Dear church,

This is a beautiful chapter that gives us ample hope in a broken world – and in broken bodies. We have the treasure of the gospel of Jesus Christ in “jars of clay.” Our bodies are fragile things. They waste away.

But God’s power is “surpassing.” And so Paul could say, with the other apostles, that every time things got difficult and seemingly unbearable, God’s power sustained him. In fact, it was as if the apostles were carrying around death itself, living the sacrificial life of Jesus Christ, in order to bring life to any who would listen.

And yet, some would not listen. It’s likely Paul was addressing his opponents in Corinth – a group of teachers who seemed to be arguing that all Christians needed to adhere to the Old Testament Law – that there was no freedom in Christ without bondage to the Law.

Paul said he and the other apostles did not distort the gospel. They were very open and transparent in their teaching. They had no bad motives. They simply had the ministry of the gospel by the mercy of God and were seeking a hearing wherever they could find one. There was good news in Jesus Christ – news of life and light, and all of this by grace.

But to some, this gospel was “veiled.” Paul wrote the “god of this world” had blinded some people to the good news. They could not see “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

Satan exists in this world. The disciple John would later write, “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). From the time of Adam and Eve and the first sin until now, Satan is the ruler of this fallen world. It is a dark place.

But Jesus has come into the world as light. “The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone” (Isaiah 9:2).

But some cannot see the light. There are some, Paul wrote, who are “perishing.” It is not a happy thought. Why can’t these people see the light?

Paul gives us a glimpse of Satan’s strategy: “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers.”

One of the crowning marks of humanity is the human mind. We can think about the magnificent achievements of the human mind.

I threw out a CD rack recently. It was several feet long. At one time, it would have held dozens of CDs. It no longer is necessary. The smartphone in my pocket can hold a hundred times more music that that CD rack ever could.

The human mind seems to be able to stretch itself and grow, coming up with new creations at every turn. The mind is a great holder of thoughts about things big and small, from the mundane to the majestic. The mind is the ultimate solver of problems.

And Satan, according to the apostle Paul, chose the mind as the way into the life of a human. When the serpent tempted Adam and Eve, he did so through their minds. The serpent reasoned them into eating the forbidden fruit. By the time they took that first bite, their minds had been blinded.

Paul said this tactic still was at work in Corinth and elsewhere in the ancient world. And we know it is at work today. Some simply cannot see the gospel for what it is. For some, it is too simple. For others, it is too complex. No matter how we try to convince them, it can seem like we can get nowhere.

Part of entering the kingdom of God means our minds undergo a transformation – out of the blindness of the world and into true vision. We read in Romans 12 what Paul said: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2). Only that kind of transformation and renewal can enable us to discern the will of God.

It seems to me the core of our job as Christians is to submit – to be transformed. This is something God does. We submit to him as he opens our eyes, as he turns our eyes to the great light that has dawned.

Chris

Dear church,

In this chapter, the apostle Paul is beginning to engage with some of the tactics and teachings of the unnamed false teachers who had gained influence among the Corinthian believers. False teaching must be combatted, and Paul does that here.

It seems the false teachers were carrying around letters of recommendation as they moved from one church to another. Maybe the Corinthian Christians were asking, “Where is Paul’s letter of recommendation? Who gives him his credentials as an apostle?”

This is a good question for us today. Many of us have college degrees. We can pull them out if anyone ever wonders about how we were educated – and by whom. Others are certified in their trades. They have certificates they can pull out to show they have been properly trained in their profession.

Where was Paul’s letter of recommendation? Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, “You yourselves are our letter of recommendation.” This should have made the church sit up and listen. The church itself was evidence of the authenticity of Paul’s ministry. Here was a group of people from all walks of life who had been pulled away from false religion to the One True God. This group of people had the Holy Spirit, and they were living lives of power and wisdom.

If Paul needed to point anywhere for recommendation about his ministry, he could point to the church in Corinth.

