A sermon delivered at First Presbyterian Church, Soddy Daisy, TN, Feb. 16, 2014
OT Reading: Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Gospel Reading: Matthew 5: 21-37
Epistle Reading: 1 Corinthians 3:1-9 *
As we move towards the Easter season this year we are
following Paul struggling with the congregation in Corinth. In the last two
weeks we learned the congregation did not accept that their faith required them
to act as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, not the world. Their wisdom and pride
convinced them spirituality was all they needed. This week Paul returns to the
problem and explaining the Corinthians’ error in great detail in this letter to
the congregation. It is an occasional letter as all Paul’s letters are, written
to a specific group of people or a person about specific behavior or
circumstance. Therefore, these letters have great teaching value on the practice
of Christian behavior in our modern congregations; because when it comes to
human nature, there is very little new under the sun.
This part of Paul’s letter reads like a "lecture"
to the Corinthian congregation (and it is intended to be read to the entire
congregation), though the Greek is full of painful irony and imagery as if chastising a
misbehaving brat.
Paul came to Corinth and started this congregation
among former slaves who now are self made men immersed in a Greek and Roman
culture that prided itself on power, logic and knowledge, well-turned
arguments, entertaining oratory and pride in its civil and commercial accomplishments.
It also had prominent Greek temples for the
Greek gods and goddesses whose worship entailed exorbitant drunken feasts and widespread
dehumanizing sexual indulgences involving temple prostitutes.
Paul had come to town preaching a Gospel alien to the
values of these sophisticated folks. It is a foolish Gospel proclaiming the
death and resurrection of Jesus changed the universe permanently, bringing the
Kingdom of Heaven into a world torn with deceit, selfishness and egotism, and judging
corrupt that world of the Jews and Greek-Romans and sentencing it to death. By
the power of the Holy Spirit many Corinthians believed that alien Gospel and
began a congregation. Realize these are true believers, people of faith, not
infidels. It is a very important to remember we are talking about Christian members
of a congregation.
Paul left Corinth to pursue his missionary work
leaving Apollos and others to nurture the faith of the Corinthians. But the
Corinthians have not separated that far from their old ways of thinking. They
conclude the Holy Spirit imbues them with a faith that makes them a part of a
special cult of Christian elite.
They partake the Lord’s Supper that imparts power. They
believe their spirit makes them immune to the old religious life and begin
visiting their temples and their prostitutes, and feasting with their old
friends because they think they are protected as solid gold Christians. The
ones who speak eloquently in tongues must be filled with the Holy Spirit far
more than their fellow Christians who do not. What began as dissent and
argument between small groups over their spirituality has spread throughout the
congregation. They even doubt Paul’s spirituality. He is a poor speaker, has an
unappealing appearance and earns a living with his hands.
They are so full of their wisdom that they have
completely forgotten that you cannot believe the Gospel and act as a citizen of
the world. Everyone has forgotten that a Christian lives in this Kingdom of
Heaven that is breaking in and pushing aside the Kingdom of the World.
A faithful Christian who keeps one’s feet in the fish
trap of the old ways is following them and leading others to death. Christian
behavior goes hand-in-hand with faith. They are obligated to cede their own pride
and individualism to the congregation so the great Church is empowered as the
foundation for the emerging Kingdom of Heaven.
The words come to mind, "When I was an adult, I
put away childish things."
I think the best way to put the OT, Gospel and Paul’s
text into perspective is to go through Paul’s words in these 9 verses.
1 Corinthians 3:1-9
1 And so, brothers and sisters, I could
not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as
infants in Christ.
As I said
last week, his Greek grammar shows clearly he is speaking to everyone in the
congregation, and now is recounting the situation when he first came to the
Corinthians. He says, “When I first came I could not speak to you all as
Christians because you all were not Christians! You were creatures of the
world, living according to its rules, values and logic. You all thought highly
of yourselves and worshiped in the temple of Aphrodite with her temple
prostitutes, or condoned your fellows doing it. You loved and admired power. I had to treat your interest in the Good News
as if you were all babies beginning to learn how to eat.
Then he gets
personal in v2: “2 I
fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even
now you are still not ready.”
In other words, “Back when
I began proclaiming the Good News to you, I took great effort to carefully
explain to every one of you in simple words Christ crucified and resurrected
brought the Kingdom of Heaven that you have entered along with the obligations
of faith. I did this because even though you believed, you were immature babies
that couldn’t understand otherwise. Sadly you are still immature, childish
babies who don’t understand, even though you all are adults;
Paul’s irony
is inescapable. He doesn’t use the positive word “baby” but a word that means a
misbehaving child, an “imp.” Paul is going all out trying to get through their
thick-headed logic to their heart. In order to make his point he continues, “3 for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy
and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to
human inclinations?
