Category: Bible Studies

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 1:22–25

“Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified… For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” (1 Corinthians 1:22–25, NIV)

By demanding a sign, the Jews rejected all the miracles Christ had done while He was with them. They refused the truth because it did not come the way they had decided it should. The demand for a sign was a self-focused attempt to pull Christ down to their level of thinking. Instead of looking at the facts and reasoning out whether it was truth or a lie, they rejected it.

Unrenewed minds and hearts run from the light, just as they will one day beg the rocks to fall on them and hide them (Revelation 6:16). The Fires of Love and Truth have been shining out from God through all time. Truth burns through all the lies we wrap around our hearts and minds to keep ourselves comfortable in self-deception: the stories we tell ourselves to feel okay about our poor choices. Anyone or anything that challenges those stories will be resisted with anger and the full force of the person being disturbed.

But to those who answer God’s call, Christ is “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1:24). In the life of Jesus we can know God, because He is God. The Love, power, and wisdom of God were lived out in the life of Christ. The world has seen our God and Creator.

God’s wisdom and strength are bound up in His Love. Christ was filled with that light and Love all His life; His connection with heaven was never broken, until the Cross. At His weakest moment, crying “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), He took hold by faith of the strength flowing from God, the knowledge of who His Father is. Speaking that faith into the darkness, He claimed the victory: “It is finished.” This is the power of God at His weakest moment, enough power to catch and restore a fallen, terminal, dying race. Alone on the Cross, our God in Christ loved us so much that He allowed those with no understanding to murder Him. He did it all for a humanity who did not even realize they needed saving.

We are like a helpless newborn in a mother’s arms. We don’t know what we need, and a good mother prepares in advance for our every want and need. As we grow, we are surrounded by her love and watch care. She catches us up and smooths away our tears when our own choices have caused us pain. “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you” (Isaiah 66:13). We learn to love by being loved. God teaches us to love Him by loving us well, with wisdom: letting us learn from bad choices, keeping us from destroying ourselves while we mature enough to understand the difference between good and bad.

The step that lets us do good for ourselves is self-control. The strength to keep doing the good comes daily from Christ; we receive strength each day for that day. The wisdom of God is too wise to fix us before we are ready and willing to be healed. His power is governed by His Love and wisdom, and that is good news.

Some never reach that step in this life. I work with many people I cannot help, because they do not have the self-control to do good for themselves. They are not evil, only broken beyond the point where they can follow a healing program. I do all in my power to connect them to Christ, who can heal their hearts. But often the disease is further along than the time they have left for spiritual and emotional healing. I do not believe they are lost, only that the good they could have done here is ended. Like the thief on the cross beside Christ, their life is over, but they can still cling to a dying Savior, and He has the strength to hold them fast. “To day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).

Perfection is not required for salvation. What is required is a heart willing to learn, a desire for something better, and a will surrendered to the Love of Christ. The Cross looked like weakness, yet it is strong enough to hold every one of us fast. “The weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 1:20–21

“Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Corinthians 1:20, NIV)

Moffatt asks, “Has not God stultified the wisdom of this world?” To stultify is to make something look foolish and absurd. The Remedy names who Paul means for our own day: the agnostic professor, the atheistic scientist, the psychologist of the new age. All “wisdom” built on the principles of this world is, in the end, foolishness.

The scroll has unrolled. Strangely, much of it has been unrolled by science rather than by the Bible scholar. As we have learned the intricate language written into our DNA, the hands of God can be seen all over creation. “The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made” (Romans 1:20). Those who still refuse to see a Creator argue from a weaker and weaker position. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:22).

And the scroll keeps unrolling. The saving truth of yesterday was all we were responsible for, and it had the power to transform a life. But as new truth is revealed, we become responsible for it, and the power is in the truth that is present truth today. Think of the weekend Christ died. On Friday, the temple services were present truth. On Sunday, present truth was a risen Savior. “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (Proverbs 4:18).

Through the Bible, through history and proven archaeology, we see our God, Creator and Redeemer, fully and completely for us in Love. Love hung on the Cross 2,000 years ago, making a way for anyone willing to agree with salvation to be saved. Love came down to earth and showed us every part of Himself. When we rejected Him, unable in our sin-sick condition even to understand our great need, we murdered Him. He still loved us, forgave us, and kept drawing us to His heart by His Love. And the Father was right there in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:19), feeling every drop of agony Christ experienced.

