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FIRST LETTER (1 Corinthians.)
Chapter 1
This letter comes to you from Paul. Sonny, my friend and yours, is helping
me to write it. God has asked me to spread the Good News about Jesus. Those
of you who are God's friends in the city of Corinth are very special people
because you have come under the influence of Jesus. Everyone is special who
uses the name of Jesus in worship and, like us, accepts him as their Leader,
wherever they happen to live. We want to pass on to you the goodness and
peace we've got from the Loving God and Jesus.
I’m always saying 'thankyou' to God for the goodness you've got from Jesus.
You are much better people because of him. Your knowledge is wider and you
express yourselves more freely. You have made the truth you've heard about
God's Chosen your inner strength. That's why you've had all the gifts on
offer from God, and you can't wait to see Jesus himself. He will keep you
going so that on that day you won't have anything to be ashamed of. God can
always be trusted. It was God who invited you into the community of God's
True Likeness.
(10) Please dear friends, stop falling out among yourselves, and learn to
get on with one another. I know this is what Jesus would want me to say. You
all have the same aims, so you should be able to come to a common mind. The
group who meet in Chloe's house have told me that you are squabbling. It
seems you have adopted labels. Some of you say, "I'm for Paul" or "I'm for
Rocky" or "I'm for Ray" or "I'm a real Christian - I belong to Jesus." Do
you think you’re behaving like Jesus if you cut off yourselves from others?
Was Paul hung on a cross for you? Was the name of Paul used when you were
dipped? Thank God, I didn't dip any of you, except Cris and Guss. So no one
can say you were dipped as my followers. O yes, I've just remembered, I did
dip the people who live in Steve's house. I can't think of anybody else.
Jesus didn't ask me to dip people. He asked me to pass on the Good News.
I know I'm not the best of speakers or good at arguing the case. That means
it's not me but the message about Jesus on his cross that gets the results!
(18) The message about Jesus on his cross is meaningless to those who are
going nowhere. But to those of us who are on the path to completeness, it
shows how resourceful God is. It says in one of the old books,
‘I’ll make the clever look a fool,
And the scholar dim.’
The reputation of society’s brilliant thinkers has vanished overnight. God
has made them all look silly. God has outwitted those who set store by their
intelligence, by ruling out intelligence as the means of discovering God.
Instead God has chosen to give life to those who accept what seems to be a
foolish tale. Those of the Jewish religion always want clear proof before
they believe in anything, whereas the Greek thinkers try to work out a
system of belief by using their minds. But we talk about God's Chosen on a
cross. That's the opposite of the proof the Jews are looking for, and an
insult to the intelligence of the Greeks. But to God's friends, whether Jews
or Greeks, it's God's stroke of genius. God playing the fool outwits the
highest human mind, and God becoming weak defeats the greatest human
strength.
Just think, sisters and brothers, what sort of people you were before you
became the friends of God. Not many of you were intelligent as society rates
intelligence; not many of you were people of influence; not many of you were
from the ruling classes. God chose the simple in the community to make fools
of the clever; God chose the weak of the world to bring the strong to their
knees; God chose the failures and outcasts of society, people regarded as
nobodies, to bring the accepted order crashing to the ground. No one can
show off in front of God. God has given you Jesus as your friend. He’s God's
bright idea. He restores our relationship with God and gives us status and
freedom. So, as the old book says, “If you must show off, let people know
what God has done for you.”
Chapter 2
When I came to see you, friends, I didn't make a mystery of God's truth by
using big words or clever talk. I kept to the simple story of Jesus hung on
a cross. I was not well at the time and so nervous, I couldn't stop shaking.
My words were so poor, their success was sure proof of the work of the
Spirit. This means your trust in the message wasn't based on skilful
argument, but on God's power. The Christian message does have an appeal to
those who think deeply about things. But it doesn't fit the thinking of
today's leading authorities. They’ll soon count for nothing. We speak God's
mind, which until now has been hidden. Long before history began, God was
planning great things for us. Those in government haven't been in tune with
God's mind, otherwise they wouldn't have put the one who rules over
everything on a cross. One of the old books says something like this,
‘For God’s lovers are prepared
Experiences rare;
Eye not seen, ear not heard,
Way beyond compare.’
(10) We have an insight into these things by means of the Spirit. The Spirit
gets to the bottom of everything, even the mind of God. Just as you're the
only one who knows what you're thinking, so only God's Spirit knows what God
is thinking. We don't have knowledge of things in the conventional way. Our
knowledge comes from God's Spirit inside us. This means we have a special
appreciation of all the other things that come from God. We use words
different from the world's great thinkers. We use words we're given by the
Spirit that can be understood by people who have the Spirit.
If you don't have the Spirit, you can't receive the special gifts she
brings. You can't appreciate their value because they don't make sense.
Those who have the Spirit appreciate the true value of everything. They
don't need someone else to put them right. Who knows what God is thinking?
Who has ever been in a position to give God advice? Jesus gives us a window
into God's mind.
Chapter 3
Friends, I had difficulty in knowing how to talk to you. You seemed not to
have been affected by the Spirit. Your way of talking was crude. Compared
with Jesus, you were children at the nursery stage. You still needed breast
feeding; you weren't ready for solids. You're not ready yet! You're still
squabbling over your toys and competing for attention. When are you going to
grow up? Those rival fan clubs of yours, "I'm in Paul's gang!" or "I'm in
Ray's gang!", just show how immature you are! What's so big about Ray or
Paul? We’re only helpers, doing the job God has given us. I put the plants
in their pots, and Ray came along with the watering can. It was God who got
the plants to grow. The one who pots, and the one who waters, are nothing
compared with the gardener who produces the plants. Planting and watering
are all part of the process, and those of us who do these elementary tasks
get paid for it. We’re expected to work as a team in the potting shed.
