Category: Bible Studies

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 3:4

“For when one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ are you not mere human beings?” (1 Corinthians 3:4, NIV)

The Corinthians had slogans. One group said, “I follow Paul.” Another said, “I follow Apollos.” The Jerusalem Bible asks what could be more unspiritual than that. The Living Bible says it shows “how little you have grown in the Lord.” The Remedy, by Dr. Tim Jennings of Come and Reason Ministries, goes to the heart of it: the spirit of division and competition turns the mind away from Christ.

We are all to be followers of Christ.

That doesn’t mean we walk alone. The mature Christians are to stand as examples to those who have no idea what this life should look like, how we do our daily walk with the Lord. Seeing the Jesus in you will encourage those who are new to the faith to follow your example, the way a small child copies a parent, learning how and why life works as it does.

We are to follow the example of Christ shown us in our mentors and teachers. During our infancy in the faith, we have yet to connect directly with Christ. There is a time when it is healthy for a child to connect completely with the parent or caregiver. This is only for a short while, as the infant learns the ABCs of Love and can begin to express that healthy love to others.

A small child still needs a trusted parent to answer all the “why” questions. After the “why” age, they begin to express their own opinions, forming thoughts, not always correct ones, but they are thinking for themselves, putting facts together as they see them. Their vision is very narrow and concrete, so guidance is still needed. This is the age when many wise parents hand their kids the set of encyclopedias and say, “Look it up for yourself.” In the early teenage years, Christian parents introduce their children to Christ, supporting their growth as needed. By the time their brains mature in their early twenties, they are able to begin deciding the direction of their own lives.

Apply this to the newborn Christian. There will be a period of time when it is spiritually healthy to draw your understanding from your mentor, but the sooner you grow past this stage, the better. A good mentor will work from the beginning to connect you directly with Christ. As maturity comes, the need to draw support from a single mentor lessens as your ability to connect with Christ strengthens. You will find your answers coming from the Source of all Truth, and the fellowship of fellow believers becomes a place to share and grow as a community.

That is where Corinth was stuck. They were still clinging to a single teacher, “I follow Paul,” “I follow Apollos,” long after it was time to grow past that stage.

We are to be a sermon in shoes. Our witness is not to be with words but with our actions: love acted out with each choice we make each day.

Saying “I trust in the Lord” is only words. Trusting Him means allowing Him to lead and letting His methods become your way of living: doing the best you can, then leaving the results in His hands. Not in a fearful way, but with confidence, because you have learned by experience that God can be trusted. He has never failed to bring about the best results. We don’t have to see how it will all work out to know that however it turns out, it will be the best.

That kind of trust is what Corinth was missing. When you trust the Lord yourself, you don’t need to rank His servants or line up behind one of them. You follow Christ, and let others see Him in your shoes.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:25

“In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’” (1 Corinthians 11:25, NIV)

The symbolism in this verse has to be understood before the mind and heart of Christ can be seen in it. So try something. Replace the word “blood” with the word “life.” Scripture gives us that right: “the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11).

“This cup is the new covenant in my life.”

Read that way, the verse becomes a personal revelation from Christ, given the night before His death, of the gift He was giving and the impact He knew it could have on a life. He is saying: Remember my life. The life I lived to show you who I truly am. The life I freely allowed to be taken by my own creation, so that you and all intelligent beings could see me, see the Love I have always had for you, and see clearly my Father, who in every way shares my heart for you. Do this, and remember me.

Why the Blood

God explained this all the way back in Leviticus. The life of the animal was in the blood, and the blood was never to be eaten (Leviticus 17:10–14). We were not to take in the life of an animal so that it became part of who we are. Whatever you take into your body becomes a part of you.

So when Christ hands His disciples the cup, He is offering them, and us, His life to take in, so that it becomes a part of us. This is absolutely necessary for salvation and healing to happen in a life. The perfect life He lived, He now offers to us as the antidote for the broken humanity we were born with.

