Tag: 1 Corinthians

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Wait for One Another – 1 Corinthians 11:33

The Corinthian church would have celebrated the Lord’s Supper as a true, full meal, likely in the evening at the house of a wealthy congregant. The problem was that they were treating the meal like just a meal, and going ahead and eating on their own, to the extent that Paul said “your meetings do more harm than good.”

In our western culture in particular, we can easily fall into this kind of behavior because we are a very individualistic culture. This can also cause trouble when we interpret scripture, because the time when the scripture was written was a much more collective age.

The root problem, though, was that by treating the Lord’s Supper as just another meal, they were missing the remembrance and memorial of what Christ did. If they had kept that event and truth front and center, they would not fall into the hoarding and self-centered behavior that Paul calls out.

As People of the Banquet Table, we are called to imitate Christ’s self-sacrifice, to wait and to give and to bring others in. Our role in this life is to exchange all the things that seem to matter, even the seemingly good and religious things, for the opportunity to feast and share at the table of God.

We cannot live in a scarcity mindset when we serve the one who fed the five thousand. We do not need to grasp so tightly or fear that there is not enough. God has more than enough to satisfy all our needs and even our deepest desires.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, September 18, 2022

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The Story of Us and Also Paul – 1 Corinthians 16:5-24

All of us are the lead characters in our own story. Sometimes our stories are driven by our decisions, sometimes by things outside of our control. We want to control how our stories are told (see Facebook) but also don’t generally consider our own stories to be particularly interesting. We don’t usually have epic adventures or amazing, exotic encounters.

Paul could certainly be considered to have had an amazing story – but the most important parts were not his shipwrecks and great speeches or even his conversion on the road to Damascus. They were his relationships, created by the Providence of God.

Priscilla and Acquila, businesspeople who become leaders under Paul’s training, and who went on to train Apollos, a Egyptian who went on to become a great leader as well. Timothy, Paul’s fearful Turkish/Jewish intern who was trained up into a pastor and saint. Even Stephanas, Fortunatas and Achaicus, who we know nothing about except that they were key characters in the early Church.

The key parts of Paul’s life were not the cinematic high points, but the impact he had on the people he came in contact with.

Paul believed two things about how God works: God plans things in His providence, and that we need to take every opportunity available to do God’s work.

Paul also understood that the work of God was not just dependent on him, but on the work of many others throughout the world. Those who he led to Christ now in turn refresh him. Paul didn’t just minister to others, but he also received ministry from those he led to Christ. That’s the kingdom of God on Earth.
He had to stay in Ephesus, but knew that the work of God continued elsewhere.

God is always at work. Through Providence, he puts particular people in our lives at particular times with particular purposes. Do we use those relationships only for our own good and own purposes? Or do we take the opportunities we are given to demonstrate the love of God in all its various facets? If we pass up these opportunities, God will still work His plan, but we will not be a part of that story.

We need each other to do the work of God. Not just the 20% who naturally get involved and do 80% of the work in most churches, but everyone. The health of a church can be indicated by the proportion of people engaged in the work of the body.

The beauty of the conclusion of this letter to the Corinthians is seeing all the connections that Paul made within the early church, the networks of servanthood and grace that stretched around the world. That is the same beauty we can be a part of every day as we love and serve each other and the world around us.

– Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

1 Corinthians 16:5-24

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The Discipline of Giving – 1 Corinthians 16:1-4

Some people hate money – not necessarily what money gives you, but the need for and the process of acquiring it. Others love money – not necessarily for what it gives them, but the process of managing it, earning it, etc.

But all of us have to deal with money. It is a prime source of stress, cause of divorce and so on. So it is not a surprise that the Bible has lots to say about money. Some on the best ways to use it (Proverbs), some on not worrying about it (Sermon on the Mount), but a lot also on giving it away.

Paul here, coming off a discussion of the Kingdom of God and the Holy Spirit and all that, as he wraps up, shifts to this very practical, material thing.

