The Bible Study Hour

Announcer: In many ways, the church at Corinth was a model church, one that others could follow. Its people understood spiritual matters, they were separated to Christ, and they possessed and used their spiritual gifts. Welcome to the Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically.

The church at Corinth stood as a beacon in a city of trade, corruption, and diversity, and had the potential of being a beacon for the fledgling faith in other cities. But it was plagued with problems, some of which were worldly and some of which were reprehensible. Join Dr. Boice as he looks at the Corinthian church through a lens that shows both the high points and the low points of a body of believers who, at times, are a reflection of ourselves.

Dr. James Boice: Every time I begin a study of a new book of the Bible, I do so with mixed feelings. Because on the one hand, the book is a challenge, it's exciting, filled with thoughts that we need to make our own. And yet at the same time, any book of the Bible, if it does its proper work in us and if the Holy Spirit speaks through it as we trust He will and as He promises to do when we study it, is going to produce changes in us. It's going to challenge us in areas that we haven't really come to terms with what discipleship means before.

While that's true with many books of the Bible, all books, it's especially true, I think, with this book of First Corinthians. Because here is a book that deals with a very normal church, all the problems that exist in a normal church, and it's not possible to read about these things and think about them seriously without coming to terms with what it means to serve the Lord in these areas.

At the same time, this is a great book, and so I approach it with great expectation. It really goes together with three others, the four books together being perhaps the most important of Paul's epistles, coming from roughly the same period of his life. There's Romans that immediately precedes this in the New Testament and which is the great doctrinal book of the New Testament.

There's Galatians, which goes with Romans and which in a sense defends the doctrines that are developed so well in the longer book against some of the distortions and perversions and denials of Paul's day. And then there are these two great letters to the church at Corinth, which deal with the application of these doctrines and the life of the church in general.

This city of Corinth was an interesting city. It had a long history. It had an interesting location. It was located on the narrow isthmus of land that divided the upper northern main portion of Greece, known as Attica, from the southern portion of Greece, the Peloponnese. The northern portion had Athens as its capital; the southern portion had Sparta as its capital. And in between, on this narrow isthmus of land, lay the city of Corinth.

It was like many cities that are at a transition point geographically. It was a city of commerce, a great city for the mixture of races. It had one interesting feature in that in ancient days, it was difficult and dangerous to sail, and if a journey could be taken by land, it was always safer and generally easier than traveling by sea. In the case of Corinth, something interesting had been devised.

They found that because the land wasn't too high at that point, it was possible at times even to sail a ship into the Corinth harbor on one side and drag the ship up over the land down to the other side in order to avoid having to sail the whole way around the southern portion of Greece. It would save about 200 miles of ocean travel. Although it seems to us like a terribly difficult thing to do, it was relatively easy compared with the sailing.

As a result of that, a great deal of trade grew up, and Corinth, which had a naturally high defensive position on a large plateau that dominated the area and which had two ports, one on each side of this isthmus, became the kind of mixture I'm describing. It was a debauched place, as many port cities are. Corinth was so known for its debauchery that they even used the name Corinth in the Greek language to describe what it meant to be perfectly debauched. To behave like a Corinthian was about the worst thing you could say about somebody in moral terms.

The city was destroyed by the Roman General Mummius in 146 BC. Years later, Julius Caesar recognized again its strategic importance, so he rebuilt the city. At the time Paul arrived, Corinth had been reestablished and was the important trade city of that portion of the world. Paul visited Corinth on his second missionary journey. He had been in the northern portion of Greece in Philippi, and he had made his way down the coast from Macedonia, spending some time in the city of Berea and then came on further south into Attica to Athens.

He spent some time in Athens. After he left Athens, he went on down to Corinth, leaving for the time his companions behind. As was his custom, he began to work, first of all, for a living. He was a tentmaker, worked with cloth. He found a couple from Rome that had been expelled from Rome, a Jewish couple, Aquila and Priscilla, whom he met there and who had the same trade as he did, so he teamed up with them.