The hands of God are spread wide open. All the power of heaven is bathing this dark world. Look up and see the light flowing in bright streams all around us. You only need to move into the flow to be filled with the power to be healed, transformed into your most glorious self.

The healing begins deep within. Our time in the valley of the shadow of death is our time of growth and choice. We can choose to keep going, to trust the One beside us on our personal journey through that valley. We may need to return to it often as we say goodbye to old selfish habits that once brought us comfort but are no longer needed. We die to our old ways of thinking and coping, and replace them with new, healthier habits: a new life where we are free to be more.

This is why the world calls us foolish. We put our complete faith and trust in God, knowing He will sustain us, and has, in every circumstance. We do not need to be in control of our surroundings to feel safe and secure, because our loving Father says He is taking care of all that. There is no fear and no selfish need to protect self when there is a living, abiding faith and relationship with Christ. He is our Friend, concerned with us every minute of our lives. We are never alone.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 1:19

“For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.’” (1 Corinthians 1:19, NIV, quoting Isaiah 29:14)

The Remedy puts it this way: “God’s method of self-sacrificing love will destroy the world’s wisdom of promoting self first.” The world says look out for number one. God’s way is the opposite, and it leaves the world baffled.

Our minds, as well as our bodies and hearts, are being healed and restored to the image of God. To have the mind and heart of God is to act out of love for ourselves and for others. Loving ourselves, rightly understood, means refusing to do anything that would compromise our ability to do all the good we can, for ourselves and for others. When our hearts and minds are in tune with the heart of Christ, this is not a selfish thing. We are to live to bless others; it is the only way we can truly be happy.

How can we be a blessing if we are so broken in body and mind that we cannot choose or carry through the good we find each day to do? So we do the best for ourselves: eating well and getting good exercise, for the benefit of our bodies, emotions, and minds. We learn to love well through practice. We show up when we are truly needed. We choose the hard things regardless of the outcome, and learn to leave the results with God.

All of this is life: daily choosing to be present, wise, and loving to others and to ourselves. And sometimes love must disappoint the expectations of the immature, selfish, self-focused babe in the faith. It is a choice to do the hard thing, standing firm in the face of the anger, misunderstanding, and hurt of someone we love and care for. Each day we must receive Grace and Love from the Father for that day’s trials, duties, and choices.

This is what defeats the wisdom of the wise: our connection to the Source of all wisdom, the prudence and Love that flow from the wisdom of God. When our choices are made with a focus on blessing others, those who are self-focused will be baffled, unable to understand where we are coming from. It is not a choice they would ever make. Their plans to advance self and gain all they can in this world are not our goals. Our goal is to grow closer to the One who can truly supply every need, the real needs, the One who can truly satisfy our hearts’ desires. We want to be like Jesus. Nothing else in this world matters.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 1:18

“For the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18, NIV)

The Remedy renders it, “the truth about God, His character of absolute Love, as revealed by Christ at the cross, makes no sense whatsoever to those who are dying through practicing the world’s method of survival-of-the-fittest; but to those of us who are being healed and restored, it is the true power of God, the secret of eternal life.”

What Christ accomplished at the Cross for all creation is truly amazing. First, He unmasked Satan as a murderer, so evil he would murder his own Creator. Jesus had called him “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44), and at the Cross the whole universe saw it. The lies of Satan were exposed. God is not the unkind, unloving arbiter of laws, ready to strike down anyone who breaks His rules. He gave up everything to become human, to redeem a race so lost they did not even have the ability to want to be saved without His help.

As long as there is any hope of saving a soul and restoring them to be truly happy, God will not let them go. He releases them to their choices only when it is obvious there is nothing more He can do to convince them that they are destroying themselves. “God gave them up” (Romans 1:24) is not anger; it is Love respecting a choice it could not change.

Second, at the Cross He accomplished the healing of humanity from the lethal sin condition, providing an antidote only He could bring about. He came “in the likeness of sinful flesh” and “condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3). In our very nature He overcame sin, perfecting a sinless, loving character, and brought life and healing back within the reach of any human willing to be healed.

