 Okay we are all back ready to dive into first Corinthians. Okay so what we'll do is let's just read through the whole chapter once and then we'll go into a verse by verse study right okay so if there's somebody who wants to read that chapter first Corinthians chapter one Paul called to be an abosin of Jesus Christ through the will of God and the source things our brother unto the church of God which is at current to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be saints with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord both theirs and ours grace be unto you and praise from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ I thank my God always on your behalf for the grace of God which is given to you by Jesus Christ that in everything e or n rich by him in all utterance and in all knowledge even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you so that he be he come behind in no gifts waiting for the coming of the of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall also confirm you until they end that he may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ God is faithful by whom you are called unto the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ our Lord now I'm see to you brethren by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that he all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you but they'd be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment but it happened declared unto me of you my brethren by them which are the house of glory and that there are contentions among you now this I say that everyone of you say I am of Paul and I of Apollos and I of say pass and I of Christ is Christ divided was called crucified for you or where he baptized in the name of Paul I thank God that I baptized none of you but Christmas and here's let's any should say that I baptized in in my own name and I baptized also the household of stay fairness besides I know not whether I baptized any other for Christ sent me not to baptize but to preach the gospel not with the wisdom of words less the cross of Christ should be made of none effect for the preaching of the cross is to them the that perish foolishness but unto us which are saved it is the power of God for it is written I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the crudence where is the wise where is the scribe where is the disputed of this world have not got made foolish the wisdom of the world for after that in in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom you not God it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that building for the Jews require a sign and the Greek seek after wisdom but we preach Christ crucified and to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness but unto them which are called both Jews and Greeks Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men for you see you're calling brethren how that not many wise men after the flesh not very mighty not very noble or called but God had chosen the foolish things of the world to co-found the wise and God had chosen the weak things of the world to co-found the things which are mighty and base things of the world and things which are despised had God chosen he and the things which are not to bring to North things that are the no flesh should glory in his presence but often or he in Christ Jesus who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption that according as it is written he that glories let him glory in the Lord. Thank you Jalina we'll just go into looking at each verse and talk about some things that we're seeing Paul talk about and what we can learn from this Paul called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and our brother Sostanus we see here the use of the word called so someone who is invited someone who is appointed by God himself to be an apostle so the Greek there is a apostle us that is one who is sent one who is delegated as a messenger as an ambassador be a representative on behalf of somebody else and so Paul has been sent by God to represent himself before the people we see a very clear definition of who is the one who does the calling the calling is done by God and by the will of God it is not something that we decide for ourselves and it's not something that we can manufacture for ourselves it is something that God audience and so when we are called into something we can go with that assurance that we are called by God we are sent by God and so God is the one who empowers us to fulfill that calling whatever our calling may be whether we are in business whether we are in ministry whether we are a homemaker a pastor a prophet we are in the corporate world wherever we are if that is where God has called us then we can go into it with confidence that he is the one who will empower us for that calling and we see here the reference to someone named Sostanus and so in Acts 18 we read about the synagogue ruler who was named Sostanus who was beaten up at that time so it probably is the same Sostanus who had come to faith and so here he is with Paul as he's writing as Paul is writing the letter he's writing with Sostanus in verse 2 we see that the letter is written to God's church right that is an important definition of the church the church belongs to God we may be the pastor we may be a leader in the church but the church still belongs to God and the church that Greek word Ecclesia is those who are called out and those who are who assemble for a purpose that God has called them to so they are called out of the world and gather together the people set apart for God those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus right those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be his holy people now we see both the use of the church of God in Corinth so there is that sanctified people and the saints but they are