We are not guilty from birth; we did not choose to sin. But we were born with a sinful nature passed down from Adam. When he broke faith with God, he damaged his own nature, and that was all he had to pass on to his children. All of humanity has inherited it. We were born not with guilt, but with a lethal condition, one that must be healed or it will destroy us. Christ lived the perfect life and restores to humanity what we could not receive any other way. “We shall be saved by his life” (Romans 5:10).

That is what drinking the cup represents: taking His life into ours. And it is a real healing that must take place in us, by our own choice.

A Promise Kept

As I compared translations this morning, one word stopped me. Goodspeed and Moffatt say the new covenant was “ratified” by His blood; others say “sealed.” About half the translations add a verb like that. But Paul’s Greek has no verb there at all. It simply says, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.”

The word ratified doesn’t sit well with me. To ratify something is to make it binding, as if God had not fully put His heart behind the plan of salvation until the blood was shed. But God made His promise to Adam right after the fall, before he ever left the garden (Genesis 3:15). What Christ presented at that table was the next step, the final thing that needed to be done so fallen humanity could be restored and all God’s promises kept. It was not ratifying anything. It was finishing what He began.

Even the surrender was settled before the cross. In Gethsemane, Christ prayed, “not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39), and salvation was won for us there. He could have died right then; He had nothing left to give. But there was still so much that needed to be revealed, so the Father sent an angel to strengthen Him (Luke 22:43). He went on to show the onlooking universe, the angels, and one day all of humanity, when we finally open our eyes, what God is truly like.

The cup is not a contract being signed. It is a promise being kept.

The Weekend That Changed Everything

The Last Supper was pointing to the resurrection. That weekend the battle would be won, and healing and redemption would be completed for humanity. Everything was going to change. Even at the table, Jesus looked past His death: He would not drink the cup again “until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matthew 26:29).

When He cried out, “It is finished,” all creation shook. Graves were rent open by the earthquake, and after He arose, many of the saints came forth (Matthew 27:51–53). Prophets once murdered for carrying God’s message came out to continue their God-given mandate, now proclaiming a risen Savior in and around Jerusalem. I personally believe John the Baptist was among them. The loving heart of Christ would not have left that faithful friend and servant in the grave.

That weekend, the truth changed from a Savior to come to a Savior has come. Not another animal need be sacrificed. All that death of innocent creatures met its fulfillment at the cross.

What They Could Not Yet Hear

That same evening, the God of all creation knelt and washed His disciples’ feet, an act He did not consider beneath His dignity. I am sure that, in His loving wisdom, He would not have missed the chance for a private word with each man. Yet their quarrel over who was the greatest (Luke 22:24) kept them from hearing understandings that would have spared them a world of grief that weekend. Their hearts were not yet ready to know the true character of the One they had walked with for three and a half years. “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now” (John 16:12).

Christ walked alone. No one but His Father understood the depths of humility He would be subjected to by those He came to heal, men who had no idea of the brokenness within their own hearts and minds. But Love saw more. It saw the chance, the hope, of a restored life in all who would choose it. So He gave them the Last Supper, and asked them to remember Him.

Milk and Meat

This is milk for the newborn in the faith, and meat for the most mature in Christ’s army. What Christ revealed, and what Paul received directly from the Lord (1 Corinthians 11:23), is simple enough for a child to grasp, yet the pool of knowledge here goes deep enough to stretch the deepest minds.

The next time you take the cup, hear it the way He meant it: This is my life. Remember me.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 3:3

“For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?” (1 Corinthians 3:3, NIV)

Paul gives the Corinthians a test they can check for themselves. Spiritual babies don’t show it by what they don’t know. They show it by how they treat each other: jealousy, quarreling, and, as Beck adds, “forming different parties.” The Living Bible asks whether that doesn’t prove they are “still babies, wanting your own way.” The Remedy, by Dr. Tim Jennings of Come and Reason Ministries, calls it “the infection of selfishness,” with people “looking out for yourselves and promoting your own agenda.”

