 So, let's begin with prayer and then we will go into today's lesson. Anyone deepening to open us in prayer please. Yes, great. Loving Father, Once in a Lot, we thank you so much for this beautiful day, Lord. Thank you for adding one more day in our life. Thank you for bringing us together, Lord, as a team. So, Lord, we are from different parts of the world. But, Lord, we thank you so much that every moment, Lord, we experience your love, your sovereignty in our life, Master. Lord, as your daughter, Lord, is going to speak to us, Lord, teach us, Lord, I pray that you bless her, Master, let you speak to her, Master. And I ask, Holy Spirit, Lord, you bless us. That, Lord, give us a heart of teachability. So, the Lord, we will not only learn, but Lord, we will be able to apply it in our lives in the best possible. So, thank you. Praise Jesus and I pray. Amen. Thank you. So, how is everyone doing? Week three of classes all doing well. If you're not able to talk, you can just use the reaction button. Feel free to do that or post in the chat. Everyone's doing well? Doing well. Praise God. Okay. Glad to hear that I finally recovered from my cold, so I'm feeling a lot better also by God's grace. I was just listening to last week's recording and realized it was very, my congestion was very obvious. So, today I hope we will be a little clearer when I'm talking. So, last week we went from first Corinthians chapter one versus 19 to chapter three versus 15, if I remember correctly, yeah, chapter three versus 15. So, we'll just do a small overview of what we covered so far and then we'll continue ahead. Does anyone want to share some of the things we covered last week? If you would like to cover what we covered, even from the first week in the introduction, if that would be helpful, we can do that or we'll just do last week's content. Definitely. So, last week I believe we looked at chapter three as well as some part of, chapter two as well as some parts of chapter three and so we looked at it first by verse and in the first part of chapter two, we saw that Paul didn't want people to be attracted to his words but to the person he was talking about. He also, we also see him talking about his dependence on the Holy Spirit instead of a grand speech or his knowledge and yeah, so I think we talked a lot about how he depended on the Spirit of God and it's not by our own wisdom. We preach the truth and Paul just keeps repeating that. That's what I kind of grabbed from chapter two. Okay, and I also liked how you said, not only the receiver needs the Holy Spirit to understand the Scriptures but even the one who speaks also needs to depend on the Holy Spirit so that we can preach it in the right way. And in chapter three, I liked this line so much and I kept underlining it and kept doing everything. We can be filled with the Spirit and we can still not walk in the Spirit. I got back to my hostel and I was still thinking about it. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Sometimes we feel, if we are just filled by the Spirit, sometimes we just want to feel the Holy Spirit but I was really touched by that line that we can be filled and still we can be not walking in it. And we also saw that in the Greek culture it's very common to treat someone as God and we also saw that as ministers of God we are working towards a common goal and each of us were given a specific work to carry it. So if we sowed or if we watered, nothing matters. We always come together and we enjoy the harvest together and in the end I believe we saw that no other foundation than Jesus himself will lost. Thank you, Jeffrey. I think it's really great to see not only the like going through what we covered but what you've taken personally and everything that you've learned that's really important. Anything else that anyone else wants to add? Okay, if you had something that you wanted to say please feel free to put it in the chat. So before we go back into Corinthians I was supposed to post a question for our assignment, our first assignment. I'm supposed to post that today. So I'll do that on Google Classroom. So please just be on the lookout. I'll do that. I hope to do it by the end of the day on Google Classroom. So that'll be the first question. We'll do an essay question and it will be due on August. Yeah, maybe I'll give you all and we just see how the next assignment is. Okay. It's a week, okay? If I give you all a week, yeah? Okay, so I'll give you all a week to complete the assignment. So I'll post it today and you all can submit it by the end of Monday next week. Right? Okay, I'll post all of that information as well, the deadline, due date and all of that on Google Classroom. So please do check your Google Classroom today. Okay, so today we will continue from where we stopped. That's from chapter 3 verse 16. We're in for Corinthians. So would somebody be willing to read verses 16 to 23 for us? You can, like last week, if you're unable, I mean, if you are able to read, you can just maybe raise your hand. So I know that there are people available. But if you are unable to read for one reason or another, then Jeffy Nauri can read. So if you can just raise your hand so I know that you're available to read, that will help. Okay, I'll just ask Jeffy Nauri to read then. Yeah, from chapter 3, 16 to 23. Let's go in here, chapter 3 verses 16 to 23. Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are. Let no one deceive himself. No one among you seems to be wise in this age. Let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, he catches the wise in their own craftiness. And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile. Therefore, let no one boast in men for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Sapis, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come all are yours. And you are Christ and Christ is God's. So Paul goes back to the issue of the division that's in the church. And he's talking specifically with these differences that they are fighting over. So we see in the beginning of chapter 3, he started to talk about that. So he said, there's jealousy and quarrelling among you. You're acting worldly. You're acting like children. And so he starts the chapter with this. And now at the end of the chapter, he's going back to that, kind of saying this kind of division that comes from following a certain leader or getting, or thinking you're superior to one another. All of these things will bring destruction to the church of God, the church of Jesus Christ. So verse 16, he's saying specifically, you are the temple of God. The word here that he's using for temple is not the usual Greek word which would be here on. He's using naus, which refers to the inner sanctuary. So the most holy place where the act of the covenant would be, and so he's saying you're in that place where God is present in all his holiness. A place where nobody else could go. Only the high priest would go once a year. That's the kind of temple you carry, the holy presence of God. So he recognizes just how sacred the body of Christ is. And the fact that together as a body. So he's talking specifically about the local church community. He's not talking about us as individuals. So he will talk about that later in 1 Corinthians 690. He talks about the individual being filled with the spirit and being the temple of God. But here he's talking about the local community of believers saying you are holy because the presence of God is in you. You carry the presence of God. So recognize when you are bringing division, you are violating the presence of God that is amongst us. That should be unifying us. So that is a... I don't think we think about this much. Like as a community of believers, we are carrying the holy presence of God that we should so value what we have. There's a church and we should protect it. It shouldn't be something that we take lightly. And so he goes on to say in verse 17, if anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person. God's temple is sacred and you together are that temple. So reiterating that together as a body of believers, you carry the presence of God. And then a very important statement. If you destroy God's temple, God will destroy you. So if you bring corruption, if you bringing something that is going to in a way desacralize this holy community that God has brought into existence, then you will be destroyed. And we're going to see how they will be destroyed. So how were they causing that destruction? They were bringing in division. There was envy. There was strife within the church. I was fighting within the church. And unfortunately, very sadly, this is so common in the church. It's so common to see infighting. It's so common to see division. So this is something that we can really be praying for our churches for unity, for people to really love one another and recognize what God has entrusted to us as a body of believers, to be a holy people. Verse 18 says, Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become full so that you may become wise. So don't think because the world considers you wise that you are wise. So don't go by the opinions of people around you. If the world considers you as wise, maybe you should go the opposite way, right? Because it's when you become a fool that you will truly be wise in God's eyes. So don't run after the wisdom of this world and don't deceive yourself into thinking you are wise based on the opinions of others. So true wisdom is God's wisdom. And where does wisdom begin according to scripture? The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. And so if that's where our wisdom is rooted, then we can be confident that our wisdom is true wisdom. So verse 19, the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written, he catches the wise in their craftiness. Now that statement, he catches the wise in their craftiness is from Job 513. And it is part of a longer passage where Job's friend is counseling him and telling him, why don't you go back to God and lay your case before God? And God is so great, God is sovereign. You can go to him with this and you can hope that God will have mercy on you. So this Job 513 comes in the midst of what his friend is saying to him. Do you remember what God says about Job's friends at the end of that book? Yeah. So God actually rebukes the friends, right? He says, you didn't, if you look at Job 427, he says, you didn't speak the truth about me like my servant did. Okay, so here his friend was counseling him and saying to him, God catches the wise in their craftiness. But actually the friend himself was caught in his own wisdom. So God comes back to him and corrects him. So when Paul is talking about destroying that wisdom of the world being destroyed, he's saying, don't think that you understand God based on whatever it is. You have to speak the truth about God. That's what God says in Job 427. You didn't speak the truth about me. So how do we know we're speaking the truth about God? It must align to scripture, right? What God has revealed about himself in scripture. Now Job's friend didn't have all of this revelation that we have of God through the Bible. And so he was speaking based on his limited knowledge and experience of God. But we have so much and we have very little excuse to not know the truth about God. So when we're speaking, we speak in line with what scripture says about God and we speak in line with what scripture says or what scripture has revealed about whatever we're speaking about. Verse 20. And again, the Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile. Now the thoughts of the wise are futile is from Psalm 94-11. And this may be what Paul is pointing to about being destroyed also. Because in Psalm 94-11 it's saying those who are wicked think they can get away