"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works!" (I Corinthians 3:16-17, KJV) The Phillips translation puts it this way: "All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching the faith and correcting error, for resetting the direction of a man's life and training him in good living! The Scriptures are the comprehensive equipment of the man of God, and fit him fully for all branches of his work!"
"Sola scriptura"! That was the rallying call for the Protestant Reformation! Declaring, without any reservation, that the Word of God, not church tradition, is the ultimate and only infallible authority for the Christian faith! The apostle Paul would, I'm sure, give a hearty "amen" to that declaration, and that's the reason why we, as "men of the Bible," study the Bible and meet together to share what we have learned! And why we have met together over the past nine months, specifically, to study and share the "epistle" of I Corinthians!
And why I Corinthians? I'll give you the same answer I gave back on September 4, 2024, when we first started our study: "What better book of the Bible to study--for such a time as this--than the book of I Corinthians which was written by the apostle Paul to the church which is at Corinth, specifically to address various questions raised by the Corinthians, and concerns the apostle Paul himself had for believers in the "problem-steeped church" of Corinth, which required 'reproof and correction,' and with "admonitions" that would prove useful for the Corinthians, to train them in how to live--and help them grow in their faith! Some of the same questions and issues which have confronted and challenged believers, and the Christian church down through the ages, and which are just as relevant, and even more so, for consideration by believers, and the Christian church, in our day"!
The apostle Paul says (in I Corinthians 4:14) that he wrote to the Corinthian believers, "not to shame them. but to admonish them as his beloved children"! He became, in essence, their "spiritual father through the gospel" and (like a good father!) "exhorted them to imitate him, as he imitated Christ"! He didn't "come down with a hammer," but came "along side them," as a fellow believer, with love, to encourage them, to "beseech" them, to appeal to them, and first to all, he said (in 1:10), that "there would be no divisions among them, but that they would be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment"! Just as he wrote to the Ephesians (in Ephesians 4:1-3), "Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace!" And to the Philippians (in Philippians 1:17) that they "conduct themselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ...and stand firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel"!
Interestingly, Paul began and ended his epistle to the Corinthians on a note of "grace"! In 1:3, he wrote, "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!" And he ended it (in 16:23) with, "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all!" The "unmerited favor" He provided us by sending His Son! In Ephesians 2:8-9, he wrote, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not the result of works, so that no one may boast"! God's amazing grace! "Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that is greater than all our sin!"
Isn't it so amazing how God would use a "Damascus-road experience" to turn around the whole life of a man once named Saul, and make him a "new creation" in Christ--a man who once persecuted Christian, to be totally transformed and truly equipped for every good work"! II Corinthians 5:17 (also written by the man now called Paul, speaking from experience), "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature! Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new!" And that the message (or the word) of the cross, "which is foolishness to those who are perishing (as it once was to him!), but to unto us who are saved, it is the power of God!" And from then on, he "determined to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (as he wrote in 2:2)! And he goes on to tell the Corinthians (in chapter 15) that he was "delivering to them," something "of first importance, that he had received (from God!)"--the simple basic "gospel which he said the Corinthians "had received, in which they also stood, and by which they were saved...that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried and that He was raised the third day according to the Scriptures"! Echoing the words and promises of John 3:16 which is simple (and yet so profound!) for even a child to understand and, by it, to become a "child of God"!
"And now" (he writes (in 3:12-16) "we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God...which the natural man cannot understand, because they are spiritually appraised"! And, in I Corinthians 6:19-20 that, as new-born believers, our "bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in us, whom we have from God, and that we are no longer our own, for we have been bought with a price"! And we are "therefore to glorify God in our bodies"! And in that same sense, he says we are to "flee fornication... and that our bodies are not for immorality, but for the Lord!" But he has more to say, in other writings, about how we should treat our bodies! In Romans 12:1-2, he urges us "by the mercies of God, to present our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which (he says) is our reasonable service...and not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we may be able to prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect!" But there's more! In Romans 8:23 he notes how "all creation groans and suffers the pains of childhood until now...and that even we groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies"! Philippians 3:20-23 says, "...eagerly waiting for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself!" Whew!
But what about this life?
