Judgment

1 Corinthians 4: 1-5 (February 27, 2011)

1) The Text

Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries. 2Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. 3But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. 4I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. 5Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive commendation from God.

2) The Context

This short passage falls within the opening section of Paul's letter, a section which addresses the divisions in the church and also serves as a defense of Paul's standing as an apostle. Paul speaks positively abut God's judgment and warns those who would judge others within the Christian community. Behind Paul's comments lies a strong concern for unity. Paul emphasizes that Christian ministry and corporate existence must reflect a unity formed by the gospel, a unity threatened by an atmosphere in which people usurp or deny God's right to judge. Keep in mind that Paul's comments come in a letter that tries to mend divisions and call Christians back to a proper understanding of their place in God's scheme. The Corinthian church was beset by petty rivalries and widening divisions (see 1:10–11; 3:1–4), and one of the ways in which disunity manifested itself was through the distinctions that the Corinthians were drawing among themselves. Moreover, it also seems that some in Corinth were dismissive toward Paul and all too eager to make judgments of their worth relative to him (see also 9:3). In response, Paul defends himself from their attacks and attempts to reorient the Corinthians' views of themselves.

3) Interpretation

There is much confusion in our congregations about "judgment." The church at Corinth was also wrestling with the issue of judgment. Some of it became personal when they challenged Paul's leadership role in the church (4:3). In response, Paul frames the issue within a much larger horizon. He reminds the community that they are living in between the times. Not only has Christ come, he is coming again. Christ's return has significant implications for how the community acts in the present and thinks about the future. In our text we can glean at least three lessons on judgment from Paul:

You can't judge yourself. In a remarkable statement, Paul scoffs at the criticism of the Corinthian church, declaring that "it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you" and then goes on to say "I do not even judge myself" (4:3). Paul's dismissal of our ability to accurately judge ourselves can be liberating. He insists we simply lack the lenses to gain an objective picture of who we are. In the Bible, the truth about ourselves only emerges from our relationship with God. We cannot get an accurate picture on our own because we tend to over or under estimate. Like Paul, it is the Lord who judges us (4:4). That may mean we need reminding that we are fundamentally here because God wants us here-we are created in God's image. Or for some it entails hearing that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).

Judgment must be leavened with love. The notion that Christians should not be judgmental of others is completely unrealistic. It is obvious that Paul feels it is important to judge matters here on earth. After all, most of his letter to the church at Corinth is taken up with criticism of their actions! But we need to pay attention to the way that Paul "judges" the church. The guiding norm for him is the love that has been revealed in Jesus Christ (12:31). This love is not sentimental. It is rather a love that has been forged in the crucible of a crucifixion. Its goal is not self-glorification (1:13) but rather the building up of the community.

In the name of this love Paul can utter harsh judgments. However, at the same time Paul can say this church is holy (1:2) and he even identifies it with God's temple (3:16). Paul's judgments of the community at Corinth are not meant to drive people away but to encourage them to reflect the fact that they are the body of Christ (12:27).

Our judge has been judged. There is also a wider horizon within which Paul is operating. Beyond the necessary judging that takes place on the earth, Paul reminds us that there is a Day coming when the Lord will return and "bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive commendation from God" (4:5).

There can be little doubt that Paul saw a day of judgment coming in the future (see Romans 2:16 and 2 Corinthians 5:10). For many of us this day of judgment has been imagined as a time of terror and doom. Michelangelo's great painting in the Sistine Chapel in Rome remains the enduring image: Christ coming at the end of time and separating the saved from the damned.

However, Paul does not seem to share the feelings of dread and despair that accompany many Christian reflections on the second coming of Christ. It is true that God "will bring to light things now hidden" (4:5). All of our secrets will be revealed. That might be a cause for fear and trembling, but it is noteworthy that Paul does not regard the last day with trepidation. Rather, there is a buoyant confidence that God will strengthen his saints to the end, so that they might be blameless (1:8) as they are met by Christ.

What is going on here? Paul's confidence is rooted in the fact that the end of time is in the hands of one who was crucified for his sins. The coming judge himself has been judged: "For our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). The Christ coming to meet us has already died our death. No songs of doom on the last day. There is joy in the air as earthly shadows give way to a blinding light.

4) Thought Exercise

What truths about yourself have emerged from your growing relationship with God?

Do you believe there will be a day of judgment? If so, what will it look like?

The Foundation

1 Corinthians 3: 10-11, 16-23 (February 20, 2011)

1) The Text

10According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.

16Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

18Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. 19For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” 20and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”

21So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, 22whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you, 23and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

2) The Context

The issue Paul is addressing in this passage is one Jesus addressed elsewhere. Churches that are built only on ideas or actions or style are doomed to die. Paul says the foundation is Jesus Christ. You build on Jesus Christ. And if you build with gold and silver or straw, it will fade. You must build on Jesus Christ. Jesus earlier said in Matthew 16, "On this rock (the confession of Peter) I will build my church." During his last week, he said to his disciples, "I am the vine. Ye are the branches." In other words, stay connected to me, and you will bear fruit. If you get severed from me, you won't bear fruit.