Paul gives us the stages of growth in another letter: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23). Love comes first, and that surprised me. How would a new baby know a thing about what love is? But this list is about what we receive and then are able to give. As we grow through the stages Paul gives us, the way we are treated by Christ and by our mentor is mirrored in the way we are then able to treat others.

The bickering and infighting at Corinth belong to stage three: learning to be comfortable with a peaceful environment.

The need to stir the pot, to keep tension and animosity churning, comes from the need to keep people’s focus off yourself and on others. It can grow out of insecurity or a lack of self-confidence: If people really looked at me, they would not like me. I am at fault. Usually what you point out in someone else is a finger pointing back at yourself. We see our own weak points of character mirrored in other people, or we project them onto others. The one doing the stirring or the blaming needs to be looked at the closest. They are normally the ones who need the most help.

So at this level, the work is to deal with yourself and stop projecting your issues on everyone else. Patience and kindness, the next two on the list, fit this healing perfectly.

I learned how to meet that kind of storm years ago, as a worker at the DPSS. I discovered the real way to a peaceful conversation with a fired-up client was to answer the emotion behind the harsh words. This was my gift, and I tended to be given the worst issues to sort out.

The first step, even before approaching the woman, was to remove her from her audience into a nice private booth. I would walk up to my side of the table with a bright smile and let her know I was there to help. Normally she would need a few minutes to vent her frustration. Once she had her uninterrupted say, I would address the emotion coming from her heart: “You’re concerned you will not have anything to feed your children tonight. Let’s see what we can do to help.”

Normally they were blaming anyone except themselves. Since I was required to see monthly bank statements, I had a good idea where the money was actually going. But that was not the issue or my concern. I could have been right about where her money went. I chose to be helpful instead. The issue I was dealing with, in that moment, was getting a screaming woman to calm down and rationally deal with her life.

Kindness listens to the heart, but it does not take the problem off their shoulders. I could hear her fear and still hand her life back into her own hands.

People who refuse to deal with themselves will want to dump their junk on you, throw it in your lap and make it your problem. I have seen this play out in the natural healing world also. People want concrete answers to follow, and no one can give those to another person. You are living in your body; only you know exactly what is going to work best. Refusing to be responsible for your own health means you will not have a healthy body. No one can do it for you.

This also fits our relationship with Christ. No one else can choose our life for us. We must be the ones to decide what we will believe. That was the trouble in Corinth. They wanted Paul or Apollos to be responsible for them, so they quarreled over whose followers they were instead of growing up into Christ themselves.

God gives each of us our own gifts and makes each of us responsible for using them. When we are working on our own lives and our own connection with Christ, we do not have the time or the inclination to look at others with an eye to putting ourselves above them.

Take care. Remember, when you point a finger at someone else, you are pointing three back at yourself. Think carefully about why you feel the need to point out issues in someone else, and find a good mirror to look in. Be honest with yourself. The issue is in you. Deal with yourself.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 3:2

“I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.” (1 Corinthians 3:2, NIV)

Paul fed the Corinthians milk. Phillips says they were “unable to digest meat,” and Knox gives the reason: “nature still lives in you.” The Remedy, by Dr. Tim Jennings of Come and Reason Ministries, calls the milk “the ABC’s of God’s treatment plan.” Then it adds something that stops me: many of them had preferred the elementary teachings. They didn’t just fail to grow. They chose to stay where they were.

Why would anyone choose to stay on milk?

I believe the answer is fear. Living on milk is living on the opinions of others. Milk is digested food from another body. Someone else does your thinking for you, and that feels safe. Your mentor is responsible for having the answers you need. But if you mature past that place, or he moves on, who will tell you how to live and what to do?

People come and go in our lives. Each person you meet has a pearl to give you, something they alone possess. Learn to allow the teachers into your life, accept the gifts they bring, and then allow them to move on so the next teacher will appear. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. In Corinth they were refusing to let their teachers move on, trying to hang onto them out of fear of having to grow up. A few verses later, they are quarreling over whether they follow Paul or Apollos.

There is a saying I have repeated for years. It has been so long I don’t know if I made it up or borrowed it from someone lost in the mists of time, but it is me:

People want to give their brain to the teacher, their body to the doctor, and their soul to the minister, then sit back and wonder why their life is garbage.

