1 Corinthian 4:14-21 I am writing this not to shame you but to warn you as my dear children. Even if you had ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me. For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church. Some of you have become arrogant, as if I were not coming to you. But I will come to you very soon, if the Lord is willing, and then I will find out not only how these arrogant people are talking, but what power they have. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a rod of discipline, or shall I come in love and with a gentle spirit.
As the the founder of the church of Corinth, Paul’s concern over the spiritual health of the Corinthian church was constantly on his mind for almost a decade. His first visit to Corinth was somewhere around 50-52 A.D and his last visit around 57-61 A.D. During that time, some believe he wrote four letters, the first and third letters are lost to history; the second and fourth letters are known as 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. In these two letters, Paul is struggling with the Corinthians' acceptance to continue their worldly lifestyle. He keeps reminding them that they are new creatures IN CHRIST and that new life demands a change in the way they journey through life. For him, too many of them are hanging onto their old lifestyle, justifying their unregenerate lifestyles by selecting different spiritual leaders to follow. This disruption within the church and their lack of authenticity as born-again believers was becoming well-known throughout Corinth. The Christian brethren in the church were bringing their disagreements with other Christians over secular matters to the courts of the Greeks. This kind of behavior was dismantling the work of Christ in Corinth. Paul tells them not to expose these disagreements between them to the secular community. They should settle these disputes with each other within the church, not before the outside world. If they cannot come to a satisfactory agreement within the environment of the Christian community, then for the sake of unity they should lay aside their grievances with other brethren and just accept the wrongs they are experiencing. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters. Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:7-11) By holding onto to these wrongs, wishing to be justified, they destroy the witness of Christ in the community. They must continue to understand that Jesus paid the price for their redemption from previous lives of darkness. Paul reminds them that they once were cheaters, slanderers, swindlers, drunkards, thieves, greedy, abusers, sexually immoral, adulterers, and even idolaters. Their lives were dead to God, going nowhere but to destruction. However, Christ brought a new life to them, an eternal life with God by his work on the cross. You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. Their desires to be right in disputations indicate they held a secular view while living an unregenerate life supposedly hidden IN CHRIST.
Paul was constantly defending his position of being an apostle in the body of Christ. For the Corinthians, if they could discount Paul’s special position in the living church of Christ, they could lay aside some of his criticism of their spiritual lives. Paul was sold out for Christ. In Philippians 3:7-9, Paul writes, whatever in my previous life was a gain for me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. Paul recognizes in the Corinthians a desire to hang onto their old lives. Rather than considering everything they knew and lived for in their previous lives as garbage, they were assimilating some of their old lives into the new born-again life. By doing so they were engulfed in disputation and arguments with their fellow believers. This kind of behavior reveals not new garments of light covering them, but the old dusty clothing of their past. He is asking the Corinthians to imitate me. He is sending Timothy to remind them of Paul’s life IN CHRIST JESUS. Paul teaches a regenerated life IN CHRIST everywhere in every church. Paul is becoming very much aware that the Corinthians are not seeking out the purity that should come from lives dedicated to Christ. Instead, they are falling into sinful behavior, even allowing sinful activity such as incest in the midst of their church. It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. And you are proud! (1 Corinthians 5:1-2) Paul is amazed that they would allow such sin to be openly displayed within their church. You are proud!!!! For Paul, their disputation of who they should follow was the canary in the mine, a detection that something was wrong with the air they were breathing. But this seemingly innocuous behavior led to something more serious, open sin in the church of the Corinthians. Rather than holiness, they were accepting sins that even the secular community would not tolerate. They misunderstood that their freedom IN CHRIST meant that they could be free to live as they desire, without any restrictions on how they lived in the flesh. Paul says, that is not true: a life IN CHRIST should reflect the purity of God, not the darkness of sin. Paul did not present the restrictions of the law, but the freedom of living IN CHRIST; he did not want the servitude to sin to guide a born-again life. That life of unrighteousness leads to death, not to eternal life with God.
Paul is very upset about the arrogance of the Christian believers in Corinth, allowing their supposed freedom in Christ to accept sin within their community. Some of you have become arrogant, as if I were not coming to you. But I will come to you very soon, if the Lord is willing, and then I will find out not only how these arrogant people are talking, but what power they have. Paul’s words presuppose that there are leaders among the Corinth church who are championing the liberty of the sin of the flesh in the new believer. He knows that kind of talk is powerless to change people into staunch followers of Christ. Sinful behavior is powerless to change people into a right position with God. Sin brings death. Paul threatens them that if he comes to the Corinthian church and finds these people in charge, he will come with a rod of discipline. But if they are repentant, he will come in love and with a gentle spirit. Paul tells the Galatians, Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:1-2) People who are caught in the snares of the devil should be restored gently to the church through the law of Christ: love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. James said, If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. (James 2:8-10) Be careful how you love, do not show favoritism to some but not others. For if you do, you too become a law breaker, violating God’s love towards all people. Paul knows the Corinthians are high on God’s power to change people. They are steeped into the fruit of the Spirit and exercise the Spirit’s power and gifts in the church, and as the seventy-two disciples returned from their evangelistic journey into Israel, they said to Jesus, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.” But this power is no substitute for righteous living. Paul is now concerned that the Corinthians are not bringing the light of Christ into the Corinth community because of the way they are living: arguing, disputing, and bringing their disagreements before the courts of the Greeks. Their lives should be exemplary of Christ. Christ is God and God is love. Towards the end of Jesus’ life, He was going back to Jerusalem where He will be murdered. As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want US to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then he and his disciples went to another village. (Luke 9:51-56) We see two of his disciples who had previously experienced God’s power in them as they evangelized Israel, ready to call judgment on a Samaritan village because they did not welcome Jesus. They were ready to use Jesus’ name to destroy, but Jesus looked at them and rebuked them. The Corinthians displayed much power because of the Holy Spirit’s work in their community, but this power was not to destroy, but to restore people to God. The Corinthians rejoiced in their powerful worship services and the works of God, but their lives were still much like James and John, displaying the attitude of the flesh, destroy and not restore. Their fleshly lives were not restoring the world, but living in such a destructive manner, that their lives would never enlighten the world around them. May we be in tune with the Holy Spirit to do the perfect will of God and restore his people.
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