1 Corinthians 1:1-9 - Bible Study

 This Bible Study was prepared by the Rev. Dr. W. Maynard Pittendreigh for the Women's 10am Wednesday Bible Study at Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church, Orlando FL

1 Corinthians 1:1-9
1:1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
1:2 To the church of God that is in Corinth…

This letter is from Paul.  There is general agreement among scholars that this is true and hardly anyone disputes that Paul wrote this book. 

Paul is writing a church that he founded in the city of Corinth.

The text we are studying today is I Corinthians 1:1-9, but before we read any further, let’s take a look at Acts.

Paul was in the city of Corinth for a year and a half, and Luke reduces this entire time to a mere 17 verses.  Let’s see what Luke recorded for us in Acts

Acts 18:1–17.

18 After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. ² There he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, ³ and, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them, and they worked together—by trade they were tentmakers. ⁴ Every sabbath he would argue in the synagogue and would try to convince Jews and Greeks.

I’ll stop here and point out that Aquila and Priscilla are important people in the New Testament, very important in the early church – and this is their first appearance.  This is how they met Paul.

⁵ When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with proclaiming the word, testifying to the Jews that the Messiah was Jesus. ⁶ When they opposed and reviled him, in protest he shook the dust from his clothes and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” ⁷ Then he left the synagogue and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God; his house was next door to the synagogue. ⁸ Crispus, the official of the synagogue, became a believer in the Lord, together with all his household; and many of the Corinthians who heard Paul became believers and were baptized. ⁹ One night the Lord said to Paul in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent; ¹⁰ for I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people.” ¹¹ He stayed there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.


That is how everything began – then we jump to the end and Luke doesn’t tell us much of what happens during these 18 months – but we pick up with verse 12….

¹² But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal. ¹³ They said, “This man is persuading people to worship God in ways that are contrary to the law.” ¹⁴ Just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of crime or serious villainy, I would be justified in accepting the complaint of you Jews; ¹⁵ but since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves; I do not wish to be a judge of these matters.” ¹⁶ And he dismissed them from the tribunal. ¹⁷ Then all of them seized Sosthenes, the official of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal. But Gallio paid no attention to any of these things.
¹⁸ After staying there for a considerable time, Paul said farewell to the believers^[i] and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila. At Cenchreae he had his hair cut, for he was under a vow.

Corinth is a city mentioned many times in the New Testament.  

It is in what we now refer to as Greece and it was not far from Athens.  In Paul’s time it had been rebuilt by the Romans as a major city and had a diverse population of Romans, Greeks and Jews.
The church there is believed to have been founded by Paul.

When the apostle Paul first visited the city (AD 51 or 52), he resided there for eighteen months (see Acts 18:1-18). Here he first became acquainted with Priscilla and Aquila with whom he worked and traveled.

Paul wrote at least two epistles to the Christian community, the I Corinthians (written from Ephesus) and II Corinthians (written from Macedonia). The first Epistle occasionally reflects the conflict between the thriving Christian church and the surrounding community.

Most scholars believe the total number of letters to Corinth was at least four.  I Corinthians implies an earlier letter. 

Paul stayed longer in Corinth than in any other city, with the single exception of Ephesus. He had left Macedonia with his life in peril and had crossed over to Athens. He had had little success there and had gone on to Corinth, where he remained for eighteen months. It would be great to know what he did for a year and a half, but Luke compresses all that time into only 17 verses.

It was when he was in Ephesus in AD 55 that Paul, learning that things were not all well in Corinth, wrote to the church there.

So with that background, let’s pick up again, starting again at verse one chapter one.

1 Corinthians 1:1-9
1:1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,

The only two times this fellow is mentioned is in the passage we read from in Acts, and here in the opening of I Corinthians.

Sosthenes is probably a Corinthian who happens to be with Paul at the time of writing (Acts 18:17). If so, Paul’s inclusion of him in the greeting and affectionately calling him a “brother” enlist one of the Corinthians’ own number in support of what he, Paul, is going to write.  

Paul is “called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.” Undoubtedly, Paul is asserting his authority here, his right to address the Corinthians and expect to be heeded. The assertion is subtle, though.