They refuse to take responsibility for anything. This is no way to live. There is freedom in knowing what you know, and in finding the answers as you need them. My father had his PhD in biochemistry. He once told me that intelligence is not about having all the answers, but knowing where to find them. No one can possibly know it all. The intelligent understand that they don’t, and they know where to find the ones who do.

It takes faith in the Lord, and in yourself, to rely on what you have found by trial and error to be truth, and on the Lord’s guidance. Living one step at a time, seeing what works and what won’t, is the maturity that allows you to trust yourself. This is true independence. It comes with wisdom and maturity: knowing who has the answers for any question, and when there is a question that needs to be asked, while trusting that the Lord is guiding our steps.

Growing up does not have to be an awful, scary experience. It is an awesome one. It can be a natural progression up the steep mountain that is our life. Every so often, turn and take a look back down at the view. It is magnificent. This is the view that comes with maturity: the chance to see where you were and what you have become.

The path keeps climbing. Sometimes you are cutting it right out of the untried dirt, so you must tread carefully. But each step brings a bit of wisdom. The step sticks, and taking it teaches you more about the ground you are moving over. The more steps you take, the more wisdom you gain.

But wisdom and maturity will never come if you don’t move your foot forward and take that first step.

Learn to be the milk supply for others, and start becoming you.

So what answer have you been waiting for someone else to chew for you?

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:23–24

“For I received from the Lord what I passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was 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.’” (1 Corinthians 11:23–24, NIV)

The first thing that jumps out at me is that Paul learned this from the Lord Himself. Christ met with Paul and spent time teaching him personally. In some ways He had a closer relationship with Paul after the fact than He was able to have with the other disciples, who had so many false expectations. They spent their time arguing about who would be greatest, rather than asking the questions they would need answered after He died and returned to heaven.

Paul spent about three years alone with Christ in the desert, relearning everything he had been taught was truth. He didn’t need as much time as the disciples did. He was ready to understand and be taught, while they were constantly fighting what the truth actually was. With Paul’s personality he didn’t waste time on prideful issues; he cut to the meat and asked all the things the others failed to ask.

Christ once told His disciples, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” Their hearts weren’t ready. Christ in Love never runs ahead of us. He gives us exactly what we can handle and leads us no faster than we can go.

A Memorial of a New Beginning

Christ waited until their last night together to give them this new ordinance. It was to be a memorial of a new beginning for all humanity. The gift of God was being completed, and Christ was about to reveal the very heart of God to the entire universe: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto Me.”

Most Bibles add the word “men” to that verse, but it isn’t in the original. Christ said simply, “all.” The Cross was not only a message to humanity; it opened the heart of God to every created being, to the whole universe watching.

Everything was about to change over that weekend. The ceremonial system, the way of salvation taught since the fall of Adam, was coming to an end. Present truth is the truth that has the power to set us free and heal our souls. What was saving present truth on Friday, as Christ hung on the Cross, stopped being saving truth when He ripped open His tomb on Sunday morning, coming forth as our risen Savior. Faith in a Savior who was coming gave way to faith in a Savior who had come and conquered. This is the unrolling of the scroll, the moving on of salvation and God’s plan to redeem a lost race.

The disease of sin had been overcome, conquered and eradicated in the humanity of Christ. Love overcame sin and death, bringing life, health, peace and joy to this earth and to the whole creation of God. The Lord’s Supper is our celebration of that victory. It is our chance to set aside all other thoughts and plans and allow the reality of what Christ achieved to sink in. It is milk for the babies and meat for the mature.

Love in Action

That last evening was full of meaning. Before the bread was ever broken, Christ had shown them how Love acts: He knelt and washed twelve pairs of dirty feet. So when He said, “Do this in remembrance of Me,” it was this He wanted us to remember: not just the broken bread, but the heart that knelt to serve. Remembering Him means remembering His character.

