What's Our Problem
1 Corinthians Message Notes- Preview
Imagine you are trying to build a house and you have decided to save some money and be the general contractor yourself. In most cases, the first thing that needs to be done on a clear plot of land is that a hole needs to be dug in order to lay concrete for a foundation. Now, imagine, as a newly self-appointed general contractor (again to save money) you hire two separate crews to begin the process. One for the original dig, and one to lay the concrete and footings for the foundation itself (you are very clever and saved $1000). Now, let’s say that each of these contractors has a different idea of what a line is. Both ideas about a line approached the actual definition of a line, but neither was exactly a line. You can imagine, that these two crews, despite both of them being wrong and completely convinced of their definition of a straight line; would not take long to deeply hate each other.
You now have a strangely shaped hole in the ground, a wasted truck of concrete (it sat too long and cured in the truck and not under your future dream home) and a loss much greater than your savings…you decide to give up your short stint as a general contractor, and hire one.
You meet with him and a wave of anxiety leaves you as he describes a very solid, reality based, mathematically proven version of what a straight line is…and happens to know enough sub-contractors that agree with him to get the job done.
You can finally start dreaming of your home with walls that stand up straight, plumbing that actually reaches the septic, ceilings that don’t collapse on your family, and doors that actually open and close.
This is what 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 is about.
Before we tackle: division, spiritual gifts, meat sacrificed to idols (spiritual liberty), lawsuits, sexual immorality, marriage, leader worship or schism, communion, order of service, prophecy, tongues, love, christian maturity, generosity, spiritual authority…
We must first find out what a straight line is. What do we lay all these things next to in order to determine if we are in fact correct or not?
The answer of course, is Christ himself.
The greeting in 1 Corinthians is not an accident or something to get through before we start solving the real problems in the church. The REAL problem is in fact a badly bent Christology. Therefore until this is laid as a foundation for the rest of the letter; the problems within the church simply cannot be solved.
The core issue at Corinth was not the blatant sin and division that it is so famous for; it is that they needed to be reminded of who Jesus is. The introduction of the letter does not so much introduce Paul, as it reintroduces Jesus to the church at Corinth.
We have to remember that Paul is RESPONDING to a letter, or report that he received regarding what is happening in the church. Upon hearing the report, being the brilliant teacher that he is, he addresses first principles.
There is no use arguing, correcting, or splitting hairs over anything in the church until Christ is in His proper place. Rather, you may find yourself arguing and divided over something that is not the church at all. Without the head, there is no body.
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I want to suggest to you today that most of the problems the church faces today are actually not the problems the church is facing.
I will go so far as to say most of the problems you are facing within the church or outside of its sphere of influence are NOT the problem.
The issue is an issue of first and only.
Your problems mostly arise from the fact that you have no idea what a straight line is. There certainly is a definition for a line, in fact the idea of a perfect line must be rooted in God anyway. Nothing we have seen or experienced in this life is in fact perfect, yet the idea of perfection persists like a lost dream in the heart of every human. That is the image of God in us, or the desire for the Eternal God placed in us from the beginning.
We “compare ourselves against ourselves” and end up more crooked than when we started.
You can never use a cut piece of lumber in order to measure our next cut or we will always come up short.
You CANNOT use the created thing as a measure for another created thing. You need the RULER. A standard of measure that sits above the measured thing itself.
This is where _AUTHOR-ity _comes from_. Isn’t entomology FUN?!?