Undoubtedly, they gave him a place to live; he earned his bread that way. He talked to them about the Gospel. They became great churchmen and his supporters were with him years later. In his time that was free that he wasn't earning his living by making sails, he would go into the synagogue and would, as he said, reason with the Jews out of the Scripture concerning the prophecies that dealt with Jesus Christ.

There was a crisis in the synagogue at that time; there was resistance to what he was teaching. He had to move out. He was welcomed into the home, presumably of a Roman, a man named Justus, a good Latin name, and he moved his group of Christians into that home, became a house church. It was next door to the synagogue, and the ruler of the synagogue, whose name was Crispus, was converted through that ministry and joined the group of new Christians that were beginning to be formed there in Corinth.

The Lord appeared to Paul on one occasion during those early months in Corinth when the Jews were expressing hostility and were stirring up trouble against him. The Lord said to Paul not to be afraid. He had been mistreated in other places; he had been stoned in other places. But the Lord said, "Don't worry, I'm not going to let anything happen to you here. I have many people in this city."

Paul took courage from that, and he carried on his ministry there in Corinth for a year and six months, 18 months. Time Paul left, he went to Ephesus. While he was in Ephesus, he heard of problems that had arisen in the church at Corinth. Apparently, he made one trip back there that's not recorded for us in Acts, but he alludes to it in Second Corinthians. It would seem also that he wrote a letter to them about those problems which we don't have in our New Testament, an extra letter that somehow has just vanished from history.

As we know, he wrote Second Corinthians again, following up on the kind of problems that had developed and with which he was trying to deal. What we have in this first book is Paul's first attempt after having left that city to encourage the church and to set it on the path that it should go. When we read this opening section, we find two different things described. On the one hand, we find the church in terms that we ardently wish were true of churches everywhere. It seems to be a model church.

Then at the same time, we begin to read here at the beginning, and we find further examples of it throughout the letter, of a church that seems to be a different kind of church. In fact, a different church entirely, a church that is riddled with problems and which in some respects was a great disgrace. When we read about the church of the saints, our hearts are lifted up. When we read about the church of the sinners, our hearts are cast down, and we say, "What hope is there for anyone?"

This first section is interesting. Paul begins as he does virtually all of his letters, mentioning himself and Sosthenes, who on this occasion is with him. He mentions the group of people to whom he's writing, the church at Corinth. He says something about them and then he gives his traditional greeting: "Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." In this context and in the verses immediately following, he describes what we would call the bright spots in the life of this congregation.

I want to show you just a few of them. First of all, in verse two: "To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." Sanctified and holy. You read that and you say, "Ah, there's what a church should be." A church that's sanctified, a church that's holy.

It's worth pointing out that in the Greek language in which Paul was writing, those are actually the same word. In English, because of our rich heritage of words from the Germanic languages on the one hand and the Romantic languages on the other, we have in English words often that are virtual synonyms, though they come from those different sources. This is the case here. In English, we'll take that word holy, *hagios* in the Greek, and we'll translate it holy in some instances.

That's because from the Germanic languages, we have the word holy, *heilig*. You use it in German to describe the Bible when you talk about the Holy Bible in German, it's *Heilige Schrift*. So sometimes we'll take that word and translate it holy. Another time, we'll take that same word and translate it saint or sanctify because we have the exact word from the Romantic languages. In the French language, for example, you don't call the Bible the Holy Bible as the Germans do, *Heilige Schrift*, you call it *La Sainte Bible*, using the word saint, but it's exactly the same thing.

That's what we have in this translation. We have that word sanctified used in the first part of the verse, and we have that word holy used in the second part of the verse, but it's the same thing. Paul is talking about those who are separated unto Christ and who, as he says quite clearly in the text, are holy and are on their way to holiness as a result. In his Greek, those words which you find in verse two, the words "to be," "called to be holy," are not there.

The Greek actually says, "sanctified in Christ Jesus and called *hagioi*." That's why some of the older translations use the word saint at that point. They say, "called saints." That's not bad. It may well be that that is the best possible translation. I understand why the translators of the New International Version have done it the way they have here. The first phrase, sanctified in Christ Jesus, talks about our separation, which is what it means to be a saint.

