March 28, 2010
Bits and Pieces 12: 1 Corinthians and Christian Worldview
This past week, we had two classes: 1 Corinthians and Christian World View. Both were challenging. Challenging is good, but it can also get overwhelming when you have 18+ hours of challenging per week. That doesn’t leave much time for processing and putting into practice. :) But hopefully the lessons are getting tucked into my head somewhere so they can come out when I need them and have time to process them. And that’s partly what these posts are for. So, onto the bits of wisdom from this week:
John MacMurray taught on 1st Corinthians. I thought he did an excellent job. It almost seemed like a continuation from Galatians the week before.
- Be teachable: take new ideas and allow them to examine your grid – don’t simply assume your grid is correct and allow that to examine the new ideas.
- The fundamental truth about God is that He is a relational Being. He is one God in three Persons. He is, at a fundamental level, a Being in relationship, and He has invited us to join in that relationship.
- Eternal life is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ. We don’t know the Father – unless Jesus gives us that knowledge. That’s our fundamental problem. So we need to help people get into a relationship with God by showing them who God is through our lives.
- 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 – Paul doesn’t thank them for what they’ve done, but for what God has done in them. He thanks God for what He has done. The foundational problem the Corinthians had is pride and arrogance.
- Today in America, the most important thing to Christians is being right. What happened to loving your neighbor?
- We think that we can earn our way back to God because our thinking about God is wrong. When we sinned, we turned and walked away from God, but God hadn’t changed. What changed? Our perception of God changed. There’s no way for us to able to get back to God – God is the one who has to initiate it, because we are blind and lost.
- The problem of sin is organic. Our very nature is ‘rotten’ – it’s not just something external that we can fix. Sin isn’t just something we do, but who we are. Jesus didn’t come just to forgive our sins, but to change us – to give us a new nature.
- 1:31 – Paul’s quote assumes we know the whole section of that text. Taken from Jeremiah 9:23-24: “…let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me…”
- The true Judge is judged by broken humanity (speaking of Christ’s crucifixion).
- “The wrath poured out on Calvary didn’t originate in God’s heart, but in ours. … What sin could be more heinous than hating and then murdering God?”
- Read the Gospels over and over so you can get to know God in Jesus. See what God is like in how Jesus treats people. He spent 30 years in a neighborhood and no one knew God was there – He didn’t come with fireworks, parades, etc, but lived as one of them. He shows most prominently what God is like in how He interacts with people. When Jesus came, He didn’t go to the middle class of Israel, but to the people on the fringes – lepers, tax collectors, prostitutes. You aren’t better than anyone else, so stop boasting and care for others. What are we doing to reach people not like us?
- 3:10ff – It’s not a doctrinal statement, a creed, or even the Bible that is your foundation; it’s not information, but a person: Jesus.
- On a side note: Why is so much of nature so unnecessarily beautiful? Why does everyone see it as beautiful if we just evolved? It’s not just that nature is beautiful, but that we have the ability to perceive it as beautiful. This is evidence for a Creator.
- Pride is the attitude the Corinthians had; reliance on human thinking was their thinking process, and the result is division.
- God’s wisdom is the way of humility, the way of stooping.
- Do you want to be humble? Why? So people will see that you’re humble? Humility is when you say, “Lord, I’ll take the low seat – and I’ll stay there.” Are you staying in the low seat until Jesus calls you up higher? Or are you trying to manipulate your way into something? We’ve bought into this idea that we need to ‘be all that we can be’ – grab as much as we can. But everything we need we already have because God has given it to us.
- 6:7 – “why not rather be wronged?” It’s the way of the cross. What causes conflict? You think you have been wronged and fight for your rights. Do you want the conflict to be resolved? Why not rather be wronged and cheated – follow the way of the cross.
- 6:12 – “all things are lawful for me…” the slogan of the Corinthians. This isn’t wrong, but they were abusing that freedom. Don’t let your freedom become your master. And don’t let things you can do in your freedom become your master. Christ is to be Lord over everything you have. Paul’s freedom is governed by: is it beneficial? Does it build others up? Will it master you?
- A disciple is a learner – one who follows the way of the master. Jesus’ way is servanthood and sacrifice. So, our way should be the same: servanthood and sacrifice.
- The picture he gave for the Trinity is three people facing each other in a circle. When a person becomes a Christian, he is brought into that circle and loves them (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) like they love each other, and they love him like they love each other. When another person becomes a Christian, she joins the circle and so loves him and them like they love each other. So we love other believers like the Trinity loves each other (see John 17:20-23). God loves us like He loves Jesus. There is no love in the universe like the love God has for Himself – and He invited you to join them!
- If people knew the way God loves them, wouldn’t they want a relationship with Him? Most probably would. So why am I not spending my energies entering into their darkness and problems and loving them like Christ does so they see His love through me? Instead we often try to put on a big show so people will be impressed with Jesus. That’s irrelevant to people. What would happen if we got into their messes and started to really love them?
The second class this week was on Christian World View. Mostly, this class opened up my eyes to the people around me – their problems and fears. How the promises of modernism have failed, and people are much more depressed, suspicious, apathetic, uncertain, etc. So, anyways, I just wanted to share two videos that they showed in class:
- “United States of Whatever” – be careful with this song…it just might get stuck in your head! It’s a kind of funny song…until you realize that it really is representative of what people think today – that nothing really matters. ”Whatever.”
- “Happy Birthday” – a song written by a rapper to his child that was aborted.
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