Making Sense of 1st Corinthians CH2 - 3

This blog post will be “Making Sense of 1st Corinthians” as part of our message series on the books of the Bible, today we’re going to be taking a look at what it means to be spiritually immature. If someone said you were acting like a big baby, what would they mean? Would they mean they think you’re really cute and they just want to pick you up and love you and squeeze you? Play peek-a-boo? No, it probably means you’re acting like you need to have your diaper changed. 

Babies think the whole world revolves around them. If they have a problem—if they’re wet, or hungry, or thirsty, or stinky, or sleepy, or awake at 3AM—if they have any problem at all, they think it’s someone else’s job to fix it. They take no responsibility. They don’t care how it affects anyone else. They won’t do anything for anyone. They’re completely selfish. They just cry and scream and complain until they get what they want.

Which is perfectly fine for a baby. That’s what they’re supposed to do. But if we keep acting like that—and many people do—it’s not as charming. If someone says you’re acting like a baby, they mean you’re being self-centered, selfish, and making your problems other people’s problems.

Later in chapter 13, Paul says,

“When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.” [1 Co 13:11–12]

It’s pretty much the central focus of the whole book: the people in the church of Corinth were acting like babies. Immature Christians. Christians, yes, but still acting like people of the world. They have the Holy Spirit dwelling inside them but they act like they don’t. No one said it would be easy. Adulting is hard.

The church is still full of baby Christians. They say they follow Jesus but every time they have the opportunity to act like it, to lay down their life for someone else—they don’t. They get selfish. Proud. Blame someone else for their problems. Take no responsibility. Put someone else on the cross (I don’t mean Jesus, I mean they are not willing to take up the cross themselves, die to themselves, admit their sin, confess with Paul that

“I am the chief of sinners.” [1 Timothy 1:15])

That’s what we’re doing when we spend all our time trying to be right, instead of humble. To win the argument instead of finding a way to live in peace with our brothers and sisters. A sign of maturity is to admit—confess that we are sinners saved by grace. Take the blame. Apologize to our family members and friends. Understand that all of us in this life are simultaneously saint and sinner. We live in a daily rhythm of repentance and forgiveness—turning away from sin and toward God, who shows us mercy because of Jesus.

Let’s get to the text, you’ll see what I mean. 1st Corinthians chapter 2...

When I first came to you, dear brothers and sisters, I didn’t use lofty words and impressive wisdom to tell you God’s secret plan.

(The rock stars of their day were the eloquent philosopher orators, people would show up just to hear them talk about big ideas. To be fair, they didn’t have TV or the internet, they didn’t even have books or cell phones.)

For I decided that while I was with you I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified. Christ and Him crucified.

(This is the heart of the matter. He doesn’t mean he didn’t talk about the resurrection or any other theological ideas, he means that Jesus laying down His life is the most important thing they needed to learn.)

I came to you in weakness—timid and trembling. And my message and my preaching were very plain.

(Paul is an amazing writer but he doesn’t think he comes off as a very good speaker—at least not compared to Apollos or other rock stars.)

Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit. I did this so you would trust not in human wisdom but in the power of God.

(I think we still see a lot of this kind of thing in some churches. Instead of preaching the cross and letting God do all the heavy lifting of changing people’s hearts and minds—they do clever message series on “5 Ways to A Better Life, A Happy Marriage, How To Live in success.” Wisdom is the application of knowledge. So, is application of knowledge bad?)

Yet when I am among mature believers, I do speak with words of wisdom,

(They were probably thinking he was talking about them. Surely they were Mature believers. Oh, but he’s about to slam them hard. We don’t know exactly what he means by “words of wisdom” – richer insights into Jesus, the Trinity, Old Testament and the Gospel – whatever it was, the Corinthians weren’t ready for this kind of wisdom)

but not the kind of wisdom that belongs to this world or to the rulers of this world, who are soon forgotten. No, the wisdom we speak of is the mystery of God—his plan that was previously hidden, even though he made it for our ultimate glory before the world began.

