Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to the leaders notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. Dr. Rutland is a world renowned leadership expert. He is a New York Times best selling author and he has served as the president of two universities. The Leaders Notebook is brought to you by Global Servants. For more information about Global Servants, please Visit our website, globalservants.org Here is your host, Dr. Mark Rutland.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Tonight. 1 and 2 Corinthians.
So what does it mean? Corinthians.
They are letters sent to people who live in the city of Corinth.
And so there were two letters. There were actually probably four. Two of them are no longer extant, but we do have 1 and 2 Corinthians. And I want to just read the first part of it for you. Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God and Sosthenes, our brother. So we, we have no doubt who wrote the the letter. It's not as if we have to guess like some of them, but we know who wrote 1 and 2 Corinthians, and we know that he is probably dictating it to this man named Sosthenes unto the church of God.
That should resonate here in this room.
Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God and Sosthenes, our brother, unto the church of God which, which is at Corinth and to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints with all that in every place, call upon the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, both theirs and ours. I just want you to see one phrase which actually is a key. It's a hidden key to 1 and 2 Corinthians. And it is.
And it says, unto the church of God which is at Corinth and to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints with all that are in every place, with all. Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you for this evening. We pray that you will open our hearts and minds. And we want to cooperate with that God. We're trying to open ourselves as fully as we know how to do that. You would do all the rest.
Pour your grace upon us, illumine our hearts and minds, convict us where it's necessary, teach us where it's needed. But that we leave here tonight saying tonight the Lord has spoken unto us in Jesus, mighty name, the strong Son of God. Amen.
Amen. And amen. As I said, the author of 1 and 2 Corinthians is Paul the Apostle.
This letter was probably written around 54 or 55 A.D. we're able to Date those things because of, we know where the letter was written, it's referenced in the book of Acts. We know what was happening in the Roman Empire about that time, who was, who was a civil servant, where, that kind of thing. So they're pretty, pretty well dated though. Certainly Paul is not writing at the bottom in 54 A.D. but we know pretty well when it was written. That means that it was written somewhere around 20 years after the crucifixion of Christ.
Now I want you to think about this for a moment before we even get into the content of the letter.
If Jesus was crucified in around 33 A.D. something like that, by the time 54 to 55 A.D. there are churches in his name scattered all over the Greco Roman Empire, all across the Mediterranean, in Turkey, in Greece, in Italy. There are churches in, in Egypt and in Syria.
Imagine that after only 20 years and after the death of a fairly unknown isolated Jew in a lonely country under the boot of the Roman Empire, Christianity is spreading formally now in church after church after church.
Corinth where the group to whom the church to whom this letter is sent, Corinth is still there. I've been to the city of Corinth. It is on an isthmus, a small band of land that, that stretches between the mainland of Greece. If you've ever looked at the map of Greece, Greece comes down like this and then there's this sort of island looking thing. It's not precisely an island, it's a peninsula, but it looks more like an island when you look casually at it. It's the Peloponnesian peninsula, the band of land, the isthmus if you will, that connects that Peloponnesia and the mainland of Greece is where Corinth is. The city of Corinth.
It's an ancient city because of where it is. You can see that it would be highly accessible as a seaport. It became rich, it was highly cosmopolitan. All kinds of cultures came there.
It was, it was very wealthy. It was a center of the ancient world.
It was destroyed by the Roman Empire in conquest in 127 BC.
So about 220 years before Paul wrote this letter, it was rebuilt by Julius Caesar. Coincidentally, in the year that Julius Caesar was murdered, 44 B.C.
julius Caesar rebuilt the seaport city of Corinth.
It was therefore, by the time Paul wrote this letter, the new Corinth. New Corinth was about 171 years old.
Beyond all that, it was a city. Corinth was a city notorious for its wickedness.
Now, I'm going to call out some city nicknames, and I want to see if anybody can tell me where this city is. All right? Are you ready? Just call out right loud. We've got a small group here. Don't be shy.