with whatever they're doing because God has not yet brought judgment on them. But God is sovereign and his plans will be fulfilled. He is just and he will act on behalf of his people at the right time. So that is a summary of Psalm 94. So in the midst of this somewhere, there are some people who are doing things that are wrong and they are thinking God doesn't see us. We can continue to do the things we're doing because God has not done anything. He's not judged as he's not disciplined as. But the Psalmist says God disciplines the ones he loves and he is just, he will bring judgment on those who are wicked. So judgment will come on the people who are bringing division into God's church. It isn't to be taken lightly when you are destroying a holy gift that God has given to us as a body of believers. We can't take lightly bringing division or bringing strife into that body into those relationships. Verse 21, let no one boast in men for all things are God, are yours, sorry. So this is important because when we are boasting in a person, we are deriving a sense of value from them, right? So we talked about this in our earlier classes when they were boasting in Apollos or in Paul, they were basically trying to elevate themselves. They were saying Paul, like I follow Paul, Paul is greater because of this, this and this and because I follow him, I am greater than you, I am better than you in some way. So when we place a sense of value or a sense of identity in a person, we are missing out on the fact that we all belong to God, right? And our inheritance is from God. So all things are yours. I mean, it says that everything is given for your benefit. So he'll go on to explain what he means by all things are yours. Sorry, I think I... Yeah, verse 21. Yeah, verse 22, right? It says whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours and you are of Christ and Christ is of God. So all of these things have been given to you for your benefit. Paul or Apollos or Cephas, he'll talk a little bit more about this in the next chapter but all of us are here for your sake. So all things are yours. And all things belong to you because you are of Christ. So verse 23, you are of Christ and Christ is of God. So God has given all authority to Christ and in Christ we share in that authority. And so all things belong to us and that is where our boasting should be in Christ, in what we have received through Christ. It shouldn't be in the things of this world or in our leaders or in anything else that is human, that is fleshly, that will pass away. That should not be where our identity or sense of worth comes from. And with that we can move on to chapter 4. So we start this chapter with just a quick look at the overall messages that Paul covers. So in the first verses he talks about his role as a servant, as a steward of what God is entrusted to him. In verses 3 to 6 talks about how the servants of God will be judged or honored. Verses 7 to 13 talks about some of the challenges the apostles face as they serve God. And then verses 14 to 21, Paul talks about his own heart as a spiritual father to this church. What is his heart for them? So verses 1 to 6, can somebody read or nobody is available? Can you read verse 1 and 2? Let a man so consider us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards that one be found faithful. Thank you. So that is the empty version and in the NIV version it also says this then is how you ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. So he's using two descriptions of him and Apollo and Cephas. That's Peter. He's saying we are servants of Christ and the word he uses there is hupe al vetas and that is a Greek word and it's different from the other words so in Romans 1, 1, Paul describes himself as a born servant of Christ and he uses the word do-loss. Now a born servant would be someone who is fully under the authority of their master and who is actually not free, is a slave, right? But in this verse he's using hupe al vetas which is talking about a free servant someone who willingly submits and serves another person and that word would be used in different contexts so the people who would work on the ship so there would be a captain of the ship and he would be ordering those in the ship to do different things especially with the rowing of the boat directing the boat where it should go and they would be under the authority of a captain so that's the word can be used in that way or can be used for someone who serves under a king or someone who helps out in any kind of work. Now it's interesting to see that Paul uses that shipping kind of language because if we remember where Corinth is there's a lot of trading happening there are lots of ships coming into the boat and out of the boat when Paul uses that language it is familiar to the people and they can understand this is the function of the under-rower the person who serves under a captain the captain tells them what they should do and they do it and they follow his direction to take the boat where it needs to go so similarly Paul and all the leaders of the church are given that that role to serve under Christ as the captain so Christ is the captain directing them in how they should be leading the church in which direction they should be taking the church and so it's that kind of language and also that they're coming to Christ as people who are willingly submitting to Christ it's not that they are in a place of forced submission but in a place of willing submission now it's interesting I was just like if you consider in Romans 11 where he calls himself a born servant he's talking about his peon posture of his heart he was fully sold out for Christ and so in that sense he was a slave to Christ but here he's saying this is how you should look at me you should look at me as someone who is serving under the captainship of Christ so you look at me this way the posture