Everything from their last meal together is a lesson to be understood in the light of the resurrection. They all vowed to stand by Him no matter what, not just Peter. He understood them better than they understood themselves. They hadn’t yet embraced who He was or the work He came to do. And that is the lesson for us: the truth will set you free and heal you, but if you don’t understand it or believe it, it cannot do its saving, healing work in you.

One Word That Troubles Me

One translation renders His words, “This is my body which takes your place.” Something is wrong there. Taking our place doesn’t heal us. It doesn’t eradicate the damage sin has caused, so we’d just be saved sinners. I don’t want to be saved in my sins. I want to be saved from them, healed to the place where I no longer want to do them, because the Love and mind of Christ are in me.

Christ healed humanity in Himself and gives that healing to us. To say He only took our place means we receive no real benefit from what He did; we’re simply spared. And sin would still destroy us in the end unless we let Christ heal us. Nearly every other version says simply for you, on your behalf. The Remedy puts it this way: “broken for your healing.”

When you take the bread, what are you remembering: a substitute who took your punishment, or a Healer who gave Himself to make you whole?

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 3:1

“Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly – mere infants in Christ.” (1 Corinthians 3:1, NIV)

Paul has just told the Corinthians the most wonderful thing: “we have the mind of Christ.” And then, in the very next breath, he says he couldn’t talk to them that way. Knox says they were “little children in Christ’s nursery.” The Remedy, by Dr. Tim Jennings of Come and Reason Ministries, calls them “people who are just starting God’s treatment plan, newborn babies in Christ.”

The mind of Christ was theirs for the taking. They simply hadn’t grown into it.

There is nothing wrong with being a baby. Every one of us begins there. The trouble comes when we stay.

We grow through personal experience. We must taste and see that God is good (Psalm 34:8), and experience Him daily for ourselves. God is faithful. It is we who hold onto our old bad habits, so afraid the new life in Christ will lack all that makes life worth living. We refuse to surrender the habits and comforts that are destroying us. We refuse to allow the healing to happen. We are used to how things are, and we don’t want to apply ourselves to change.

As we accept the healing from Christ, and surrender our long-held, comforting habits for better things, our minds become more in tune with the mind of Christ. To have the mind of Christ, we must grow up into mature Christians who can understand the things of God. Paul is explaining that he cannot address the Corinthians as mature Christians. They are not yet able to understand themselves, much less the things needed to care for and nurture someone else.

That last leap of faith must come before maturity can begin. It comes when you decide that, regardless of the cost, this is what you want. You let go of your hold on all the things binding you to this earth and reach up for the hand of Christ, only to find He already has you held firmly and safely in His care.

In 1996, the Lord called me from my steady job to an unknown life across the country. I stepped out on thin air, with no job prospects, just the understanding in my heart and the peace that comes from knowing I was following where the Lord was leading. Since that choice, we have never wanted for anything needful for this life. He has proven to me over and over that thin air is very solid when He is standing in it with you.

The change is wonderful. Life with Christ is the most fulfilling, rewarding, stimulating life one could ever imagine. The reward for healing is beyond anything you can imagine.

So what are you holding onto that you’re afraid to let go?

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 2:16

“For, ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:16, NIV)

Paul ends this chapter with a question borrowed from Isaiah 40:13: who has ever known the Lord’s mind well enough to give Him advice? No one. The Corinthians were proud of their wisdom, but none of it could teach God a thing.

Then comes the turn: but we have the mind of Christ.

Lining up the translations side by side, nearly all of them say it plainly. Knox says, “Christ’s mind is ours.” Moffatt says, “our thoughts are Christ’s thoughts.” The Remedy, by Dr. Tim Jennings of Come and Reason Ministries, says that we who have opened our minds to the Holy Spirit “have Christ’s mind reproduced within us!”

One translation stopped me. The Living Bible says we have “a portion” of Christ’s thoughts. Not a portion. It says we have His mind, because we have the Holy Spirit. That reading waters down what Paul is offering.

We are not here to instruct God. We are here to receive Him. Paul began this chapter by setting aside polished human wisdom (2:1–5), and he ends it by saying we have been given something far better: the very mind of the One we follow.

