Author: Chris Johnson

Re:Verse reading–2 Corinthians 1:12-24, 2:1-11 (day seven)

Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge. -2 Cor. 1:21-22

God has given us a guarantee in the person of the Holy Spirit who seals our lives in such a way that we know whose we are.  We belong to the perfect creator of the universe.

The Holy Spirit is far more than just an identity badge though:

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. -John 14:26-27

In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; -Romans 8:26

God completes his perfecting work in our hearts and lives by the power of the Holy Spirit.  May we trust His work and be transformed.

Re:Verse reading–2 Corinthians 1:1-11 (day seven)

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. -2 Corinthians 1:2

You may have noticed I will often close letters with the phrase “Grace & Peace” rather than “Sincerely”.  A couple of years ago I decided that I would make that habit based on the Pauline epistles. Paul always includes some type of formal salutary blessing that includes grace and peace toward the recipient (Rom. 1:7, 1 Cor. 1:3, 2 Cor. 1:2, Gal. 1:3, Eph. 1:2, Phil. 1:2, Col. 1:2, 1 Thess. 1:1, 2 Thess. 1:2, 1 Tim. 1:2, 2 Tim. 1:2, Titus 1:4, Philemon 1:3).

Since Paul always did it I thought I should too.  So, I now close letters with this formal Christian blessing over the recipient.  There is some scholarly speculation concerning what Paul meant by including those two words.  I take them to mean a full compilation of the work of God toward humanity found in Scripture.  Grace being the New Testament work of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit, and peace being similar to the Old Testament shalom.  In two words all of Scripture is prayed over you.

Grace & Peace

CJ

Re:Verse passage – I Corinthians 15:3-20, 35-44, 50-57 (day seven)

Paul was the worst.  No Christian wanted to see him coming because he aimed to destroy you and had the full backing of the government to do so.

After Stephen is stoned to death Scripture continues:  Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death.  And on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. –Acts 8:1-2

Then the next chapter goes further:  Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. –Acts 9:1-2

That murderous heart continued until Paul met Jesus, when he met the resurrected Jesus his life flipped forever:  For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. –1 Corinthians 15:9

If there is any proof of the resurrection of Jesus Christ in the first century surely it was the transformation of Saul to Paul.  Many couldn’t believe that story of redemption, but Paul kept telling it.

Re:Verse reading–1 Corinthians 13 (day seven)

There is a line from Luke’s account of the Beatitudes that has plagued me this week.  Luke 6:32 says this: If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.

Sometimes I struggle to love those who love me. There are days when I cannot even live up to the world’s standard of love when I am impatient, unkind, and/or provoked by those who have cared for me deeply.  What does that say about me on those days of seeking my own even at the expense of people who love me?

If nothing else it is evidence that I am a fragile flailing human in need of God’s constant grace, and even when I do not deserve that grace God still loves me.  God is showing me every day how to live out 1 Corinthians 13 by His perfect patience with me.

Re:Verse reading–1 Corinthians 12:4-31 (day seven)

The gifts and roles that God assigns to us are unique.  They are unique to our situation, they are unique to our church, they are unique to this present age, yet at the same time, they are the gifts that God has handed down through the Holy Spirit in the church for two millennia.  The way those gifts come together in our church through our life together is what makes the whole thing unique.

But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired.
-1 Corinthians 12:18

Each one of us has a gifting that completes the perfectly unique work of FBCSA.  Our gifts may change, they may add up, they may be different from what we desire, but even still, God calls us to be obedient and live out the calling that he has placed on us as individuals to edify the church.

Re:Verse reading–1 Corinthians 8 and 1 Corinthians 10:22-33 (day seven)

Two quotes stuck out in my study this week:

1 Corinthians 8:6 is a stunning theological innovation…one of the greatest pioneering moments in the entire history of Christology.
-N.T. Wright 1992

The modern church seeks to inconvenience the believer as little as possible.
-Anonymous 2003

The first quote elevates the grand reality of Jesus Christ, our Lord, our Savior, and our example, while the second quote acknowledges the grand laxity of the church.  At some point we must realize that Christ has called us to follow him into a service that will cost us dearly.  Our self will be wildly inconvenienced when Jesus Christ is Lord of our lives.  If we are going to experience the abundance of God’s holy kingdom the fleshly self must die however painful that might be.

Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.
1 Corinthians 8:6

Re:Verse reading–1 Corinthians 5 (day seven)

Paul begins 1 Corinthians 5 with a damning accusation: a seemingly powerful man in the church is sleeping with his stepmother.  We don’t know all the details of the situation, but we do know that Paul is flabbergasted that the church is not embarrassed by this ordeal. Unrepentant sin in the church is unacceptable, and unrepentant sexual sin (pornia in the Greek) carries an extra burden as Paul explains in the next chapter.

Flee immorality (pornia – sexual looseness). Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
1 Corinthians 6:18-20

Those sexual sins directly alienate you from God in a way other sin does not, and Scripture pushes back on the church with a heavy hand when do not lead one another towards repentance.  May we confess all our sexual sin before God and be healed.

Re:Verse reading–1 Corinthians 3:1-17 (day seven)

I must confess this text confounded me all week. The text is distinctly corporate, yet true for the individual as well.  As you work through the scholarship it is clear that throughout this text Paul is talking about the church as a whole and only the church.  This is not about you as an individual, but about you as a member of the larger body of the church.

Even the temple text, verses 16-17:  “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are” is not about the individual, it’s about the church.  All the “you”s in there are plural.  The text about you (singular) being the temple is found later in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. Which brings me back to my initial dilemma, everything in our text, 1 Corinthians 3, is true for the individual, but that is not what Paul is writing about.  1 Corinthians 3 is about the church.

This week we can talk about the church or we can do what Alexander Maclaren, one of my favorite preachers, did.  In his sermon on 1 Corinthians 3 he begins by essentially saying that I know this text is about the church, but I’m going to talk about individuals.

This text is “not about the Christian life in general…and though I may be slightly deflecting the text from its original direction, I’m not doing violence to it, if I take it as declaring some very plain and solemn truths applicable to all Christian people.” – Alexander Maclaren

Re:Verse reading–1 Corinthians 1:18-25 (day seven)

Paul takes an unusual stance in 1 Corinthians 1 that can only be attributed to the Holy Spirit.  He claims that we cannot come to God through logic or miracles, but only the cross.

For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 1 Cor. 1:21

Our natural tendency when talking to a non-believer is to win them over through an intellectual debate about life, and if that does not work we imagine what they would think if only they saw a miracle of God.  Paul argues an intellectual debate is fleeting, and unfortunately, Jesus already told us how they would respond to miracles as well:

“‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
“He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”Luke 16:30-31

Neither logic nor miracle will win your friend to Christ, but we must follow in Paul’s footsteps to simply lead people to the cross.  We preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified.