Category: commentary

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All Things to All People for the Sake of the Gospel

To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

1 Corinthians 9:20-23

Paul was a Jew. To remain there would have been more comfortable. It would have been familiar. But, Paul knew he had a call from God to reach out beyond the community with which he identified. After encountering Jesus on the road to Damascus, he was given a new mission. Paul was going to reach out to non-Jews, the Gentiles, to bring to them the good news of Jesus Christ.

He didn’t leave behind his Jewish brothers and sisters. He still appeared in the synagogues teaching, he still taught from the scriptures of what we now call the Old Testament, and he did all he could in order to “win Jews.”

But he worked hard to be able to build a bridge to another group of people. He needed to learn a new language and interact with a new culture. Paul worked tirelessly in following his calling to reach the Gentiles. And he does it all for the sake of the gospel.

Can you imagine putting in the the time it takes to learn a new language in order to follow the call of God in your life? Or how about giving up whatever strength we have in order to meet people in their weakness? He does it all to better reach them with the gospel.

This pattern that Paul follows is the one set forth by Jesus Christ. God came to humanity and became human. Jesus took on flesh, lived a life just us, endured temptation, humbled himself, faced persecution, and he did it all so that he may make for himself a people.

What do we give up to identify with someone God is calling us to serve? What are we willing to change? Is the goal of bringing the gospel to more people so captivating that we’d even consider changing?

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Racing In Order to Receive the Prize

Memory Verse 1 Cor 9.24

Paul loves his illustrations and sports are metaphors are not under-represented. Here in 1 Corinthians 9:24 he talks about runners. Running is a sport that I just don’t get. I see running as a means to an end, such as running in order to get to a soccer ball. But my personal opinion aside, running certainly has its fans and it most certainly has an ancient history.

Running is not just something you can do without any work involved. Paul’s audience knew how athletes, even ones with natural gifts, had to train themselves. If you were to enter a race, you prepare for it and put your body through intense workouts. That is Paul’s image here, but he of course, is alluding to something greater than a race. Nonetheless, that image is powerful and deserving of some thoughtful meditation and even memorization.

What race is God calling us to? What does it mean for a Christian to hit the gym in preparation for God’s work?

Memory Verse 1 Corinthians 9:24 for iPhone

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Jesus, the one who gave up his rights for us

Let’s not lose sight of Jesus in all this talk of Christian freedom and responsibility. Paul has spoken of how we should use our freedom and knowledge to love our brothers and sisters, and at times this leads us to sacrifice our rights.

With this discussion going on, how can we not look to Jesus who has done this for us?

There is one example that overshadows all others when we think of one who gave up his rights in order to love. And he did so to love a bunch of sinners.

Jesus Christ is the only perfect one. He is the only one who lived without fault, without transgression, but the people turned on him. The powers of this world sought to accuse him of wrongdoings. But the innocent one kept silent. The one who is the true judge allowed himself to be judged by sinners.

They took Christ to the cross and Jesus was tempted to call upon his rights. They mocked him saying that if he were really the Son of God, he’d come down from that cross.

But the Son of God, whose right it would be to show his power and judge the world, showed us that he is one who would forgo his right in order to love. Jesus, the strong and faithful, loved his weaker brothers and sisters by giving up his rights, and dying in our place. The strong took the place of the weak.*

*Quote taken from my sermon this last Sunday. Redundancy is the key to learning, right?

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Should Paul Get Paid for the Work that He Does?

Paul appears to open this ninth chapter defending his standing as an apostle, citing his encounter with Jesus in Acts 9 and the work that God is doing through him in this church in Corinth. As an apostle Paul has certain rights. This theme of rights carries us from chapter eight and the discussion of food offered to idols, where the right was to eat meat. Here the right of Paul, as an apostle, is to be able to earn a living from his preaching of the gospel.

He makes his argument via parable (soldier, shepherd, thresher) about those whose work provides for them, and he then makes arguments from scripture about an ox that is not muzzled when treading grain. More than the ox, Paul says God is concerned with us. 1 Corinthians 9:9b-10 says, “Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not certainly speak for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop.” Paul concludes that those who work for the gospel have a right to earn a living off of that work.

As much as Paul argues for his right, he then turns around and says he has not made use of his right. Why? He wants to present the gospel free of charge. He doesn’t want to put any obstacle in the way of their hearing the good news of Jesus Christ. It is another example of sacrificing a right in order to do something greater.

When I gathered to study this chapter this morning, I wanted to talk about the pros and cons of supporting those who preach the gospel. I myself am blessed to be financially supported as a pastor. So perhaps I’d be biased in arguing for that practice. But I think there can be great advantages to earning your pay somewhere else. For one, the temptation of money that we are taught of in much of the Bible doesn’t factor into the equation. You serve Christ not for money, but for his glory alone. I’ve been especially challenged by this quote on that issue from Sir Robert L’Estrange, “He that serves God for money will serve the devil for better wages.”

