Onward to Corinth. . .

1 Corinthians 1:1-9 - From Paul, called by God’s will to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, and from Sosthenes our brother.

To God’s church that is in Corinth:

To those who have been made holy to God in Christ Jesus, who are called to be God’s people.

Together with all those who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place—he’s their Lord and ours!

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

I thank my God always for you, because of God’s grace that was given to you in Christ Jesus.  That is, you were made rich through him in everything: in all your communication and every kind of knowledge,  in the same way that the testimony about Christ was confirmed with you.  The result is that you aren’t missing any spiritual gift while you wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.  He will also confirm your testimony about Christ until the end so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.  God is faithful, and you were called by him to partnership with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

                We move now to 1 Corinthians which, according to most scholars is the next letter Paul wrote (54-55 AD) after Galatians.  The letters to the Corinthians were among the longest letters in the letters we have from Paul.  This may be because Paul knew this church well, for he spent over a year and a half in Corinth getting this church up and running.  After he had moved on to start other churches, Paul heard about a handful of problems the Corinthian church was having.  He wrote to them in hopes that he could offer them some help in addressing those specific problems. 

                Before we get to the problems Paul addresses, let’s notice a seemingly unimportant detail in the introduction to the letter:

“From Paul, called by God’s will to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, and from Sosthenes our brother.”

Paul mentions a man named Sosthenes, who Paul calls a “brother.”  This means that Sosthenes was a fellow Christian now.  Sosthenes was not a stranger to Corinth, but at one time, he was an enemy of the church in Corinth.  We read in Acts 18 about a Sosthenes that was an appointed leader of the Jewish synagogue in Corinth.  When Paul shows up and starts converting some of the Jews in Corinth into Christians, Sosthenes has him brought up on charges in order stop the conversions.  The plan backfires, and through a stream of ambiguous details, Sosthenes ends up being beaten up. 

So it is rather significant that Paul writes to the church in Corinth and lists Sosthenes as a co-author and brother.  Through the transformative power of the gospel, a former opponent and persecutor has now become a present partner in ministry.  Sosthenes, like Paul himself, was once a enemy of Christ and now has become an ambassador for Christ with Paul, the very man Sosthenes intended to bring down. 

                This is an important detail to share as we begin our journey through this first letter to the people of Corinth, for it gives even greater power to Paul’s advice on how to address the problems in the Corinthian church. 

                But for today, we should note that possibility that people we have seen as an enemy should never be completely written off.  Today’s adversary, through the power of Christ, can become tomorrow’s partner. 

 

Question: Is there someone you have seen as an enemy in the past that, through the lens of the transforming power of Christ, might become an ally?

 

Prayer: Lord Jesus, help us to see people as you do.  Help us let go of our own biases of the past so that we may see what you are doing now.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for some people today that you would ordinarily not choose to pray for.

 

Song:  That’s What Faith Can Do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1JBSQMkQEo

Secrets Seldom Heard

Mark 4:1-20 - Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge.  He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said:  “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed.  As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.  Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow.  But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.  Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain.  Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.”

Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables.  He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables  so that,

“‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,

    and ever hearing but never understanding;

otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’”

 

Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?  The farmer sows the word.  Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.  Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy.  But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.  Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word;  but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.  Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”

 

This is a longer scripture reading than we normally take on, but it’s important to read it as a whole.  We are introduced to the idea that Jesus often taught in parables, we hear an actual parable, and then we get a discussion about why parables are used. Finally, Jesus gives an interpretation of the parable we heard.  All of these “sections” provide insight into what is going on here.  I encourage you to say a quick prayer asking God to speak to you through this text.  Then read it again, listening for meaning. 

I only add a few quick ideas from my own time of doing what I asked you to do just now.  First, I am impressed by Jesus not being impressed with large crowds.  I do get impressed by large crowds and when I hear that large crowds are going to hear “so-and-so,” it makes me want to hear them too.  We live in a society that values speakers, artists, musicians, and others who attract crowds.  The fact that it is possible to make a good living now simply making videos on Youtube or posts on Instagram is witness to this.  Jesus was not impressed by His own ability to draw crowds and the parable He tells explains why.  Jesus knows that only a fraction of those present will ever take His teaching and do something fruitful with it.  I can’t help but think there is even a little sadness in Jesus about this realization. 

When the disciples ask about the use of parables, Jesus explains that this lack of fruitfulness is not a new problem.  He quotes Isaiah where Isaiah is told that while, he is sent to God’s people with God’s message, the people will not really hear or understand the message, much less do anything different as a result. 

