The Real World: Corinth - Jesus and Real Wisdom
[powerpress] What we must come to realize if we are going to live successfully as followers of Christ in the world is that there are two sets of wisdom introduced to us in our culture which regularly vie for our attention and our allegiance. The worldview, or manner in which we interpret the world, is based on these sets of assumptions and affects everything from our romantic life to our work life, our family dynamics to our daily conversations, our routines and the pursuits which we undertake. Recognizing this, the apostle Paul utilizes his first letter to the Corinthians to expose the wisdom of this age and reveal why Jesus must be the only foundation for a life well built.
Corinth (southern part of modern-day Greece)
Corinth's similarities to Chicago:
1) Corinth was an important cosmopolitan center situated along a major trade route. It was a port city for commerce, rivaling at the time Ostia for Rome, Alexandria in Egypt, and Caesarea giving access to Judea. Because of its thriving economy, large numbers of sailors and merchants from every nation flocked to Corinth bringing their religions, cultures, and philosophies. Corinth was the second richest city in the empire by the end of the second century. 2) During the first century, Corinth was one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire. It had a large population for the time (100,000), many of whom were freedmen. Freedmen were former slaves working their way up in the world. 3) Corinth's patron deity was the Greek goddesss Aphrodite (Roman equivalent of Venus). She was the goddess of beauty, fertility, and sexual love; variously described as the daughter of Zeus and Dione, or as being born from the sea. There was a major sanctuary of Poseidon at the nearby city of Isthmia. People regularly sacrificed to him as he was believed to control the fortunes of the port cities with their maritime trade. 4) It was the seat of the Roman governor of the province of Achaia and housed the cult to the Roman Emperors. Chicago is a major influencer and the largest metropolis of the mid-Western territories. It is affectionately known as Obamaville. 5) All of this positioned Corinth to strategically influence the world for the gospel.
Wisdom of the Age
The Bible consistently makes reference to two types of wisdom: wisdom from God and the wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age. Wisdom is the proper application of knowledge. Wisdom from God is centered in His design for the world and His restorative purposes expressed in Jesus Christ. The wisdom of this age consists of the philosophies derived from the attempt to explain and interact with the world devoid of the biblical Creator God.
Because of the obsession with competing philosophies in which the culture of Corinth found itself immersed, Paul reduced his preaching while with them to its base denominator.
And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power. (1 Corinthians 2:1-5 NIV)
There are overlaps in the two types of wisdom, including things such as scientific discovery, technology, and historic facts. It is within this Venn diagram that God's wisdom and culture are not competing, but are mutually beneficial - with all truth being God's truth. Where the two wisdoms diverge is in the knowledge of God, that must be bequeathed as God is self-revelatory. He did so perfectly in the advent of Jesus Christ. The gospel is fundamentally a testimony about God, proclaiming a historic series of events. The testimony was continued through Paul, as it is today, through demonstrations of the Holy Spirit's power which point to the resurrected Christ.
If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. (John 14:7-11 NIV)
Paul chose to boast solely in the cross of Christ because in its significance was the power of God for the salvation of those who believe (Romans 1:14-17). As opposed to mainstream self-help programs or lifeless religion, because the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus was a supernatural historic event and not just an ideology, because Jesus of Nazareth is a person and not just a philosophy, Christ has real supernatural power to reconcile humanity to God, save you from your sins, and transform your life.
The wisdom that was set forth by Jesus as directives for life are His commands which reflect His character and design for the world. It is the third person of the Trinity (one God, three persons), the Holy Spirit, who illuminates the Bible for you, all through the filter of Jesus and His redemptive work.
We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” — the things God has prepared for those who love him— these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:6-16 NIV)
Conventional wisdom tells you that if you want to get rid of a revolutionary or a mischief-maker, then you kill him (i.e. - Bin Laden). In the case of Christ, it only multiplied His work because of the Holy Spirit who came in His place to every believer.
But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.” (John 16:7-15 NIV)
Why then are there so many other versions of wisdom, and what are they in our culture?