very much present in the city of Corinth which is known for its immorality so the holiness and that sin and immorality are kind of their opposites they are almost like contrasted in that one statement but that's what the church is called to be in this world we're called to be the salt and light so they're called to be the sanctified set apart holy people in in the dark places that we are present in and we also see in that definition that Paul gives of the church sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be his holy people both those words talking about being set apart being sacred being consecrated and it's very those are very important words that he's chosen to use when he's describing the church because what we talked about right the culture there was a lot of immorality in the culture and even as we continue to read in Corinthians we'll see some of that immorality has gone into the church and is being practiced in the church so when Paul is using these words to describe the church it's a very intentional it's a very important description that he wants to give right at the start this is who you are you are a people who are holy you are a people who are called to be set apart from the culture that you're in you're called to be consecrated to God and then he says you're called to be holy people together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ so this church is part of the larger body of believers around the world and the one thing that unites them is that Jesus Christ is Lord over the church so Jesus Christ is Lord over the church at Corinth and he's Lord over the church around the world and we can take so that's why we can also take the words of this letter for ourselves this is not something that is written only to the Corinthians for that time while there's very specific teaching from Paul to the situations that they were facing there's much that we can learn and take from this letter for our present the situation and our present challenges in the church verse 3 grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ so Paul is using a standard kind of greeting you'll see this in most letters that are written in the New Testament where there is this kind of greeting where grace and peace or different words of blessing are spoken right at the start of the letter and what we can take away from this is those blessings come from God grace and peace come to us from God and from Jesus Christ and even in those words Paul is raising Jesus to the level of the Father you see in the New Testament there is constantly that revelation that Jesus is God right so teaching the church that Jesus is God Jesus was sent by the Father and so when he says from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ he's putting Jesus at the level of the Father let's go to that's the first verses are an introduction to the letter just general greetings and then we go into verse 4 I always thank my God for you because his grace given you in Christ Jesus we see Paul starting his letter with Thanksgiving now if you go on in this letter there's going to be the major portion of this letter I mean like 90 percent of the letter is correction is exhortation his review book is all of those things but he starts his letter with a very positive note that is something for us to also learn that no matter what is going wrong there are things that are going well and it's important for us to recognize the things that are going well it's also important to call those things out whether it's in our own lives or in the lives of others to be able to say this is what I see God doing in your life these are the amazing things that God has revealed to you these are the amazing things that God is enabling you to do so often we can fall too much on the side of negativity where we forget the good things that God's doing we forgot to give Thanksgiving we forget to appreciate honor what God is doing or on the other hand we may ignore the things that need to be corrected and stay too much on the side of just the place so being able to please God being able to recognize the good things and being able to also address the problems that are there in the spaces around us in the ministries that we are doing in the church or wherever we are given a place of authority or influence to be able to address the things that are also being done that are wrong and we see here also the grace is given to you in Christ Jesus that's very important this grace is something that is available to us because we are in Christ and it is in Christ that we are able to avail of all that is all that is given to us as an inheritance through the gospel through the cross we're able to avail of it because we are in Christ we also see a distinction between what kinds of grace there is so there is a general grace that is given to all believers we see that in Romans 5 17 someone can just read that Romans 5 17 Romans chapter 5 by 17 for each by one man for friends that ring by one much more than we should receive a balance of grace and of the gift of righteousness salary salary in life by one by one Jesus Christ thank you so that grace is available to anyone who receives this gospel anyone who receives Jesus receives that abundant grace but there is also a special grace so we say so we see here because of this grace given you in Christ Jesus so there's a special grace that has been given to this church to the church of Corinth and we'll see more about what that grace is but that kind of grace is available for the specific calling that a person has or church has or community of believers has and that will be something that will enable them to live out their calling in the context in which they are so we'll just take one reference Ephesians 4 7 can somebody read that please Ephesians 4 7 but to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift thank you so each one of us has special grace for certain things that God wants to fulfill through us and the Corinthian church had the same it had specific grace for their context for what God want to fulfill through them and so even in our context even in our callings in our churches to recognize what is the grace that God has given us specifically that we can tap into that we can exercise to fulfill what God wants for us for our people verse 5 says for any hymn you have been enriched in every way with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge so this is where Paul is expanding on what is the grace that has been given to them he says you have been blessed with all kinds of speech with all kinds of knowledge so those are the spiritual gifts that they have been given and we understand that as the gifts of utterance and the gift of knowledge so the gifts of utterance would be speaking in tongues interpretation and gifts of prophecy so all of those involve speech right so they are all considered as the gifts of utterance and gifts of knowledge or the revelatory gifts would be words of wisdom words of knowledge discerning of spirits so these were the gifts that were being exercised within this church and they were being practiced they were being experienced by the people and so this is a special grace that is upon them where they are seeing their believers receiving these gifts and exercising these gifts in abundance now we also recognize that these gifts are available to all of us as believers and so this is something that we can receive for ourselves we can trust that these gifts are available to us in Jesus because God gives us that grace in Jesus right because we are in Christ those gifts are available to us but here we see Paul calling out these gifts specifically in this church and as we continue to see in Corinthians we'll see that the spiritual gifts were being exercised and being seen powerfully at work in this church and we'll also look at what does that mean what does it mean to be able to see spiritual gifts being used so powerfully being exercised so powerfully and what can we understand about the faith of the Corinthians from it let's go on to verse six God that's confirming our testimony about Christ among you so this is a really important statement he's saying here yes we came to you with the gospel and we preach the good news of Jesus and you believed but what is the confirmation that what we said is true the confirmation is that you have received these gifts and you we are able to see these gifts that work in you so the evidence of the truth of our message is what we are seeing as the fruit in the believers who have received the message which is a beautiful thing right that i don't have to prove the truth of my message the truth of my message is proved in the fruit that is born in the lives of those who believe it's it takes away the weight of us having to do something us having to create something or make something happen it brings us to a place of completely trusting in God completely resting in God and also to a place of complete dependence on God because this cannot be manufactured if i can't make somebody exercise the gifts of the spirit i can't make somebody receive the gifts of the spirit it has to be the Holy Spirit moving it has to be that person's heart changed it has to be that person receiving what is being given to them and so it is it is our task to just take the message to take it in obedience to take it in faith that God will work through that message and to take it in humility knowing that our job is just to carry the message and that's all we can do we can we can of course pay for the people who are speaking to we can pay for their hearts to be open for their eyes to be open but that evidence that our message is true and the evidence that that God has worked in their lives will come from what happens in their lives after we preach and after we share the gospel let's go on to verse seven therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed so we see again what Paul is affirming in this church that there is no lack of spiritual gifts they're seeing all spiritual gifts being exercised all the spiritual gifts definitely made available to them but we see that they are using those gifts and they are eagerly waiting for Jesus to come in that time of using their spiritual gifts verse eight says he will also keep you firm to the end so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus so not only is that living in the spirit important but it's also important to remain firm to the end to remain blameless before God when Jesus returns and that not only do the gifts come from God but the ability to stand firm also comes from God God is faithful verse nine God is faithful who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord and so it is God who will keep this church standing firm if God will keep us standing firm till Jesus Christ returns so there are some things that we'll just look at so we see that Paul is affirming these gifts he's recognizing that these spiritual gifts are at work but we also see that there were lots of problems in the Corinthian church there was a lot of sin there was a lot of immaturity in the believers so we can see that seeing the gifts of the spirit does not mean that the believers are spiritually matured sometimes we can confuse that when we see somebody using the gift of prophecy or we see someone being powerfully used by God or powerfully revealing something that's supernatural we think that they have reached a level of spirituality that maybe is far beyond us or that they have a greater maturity than us but if we look at chapter three in 1 Corinthians Paul calls these believers babies he calls them carnal because they although they had all of these gifts they were still very immature in