What does that look like in a life? Maturity is becoming Christlike. It means having the mind of Christ so we can do as He would do in every situation we meet. We see others through the eyes of Love, understand their struggles, and allow them their mistakes and weaknesses. His wisdom lives in us. In the verse just before this one, I wrote that the Jesus in me can be seen only by the Jesus in you. This is how that happens: the same mind, living in each of us, recognizing itself.

To have the mind of Christ is to see people as He sees them. It is to have His heart of Love, and even His knee-jerk reactions to life’s painful events. It means we don’t think the worst of someone just because we don’t understand their heart. This is our only safeguard against hurting others and making fools of ourselves.

But having the mind of Christ is a two-edged sword. Our hearts hear the cries of the sin-sick soul needing love and comfort, and that is all good. The other side is that we also see and understand the one who has turned away from the Lord. Our hearts are tuned in to the ones we are with, and we feel deeply the rejection of a soul who refuses the truth that would save him. With the heart of Christ you see more and feel more. Christ felt the rejection of Judas. He knew the pain Peter would have to endure after his denial.

There is a price for the wisdom that sees deeply into a matter. Understanding the soul standing before you does not mean you can make up their mind for them. It only means you can present the truth in the very best way, to encourage them to take a chance on trusting the Lord.

I have paid that price. I remember sitting on the couch, looking at my father while my mother was going off on him, and realizing he had stopped caring. He was gone. I will never forget that day. It was the day I knew my father was going to leave us. I could see it in his eyes. The joy was gone, and only a deadness showed.

There are times you don’t want to know the truth about someone you look up to or care about. Love lets us see through the masks people wear to the real hurting soul inside. Sometimes we are not able to help, and we know it, because we have seen their decision written in their eyes.

And still, because we know we are loved and cared for, we don’t need to think of ourselves first. We can stop self-protecting. Living is thinking of others first, because we know our life is hid with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3). Even when our hearts ache for those we love, nothing can disturb our peace when we have the mind of Christ.

So here is the question I’m left with as Chapter 2 closes: if we truly have His mind, not a portion of it, what would change in how I look at the next person who disappoints me?

“Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? Certainly not in this matter!” 1 Corinthians 11:22, NIV

The Remedy puts Paul’s question even more sharply: are you trying to make God’s church appear heartless and cruel by mistreating those less fortunate?

I’ll be honest. These verses make me feel angry, hurt and rejected, because this is how I grew up. I could see the “enough” on the table for everyone else, and no one offered to share. I could feel the contempt from other church members, but I didn’t understand why.

I’ve since learned it wasn’t necessarily aimed at me. They were acting out of what they truly were. They could take, but they could not give what they did not have. I stopped expecting anything from the church years ago. I realized they are all just broken people needing the same healing I need.

So I kept looking for the people of God, a safe place to rest my soul. What I’ve come to understand is that there are no people within the church body healed and able to do the work of mentoring, befriending, supporting or loving with the Love of Christ. We are all still becoming who we will be.

In groups like congregations, there’s an expectation that someone else will do it, that the “church” should take care of its own. What we don’t seem to understand is that we are the church. No one is going to magically appear and do the duties God brings to our attention. That is maturity, and it is very hard to grow up in an institution of any kind. Outside it, if a need comes to your attention, there’s no expectation that someone else will take care of it. Your growth happens because you are doing, each day, the things that bring the growing into your heart and mind.

Plenty of Attendance, Very Little Gathering

The church does exist, but its members are not found by gathering in a building. There is plenty of attendance, but very little gathering. The gathering Hebrews tells us not to abandon (Hebrews 10:24–25) is coming together to support and encourage each other. It is not listening to a sermon, brushing past the other believers, and going home.

The gathering together is the young girl at your dining room table whom you are mentoring. It is the young men you teach to swing a hammer, put two boards together and build something. Christ said He would attend those meetings: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). We attend church every time we sit down with someone and share from the heart, encouraging, caring, hearing and loving. This is the attendance Christ wants us to have.