This sober truth continues to play out today.  I have been part of more than a dozen Christian congregations in my lifetime.  The large majority of people who attend these congregations live lives that look remarkably similar to the lives they would live if they never attended church.  I don’t say that to be hurtful or judgmental.  It is just the reality that Jesus described.  But here is the hope in Jesus’s teaching here.  The small minority of people who are authentically transformed by the teaching of Jesus tend to have exponential impact on the world around them, “some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times” the seed that was planted in them.  Jesus has faith in the power of the that small group of the transformed to change the world forever.  He faith has proven to be well placed.  Jesus doesn’t seem to care about numbers; He cares about fruit. 

One final encouragement.  This parable is not given as a way to classify others as one of the four kinds of soils described in the story.  I see it as a self-awareness tool given by Jesus to see our own tendencies more clearly.

 

Question:  What kind of “soil” do you most resemble? 

 

Prayer:  Show me my heart, Jesus.  Help me prepare it to more fruitfully receive Your Word.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Spend time just quietly listening for God to speak into your life today.

 

Song:  Here’s My Heart Lord – Casting Crowns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkSBmRAVXNc

Matthew 13:51-52 - The Greatness of Crazy Times

The Greatness of Crazy Times - November 8, 2021

 

Matthew 13:51-52, NLT - Do you understand all these things?”

“Yes,” they said, “we do.”

Then he added, “Every teacher of religious law who becomes a disciple in the Kingdom of Heaven is like a homeowner who brings from his storeroom new gems of truth as well as old.”

 

I hope all of you have had the experience of at going through at least one season of awakenings.  By that, I mean a season where you are discovering new insights at such a rapid pace that you can actually notice how you are changing in real time.  I have had a few such seasons, but the one that stands out for me above the others is a time during 1995-97.  In the space of one month in 1995, I graduated from seminary, began my first full-time appointment as a Pastor, and became a father for the first time.  I can feel the stress of all that even now as I remember it two and half decades later.  However, my memory of that time is very sweet.  I think I learned more in the next two to three years than I had in in other period of my life before.  That’s saying a lot because I had just finished twenty years of formal education!  Looking at that time now, I can see that it was the two decades of formal education that “set me up” for that flood of insights as my education met the reality of living and working in the “real world.”  The “old” knowledge of my childhood was combined and enhanced with the “new” wisdom I was gaining being a full-time pastor and new father. 

There have been other periods of streaming insight since then, but they have all been different.  One such period was the year following a two-week trip to the Holy Land.  My view of scripture has never been the same since walking the terrain where so much of that scripture happened.  Another rich period of wisdom followed some deeply painful experiences and losses.  All of these periods of breakthrough, though, involved the combination of new experience and insight with what I had known before. 

I think this is what Jesus is talking about above in his comments to his disciples.  He has been pouring into them new experience and wisdom about the in-breaking kingdom of God that is happening before their very eyes.  However, what they are experiencing and learning only enhances what they have already known.  They see the old in a new light and re now able to offer more to those that they will serve.  Jesus is reminding them that it’s okay to embrace new insight without fear of “losing” cherished beliefs and convictions from the past.  Those old insights still have value and are still part of them. 

This is so important for us to remember right now.  Collectively, the human race is going through one of those periods of incredible change and insight right now.  The pandemic has forced us to look at much of the “old ways” through a new lens.  This can be a time when a synthesis of the old and new can forge new wisdom to meet our challenges.  While we will have to let go of much from the past, the past is still part of who we are and will always be.  Our new understanding on the other side of this seminal time is built on the foundation of all that we knew before. 

I’d be lying if I said that I’m excited about all this.  Frankly, I’m deeply disturbed by a lot of what I see happening now.  I’m also a bit disoriented because I don’t know where it all is going.  Many who experienced Jesus firsthand were just as disturbed and disoriented by what they were seeing.  It would be much later that these disturbed and disoriented disciples would become the great apostles of the church that we revere two thousand years later.  It took them a while to digest what Jesus was giving them and integrate it with all they had known before.  It will be the same for us.

 

Question: What are you learning or experiencing right now that has shed new light on something you knew or experienced before now?

 

Prayer:  God, open our eyes, ears, hearts, and minds to what is happening right now before our very eyes.  Give us insight into how our present experience can enhance our experience of the past and prepare us for all that is coming next.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for teachers you know today.

 

Song:  Teach Your Children – Crosby, Stills, and Nash

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpAdkomvAIg