1 Corinthians 1:25-28 - Foolish things

1:25

For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. Man’s wisdom and man’s strength cannot actually set anyone free. Man mocks the gospel, he mocks God. Yet only the gospel can set people free, and God is proved to be more powerful and infinitely wiser than man.

1:26

The church was obviously not limited to the upper strata of society! However, note why Paul is highlighting this point here. Some, at least, in the church were looking to be like the “elite” in society, namely the philosophers and the influential. Paul is pointing out that they were not called because of their wisdom and power or status. So why were they now looking to use influence, wisdom and status as a measure of things? A similar thing happened in the Galatian church. They started off by faith, but then they were being tempted to rely on religious ritual, particularly circumcision, obeying the Law. Why when we are saved one way (ie purely by the grace of God, through faith) do we then so easily seek to make further progress by human means? Why do we not continue to live and grow by faith? We can see this pattern time and time again in history, and in our own churches. We start off with spiritual means, then revert to worldly means. Faith is not just how things start, it is how things grow.

1:27,28

Salvation is the work of God. Maybe part of the reason for the error we make that was outlined in my comments on v26 is a wrong understanding of salvation. We are so convinced that we must have played a part in our salvation, that there must be something within us that somehow merited God showing us grace! Salvation is the work of God, it is not the work of us. And God is shaming the wise, showing up the so-called wisdom of the world for the foolishness that it is. So He will not depend upon human methods and human strength. He will use the weak to shame the strong. We need to have a God-centered view of salvation, not a man-centered. We also need to realise that salvation is not just about us being saved, but it is also about the name of the Lord being glorified.

1 Corinthians 1:23,24 - We preach Christ crucified

1:23

Paul’s reaction to this situation was not to give in to it. Instead he preached Christ crucified. This was a stumbling block to the Jews. How could God allow His Messiah to be crucified on a cross, and by the hated Romans? Even worse, how could God Himself be crucified? For that is what the gospel says. To the Greeks the gospel is nonsense. How could a man dying on a cross be the saviour of the world? How could they possibly think that He is the Lord of all? For that is what the gospel says.

Note that Paul did not water down or amend the gospel in anyway. We need to be careful in apologetics. There is a very legitimate use of apologetics in demonstrating the reasonableness of our faith, and in highlighting the deficiencies in the world’s solutions. However, philosophy is not itself the gospel.”Proving” the existence of God is not in itself the gospel. For the gospel confronts our sinfulness, it cuts to the heart of the problem in our lives. So apologetics is good if given its rightful place, but we must never make an idol out of it.

1:24

So we have had all the reasons why the gospel is rejected by many people, so why bother? Because to those who are called by God it is the power of God. Through the hearing and believing the gospel people get saved.  And this applies to both Jews and Greeks, ie the very same people groups who object to the gospel. The gospel saves all people. Now this is not universalism, not everyone is saved, indeed many are not, but within any people group there will be those who are saved. So when we encounter opposition or resistance from groups we must never write off that group. The resistance and opposition is real, but there will be people within that group who are called by God, and He calls to them through the gospel. That group may be defined ethnically, it may be defined socially, it may be defined intellectually. It does not matter, within that group will be some who are called by God. Some atheists come to faith, some LGBT activists will come to faith, some secularists, some Muslims, some Hindus etc will come to faith.

And the gospel is not just the power of God, it is the wisdom of God. People can seem to be trapped by their situations, by their personalities, by their circumstances or by their past, with no way out. But then the gospel comes and suddenly they can see the wisdom of God, they can see how the cross sets them free from whatever it is that has entrapped them.

1 Corinthians 1:20-22 - Where are the wise?

1:20

NIV has “Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age?”, ESV has “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?”. People of whatever age claim to be wise, they claim to understand what is going on in the world, and where the world is going. In Isaiah one of the themes is that only God knows the future. The wisdom of the world will be shown up for the foolishness that it is. This is why the church is so foolish if it chooses to go along with the world’s “wisdom” as against following the teaching of the Bible.