IN the first ten verses of Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, the name of Jesus Christ occurs no fewer than ten times. This was going to be a difficult letter, for it was going to deal with a difficult situation – and, in such a situation, Paul’s first thought was of Jesus Christ. Paul was going to stay focused on Christ.  He wanted the readers to stay focused on Christ.

Sometimes in the Church, we try to deal with a difficult situation and we lose our focus.  I sometimes deal with church members or committees that are in conflict by reminding them that one thing we agree on is that we want to seek Christ’s will in the committee and do His work, not our work.

1:2 To the church of God that is in Corinth,

This tells us something about the Church. Paul speaks of the Church of God which is at Corinth. It was not the church of Corinth; it was the Church of God. To Paul, wherever an individual congregation might be, it was a part of the one Church of God.   When we say the Apostles Creed, we say we believe in the Catholic Church, and Catholic there does not refer to the Roman Catholic Church, but to the Church Universal.  We as Presbyterians have to acknowledge that the unity of the church has been obscured by denominations, but there is still a spiritual unity that binds us all together.

This is important – now Paul used this type of speech often – “The church of God which is at whatever town,” but it is particularly important here because Paul is very soon going to be addressing one of the many problems in the Corinthian Church, which was division.

 1:2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus,

Christians are consecrated in Jesus Christ. The verb to consecrate (hagiazo) means to set a place apart for God, to make it holy, by the offering of a sacrifice upon it. Christians have been consecrated to God by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. To be a Christian is to be one for whom Christ died and to know it, and to realize that that sacrifice, in a very special way, makes us belong to God.

1:2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, 

Called to be saints - Significantly, Paul never uses the singular form of “saint” to refer to the individual Christian

Paul describes all Christians as saints - as those who have been called to be God’s dedicated people. We have translated one single Greek word by this whole phrase. The word is hagios, which the English Bibles translate as saints. Nowadays, that does not paint the right picture for us. Hagios describes a thing or a person that has been devoted to the possession and the service of God. It is the word used to describe a temple or a sacrifice which has been marked out for God. Now, if people have been marked out as specially belonging to God, they must show themselves to be fit in life and in character for that service. That is how hagios comes to mean holy, saintly. But the root idea of the word is separation. People who are hagios are different from others because they have been separated from the ordinary run of things in order specially to belong to God. This was the adjective by which the Jews described themselves; they were the hagios laos, the holy people, the nation which was quite different from other peoples because they, in a special way, belonged to God and were set apart for his service. When Paul uses hagios to describe Christians, he means that they are different from other people because they specially belong to God and to God’s service. And that difference is to be marked not by withdrawal from ordinary life, but by showing there a quality which will mark them.

1:2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:

Paul addresses his letter to those who have been called in the company of those who in every place call upon the name of the Lord. Christians are called into a community whose boundaries include all earth and all heaven. It would be greatly to our good if sometimes we lifted our eyes beyond our own little circle and thought of ourselves as part of the Church of God which is as wide as the world.

1:3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul used this phrase, or something similar, many many times.  It was his greetings.  It was his way of saying, Hello, how you doing. 

1:4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus,

1:5 for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind

1:6 just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you

1:7 so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul now strikes a complimentary note. The compliment consists in stating his recognition that the Corinthians have a wealth of gifts having to do with speech and knowledge; and this compliment gets added emphasis from his “always thanking [his] God for [the Corinthians],” from his description of their enrichment as having “confirmed” among them “the testimony about the Christ,” from his statement that as a group they “aren’t falling short in any gracious gift,” and from his description of them as “eagerly awaiting the revelation of our Lord, Jesus Christ.” The details concerning the gracious gifts will follow in chapters 12–14. Meanwhile the multifaceted compliment has the purpose of winning an acceptance of Paul’s coming responses and replies. Yet to forestall the Corinthians’ taking pride in the compliment, he bases his thanking God for them on “God’s grace [= ill-deserved favor] that was given to [them] in Christ Jesus (not because of what they were or are in themselves]” and describes their enrichment in terms of “gracious gifts.”

1:8 He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1:9 God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

God is faithful – which is important, because Paul is about to remind the Corinthians that they have NOT been faithful.

 

The faithfulness of God leads Paul to be sure and confident that the Corinthians will act maturely in the faith, rather than as infants.  