We are given the healed life of Christ. This life we must then grow up into: feed it by our choices, and exercise and strengthen it by using our will to now choose the things that were repulsive to us before. Every choice brings us closer to the character of Christ. We are not His clones. We are like Him in the way we react to life and the way we treat others. We will not have to stop and think, “What would Christ do right now?” We will already be doing the selfless, loving thing He would have done. “I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts” (Hebrews 8:10).

We are living His life, doing the work in our path each day with the same Love and care He showed when He was here.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 1:10–17

“I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another… and that there be no divisions among you… Is Christ divided?” (1 Corinthians 1:10, 13, NIV)

The church in Corinth was splitting into camps. “I follow Paul.” “I follow Apollos.” “I follow Cephas.” Paul’s answer is a single question: “Is Christ divided?”

Love does not bring division but unity. When all hearts are joined in love for the truth of who Jesus is and what He has done for us, there can be no division. It is when ego and pride poke up in the heart that we become self-seeking, wanting to be better or to understand more than the others. This is not the heart of Christ. His Love never pushes self forward. He draws us to Himself with Love and caring for who we are.

Ego and pride slip easily into our thinking, and standing against them can be very difficult. Our human nature wants to be known, to be better accepted. We set up our comfort zones, and those who are like us fit easily into our world. But in the character of Jesus, our comfort zones expand to include everyone who has a heart for truth. No one is above another. All should be accepted, understood, and cared for as loved children of Christ.

The heart of God sees the truth in us all. His Love and wisdom understand exactly where each of us still needs to grow up into the image of Christ. So any faction or discomfort in the church is not from God. It is the pride and immaturity of people not yet grown up into His image. We need to learn to recognize the Jesus in each other, allowing that each of us is still becoming what we will be. “It doth not yet appear what we shall be” (1 John 3:2).

Some believers are still babes in Christ (1 Corinthians 3:1), crass and difficult to know. But our loving example, our quiet, calm, understanding responses to their inappropriate comments and actions, gives them a living example to aim for, a place to grow up to. Christ brings the unlovely ones to us to find acceptance, and to be lifted up by our example. They are a gift to us too. We learn patience. We learn to look past the surface to the struggling soul beneath: the heart that never learned how to love, that was never loved, that never saw or felt this thing called love, care, and compassion.

And through it all, Paul says, we hold up Christ, “not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect” (1:17). Hold Christ up in the best light, the light of love. What He did on the Cross will stand on its own; we need not embellish it with fancy words. His Love is enough. It speaks to anyone open and willing to know the truth as it is revealed at the Cross.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 1:7–9

“Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will also keep you firm to the end… God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:7–9, NIV)

The word Paul uses for Christ being “revealed” is apokalypsis: an uncovering, a laying bare, a disclosure of truth given to the soul by God Himself. We usually read this verse only of Christ’s return. But Paul uses this same word for what happened to him on the Damascus road: God was pleased “to reveal his Son in me” (Galatians 1:16).

So this verse speaks of the revealing of Christ in us. The gifts of heaven make us eager to see Christ revealed in our own lives, as we are returned to His image. His people will stand revealing the image of Christ; He will reveal Himself in us. “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

And that is exactly what prepares us for the other revealing. “We know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). So it is both: Christ revealed in us now is what prepares us for Christ revealed to us at His coming.

This is the promise we can count on. Paul says God Himself “will keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is what all heaven has been working toward since the fall of humanity: to be able to present us faultless on that day when Christ comes to take us all home. “Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 24).

The work has been done. The victory has been won. We want to know Him; we want to be there. All the animosity, all the double-mindedness that sin put into us, that we were born with, will be removed. We will stand fully restored in the image of Christ, complete, faultless, and ready to know God as He is. Phillips puts it simply: “when his day comes you need fear no condemnation.”

And our place will be high. “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne” (Revelation 3:21). I believe we are being fitted to stand in our place just under Christ, the place Lucifer fell from, right next to the throne of God. We will be able to stand there because we will know Him as He is and what He has done in us. The restoration, the choices we have made, who we have become: these fit us for the positions we will fill.