1:21

See what the measure of wisdom is here. It is whether or not it leads to knowing God. Man in his self-sufficiency cannot find God. We need to appreciate the depths of our rebellion against God. Sin is deeply pervasive, and the path it leads us down is one of futility. So man glories in his so-called wisdom, boasting of how right he is. But we should not fear, for God has determined that it will lead nowhere. Faith, not intellect, is the key to true wisdom, ie knowing God. In referring to the “foolishness of what was preached” Paul is using rhetorical language, saying “yes, they say our message is foolish, but this is the way that God has chosen to reveal Himself”. The emphasis is on the message, not the preaching. We want to make our message understandable, but we need to be aware that in the world’s eyes it will always be foolishness, but it is by this message that those who believe will be saved.

1:22

The gospel causes problems. Why is this? It is because we are all sinners by nature, by nature we are all in rebellion against God. The gospel confronts that reality head-on. So the notion that the gospel is all about being nice to each other, and if only the church was nicer to people and more relevant then many more people would come to believe is the product of naive thinking. The reaction against the gospel is an example of man’s attempt to suppress the truth. This shows itself in various ways. The Jews demanded signs. Jesus was on several occasions confronted with the demand for a sign, despite the fact that He had carried our miracle after miracle. The Greeks demanded wisdom, in their own terms. The world demands that God meets them on their terms, but God demands that we meet Him on His terms.

Preaching warnings (Acts 2:39)

In Acts 2:39 we read that “With many words Peter warned them...” It is all too common today for preaching to focus just on being “nice”, telling people that Jesus loves them and how wonderful they are, or being seeker friendly. Well this is a rather unbiblical approach to things. It is also a rather unsuccessful approach in terms of producing disciples. Of course, it is equally wrong to go to the other extreme and preach nothing but hell and damnation, but warnings are a key part of the gospel. They were also a key part of Jesus’ teaching. Indeed, we can only appreciate the extent and the nature of God’s love when we appreciate the seriousness of sin and our sinfulness. Moreover, Peter did not warn them in order to condemn them, but he was pleading with them to “save yourselves from this corrupt generation”. The people of Jerusalem were in a terrible mess. The Son of God had come to them and they had crucified him! Forty years later Jerusalem and the temple would be destroyed and much suffering would be involved. The generation was working against God and was heading for deep trouble. The people needed to turn to God. Things are not that much different in our day. Each day there seems to be more and more evidence of our Western societies being an evermore corrupt generation. Those parts of the church which advocate condoning what society is doing are utter fools and demonstrating no love at all. In so many ways society is going against God’s ways and people need to “save themselves from this corrupt generation”, and the only way to do that is to repent and turn to Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 1:18,19 - The message of the cross is foolishness

1:18

Wherever it went the gospel was in conflict with the culture. It was in conflict with Judaism, it was in conflict with Greek culture. So what did Paul do? Or what did he not do? He did not water down the gospel, he did not strip it of its essential elements. He did not try and make the gospel “nice”. In Paul’s day the way of doing this would have been to make it intellectually acceptable, today so many want to make the gospel acceptable to the culture, not challenging anything. The “message” (NIV) is literally “word” (ESV). Paul accepts that the message is foolishness to those who are perishing. At the same time, it is the power of God to those who are being saved. If all we do is assimilate, then the message becomes nothing to anyone. We need to accept the nature of the gospel. It will be utterly rejected by some, it will be gladly accepted by others. Now this is amazing. All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23), sin is so deeply ingrained in all of us, having terrible effects on individuals and society. Yet, through the gospel, some people will be completely set free! God has chosen to save some, and His means of doing this is the gospel of Jesus Christ, so we should faithfully preach, teach and live the gospel.

1:19

Paul then quotes from Isaiah 29:14. Wisdom was highly valued in Greek culture, and Corinth was full of men who claimed to be wise. They would claim to understand the problems of the world, and to have the answer. Things are little different today. Man’s wisdom counts for nothing, and God will act to show up the foolishness, the nothingness, of man’s wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. If something is built on any other foundation then it is ultimately worthless. We need to appreciate what the Bible says about man’s so-called wisdom. By the way, this does not mean we become simpletons! God gave us brains and intellect, if we make Him our foundation, then intellect is an extremely valuable tool.