The Big Apple.
The Big Easy.
New Orleans. The Eternal City.
Rome. The Mile High City.
The City of Brotherly Love.
Sin City.
Say it loud.
In the ancient Greek world, Corinth was Sin City.
It was the Las Vegas of the Mediterranean world.
In fact, it was so notorious that Striebo, who was a Greek philosopher and historian, wrote that there was at one time a thousand temple prostitutes in Corinth.
Plato, as you know, the philosopher, he used a phrase that he called a Corinthian girl. It was just a phrase that he tossed off. It meant a prostitute. So if you refer to the girls of a city as a prostitute, as prostitutes, it tells you something about the city of Corinth. Aristophanes, the playwright, the Greek playwright, actually invented a word. He coined a word in the Greek language which exists to this day, and it is to Corinthianize yourself.
In. In one of his plays, Aristophanes talks about a young man who was going to Corinthianize himself.
In other words, I might say, this kid has saved up all his money and he's caught a flight and he's headed west to Las Vegas Eyes himself.
That's what Corinthianize meant. So the church in Corinth is. Is the church in. In the Roman Empire, Sin City.
So when Paul writes to the church at Corinth, one cannot, in reading it, separate the content of the letter from the context of the church.
I. I think that's appropriate that we read 1 Corinthians for ourselves.
We do not exactly live in the midst of a pristine and clean culture.
I am neither a prophet nor the child of a prophet. And I don't mean to lay this on you as a prophecy, but I believe night is falling in the west.
I think before the sun comes up, it's going to get darker and darker.
I'm not a prophet, but I am an observer of human history and of international history. And I see cracks in the culture of America that I believe are terrifying.
And I believe that those cracks are reminiscent of the Roman Empire and particularly the Corinthian culture to which Paul wrote. So if there is a letter that speaks to the church in the midst of the sinfulness of American society, perhaps it's 1 Corinthians.
The whole theme of the letter is so often missed by people because individual elements of the letter are so prominent and so powerful that when one is reading them, reading this particular chapter, you think that's the theme of the whole letter. But it is that Paul is under an unusual anointing as he writes 1 Corinthians. The language is powerful. The Greek is rich. Even in English, it comes across powerfully. And one of the most famous chapters in the whole Bible is in the first of these epistles, the two together.
The theme of the two letters together is actually unity.
Paul is saying he is dealing with issues of division in the church, of what we might call tribalism.
He says, look, you're dividing up into groups, and we're supposed to be unified. What does he say in the very beginning, with all in every place, they call upon the name of Jesus Christ. He says the church at Corinth is part of. Of a transcendent reality, which is the church of the living God. It's not just the church of Corinth, it's the Church, the Ecclesia, the body of Christ.
And the whole rest of the letter hangs on that phrase with all in every place.
First of all, he says, we are to be unified in holiness.
Now, that must.
That must have been a hard letter for the Corinthians. In fact, we know that it was.
He even had to deal with a case of incest in the church.
He says, look, it's come to me that a man in the church is living with his stepmother.
In fact, it isn't clear in Greek or English. I do want to say this. It isn't clear in Greek or English if it's his stepmother or his mother. And in any case, it's. It's not clear that his father is dead.
He says he is living with or is married to, if you will, to his father's wife.
So we don't even know it's his father's widow.
So Paul is horrified.
But you got to think the people to whom he's writing have lived in a city that celebrated infinitely worse.
Indeed, they are living in an empire that celebrates infinitely worse. As I told you two weeks ago when we were studying the letter to the church at Rome, the emperor himself, the head of state for the whole empire, is living in incestuous sin with his own sister.
So when Paul says, writes in horror, this is so you must end this. You must stop this.
He is saying that the essence of the church, irrespective of the surrounding culture, has got to be holiness, and that holiness must unify us.
