OUR FATHER WHO

The apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 verses 9 -  13, pressed further with the issue of worldly behaviour within the church and how those who practiced such behaviour  needed to be expelled from the midst so that worldiness would not spread to everyone else.

9 I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. 10 Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 11 But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person.

12 For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? 13 But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person.”

Paul clarified his guidance to the believers at Corinth so that they would not socially distance from the non-believers but rather from those in their midst who professed faith but unrepentantly lived  in a worldly way.

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OUR FATHER WHOSE SACRIFICE OF HIS SON WAS OUR PASSOVER AND WE SHOULD OBSERVE THE PRACTICE OF UNLEAVENED LIVING

The apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 verses 1 - 8, brings up an issue that had been happening in the church at Corinth where sexual immorality had been practiced with impunity.  The church members, rather than mourn the transgression in their midst, were confident that they could take it in stride.

1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife! 2 And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. 3 For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged (as though I were present) him who has so done this deed. 4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, 5 deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

6 Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7 Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. 8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

In this passage, Paul  revealed some spiritual capabilities;

• He was able to absent himself from his body
• He sent his  spirit with the power of the Lord Jesus to the church as they gathered
• He judged the perpetrator from the remote location
• He delivered the perpetrator into the hands of Satan for the destruction of the flesh
• He employed a strategy to save the spirit of the man

Paul reprimands the Corinthian church for letting iniquity florish in their midst not understanding that it would ultimately contaminate them all in the same way that leaven spreads throughout the whole lump of dough.

Paul then counsels the church to maintain unleavened purity in their midst as a perpetual practice of keeping the feast of the passover because as the lamb was sacrificed so that death would pass over the children of Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ was sacrificed to save us and as such, we keep the feast of unleaven bread  by sustaining unleavened sinless living.

Amen.

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 OUR FATHER WHOSE KINGDOM IS NOT OF WORDS BUT OF POWER

The apostle Paul, at the end of the fourth chapter of 1 Corinthians ( verses 14 - 21 ), tells the Corinthian church that he planted to follow his example and to heed his leading as presented by Timothy ( Paulˋs son in the Lord and protoge ) to whom he had sent to teach them the same teaching that Paul taught to all the other churches he planted.

14 I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I warn you. 15 For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. 16 Therefore I urge you, imitate me. 17 For this reason I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church.

18 Now some are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you. 19 But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord wills, and I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power. 20 For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power. 21 What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?

Paul notes that some members of the church of Corinth were seeing themselves as more exalted than those who had brought the gospel to them. Paul, in a cautionary tone, tells them that he could potentially be authorized by the Lord to come to visit them and that he would come in power.

This power he carried would ferret out the pretenders and prideful ones and he advised them to stand down so that he was not compelled to come with a rod of discipline but rather with love and  gentleness.

Amen.

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OUR FATHER WHO PUTS HIS APOSTLES ON DISPLAY BEFORE ANGELS AND MEN

1 Corinthians chapter 4 verses 6 - 13 captures the apostle Paul advising the Conrinthian church to discard the divisive factionlism that was pitting one believer against another due to feelings of superiority over one another.

Paul describes the Corinthian church as being blessed where they were already ascendant in their society and had gained political and material advantages and became leaders in their culture. Considering this fact, Paul compared their elevated position with his own lowly position and realized that it was the Lordˋs deliberate policy to  take the apostles and display them for all creation to be seen under constant pressure of shortages, harrassment, humiliation and displacement.

Even in these conditions, the apostles were expected to respond with grace and decorum to the treacherous conditions that perpetually followed them. 

6 Now these things, brethren, I have figuratively transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that you may learn in us not to think beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up on behalf of one against the other. 7 For who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

8 You are already full! You are already rich! You have reigned as kings without us—and indeed I could wish you did reign, that we also might reign with you! 9 For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned to death; for we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men. 10 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 hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless. 12 And we labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; 13 being defamed, we entreat. We have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things until now.

The apostles are made the personification of the scripture in this same letter to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 27 which says, But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 

The apostles were the ones held up as examples of weak and dishonerable fools for Christ and they unrelentingly suffered reviling, persecution, defamation and treated as though they were disgusting garbage.

Those in the most elevated spiritual rankings are subjected to the most degrading hardships while the physical realm and must widthstand these conditions with grace and aplomb.

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