But not only that, Paul said the church was “a letter from Christ.” This really should have made them sit up and take notice. It should make us sit up and take notice. If Jesus were to write a letter to this fallen world, that letter would be in the form of his church. We share the message of the gospel, both in our words and actions. If someone want to know what it is like to have the gospel and to be in Christ, that person only needs to pay attention to what the church is doing and how it is living.

Paul then contrasted the new covenant with the old covenant that God made with his people Israel through Moses. It seems likely that the false teachers in Corinth were trying to get the new Christians to adhere to the Old Testament Law. We sometimes call them Judaizers. These people teach that true Christians must keep the Jewish law and practices.

But Paul noted the new covenant of grace is permanent and surpasses the old covenant. The new covenant is connected to Christ and is sealed by the Holy Spirit. The old covenant was for a time, and that time had passed. It wasn’t that there was no value in the old covenant. But Jesus has fulfilled all of its requirements. We keep that covenant through our faith in Christ.

Moses wore a veil over his face after he received the Law from God. Read Exodus 34:29-35. The veil protected the people of Israel from seeing the fierce glory of God in the face of Moses. In some sense, people still read the Old Testament Law with a veil between themselves and the glory of God.

But faith in Jesus Christ takes away that veil. We can see right into the things of God with unveiled faces. That is, we can see and understand that forgiveness of sins comes through Jesus Christ. We can see the righteousness of God in Jesus.

The Holy Spirit, which fills us, enables us to do what those under the old covenant were unable to do. The Spirit gives life, and the Spirit brings freedom.

In this, we can rejoice.

Chris

Dear church,

We can sense the sensitivity of the apostle Paul in this chapter – not wanting to make another visit to Corinth. He was afraid of the pain it would cause the church. Paul already had made a “painful visit” to the church. It pained the church, and it seemed to pain Paul himself.

And Paul asked, “Who is there to make me glad but the one whom I have pained?” We can see Paul’s love for the church – even this difficult church in Corinth. If he were to cause the church pain, it would pain Paul. And Paul’s only consolation could come from the church, by reconciling with them. The only way he would feel better about things is if he somehow were to be able to make peace with the church, or to hear something encouraging about the church.

Paul had written them a letter with much “affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears.” He wrote it out of love. We can understand that both the letter and the “painful visit” dealt with some difficult topics in the church. I would assume there was some moral controversy in the works there, and Paul was trying to lead the church through it.

And the whole thing was simply painful for everyone involved.

And now Paul was hoping the church could see that everything he did and said was done out of his love for the church. He even wanted the church to offer forgiveness to a church member that it had to discipline. We don’t know the details of what this church member had done, although we can speculate.

The point, though, is the church – any church – always should strive for reconciliation. It always should share love. The idea always is to build up the church. And if hard things need to be said and done, we ought to do those hard things and then continue to work toward unity and love.

Paul noted that a lack of forgiveness puts the church – and any individual Christian – in a vulnerable position as it relates to the schemes of Satan. We can find other places in Paul’s letters where bitterness and a lack of forgiveness are key tools in the work of Satan. We must beware so we never let Satan get a foothold in our lives.

Paul had gone to Troas to preach the gospel. He had an open door to preach there. But Paul’s heart really was wondering how things were going in Corinth. Paul’s co-worker Titus had gone to Corinth recently, and Paul was looking for Titus to get a report about the church there. But Titus wasn’t in Troas, so Paul moved on to Macedonia, looking for him.

Did he eventually find Titus? We’ll find out in a few chapters.

In the meantime, Paul tackled some other subjects in his letter to Corinth. First, he describes himself as part of a “procession” led by Christ. Roman military generals would have triumphal processions after winning battles. They would bring their captured enemies into the city with them. They would burn incense, and there would be a great celebration.

Paul said he and the apostles lived as if they were in a triumphal procession led by Christ. Were the apostles the conquerers or the captives in that procession? You can be the judge. But the fact of the matter is Paul and the apostles were like the “aroma of Christ” to those being saved and to those perishing.