Paul come "back to earth" by addressing the marriage relationship in I Corinthians 7, making it clear that marriage is between a man and a woman only, and that "each man is to have his own wife, and each woman her own husband;" and that "a wife should not leave her husband (but if she does, to remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband")! And that a husband should not divorce his wife"! And that it's all about 'til death do us part"! (Paul would later write in Ephesians 5:22-28, that "wives ought to be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord...and that husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her, so that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she might be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their wives as their own bodies...!")
Chapter 8 says we should take care that "the liberty we have in Christ" doesn't become "a stumbling block to a weaker brother"! In chapter 9, Paul testifies that "he has become all things to all men, so that he might by all means save some"! And he likens the Christian life to one who competes in the Olympic games, and so encourages us to "run our race in this life in such a way that we may win, "and to exercise self-control," and to "discipline our bodies so that we won't be disqualified"!
In chapter 10, he tells us to "take heed so that we don't fall, and assures us that "no temptation will overtake us but such as is common to man, and that God is faithful not to allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear, but will with the temptation make a way of escape also, that we may be able to endure it! What a promise!
And, in chapter 11, he gives something important "to do in remembrance of Him"! The Lord's Supper! Paul writes, in verses 23-26, "For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus Christ in the night in which He was also betrayed, took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, 'This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me." In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink of it, in remembrance of Me.' For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes!" (And he warned us "to examine ourselves" before partaking, "so that we won't be judged"!)
In chapter 12, Paul notes that, as Christians, "each one of us has been given a manifestation of the Spirit (a spiritual gift!), for the common good...to each one individually just as He wills...and that we all have been baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we are all made to drink of one Spirit...and that if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it!" (And so, he seems to be asking, "whether we too have discovered our spiritual gift?")
Then, I Corinthians 13! One of the greatest chapters in the Bible! All about "love"! The "agape love" that only can come from God! And he begins with the bottom line! "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing!" Nothing! Wow! But he's not done! And so, in 11, he continues, "Pursue love!" And Peter adds (in I Peter 4:8), "Above all! Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins! Remember how Rod noted how it's a "beautiful softening principle, and MacArthur adds that "it balances everything else we do"! (We're reminded, again (!) of the love of God, and of the words to that great old hymn, "O love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong! It shall forever more endure, the saints and angels song!")
I Corinthians 14 goes on to address the controversial topic of "speaking in tongues" (not "known tongues," or other languages, which God gave to the saints, in Acts 2, on the day of Pentecost with the start of the church, but to the unknown "gibberish," practiced by the pagans)! Paul sums it up by saying, in verse 19, that he'd "rather speak five words with his mind so that he might instruct others also, that ten thousand words in a tongue (basically with a bunch of gibberish), which can only drive people away from the church! His main concern, he says, is that "all things be done decently and in order, and for edification"! And that if someone wants to speak in an "unknown tongue" in the church (and, particularly, if no one is present to interpret the tongue), it's best for that person to "keep silent"!
Then, I Corinthians 15, and another one of the greatest chapters in the Bible, where the apostle Paul gives indisputable evidence of the resurrection of Christ and the assurance that we too will be raised one day to spend eternity in heaven! "If Christ has not been raised, and if our hope in Christ is in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied"! But he continues, in 16;1, "But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of those who are asleep"! Hallelujah! He is risen! This, the "blessed hope" for all believers! The "centerpiece" of our Christian faith! We too shall live! And it makes me want to sing again! "O the wonder of it all, the wonder of it all; just to think that God loves me!"
But Paul then closes out his great epistle, recognizing that "until that day," the Corinthians, and all of us, need to live in this fallen world! And so, in I Corinthians 16, he gives them, and us, some final words to live by! Five imperatives, or "take-aways," which MacArthur calls "principles for powerful living" (and which we discussed last night, in greater detail, in our closing lesson for our study of I Corinthians, and which apply to every believer in the church age--"until He comes"! And they're worth repeating again, and taking with us! "Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong! And let all that you do be done in love!"
And how about a fitting final song, which I'm sure the apostle Paul would gladly sing along with us! "Because He lives!" "Because He lives, I can face tomorrow; because He lives, all fear is gone; because I know, I know, He holds the future, and life is worth the living, just because He lives!"
