us, that we are enriched and not lacking: “For in him [that is—in Christ] you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge…”

 

Paul is going to take issue, later in this letter, with some aspects of the Corinthians’ speech and knowledge, but he wants to begin by acknowledging that these two things are gifts from God. 

 

We too, like the Corinthians, have been enriched in every way. “Really?” you might ask. “Yes, really!” In every way.

 

In case we have any doubt Paul goes on to spell things out. He says, “Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift …”

 

Now, this bit cannot be truly said of the individual Christian. We do not, individually, have all the spiritual gifts. Paul will spell this out later in the letter. But the Church as a whole, even that part of the Church in Corinth, is not lacking in any spiritual gift.

 

Think of that! God equips every part of his Church, wherever that Church may be, with all the spiritual gifts they need to carry on his work in their particular locale.

 

I have served many different congregations in many different places. I have heard churches lament repeatedly about what they lack. But it is not true. God has given us, and will continue to give us, everything we need to do his work.

Hudson Taylor, the famous missionary to China, who labored for 20 years without a convert, once said, “Depend on it. God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply. He is too wise a God to frustrate His purposes…”

 

Our concern is not supply. Our job is to make sure we are doing God’s work and not our own. And once we are sure of God’s work, then we must also make sure we do it in God’s way. If we do those two things, we will never lack God’s supply.

 

Eagerly Waiting

 

Paul also says of the Christians at Corinth that they are eagerly waiting for the Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.

 

Is that our attitude today in this place, in this church? I remember that when I began my journey as a Christian, preachers talked a lot more about the Second Coming of Christ. And the Christians I knew were eagerly looking forward to that day.

 

Not so much anymore. I do not sense the same eagerness among Christians today. We seem to understand less about the Second Coming of Christ and so we don’t eagerly anticipate it and work toward it.

 

“Work toward it? What do you mean by that?” Jesus tells us there is one thing we can do to hasten his coming. Did you know that? He says that first the Gospel must be preached to all nations, then the end will come. (Matthew 24:14; Mark 13:10; Luke 24:47)

 

If you don’t like the way this world is. If you long for a better world. There is one thing you can do—communicate the good news of Jesus Christ to others. When we do that, it shows that we are eagerly awaiting his revealing. 

 

God does not want us to stand looking into the sky as we await Jesus’ return. That is what the first disciples were doing after Jesus ascended into heaven. We read in Acts 1:10-11…

 

They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

 

It’s as if the angels said to the first disciples, “Don’t stand there doing nothing. Get busy!” And the first disciples did. They prayed for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, received that outpouring, and then they began taking the good news of Jesus to the world.

 

Blameless

 

The final thing that Paul says about the Christians at Corinth in the opening of his letter is that God will keep them and us “firm to the end” so that they and we “will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We can trust God to do this because he who called us into fellowship with his Son is faithful. 

 

Wow! What a positive statement! Blameless. It is almost too good to be true. What does “blameless” mean? Blameless is a legal term. It means we cannot be held to account or convicted of any wrong in a court of law. 

 

How can this be? Only through Jesus Christ can it be! Only through the one who lived a blameless life in our behalf, died on a cross in our place, and rose again from the dead to give us new life. Receive him, and God will keep you firm to the end, blameless on the day Jesus returns to judge the world. When the ultimate judgment comes the person who is in Christ can meet even that day unafraid because he or she will be clothed not in their own merits but in the merits of Jesus Christ so that no one will be able to condemn them.

 

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!