Have you ever tried to share the gospel with someone, only to be shut down in a highly negative way? Or have you ever shared the gospel with someone, only to be embraced with open arms and a willing heart? Different people respond differently to gospel message – and to its messengers. To some, we will be a welcome sight (or aroma). To others, we may be just the opposite – as sad as that is.

But for Paul and Titus and the others – they were not “peddlers” of God’s word. That is, they didn’t share it for financial gain. They shared it with “sincerity.” They honestly wanted to see people come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

This chapter tells us something about life in the church (again) and about our lives in the world. We should work as hard as we can to bring unity to the church and to show our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ. And we should share the gospel with the world – recognizing some will embrace the message and some will not. We just sincerely share the word of God.

Chris

Dear church,

Paul wrote about suffering, and he wrote about comfort. And one of the interesting things about this passage is that Paul attributed both of them – suffering and comfort – to God.

“So as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.”

The sufferings that Christ endured were sufferings Paul and the apostles shared as well. The sufferings of Christ included rejection by his own people, betrayal and abandonment by his followers, and a body subject to injury and death. Paul and the apostles were sharing abundantly in those sufferings.

Indeed, Paul wrote that in Asia he was so utterly burdened he despaired even of life itself. It was like he’d been given a death sentence. Those were sufferings and tribulations that overflowed from the sufferings and tribulations of Jesus Christ.

But just as Paul could attribute his sufferings to Christ, so could he attribute the comfort he received in the midst of those sufferings. God “comforts us in all our affliction,” Paul wrote. God, after all, is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.

Paul went a step even further in this chapter by connecting the sufferings that overflowed from Christ to the comfort that came from God. Paul wrote, “Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.”

Afflictions and burdens and sufferings leave us in a place of death. Paul called it “deadly peril.” And the end result, for the Christian, is a greater reliance on the God who raises the dead – and the God who also raises those who are as good as dead.

And so 2 Corinthians 1 is about suffering and comfort and a kind of interplay that exists between the two. A Christian inevitably is going to undergo suffering, and a Christian in those moments will learn ever more clearly how to lean into the comfort and mercy of God.

And the Christian learns in the midst of this to set his or her hope on God – that God will deliver us.

With all of that said, we ought not to forget Paul was writing this in a letter to a church. He was writing it to a group of believers in ancient Corinth, a group of believers who seemed to have some sort of a bone to pick with Paul.

Paul seemed to be defending himself. Indeed, many Bible readers over the years have noticed Paul was writing about comfort and suffering even as he was trying to repair what seemed to be a fractured relationship with the church in Corinth.

We know from his first letter to the Corinthian church that there was much amiss in that congregation. They were a people who had been proud of their spirituality and lax in their morality and askew in their thinking about the resurrection. And Paul was trying to help them.

And at the point of this letter, as we will see as we continue reading, the Corinthian Christians had come into contact with some new teachers who may have been casting doubt on the apostleship of Paul. Some questioned him. Was Paul all that he seemed to be?

And so Paul wrote, “we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you.” And Paul assured the church that a recent change in his travel plans wasn’t because he was a worldly thinker but because he did what he thought was best for the church in Corinth. “Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans according to the flesh … ?” Paul asked. No, he said, “it was to spare you. … we work with you for your joy.”

Like in so many passages from these two letters of Paul to the church in Corinth, we learn here about what it’s like really to live as members of God’s church. Suffering and comfort are a part of the picture. Later, Paul would say his most recent visit to the church was “painful.”

No one should say that growing up in Christ is easy. There are growing pains. Like a restless teenager, sometimes our bones and our muscles simply ache with new growth in our faith. And the church is the seedbed for this suffering. We learn and are chastised, and we begin to question those in authority. And sometimes love grows cold and pride grows hot. And we invent new ways to create divisions among each other or between ourselves and our teachers.