1 Corinthians 1:14-17 - To preach the gospel

1:14-16

Paul reminds them that he hardly baptised any of them, except Crispus and Gaius. The Roman names shows the long term Roman heritage of Corinth, though it was by a now a very Hellenized city. Also note that it wasn’t important to Paul who actually carried out the baptising. What is important is the name that we baptised into, and that is the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Note how things that at the time would have seemed insignificant, such as Paul not actually carrying out much of the baptising, later on proved to be important. God orders all things.

1:17

This is another example of applying a little common sense when interpreting the Bible. In Matthew 28:19 Jesus does tell us to go into all the world baptising people in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. What Paul is saying here is that the act of baptising, and, in particular, who carries it out, is not the crucial matter. They were forgetting the other parts of the Great Commission. Namely, becoming disciples of Christ Jesus, and obeying His commands. There is also the emphasis on all power and authority being given to Christ, and the fact that He is with us always.The focus is on Jesus and on following (which includes obeying) Him. We so easily put our focus on to other things, which is what the Corinthians were doing.

Preaching with eloquence and skill was something that was very much valued by the Greeks. Now this verse is not a sanction for rubbish preaching and making a complete hash of things. It is the emphasis that counts. Are we relying on the power of the cross or on something else? Why should what we preach have any effect on anyone? It is because we preach the gospel, the word of God. The cross that leads people to repentance, by the work of the Holy Spirit.  In Paul’s day the Greeks put emphasis on eloquence, in our day the biggest risk is relying on gimmicks of various sorts. Now there is actually nothing wrong with using what might be called gimmicks if they are helpful in getting the message over, but the focus must always be on the message, and the message must be focused on the cross.

1 Corinthians 1:12,13 - Is Christ divided?

1:12

The Christians in Corinth were identifying themselves by claiming to follow particular apostles. Paul shows his disdain for the whole practice by putting those who claim to follow him first. From what we know in Acts there were no differences in the teaching of Paul and Apollos, but there may have been differences in style. Some considered themselves to be better than the others and said they followed Christ. Of course, we should all follow Christ, but what they meant was that they were of the party of Christ, ie they were identifying themselves as a separate group. So the people were focusing on the messenger instead of the message. The same criticism could be made of those who call themselves Calvinists, or Arminians or Molinists. Now the teachings of Calvin are excellent, but we are not called to follow him. In charismatic circles there can be a tendency to follow certain “prophets” or even “apostles”. The stuff that was going on in Corinth is a very human response, and is why we find similar things happening throughout history, and even in our day.

1:13

Paul now poses rhetorical questions that highlight the stupidity of what the Corinthians were doing. There is only one Christ, we are either in Christ or we are not. Again Paul uses himself as the example to emphasise that he has no interest in people following him. He called people to Christ, not to himself. He, nor anyone else, was crucified for them. Only Christ was crucified for our sins. And they were baptised into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, not the name of Paul! Jesus is our salvation.

1 Corinthians 1:8-11 - No divisions

1:8,9

So how do we manage now? In this life we face many struggles. Some churches experiences persecution, though that does not seem to have been an issue at Corinth. All of us experience battles within ourselves, and within the church,and within life. How do we manage to win these battles? It is because God will keep us firm until the end, He provides sustaining power in our lives. And we will be blameless on the day of Christ Jesus. The cross has cleared all our sins, and the Spirit enables us to persevere. God is faithful. God has not just given us a second chance, He has not called us and then left us to get on with it. He works actively in our lives. And we have been called into fellowship with His Son. We are meant to know Jesus, and to work together with Him in our day to day lives.

1:10

We now come to the first of the problems, but before addressing the problem Paul states the way things should be. So often when dealing with issues we focus so much on the negative, on what is wrong, that we forget what is right. Perhaps the area of sexual morality is a good example of this. Sexual sin is prevalent in society, indeed it always has been, but one of the most powerful arguments that we have is the presentation of God’s positive mandate for sexual relations between one man and one woman in marriage. Here we are concerned with unity. There should be agreement between brothers. Note that this unity is “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”. There is no virtue whatsoever in being united in being wrong! We should be united in agreeing with what the Lord has said. There are to be no divisions, and they are to be united in mind and thought. This is a very tall order! However, if we look at what is coming next, the divisions are over “personality cults”. The word for “perfectly joined together” is related to the mending of nets or other broken things. Relationships needed to be restored within the church.

