1 Corinthians 1-2: Willing to look foolish

We trace Paul’s path from Acts into Corinth and face the uncomfortable truth that church conflict is nothing new. We read the opening of 1 Corinthians and let Paul re-center our faith on Christ crucified rather than charisma, factions, or human wisdom.
• Paul’s missionary context from Acts and why Corinth matters
• Paul’s choice to work as a tentmaker to avoid suspicion
• How division and “horizontal energy” distract the church from God
• Why 1 Corinthians reads like a practical workbook for church life
• Paul’s appeal for unity and his critique of leader-based factions
• The wisdom of the cross versus the wisdom of the world
• Paul’s weakness and humility so faith rests on the Spirit’s power

Download your Echo Bible study for the book of First Corinthians, called Messy Church.

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Transcript

Welcome And New Testament Timeline

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Hey, welcome back to the Out Loud Bible Podcast. I'm Mike, and we're going through the New Testament, not exactly in the order that it's written and displayed in our Bibles today, but kind of chronologically. We started in this season of the podcast with Luke and Acts, and that is the ministry of Jesus and then the Acts of the Apostles in light of Jesus' resurrection to share the good news with the rest of the world. And a key figure in the book of Acts is Paul, an apostle, not like one of the 12 apostles, but he even calls himself like one born a little bit late, a little bit late to the party, but still Jesus himself made an appearance to Paul and sent him out to be an apostle to the Gentiles. So he's been doing that, and he's been going in and going on some missionary journeys. He was directed in a vision to go to Macedonia. And Luke, the author of this story, joined the team there, and they all went to Philippi. That's where they were put into prison. The walls of the prison came crumbling down, and they met Lydia, who was the first convert in the continent of Europe, and uh they cast out some demons, and and that was the start of the church of the Philippians, where we read that letter. And uh then they traveled to Thessalonica and they ministered in Thessalonica for about a month, but it wasn't as much time as they wanted to because they had to leave. That's when we read the letter to the Thessalonians, first and second Thessalonians. And then Paul went on to Corinth, and he stayed in Corinth for 18 months.

Corinth’s Messy Church Problem

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And he met Aquila and Priscilla there. This is all in Acts chapter 18, if you want to go back and check out the story of the start of the church in Corinth. But he met Aquila and Priscilla, and they became believers, and he realized that they all kind of had the same hobby, they all had the same trade, they made tents. So while he was building up this new church in Corinth, he wanted to just avoid reproach. He wanted to work in such a way that it didn't look like he was doing this whole building a church thing or preaching for money. He's like, no, I'm gonna support myself so that, you know, no one can accuse me of doing this for financial gain. And he's trying to keep up a fairly low profile as he works hard in the city of Corinth for about 18 months. Well, despite Paul's best efforts, apparently, he still found himself in the middle of controversies and arguments and divisions in the church in Corinth, not because of anything he had done, but because they're just an immature group of believers who got caught up in a lot of well, what my pastor would call sideways energy or horizontal energy, just conflict and strife in between people around us that we see next to us in church and whatnot. Instead of focusing on digging deep roots and connecting with God the Father, and and really instead of trying to be a body of Christ, they were just distracted by the conflicts that come from people being people hanging out with people. Do you can you relate, or is this just a first century church problem? Um the this church in Corinth, uh it's a it's a fairly messy church. There's factions and divisions, there's arguments between members, there's sin issues, and frankly, not unlike our churches today. Now, Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthians. That's what we have as 1 Corinthians, and he'll write a second letter. We'll get to that too. Um, but we're gonna read this letter to the church in Corinth, 1 Corinthians, as Paul addresses some of these sin issues and disorder issues. There's just been a lot of things that have come up, come to his attention since leaving that he's gonna write back and say, you know what? We got to bring some things back in order here. And so what we have here in 1 Corinthians is actually a fairly detailed um workbook for how to function as a church. Not that it covers every issue we're gonna face, but uh a fair amount of issues that are still prevalent today. And we can get a lot of uh guidelines about how to maintain order and how to address sin and uh how to conduct various uh services around the church based on what we see here in this letter. And because it's all in the context of what not to do, kind of Corinth being a bad example, it kind of feels a bit like a soap opera at times where it's like, what they did that, but let's not get into this mindset of like, oh, well, what they're doing, that's worse than what I do or what I see in my church. Let's, again, let's not assume we're the good guys all the time. Let's let the word of God inform us about where we unfortunately line up more with Corinth than with what Paul's exhortations are to the believers and learn from him to be able to say, hey, you know what? If he said it and if it was good to say to the Corinthians, maybe it's good and fitting for him to say to me. One more thing before we jump into it, we actually have an echo Bible

A Practical Workbook For Churches

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study available for the book of First Corinthians. It's called Messi Church. It's available at outloudbible.com and it's uh in the collection on the resources page of the seven-day Bible studies. So it's based on First Corinthians, it's called Messy Church, and that gives you a chance to take a what we're gonna read here, not in just today's episode, but in the upcoming episodes based on First Corinthians, uh, to take uh a look at uh again about what we read and just kind of let it reverberate a little bit throughout the week and uh and just spend a little extra time in some of these really important topics that get brought up in 1 Corinthians. Yes, it's a messy church, but we're messy people. Let's see what we can learn from the Word of God today in 1 Corinthians. We're gonna start in chapter 1, verse 1 in the New English Translation. From Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will