When they come to the second phrase, called *hagioi*, they're assuming that Paul is not repeating himself, saying exactly the same thing: called to be holy and called to be holy, separated unto Christ, separated unto Christ. So they add the words "to be." They say you're separated unto Christ, and you're called now to go on in terms of what that separation means and become increasingly holy in the context of your life. As I say, I understand why they translate it that way.

Actually, it doesn't make any difference because whether you get the idea in the first phrase or whether you get the idea in the second phrase, it is perfectly clear. Paul is saying anyone who is a follower of Jesus Christ, and that includes all of those who call upon the name of Christ at Corinth, have been set apart to Jesus and His service. That is what it means to be a Christian. Before that, before you became a Christian, you served yourself. You were set apart to your own interests. But when you become a follower of Christ, you're set apart to Him. And this is what Paul says was true of these people.

Now in verse five, he talks about something else. And again, we have to give just a little attention to the words he uses. Paul says for in Him, that is in Christ, having been set apart to Him, you have been enriched in every way, in all your speaking and in all your knowledge. There are different translations of this, and that's because that first word, "in all your speaking," is the Greek word *logoi* or *logos* in the singular form. The second word, "knowledge," is the word *gnosko* or *gnoske* as it appears here. Those are two of the key words in the New Testament vocabulary.

Now *logos*, a word, can mean "in a word" or, if you make it plural, "in words." It's quite possible, as the translators reflected here, that Paul is saying that they were enriched in their ability to speak about spiritual things. We know that was true of them because later on in this book where Paul begins to speak about the problem of tongues there at Corinth, he points out that they were quite eloquent and many of them took pride in their eloquence, and that became a problem as well. But whatever it was, he said, you certainly have a great gift of articulating Christian truth.

The translators, when they come to that word *logoi* at that point, think that's what it refers to, and then they contrast that speaking on the one hand with knowledge or understanding on the other. I don't think that is the best translation. If you object to it, it's alright; the point is perfectly well-put as it appears here. But I think that when those two words occur together, *logoi* on the one hand and *gnosko* knowledge on the other, there's a contrast between pure doctrine on the one hand and understanding or perception of it on the other.

You have to remember that that word *logos* means far more than word in its fullest New Testament meaning. It's used of Jesus Christ, for example, in John's Gospel. He is the *Logos* of God. It doesn't merely mean He is where God speaks to us, though that's true, but He is the embodiment of all the truth of God. That word comes over into English in our words theology and anthropology and soteriology, where that word *logos* is coupled with the words for God and man and salvation.

In every case when the word is used like that, it means the doctrine of God and the doctrine of man and the doctrine of salvation and so on. I would think, given that full meaning of the word in the New Testament, that what Paul is saying here is that these Corinthians were not short in their understanding of spiritual things. They knew the doctrines of the faith.

More than that, to that intellectual or abstract knowledge of the doctrine, God had at the same time also given them a full measure of understanding or perception where these things were concerned. That is, they didn't merely find themselves in a position where they could quote Christian doctrine off the top of their head like an unbelieving professor, for example, might very well do teaching a class in theology in a secular university.

In addition to that intellectual understanding, they really did perceive in a spiritual way what it was all about. So they were able to encourage one another in spiritual things, as Paul says they did do later on in the epistle. So we have that. We have first of all the fact that they were separated unto Jesus Christ, saints participating in His holiness. We have here secondly that they were enriched by God in doctrinal knowledge and the perception of what it means.

Thirdly, in verse seven, he says that they had spiritual gifts, and more than that, they didn't lack any spiritual gifts. In the context of this book, that is really quite something to say. In the twelfth chapter where Paul begins to talk about the spiritual gifts in greater detail, he mentions what some of them are. Verse eight: there's the message of wisdom, there's knowledge, there's faith, gifts of healing, miraculous powers, prophecy, the ability to distinguish between spirits, tongues, the interpretation of tongues.