1:11

Word of the divisions had reached Paul via members of Chloe’s household. We do not know much about Chloe, though it is thought she was from Ephesus. It is interesting that she is female and it is referred to as her household. “Have informed me” (NIV) actually means “made clear”. Paul has been left in no doubt about the reality of there being quarrels among the church.

1 Corintians 1:5-7 - Enriched in every way

1:5

Given the severe criticism that Paul will give later, there are some who see his words here as somewhat ironic. However, there is no need to do so, and it seems better to take them as genuine. Moreover, while there were severe problems, there were also those who were faithful to Christ, and they would need encouragement. It is Christ who has enriched them, none of it is due to any goodness on their part. Paul highlights the speaking gifts and the knowledge gifts. It is important to note that he never denigrates the gifts, only the misuse of them.

1:6,7

The gospel is not just a presentation of ideas or thoughts, the gospel has power. The death and resurrection of Jesus is not just a noble act, but something that has power and affects lives today. The basic truth is that we are creatures created by God, and the cross has brought those who believe into right relationship with God. And when we believe He gives us the Holy Spirit. He starts producing changes within us, and He also gives us spiritual gifts, He does things that go beyond things that can be naturally explained. God confirms the message of the gospel, and this had happened among the Corinthians. The reason they had spiritual gifts was that the message of Jesus Christ was true.

So they “eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed”. They had received much, but no matter how much they had received, there was much, much more to come when Christ returns. There are two serious mistakes we can make. One is to assume that what we have now is all there is, or that the gospel is all about now. The other mistake is to assume that it is all about the future, all about what happens when we die. The clear presentation of the Bible is that the good news affects now, and there is something many times greater when Christ returns.

Dealing with disappointment

David is regarded as one of the greatest heroes of the Old Testament. Yet in David’s life there was a significant amount of frustration and disappointment, much of it of his own making. David wanted to build a temple (1 Chron 17:1), but God said it was not for David to build the temple because there was too much blood on his hands (1 Chron 22:8). Yet David looked ahead, and knew that there was something far greater that lay ahead, and Peter speaks about this in Acts 2:25-36.  In many of the psalms as well as describing what was going on in his own life, David got glimpses of the wonderful things that would happen in the future.

We all experience disappointments in our own lives for all sort of reasons. When this happens we have a choice. We can dwell on the disappointments, or we can look ahead with faith. We can look ahead to the greater fulfilment. Moses is another man who experienced great disappointment. Because of his failure (highly understandable from a human point of view) to honour God, he was not allowed to enter the promised land. Yet on the mount of transfiguration we see Moses appearing with Jesus.

David was not allowed to build the temple that was only a shadow of what was to come. Moses was not allowed to enter the promised land that was only a shadow of what was to come. But neither of them have been denied the real temple and real promised land. There will be things that we are denied in this life, but we can be absolutely sure of the eternal life that Jesus promises us, and there will come a day when all our disappointments in this life will fade to nothing in the light of His glorious grace. Knowing this give us hope for the future, but also helps us to live in the present.

1 Corinthians 1:3,4 - Grace and peace

1:3

“Grace and peace” is the common greeting in Paul’s letters. Undeserved favour and peace are our heritage. Too often we look at our lives as if we do not have these things, we are so prone to anxiety and worry. We need to remind ourselves that we receive grace and peace from God. Here in the grace of God we stand! (Rom 5:1,2). Notice the linking of “from God our Father” and “the Lord Jesus Christ”. This is another implicit example of Christ being equated with God, ie the divinity of Christ. There is one God, but three persons. We are all one being and one person, so all our language and thinking is geared to one being and one person. So when we have a statement like this verse it does not in any way indicate that Christ is not God or is subordinate to God. Rather the two terms (Father and Christ) together indicates their equal divinity.

1:4

As is usually the case, Paul begins his letter by giving thanks for the Corinthians. In fact, Galatians is about the only letter that he does not begin with thanksgiving. The things he includes in the thanksgiving are pertinent to the issues that will be dealt with later on. In this verse Paul highlight the grace of God given in Christ Jesus. We are saved by grace. We deserve nothing yet receive everything. The Corinthians were prone to taking pride in themselves, we should boast in Christ alone. Christ is the only foundation we have for our hope.