of my own hand is to be a born servant but when you are looking at me look at me as someone who is serving under the authority of Christ serving under the authority of Christ and we are stewards of the mysteries of God now Stuart also would have been familiar language to the people in the church especially the more elite or the people in a higher status because they would have had stewards in their house it's like somebody who was in charge of their household doing the work of just handling everything within the house handling the finances all of those things were given over to the steward so it was a place of great responsibility and the main things that were required of the person was that they would be trustworthy and that they would be faithful you don't want to entrust your whole household to somebody who can will steal all of it or who will turn their back on you and take away all that you have entrusted to them so as stewards they were people who had been given a huge responsibility especially in communicating the things that God had revealed to them the mysteries of God the things that God had revealed to them the hidden wisdom of God had been entrusted to them and they were given the responsibility of sharing that with the church and helping the church know God better so when we view ourselves as ministers as people who have been put in a position to serve God's Christ body this is the way we should look at ourselves as people who are where Christ is the captain and we are following his direction taking his people where he wants them to go and where we have been entrusted with something that is of great value and God has put his trust in us God has chosen to trust us with the task he's given us that's a huge thing sometimes I wonder why have you been so good to me why have you chosen me to do whatever it is even with teaching it's nothing it's not based on my abilities it's not based on my holiness or some standard of spirituality that I've reached it's based on God's grace and his divine purposes for each of us and so that's how we should view the things that God has entrusted to us view it as God has in his grace trusted us and so we are to be responsible and faithful with whatever he is entrusted to us there's a small paragraph here that has some very I think key things for us to remember as ministers of God it says ministers of God are not superheroes and superstars in the kingdom of God we should not be perceived or treated in that manner by God's people and neither are we to project ourselves or conduct ourselves as superheroes and superstars in the kingdom of God we have to conduct ourselves as servants and stewards of Christ that is so important in today's culture of influencers and celebrities that's so big in the world and is quite quite common even in the church to have celebrities to have influencers that people are following now we cannot judge the hearts of any of these people because we don't know where they are whatever they are doing the heart with which they are doing it but the important thing is how do you carry yourself how do you project yourself and how do you allow people to treat you if someone is giving you more honour or respect or treating you in a way that really is not in line with scripture then how do you respond to that how do you correctly tell them Christ is one to be honoured like Paul is doing here so we go to verses we did yeah so verses 3 to 5 can somebody read that please but quickly it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by human court in fact I do not even judge myself for I know nothing against myself yet I am not justified by this but he who judges me is the Lord therefore just nothing before the time until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the councils of the heart then each one prays will come come from the Lord yes thank you so this is an important thing right we don't go by what others say about us somebody else this is similar to what Paul says in the previous chapter don't deceive yourselves don't think you are wise based on what everyone else is saying about you so don't judge yourself based on other people's opinions of you and don't feel confident in your own in your own motives in your ministry in your standing before God based on what others are saying about you just because everyone else thinks you are wow you are so cold wow you are doing things with such humility they may see all of those things and they may perceive it based on what they see you doing but what Paul says important is you yourself don't know your own heart fully God is the only one who can judge you he says I know of nothing against myself yet I am not justified by this but he who judges me is the Lord so the final judge will be the Lord he knows our hearts and our motives even better than ourselves because we can be deceived sometimes so our confidence should never be in our own judgments of ourselves or in what others are saying about us we constantly will only go back to God as Kim to reveal if there are things within our hearts that need to be corrected or set right and always only fully depend on him in whatever we are doing so when we are doing well in ministry we will not judge our ministries or how whether we are right with God based on how our ministry is doing so we could be doing work that is bearing a lot of fruit we might have churches that are growing we might have people who are coming to the Lord through the work that we are doing we may see all of that happening but based on what we are seeing we shouldn't judge our own standing before God because our works are standing we cannot say this person is actually truly blessed by God or this person is truly serving God because look at the work that he is doing or look at how many people have come to the Lord through him because whether all of that work is bearing fruit is the work of God the other thing is we