Then lest you think that's all very unpractical, at the very end of the chapter, he spells out some more: apostles, prophets, teachers, workers of miracles, gifts of healing, those who have the gifts of help, simply being able to help other people, gifts of administration, and tongues, which he spells out again at some length. That's really quite a list.

And here is Paul at the very beginning of his letter as he begins to address himself to these Christians, saying, "Yes, and among all those other gifts that are yours of God, there are certainly these gifts of the Spirit with which God has enriched you and does so to such a degree that you lack nothing that's essential for the health and well-being of your Christian fellowship." And then finally, the second half of that same sentence: these are those who eagerly wait for the Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.

They weren't just content with where they were; they were looking for Christ's second coming. I suppose in our terms, Paul would be saying whenever they hold a prophetic conference there in Corinth, you all go because you're very interested in these things and you're actually waiting for Jesus Christ to return and establish His rule.

Well, I read that description of the church at Corinth, and I say, and I'm sure you say it too as you think about what all this means, "Wouldn't it be wonderful to be a part of a church like that?" A church that was separated unto Christ, holy, mature in its knowledge of the doctrines of the faith and their application, a church in which the spiritual gifts were very evident, a church that was eagerly waiting together collectively for the return of Christ. Isn't a church like that a marvelous thing? Well, I dare to say I do believe I belong to a church like that. That is a description of the church of Jesus Christ.

But now you see we pass from verse nine to verse ten. In verse ten, we begin to discover that here are things that are not quite so good. First of all, the thing with which Paul begins is the fact that there were divisions there in that church at Corinth. Not just little squabbles, but divisions that had grown and prospered in their pernicious way to such an extent that the entire church, a church that has been sanctified and holy and given spiritual gifts, was actually divided into competing factions.

Moreover, these factions had been so bold as to even take the names of the great teachers that God had been pleased to send among them. And so you had people saying, "Well, I belong to Paul's party," and other people said, "I belong to Peter's party," and somebody else said, "I belong to Apollos's party." Then there were the sanctified ones that said, "Plague on both your houses, we belong to Jesus Christ." Paul says it was all very pernicious and divisive.

Basically, the split was between what we see in this period of church history: a Gentile-oriented kind of Christianity and a Jewish-oriented type of Christianity. Peter was known as the Apostle to the Jews, and so those of Jewish background or at least of Jewish sympathies said, "Well, we stand with Peter, we like the way he does things."

Then there was the Gentile side of things that were represented by Paul and Apollos, and they said, "Oh no, this is a better way. We want to follow Paul." But of course, they were divided too because it wasn't just Jew and Gentile, here you have divisions among the Gentile camp. You had Paul and you had Apollos. Apollos was known as a great orator, people probably liked him because of the way he talked.

Some said, "Well, we're of Apollos," and then there was the party that said, "I follow Christ." I wish as we look at this, we could say that those were the only problems there were. But you know as we begin to go on throughout this book, we discover that this church was riddled with serious additional problems as well. For example, in the fifth and sixth chapters, we find that there was a great deal of immorality in the church.

One particular problem where a man was having sexual relations with his stepmother, and that wasn't all of it. Paul writes later on about all of the debauchery, it's the very word he uses, debauchery that was found there in the church. In Second Corinthians in the next to the last chapter, in the last verse of that chapter, he still talks about it where he talks of the immorality and the perversion and the debauchery that was present there among those who called upon the name of Christ.

Chapter six of this book talks about lawsuits. Here were Christians suing one another within the church, the very fellowship of the people who called upon the name of Christ, one suing another because they couldn't agree on matters concerning property and such things. There were problems at the Lord's Supper. This wasn't a matter merely of the kind of historical disagreement you had between Luther and the Roman Church, and the Calvinists and Zwingli, where there was difficulty and differences of understanding.

It was the way they observed it. They made a big thing of it, and that I suppose was all right. They had a great feast, not just a mere observance at the end of a morning service, but a great big fellowship meal. There wasn't anything wrong with that. But those who had a lot came with a lot; those who had nothing came with nothing. Those who had a lot didn't give to those who had nothing, and so some were gorging themselves and others were starving.