(This “mystery of God” is the way God had planned to save the world since before the world began. By dying on a cross.)

But the rulers of this world have not understood it;

(Remember what Jesus said on the cross? “Forgive them because they don’t understand what they’re doing!) if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord. (The cross is the wisdom of God.) 

That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, 

    “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, 

      and no mind has imagined 

    what God has prepared 

      for those who love him.”  

(The cross is the unimaginable glory of God.)

But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit.

(The way we find out about the “mysteries of God,” the “Hidden things,” is when the Holy Spirit reveals them to us through the preaching of God’s Word. Someone told us about the cross and the resurrection and that it was for us. That’s when the lights came on. It’s always God by His Spirit using someone else to bring us to life. To bring us into the marvelous light.)

For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. And we have received God’s Spirit

(not the world’s spirit),

so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us. 

(A couple things here: first, we don’t know other people’s thoughts. Stop pretending like you do. Stop making up motives for other people. For why they do things, why they say things. You don’t know why. Show them grace instead. Also, stop expecting people to read your mind—stop getting mad at people for not doing the things you want them to do if you haven’t asked. And stop getting mad at people for continuing to do things that you haven’t asked them to stop doing. No one can read your mind and you can’t read anyone else’s. This is the cause of half the problems in the world.

Also, the wisdom of God’s Spirit is very different from the wisdom of the world’s spirit. The wisdom of God’s Spirit always looks like the cross. Humility. Self-sacrifice. The wisdom of the world almost always looks like pride, indignation, being offended, getting mad, giving people a piece of your mind, standing up for your rights.)

When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths. But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit.

(The unspiritual person is the “natural person” living according to the world’s wisdom. People who think “love” is taking instead of “giving.” People who have not heard the Gospel and received it by faith. To these people the cross and humility sound like weakness…)

It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.

(Who are “the spiritual?” They are the people who have the Spirit of God living in them. The ones who are baptized into Christ. The ones who have heard the Gospel, the cross, and believed. The unspiritual person is deaf to the things of the Spirit.)

Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others.

(If you look at everything through the cross, you can wisely judge everything, it’s not necessarily talking about condemnation—it’s not that kind of judgment. And you begin to realize it doesn’t matter what any worldly person thinks of you. Christians are going to be a bit of a mystery to non-Christians—if we’re doing it right, anyway.)

For, 

    “Who can know the LORD’s thoughts? 

      Who knows enough to teach him?” 

But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.

(He answers the question. Who can know the LORD’s thoughts? The people who have the mind of Christ. Who see the world through the lens of the God who died for His people, and we respond by being people who lay down our lives for others. Lord, help us to have compassion and see the world through Your mercy.)

Moving on to chapter 3...

Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would to spiritual people.

(They might have started to suspect Paul wasn’t super pleased with them before, now they’re about to find out for sure.) 

I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in Christ.

(There it is. They’re acting like a bunch of babies.)

I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren’t ready for anything stronger.

(Solid food is Christ crucified. Everything about laying down our lives, loving each other, not being selfish babies.)

And you still aren’t ready, for you are still controlled by your sinful nature. You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your sinful nature?

(The message of the cross hasn’t permeated their thinking. Proven by all their petty divisions.)

Aren’t you living like people of the world? When one of you says, “I am a follower of Paul,” and another says, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you acting just like people of the world? 

After all, who is Apollos? Who is Paul? We are only God’s servants through whom you believed the Gospel. Each of us did the work the Lord gave us. I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow. It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow. The one who plants and the one who waters work together with the same purpose. And both will be rewarded for their own hard work. For we are both God’s workers. And you are God’s field.

(Now he’s going to change the metaphor from a field to a building—like a Temple.)

You are God’s building. 

Because of God’s grace to me, I have laid the foundation like an expert builder. Now others are building on it. But whoever is building on this foundation must be very careful. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have—Jesus Christ.

(The foundation is the sacrifice Jesus made for us on the cross. That’s the only sure thing to build on.)

Anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials—gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw.

