Rowing

The word means "rower" but what implications it has for the readers of Paul’s letter to Corinth.

Paul called himself a servant in 1 Cor 4:1 but he used a unique word: hupêretês, which literally means a rower, but was used in Paul’s day to indicate an underling.

Remember Ben Hur, with the men pulling long oars in the belly of the Roman ships? Those men rowed in time with a drummer and they had nothing to say about when they worked or how long they pulled those oars. It was ugly grunt work.

And that’s what Paul called himself. He was a rower for Christ, an underling willing to do whatever the Lord asked him to do.

He cared not if the church at Corinth judged him. In fact, he didn’t even judge himself. The One who judged him was the Lord and no other.

He recognized the Lord as far superior to him.

The great apostle, who wrote much of the New Testament, who evangelized many gentile cities and planted many churches across Asia and Greece, saw himself as a rower, a servant in the great ship that carried his Lord.

It’s a magnificent image, isn’t it?

Simple words

Although the complaint could have been crushing in a culture where fine speaking was adored, Paul did not wither.

In 1 Cor 3, Paul explained what the church in Corinth had called "simple preaching." Although the church expected the golden-tongued eloquence of philosophers, Paul told the people why he spoke simply.

"I could not speak to you as spiritual people," he said, "but...as infants in Christ."

The church was not ready for anything but the simplest of teachings, so Paul fed them spiritual milk.

Newborns drink milk because their immature stomachs cannot yet digest more complex foods. There's nothing wrong with milk for an infant but we get worried when a two-year-old cannot eat anything besides milk. We expect the body to grow and mature.

In the same way, Paul said the believers in Corinth were not ready to digest more than the simplest of teachings, so that is what he gave them.

And he had evidence that they were not ready for more. "For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving according to human inclinations?"

As the believers in Corinth divided over which teacher to follow, they revealed their immaturity.

So, if Paul spoke simply to them, he said, it was because they could handle nothing more.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Praise the LORD, all you servants of the LORD
who minister by night in the house of the LORD.
Lift up your hands in the sanctuary
and praise the LORD.

May the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth,
bless you from Zion.

Psalms 134:1-3

The mind of Christ

When it came to Bible study time, the believers at Corinth had no New Testament to delve into. They had access to the Old Testament writings but the teachings about Jesus were not yet captured into a New Testament canon.

Today we can use the Bible as a standard but what could they do in Corinth? As they were being tempted to follow the teachers of their culture, what standard helped them evaluate the words of these speakers?

Paul had to establish the authority of the apostles and he did so in the middle of 1 Cor 2. There, he reminded the church at Corinth that "We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us." (1 Cor 2:12)

The "we" in that statement refers to the apostles. These apostles were speaking from what the Spirit of God was giving them.

He explains further: "This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words." (1 Cor 2:13 )

Their words were from God, not their own opinions. Their teaching was not to sooth human understanding but to express God's truth.

Other teachers might use eloquent words or popular rationalizations, but Paul spoke truth from God. That was why the people should listen. Not because of his talented oratory but because of God's message.

Paul knew this authority had to be established early in his letter for the rest of his teaching to be effective. We recognize 1 Corinthians as inspired by God - and Paul needed the church at Corinth to recognize the same thing.

He closed chapter 2 with a powerful reminder: "But we have the mind of Christ."
1 Cor 2:16

3-D glasses

Although the glasses were boxy and cardboard, we all donned them once we sat down in the theater. We had entered a 3-D movie showing and we were curious.

We had a big bug fly within inches of our noses and a box tossed in the air seemed headed for our very row. We even ducked unconsciously.

The movie looked different through those glasses. I find a similar situation with Paul's discussion of wisdom and foolishness.

Paul wrote: "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor 2:14)

In other words, those sitting in the movie theater with us but not wearing our cardboard glasses would not see what we were seeing. In the same way, those who accept the world's standards and do not put on the glasses of the Spirit can't see what God reveals.

"We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us." (1 Cor 2:12)

Believers receive God's Spirit and he allows us to see things from his point of view. Otherwise, we use our own understanding which we've crafted from our culture, our upbringing, our own ideas.

Those don't help us see things from God's point of view.