Those who were gorging themselves were getting drunk. Imagine getting drunk at the communion service, but Paul says so; he says that's what was happening. It was a disgrace. So he writes to try and deal with that. There was disorder in the worship service. Paul talks about that in chapter 12 and 14. Then just so we don't get the idea that their errors only had to do with matters of practice, when we read in the 15th chapter of Paul's great description and defense of the resurrection, we discover in the context there that some of them were even denying the resurrection, that there is no resurrection of the dead.

They were erring in doctrinal matters too. Oh, you look at that and you say, "My goodness, what a church! I wouldn't want to belong to a church like that." But I'm afraid I have to say that I also belong to a church like that. It's the same church that I mentioned earlier when I was talking of those who were separated unto Christ and given all spiritual gifts and knowledge and understanding.

Because you see, that's the way it is. We are on the way, we are called by Christ, but at the same time, this or other problems are among us. So we experience the same difficulties of factions and jealousy and misunderstanding and misuse even of the gifts of God that were present in the church at Corinth. You say, "Well then, I suppose that's the way it is. Does that mean then we just accept it, we just go on?" Well no, that doesn't necessarily follow.

Certainly it didn't follow for the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul was describing a church very much like the churches in all ages have been, but Paul was not writing to them to say go on in the way you're going. It's all right to be separated unto Christ but be sinning at the same time. Oh no, Paul said that doesn't follow. God forbid that Christianity should teach anything like that.

Instead, what the Apostle Paul writes to do in this letter is to bring those whom God has brought into His kingdom to a fuller measure of devotion to Him and a greater experience of the holiness of God. He's writing about it in this first section where he's talking about divisions, and you notice in verse ten the way he's going to handle this throughout the letter: "I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought."

That's what he wants. You say, "How's that to happen?" Well, he spells it out later in the book, spells it out in Philippians in a classical passage where, you know, he had a similar problem. There was an incipient division in that church, two women were fighting, and he knew how that was; that would spread. He's writing to deal with that. He encourages them to be of one mind. It's virtually the same phrase he uses here.

But then to show them how to do it, he says, "Let that mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but humbled Himself, became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Let that mind be in you. Be like Jesus Christ. Draw near to Him. And then these divisions begin to fade away, and the sin begins to be conquered, and the knowledge gives expression to the glorious reality of the fellowship of the people of God.

That's what this letter is to do. And as we study it, let's pray together that God will use these texts to speak to us and lead us increasingly in the way that we should go for Christ's sake. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank You for such a practical book. We confess that it's easier for us to deal with pure doctrine, at least if we don't have to apply it in specific ways. But we know that this is what we need.

As we study together, we ask that You'll speak to us concerning that which displeases You and the areas in which we should change, but that at the same time, You'd encourage us as You lift our eyes to see what we already are in Christ Jesus, that we might live in a way befitting our stature and calling as the servants of Jesus Christ. We pray in His glorious name. Amen.

Mark Daniels: You're listening to the Bible Study Hour featuring the teaching of Dr. James Boice. Businesses measure their success in profits, schools measure their success in the grades of their students, and sports teams by the number of wins and losses. But how do we measure spiritual growth? Find out at our free CD offer entitled Spiritual Adults. It's also by Dr. Boice. This free CD offer is our way of saying thanks for listening. Call us at 1-800-488-1888, and we'll be pleased to send you a copy of Spiritual Adults. That number again is 1-800-488-1888.

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We all love how Dr. Boice's sermons always put life in a biblical perspective. It's often impossible though to include every biblical reference in detail in a 26-minute broadcast. You can purchase complete preached messages at reformedresources.org. I'm Mark Daniels. God has undermined and brought to nothing the vaunted wisdom of the world through the simplicity of the gospel. And where is the folly of the world's wisdom more clearly seen than in the crucifixion? Join Dr. James Boice as he compares the wisdom of the world with the foolishness of God. That's next time on the Bible Study Hour, preparing you to think and act biblically.