The God who will never abandon us (Acts 2:25-28)

In Acts 2:25-28 we find Peter quoting from Psalm 16 to demonstrate something of what was going on on the cross. We can learn a lot from this by also applying the lessons to our own approach to death. As was common in the New Testament, the quote comes from the Greek version of the Old Testament (LXX or Septuagint).

Peter attributes the psalm to David, and we see here an example of the common feature of Old Testament prophecies and psalms having both an immediate relevance and fulfilment, along with a much greater future fulfilment. Almost always, as here, the greater fulfilment is in the person of Jesus Christ. The events of the Old Testament happened partly in order to point ahead to what would see its fulfilment in Christ.

Christ was facing the most terrible event imaginable. As well as the normal horror of crucifixion there was the fact that He was going to receive the punishment that should have been ours, for all our sins. But even in this darkest hour Jesus knew that the “Lord was always before him”. So he was resolute in facing the cross. More than that, his heart was glad and his tongue rejoiced, and He knew that the final outcome would be that His body would rest in hope. He would be raised from the dead. We too, when the time to face death arrives, can rest in the sure hope of the resurrection. Jesus knew that His Father would not abandon Him to the grave, we can be equally sure that the Lord will not abandon us to the grave. Remember too that this was a most horrible death that Jesus was heading towards, yet He still had confidence in God. So even if we end up having to deal with a horrible disease, we can still have confidence in God. He will not abandon us.

Jesus had always been with the Father, so He knew the paths of life, and He had experienced the joy of being in the Father’s presence before He came to earth. Here on earth He knew the paths of life and the presence of His Father. And He knew He would be filled with joy forever in the Father’s presence.

We can apply this to our own lives as well. Jesus has shown us the paths of life, He has shown us how to live. This isn’t just the things we do and don’t do, though that of course is of great importance, but includes living in fellowship with the Lord. And we can be sure that He will not abandon us to decay, but we will live with joy in His presence forevermore. We can have confidence in all circumstances in the God who will not abandon us.

1 Corinthains 1:1,2 - To those sanctified

1:1

The introduction to the letter follows the standard format of the time with Paul adding the “Christian” bits. However, there are important things here. Paul states at the outset that he is an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. Paul has godly authority. In the West the only sin seems to be intolerance, treating all views, behaviours and opinions as equally valid. We find no such notion in the Bible. We need to understand that we are in a battle, and in battles there are conflicts, and there are times when we need to exercise authority. However, we should also note that Paul’s authority was not an assumed authority, not one taken upon himself. Rather, it was one given to him by God. He did not assume he had a God-given authority, but God gave him authority. One of the major failings of the church is not to use the authority it has. We too easily react to misuse of authority by no-use of authority.

Sosthenes may have been the synagogue ruler mentioned in Acts 18:17. If this is so he would have to have been later converted. Also, Sosthenes was a fairly common name, so we really have no idea who he was.

1:2

The normal introduction to a letter in those days was to name the senders, and then the recipients. The letter is addressed to the whole church in Corinth, and Paul reminds them of who they are. As the church it does no harm for us to remind ourselves who we are in Christ. First, we are the church of God. We owe our existence entirely to God, and without God the church has no meaning whatsoever. We have been sanctified by Christ, we have been set apart. We are in the world but not of the world. Oh what fools we are when we try to become like the world. The Old Testament is full or warnings of what happened to Israel whenever she sought to be just like the nations around her. We are called to be His holy people, called to be saints. See the two way approach here. We were sanctified in Christ by God, He set us apart for special service. We are to be saints, we are to live as those who belong to God, not to the world. God is completely sovereign, and our salvation is entirely dependent upon Him. But His will, His creation and His salvation is such that when He executes it it actually makes us active participants in its execution. And we are not saints alone, but are together with Christians all over the world. We should pray for our brothers and sisters all over the world, especially for those who are being persecuted.

1 Corinthians - Introduction

Introduction

Bibliography

1 Corinthians - Leon Morris, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, IVP, (1983).

1 Corinthians - Mathew Bartlett, The Pentecostal Bible Commentary series, (2012)

The Corinthian letters are ones over which there is virtually complete agreement that Paul wrote them. 1 Corinthians itself claims quite clearly that Paul is the author (1:1,2; 16:21), and the early church attested that Paul was the author. It was written about 55 AD while Paul was in Ephesus.