(The cross of Christ is the foundation that we build on with all the things we bring, and some things are more durable than others, some things are good for structure, some for decoration, some for roofing or insulation. Some things will make it through the fire of testing and some won’t.)

But on the judgment day,

(When Jesus returns, the last day, the apocalypse, on that day)

fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value.

(What he says here is true of pastors and teachers, but it’s also true of every one of us in our various vocations: the foundation has to be Christ, and everything we do will go through the refiner’s fire.)

If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward. But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames.

(This is a serious warning to all of us. The work that we do to build up the church better serve the Gospel and not selfish goals like we’re a bunch of babies. It better be for the encouragement and unity of the people of God. Otherwise, we’ll be like a person whose car is totally destroyed in an accident but somehow we manage to walk away physically unharmed. We’ll be saved through faith in Christ but everything we did with our life will be a total loss.)

(Now we come to a very popular verse that has nothing to do with smoking, drinking, or physical fitness. The “your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit” verse. It has to do with what we’ve been talking about: building on the foundation of the cross of Christ for the benefit of our brothers and sisters in the church.)

Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?

(He’s saying, “You should know this by now. You are the Temple of the Holy Spirit. You are the special place of God’s presence on the earth, just like the Temple used to be with the Ark of the Covenant and the Glory cloud. You. Plural you. Y’all. All Y’all together are the church. Remember this is about unity. We’re either in this together or we’re not in it at all. You are either in the church or you’re not part of this “Temple of God.” And any of you who are discouraging gathering, assembling as the church, he has some harsh words.)

God will destroy anyone who destroys this temple.

(This goes back to the promise God made to Abraham “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.”)

For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

(God’s promise is to the children of Abraham, the chosen people of God, and the New Testament makes it clear that only those who are in Christ will receive that blessing. The church is the chosen people of God. Jew and Gentile, from every tribe and tongue and nation. God’s special possession, His treasure. You, together, are the Temple of God. Because of the cross of Christ, which is the foundation.)

Stop deceiving yourselves. If you think you are wise by this world’s standards, you need to become a fool to be truly wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God.

(In their fascination with communication skills and stoic philosophy, the Corinthians had lost their perspective. They were like people today who are woke. Woke Christians are asleep.)

As the Scriptures say, 

    “He traps the wise 

      in the snare of their own cleverness.” 

And again, 

    “The LORD knows the thoughts of the wise; 

      he knows they are worthless.” 

(We need to trust God’s ways. Not the ways of our culture. Not our own big ideas. This is a call for radical repentance. We need to die to ourselves, to our egos, to our ambitions and desperate need of status—we need to find true life through faith in the Son of God. The world’s wisdom is foolishness.)

So don’t boast about following a particular human leader. For everything belongs to you—whether Paul or Apollos or Peter, or the world, or life and death, or the present and the future. Everything belongs to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

1 Co 3:1–23

He’s quoting one of those rock star philosophers–a guy named Seneca. I know the Aristoi students in the congregation know about Seneca because my kids Angel and Von had to read some of his works and write papers on him. Bet you didn’t know he was quoted in the Bible, though. “For everything belongs to you” was one of his biggest hits back in the day. Paul is saying, “that might be true but you belong to Christ. You are baptized in His name. And Christ belongs to God—our life, inheritance, and authority all have their source in Jesus who has His source in the Father, and it’s been that way from eternity.” Like Paul says in Romans, this means absolutely nothing in this world can separate you from God’s love which is in you because you are in Christ.

That should be very encouraging to you. Live in this new unimaginable glory of God. This marvelous light. Build your life on the foundation of the mysteries of God that were revealed to you by God who died on a cross to forgive you of all your sin and foolishness.

Live in the glory of knowing you are the Temple of the Holy Spirit.

And Don’t be babies

Let’s pray:

Father in heaven,

As we learn your righteous regulations,

    we will thank you by living as we should!

we will obey your decrees.

    Please don’t give up on us! 

Dear Lord, thank You for revealing Yourself to us by Your cross. Receive these weak sinners and strengthen us for service. Amen.