1 Corinthians 1:1-9 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge—God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
In I Corinthians we see Paul writing to the new-found church in Corinth. These are the people he led to Christianity. Corinth as a city had existed for thousands of years, but Corinth's recent inhabitants have been there for only about a hundred years when Paul arrived. About two hundred years before Paul arrived, Corinth's original inhabitants had been wiped out by the Romans. At that time the males in Corinth were slain and the females had been carried off into slavery. For around a hundred years after that disaster, Corinth was but a wasteland with few inhabitants. However, in 44 BC Julius Caesar re-inhabited Corinth with sixteen thousand people from land he controlled. Paul arrives for the first time in 50 AD, so he is ministering to people who are rather new to the area of Corinth, but these people like the previous inhabitants were deep into idol worship. They worshiped a variety of gods. The sun, moon, stars, soil, etc were their gods; they made idols and shrines to these non-gods. Even as today, people worship what they can see and experience; people try to find the Creator through what they see or even imagine. The philosophers, deep-thinkers, scientists, and even Christian apologists try to discover God by what they see, not what they do not see or imagine. However, the Creator of all is beyond our imaginations. We base our conclusions of God by what we can see or investigate. But the God we cannot see or truly investigate is the Creator. The Jews begin their prayers by placing God in his rightful position: He is the God who has existed forever and will exist forever. He created everything out of nothing and nothing exists outside of him. John 1 begins with the iteration of this reality. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:1-5) Paul went to Corinth to tell them of the Good News that he had seen the God that man has been seeking for ages, the God who existed before time and our reality, personified in Jesus Christ. Of course Jesus revealed God by doing what God only can do: create something out of nothing. The blind see, the cripple walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the possessed are made whole. As the once blind man said to the disbelieving Pharisees about Jesus’ divinity: “Why, that’s very strange!” the man replied. “He healed my eyes, and yet you don’t know where he comes from? We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but he is ready to hear those who worship him and do his will. Ever since the world began, no one has been able to open the eyes of someone born blind. If this man were not from God, he couldn’t have done it.” (John 9:30-33)
Paul is now writing to these new converts in Corinth. He praises them for developing a new way of living and thinking. For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge—God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. They are definitely new creatures in Christ. They are coming out of their old, beggarly style of living: lives of anger and destruction. Once they lived as all humans, focused only on their own welfare, willing to take advantage of others for their own benefit. As history reveals, mankind has been continually in wars, struggles and fights since the beginning of time. Millions of people have been murdered and enslaved for the selfish reasons of others; this is the story of mankind everywhere on the face of the earth. Nothing has corralled mankind's selfish pursuits, not their religion, their philosophies, their knowledge, their wisdom, their science; men and women have always done wicked things. Jesus said the only way to a different lifestyle is that humans become new creations. People must be born again or they well always portray the defilement inherited within them from Adam and Eve’s sin against God’s will. Jesus tells NIcodemus, the Pharisee, the nature of people is to reject the light of God, for they love their lifestyle centered on their selfish wills which leads to exploitation. Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. (John 3:19-21) We know from scripture that Jesus is the way, the TRUTH, and the life. Paul in 1 Corinthians is reiterating to the Corinthians what light is all about. He talks about servanthood, a selfless life for the benefit of others. Even though they function in their gatherings with the evidence of the Holy Spirit's presence, they still need to drop their own wills in their daily lives at the feet of Jesus. Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings? (1 Corinthians 3:1-4) Paul does not appreciate that his new converts are acting as mere human beings, not taking on the mantle of Christ Jesus, who was the servant of all. His purpose in writing to the Corinthians is to mature them in their walk as new creatures IN CHRIST.
Paul commends the Corinthians, you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. They are spiritually competent in worshipping God, but their daily lives reveal immaturity, discord. Paul is telling the Corinthians in his letter to them that operating the gifts of the Holy Spirit within the church’s gathering is good. However, the Spirit’s authority must be operative in their daily lives. The Spirit's attributes ought to be seen in their interaction with other people, in the church and outside of the church. People should know them as servants of the Light. To live as Christ’s lived, you must be willing to be the servant of others, carrying little self-will with you. A life identified as Christ’s life displays the characteristics of God the Father. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. (Galatians 5:22-26) The Corinthians, in functioning IN IMMATURITY, are provoking each other, claiming they know the right way to God by choosing the spiritual leaders they wish to follow. Paul is upset with them, for they are quarreling over things that do not matter much. By doing so, they are operating in darkness and not light. In such disputation they are sinking back into the darkness of the world. What is the world like? From the beginning of time, sin has brought darkness, self-willedness, quarreling, fighting, warring to mankind. Paul describes sinful pursuit and darkness in the souls of men and women in his letter to the Galatians. In the old creature as Jesus said people love darkness. The old man or woman dwells in the darkness of sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19-21) Paul in 1 Corinthians warns the Corinthians to stay away from discord, quarreling and fighting over who they follow in their spiritual lives. These disputes seem innocuous, not important to the soul’s survival, but Paul is telling them to grow up because such innocuous disputes can hinder your walk in the light, and can push you back into the fleshly desires of darkness. We will see as we walk through this letter to the Corinthians that Paul is beseeching them to grow up in their daily lives, to put aside their disunity and to find the unity of Christ in God his Father. These are good guidelines for us all.
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