1:8

The word translated as "keep you strong" in the New International Version can mean "make firm, establish, confirm, make sure." So this verse says that Jesus establishes us, and makes us strong in our faith so that we will be blameless in the day of Christ (ie, His return). It seems to me that this is the same idea expressed in Philippians 1:6 - "being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Note that Paul uses the same phrase "day of Christ Jesus" to refer to His return.

The idea is that Christ watches over us and is actively working on us by His Spirit. His work is so that we might persevere in our faith in Him, and that we might be mature, having nothing in us that is deserving of blame or shame. It is His goal to make us perfect.

"...Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." (Ephesians 5:25b-27).

It is Jesus who makes us this way. Making us holy and blameless is not a work that you and I can do. It is His work. That is really good news! It is not your or my responsibility to figure out everything that's wrong with us and try to make it all better.

What is our role, then? Our role is to recognize that this process is going on, that Jesus is using this life to purify us. We are to submit to this process. OK, you might say, what does that mean?

It means that Jesus is going to use all kinds of things in this life to carry out this work. Hardships, difficulties, blessings, joy, worship, pain, prayer, fellowship, suffering. Often the process is hard. It's not always hard; sometimes there are wonderful realizations of who God is and how much He loves us. But a lot of it is hard.

What I've noticed is that much of this process involves me becoming aware of my own sins. Let me tell you, that is not a fun thing. All of us have some sins that we're not particularly attracted to, but other sins that we are prone to. For example, I don't have a problem with gambling too much, or drinking too much. But I can be defensive easily and prideful easily. (I'm not going to list others right now, OK?) It is these sins that Jesus wants to work on, and make us aware of.

When we become aware of our sin, usually through a painful episode of confrontation with someone else, or maybe the quiet conviction of God, our job is to admit our sin. The tendency is to cover it up or deny it. But if we do that, we are short-circuiting this process of growth that Jesus is doing in our lives. Jesus points out my sin to me, hoping that I will confess it to him and admit that I really need His help in this area of my life. If I keep covering it up, or using my own resources to try and deal with it, I am not allowing this growth process to continue, but I've stopped it temporarily.

When we continually deny our sins, or cover them up, God will keep bringing them to our attention in different ways. Often, painful episodes or times in our lives are times when we need to stop our frantically trying to "fix" the situation. Instead, we need to ask "OK, God, are you trying to show me something here?" (This doesn't mean that all tough times are because of our sins or that God is trying to teach us a lesson. Sometimes tough times just happen because of our sinful world and other people's choices.) But Jesus will use everything to keep this process going in our lives.

If you look at the disciples' lives with Jesus during His 3 year ministry, you'll see that Jesus uses situations as teachable moments. That is His character as the Master Teacher. See, for example, Matthew 14:13-21, where thousands of people were hungry and Jesus was trying to teach his disciples how God can miraculously provide for needs. Or Matthew 17:14-21, where Jesus used the demonized boy to teach about faith and spiritual disciplines.

In the same way, Jesus uses our life events as teachable moments. But the problem is, we often don't listen to Him. We're not asking or listening for His teaching about our lives. Instead, we substitute our own "wisdom" or our culture's "expert" opinions on things. As a result, we're not hearing God's (the TRUE) perspective on our lives, but we're hearing our perspective, or the culture's perspective. As part of this growth process, we need to keep asking God "What are you saying to me?" until we get an answer. "Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened."

This growth process, where Jesus is doing His work in us so that we will be blameless, is something we must submit to and cooperate with Him in doing. Let's do it.

It's Been a While

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. I just got back into the office today and I am going to try and post a new study tomorrow. Thanks to all of you who are reading and commenting - the encouragement that people are actually reading this thing is very helpful. God bless you!

1:7 part 2

I wanted a separate post to talk about spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts are not just talents that we possess. God gives everyone some sort of natural talent, that is, a talent that the person can use whether they are Christian or not, whether they want to obey God or not. A filmmaker has artistic talent; he or she can use it to make movies that glorify God, or he/she can make porn. That is not a spiritual gift; obviously, Jesus' Holy Spirit does not empower us to do evil. That artistic ability is a natural talent.

Spiritual gifts are Holy Spirit-given gifts of God to us, for the strengthening of other people. They are not identical to our natural talents. We must offer to God our natural talents on the one hand, and on the other hand ask and expect Him to show Himself through supernatural, spiritual gifts.

I am concerned that through carelessness of language, much of the Christian church today is confused about this issue. "Using your gift for the church" (meaning, taking your natural talent and putting it to work for your local church) is NOT the same thing as spiritual gifts. It's great to use our natural talents for the church. They, too are gifts from God, and should be put into His service. But we also need to ask God to give us every spiritual gift that we need to accomplish His will here.

Spiritual gifts are the result of Jesus' Presence with us (Immanuel, right?). When we are believers, He lives inside of us by His Spirit. When we gather together as believers, He is there in a special way ("when 2 or 3 are gathered in My Name..." Matt. 18:20). As part of His very real Presence with us, His Spirit exhibits gifts and fruit through us. Individually and especially when meeting together, we are given grace to minister to each other. The fruit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc. (Galat. 5) and the gifts - knowledge, wisdom, prophecy, miracles, healing, and even tongues, etc. - are available. This is part of what I think Paul means by "you do not lack any spiritual gift". These gifts and fruit of the Holy Spirit - Jesus' Presence with us - are how we minister in the power of God to each other. They distinguish the church from civic or social organizations (which use their members' natural gifts to benefit the organization). They can accomplish more, because it is God working, than natural gifts can. They are supernatural but not necessarily spectacular; often they are very subtle. But they are not identical to natural gifts.