And Paul talked about suffering in Asia as he underwent persecution from nonbelievers, and then he talked about suffering in Corinth as he navigated misunderstandings and distrust by the very people he guided into the kingdom of God. Suffering came to Paul both from outside and inside the church.

Suffering is part of the picture of life as a Christian – and of life in the church. And so is comfort. And Paul was leaning into God in this newest piece of suffering within the church as he grappled with the unfounded suspicions of his brothers and sisters in Christ. Paul was trusting they would see things aright.

“I hope you will fully understand – just as you did partially understand us – that on the day of our Lord Jesus you will boast of us as we will boast of you.”

I sense one point here emerging above the others for us to remember. We suffer together as a church, and we are comforted together as a church. And in the end, we will boast together in each other. The church in Corinth would boast in Paul, and Paul would boast in the church.

As a church, we never ought to be divided. Each should seek the good of the other. Each should hope every suffering will meet with ample comfort. Paul already had written, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7).

This passage is about suffering and comfort and the superintendence of God over both. And it’s about the church.

I wonder sometimes whether one of the chief purposes of the church is to be a school of Christlikeness for each of us. I wonder whether our lives in the church – with all the things we like and don’t like, and the people who comfort us and who cause us to lose our patience – I wonder whether our lives in the church simply are training us to be like Christ.

I wonder – if we stick it out and if we endure and if we don’t quit – whether a long life in a God-fearing church is the most important investment we can make in life.

We endure the suffering and learn to rely not on ourselves but on God. Paul wrote, “I hope you will fully understand.” I hope, in the end, we will.

Chris

Dear church,

In these letters of the apostle Paul, we can see the obvious reality the early churches were highly interconnected with one another. Paul was eager to make sure this was the case.

Paul seemed constantly to be urging the churches to take up a collection for the church in Jerusalem that had been struggling through a years-long famine (Acts 24:17; Romans 15:26; 2 Corinthians 8-9). He asked the members of the church in Corinth to set aside money each week for this purpose.

But it wasn’t just money that was shared among the churches. People were freely shared as well. Timothy, Apollos, Stephanas, Fortunatus, Achaicus, Aquila, and Prisca moved from place to place, strengthening the churches and their leaders as they went. Some hosted churches in their homes. Some carried messages of encouragement. Some stayed and taught before moving on to another place.

Paul recognized the value in this sharing. There is one church after all – the body and bride of Christ – that exists across the globe. And we ought to be eager to share with our fellow churches elsewhere (as our church has a long tradition of doing).

We ought never to forget we have something to give. Each individual Christian has spiritual gifts or financial resources to give to the ongoing mission of the global church. And local churches may have people whom they can send for the sake of that mission.

The churches sent “greetings” to one another. They acknowledged one another. They wished one another well.

I sometimes will be on the phone with a friend or a family member, and that person will ask me to say “hello” to my wife and kids. There’s a desire there to recognize and pass on love from one person to another. Even at a distance, passed through intermediaries, this kind of thing is important and valued.

Perhaps we ought to think today about what we can share.

Chris

Dear church,

In the Lord, Paul wrote, our labor is not in vain. Sometimes, it can seem like our work is in vain – like it is of no value, that it is useless or meaningless. We make investments of our time and money, hoping to get a return on those investments. We hope at least to get back the value of however much we put into the effort. But really, we hope to get back more.

To get nothing in return – that labor is in vain.

To ensure our labor is not in vain, Paul wrote, it must be “in the Lord.” That is, it must be for him or, perhaps, on his behalf. Work done “in the Lord” is work that the Lord himself would want us to do. It falls under the umbrella of his purposes.

It is this work that is guaranteed not to be in vain.

I wonder if our work takes on a new kind of life after the return of Jesus. Our bodies will take on a new kind of life in that moment, after the dead are raised. As Christians, we believe in the resurrection – our earthly bodies of dust will rise to new, transformed, imperishable life.

I wonder if our work will rise, too. I wonder whether the fruit of our work, which may appear weak and sickly here and now, will take on a different look after the return of Jesus.

