Tag 1 Corinthians

Time to Build the Church

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What’s more important, your house or God’s?

Haggai was a prophet during the time shortly after the end of the Babylonian exile.  His main focus was encouraging the people to complete the rebuilding of the Temple, which had been destroyed at the beginning of the exile, in 586 B.C.  After returning to Israel, the people had become lazy and complacent about God’s house, the Temple, saying “the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the LORD,”[1] and made excuses not to rebuild it.  But Haggai challenged them, in true prophetic fashion, asking “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?”[2]  The problem was that the people took great care of their own houses with fancy paneling, yet weren’t concerned that the Temple was still a ruin.  “The time has not yet come,” they said.

Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash

Haggai told the people: “Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the LORD.”[3]  This would involve a lot of hard work, God knows what it takes to build His Temple, and He also knows that it needs to be done and should be a priority.

Today, the equivalent of the Temple is the body of believers known as the church.  1 Peter 2:5 says, “you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”  God’s goal for the church is to perfect it in Jesus’ likeness, therefore no matter what condition the church is in here, it always needs to be built up.  We may be tempted to say “the time has not yet come” because we won’t be perfected until eternity, but He says ““Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the LORD.”

Building the church (God’s house) may feel as difficult as climbing hills, gathering and transporting wood from forests to build a literal, physical Temple.  It’s not easy and we shouldn’t expect it to be.  But God will build His church and He wants our help.

When writing of our diverse spiritual gifts, Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 14:12 – “So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.” Has the time come to build His church?  Yes, it has.

“Strive to excel.”

[1] Haggai 1:2
[2] Haggai 1:4
[3] Haggai 1:8

The Scale of Our Trials

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The apostle Paul begins 2 Corinthians with the usual greeting, followed by a section on the comfort God provides us when we suffer or are afflicted for Christ’s sake.  2 Corinthians 1:5 makes this statement: “For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.”

On that verse, Charles Spurgeon wrote this analogy: “The Ruler of Providence bears a pair of scales—in this side He puts His people’s trials, and in that He puts their consolations. When the scale of trial is nearly empty, you will always find the scale of consolation in nearly the same condition; and when the scale of trials is full, you will find the scale of consolation just as heavy.”[1]

Therefore, when living for Christ brings trouble and opposition, remember also that our Father is ruler of all and fully intends to share His comfort with us through Christ eternally.

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” – Romans 8:18

[1] From “February 12” of Spurgeon’s Morning by Morning commentary

The Body of Christ is Irreducibly Complex

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Among the various camps in the debate between creation and evolution is a set of ideas called intelligent design (ID).  A key part of ID is “irreducible complexity,” a term that comes from the book Darwin’s Black Box, by Lehigh professor Michael Behe.[1]

In short, irreducible complexity argues that evolution by chance, without an intelligent designer driving it, is unreasonable because the multiple systems in a complex organism like a human body – circulatory, digestive, endocrine, muscular, respiratory, and so on – are all interdependent on each other.  The circulatory system alone, with the heart pumping blood through an elaborate system of arteries and veins, is difficult to imagine developing by chance occurrence, but a chance evolution of that system alongside all the other parts it is dependent on is even more far-fetched.  All systems evolving together in lockstep without failing is a much more difficult problem to explain scientifically without a Creator.  The circulatory system takes what the respiratory and digestive systems take in and deliver it to the other systems that use it.  Without the other parts, it has no function and cannot survive and further evolve.

An isolated, inanimate, heart. Photo by Ali Hajiluyi on Unsplash

However, my intent here is not to prove intelligent design, but to consider the apostle Paul’s words about the church as the body of Christ.  In 1 Corinthians 12:12, he wrote: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”  He continues that no part of the body can say it is not a part of the body because it has a different function than another part (1 Cor. 12:15-16), and also that no part of the body can say it doesn’t need all of the other parts (1 Cor. 12:21).  Those who are in Christ Jesus cannot be divided.

Paul follows his description of the body with 1 Corinthians 13, a powerful statement on the supremacy of love, and in context a gentle rebuke to the idea that a body can survive as individual, unrelated units.  In a human body, any part can only survive by serving the other parts.  Even an organ as incredibly complex and important as a heart cannot survive if it decided to pump blood only for itself.  Where would it get its nutrients?  How would it flee from danger?  As Paul wrote: “If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?” (1 Cor. 12:17).  Even an organ as important as the heart is useless in isolation.  It gets its very life and purpose by what it does for the body.

As Jesus said to His disciples in John 13:34-35 – “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

As the song says, they will know we are Christians by our love, and the church Jesus came to build is irreducibly complex.  There is no appendix[2] in the church, which is the body of Christ.

[1] Behe, Michael.  Darwin’s Black Box (1996).
[2] While we commonly think of this organ as useless, God as our Maker didn’t put it there by accident.

Love Bigger Than Mountains

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Would you be impressed if I moved a mountain by faith?  The apostle Paul might not be.  1 Corinthians 13 begins with these 3 verses:

Photo by Massimiliano Morosinotto on Unsplash

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

In these verses Paul uses wild exaggeration to make a point about the importance of love above all else.  Can anyone move mountains with faith?  It’s never been literally done, but even if someone did, and the reason for doing it was wrong, it would mean nothing.  Has anyone literally given away everything they have?

Also note the repetition of the word “all,” which appears 4 times.  Nobody but God has all understanding, knowledge, and faith, and in Jesus He gave up all He had for us.  Paul is saying that even if we were Godlike in these things, which we aren’t, without love even it wouldn’t matter.

No matter how “impressive” our actions are, if done for the wrong reason, they are useless.

Even if we move mountains, love is what really matters.

Loveless Words

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“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” – 1 Corinthians 13:1

The church in 1st-century Corinth was divided over spiritual gifts, particularly the gift of speaking in tongues.  The apostle Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 13 as a gentle rebuke to the misuse of gifts and the arrogance that came from competing over them.  The first verse above could be paraphrased as “you can be speaking the most impressive-sounding things, but if you’re not saying it to benefit those who hear, you’re just making noise.”

Photo by Jeremy Horvatin on Unsplash

But not just any noise – Paul purposefully chose two specific instruments.  In a symphony, an appropriately timed cymbal or gong has a glorious impact that perhaps no other instrument can match.  However, although you might not catch one bad note from a clarinet, you won’t miss a gong or cymbal played at the wrong time, even once!  To God, the only one with a truly perfect ear, that’s what loveless words sound like.

“If even lifeless instruments, such as the flute or the harp, do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is played?” – 1 Corinthians 14:7