their faith and we see that in evidence in the way they were living in the things that they were talking about in the things that were dividing them so they were quarreling about who they follow which leader is better all of these things that were least important right Christ is we see that Paul affirms right at the start Christ is Lord of the church right so he's the only one we should be going after and he's the only one we should claim allegiance to so when we look at spiritual gifts we should not equate that with spiritual maturity the other thing to see is that even though there was this sin in the church even though there were problems in the church we can see that they were continuing to use their spiritual gifts so one side of it is that just because there are problems we shouldn't say that okay there are these problems let us not use our gifts instead we continue to use our gifts and continue to allow God to work in our lives so we're continuing to allow God to sanctify us continuing to surrender ourselves to God while also using our spiritual gifts we don't say i'm going to reach this level of holiness and then use my spiritual gifts we see that God will continue to work through us while also sanctifying us and the other side of it is that not only spiritual maturity but we cannot judge someone's holiness based on the use of spiritual gifts okay so just because we see them using spiritual gifts we don't we don't say okay this person is very holy there is no sin in them that is not necessarily the case and also this beautiful thing that Paul does is even though he can see all of these problems he can see all of this in he's saying i trust God to hold you firm to keep you standing firm till the day Jesus comes so even though there are these problems he doesn't lose hope for the church he keeps he keeps speaking words of faith and confidence in God not confidence in himself or the people but confidence in God to hold these people to carry them through till the end and the last part is that God has called us into fellowship with his son Jesus Christ our Lord that's verse nine so God is faithful and he has called you into fellowship with his son Jesus Christ our Lord and that is the calling that each one of us has as believers and as the church that we come in communion with the Father Son and Holy Spirit so while this verse verse nine talks specifically about being called into fellowship with Jesus Christ uh there are other verses so we see it's in your notes um they're called into fellowship with the Holy Spirit in 2nd Corinthians 13 14 it mentions that uh and one John 1 3 talks about being called into fellowship with the Father and with the Son so uh we are called into communion into friendship into partnership uh into intimacy with all three persons of the God Father Son and Holy Spirit and that's a beautiful thing to be called into this relationship of love of sharing of um of oneness right we are made one with God okay so far any questions any thoughts okay jeffina you can go ahead so uh in verse eight we see uh that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ so this the day uh signifies us the judgment day or the second coming uh just to know what it actually signifies the day of our Lord Jesus Christ uh yes so it refers to the day when Jesus Christ will come back the second coming so um this is basically when Jesus Christ comes back to call his bride right uh will we be part of that um that bride that spotless uh pure uh clothed in white bride um that Jesus has come for will be we be part of that church uh and so that's when Jesus will call back the believers those who have stayed firm to the end any other anything else questions or anything you want to share what we've covered so far okay we'll move on to verse uh 10 sorry thank you okay so i appeal to your brothers and sisters in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought uh so here we see Paul's shift in the letter right so the first three verses were general greetings uh the next five verses were just uh being able to say what God has been doing in the church being able to acknowledge the good work that God has been doing in the church and um and then he goes into this mode of correction of addressing things within the church that were not as they should be um and he's doing that from uh with the authority of Christ so he says in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ so that is who he is as an apostle he's sent uh to represent God to the people and so he's going there in the name of Jesus and whatever he's saying is coming from that place and that's an important thing uh it come that is authority and uh his responsibility is to Jesus and he goes representing Jesus uh in his role as an apostle that's something for us to also remember in the roles that we are placed in we are going as representatives of Christ so the things we are saying whether things to correct things to teach whatever it is that we are coming from that place of authority in Christ and that's where our confidence is so we can say what we have to say uh because we believe that that is the heart of Christ for that situation for those people um and so we shouldn't shy away from saying things that maybe wouldn't please people that wouldn't be well received we wouldn't do that because our allegiance and our um accountability is to Christ um so he says all of you agree with one another in what you say that there be no division among you but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought so there are a few things that he is describing about what uh believers community of believers should uh what should be seen within a community of believers or within a church one thing is speak the same thing so uh whatever you are saying let it be an agreement with one another uh whatever we are saying about God