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”

The resurrection changes things. The resurrection of the dead means there always is hope. The resurrection of Jesus Christ means our faith is not “futile.” Here again is something that is not in vain. The resurrection ensures our faith is not in vain. We do not have hope in this life only. We have hope for eternity.

The Corinthian church must have had some strange ideas about resurrection. Some seemed to think there would be no resurrection of the dead. Perhaps they thought they had everything they needed already, that they were complete (1 Corinthians 4:8). Some people believe this today. They inadvertently discount the resurrection by claiming everything is finished already – that they will have perfect health and wealth now that they’ve found Christ.

It’s not true. We live in a kind of “meantime,” between the first and second comings of Christ, in an “already-not yet” sort of existence. We still are people of dust, and so we still must deal with issues of the dust – like sickness and decay. But we do have the Holy Spirit. And so even in this life of dust, we can have joy. And Paul reminds us here that we have hope. We always have hope.

“Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.” That day is coming. It is not here yet. It is coming.

And so we are steadfast and immovable in our hope. We abound, we overflow, in the work of Jesus Christ. And our work is not in vain.

Chris

Dear church,

The apostle Paul does not let us retreat into our own, personal spiritual lives. There probably is a part of us all that wants to retreat – to leave behind the people in our religion – and to pursue only “me and my own God.” We’re happier out there on our own, in our own private studies or on the mountain side. There are certainly fewer people there to have disagreements with!

A lonely Christianity, to some, just seems better. It’s cleaner. And it’s easier.

We might like to take our spiritual gifts with us – our prophecies and our tongues and our knowledge. Then we could use them as we please. No one could tell us we are using them improperly or that, perhaps, we aren’t considering the things of God as we should.

But the apostle Paul does not let us retreat. He doesn’t let us simply “build up” ourselves. He demands we “build up” the church.

Paul already has told us spiritual gifts are given by God for the “common good” of the church (1 Corinthians 12:7). Now, he tells us our primary goal in the use of our spiritual gifts should be to “build up” the church.

Paul said it seven times in this chapter – 14:3, 4 (twice), 5, 12, 17, 26. And on another occasion, he said we ought to “benefit” one another with our spiritual gifts (14:6). Paul also wrote about encouragement and consolation within the church.

My spiritual gift, whatever it may be, ought to be a benefit to you. It ought to build you up in your faith.

And so I can’t go out on my own. I can’t forsake the church. This whole plan of salvation by God is one where we weld ourselves to our church family and build up both each other and the whole community of faith. We make it stronger, more connected, better able to bear the weight of the world, and less susceptible to collapse.

This isn’t how we tend to think about our lives in the faith.

Do we attend church gatherings with a mind toward building up our brothers and sisters in Christ? Do we think about what we are bringing into those church meetings – what word of encouragement or consolation or kindness we can offer? Do we gather with an eye toward strengthening those who may be attending that meeting in weakness?

Do we gather with an eye toward what may be weak in our overall body – some blind spot in our community, perhaps – and with a desire to help correct that weakness? Do we go about correcting that weakness not with an “I told you so!” but with a humble desire to help?

“Upbuilding” was serious business to Paul. Is it as serious to us as it was to him?

Chris

Dear church,

We call this chapter the “love” chapter in the Bible for good reason. We frequently read this chapter at weddings, or on Valentine’s Day. That makes sense. Husbands and wives should treat each other this way.

This chapter, of course, is not about marriage or about romantic relationships. It’s not really about simply how to be a good and loving person in general. This chapter is about the church. The apostle Paul was writing about how believers should live within the church.

The problem in the church in Corinth was its members were taking pride in their spiritual gifts – specifically the gifts of prophecy, knowledge, and speaking in tongues. Notice how Paul addressed these three gifts at both the beginning and the end of 1 Corinthians 13. These gifts seemed to have been the prized possessions of the church in Corinth. To have these gifts must have meant a person was really something in the church.