May God be with you all, 'til we meet again"!
Maranatha!
Lowell
"Sola scriptura"! That was the rallying call for the Protestant Reformation! Declaring, without any reservation, that the Word of God, not church tradition, is the ultimate and only infallible authority for the Christian faith! The apostle Paul would, I'm sure, give a hearty "amen" to that declaration, and that's the reason why we, as "men of the Bible," study the Bible and meet together to share what we have learned! And why we have met together over the past nine months, specifically, to study and share the "epistle" of I Corinthians!
And why I Corinthians? I'll give you the same answer I gave back on September 4, 2024, when we first started our study: "What better book of the Bible to study--for such a time as this--than the book of I Corinthians which was written by the apostle Paul to the church which is at Corinth, specifically to address various questions raised by the Corinthians, and concerns the apostle Paul himself had for believers in the "problem-steeped church" of Corinth, which required 'reproof and correction,' and with "admonitions" that would prove useful for the Corinthians, to train them in how to live--and help them grow in their faith! Some of the same questions and issues which have confronted and challenged believers, and the Christian church down through the ages, and which are just as relevant, and even more so, for consideration by believers, and the Christian church, in our day"!
The apostle Paul says (in I Corinthians 4:14) that he wrote to the Corinthian believers, "not to shame them. but to admonish them as his beloved children"! He became, in essence, their "spiritual father through the gospel" and (like a good father!) "exhorted them to imitate him, as he imitated Christ"! He didn't "come down with a hammer," but came "along side them," as a fellow believer, with love, to encourage them, to "beseech" them, to appeal to them, and first to all, he said (in 1:10), that "there would be no divisions among them, but that they would be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment"! Just as he wrote to the Ephesians (in Ephesians 4:1-3), "Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace!" And to the Philippians (in Philippians 1:17) that they "conduct themselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ...and stand firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel"!
Interestingly, Paul began and ended his epistle to the Corinthians on a note of "grace"! In 1:3, he wrote, "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!" And he ended it (in 16:23) with, "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all!" The "unmerited favor" He provided us by sending His Son! In Ephesians 2:8-9, he wrote, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not the result of works, so that no one may boast"! God's amazing grace! "Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that is greater than all our sin!"
Isn't it so amazing how God would use a "Damascus-road experience" to turn around the whole life of a man once named Saul, and make him a "new creation" in Christ--a man who once persecuted Christian, to be totally transformed and truly equipped for every good work"! II Corinthians 5:17 (also written by the man now called Paul, speaking from experience), "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature! Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new!" And that the message (or the word) of the cross, "which is foolishness to those who are perishing (as it once was to him!), but to unto us who are saved, it is the power of God!" And from then on, he "determined to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (as he wrote in 2:2)! And he goes on to tell the Corinthians (in chapter 15) that he was "delivering to them," something "of first importance, that he had received (from God!)"--the simple basic "gospel which he said the Corinthians "had received, in which they also stood, and by which they were saved...that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried and that He was raised the third day according to the Scriptures"! Echoing the words and promises of John 3:16 which is simple (and yet so profound!) for even a child to understand and, by it, to become a "child of God"!
"And now" (he writes (in 3:12-16) "we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God...which the natural man cannot understand, because they are spiritually appraised"! And, in I Corinthians 6:19-20 that, as new-born believers, our "bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in us, whom we have from God, and that we are no longer our own, for we have been bought with a price"! And we are "therefore to glorify God in our bodies"! And in that same sense, he says we are to "flee fornication... and that our bodies are not for immorality, but for the Lord!" But he has more to say, in other writings, about how we should treat our bodies! In Romans 12:1-2, he urges us "by the mercies of God, to present our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which (he says) is our reasonable service...and not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we may be able to prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect!" But there's more! In Romans 8:23 he notes how "all creation groans and suffers the pains of childhood until now...and that even we groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies"! Philippians 3:20-23 says, "...eagerly waiting for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself!" Whew!
But what about this life?