whatever we are uh saying about our faith the second thing is let there be no division nothing that uh causes y'all to be uh divided or anything that puts y'all on different sides y'all all on one side uh that you be perfectly united in mind and thought so in the things that you are thinking in the way you understand things in the way you judge things um and then in the way you um in the opinions that you have in the views that you have let all of those things be perfectly united so uh like well knit together so that is quite a tall order for a church right I mean you have so many people in the church uh with so many different views and say all of you say the same thing all of you uh think the same way all of you have the same opinion is quite uh it seems almost impossible but yet Paul seems to think that this is not too much to ask the church if he's asked if he's writing it to them he's saying it is possible it is possible in Christ it is possible through his spirit um so how do we do that how do we uh come to such a place of unity any thoughts anyone chef chef good morning man good morning good morning please I just want to ask a question from this uh from this uh teaching you said that uh we should have this uh to speak the the same thing if you have the same mind and but sometimes when we interpret the bible and the interpret is to give us different meaning and uh people used to say that uh uh all the spirits interpret the bible in different ways in based on the circumstances and uh views on God so now I want to ask is it possible for all the churches to speak the same thing have the same mind and the same judgment based on the word of God please I want to tell you something yes uh so I'll just repeat your question and if I if you want to correct me you can correct me uh so your question is that we say that uh the Holy Spirit will give us an interpretation of scripture and sometimes people interpret scripture differently so how do we come to a place of agreement and say the same thing and think the same thing did I understand your question fully yes yes yes yes yes yes so um so yes this is the challenge right so um I think uh we are not in this Paul is writing to the Corinthians and he's saying you agree so this is that small local church now that small local church has people in authority so Paul is a person in authority who established the church and then he has raised up leaders within the church so those are the people who will help uh help correctly interpret scripture um but um everyone does have the Holy Spirit and everyone does go to scripture and receive revelation from scriptures through the Holy Spirit but we should test those revelations and so we test those revelations uh by going through the rest of scripture by understanding uh what does the rest of scripture say about this what does the context in this passage say about it uh we will test all of those things and uh we will then come to a conclusion of what what does this mean or what uh what will we stand for what will we say is true uh and we will also submit to our spiritual authorities uh as long so long as they are uh also in line with what is what is in scripture so if we are able to do all of these things there is a much more uh opportunity for unity so we do our study we receive from the Holy Spirit we study the word of God we look at what the word of God says whether what we have understood is in line with the word of God we learn from our spiritual authorities and all of those things coming together uh then uh brings us to a place of agreement is that is that help answer your question yeah yes ma for some people you used to have use on some things like baptism like baptism some people believe in water baptism while some people didn't believe in water baptism so that's why I asked the question yes yes so this um so that would be a question for the larger church right that is like uh the church worldwide uh but uh now we're looking at a very specific or small local body of believers and he's saying you agree with one another so uh because there was division and we'll see what cause of division was but he's telling them y'all don't be divided this small local body so we're not saying now we cannot make the whole uh church universal all agree on certain doctrine at this point in uh where we are as a church uh but as local body of believers these are some practices we can follow to come to a place of unity uh to be in agreement with each other but uh we'll see that what the Corinthians were fighting over was not great questions of theology it was very this is why Paul calls them immature because uh their debates were things that were actually of no importance at all um and so when he's calling for unity he's also saying like y'all are being divided over very insignificant unimportant things these are not the things that uh that you should be fighting over these are not the things you should be clinging to um and we'll go on to see what these things are um so verse 11 my brothers and sisters some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you uh verse 12 what I mean is this one of you says I follow Paul another I follow apollos another I follow seafiz still another I follow christ so here Paul has uh described what the actual cause for division was so they were fighting over the leaders in the church people who had taken the gospel to them um Paul and apollos had taken the gospel to them um and so some of them had come to faith through Paul some of them had come through apollos uh and so they were quarreling and saying I follow one you follow the other and so that was causing division within the church but uh what the beautiful thing is that Paul calls them to unity in Christ which is important so you are not united under a church leader but you are united under Christ um and we see that Paul