Corinth itself was a major sea trading city, and a strongly hellenistic one. It was also famous for its idols, in particular Aphrodite. The temple of Aphrodite was served by as many as one thousand temple prostitutes. This prevalence of sexual immorality in the city, both as a result of its trading status and its pagan worship, led to it being infamous and the phrase “to Corinthianize” meant to commit sexual immorality. This is why sexual ethics (or lack of them) is such an important feature of the letter.

The letter itself is a response to concerns raised by the household of Chloe, and answers to a series of questions. In some ways the church was thriving, in that spiritual gifts were in use, it was probably a reasonable size and was active. At the same time it was a complete mess of a church! Note that Paul does not write off the church, but brings apostolic correction and instruction. When faced with false teaching or bad practice we too often ban good practice along with the bad. Throughout this letter Paul always ensure that the good things are maintained and enhanced.

We sometimes have a rather idealised picture of the early church. There is absolutely nothing ideal about the early church, and Corinth is perhaps the prime example. Very serious problems existed, but Paul seeks to sort out these problems. We all go through numerous times when we encounter problems in our own churches. We should be saddened by this, but not dismayed. Instead we should seek to bring godly correction.

Paul had founded the church in Corinth (Acts 18). The church was probably predominantly Gentile, with Jewish problems, especially circumcision, not featuring in the letter. Though it is worth noting that Paul bases key elements of teaching on the Old Testament. The Old Testament is as relevant to Gentile Christians as it is to Jewish ones. God had also spoken to Paul in a vision (Acts 18:9,10), Paul was there to carry out God’s work.

In the New Testament we have two letters, but all in all it is likely that there were four letters, and three visits to Corinth. Morris lists these as:

Visits:

• Founding of the church
• The “painful visit”
• A visit after 2 Corinthians was sent

Four letters:

• The “previous” letter
• 1 Corinthians
• The severe letter
• 2 Corinthians

The main “problems” and issues dealt with in the letter are:

1. Divisions in the church, namely “personality cults”.
2. Immorality in the church, and failure to deal with it properly.
3. Lawsuits among believers.
4. Teaching on marriage.
5. How to live in a pagan society
6. The Lord’s supper, and other aspects of public worship
7. Spiritual gifts
8. The Resurrection

All these matters are highly relevant today!

1 Timothy 6:19-21 - Guard what has been entrusted

6:19

What we do in this life matters. As evangelicals we often have a problem with this concept for we worry that we end up with salvation by works. The Bible has no such problems, so neither should we. Here Paul teaches us that by living a life based on eternal principles, rather than one based on the fleeting and delusionary appeal of money, we establish a firm foundation for the life to come. “So that they may take hold of the life that is truly life”. We start eternal life now! We get a foretaste of it now.

6:20,21

Things had been entrusted to Timothy. The gospel had been entrusted to him. He needed to present and teach it faithfully, to instruct people in the gospel. He had responsibilities to the church, he had been given charge of part of the church. Our society is very much focused on self-fulfilment, this is wrong. We were created by God, we are given a purpose and tasks by God, that needs to be the focus of our lives, it needs to be the way we look at life. Actually living this way will make our lives far more fulfilled, and we will have much more peace in our lives.

Timothy also had to oppose the false ideas and teachings, this is part of our ministry. Those who teach wrong ideas have departed from the faith. As I have said before, we need to have a much more robust attitude to false teachings and false teachers, without the errors of the so-called “discernment ministries”.

“Grace and peace to you all”. The use of the plural here implies that Paul envisaged the letter being read out to the church as a whole, at least at some point.

1 Timothy 6:17,18 - Handling wealth properly

6:17

Earlier we had very severe warnings about those who see the gospel as a means of making money. Now we get more teaching on wealth. Note first that there is absolutely nothing wrong in being rich! We need to be very careful that in reacting against some forms of prosperity teaching we do not fall into other errors. The consistent teaching of the Bible is that wealth can be a blessing from the Lord. So those who are rich in this world are commanded first not to be arrogant. Having money does make life an awful lot of easier. It does not get rid of all problems by any means, but it certainly avoids a lot of them! And it can be a blessing. The danger is that we then become arrogant, thinking we are better than others, or thinking that we are in total control. It can deceive us into putting our hope in wealth. Money is uncertain, it can all be gone in an instant. So instead we must ensure that we put our hope in God. Then note that it says he “richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment”. So we are not to feel guilty if we are rich, rather we are to be grateful. Note also that it is provided “for our enjoyment”. Now we must never take this phrase in isolation, as the next verse will show, but one of the reasons God gives us good things is so that we can enjoy life.