But Paul wrote that if those gifts weren’t practiced from a place of love, they were nothing. Speaking in tongues became like an annoying gong, and words of prophecy and knowledge became like words from a nobody. And those gifts would pass away. They are temporary. We won’t sit around in heaven prophesying and speaking in tongues.

There’s so much more to the kingdom of God than prophecy, speaking in tongues, and knowledge. The kingdom of God is built on love.

Paul said love is patient and kind and does not envy or boast and is not arrogant or rude. The person filled with love has won the battle against worldliness within himself or herself. Inside of each of us, we struggle with being patient and kind to others, and we struggle with wanting what others have or gloating about what we have. When we live in love, we put that struggle to rest. We are content with who we are.

Paul said love doesn’t insist on its own way while around others. It’s not irritable with others. It doesn’t rejoice when others fail or stumble. The person filled with love has moved beyond worldliness in our personal interactions. When we come in contact with other people, we can tend to be controlling and to be annoyed when things don’t go our way. And we can become happy when we see others fail. When we live in love, we put that struggle with the world’s ways to rest. We give way to others – and we seek their good.

Paul said love is always bearing, always believing, always hoping, always enduring. Love does not quit. In love, we look toward God in faith. Even in the things that happen that we do not understand or appreciate or like – even in those things, we trust God. We put to rest our arguments and our lack of understanding. We give all things to God. We recognize his ways are higher than ours, and we love him.

Someone told me recently it is helpful to substitute the word “love” in this chapter with “maturity in Christ.” So we might read it as, “Maturity in Christ is patient and kind; maturity in Christ does not envy or boast … Maturity in Christ bears all things … Maturity in Christ never ends.”

This is a good way to think about this chapter. This is the kind of person God is creating all of us to be as we walk in faith. And this is the kind of person Jesus IS. Jesus is patient and kind, not arrogant or rude, and never irritable. He never rejoices with wrongdoing. He rejoices in the truth. And he has borne all things and endured all things.

And we are moving toward Christ. What we want is Christlikeness.

And so we move toward Christ. And we never divorce this chapter from its core meaning – from our life in the church. The church is the body of Christ, and so it lives out the love of Christ on earth – the patience and kindness and rejoicing in the truth and the hoping in all things. 

A friend of mine died recently. He was a longtime, active member of his church. His wife wrote a letter to the church after the funeral. Right at the top of her letter, she said sometimes it can be hard to know what it means to be “in Jesus Christ.” This can be true. The whole concept of being “in” God can be a difficult one to wrap our minds around.

But my friend’s wife said while that concept can be difficult to grasp – at least intellectually – she said she could see it all around her at the time of her husband’s death. People from the church visited her and her husband during his last hours. They provided meals. They shared memories. They shared encouragement and comfort.

She could see what it meant to be “in Jesus Christ” by the love shared through the body of Christ. She could see it because Christ was present, in his love, through his church.

It is good for us to remember this chapter and to remember what it means for us as individuals. It also is good to remember that we aren’t in Christ simply as individuals. We are meant to live out our growing Christlikeness – shown first and foremost in our love – within the church.

Maybe another good way to read this chapter is this: Love is patient and kind among our brothers and sisters in Christ. Love is not arrogant or rude within the church. Love does not insist on its own way among our brothers and sisters in Christ. Love rejoices with the truth in the body of Christ, and love bears all things in the church.

Please think about these things today.

Chris

Dear church,

Spiritual gifts come in many shapes and sizes. The apostle Paul wasn’t shy in naming a lot of them, from teaching to tongues and from helping to prophecy. All of these gifts exist within the church “for the common good.” 

We do well to remember our spiritual gifts are not for our own benefit. They are for the benefit of the body of Christ – for the church. We also do well to remember we don’t get to choose our spiritual gifts. They are given to us as the Holy Spirit wills and as God chose.

The first and preeminent spiritual gift seems to be one that is given to all Christians. There is one spiritual gift we all have together. It is a gift of proclamation. Or, perhaps more properly, it is the gift of confession. The spiritual gift we all have is the ability to confess (and to believe) “Jesus is Lord.”