received this report from someone named Chloe uh who was a part of the church and so Chloe had taken that report back to uh or the house people from the household had taken that report back to Paul um so we talked about this earlier where there were different people of status within the church and based on their status they had a preference for a certain kind of leader right so if they were people of lower class they would like Paul because Paul associated with them he was uh in the marketplace he was doing manual labor and they appreciated the work he was doing they appreciated that he was engaging with them and so they would be the ones who would uh want to follow him on the other hand apollos as we saw in acts 18 was described as someone who is a great letrician so he would preach powerfully he had great knowledge and so the people of the higher status would be the people who would have preferred apollos so you see that this division is actually not really based on anything that Paul or apollos was teaching it was based on status right so the people of the lower status who liked Paul were choosing Paul based on their status and the people who liked Paul was were choosing apollos based on their status because it uh it appealed to the higher status mindset of uh of great philosophy great thinking great uh oratory skills all of these things that they were pursuing almost as uh sides of power uh so Paul is actually addressing that kind of division within the church it is uh you're choosing leaders but you're choosing leaders based on what is present in the culture uh so the when we see later on Paul talking about uh we'll go on in verse 18 and 19 where he's talking about the wisdom of the world this was the wisdom of the world that was being seen in the church where what was practiced in Corinth that philosophy that practice of like being able to speak very impressively and that being appealing to people of a higher status of the elite in society was something that some of the people were following uh whereas the people of the lower class liked Paul for their own reasons so um there was a problem with that kind of vision in the church uh so Paul then goes on to say is Christ divided no Christ is one and so we should be one in Christ as the body of Christ was Paul crucified for you were you baptized in the name of Paul I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Christmas and days so no one can say that you were baptized in my name yes I also baptized the household of Stephanus beyond that I don't remember if I baptized anyone else for Christ did not send me to baptize but preach the gospel not with wisdom and eloquence lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power so Paul is addressing that uh that desire of uh some of the people to receive uh like someone with great rhetorical skills to have somebody who is able to be very impressive in their preaching so he's saying I didn't come to you with that kind of preaching because I wanted the cross of Christ itself to be highlighted the power of the cross to be highlighted I didn't want my words to take away what was what is inherent in the cross and so there was a reason for which Paul had chosen to preach in this way and then he's calling them back to Christ himself so Christ is the one to whom you should uh you should have an allegiance to Christ it's not to a specific leader but to Christ himself so I think um there are a few notes in your notes uh that explain some of that but all of it in the text is quite self-explanatory so uh our unity our allegiance should always be to Christ himself not to a leader so if a leader leaves the church we don't leave the church but if a leader goes astray we don't go astray with them uh our unity will always be in Christ our allegiance will always be to Christ and so uh it is when we um are aligned Christ that unity within the body is uh possible because we are all coming under the lordship of Christ so let's go on to verse 18 for the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing but to those who are being saved it is the power of God so that um the power of the cross is only understood by those who are being saved so for someone who uh is is trying to understand the gospel just with their mind or with their logic it will sound like foolishness it will not make any sense to them uh why would God come and die on a cross how does that reveal power how does that reveal uh anything that I would want to follow why would I want to follow somebody who who ended up uh being crucified on the cross so if we try to explain the gospel in a way that is only logical and if we are expecting people to come to faith through the logic of what we are saying that is probably not going to happen uh it has to be uh the spirit holy spirit opening their eyes and the holy spirit enabling them to come to a place of faith and receiving what is the power of God in the cross uh verse 19 for it is written I will destroy the wisdom of the wise the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate so that is a quotation from Isaiah 29 I think that is not in your north Isaiah 29 verses 13 to 14 uh so this is verses 19 and 20 of uh first Corinthians one is referring to Isaiah 29 13 to 14 where Isaiah 29 is talking about those living by human tradition versus God's revelation and it says those living by human tradition will perish but those who live by God's revelation will uh will be the ones who receive spiritual understanding so um I think the bell just went off uh we'll stop there with verse 19 and we'll continue from verse 20 in our next class um so until then please do go into google classroom please do post your learning your insights and uh post an introduction of yourself as well thank you so much it was good to be with you today thank you thank you ma'am thank you ma'am thank you