Re:Verse reading–1 Corinthians 3:1-17 (day three)
“You are still worldly.”
Paul has articulated how ridiculous the church’s proclamation of the kingdom of God will sound to the wider world’s thought systems: scandalous to Judaic thinking, foolhardy to Hellenistic thinking. Their prospects don’t look good. For this project of cultural shift, they will need all hands on deck. But they can’t muster all hands on deck. You know why? The energy one spends on outmaneuvering those who disagree—so that one’s own faction can achieve and maintain dominance—leaves little-to-no energy for anything so demanding as representing that apparently ridiculous kingdom. And furthermore, no kingdom will be represented at all if factions and dominance are the treasures of the church. They will have sold their birthright for worldly gain. The strength of the gates-of-hell-crashing church isn’t political muscle. It’s the clasping of one another’s hands in weakness.