6:18

Next the rich are commanded to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous towards others. It is significant that doing good comes before giving financially. If we are well off then can be a tendency to think that because we have given money we have no further duty. This is not so, indeed it would impoverish us spiritually. We are to do good. We are also to be generous towards others. God gives us wealth for three essential reasons: (i) to be generous to God and to others; (ii) to provide for our needs; (iii) for our enjoyment. All three are important. Note that Paul tells Timothy to command those with wealth to give, not merely to invite them to give.

1 Timothy 6:13-16 - Make a good confession

:13,14

Paul makes his charge to Timothy as serious as he can. There are times in life, especially when in leadership, when we face a challenge. There will be decisions that need to be made, courses of action that need to be continued, that face opposition, sometimes fierce opposition that involves threat or actual harm to ourselves. In those times we need to be fully aware of the real circumstances. First, we stand before God, the one who gives life to all things. We should certainly pay more attention to Him than to anyone or anything else. Then Jesus is cited as an example. He stood before Pilate, representing the Roman Empire, and continued to act faithfully. So we should always act in a faithful and godly manner, knowing that one day Jesus will return and all of us will stand before Him. Remaining faithful to Christ makes perfect sense, but we need to be prepared in our minds (1 Peter 1:13) so that we do not allow the heat of the moment to divert us from the right path.

6:15,16

Paul continues to expand upon the situation. It is God who decides when Christ will return, He is the One in control. God is the only Ruler, not anyone else seeking to make a name for themselves, or to exert some power. He alone is the king of kings and Lord of Lords. Note how titles that are elsewhere applied to Christ are applied to God. God is exalted way above everything else. No one or nothing else can compare with Him at all. We should have one overriding concern in life, and that is to faithfully serve the Lord.

1 Timothy 6:11,12 - Fight the good fight

6:11

“But you, man of God, flee from all this...” Notice the very direct way in which Paul speaks to Timothy. There is to be no messing about with these false teachings, and notice that these false teachings were not doctrinal in the sense that the Galatian controversy was, but to do with wrong heart attitudes. Prosperity gospel teaching is dangerous and it is nonsense, we should have nothing to do with it. We should also guard our hearts carefully and be on the lookout for any hint of greed that might be in us. But this is not just negative advice in the sense of “do not”, we need the positive side as well. We are to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. We must never become so obsessed with avoiding wrong attitudes or teachings that we forget to focus on the right attitudes and teachings.

6:12

Resisting these things, and countering them as a leader would be costly, and Timothy would feel vulnerable. So Paul encourages him. He is to fight the good fight. There is a battle to be fought daily. “Take hold of the eternal life ...” Eternal life is not just something that happens after we die, it starts now. To be sure, when Christ comes back we will be transformed beyond belief, but we are to begin to lay hold of eternal life now. It is not just a matter of life without end, it is the nature of that life as well. So we are to seek to live it as much as we can right now.

1 Timothy 6:8-10 - The poverty of prosperity teaching

6:8

So if someone tells us to seek after more and more goods we should remember this verse. “If we have food and clothing we will be content with that”. If we have the material necessities today we should be content. The truth is that most of us in the West have so much more than this, so we should be even more content and grateful. We should thank God for what we have.

6:9,10

If the desire to get rich is the motivating force in our lives then it has a peculiar effect on our minds and judgement. We are then easily prone to temptation and can do the most stupid things. This can ultimately lead to “ruin and destruction”. “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil”. This is an oft misquoted saying, but even in its misquoted form (“the love money is the root of all evil”) the gist of the saying is still valid. “Sex, money and power” are the unholy trinity of desires that are responsible for most of our failings. When we allow these things to dominate we will bring much grief upon ourselves, and do much harm to others in the process as well. Every so-called prosperity teacher should read these two verses and turn their brains on! And if we find a church or a preacher whose focus is on money, then we should steer well clear. By the way, this most emphatically does not mean the church should never teach on money, it most certainly should. People need educating about money, but the teaching should all be truly Biblical. In fact, the church does not teach enough about money.