Why can we be so sure? Because “God is faithful.” He is the one who called us into fellowship with His Son. The Father is calling us to come to Him, and there is only Love and healing in His call, no condemnation. He longs for us to be healed, made happy and healthy, and He will not stop until the work is done.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 1:4–6

“I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in him you have been enriched in every way… God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you.” (1 Corinthians 1:4–6, NIV)

Paul cannot stop thanking God for the Corinthians. Why? The Remedy puts it plainly: “Your transformed lives testify to the healing power of the remedy brought to us by Christ.” Paul can see it. The message he brought them has taken root, and their lives are changing.

That is the joy of those who believe and share the truth about who God is: to see with our own eyes the working of God in a life that selfishness had destroyed, now set free to truly understand reality, love, and freedom. To watch the power of heaven poured into a surrendered life, until that person is restored to high human standing, able to think, to discern truth, to hold an opinion that can be trusted. This is only possible when the life is restored to the image of Christ by the Grace of God. It is the miracle of re-creation, and we get to be a part of it.

“The truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). There is power in truth: the power of God to heal us, to give us the ability to take in more truth, and to share wisely what we know with everyone we meet. We are empowered to say what we know in the very best way, with discernment and wisdom, so that we can be a blessing to those we share it with.

Truth moves us directly into the flow of the Fires of Truth and Love coming from the very presence of God. Those who want to know Him only have to reach out in any direction. Our knowledge of God, and of our own hearts, is increasing. That second kind of knowing is one of the hardest things to get our hearts and minds around. We are so blind to our own faults. “Search me, O God, and know my heart” (Psalm 139:23).

So we must care wisely for the broken and hurting ones, who can only take in very small doses as they begin to receive truth and Love, and as they grow in their ability to know truth and to feel and give love. The selfishness is burnt out of the heart as Truth and Love fill all the empty, broken, hurting places in our souls. We are all being healed.

The ability to know and to share is the proof of our connection to the Father, the proof that the Holy Spirit is in us.

And the joy comes with each day’s victories: realizing you have strength flowing through you, direct from the throne of God, to stand firm in any choice you have put your will behind. A choice with your will engaged is not a whim or a want. God is not a vending machine, where you put in your money and make your selection. It is all about growth, and choosing from a heart that is learning to love as Christ loves us. Such a choice moves forward in its direction, knowing the Lord will supply your lack as needed for you to stand firm and reach the goal. “My God shall supply all your need” (Philippians 4:19).

This is true joy: to know you can be more in His strength. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 1:3

“Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 1:3, NIV)

Paul opens nearly every letter with these two words, and always in the same order: Grace first, then peace. That order matters. Peace cannot come first. It grows out of Grace.

Grace is the gift from God, and it comes with knowledge. Peter writes, “Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord” (2 Peter 1:2). Knowledge is power: the power to live your life knowing that the God who loves you has your back, your front, and both sides. “Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me” (Psalm 139:5). That is how you can have peace in the storms of life.

All heaven is offered to us, ready for our needs. His Grace includes all things needful in this life, and it is a living, healing power that fills our hearts and minds as we choose to follow where He is leading.

He is our Father: a father who truly loves, guides, provides, and protects, careful and wise to allow only the best for His child. In His loving wisdom He allows us the consequences of our poor choices, not as a punishment but to help us learn. This is like no father I have ever known.

He is also the one who increases us: our talents, our friends, our means. He will not allow us to have more than is good for us. We can look at others and feel we are lacking, but that takes our eyes off the Lord. The endless stream of comparison tells us we are not our best, that everyone else is doing it better. That is a trap you do not want to fall into. Allow the Lord to increase you as you grow and can carry a fuller cup. The full cup is a heavy burden to bear, and we must have Him to help us if we are asked to carry it.

Peace is how we live and breathe. Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you… Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27). Calm assurance is ours as we rest in His Grace, following each day the duties given us for that day. His peace and Love follow us everywhere we go, and His Spirit directs our steps through this world.

The One who knows you best loves you most. His faithfulness is proven. “His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22–23).

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 1:1–2

“Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, to the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people…” (1 Corinthians 1:1–2, NIV)

Paul opens his letter to the Corinthians with a single word that carries the whole story of his life: called. He was “called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.” And the people he writes to are called too, “called to be his holy people.”

But a call is not the same as an answer. Paul was called by the will of God, yet the call was not answered until Paul chose to answer it. God can call us, and we are free to refuse. That is how much He respects us.