He is speaking to a church in a relatively wealthy city. The Greek provinces of Rome where Paul preached like Corinth, Ephesus and Colosse were generally wealthy urban areas. Jerusalem, where the Church began, was a much poorer city with much greater material needs.

At this time, there were only single churches in each city, and the churches were all part of a single seamless, if loose, organization – the “catholic” i.e., universal church. The leaders would come together in Presbyterian-style councils to make broad decisions and settle disputes. So the money being given here was not really for an external organization, but rather for the brothers and sisters within the church.

This section here sets forth a few important concepts about giving that we should keep in mind.

First, giving should be a habit – an ongoing habit, not something that you increase or decrease based on your satisfaction with the church at any one time. It is not supposed to go to specific things that you like or support – it is to go to the church and be distributed as needed. It is not natural – it is a spiritual discipline, just like reading the Bible or prayer. If any of these things are only done spontaneously, they will rarely be done at all.

Who should give? Anyone who is able. The amount should be in keeping with their income. Those without income, barely keeping their heads above water, getting meals from food banks, living in a van down by the river, who should be the ones on the receiving end, should not be the ones giving. Other than that, you should be giving.

Funnily enough, those with little money tend to be better at giving than those with much. Part of that is that those with little money tend to have more empathy for those with less. Part of it is that those who have money tend to have money because they are careful with it and don’t just give it away.

How much should we give? In the Old Testament, you were to give your “first fruits,” the first 10% of the earnings and crops that came in, done twice a year. The New Testament never specifically cites this number, but does keep the concept of “in keeping with your income.” We see widows giving a penny praised, and we see people going out and selling property in order to give more.

So the question is, why does God, who can do miracles and owns all “the cattle on a thousand hills, the wealth in every mine” have to have us give anything? There are lots of answers: we are the hands and feet of God and the mechanism by which He distributes that wealth.

The giving itself is also a mechanism for measuring our faith. When we have means but are stingy with our giving, we are saying that we do not trust God. If we say we love others and love God, the habit of giving is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate that.

It is also a way to strengthen our faith. When we live in dependence and give more than is comfortable, it gives us an opportunity to trust God in a new way.

The habit of giving also lets us practice grace. Giving to those you don’t like or that may not deserve it is an imitation of the grace of Christ. If we give only when we want to to those we think have earned it, there is no grace there. By willingly giving things up without maintaining control over the end use of that money, we are, in a small way, following the path of Christ who gave away his life, something of eternal value, for us who did not remotely deserve it.

If you think that the amount you have to give is too paltry, consider that God is not concerned with the dollar amount. He is concerned with the process, with the heart behind it. The economy of God is not the economy of man.

So, the habit of giving tests our faith, strengthens our faith and lets us practice grace. It is an opportunity presented to us by God to participate in His mighty work.

– Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

1 Corinthians 16:1-4

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The (Super) Nature of the Resurrection – 1 Corinthians 15:29-58

Last week, looking at the first part of 1 Corinthians 15, we covered the idea that humans were created to live in bodies. God Himself came in the form of a human body. But many early Christians struggled with this notion, because the physical world was seen as impure and lesser than the spiritual. The notion of the resurrection of the dead was hard to swallow.

Paul addresses that in chapter 15, beginning from the one thing they all agreed on – Jesus rose from the dead. But if resurrection is impossible then, Paul argues, Christ couldn’t have risen, the gospel is meaningless, faith is meaningless, the martyrs died for nothing, we’re all still under the curse, all believers are still in heel and being a Christian is the dumbest idea possible.

It is, in some ways, a call back to Ecclesiastes – life without Christ is meaningless. But because of the resurrection of Christ and of the dead, Paul has hope.

Then he moves on to a (loose) description of how the resurrection works. He uses the metaphor of the seed, which is an entirely different kinds of thing from the plant that it becomes. Transformations like this are a real thing in the world that we already understand, and if there is a world and dimension beyond this one, it is perfectly logical to imagine that there are transformations that we do not know about or understand.