Reading 1 Corinthians 1 To 2

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of God, and Sosthenes, our brother, to the church of God that's in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be saints, with all those in every place who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I uh I always thank my God for you because of the grace of God that was given to you in Christ Jesus, for you were made rich in every way in him, in all your speech and in every kind of knowledge, just as the testimony about Christ has been confirmed among you, so that you don't lack any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. He'll also strengthen you to the end, so that you'll be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into fellowship with his Son, Christ Jesus our Lord. I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to agree together, to end your divisions and to be united by the same mind and purpose. For members of Chloe's household have made it clear to me, my brothers and sisters, that there are quarrels among you. Now, I mean this, that each of you is saying, I'm with Paul, or I'm with Apollos, or I'm with Cephas, or well, I'm with Christ. Is Christ divided? Paul wasn't crucified for you, was he? Or were you in fact baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I didn't baptize any of you, except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. I I also baptized the household of Stephanus, otherwise I I don't remember whether I baptized anyone else. For Christ didn't send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, and not with clever speech, so that the cross of Christ would not become useless. For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it's written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will thwart the cleverness of the intelligent. Where is the wise man? Where's the the expert in the Mosaic law? Where's the debater of this age? Has God not made the wisdom of the world foolish? For since in the wisdom of God the world by its wisdom didn't know God, God was pleased to save those who believe by the foolishness of preaching. For Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks ask for wisdom, but we preach about a crucified Christ. A stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. Think about the circumstances of your call, brothers and sisters. Not many were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were born to a privileged position. But God chose what the world thinks foolish to shame the wise, and God chose what the world thinks weak to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, what's regarded as nothing, to set aside what's regarded as something, so that no one can boast in his presence. He is the reason you have a relationship with Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it's written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I I didn't come with superior eloquence or wisdom as I proclaimed the testimony of God. For I I decided to be concerned about nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in in weakness and in fear and and with much trembling. My conversation and and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the spirit and of power, so that your faith would not be based on human wisdom, but on the power of God. Now we do speak wisdom among the mature, but not a not a wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age who are perishing. Instead, we we speak the wisdom of God, hidden in a mystery that God determined before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood it. If they had known it, they wouldn't have crucified the Lord of glory. But just as it's written, things that no eye has seen, or ear has heard, or mind imagined, are the things God has prepared for those who love him. God has revealed these to us by the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the things of a man except the man's spirit within him? So too, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have not received the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things that are freely given to us by God. And we speak about these things, not with words taught us by human wisdom, but with those taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual people. The unbeliever doesn't receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they're foolishness to him. And he can't understand them because they're spiritually discerned. The one who is spiritual discerns all things, and yet he himself is understood by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to advise him? But we have the mind of Christ. Well, this uh introduction from Paul always hits me as I read it when I read the beginning of chapter two, and how he came to the church in Corinth, and he kind of put aside his ability to

Weakness, Humility, And The Spirit

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give good speeches and the wisdom and the training that he had developed about how to engage a crowd and how to, you know, be a dynamic speaker. Now, Paul was certainly capable of that, but he put that aside willingly and came just with kind of weakness, just kind of a little bit of trepidation, just some trembling, like not trying to be anybody for these people. So that if anything good, if anything powerful, if anything wise came from his time with them, they would know that it wasn't him, because he was not doing anything worthy of that. But it came from the Holy Spirit. I don't know about you, but I tend to really lean on my ability to speak, to put words together in a meaningful and memorable way. And there's nothing wrong with these things, there's nothing wrong with our talents and our abilities, uh, our ability to communicate, if we've trained in that, there's nothing wrong with that. It's a great gift, it's a great tool to use. But it's very easy to think that if someone is impacted by something that we say, or or if we try to stir the hearts and the emotions, or stimulate the minds and persuade people with our abilities, then one of the worst things that can happen is that that actually works. And then what? People are like, oh wow, what a great speaker that was. Wow, what a great reader he was, what a great presenter she was. We know in Acts chapter 12 that this happened to King Herod. He gave a very wise decision that really pleased the people that were in his jurisdiction. Uh he he presented uh really eloquently uh a great argument and a great so a wise solution. However, they said, wow, this is like a God speaking, and he did not correct them, and he died instantly. Maybe that is the fear that Paul's talking about. He came not with the fear of what the people would think about him. That often causes us to kind of bulk up and try to present our best versions of ourselves. No, I think Paul was presenting a fear of the Lord. That, like, I don't want to be seen as anyone here. I just am coming here to just proclaim Jesus Christ and just the fact that he is crucified for you. Like, that's all I want you to get from me. That's a big step of humility. So I think it's only fitting to say that if anything good comes from this episode or this conversation, hey, I'm glad we get to have this conversation. I'm I'm so thankful that you're here on this podcast. But if anything wise, anything good is said here, may it just be from the word of God and the Spirit of God in your heart saying yes, go to Jesus. Go to Jesus. Anything beyond that is frankly not important. But thanks for joining me here on the Outloud Bible Podcast and our start to the letter of First Corinthians. Join me next time. I'm excited to get more into this letter with you. And again, go check out outloudbible.com, go to the resources page, and download your Echo Bible study for the book of First Corinthians called Messy Church. We're gonna get

Closing And Study Resource Invite

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messier, and we'll see you next time on the Outloud Bible Podcast.