Bible Study: 1 Corinthians 1:1-2 – Audio
This is a recording from a Bible study Friday May 12, 2017 on lessons learned from the first two chapters of First Corinthians.
Far from being an irrelevant old letter to people far removed in time and culture, this epistle written somewhere in the mid 50s A.D. is extremely applicable to us today.
Whole books have been written analyzing First Corinthians, but a few takeaway messages include that it is possible to be a genuine Christian, even manifesting miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit, and yet still be “carnal” – and not “spiritual” (1 Cor 3).
The Apostle Paul had planted the Corinthian church and he was appealing to the members to hear him. He opens announcing his authority before God, acknowledges them for who they are in Christ, then confronts them on their having begun to divide into sub-sects within the house.
This is the divisive spirit that has led to ever increasing denominationalism, which is not the will of God, yet rampant today.
The “faith once delivered to all the saints” (Jude 3) was not to be corrupted into new renditions of what it means to be a Christian, or affiliations with certain prominent leaders as though separate from Christ.
The solution for all of us is to seek God’s face, desire the whole truth, and give ourselves fully to Him, taking great care that what we consider in our conscience to be the “real Christian life” is indeed not corrupted.
The Holy Spirit does NOT give mutually contradictory directions to different people so as to set them at odds with one another. All such differences may be attributed to the natural mind of the believer or a religious demon or both.
If that sounds harsh, it is nonetheless biblical.
1 Tim 1:1-2 – Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron,
How do “doctrines of demons” come about? People, influenced in some way by spirits not sent by God use the Bible to make up teachings that the Bible does not mean to say!
These can be very subtle nuances on the truth, or major doctrines.
God’s desire on the other hand is unity!
It is of utmost importance, life depends upon it, as Jesus in John 17 said an unearthly unity amongst Christ’s believers would be a proof to the world that Jesus the Messiah was sent by God.
Another major lesson in the first two chapters is spiritual truth is spiritually discerned.
Fallen man, even if well meaning, has codified and cut apart the Bible with the intellect, and this approach to God’s book of spiritual truths has led to carnally minded Christians.
Paul outlines God’s reality in 1 Cor 2 —
10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
13 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy[d] Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. 16 For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?”[e] But we have the mind of Christ.
May the Lord Jesus Christ bless you!
Scriptures On Unity
Jn 17:20-23 – “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will[e] believe in Me through their word; 21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: 23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
Gal 3:26-29 – For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
1 Pet:8 – Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous;
Eph 3:4-6 – I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, 2 with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, 3 endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you[a] all.
Phil 1:27 – Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel,