You're God's potting shed!
(10) Or you can think of yourselves as a building. God gave me the task of
setting the foundation . Now someone else is laying the bricks. The
bricklayer must be careful to build up from the foundation already in place.
No one should try to replace it with another. The foundation is Jesus, God's
Chosen. A variety of materials can be used on top of a foundation, gold,
silver, rare stone, wood or thatch. Some materials will stand the test of
time better than others. A big fire will reveal the quality of the work. If
the building survives, the builder will get a good name. If it's destroyed
by fire, the builder's work will be in ruins. Even though there's no penalty
for shoddy work, the builder's reputation will suffer. You’re like a
building that stands to remind people of God. God's Spirit lives in you. God
will deal severely with anyone who does you harm. You're special because you
are where God lives.
(18) Don't kid yourselves. The worst fools are those who think they know it
all. If you really want to become wise, start by looking upon yourselves as
fools. All the wisdom of our civilisation put together is foolish to God's
way of thinking. Two quotations will make my point,
‘God confounds the boffins
Despite their clever wafflings'
and,
‘For all your craft,
God thinks you daft.’
So please don't put any of us on a pedestal. We don't own you; you own us,
Paul, Ray and Rocky. Everything belongs to you now, the world, life and
death, the present and the future. Only, don't forget, you belong to Jesus,
which means that, like him, you belong to God.
Chapter 4
Here is another way of thinking about us. We’re in the employment of Jesus,
as God's private secretaries. The chief requirement is that we can be
trusted with confidences. I don't have to answer to you or anyone else apart
from God. I think I'm doing alright, but it's not for me to say. It's the
Leader who makes the assessment. You musn't jump to conclusions. Stand by
for the Leader's report. It will be fully comprehensive and very revealing.
We all have to wait till then for God's pat on the back.
I've been using pictures to describe the work Ray and I've been doing. I'm
sure I speak for both of us when I say we hope you will come to order and do
away with the fan clubs. You must not use your enthusiasm for either of us
as the means of giving you a sense of importance. None of you is anything
special over against anyone else. Anything you possess has been passed on to
you. It's not right to be so cocky about something you've got from others.
You acknowledge no help from us. The way you behave, anyone would think
you'd come into some money, or joined the aristocracy. If that were the
case, you could share your good fortune with us! It seems to me that, as
God's workers, we are right at the bottom of the social scale, on a level
with criminals sentenced to death. We're on show for high and low to laugh
at. A good name for us would be "The Jesus Fools". You, on the other hand,
are such clever Christians! We are weak, but you are strong! You are the
important ones, and we are a joke! At this very moment we're hungry and
thirsty; our clothes are shabby; we have bruises from being knocked about;
we don't know where we're going to sleep tonight; and we're aching all over
from our hard work. Yet when people throw insults at us, we wish them well;
when they do everything they can to make life difficult for us, we put up
with it; when they call us names, we respond politely. We're treated like
rubbish waiting to be disposed of.
I'm not writing this to make you ashamed of yourselves. I'm talking to you
as members of my family. I’m telling you how it is. Although there are many
other Christian teachers to give you good advice, not many of them have the
same close relationship with you as I do. Because I was the first to give
you the good news, I'm like a parent to you, and recognized by Jesus as
such. So please, try and do things my way. That’s why I've sent Timothy to
you. I love him dearly; he's been like a son to me. He will take you back to
the type of Christianity I teach in all the churches I visit.
Some of you are getting a bit above yourselves. That's because you think I'm
not coming to Corinth. Well, let me tell you, I'm on my way, if it's okay
with the Leader. Then we shall see whether you self-important ones are as
big as your talk! It's what you get done, not what you say that matters in
God's New World! It's up to you. Do you want me to use the big stick? Or
will you have calmed down enough for me to use the way of love?
Chapter 5
It has been reported to me from a reliable source that some of you are
behaving badly in the matter of personal relationships, worse indeed than
anything people who are not Christians get up to. Someone is fooling around
with his stepmother! And you just shrug your shoulders! You should be
ashamed of yourselves. Why hasn't the offender been asked to leave the
group?
It makes no difference that I'm not there with you to give my opinion. I can
exercise my influence from a distance. On behalf of Jesus, our Leader, I
have already pronounced this man guilty for behaving so badly. Next time you
meet, you're to act as if I were there, with the strength I have from Jesus.
You must declare this man to be a danger to the community until his urges
have been controlled. Only then can he be fit to meet with Jesus.
Don’t be so sure of yourselves! Just as a bit of yeast makes the bread rise,
so a few people can make a difference to the quality of life. You must try
to be a healthy influence in your community, not a bad influence. Jesus
invites us to celebrate in the presence of God. Let's have a great party,
with good food and pleasant company!
Remember I wrote to you before, telling you not to mix with bad people.
Please don't misunderstand me. I did not mean the bad people you meet in the
street, people who are out for themselves, people who cheat, people who put
other things in the place of God. You could only avoid them by cutting
yourselves off from society altogether. I want to make it clear, I was
talking about being friendly to Christians who are irresponsible or pursue
their own goals - greedy, gossipy, drinkers, frauds. Don't express your
friendship by having a meal with them. What people who are not Christians do
is not for us to judge. (God will decide what to do about those who are not
Christians.) But we have a duty to assess the behaviour of members of our
Christian family. So, GET RID OF THAT WICKED MAN!!
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