3) Interpretation

Paul asserts his foundational role in the Corinthians community. Nothing indicates that Apollos is in conflict with him, but certainly those who have become engrossed in loyalty to leaders are playing off Apollos against Paul. Unity and coherence with the Christian community is of paramount importance not so much because otherwise the church gets a bad reputation or becomes dysfunctional, but because it thereby ceases to be what is meant to be: a place where God's grace moves, bringing reconciliation and truth. They have become distracted from what they were created to be and from the one who makes it possible. Where anger and hate take over, there is little room for love and generosity. There are winners and losers.

There is a clash of values and perhaps it is inspired by appreciation of the impressiveness of Apollos' ministry compared with Paul's. In the background, claims to wisdom play a role and seem to be being measured by the secular standards of the day. Apollos seems to have made a more powerful impression than Paul. In these chapters we hear a lot about impressive speech. Speech was one of the main arenas where men were supposed to show their worth. Rhetoric, learning how to impress with speech, was fundamental to male identity. Today this translates into multimedia impressiveness. Along with the skills now available to us through our much greater range of impressive and impressing tools are numerous strategies to convince and seduce. It is an industry which bombards us with advertising and myriad claims to truth.

Paul was adept at employing the skills of his day and there is no reason why we should not use the skills of ours. But Paul identifies flaws in the system where the medium becomes so much the message that the promoters end up promoting themselves and substance no longer matters. The rewards of gaining a following, of being a persuader and experiencing the power of persuasion are enormous. Such dynamism can drive ministry and energize congregations. The buzz of self-promotion and the satisfaction at increased recruitment, even in the name of Jesus, can so easily go awry. Jesus becomes the best promoter, whose sole aim was self-promotion of his self-promoting God. The promoters almost cannot help but join the game and become, themselves, self-promoters. It all coheres because the movement has its own self-promotion as the agenda. Marketing strategies become key tools of ministry. It is easy to turn it all into a form of self-indulgence from the top down, a whole hierarchy of beings wanting adulation.

Paul had already sought to torpedo this construction in 1:18-25. His words there are echoed in 3:19 where he subverts the model and suggests that not the take of adulation but the giving of compassion lies at the heart of God. That is a very different model of fulfillment and of God and of church than the grabbing self-indulgence which turns the cross into a promotional logo.

Paul might have driven his hearers to humiliation, but, characteristically, he does not want that kind of win. Instead, he declares the opposite. He does not say: you have nothing. He says in 3:21: you have everything! His list begins with those whom the promoters played off against each other: Paul, Apollos, and Cephas (Peter). They are all yours, he declares: embrace them. His list continues in a way that recalls what he would write in Rom 8:38-39. In this nice little piece of balanced rhetorical phrasing he is really telling them: stop grabbing! It is all there. You can relax. There is no end to grace. You don't have to establish your worth. You don't have to play the game of self-promotion. Because in the end that is also neither Christ's nor God's agenda. Embrace a different kind of wisdom and leave the fear- and inadequacy-induced strategies to win worth for yourselves, your church, your leaders, your Christ and your God behind.

One can almost hear the rest of Rom 8:38-39 echoing across the text, perhaps already in Paul's mind. For there he writes: nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. So you can let your anxiety and its busy self-preoccupation go and be free to join that love in the world.

4) Thought Exercise

How can we stay better connected to Jesus?

How can we use modern tools of communication to build on the foundation of Jesus Christ?

Co-Workers In Christ

1 Corinthians 3: 1-9 (February 13, 2011)

1) The Text

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. 2I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, 3for 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? 4For when one says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human?

5What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. 6I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. 9For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.

2) The Context

In last week’s passage, Paul indicated that there was more wisdom from God to be had beyond merely the word of the cross. Such wisdom is spoken "among the mature." The implication there that the Corinthians might not qualify as "mature" is explicitly stated here, "I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as to infants in Christ" (3:1).

Paul's description of them as immature, and therefore not capable of receiving the wisdom of God, flies in the face of their own self-assessment as wise people. More than this, however, Paul's assessment undermines their self-understanding as a "Spiritual" people. These Christians take tremendous pride in their Spiritual gifts, as we see in 1 Corinthians 12-14. But those gifts themselves are not being used in keeping with the gospel. Thus, paradoxically, the very use of Spiritual gifts by the Corinthians calls their spirituality into question. Later on, Paul will speak of being a Spiritual person as a function of participating in the life of the resurrected Christ (15:44-49). To be "in Christ" is, by definition, to be a (Holy) Spiritual person.

3) Interpretation

People of the flesh are contrasted against people of the Spirit.

Fleshly people must begin with spiritual milk. The Corinthians wanted to debate and discuss philosophy of deeper theological points than they were ready for. They still didn't understand the basic truths of grace and holiness. Many people today try to dive into theological discussion before they are ready. Sometimes churches forget that new Christians haven't adjusted their way of thinking to their new calling.