When Christ met Paul on the road to Damascus, He read a heart that was true but misguided. Paul later wrote that he had acted “ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Timothy 1:13); he honestly thought he was serving God by fighting Jesus (Acts 26:9). When his eyes were opened and he understood, he stopped fighting the truth and allowed it to take hold in his life and heal his heart and mind. That man became one of the most powerful tools in God’s hand for carrying the gospel to the world, and through his letters he is still sharing it today.

It did not all come in one day. After his conversion Paul went away into Arabia, and three years passed before he went up to Jerusalem (Galatians 1:17–18). Then came years back home in Tarsus, until Barnabas went looking for him (Acts 9:30; 11:25). Paul had to grow into his calling, just like we all do.

We are all called. Those of us who answer are then made holy, set apart, by the work of healing done in us through the truth about God we have accepted. And whatever we accept as truth will change us all the way down to the DNA. Our only power is to choose what we will believe; after that, what we have taken in has the power to heal us or to destroy us.

We are our choices. Our choices will either heal us through the power of God’s Love and Truth, or they will shrink our understanding of reality until the mind has no want or capacity to embrace truth again. Paul describes people who have gone that far as “past feeling” (Ephesians 4:19).

That is why it matters to begin now. Doing the work now gives us the time to move slowly as healing comes. Each choice for the good makes the next one stronger, until the desire to be a blessing to others outweighs every old habit and longing. We begin the journey sick and in need of healing everywhere. As we take in more and more of the truth, things in us begin to change, and we learn how powerful a single choice can be.

You do not have to see the whole road. Make an intentional choice, a choice with your will behind it, and leave the results with God. The Father is with you. Every day is an adventure, a new beginning.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:13–14

“Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him?” (1 Corinthians 11:13–14, NIV)

Paul does something unusual in 1 Corinthians 11:13. After a long discussion of head coverings, he hands the question to his readers: “Judge for yourselves.” The Remedy renders it, “Consider the evidence for yourselves: Is it healthy for a woman to try to deny her own identity and instead live like a man?”

Paul isn’t asking about fabric on a head, and in verse 14 he isn’t asking about the length of a man’s hair. Both were symbols. In Bible times, long hair on a man like Samson marked him as set apart for a work of God; today it is mostly a matter of style. What Paul is pointing to lies underneath the symbols: the natural laws God built into life, creation, and all matter. Those laws speak to the way we were made to live for the greatest joy, fulfillment, and growth into who we can become.

Notice what Paul does not do. He issues no condemnation and no reprimand. He doesn’t need to. When we step out of harmony with the way God created us to thrive, the results come on their own. You cannot disregard a natural law and escape its cost. The loss falls not only on ourselves but on everyone we influence; instead of light and warmth, we cast a shadow over the lives of others.

Growing Into All She Can Be

This isn’t about the work a woman does publicly or the career she chooses. A woman can be anything. She has the talent to become, and she can develop herself beyond where she begins. But she will not do it in her own strength. It comes only through the healing and restorative power of the Lord and a good companion to walk with her in life. The “head” in Paul’s picture is not a ceiling over her; it is the support she grows through.

And no one is left out. For the woman with no husband, God has pledged Himself to be a husband to the widow and a father to the fatherless. Christ fills that place Himself, the friend who sticks closer than a brother.

The Same Holds for Men

“Doesn’t nature itself teach that each individual has their own place, role and responsibilities?” (The Remedy). We each must grow up into the people God made us to be, and it won’t happen without choice and deliberate action. To let life roll by without taking responsibility for where it is taking us is to choose against growing up. A woman can refuse her place just as a man can fail to fill his. Either way, no rule needs enforcing; the results are lived out for all to see.

So the real question of these verses is the heart. Are you taking up the responsibility God intended for you? Are you growing, in His strength, into more than you could ever become on your own?

These roles are not a burden. They are the path to a well-lived life here and never-ending growth in eternity. Christ’s invitation still stands: come walk with Him. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.

And when we look at others, we look past the outward things, just as Paul looked past hair and head coverings to the heart. “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Sometimes it is hard to see the hurting person underneath. That is when the Lord brings them to us for care, and He expects us to be careful with His hurting children.