Hidden, for Now

Christ’s church is growing up to full maturity, out of the sight and understanding of this world and its denominations. Scripture speaks of a nation born at once (Isaiah 66:8). One day the veil of obscurity, the quiet personal lives and small spheres of influence where His people have grown, will open wide. Whatever the event is that brings us into the light, it will likely happen in one day, and His church will stand up and be known.

For now we go mostly unnoticed, doing the work He gives us each day. We recognize each other in passing. I’ve been privileged to know many who fit this picture. They don’t sit around long in your life; they’re busy, with so many people they are working to bless. But I know when I’ve been with a child of God, because they leave a refreshing in the air as they pass by. The Jesus in me can see the Jesus in you. The Father is carefully watching each of His developing children. We are known and loved.

The True Membership

Membership in His church requires only our choice and a willing heart to become more. Loving with the Love of Christ, being willing to give for the benefit of others, loving wisely, making your life an open book that Christ can write upon: this is membership in His church. Growing up into a mature, Christ-like person is the result.

When we notice the neighbor in need and share what we can, we are feasting at the Lord’s Supper.

“So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private supper. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk.” 1 Corinthians 11:20–21, NIV

When the believers at Corinth came together, Paul told them plainly that it was not the Lord’s Supper they were eating. Each one hurried ahead with his own meal. One went home hungry while another drank too much. They had the bread and the cup, the gathering, the outward form of the table, and none of its heart.

A Room Full of Strangers

What Paul describes is a room full of strangers coming together for a special meal, one they don’t understand. The whole occasion lacks the Spirit of Christ. His loving act, His intentions, are lost on them. They are there for the food, regardless of the needs or cares of anyone else. It is not the Lord’s Supper they are celebrating; it is only a feeding they are having together.

The remedy is simple. Remember that when you come together, it is from the Lord’s table that you are eating, so be like Him. He served His disciples. Yet at Corinth it was everyone for themselves, one rushing ahead of another, no one serving anyone. It was all about gratifying self.

What the Table Was Meant to Be

The Lord’s Supper, or any meal taken with believers, can be an uplifting time where topics are discussed, testimonies are shared, and encouragement is offered. In a family, time at the table is special, set apart from other activities just for the family to share and reconnect. Many homes don’t do this any longer, but those who hold to it find a true blessing: a chance to truly know your family and be a part of their day.

The Lord’s Supper was a missed opportunity for that infant church to bless each other and be blessed themselves. Instead it had become a meal the tender-hearted would avoid.

Our Presence Is a Statement

This morning I tried to put myself in that congregation, to imagine what it would have felt like to walk into that room. And I realized I would have refused to attend. It is not a place I would have sanctioned with my presence.

Sometimes our actions say more than words could convey. By attending, we add our endorsement to what is practiced there. At times, absenting ourselves is our only choice, when to attend would put our endorsement on the wrong side.

But it depends on who you are in that congregation. Someone of noble bearing or strong personality might stand up and turn the direction of the meeting. Corinth, though, was already torn by factions. Paul had heard of the divisions, and the hostility between the cliques ran strong right alongside this sacrilege of the Lord’s Supper. In a room that bitter, even a gracious example would likely be read as taking a side. Nothing could be accomplished by showing up.

That is why Paul’s admonition was so needed. Someone from the outside, someone they all respected, had to speak up and clean out the misunderstandings and pettiness. Even Paul knew a letter would not be enough; the rest, he said, he would set in order when he came.

The sad part is that when the wise stop attending, the table is left even more empty of the love of Christ.

From the Inside Looking Out

I did not have to imagine all of this. I grew up close to the center of a very conservative church community, and I saw much from the inside looking out, things I could have lived my whole life without knowing. I watched men kneel on the platform on Sabbath morning whose lives behind the scenes told a very different story. As a young girl I had no standing and no voice. The only statement in my power was to quietly absent myself when I knew a situation would be wrong.

It confused me for a long time. But the Lord kept loving me, kept showing me there was something better, and I kept choosing to go toward the light and the good.

