Having received a very stern letter from the Apostle Paul, you’d think that God’s problem church, Corinth, would have gotten their act together. The church was rife with pastor worship, division, misuse of spiritual gifts and the Lord’s supper, class distinctions, tolerance of outright and open sin—and the list goes on. Yet just about 18 months later Paul writes back—while some problems had gone away, others had cropped up and it was time for Paul to bring them up short for their attitudes and behaviors.
The main issues Paul now faces in Corinth involve the arrival of an anti-Paul sect who claimed they should be the ones the Corinthians listened to, not the Apostle. Some scholars suggest that Paul wrote the letter in parts—perhaps hoping things would get better on their own, but then learning that even more problems were occurring.
As we look to the first eleven verses of chapter 1 today, we focus not on the problems at hand, but how to handle problems when they come into your life. What does it mean when life goes south and what do I do about it?
1
Paul calls himself an apostle “by God’s will.” While this might seem like just a normal sort of greeting, it is vitally important to Paul that he assert his apostleship right off the bat. Why? Because the Corinthians had been infiltrated by pseudo-apostles who set about telling them that they shouldn’t trust Paul. He puts in there “by God’s will” to show that he was not a self-made apostle like the false ones currently at Corinth. God pulled Paul (then Saul) from being an enemy of Christianity to being its chief proponent.
We are well served to understand the chain of custody of the witness and word of the Lord. In the Old Covenant He spoke through prophets, then through His own Son Jesus Christ, who passed on that word to His apostles.
He writes with Timothy, his protégé, who also came and went from Corinth as Paul’s emissary.
2 – 3
So Paul is God’s apostle and Corinth is God’s church. Some people make a grave mistake by thinking that the church personally belongs to them. It is their money making machine, their fame creator, their toy, their tool for self-satisfaction or to give credence to their viewpoints. It is not.
Each church belongs to God. In Revelation 1 the Lord threatens to remove church’s authority that do not obey Him. We serve at the pleasure of God and for His glory. Just because a church is popular does not mean it is glorifying the Lord.
Notice too that he brings in “all the saints who are throughout Achaia” which is southern Greece. The Corinthians could not operate in a vacuum—no church is an island. We should all connect upward to the Lord as the head. We may have stylistic and minor differences but we should line up in the major doctrines of the faith or there is a problem.
3 – 7
This is an incredible section of Scripture that we need to unpack and walk through. In general Paul is gently leading to some very difficult things he must say. Rather than just blast them, which is a little bit of the way 1st Corinthians starts out, Paul wants them to know that though the letter will be tough to hear, God will comfort (“encourage” – para’klaysis) them as He is a God of mercy, not punishment.
It’s so wonderful that God works that way. If we were God we probably would lose patience with people rather quickly. God not only treats us with patience, but also loves us so much that He won’t leave us alone, but even in those times when He has tough things to say to us, He holds us and comforts and encourages us through them like a loving Father disciplining His child.
4 – look at the purpose here: God comforts us so that we can comfort others who find themselves suffering. God does not promise to remove us from trouble, but to see us through and then use the things He did in and through us to reach out to others. Look for this in your own life. Look at the difficulties you’ve gone through and how that makes you uniquely qualified to speak into the lives of others.
5 – Suffering as a Christian is a given.
Philippians 1:29-30 For it has been given to you on Christ's behalf not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him, 30 having the same struggle that you saw I had and now hear about me.
In this present age we want to avoid sufferance at all costs and get out of it as quickly as possible. Suffering is a sign of God not approving of you. This is simply not the case. Furthermore, suffering is a way to draw closer to God and become more like Jesus:
Philippians 3:10 My goal is to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.�
So just as suffering is a given, so too is the comfort and fellowship we get from Jesus in those times of suffering. I like to think about it like our immune system. The more attacking organisms invade our body, the more antibodies and immune cells our body creates to fight it. The more suffering you go through, the more fellowship, comfort, power, and life you get from Christ.
6 – And not only that, but Paul emphasizes that they are connected to his suffering, and he to theirs. As the Messiah works powerfully through Paul, comforting him in the midst of suffering, the Corinthians can see and learn and grow.
7 – If the Corinthians stay the course, their current sufferings of dysfunction will end in benefit as well.
8 – 10
Paul may be talking about the terrible ordeal he and his fellow workers had to undergo in Ephesus in Acts 19 . After three years of preaching and success a man named Demetrius, head of a guild that made silver shrines to the goddess Diana, created such a huge uproar that Paul would have been likely killed had his friends not kept him from going to the amphitheater.
What is interesting here is 1) Paul’s sense of being overwhelmed. Now, if you are the Apostle Paul aren’t you supposed to be in total control and composure in every situation? No. God often brings us to places where we can’t handle it—and that’s the idea, to force trust on God in situations beyond our ability to control or handle. 2) Notice that he says “we personally had a death sentence within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises from the dead” (verse 9).
Some suggest that Paul was in jail and actually sentenced to death. This might be so but I want to posit another suggestion—that Paul is saying “we were as good as dead.” Paul gave up on even worrying about whether he was going to remain humanly alive and entrusted himself into God’s hands who raises people from the dead.
It reminds me of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3 who said (17) If the God we serve exists, then He can rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and He can rescue us from the power of you, the king. But even if He does not rescue us, we want you as king to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up.”
It is a true sign of maturity when someone is not afraid of death, and knows that even if God allows them to die, they are still in His hands.
11
What a wonderful verse. Though the Corinthians were a long way from Ephesus and Paul’s troubles, it is not too far away for prayer to make a difference. He describes it in two ways: 1. It is a joining together. When we pray, God allows us to do work regardless of distance and circumstance. You can pray for people you have never met and are joining them in the work of the Spirit. 2. It is a gift. We don’t really understand the power of prayer or why exactly God wants us to pray. But it truly is a gift that is more valuable often than money or effort.
Conclusions�
Suffering is normal for a Christian
If you are simply reaping consequences for your own failures, don’t act like you are suffering for God
1 Peter 2:20 For what credit is there if you endure when you sin and are beaten? But when you do good and suffer, if you endure, it brings favor with God.
Look for the comfort (encouragement, endurance) in, not the escape from suffering
If the suffering is so bad you give up a hold on to something in this life, that’s not a bad thing (9 – 10)
If you want to make a difference in someone else’s suffering, pray for them!
Are you a comfort receiver – a comfort giver?
Sometimes we play the martyr and won’t receive comfort from God in affliction because we feel like we don’t deserve it. First of all, you don’t deserve it but since it is through God’s mercy (vs 30, receiving it is doing God’s will. Second, if you can’t receive comfort for yourself, how about so that you can be a vessel of comfort and encouragement to someone else?
Let your life be broken so God can pour out through the cracks.