The potentially confusing part is that the spiritual gift can build on or use the natural gift. (The spiritual gift does not have to be in conflict with the natural gift.) The example I use is that of teaching. I have a natural ability to teach, and sometimes God gives me the spiritual gift of teaching. I could teach others before I became a Christian; it's a natural gift. Yet sometimes I can tell that God's Spirit is working through me to teach others - there's a power there that I do not have on my own. An idea will come to me, or an example, that is not just from me. Another example would be serving. Someone with the natural talent of service can put others first and care for them (I think about many talented non-Christian nurses). Yet someone with the spiritual gift of service is empowered by the Holy Spirit to serve with greater humility, or greater love, or greater perception than they had on their own.

Another example is artistic ability. This is a natural gift. But God can also gift people in this area spiritually and work through them for His purposes (see Exodus 31:1-11). That's pretty cool. The spiritual gift builds on the natural.

There are some gifts, such as healing, or miracles, that don't really seem to build much on the natural gift. I don't have much of an interest in anatomy or giving people medicine (even if I could!). But I have prayed and seen God heal people. Some of our prayer partners during our healing services, though they don't have much natural ability in healing others (which, I guess, would be a doctor-like concern for health and medicines), have seen people healed. The Holy Spirit just healed people.

Having said that, there is often a human component to spiritual gifts, in the sense that human beings are active participants. Even in the gift of tongues, it is the person who has to use his own tongue to speak the words. The prophets had to actually say the words that God impressed on their hearts. Yet it was the Holy Spirit of God who was the source of these prophecies. There is that supernatural, Holy Spirit part which cannot be manufactured by human beings.

So, it can be kind of confusing if we try and break it down into what exactly is a natural gift and what is a spiritual gift. Sometimes it's obvious, but sometimes it's not. We must not denigrate the less flashy gifts, like administration, mercy, service, encouraging, giving, in order to exalt the spectacular ones like healing, prophecy, tongues. This wrongful exaltation was what the Corinthians were doing, in an arrogant way. What I'm trying to teach in this post is that even though natural talents are gifts from God to be used for Him, we should not say that spiritual gifts are really just natural talents. God wants to be known through spiritual gifts of all kinds, manifestations of His Presence with us.

That is enough for now. Maybe I will comment more on spiritual gifts again. I am sure I will when we get to chapters 12-14. Thanks for your positive comments - you know who you are!!

1:7 part 1

Because the Corinthians believed in Christ, they (as a Body) did not lack any spiritual gift. This statement reminds the Corinthians that Jesus is the Source of all the spiritual gifts. The church should not be proud about having spiritual gifts, because all are from Christ. It is not absolutely certain that Paul is talking about spiritual gifts in the way we think of "spiritual gifts" -- perhaps he speaks of the best gift of redemption -- but in Fee's mind, and in mine (for what that's worth), I think that he is. The Corinthians were very interested in spiritual gifts (see chapters 12-14) and Paul's just mentioned how they were enriched in all speaking and knowledge.

All of this reminds us, though, that Jesus is the Gift, as I mentioned in a previous post. If we have Jesus, then we have all that we need (as John reminds us, "He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life." 1 John 5:12). If we don't have Jesus, then all we are and have will turn to dust. Except for the spiritual part of us, which will live forever separated from God in eternal death (hell). Ouch. Why would I say something like that? Because it is true. Certainly not because it's something anybody wants to hear or talk about.

Jesus is Immanuel, God With Us. He is really with His people. His presence brings all the gifts that we need. This is another way that the rock in the desert symbolized Christ - it provided the gift of water that the Israelites needed to survive. Note that the water was a physical gift. Suppose God had said, "Well, you have peace and joy in My Presence - can't you just forget about the physical needs?" But that's not how God is - He provides for what we need (see Matthew 6:25-34).

1:6

Here Paul mentions that the Corinthians believed Paul's message about Jesus. His testimony or witness was confirmed, or established, in them.

In the parable of the sower, Jesus taught that the kingdom of God was like a plant. The word of God is like a seed, and the listeners are like soil. Those listeners who "hear the word and understand it" are like good soil, which receives the seed and helps it to grow. When a seed gets down into good soil, it sprouts and roots. As it grows, it gets taller above the soil, and gets stronger in its roots below the soil. We all know how strong trees can get, and how hard it is to uproot them when they are large.

In the same way, Paul's message (the seed) took root and grew in the Corinthians' hearts. They accepted his words about Jesus and believed.

That's why hearing God's Word through the Bible and through godly preaching is so essential - it helps us to grow and become more rooted in Him. If you don't have a regular time of reading and studying the Bible, I encourage you to make that time. You won't be sorry.

1:4-5

Paul thanks God for the Corinthians. He loves them despite their problems and the headaches that they've no doubt caused him. He's happy they are there and that they are following Christ. They are a source of encouragement to him, a sign that God is working and that the gospel continues to display its power. Paul sees God at work, and that is something to be thankful for.

Paul writes that God's grace given to the church is in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Gift. All that God gives, He gives through Christ. God created the world through Jesus Christ (Col. 1:16). Even in the Old Testament, the blessings of God came through Jesus Christ. For example, later on in this letter (10:4), he mentions the rock from which the Israelites drank water, "and that rock was Christ." Was the rock literally the second Person of the Trinity, Jesus? No, but the rock is a symbol of God's provision for His people, God's Presence with His people.

Jesus is always God's gift to Humankind. Jesus is, among other things, God's expression of Himself, the Immanuel ("God with us"). God was with the Israelites in the desert. God is with His church.

Paul states that the church has been enriched in Christ in every way, in speaking and in knowledge, because they accepted Paul's message and believed it (the "testimony was confirmed in them," as Paul puts it). Jesus has enriched the church immeasurably, and it's all because of Him, the ultimate Gift, that the Corinthians enjoy these blessings.