Paul come "back to earth" by addressing the marriage relationship in I Corinthians 7, making it clear that marriage is between a man and a woman only, and that "each man is to have his own wife, and each woman her own husband;" and that "a wife should not leave her husband (but if she does, to remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband")! And that a husband should not divorce his wife"! And that it's all about 'til death do us part"! (Paul would later write in Ephesians 5:22-28, that "wives ought to be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord...and that husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her, so that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she might be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their wives as their own bodies...!")
Chapter 8 says we should take care that "the liberty we have in Christ" doesn't become "a stumbling block to a weaker brother"! In chapter 9, Paul testifies that "he has become all things to all men, so that he might by all means save some"! And he likens the Christian life to one who competes in the Olympic games, and so encourages us to "run our race in this life in such a way that we may win, "and to exercise self-control," and to "discipline our bodies so that we won't be disqualified"!
In chapter 10, he tells us to "take heed so that we don't fall, and assures us that "no temptation will overtake us but such as is common to man, and that God is faithful not to allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear, but will with the temptation make a way of escape also, that we may be able to endure it! What a promise!
And, in chapter 11, he gives something important "to do in remembrance of Him"! The Lord's Supper! Paul writes, in verses 23-26, "For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus Christ in the night in which He was also betrayed, took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, 'This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me." In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink of it, in remembrance of Me.' For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes!" (And he warned us "to examine ourselves" before partaking, "so that we won't be judged"!)
In chapter 12, Paul notes that, as Christians, "each one of us has been given a manifestation of the Spirit (a spiritual gift!), for the common good...to each one individually just as He wills...and that we all have been baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we are all made to drink of one Spirit...and that if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it!" (And so, he seems to be asking, "whether we too have discovered our spiritual gift?")
Then, I Corinthians 13! One of the greatest chapters in the Bible! All about "love"! The "agape love" that only can come from God! And he begins with the bottom line! "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing!" Nothing! Wow! But he's not done! And so, in 11, he continues, "Pursue love!" And Peter adds (in I Peter 4:8), "Above all! Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins! Remember how Rod noted how it's a "beautiful softening principle, and MacArthur adds that "it balances everything else we do"! (We're reminded, again (!) of the love of God, and of the words to that great old hymn, "O love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong! It shall forever more endure, the saints and angels song!")
I Corinthians 14 goes on to address the controversial topic of "speaking in tongues" (not "known tongues," or other languages, which God gave to the saints, in Acts 2, on the day of Pentecost with the start of the church, but to the unknown "gibberish," practiced by the pagans)! Paul sums it up by saying, in verse 19, that he'd "rather speak five words with his mind so that he might instruct others also, that ten thousand words in a tongue (basically with a bunch of gibberish), which can only drive people away from the church! His main concern, he says, is that "all things be done decently and in order, and for edification"! And that if someone wants to speak in an "unknown tongue" in the church (and, particularly, if no one is present to interpret the tongue), it's best for that person to "keep silent"!
Then, I Corinthians 15, and another one of the greatest chapters in the Bible, where the apostle Paul gives indisputable evidence of the resurrection of Christ and the assurance that we too will be raised one day to spend eternity in heaven! "If Christ has not been raised, and if our hope in Christ is in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied"! But he continues, in 16;1, "But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of those who are asleep"! Hallelujah! He is risen! This, the "blessed hope" for all believers! The "centerpiece" of our Christian faith! We too shall live! And it makes me want to sing again! "O the wonder of it all, the wonder of it all; just to think that God loves me!"
But Paul then closes out his great epistle, recognizing that "until that day," the Corinthians, and all of us, need to live in this fallen world! And so, in I Corinthians 16, he gives them, and us, some final words to live by! Five imperatives, or "take-aways," which MacArthur calls "principles for powerful living" (and which we discussed last night, in greater detail, in our closing lesson for our study of I Corinthians, and which apply to every believer in the church age--"until He comes"! And they're worth repeating again, and taking with us! "Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong! And let all that you do be done in love!"
And how about a fitting final song, which I'm sure the apostle Paul would gladly sing along with us! "Because He lives!" "Because He lives, I can face tomorrow; because He lives, all fear is gone; because I know, I know, He holds the future, and life is worth the living, just because He lives!"
May God be with you all, 'til we meet again"!
Maranatha!
Lowell
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