Living Scripture Week 6 – 1 Corinthians 4 http://www.realchurch.org/wednesdaynight/ Week 6 10.16.2019 Welcome Worship w/Prayer Board Annc READ ALOUD: 1 Corinthians 4: Paul’s Relationship with the Corinthians 1 So look at Apollos and me as mere servants of Christ who have been put in charge of explaining God’s mysteries. 2 Now, a person who is put in charge as a manager must be faithful. 3 As for me, it matters very little how I might be evaluated by you or by any human authority. I don’t even trust my own judgment on this point. 4 My conscience is clear, but that doesn’t prove I’m right. It is the Lord himself who will examine me and decide. 5 So don’t make judgments about anyone ahead of time—before the Lord returns. For he will bring our darkest secrets to light and will reveal our private motives. Then God will give to each one whatever praise is due. 6 Dear brothers and sisters, I have used Apollos and myself to illustrate what I’ve been saying. If you pay attention to what I have quoted from the Scriptures, you won’t be proud of one of your leaders at the expense of another. 7 For what gives you the right to make such a judgment? What do you have that God hasn’t given you? And if everything you have is from God, why boast as though it were not a gift? 8 You think you already have everything you need. You think you are already rich. You have begun to reign in God’s kingdom without us! I wish you really were reigning already, for then we would be reigning with you. 9 Instead, I sometimes think God has put us apostles on display, like prisoners of war at the end of a victor’s parade, condemned to die. We have become a spectacle to the entire world—to people and angels alike. 10 Our dedication to Christ makes us look like fools, but you claim to be so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are so powerful! You are honored, but we are ridiculed. 11 Even now we go hungry and thirsty, and we don’t have enough clothes to keep warm. We are often beaten and have no home. 12 We work wearily with our own hands to earn our living. We bless those who curse us. We are patient with those who abuse us. 13 We appeal gently when evil things are said about us. Yet we are treated like the world’s garbage, like everybody’s trash—right up to the present moment. 14 I am not writing these things to shame you, but to warn you as my beloved children. 15 For even if you had ten thousand others to teach you about Christ, you have only one spiritual father. For I became your father in Christ Jesus when I preached the Good News to you. 16 So I urge you to imitate me. 17 That’s why I have sent Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord. He will remind you of how I follow Christ Jesus, just as I teach in all the churches wherever I go. 18 Some of you have become arrogant, thinking I will not visit you again. 19 But I will come—and soon—if the Lord lets me, and then I’ll find out whether these arrogant people just give pretentious speeches or whether they really have God’s power. 20 For the Kingdom of God is not just a lot of talk; it is living by God’s power. 21 Which do you choose? Should I come with a rod to punish you, or should I come with love and a gentle spirit? Living Scripture Week 6 – 1 Corinthians 4 http://www.realchurch.org/wednesdaynight/ The Corinthians believed they had it all together. Did they? NO Large Group Question 1: (scribe on the board) 4: 10a Our dedication to Christ makes us look like fools, but you claim to be so wise in Christ! What is the impact to the body when this attitude is around? When you are around people who act like they have it all together, what do you feel, what do you think, how does it make you want to respond? An atmosphere of inequality, greater than/lesser than, inferiority/superiority. At atmosphere where our humanity isn’t factored in & understood. The tyranny of perfectionism. The masks they hide behind perhaps OR the blindness of pride. READ: If Paul’s admonitions are followed, the party spirit that was dividing the church would evaporate, and the Corinthians could recover health as a part of the one body of Christ. This homily includes the following themes. 1. The wisdom of God is beyond the wisdom of this age. 2. One must “become a fool” to acquire such wisdom. 3. Boasting before God is not acceptable, because all we have comes to us as gifts. 4. Boasting about various leaders is meaningless. 5. The Christian must never go beyond Scripture. 6. All Christian leaders belong to all Christians, and all Christians belong to Christ in God. 7. Authentic Christian leaders are servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. 8. The Lord alone can judge others, because he alone knows the secrets of the heart. 9. Paul accepts the judgment of the Lord, but not the judgment of the Corinthians. 10. Lowliness is always an essential part of authentic Christian leadership. Large Group Question 2: What do you think ‘arriving’ or ‘having it all together’ looks like in the kingdom? Make a list. Compile their highlights on the board. o Look at what he tells the Philippians: The Priceless Value of Knowing Christ 3: 1 Whatever happens, my dear brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. I never get tired of telling you these things, and I do it to safeguard your faith. 2 Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved. 3 For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort, 4 though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could. Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more! 5 I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. 6 I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault. 7 I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. 8 Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ 9 and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. 10 I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11 so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead! Living Scripture Week 6 – 1 Corinthians 4 http://www.realchurch.org/wednesdaynight/ Pressing toward the Goal 12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. 13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. 15 Let all who are spiritually mature agree on these things. If you disagree on some point, I believe God will make it plain to you. 16 But we must hold on to the progress we have already made. 17 Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example. 18 For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth. 20 But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. 21 He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control. READ: The yawning void in the life of the Corinthian church was caused by the absence of love: ‘love is not puffed up’ (13:4). On the contrary, ‘love builds up’ (8:1), whereas ‘ “knowledge” puffs up’.