Paul is telling them their arguments
and jealousy proves they ALL still live practicing the ways and values of the dying world. He
heaps the worst allegation he can on these sophisticated Greeks, “You all are still
behaving as unruly children just like you did when I met you and you didn’t
have faith. Even now all you do is all argue about who is the better Christian.
Am I not right?”
Paul refuses
to let up, “4 For when one says, ‘I belong to Paul,’
and another, ‘I belong to Apollos,’ are you not merely being human?
This is a painful criticism to a group who say they
have attained the spiritual level of “high Christianity.” Paul says, “You are professing allegiance to Apollos or
me and that means you are simply still acting in the human ways of the world
yet you say you have escaped to a higher spirituality in Christ. Who do you think you are to claim the one who proclaimed
the Good News to you is more important than Christ who
is being proclaimed? Do every one of you not see how childish and worldly
you are?”
Then in
verse 5-7 Paul describes Apollos and his status in very clear terms that also is
a slap at the Corinthians high view of their own status: “5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom
you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is
anything, but only God who gives the growth.
These three verses are perhaps some of
the more important words Paul writes to the Corinthians and to us. He tells
them (in my words), “Far be it for me or my associates in
faith to stand before you all as anything but a servant or slave of God who has preached the Word to
each of you according to the ability that the Lord gave to each of us. I may have preached the Gospel to
you, and Apollos may have nurtured you with instruction after I left, but
we were only the ones who sowed and watered. Only God caused the Gospel to
sprout in you all. Do you understand this means Apollos and I are really
nothing but messengers, not gods. In the absence of God, our words are only
seeds and water cast on soil. Only God can grow your spirit."
By now, not only has Paul completely disabused the
Corinthians of any idea they have some special status as people of spirit, but
also he has made it clear that they have made a mockery of their Christianity
by using their great powers of knowledge and logic to twist the Kingdom of
Heaven into an affirmation of their old worldly values.
Paul puts the entire message together for the
Corinthians in the last two verses: “8 The one who plants and the one who waters have a common
purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. 9 For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s
field, God’s building.”
Paul has come full circle. We all have a unity of
purpose in the Kingdom of Heaven. We are all part of the body of Christ, each
one of us bringing our own special gifts. He describes the basic role of
minister – a servant or slave to the ruler. (paraphrase: ) “A minister, whether the planter or nurturer, is a laborer
in the Kingdom of Heaven whose duty
and ability are an essential part of the whole."
And finally this time he uses gentle irony to
prod them because regardless of his anger, he loves his congregation:
"You all will understand when you grow
up into mature Christians that we are all God’s children laboring in His
vineyard. We all are the Church and the Church is the foundation of Christ’s Kingdom
of Heaven. We must live to honor Christ as citizens of the City of God (or
Kingdom of Heaven), not the City of the World."
I included the
Deuteronomy and Matthew reading to show how masterfully Paul has weaved a
message in our Judeo-Christian heritage into a polished and magnified message about
the blessing and obligation of the cross and resurrection. That message is our Christian righteousness allows our
congregation and the fruits of its labor represent Christ in the world. We
must live as servant and slave in the Kingdom of Heaven, not remain living in
the world as immature brats.
Some say the Paul’s talk
about Apollos and his role means this passage is in large part one for
ministers. That is actually true. The
word "minister" carries a sense of servant or slave in Greek. The
passage ought to humble a pastor because also it emphasizes the character of
the minister as a servant or slave. Not a servant or slave to the congregation,
though in fact it is that too, but a servant and slave to the ruler of the
Kingdom of Heaven.
It is not just a message to unruly
Corinthians but a message to all of us. We should all appreciate that as Christians
we are all ministers in the City of God. Therefore, in every way this daunting passage
applies to all of us, we may walk in the World but had better live in and cling
to the values of in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Remember Paul, “You will understand when you grow up into mature
Christians that we are all God’s children laboring in His vineyard. We all are the Church that is
the foundation of Christ’s Kingdom of Heaven and we must live in unity as
citizens of the City of God, not as citizens of the City of the World.
* A nice summary of the present scholarly perspective on how 1 Corinthians fits into the whole Corinthian correspondence and its interpretive strategies can be found in:
Holladay, Carl, A Critical Introduction to the New Testament, Chapter 13, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005, p303.
See Day 426 for commentary references
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