“1 Corinthians 1:1-9”

Sunday, March 18, 2018

"Paul, called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, to the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you, so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord."

---End of Scripture verses---

Paul addresses this letter to “the church of God which is at Corinth” (verse 2). It is obviously very appropriate to refer to the universal or a local “body of the saved” as “the church of God”. That is an entirely biblical name and God, of course, owns everything. But more specifically, the member of the Godhead that defeated death to establish His church is Jesus (Matthew 16:18). Paul specified in Acts 20:28 that Jesus was the “purchaser” of the church of God. “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.”

The church is made up of “those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus” (verse 2). The word “church” means “called out,” and the word “sanctified” means “set apart”. Jesus calls us, through His Gospel, to come out of the world (2 Thessalonians 2:14), and into His “sanctified” body. When we respond favorably and obediently to this Gospel calling, when we repent of our sins and are baptized to have those past sins forgiven, we are “set apart” to live holy, godly, dedicated lives devoted to His service.

Paul expressed this idea in Titus 2:13-14. “Looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.” He goes on to say to the Christians living in Corinth that some of them were once the vilest of sinners, but they had since been redeemed and purified by Christ, and that they should live like it. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 6:11, “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”

Paul wrote in verse 5 that the Corinthian Christians were “enriched” in “everything”. Through God’s “grace and peace” they had been endowed with the greatest and truest of all riches—the spiritual and eternal kind in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 8:9). He went on to say that they had been specifically enriched “in all speech and all knowledge.” This is likely a reference to many of the blessings that they had received through the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit. The church in Corinth was blessed with just a wealth of talented people. Many brethren were blessed with the power of eloquent speech and miraculous spiritual knowledge and discernment (1 Corinthians 12:8).

So, we learn early on that the abuses of these gifts that Paul addresses toward latter chapters of the letter are really inexcusable. Their problems did not stem from “ignorance” but from “arrogance”! Paul wrote in verse 6 that “the testimony of Christ was confirmed” in them. The “testimony of Christ” had been “confirmed” or “validated” so thoroughly that they “were not lacking in any gift” (verse 7), and there could be no doubt about the divine origin of the message they had received and were teaching. The very purpose of miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit was to confirm and validate the truth of the Gospel (Mark 16:17-20; Hebrews 2:3-4), so these brethren had no good reason to have gone so awry in their use of these blessings!

God is always faithful in his dealings with His covenant people (verse 9), so He fully expects faithfulness from the privileged “saints” that have been “called into fellowship with His Son.” The word “saint” literally means “holy one”. Christians have been sanctified by the Gospel and the blood of Christ, set apart as holy vessels to the service of the Holy God. Now, God is telling us, LET’S LIVE LIKE IT!

Please read 1 Corinthians 1:10-17 for tomorrow.

Please come worship God with us at the Taylorsville Road church of Christ today.

3741 Taylorsville Road. 9:30 AM Bible class. 10:30 AM worship period. 5:00 PM worship period.

Hope you all have a blessed Lord’s Day!

- Louie Taylor

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