Some of this brings up questions. Much of this talks about resurrection as a future event at the end times, which seems to contradict other things Paul wrote about regarding being “absent from the body, present with the Lord” and so forth.

There are a number of interpretations of this – maybe resurrection happens immediately but spiritually, or maybe we go to heaven with temporary bodies before the resurrection gets us our permanent ones. This is also where ideas like “soul sleep” and purgatory come in. Or, it may be that we do resurrect immediately, with our new body, because we move outside of time at that point, making questions of present versus future moot.

Regardless, we are told that the final resurrection will be one cosmic event, swallowing up sin and death with finality and transforming that flesh and blood into something new.

Paul here quotes two Old Testament prophecies that come in the context of God’s people Israel constantly rebelling and finally being rejected despite God’s great love for them, and served as a final promise that in the end, God would fully rescue them from the grave.

The fulfillment of this prophecy started with the death and resurrection of Christ, and will be completed with the resurrection of the dead.

This means that life does have meaning. It is the hope of a glorious future that gives us the strength and motivation to live for Christ today. We can push through the struggles because know that the future is glorious. Living the Christian life on earth is difficult if we are doing it right. But if we have just a small understanding of the rewards that will be coming to us in eternity, we can have a blessed hope that pulls us through.

– Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

1 Corinthians 15:29-58

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Over My Dead Body – 1 Corinthians 15:12-28

In the 19th century, there was a trend of fear of being buried alive, mistaken for being dead. An entire industry of “safety coffins” with bells and other mechanisms to avoid burying someone alive sprang up. This story is a window into our relationship with death.

What does it mean to be alive? What does it mean to be dead? Plato believed that it was a return to the pre-incarnate collective mind. Others believed in soul-sleep, annihilation or reincarnation. The two things all these views have in common is that your personhood is lost once your body dies, and that your body and soul are separate things.

Orthodox Christianity, though, teaches that God created humans to live forever in bodies. Unfortunately, much of these other concepts have crept into Christianity. We think more about “going to heaven” than we do about the resurrection of the dead. We think about a spiritual heaven, but usually with the implication of bodily things (taste, touch, emotions, etc.).

These sorts of confusions crept in early and helped lead to a number of early heresies about the nature of Christ’s relationship with God, including Adoptionism and Docetism. The latter in particular rejects the idea that Christ died and rose again. In this passage, Paul makes clear that Christ was in fact a man made of flesh and bone and DNA, a counterpart of Adam, who lived and died just like Adam, but who rose again to break Adam’s curse.

The Word became flesh, it did not just put on a layer of flesh. Christ then died, and did not just put on a dumb-show of death, and then truly raised.

The logical Corinthians believed this, but struggled with the notion that people themselves would physically resurrect. They were tempted by a philosophy that said their spirit would raise, not their bodies. But if a physical resurrection is illogical, then so is Christ’s physical resurrection. And if that didn’t happen, then we see all in trouble. All the apostles who saw Him were lying. If Christ didn’t rise, we have no proof that Christ’s sacrifice was accepted, and we are all still in our sins.

But that’s not what’s happening, Paul says. Christ’s resurrection, in fact, is the beginning of story, the “first fruits” of a much greater harvest, the remaking of creation into a new heaven and new earth, where we will live in resurrected bodies. Death and Satan will be destroyed, and everyone will acknowledge Christ as Lord.

The vision God has for our future is not that we can be free from our bodies and free from this corrupted earth, but that we will live forever in better bodies and a better earth.

What does this mean for us? It means we should treat our bodies well, because we are our bodies. They are not simply shells, but they are us. The female body (and male, for that matter) is not shameful. How we treat our bodies matters, and we can sin against our bodies. Who we are starts right now, both physically and spiritually. How we treat other people’s bodies also matters, so the work done to heal, rebuild, maintain and preserve bodies and health is a vital thing. The church, too often, has taken a gnostic view of the body, prioritizing the spiritual only and neglecting physical needs.

