This Sunday, I begin an extended series on First Corinthians. I have written a broad introduction to the series on our church blog, but here I wanted to get into some specifics and where I see connections with our culture. As I read the first six chapters of the letter, Paul is addressing the various manifestations of division that are tearing the church apart from the inside out. Members of the congregation are playing favorites with the elders, “I follow Apollos,” I follow Paul,” etc… You have other members of the church suing each other to gain prominence in the community, you have a man who has decided that his own mother is rather hot and wants to date her; the list would be comical if it were not so deplorable. This really is how not to do church.
From chapter seven onward, Paul starts tackling questions of a more practical nature. Married vs. single life, eating with non-believers, the exercising of spiritual gifts, the importance of the resurrection in Christian living. In short, Paul is showing them how to live missional lives in a culture that is remarkably similar to our own. Like our culture today, Corinth was incredibly pluralistic. “This is my truth, tell me yours” is a phrase that sums up well the attitude that both we express today and the Corinthians expressed 2000 or so years ago.
Like the Corinthians, the church has trouble walking the fine line between being culturally relevant and at the same time be counter-cultural in the best sense of the word. The Corinthians would swing from one extreme to the other. Some would flaunt their freedom, whilst others in reaction would deny all freedom. Paul calls for a healthy moderation in order to retain a much needed cultural connection whilst not giving people the license to sin.
I am looking forward to this series. It should prove thought provoking, challenging, and if I do my job right, should have both the fundamentalists and the liberals wincing. I heard somewhere (I wish I could remember where), that the goal of preaching is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. First Corinthians is one of those letters that should do the job quite nicely.