don't know the motivations of their heart and so all of what they do will only be proved to be good to be right before God when Christ comes to judge verse 6 now brothers and sisters I have applied these things to myself and the followers for your benefit so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying do not go beyond what is written then you will not be puffed up if one of us over against the other so so the meaning of the saying do not go beyond what is written that is something that philosophers used to use as a saying to say when you have a contract you stick to the contract you don't do something that is outside of the contract so Paul is using similar language here but he is going back to what has God said about us so he is going back to the truth of their role as servants their role as stewards their work in building Christ church right he talks about each of us does our work you are the field you are the building and we are just doing the work that God has entrusted to us to build that church or to get the field ready for house and so he talks about their accountability to God who will be the one who judges so all of these things is he is going back to the truth of what scripture says what God says about who we are and likewise he is calling the church back to do the same thing so you speak the truth about who you are and who God has called you to be as his children don't go beyond what what scripture says do not go beyond what your covenant with God through Christ has what God has said about you through this covenant so this is what we will say about ourselves we will not boast in people we will not boast in our leaders we will boast only in Christ let's go on to 7 13 anyone want to read that for us okay 7 for who makes you differ from another and what do you have that you did not receive now if you know if now if you did indeed receive it why do you boast as if you have not received it 8 you are already full you are already you have reigned as kings without us and indeed I could wish you did reign that we also might reign with 2 9 for I think that God has displayed us the apostles last as men condemned to death for we have been met as spectacle to the world both to the angels and to men then we are fools for Christ's sake but you are wise in Christ we are weak but you are strong you are distinguished but we are dishonored 11 to the present are we both hunger and trust and we are probably clotted and beaten and homeless 12 and we labor working with our own hands being revealed we blessed being persecuted we endure 13 being defend we have been met as the field of the world they of course seen of all things until now so first 7 Paul is saying what makes you different or what makes you superior to anyone else what have you done that you did not receive and if you received it why you boasting as if you did not so those verses are very self explanatory right you are boasting in your leaders but you receive your leaders from God and if you receive your leaders from God why you boasting as if you did something or as if your leaders have done something to get the wisdom they have the leaders have got their wisdom from God you have got your leaders from God so everything is from God there's nothing for us to boast in John 3 27 of that it says everything we have comes from God so a man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven right that's John 3 27 so everything we have is from God and if that is true then there is nothing for us to boast and as if we have done something to get it or or we deserve it in some way or we have earned it because of something we've done and this is important so in this context Paul is talking about it with regard to the leaders so they are looking at themselves as superior based on the leader that they are following and this is so often seen in our church today as well right based on our church pastor we look at ourselves as superior to another church or based on our denomination or based on something about our church we see ourselves as better than another church but there is no room for that kind of pride within the church we must recognize that all that we have is a gift from God and is the grace of God so if we boast we boast only in Christ there is no room to boast in our leaders in our own selves or in our churches all of that is not of Christ in verse 8 Paul starts to talk so he is saying already you have all you want already you have become rich you have begun to reign and that without us how I wish that you really had begun to reign so that we might also reign with you so a lot of the philosophers of that time viewed themselves this way so there was a lot of pride in philosophers because they felt that they are wiser than the rest of the people than the lay people and so they viewed themselves as wealthy in wisdom they thought of themselves as better people to reign over the people than the actual healers because of their own sense of virtue of their own sense of wisdom so there was a lot of that among philosophers so Paul is using that same kind of thought line to rebuke the church but he is using it very statistically saying this is the way you think right you already are so great you are already so wealthy I wish I could be I wish this was true of you so that I could share in what you have okay and then he goes to the opposite side of the spectrum I will not boast in there so he basically is saying from verse 9 verse 13 I am not going to boast like the philosophers do in their own wisdom in their own virtue rather I am going to boast in the things that I have suffered for the sake of Christ and in boasting in those things what I want to prove is that I truly believe in this message and I truly believe that it is worth the sacrifice that I am making so we will look at that after the break we will go for a 10 minute break and we will be back at 10 Indian time thank you