People of the flesh are identified by their behavior. Fleshly people are normal. They argue among one another, seek their own rights above the welfare of the Church, and are anxious to follow human leaders with a loyalty that competes with their love for Christ.

Acknowledging Each Other's Labors

In a series of images, Paul proceeds to put his and Apollos' ministries in proper perspective. Different leaders in the church should not be seen as rallying points for competing parties, but as co-workers performing complimentary tasks for the achievement of a common goal.

In 1:21 Paul had contrasted God's wisdom with the world's by saying that God saves by means of the belief that comes when people hear the word of the cross. Now, he urges the Corinthians to see that both he and Apollos are servants through whom the Corinthians have come to such believe (3:5).

Notice how Paul has undermined their efforts to flock to one leader over another. Although worldly wisdom and God's wisdom are antithetical concepts, he places both himself and his purported competitor Apollos on the side of God's wisdom and the gospel. Rather than villainize Apollos, Paul insists that the only way to rightly interpret the work of God in Corinth is to see that both men have been working together, under God, to build the church.

Paul uses two metaphors to help the Corinthians imagine his and Apollos' complimentary ministries. First, in an agricultural metaphor, he depicts himself as the one who scattered the seed and Apollos as the one who cared for it by watering it. But any growth is only from God—which means that God is the only person in that whole interchange who is worthy of allegiance (3:6-7). The imagery shows why all the Corinthians should be allied together under God.

If Paul and Apollos are one, united in their work for and with God (3:8-9), where does that leave the Corinthians? They are the field over which the leaders are working (3:9), or the building they are helping construct (3:9-12). The Corinthians are dependent on both workers, and should not be allying themselves with one against the other.

4) Thought Exercise

How can we be more appreciative of the efforts of our coworkers in Christ?

Are there ways to better integrate these efforts?

God’s Wisdom

1 Corinthians 2: 1-16 (February 6, 2011)

1) The Text

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. 2For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. 4My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

6Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. 7But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him”— 10these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. 12Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. 13And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual. 14Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny. 16“For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

2) The Context

In the previous chapter, Paul has laid out for the Corinthians his view of the primary purpose of his letter; to address the divisions within the church in Corinth which he founded. While the church was blessed with Spiritual gifts, the church was carnal in its behavior toward each other. Paul will return to this primary topic of division in chapter three but here in chapter two, he continues to instruct on the differences between godly wisdom and wisdom of the world.

3) Interpretation

Throughout 1 Corinthians 2:1-16 Paul places God's wisdom and the world's wisdom in sharpest antithesis. The special wisdom to which Paul claims access (a) is God's wisdom, that (b) leads God's people to glory, and (c) is knowable only by the Spirit. This stands in stark contrast (a) to the world's and the world's leaders' wisdom, that (b) is the product of people doomed for destruction, and (c) lacks the sight to apprehend the saving wisdom of God.

The cross is at the center of this dichotomy. The rulers of this age put their worldly "wisdom" on display when they crucified "the Lord of glory" (2:8).
There is some debate about who Paul intends by "the rulers of this age": is this a reference to the spiritual forces that rule over the earth, to the earthly leaders themselves, the power of the systems that exceed the doings of any set of individuals, or some combination of these? Though the rule of which Paul speaks is exercised through human agents, it is also clear throughout the passage that something larger is in view. Behind these human agents stand other cosmic forces and a world-system that is larger and more powerful than the individuals who enact its understanding of "wisdom". Paul sets the disputes in Corinth on a cosmic stage: to side with those who advocate worldly wisdom is to side not with the God who saves by means of the cross but, with those who blindly warred against God's wisdom by crucifying the Lord of glory (2:8).

If human wisdom is manifest most plainly in the wisdom of the rulers of this age who put Jesus to death, how is a human ever going to be capable of knowing the wisdom of God? In the final section of today's reading Paul insists that it is only by receiving the Spirit that one can know the things of God (2:10-16). Because God has given the Spirit, those who receive the Spirit can know the mysterious wisdom of God.

Paul probably has his eye on the competition that has erupted on the ground at Corinth, where Apollos' high level of attainment in the world's standards of wisdom has led to the formation of a group that identifies as his followers. Undermining the value of this group's claim to superior learning, Paul maintains that the Spirit whom believers receive is none other than the Spirit of God with God's cruciform wisdom—it is not the Spirit of the world with its Christ-crucifying "wisdom" (2:12).

And so one more time we see that the story we tell about the cross of Christ becomes the measure by which the stories of our own communities are judged. Do we hope to draw people to our communities based on our ability to achieve, in step with the corporate, educational, and political systems that set up our own cultures' assessments of power? Or, are we participating in the upside down economy of the cross, an economy that can only be known and understood and believed and lived by the power of God's Holy Spirit?

4) Thought Exercise

Is there any wisdom you have that seems to come from God?

Are there any parallels between this wisdom and the ways of living that Jesus speaks about in the Beatitudes in last week’s passage?