Paul said that believers were given new glasses, those tuned to God's standard. Then his words make perfect sense.

"...no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God"
(1 Cor 2:11)

Eloquent speech

God's a speaking God. In the beginning, he spoke the world into existence. When Jesus came to the earth, he was called the Word of God. God values words.

So, ironically, did the residents of ancient Corinth. They appreciated good oratory, a good debate, eloquent speakers.

And so they determined that Paul may not have met their expectations because he spoke simply, not eloquently. Paul confronted that judgment in the second chapter of 1 Corinthians.

He spoke simply, he told them, because he wanted their faith to rest on God's power, not on a man's eloquence. These new believers were using the standards of their culture to determine their leader when they should have trusted God's calling.

Words are important to God but believers should follow those who speak God's words, not the sweet words that tickle our ears.

Today we still like good oratory and will follow someone who speaks well. We might miss the speaker's meaning in the glow of his eloquence. But Paul was clear. He spoke simply of God's power "so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power." (1 Cor 2:5)

What words do we treasure today?

Foolishness

We, like the believers in Corinth nearly 2000 years ago, can come to treasure the standards of our own world over God's standard. We sometimes evaluate motivations and choices based on common sense, not only biblical direction.

Sometimes the Bible can seem foolish.

Paul wrote something that applies to us as well: "For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength."(1 Cor 1:25)

God's ways may not always make sense to us but that may be the point. His ways are above ours, different from ours, and higher than ours. He is different from us and superior to us. His ways may not always make sense but they are wise and they are strong.

We walk that path by faith.

Divisions

Paul, in writing to the churchin Corinth, was responding to questions the young church had sent to him - and also to reports he had gotten about the church.

The first problem he addressed probably came from those reports rather than the church's own awareness of its issues.

The problem? Division.

Paul addressed it in 1 Cor 1:10: "I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought."

In asking the church to agree, he wasn't requesting they become like the Borg in the Star Trek series: mindless cogs in a common organism. He made it clear later that he treasured their unique gifts from God.

But they were arguing among themselves over which teacher to follow. They had developed their own fan clubs within the church. Some collected sports cards, so to speak, for Paul and some for Apollos and some for Cephas.

And their criteria for choosing their personal celebrity was based on the world's criteria. Which was most eloquent? Which spoke with the wisdom treasured by the world around them?

So Paul wrote to remind them that, because they were in Christ, the world's measure should not affect them. They were not to boast in wisdom of the world, but in God.

Countercultural

How to live out this new faith they had embraced? The believers in Corinth had written to Paul asking for specific advice, but Paul first addressed the basics.

The believers didn't appear to be too inconvenienced by their new faith. They didn't seem to be getting any ostracism from the community around them and they didn't appear to be wrestling with any realignment of values.

They seemed to be doing to the Christian faith what others had done with many religions over the years: adding it into the mix of religious teachings. The believers were not very countercultural and Paul addressed that.

He pointed out in 1 Cor 1 that there should not be divisions in the church. The people in the church were choosing which teacher to follow. Should they follow Paul or Apollos or Cephas or....

They were using the wisdom of the world to make decisions within their church and Paul rebuked that idea sharply. He wanted their focus not to be on celebrity preachers but on God, His calling and His wisdom.

This was countercultural, guaranteeing the Christians in Corinth would be different than the culture around them. But, for Paul, the culture was empty. His focus was Christ.

As he said in 1 Cor 1:25, if you're going to boast, boast in the Lord!

Holy

Paul opens his letter to the church in Corinth with a description of the Corinthians. Surprisingly, because there is a lot of rebuke in the letter, he calls them holy.

Actually, in the original Greek, he used the word hagios, which can be translated as holy, or set apart. He was reminding the believers that they were set apart for a divine purpose.

And he was reminding them that they couldn't earn this or attain it: it was the state that God called them to. God called them to hagios, or holiness, not to be absorbed by their culture.

And he makes an interesting point: they are what they are called. They are called as saints and so that is what they are.

We, too, have this same calling: to be hagios, or set apart for God's purpose. It was a challenge for the believers in Corinth and it's a challenge for us today. But Paul skillfully defends his position throughout the book of 1 Corinthians.