Matthew 3:13-17 Bible Study Discussion Guide

This brief guide was prepared for the 10am Wednesday Bible Study for the women of Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church, Orlando FL, by the Rev. Dr. W. Maynard Pittendreigh

 

Matthew 3:13-17

New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

¹³ Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. ¹⁴ John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” ¹⁵ But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. ¹⁶ And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. ¹⁷ And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved,^[a] with whom I am well pleased.”

1. What is a baptism?

Baptism (from the Greeknoun βάπτισμα baptisma).

It is a Christian rite of spiritual adoption and entrance into the church.  Water is always used but the methodology changes from group to group.

In early times, Baptism meant immersion.  Then it evolved to standing or kneeling in the water while water was poured on the one to be baptized.

Baptism has similiarties to Tvilah, which is a Jewish purification ceremony involving immersing into water, and which is required for conversion to Judaism.

 

2. Greek for baptism was baptizma, which is also the word for cleaning or washing.

Luke 11:38 tells how a Pharisee, at whose house Jesus ate, "was astonished to see that he did not first wash (ἐβαπτίσθη, aorist passive of βαπτίζω—literally, "be baptized") before dinner".

3. What do you remember about your own baptism?
4. What are some of the most memorable baptisms you have witnessed and why?
5. What do these memories say about what baptism means to you?
6. This Sunday we will have a renewal of baptism – we do not rebaptize.  Ephesians 4:4-6 says “There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.…”  But we can renew our baptism.

Bible Study for Isaiah 11:1-9 and Matthew 3:1-12, Second Sunday of Advent readings

Our Old Testament reading is from Isaiah 11:1-9.  Before we read this, however, we have to look at chapter 10.  Remember this is written in a time of war and upheaval.  God’s people are divided – North and South, Israel and Judah, and the superpower of Assyria is in conflict with these people as well. 

God promises in chapter 10 to eventually take care of the Assyrians. 

               Isaiah describes the Assyrians as being tools for God’s divine purpose.  God uses them to judge Judah.  The Assyrians interpret the events in arrogant terms – they see themselves more powerful that the God of Judah.  They have no idea they have been part of God’s divine plan.

               But God will also judge and put down the Assyrians.  And in verse 33 of chapter 10, we find Isaiah talking about how God will mow them down – literally.  Assyria is like a great forest of trees and God will take the ax and cut them down.

               So this is what we find in verse 33 and 3 of chapter 10.

 See, the Lord, the Lord Almighty,
    will lop off the boughs with great power.
The lofty trees will be felled,
    the tall ones will be brought low.
³⁴ He will cut down the forest thickets with an ax;
    Lebanon will fall before the Mighty One.

Isaiah 11:1-9

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.

In the way that God has promised to chop down the forest of Assyria, the people of God feel they have been chopped down by Assyria, but out of this destruction, from the stump of Jesse, will grow a branch. 

Before I bought my house someone chopped down a line of trees, as well they should have – they were too close to the house.  But what they did was simply take a chain saw and cut them at the base.  I can’t use my lawn mower there because the stumps, small as they are, are just too high and my blade will hit the wood.  One by one I’m taking an ax and digging up those stumps, but meanwhile, there are shoots coming up out of those stumps.

So this is what the promise is to the people of God.

It looks hopeless, but it is not.  It looks like there is no life, but the roots are alive and a branch is about to grow.

Now what makes this passage particularly odd is that scholars believe this was given at the coronation of the King, possibly King Hezekiah.  Strangely, when Isaiah stands to speak, he doesn’t talk about the new king being installed, but looks over that king’s shoulder to a future king – Jesus Christ.

² The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
    the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the spirit of counsel and might,
    the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

I think verse two is a lovely verse, but let’s break it down and dig into it a little.

The spirit of wisdom and understanding – these are essential intellectual qualities of a leader, king or judge.

The spirit of counsel and might – these reflect the ability to make decisions and carry them out. 

The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord – these represent the spiritual qualities of leadership.

So you have in this verse 2 all the qualities of a king – the mind, the heart and the soul.  It would be nice if our own national leaders would always exhibit these qualities, especially the ability to make decisions and carry them out. 

What is missing in this description of the new king, the Christ?  Military language.  And that is sometimes used with the Messiah, but not here.

³ His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

This is the second time that we see that phrase “fear of the Lord.”  It is repeated so as to give emphasis.  It is to drive home the fact that the leadership from this king is to be more than anything else, a spiritual leadership in the will of God. 