All this brings up lots of other questions, many of which we and Paul will address next week.

– Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

1 Corinthians 15:12-28

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Prophecy is for Everybody – 1 Corinthians 14:1-33

Starting in chapter 11, Paul has been working through prescriptions for ordered worship. It starts with discussions of the Lord’s Supper, then moves into spiritual gifts, and then veers briefly into an examination of love – which should underpin all of this – before moving on to this chapter where he discusses prophecy.

Tongues are also mentioned, but primarily as a negative comparison. (Short version: if there is no interpreter, don’t do it.) The main point is how prophecy should be used in the service.

What is prophecy? It’s a spiritual gift of revelation given to all believers. It’s something that Paul cites as something we should pursue, and with vigor. Everyone in the church can and should prophesy.

Prophecy is below scripture in its authority. This is not the same as Old Testament prophecy that was specifically called out as the word of God, spoken with his authority, and canonized as scripture. In the New Testament, this particular role was filled by the apostles, while all of us are still called to prophecy, which must fit below the authority of scripture.It thus must be tested by scripture.

The purpose of prophecy in the church service is to build up the church, clearly stated by Paul in verse 26. This means that the classic foretelling of the future-type prophecy does not fall into this context and would not be appropriate within the context of the church service. (To say nothing of the vague imagery and numerology that are sometimes used in churches as essentially Christian fortune-telling.)

Order is a value here, and that order and organization springs from love. It is not loving to interrupt, to dominate the conversation or otherwise disrupt. There is a reason this part Congress right after the discussion of love in chapter 13.

The specifics of how this plays out may differ in different contexts. At Seed, we work hard to practice this by opening the floor for conversation, questions and discussion, and Paul’s instruction here is a big reason why we do that. It is not a particularly strange or spooky experience – just believers sharing what the Lord has put on our hearts and building each other up.

One objection to this practice is that people are going to say crazy things in church. But consider this – Paul was telling this to, easily, the most messed-up church described in the New Testament. If this instruction had been given to the Ephesians or Philippians or some other relatively healthy churches, this might be an argument. But it is clear that the Corinthians were going to say crazy things, and yet Paul still called them to prophesy.

A second objection is that it will be too weird for outsiders. But consider how weird the teaching of the church already is: an incarnated God-man who washes is in His blood? Paul calls it a “stumbling block” to those who don’t believe. Prophecy is a minor thing compared to this, and in fact can be used to draw people closer to God’s truth.

A third objection is basically tradition and what people are used to. We have inherited traditions that diverged from Paul’s teaching and the early church practice a long time ago. Many churches have worked to get back to it, but many haven’t. However, the spirit within each believer is crying out to share in this way, even if a particular congregation is not used to that particular structure.

A fourth argument is that a church is too big for this. But if your church is too big to follow scriptural instructions about prophecy, maybe it’s too big? Or perhaps you just need to be creative about making it work.

All of us are called to prophesy. Paul puts no restrictions on prophecy the way he does on other things. Experienced or new, old or young, male or female, everyone is specifically encouraged to seek this gift.

If you have been in a church where this is practiced, you will have seen first-hand the reason for this – regularly, you will hear a pastor say, after a sharing moment after a sermon, “you just said in 30 seconds what I spent the last 45 minutes saying, and did it worse than you did.”

As Paul says elsewhere, we are part of Christ’s body and each of us will be used by the Spirit in different ways to minister to and edify the church.

– Sermon Notes, Sean McGillivray, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

1 Corinthians 14:1-33

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The Resurrection – 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

In America, we don’t deal with death particularly well. We’ll check the funeral box and then move on, bottling up our emotions and distracting ourselves with gadgets and material goods. All this, despite the fact that the one thing that most clearly and distinctly binds us together is our common fate. Death is coming for all of us, and with very few exceptions, there will be no sign that we ever existed.