1 Timothy 6:6,7 - Godliness with contentment

6:6

First of all Paul gives the attitude we should have towards money and material goods. “Godliness with contentment”. Seeking after money has always been a human failing. It was a problem in the early church, it is a problem today with the so-called prosperity gospel. Now does God care about our material provision, and does He provide for us? Most certainly He does and a problem for most of us is that we worry far too much about these things. Is it wrong to be blessed materially? Absolutely not, they are to be received with thanks. Where things go sadly awry is if we make this the goal of our faith or teach that following Christ never involves suffering, or make the accumulation of more goods an aim in life. “Godliness with contentment” is a far better goal. It is actually also in our interests (as are all of God’s commands!). Material goods gratefully received as a blessing from God and used for good purposes are good, but in themselves they will never satisfy.

6:7

This verse very neatly expresses the reality of life (and death)! We brought nothing into the world, we will take nothing out of the world, in fact cannot take anything out of the world. We were born with nothing. One day we will be dead, on that day our status, our education, our material possessions will be worth absolutely nothing. What will remain is our relationship with God, what He has done for us. On that day what will matter about our lives is what we did for God and for other people. Money can exert a terrible and deceitful hold on our lives, but it is all a lie. God knows what is truly important, and throughout the Bible He has told us what is really important, what we should seek after. And in Christ He demonstrated how we should live our lives.

1 Timothy 6:3-5 - Unhealthy interests

6:3,4a

“These are the things you are to teach and insist on” at the end of v2 is linked with v3 onwards in NIV and ESV. There are times when we need to “insist” or “urge” (ESV) on the things we teach, we are not just offering opinions, or a point of view, we are presenting God’s word. Then we get a very clear condemnation of false teachers. “If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, they are conceited and understand nothing.” Oh if only some of our churches would adopt this approach from time to time, instead of always “listening”. There is no virtue nor value in “listening” to teaching that advocates ignoring the “instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ.

6:4b,5

The description of false teachers is now expanded upon. False teaching comes in all sorts of shapes and forms. In the situation Paul was writing to here it seemed to be people who were stirring up dissensions. They used pointless arguments about words, malicious talk, effectively gossip. They wanted to create divisions between people. Moreover, they saw “godliness” as a means to financial gain. Paul will now proceed to expand on the seriousness and the errors of seeing the gospel as a means of getting rich, but just note for now that such people have “been robbed of the truth”. They are no longer (if they ever were) speaking with the mind of Christ.

Sermon : I am the Gate, I am the Good Shepherd (John 10:9-11, Psalm 23)

A sermon on "I am the Gate, I am the Good Shepherd", covering John 10:9-11 and Psalm 23.

1 Timothy 6:1,2 - Slaves!

6:1

The church included members who were slaves, and those who were slavemasters. Now our immediate reaction is that “they shouldn’t have slaves”. Indeed, atheists often make the charge against the Bible that it promotes or condones slavery. This is to misunderstand the situation. First, the situation we are dealing with is not like the slave trade that was common in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Rather, it was an integral part of the economy. Slaves could sometimes buy their way out of slavery. It was certainly no bed of roses, but it was not quote the same as the slave trade. Furthermore, the church was in no position to institute radical social change! Rather, it was a small, often oppressed group. So what does the New Testament do? It instructs both slaves and their masters on how to act, so that the the effects of slavery are at least ameliorated. It also gave value to slaves.

Now look at how Paul goes about this. He instructs slaves to respect their masters. In other letters masters are instructed to treat slaves well. The key thing is that our first concern should be to fulfil our responsibilities, before we worry about getting our “rights”.

6:2

Those who had believing masters were to still show them respect. Within the church they would be considered equals, but this does not mean we ignore the structures and hierarchies within society. The slave should not take advantage of this, but instead serve their masters all the more diligently. Notice that it then talks of the masters as “fellow believers”, and “devoted to their welfare”. There are no instructions on this in this letter, but there are elsewhere. It seems that in Ephesus the masters were acting properly (see Eph 6:9), ie they were looking after the welfare of the slaves.