3 He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
    or decide by what his ears hear;

We all judge by what our eyes see and by what we hear.  We judge people in the court of public opinion, not in the court of law, and even in the court of law I sometimes think that the lawyers are presenting their cases to the television audience as well as the jury.

Christ set’s his judgment not on rumors, but on truth and righteousness.

3 He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
    or decide by what his ears hear;

⁴ but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
    and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
    and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
⁵ Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,
    and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

Does this remind you of any other passage of Scripture:

Ephesians 6:

¹³ Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. ¹⁴ Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵ and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. ¹⁶ In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

It is not exactly the same, but there is an occasional theme in Scripture that says we are to be clothed with the elements of spiritual values – that means two things.  First clothing is how we present ourselves to others.  We can dress casually, or formally.  We can dress neatly or as slobs.  We need to live our lives as people who project to the world spiritual values.  Second, military clothing is protection against attacks, and to be clothed in spiritual values is to be protected from the assaults of the devil.

In Isaiah, Christ is clothed with spiritual values.  These are what helps him to resist temptation in the New Testament, but they also project who Jesus is – he is righteous and faithful.

We now move into a very poetic, lovely passage of peace – idealistic, sweet, wonderful peace.

⁶ The wolf shall live with the lamb,
    the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
    and a little child shall lead them.
⁷ The cow and the bear shall graze,
    their young shall lie down together;
    and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
⁸ The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
    and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
⁹ They will not hurt or destroy
    on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.

The wolf in the Bible is what Jesus is often warning us about – people who are evil and take advantage of us – those are the wolves.  We are the lambs.  So here in this text, we are reconciled and living together.

All of these creatures are animals that do not live in harmony in nature, but in the new nature that Christ will establish with his kingdom, all natural enemies now become natural friends.

Matthew 3:1-12

3 In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, ² “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” ³ This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
    make his paths straight.’”

The movement of John continued after the Baptism of Jesus (Matthew 9:14, 11:2-3).  It even lasted after the resurrection and beginning of the early Christian Church (Acts 19:1-7).  At times that movement was in competition with the Christian movement, but the Christian movement helped bring John’s disciples into the fold. 

Mark’s Gospel, and Q – that lost source material for Mark and Matthew – started with John’s ministry.  Matthew turns his attention to John after establishing information about the birth of Christ. 

John is identified with a passage from Isaiah, chapter 40.   

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
    make his paths straight.’”

⁴ Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.

The clothing of John separates him from elegant society.  But more than that, it places him in an Elijah like role.  2 Kings 1:8 says of Elijah that he was, “A hairy man, with a leather belt around his waist.”

John wore a leather belt, just as Elijah did (cf. 2 Ki. 1:8), and that John wore a garment of camel’s hair, apparently a traditional prophetic garment (cf. Zech. 13:4).

He ate locusts, which was poor person’s food.  These are literally those grasshopper bugs.  While considered pests by many, locusts are enjoyed as a delicacy in some countries, including China and New Zealand. Locusts are high in protein and can be incorporated into many dishes, such as stir-fries or soups, in place of traditional meats.

I have a blog on the Internet with all of my recipes, but I don’t have one on how to prepare locusts – but I’m going to share it with you.  This is how to prepare locust:

1

Rinse the locust under cold water to remove any dirt or debris.

2

Remove the head by grasping it firmly and pulling slowly. Use the same method to remove the wings and legs.

3

Place locusts into a pot of boiling salt water and cook for 5 minutes or until soft.

4

Incorporate locusts into your favorite recipes in place of meat. They can withstand any cooking method, including frying, baking, broiling and grilling.

Of course, John probably ate the raw and used honey as a dip.

 ⁵ Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, ⁶ and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

⁷ But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸ Bear fruit worthy of repentance. ⁹ Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. ¹⁰ Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Here is that image of the ax to the tree that we saw in Isaiah 10, just before our Old Testament text.
¹¹ “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹² His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

This text leads into the Baptism of Jesus, but as an Advent theme in the lectionary, it serves to keep in mind this spirit and attitude of PREPARE.    John was sent to prepare, as seen with the reference to Isaiah 40.  And at the end of the text, John is warning that we need to stay in an attitude of preparation for God’s judgment.