Painting the background

Yesterday we discussed some facts about ancient Corinth. That may seem odd as we look at the book of 1 Corinthians, but we should read Paul's letter as it was written to that original audience.

In that case, we need to know what their world was like. They were like fish swimming in a sea of ideas and expectations. What were those?

Corinth was a large city, a busy cosmopolitan trading center which saw many merchants travel through. This brought wealth to the city as well as many different ideas and philosophies.

The people of Corinth were accustomed to hearing many ideas discussed openly and having the freedom to pick and choose from among them. They had no natural standard by which to judge which ideas might be more true than others.

In addition, they had a heritage of democracy, which had taught them that each person's opinion was equal to every one else's opinion. Again, this brought a vitality of thought but also implied that every idea was equal.

In this setting, the Christians in Corinth were inundated with philosophies and cultural ideas that were at odds with what Paul had taught them. He wrote 1 Corinthians to answer their questions and to correct some of the ideas that they were absorbing from the culture they were in.

Ancient Corinth

· Ancient Corinth, the original city of Corinth, was founded by the Greeks in the 10th Century BC and was the largest city in ancient Greece- and its richest port. The Corinth Paul knew had been re-founded by Julius Caesar as a Roman colony in 44 BC.

· The “new’ Corinth established by the Romans was populated with conscripted Italian, Greek, Syrian, Egyptian and Judean freed slaves according to Rome’s formula for managing conquered places. Like Ancient Corinth, New Corinth thrived.

· Strategically located on the Mediterranean Sea, Corinth saw many traders and travelers. And many settled there as well to make their fortunes. Soon there was enormous personal wealth among the ruling class, which was made up of self-made men and a surprising number of self-made women, as well.

· Corinth was known as an especially “wild” city and had a reputation for licentiousness. Paul was faced with a city that was used to coin one of the Greek words for “fornicate,” which was korinthiazomai.

· The ancient Greek historian Strabo reported that there were 1,000 sacred prostitutes in the temple of Aphrodite on the Acrocorinth, which was a 1,886-foot hill that rises above the Corinth to the south.

· Under the Romans, Corinth became the seat of government for Southern Greece or Achaia (Acts 18:12-16). It was noted for its wealth, and for the luxurious, immoral and vicious habits of the people. It had a large mixed population of Romans, Greeks, and Jews.

· Paul visited Corinth in the 50s AD and later wrote of 1 and 2 Corinthians to the Christian community at Corinth. When Paul first visited the city (51 or 52 AD), Gallio, the brother of Seneca, was proconsul of Corinth.

· Paul lived in Corinth for 18 months (Acts 18:1-18), working as a tentmaker and converting as many Jews and pagans as he could. Here he first became acquainted with Aquila and Priscilla, who became his fellow-workers.

· Beginning in 582 BC, in the spring of every second year the Isthmian Games were celebrated in honor of the sea god Poseidon. The Doric Temple of Apollo, one of Corinth's major landmarks, was constructed in 550 BC at the height of the city's wealth.

An answer from Paul

Paul, who wrote 1 Corinthians as a letter to a church in the city of Corinth, was a missionary who traveled into Greece and present-day Turkey to tell people about Jesus. He had planted a church in Corinth and then moved on to other areas.

However, he got information that the church in Corinth was having problems. There were arguments and divisions. The believers had many questions about how they were to handle issues within the church and they had written a letter asking Paul for advice.

This letter is his answer.

Corinth in those days was a huge city located near the coast, which meant a lot of merchants and traders traveled through. Many rich people lived in Corinth and many were very religious, worshipping many gods.

Those non-Christians had great confidence in their religious system and in their ideas. Most of the believers in the church in Corinth were new believers who had grown up in the pagan ideas and practices.

So they were tempted to return to their old ways. It probably cost them business and honor to continue to follow Jesus.

It was a problem then – just as it is today

Aren’t we tempted, too, to join the world’s ways? Others seem to be having more success than we are. We might want their acceptance, or their possessions, or their ideas.

We have to choose – just as Paul told the Corinthian believers they had to choose.

We can’t have a foot in both places. Either we follow Jesus or we don’t.