The apostle Paul said it: “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.”

A couple of things need to be said here. First, Paul probably was drawing a distinction between Christianity and the pagan mystery religions that were so popular in ancient Corinth, and out of which some of the new Christians probably came. In those pagan traditions, they may have been fond of casting off Jesus – “Jesus is accursed!”

I suppose Paul was stressing to the Christians in Corinth that to say (and believe) such a thing means the person saying it does NOT have the Holy Spirit. That person is NOT born again. That person is NOT in Christ. Christians must leave all of that behind them in order to embrace Christ. People must forsake these other belief systems if they are to enter the kingdom of God.

Second, to say (and believe), “Jesus is Lord,” is to say everything that matters. Some scholars think this was the earliest version of a Christian creed – or that it made up the first line of the earliest creed. “Jesus is Lord.” When a person professes that, he or she is pushing aside every other false god or idol or personality that would like to claim authority in that person’s life.

To say, “Jesus is Lord,” we recognize Jesus is God and Jesus is King and what Jesus commands, we must do. We are professing our allegiance to Jesus. For the Corinthian Christians – and for many Christians still today – to confess something like could be very dangerous. There might be severe ramifications to professing that “Jesus is Lord.”

And the Holy Spirit, according to the apostle Paul, is in that confession. No one says, “Jesus is Lord,” except those who have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them. It’s the first gift of the Spirit – this faith we have in Jesus Christ. And that gift is operative in our lives from the moment our eyes are opened to the goodness of Jesus Christ (and to our own sinfulness) to the day we breathe our last breath.

And this confession binds us together as Christians. It is this confession that brings the church into being. The church is a gathering of people who can unashamedly say together, “Jesus is Lord.” And then they live out this confession in the way in which they use their spiritual gifts as part of Jesus’ church – the church of which he is the head.

All of this is the result of the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit binds the church together. And the Holy Spirit empowers the church to live out its life as the body of Christ.

Chris

Dear church,

Chapter 11 has plenty in it that people like to argue about. Is it true that men should NOT have been wearing head-coverings while praying and prophesying in church services, while women were required to cover their heads while doing the same things? Yes, that appears to have been the case in ancient Corinth. Head-coverings had a purpose. They pointed to God’s created order.

Later in the chapter, Paul discussed the Lord’s Supper. He was very strict about how the church should understand the meal. Condemnation – even illness and death – would come to those who took the bread and the cup in an unworthy manner. Some of these things already had taken place in the church in ancient Corinth. Some already had grown weak and ill, and some had died. The manner in which a person took the bread and the cup had a purpose. It pointed to reality of Christ’s saving work – and to the reality of the church.

These two things – head-coverings and the Lord’s Supper – were important markers in the life of the church. They pointed to spiritual realities that we ought not to forget. Authority exists in God’s creation – from the Father to the Son to men to women. And Christ really did die on the cross to institute a new covenant with God’s people, and the church is his new body, and Jesus’ return is coming.

The traditions Paul delivered to the church pointed to these unchanging realities. As we gather as a church, we engage in traditions that point to something beyond the here and now. We affirm those things.

Men and women have been created by God. They are not the same, but they are complementary. They exist and operate within God’s created order in the universe. And how they live their lives ought to point to God.

The bread and the cup came to us from Christ – his body and blood. They remind us of Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross. And they remind us of his body on earth today – the church. As we eat and drink, we examine our own lives, and we recognize our part in the church.

We never ought blindly to go through the motions as Christians. How we live, simple things we take up in life, can say things that go far beyond those simple things.

Maybe one of the key points we can take from 1 Corinthians 11 is this: We stand for something as we live out our lives as Christians. We affirm God’s created order, and we affirm the saving work of Jesus Christ. We might call it creation and redemption.

I wonder if sometimes we try to stand for something else when we gather – something worldly and temporary. It is worth thinking about.

Chris