We are not separated in holiness. It's not holier than thou. I don't do this sin. But you do. You commit that sin. I'm okay with that sin, but I'm not okay with this one. Paul says holiness is not what separates us into camps. Holiness is what unifies us in the character and nature of God.
If you will, if you have your Bibles with you, turn, if you will, to chapter six.
I want to begin reading at verse 15.
Chapter six and verse 15.
Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?
Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of an harlot?
God forbid.
What?
Know ye not that he who is joined to an harlot is one body for two? Saith he shall be one flesh, but he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth without the body meaning outside his body, but that which committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.
Now listen to verse 19.
What?
He's horrified. You can almost feel it in the letters. What?
Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own, for you are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.
In the. In the temples in Corinth, these prostitutes were not street walkers. The thousand prostitutes that Strabo wrote about, wrote about were not. They were not street walkers. They were temple prostitutes.
So it was considered an act of worship to go to a temple to Diana or to Venus or one of the gods or goddesses and pay money and have fornication with one of those prostitutes. And through that prostitute, to believe that the un of your body, with her body brought you into unity with the God that you were worshiping.
So Paul is using that very pagan image to say to them, look, don't you understand when you connect your body with the prostitute, you're not connecting with Venus. You're connecting with the spirit of the prostitute.
And he says, therefore you must pull away from this, from this spirit, this pornographic spirit of the world that you live in and understand that the. That the essence of unity and holiness is unifying your body and your spirit with God. Why?
Because you are bought with a great price.
There were three times the number of slaves in Corinth.
There were slave owners.
It was a city built by. Run by. Manifested by slave labor.
So there may very well have been slaves and slave owners in the church at Corinth. And Paul is saying, you are all slaves.
You are unified in the reality that you are bought and paid for, just like you were sold in the market.
And you have no authority over your own body. Your body belongs to God, your spirit belongs to God. And you are called into the unity of holiness. The church is to come together in the unity of holiness.
Now, there is one other thing here, the issue of the temple.
He says, you think about going to the temple of Diana or the temple of Venus or the temple of Zeus.
He says, you are the temple of God.
You are the temple of God. I want you to think what a shocking thought that must have been to people who walked streets where there were these mighty temples that were filled with sin, wickedness and paganism and idolatry and adultery. It blended together that this horrifying culture of Corinth that surrounded them is all built on temples.
And Paul says, you're the only temple that matters. And you individually are the temple of the mighty God. And together, your bodies, each to each, in the unity of holiness, are the body of Christ.
You are the temple of Christ.
I want you to turn, if you will, to 2 Corinthians, chapter 7. 2 Corinthians, chapter 7. 2 corinthians, chapter 7. I want to read 1 through 12.
Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God, receive us. We have wronged no man. We have corrupted no man. We have defrauded no man. I speak this not to condemn you, for I've said before that you are in our hearts to die and live with you. Great is my boldness of speech toward you. Great is my glorifying of you. I am filled with comfort. I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation. For when we were coming to Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side. Without were fightings. Within were fears, nevertheless, God, that comforted those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not by his coming only, but by the consolation wherewith he was comforted in you. When he told us your earnest desire, your mourning, your fervent mind toward me, so that I rejoiced the more.
Paul says our unity in holiness and in the love for one another and in the body of Christ transcends those things that separate us. He says, look, I know I scolded you. I scolded you. That letter was hard. I know it was hard. But I'm not mad at you. I scolded you because I love you.
Now, I don't hear your pastor preach a lot. Usually when I'm here, I'm doing the preaching. But listen to me.
When he scolds you, when he calls you, when he challenges you, when there's a word, any pastor. Any pastor speaks a word of rebuke or exhortation or challenge, it doesn't mean they're mad at you. It doesn't separate our unity in the body of Christ. It unifies us in the holiness of God that that word is to us and through us to each other. And in that summons to holiness, we. We are unified.
We are called to unity of holiness.
The second is unity of ministry.