But there is something beyond death, which Paul addresses here. Paul wrote this part of his epistle to correct misconceptions about the resurrection of Christ held by the Corinthians, influenced by various strains of both Jewish and Greek thought. Specifically, there were likely many in the church who doubted the bodily resurrection of Christ. Paul attacks this misconception ferociously.

Paul may in fact be quoting from an early creed in verses 3 & 4, one that may date from shortly after the ascension. He then goes on to tally up the hundreds of people who saw the resurrected Christ, ending with his own encounter with the risen savior on the road to Damascus. Everyone who saw Him was left changed. Once you see, you can’t unsee. As Philip Yancey writes:

“If I take Easter as the starting point, the one incontrovertible fact about how God treats those he loves, then human history becomes the contradiction and Easter a preview of ultimate reality. Hope then flows like lava beneath the crust of daily life.

“This, perhaps, describes the change in the disciples’ perspective as they sat in locked rooms discussing the incomprehensible events of Easter Sunday. In one sense nothing had changed: Rome still occupied Palestine, religious authorities still had a bounty on their heads, death and evil still reigned outside. Gradually, however, the shock of recognition gave way to a long slow undertow of joy. If God could do that…”

The resurrection is the focal point of the redemption of both creation and of our own broken souls. It reverses the sin curse of Genesis 3.

But it did not wipe out sin and death immediately. It is a light shining in the darkness and a promise of the ultimate victory of that light. If we try to shine our own light, we are only perpetuating that darkness. The resurrection is the light that can pierce the shadows of this life.

The resurrection is the foundation of the Christian faith. We cannot let it sit on the shelf as a dusty doctrine. The resurrection is our active, living connection to the love of God. It is the defeat of death, the key to God’s kingdom and the pathway to an abundant life in the here and now. It is there for the taking if we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord.

– Sermon Notes, Dave Lester, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, October 15, 2017

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

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Spiritual Gifts, pt 2: Using Your Gifts – 1 Corinthians 12:12-31

This passage is not about people trying to find their gifts, but rather about a church riven by jealousy and competition in the realm of gifts. Corinthian paganism was marked by ecstatic experiences, and there were some gifts that seemed to mirror this, but not all.

These differences were seized upon by the various factions in the church to add to the dissension. This obviously misses the point of spiritual gifts, but there is a place for trying to understand our own gifts. We all are connected to God’s spiritual network and all contribute in different ways. What is natural to you? What energizes you or stresses you out? Where have you been effective in the past? It isn’t necessarily the same as what you enjoy or even where your method is impeccable, but about the results the Holy Spirit brings about through your service.

Note that spiritual gifts are different than spiritual disciplines. The latter, we are all expected to do, though there are gifts that overlap with disciplines, such as prayer and encouragement.

So back to what Paul really is talking about. He addresses two temptations he wants the Corinthians to stop falling for: rugged individualism and gift envy. Some people look at the church and, being insecure, decide that it does not need their gifts.

Others do not work in the church at all so that they do not see it or otherwise neglect their gifts. Sometimes, churches do not give people sufficient opportunity to exercise their gifts, whether it doesn’t fit into pre-existing boxes or only fits into certain roles that are already filled. Others look at the church and, being prideful, decide that they don’t need the church’s gifts. This means that their gifts aren’t represented in the church, which means other people have to step into gifts that are not theirs, leading to burn out and collapse.

Paul’s point is that the gifts that are seen as less important are actually vital, and no individual, no matter how impressive their gifts seem to be, is complete without the rest of the body. This means that “gift envy” can be just as damaging as individualism.

Paul lists a number of gifts, not in order of importance, but rather chronologically, starting with the opening of the church by the apostles and moving through the other gifts that became necessary as the church progressed. The church would not function if all of these gifts were not in play.