Our Choices Are What We Have

That is all we have in this life: our choices. We cannot always stop the bad from happening to us, but we can choose the good. If in our hearts we choose and want the good, Christ counts us as good.

The ones in the outward places of honor may have every form of the table and none of His heart. The one with no standing at all may have none of the form and all of the choosing. Christ sees the heart. That is what this passage tells me about God.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:19

“No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval.” (1 Corinthians 11:19, NIV)

“But I suppose you feel this is necessary so that you who are always right will become known and recognized!” (Living Bible)

Some mornings a verse surprises me. Paul has just said he hears there are divisions among the Corinthian believers, and then he says something that sounds almost like permission: there must be divisions among you.

Translation after translation says it plainly. Knox speaks of those who are “true metal.” The TEV says the ones in the right may be clearly seen. Then I came to the Living Bible, and it turned the whole thing around.

Which Is It?

Is Paul saying the factions come from the ego of strong-minded believers, each collecting followers so they can stand out from the rest? Or is he saying divisions are a natural outcome, something to be expected as people’s heart convictions draw others of like heart together?

I believe Paul had a real insight here, and it is too important to toss aside as sarcasm. Divisions are to be expected, not because of pride or selfish hearts wanting followers, but because like hearts are drawn together. When they meet, they enjoy conversation shared freely at the level of their own spiritual maturity. They become sounding boards for one another’s newly formed thoughts, trusting the integrity and understanding of those they share with.

That is a good thing. To gather with others of like mind, for the purpose of stirring the heart and mind toward God, is a worthwhile pursuit. Every member, at every level, needs such a group: an open group where they can be fed, share freely, and be valued for what they understand.

Iron Sharpens Iron

There is a natural reason for this. Iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17). A mind is honed against a mind of similar strength; you cannot sharpen your thinking on a mind less capable than your own. Strength of mind and intellect are gifts from God, given to be used in His service, and we naturally form our closest relationships around those we can share with, who bless us as we bless them. That is not exclusiveness. It is simply how communities and life actually work.

Picture a third grader sitting in on a college course discussion, thinking he can contribute. He is not lesser for being there; he simply cannot yet sharpen or be sharpened in that room. I have been in rooms where the minds around me towered over mine and I could barely follow along. I kept my mouth shut and soaked it in like a sponge, and I came away richer. There is snobbery on both sides of this. Those with a strong intellect must not look down on others, and those without it need to accept that God gives each of us different gifts, and this may not be one of ours. Paul says as much in the very next chapter: there are different gifts, but the same Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:4).

Someone Further Down the Road

But every group also needs someone a little further down the road. A circle of young believers left to itself tends to stay where it is. It needs a stronger, more mature believer to nurture it and draw it toward more beneficial things. That kind of mentoring seems to have been missing in the young church at Corinth, and the camps were becoming exclusive and hostile toward one another.

When the Focus Moves

People gathering with others of like heart is not the problem. The problem is the unsanctified, prideful, selfish heart that finds itself at an immature level and decides to settle in, put down roots and stay there, refusing to keep learning and growing.

Of course, as humans we want others to agree with us. So we use the power of our personality, persuasion and position to convince others to follow our lead. And slowly the focus moves. It is no longer on Christ, on building up His body, on our own growth and healing, or on blessing our fellow man with the glorious Truth of salvation, Love and Grace flowing freely from Christ. Instead it is about our pride, our fear of change, and our wanting to be in control.

This is not just Corinth. It is every society, every family circle. It is human nature, unhealed human nature.

Paul Had This

Paul needed to refocus his fledgling fellowship before they self-destructed and lost their peace and joy in this life, and their future glory with it. That work takes an understanding of people and of human nature, strongly developed, along with wisdom that comes from the heart of God and a great deal of patience. Mostly it takes Love, true love for people.

Paul had this.

And this is the work we are called to as well. We cannot bless people if we do not know them, and we will not know them if we have no interest in who they are. Where are they on the road? What can they receive today? Who is walking beside them? The answers begin with caring enough to ask.