He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. (John 1:10-13 NIV)
When people are separated from the one true God because they want to be their own rulers, people try to explain life in alternate manners, many times revealing their ulterior motives.
"I had motive for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics, he is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do, or why his friends should not seize political power and govern in the way that they find most advantageous to themselves. … For myself, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political." --Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means (London: Chatto & Windus, 1946), pp. 270, 273
Why This Matters:
In Chicago, Pluralism, Relativism, Atheism, Materialism, Hedonism, Apathy, Complacency (Isaiah 32:9-20; Amos 6:1-7), Humanism, Naturalism, and Moralism filter into every conversation, advertisement, and thought without you even realizing it. (Pastor Rollan briefly defined each of these philosophies and gave the Biblical response to each.)
“The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” ― John F. Kennedy
In addition to all of this, many are dominated and driven by fear - fear of the future, fear of uncertainty, fear of the unknown, fear of scarcity or lack, whether it be relationally, financially, or in terms of our significance. Our lives are often an effort to combat all of these fears in our own ingenuity and strength. It is the wearing effort and worry (from Hebrew root Amal) that comes to steal your focus and joy. This leads to idolatry, anxiety, depression, and despair. We try to create heaven on earth without its ruler, God. It is the same spirit that drove those who were building the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11). It affects your thinking, your activities, and ultimately your pursuits and living. Jesus comes to set us free from all of these fears. It is why daily time in His Word to recalibrate and consistent time with other believers is an imperative. These give you objective perspective when you are immersed in the sea of the wisdom of this age attempting to carry you downstream.
See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. (Hebrews 3:12-14 NIV)
To live in and through Christ requires an active, intentional, daily march to a different beat and in a different direction as you look to follow the only God and to build His Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven. You will otherwise be sucked into the tide and be lulled to sleep.
Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings? What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building. By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 3:1-11 NIV)
How does the wisdom of this age play out in the church?
Preferences become prejudices. There is an epidemic of church hopping in America where people are looking for the superstar preacher or church just like the people of Corinth tailed the pop-star sophists and philosophers of their day. In such a way, you can become ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of Christ because you are a consumer and groupie rather than one who digs in where God has called you to build the church of Jesus Christ.
Christ, the Only Foundation
For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames. Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? (1 Corinthians 3:11-16 NIV)
What does it mean to build with Christ as a foundation in your:
Relationships Career Finances Marriage Child rearing Morality and Ethics Voting Worldview Use of your Time Pleasures Pursuits
What are things or philosophies that are the wood, hay, and straw? The wisdom of the age in these areas.
The question must continually be, "Has Jesus been your foundation in each of these areas, or have you allowed the wisdom of the world to define these areas for you?"
Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”; and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, 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. (1 Corinthians 3:18-23 NIV)
The following applies to both the religious and irreligious when they are foolish in God's sight:
“Foolishness is more than being stupid, that deadly combination of arrogance and ignorance.” ― Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change
The desire to have a respectable Christianity in the eyes of the world can often outweigh your allegiance to the gospel that Jesus commands you to live and preach. What happens is that you lose fidelity to biblical standards, your convictions are blurred, and the totality of Scripture is not embraced. Paul says that to walk in the truth of Jesus requires you to become a fool in your own eyes, that you might, in fact, through humility, embrace God's wisdom that is higher than what the age has to offer. In this way, you offer both eternal and present help to the world. It is in this place that the joy of the Lord is renewed in you.
"No one has ever yet discovered the word Jesus ought to have said or the deed he ought to have done. Nothing he does falls short, in fact, he is always surprising you and taking your breath away, because he is incomparably better than you could imagine for yourself. He is tenderness without weakness, strength without harshness, humility without the slightest lack of confidence, holiness and unbending convictions without the slightest lack of approachability, power without insensitivity, passion without prejudice. There is never a false step, never a jarring note. This is life at the highest." -John H. Gerstner, Theology for Everyman
How can you summarize true wisdom? Its beginning is summarized in the GOSPEL video: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xp7CMd39hcM
Second City Church- The Real World: Corinth Sermon Series 2013