So, when people in the church are seeking after specific, more highly honored gifts rather than living in their own gifts, again, we get gifts lacking in the church and dysfunction, not to mention the problem that envy itself brings along with it.

Then we get to verse 31, and it seems a bit unclear. Paul has just been saying that all the gifts are a result of grace, not our desire, and that all the gifts are vital. Then, suddenly, he tells us to desire greater gifts? Most likely, this is sarcasm from Paul, again, rebuking the Corinthians, again. “You eagerly desire the ‘greater gifts’ – but I’m going to show you something better.”

There is nothing wrong with trying to get better at something or even desiring particular roles. But we are not to see some gifts as better than others, or to feel pride for our own gifts or envy for others.

–Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

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Spiritual Gifts, pt 1: “Jesus is Lord” – 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Humans, generally speaking, have an innate need purpose, whether consciously or unconsciously, whether in grand scale or small things. Knowing God gives us a leg up in this struggle for purpose, because we know the purpose of both our beginning and our ultimate end.

However, we also have our own individual purposes and spiritual gifts – this is made clear throughout the New Testament. This is not just saying that everyone has different abilities, tastes and talents. There is something else going on here – but there are some frustrations.

First, we don’t have a consistent list of gifts. Second, we don’t have descriptions of what most of these gifts mean – yet, somehow, we have books, inventories and tests that tell us in great detail about each of them. Third, it’s unclear what the difference​ is between spiritual gifts and natural talents. We may say that a teacher has the spiritual gift of teaching, but what about a mailman or a cook?

Another issue is that some of the gifts seem much more supernatural than others. The gift of prophecy, for example, seems a lot cooler than the gift of hospitality.

Then there is the question of gifts throughout history. Some people believe that all gifts ceased after the destruction of the temple in AD 70. Others believe that the church abandoned miraculous gifts until the mid-19th century and the development of the Pentecostal movement. Others believe that the miraculous gifts ended, but the others carry on.

So let’s go back to what Paul is saying, and to whom. He was speaking to people in a hierarchical society with limited options, where the notion of being unique and special was entirely new. He opens the conversation about “spirituals” – the word “gifts” has been added by translators clarity, but it could mean spiritual gifts or it could mean spiritual people – and it probably means both.

Paul then gives a framework for the conversation, first by comparing Christian versus pagan spirituality. False religion and spirituality mimic real religion and spirituality, but the key difference is the “mute idols” versus the Holy Spirit. Paganism is a narcissistic cycle where we create our own values and have them reflected back to us by our rituals and spiritual experiences. He goes on to center the contrast to that on the confession that “Jesus is Lord.”

This also gives us a center point to the discussion of spiritual gifts. The goal of these gifts, versus natural talents or abilities, is that they are designed to enable people to discover, know or remember that Jesus is Lord. There are different kinds of gifts (grace), service and workings (energizing).

The first gift given to Christians is the person of the Holy Spirit, as promised by Christ. That then leads to these other gifts, distributed by the Holy Spirit, for the purpose of community and unity among the people of God, again by returning our focus to the eternal truth, “Jesus is Lord.”

So are they separate from our own natural abilities? Probably not entirely. Remember that God directs our very creation and has a cosmic plan, so there is no reason not to believe that our genetics have some relationship to our ultimate spiritual gifts. At the same time, in many situations, that might not be the case. Many people have secular talents that do not translate to the spiritual realm, whereas many others have gifts that work in a spiritual way that could not possibly work in a purely secular realm.

Your spiritual gifts are those positive effects you have on others’ spiritual wholeness. Obedience is more important than gifting – if someone’s house is on fire, you don’t take a gifts assessment to see if you have the gift of rescuing. However, you should have some idea of your gifts. Just because you should rescue people when it becomes urgent, it doesn’t mean you should get in the way of trained firefighters.

Understanding your gifts will help you better recognize your purpose, organize your priorities, and serve God and others more effectively.

– Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

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