I’d love to hear your thoughts on preachers being paid. Pros and cons. Advantages to being a “tentmaker” or being financially free to focus solely on the ministry? Thoughts?

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On Triggers that Cause Us to Stumble

This morning in a Bible study with some men someone spoke a bit about “triggers.” We’ve all got them, some sort of stimulus that can bring about a memory, an action, a feeling, etc. Sometimes they are good triggers, sometimes they are not. We can see this food that has been offered to idols in 1 Corinthians 8 as a sort of trigger. For those still struggling against their old ways and old life in which they worshipped false gods and took part not only in the feasting, but in all the activities of the temple, just seeing that meat may have triggered a whole wave of associations. NT Wright puts it like this in his commentary, “Paul for Everyone”:

They knew what went on there – the dark sense of mystery and fear, the sense that in feasting at the god’s table you were really eating and drinking the god himself, taking his life to be your own life; and then the drink, the sense of casting off moral restraint, the girls and boys waiting round the back to do whatever you wanted in return for a little extra payment to the god … And once you had shared in that dark but powerful world on a regular basis, perhaps for many years, it would be difficult, in your memory and imagination, to separate part of it from the whole thing. Now that you had become a Christian you would feel you had been rescued from the world of darkness and brought out into the light. True worship wasn’t like that; truly human living wasn’t like that. You had escaped. You were free.

Paul wants those who have the knowledge that leads them to be secure in whatever they eat to, in love, think first about their Christian brother or sister. If by eating meat sacrificed to idols or going to those temples to have a meal you cause you fellow believer to conjure up all these past experiences, is it really worth it? Of course not.

It’s important for us to know our own triggers, as well. It isn’t so that we can impose new rules and restrictions, setting up our own laws. It is so that we can protect ourselves and by setting up boundaries prevent falling back into sin. When we know our triggers we can prepare ourselves against temptation. The trigger can be even mundane things like, as I mentioned in this morning’s study, someone cutting you off on your way home from work. Let’s say you notice that when this happens you’re more likely to be rude and impatient to your spouse or roommate when you get home. If you are aware of this trigger and how it makes you anxious and a bit on the grumpy side, that will help you prepare yourself and cause you to say an extra prayer before you walk in the door for the help of the Spirit to give you the strength you need.

And when we are aware of our own triggers we can be much more understanding of others around us. Something that may have no affect on you may have a huge affect on someone else. If our goal is to build one another up that may mean that we forgo our rights and freedoms and instead seek to remove the stumbling blocks from our brother or sister’s path.

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Memory Verse for 1 Corinthians 8

This week’s memory verse, 1 Corinthians 8:6 is:

yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

In putting together a visualization, it didn’t come out as the most readable, but I think the flow of the text can help us remember the meaning. You can read the graphic left to right, as the verse is in the Bible, or you can follow the arrows and get a different ordering. If you do that you’d read something like, “All things are from the Father and through our Lord, Jesus Christ. We exist through through the Lord, Jesus Christ for the Father.”

1 Corinthians 8:6
1 Corinthians 8:6

I hope this helps. And as you work on memorizing this, think of how startling this would be for people to hear of Jesus Christ as one through whom are all things. Jesus didn’t just enter the scene on Christmas. He is one with the Father, co-eternal and who is before creation.

Memory Verse for 1 Corinthians 8 for iPhone

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NT Wright with Some Helpful Background on the Ancient World in 1 Corinthians 8

Ancient Temple at Corinth Engraving by William Miller

As you read chapter eight of 1 Corinthians, keep this short passage in mind. It is the opening two paragraphs from NT Wright’s commentary, Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians. As usual, Wright opens with a short anecdote that relates to the passage, in this case about food that is sacrificed to idols and just how prevalent this practice would have been. It provides background on the ancient world that will be helpful for this week’s Bible reading:

There is a restaurant in Rome which is built around the ruins of an old temple. Two of the pillars are still visible. The restaurant makes a feature of them, and is proud of the ancient origins of the building where they now serve excellent pasta, great local cuisine, and fine Italian wines.

But what people don’t normally realize is that in the ancient world the temples normally were the restaurants. Each town or city had plenty of shrines to local gods and goddesses, to the great divinities like Apollo or Venus, and, in Paul’s day, more and more to the Roman emperor and members of his family. And what people mostly did there was to come with animals for sacrifice. When the animal was killed, it would be cooked, and the family (depending on what sort of ritual it was) might have a meal with the meat as the centrepiece. But there was usually more meat than the worshippers could eat, and so other people would come to the temple and share in the food which had been offered to the god.”