We are called to unity of ministry. Turn to 1 Corinthians, chapter three.
1 Corinthians, chapter three. And I want to begin reading verse four.
For while one saith, I am of Paul, and another saith, I am of Apollos, are you not carnal? Who then is Paul? Who is Apollos, but ministers by whom you believed, Even as the Lord gave to every man, I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.
So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase.
Now, he that planteth and he that watereth are one. And every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are laborers together with God. You are God's husbandry. You are God's building temple. According to the grace of God, which is given unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation. Another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon for other foundation can no man lay than is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
He says, look, don't divide up into teams based on your devotion to some preacher that we're of Paul, we're of Apollos, we're of Simon Peter. He says there are no teams. There's no separation, there's no division in ministry. We are unified in ministry. What is the basis of our unity in ministry? The foundation on which the entire church rests, which is Jesus Christ.
Then we come to 1 Corinthians, chapter 12. 1 Corinthians, chapter 12 is that famous passage about the gifts of the Spirit.
I taught a course here some years ago on the gifts of the Spirit. We spent a lot of time in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, where he talks about the gifts, all the nine supernatural endowments, the gifts of the Spirit.
But to say that 1 Corinthians 12 is about the gifts of the Spirit is a mistake.
Some years ago, I wrote a book and I told a story in that book about a moonshiner.
But imagine how offended I would be if you went around telling people that I had written a book about moonshining.
Paul did not write a book about the gifts of the Spirit. He wrote a book about the unity of the body of Christ.
And he was using the gifts of the Spirit as an example.
He says, look, God gives some this gift, some that gift, some that gift, but all those gifts are gifts of the Spirit. Isn't it a bitter irony that we divide up and fight over the gifts in 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, which Paul was using as an example of the unity of the body of Christ, we fight over it.
We've turned the gifts of the Spirit into credit cards.
Well, I've got the gift of discernment of spirits. I never leave home without it.
Pentecostals have turned the gift of tongues the gift. It's a wonderful gift. I'm listening. I'm not being soft on it. I'm a straight out, 100 proof, tongues talking Pentecostal.
But we've turned the gift of tongues into a Pentecostal green card. You don't get to work if you can't prove you've got tongues.
That's. Paul is exactly the opposite of what Paul is saying when he's teaching on the gifts.
He's not teaching on which gifts are best or which gifts are better or whether or not you have the tribe of discernment and the tribe of tongues, of the tribe of interpretation. He's saying all those gifts work together, that we may have unity in ministry.
We need each other.
We need each other's gifts. We need to celebrate each other's gifts. We need to honor the gifts of the Spirit through each other.
What a crazy irony that we fight over the chapter that Paul inserted to teach about the unity of ministry.
So first he says the unity of holiness, then he says the unity of ministry.
Then comes one of the most powerful passages, one of the.
I just think what a great mind he was, supremely educated. What a great spirit.
He was elevated to see things that nobody in his generation was seeing.
Now he talks about our unity in our transcendent destiny.
Where we will. Where we will be together is greater than anything that may separate us. Here below, turn to 1 Corinthians, chapter 15. This powerful passage of Scripture, which I'm sure you have heard read at funerals, beginning with verse 35 I want to read several verses, so just stay with. If you have your bibles, turn to 1 Corinthians, chapter 15 and beginning with verse 35.
But some say, how will the dead be raised up? And with what body do they come? Thou fool.
That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be but bare grain.
If chance, if by chance of wheat or of some other grain, but God giveth it a body as it pleaseth him, and to every seed its own body, so a seed of grain comes up as a sheaf of grain.
All flesh is not the same flesh, but there's one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, another of birds. There are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial. In other words, there's stars, and then there's planets.
But the glory of the celestial one, and the glory of the terrestrial one is another.
There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars. For one star differeth from another star in glory, and so also is the resurrection of the dead.
It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption, it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory, it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. Who could write this stuff? This is powerful, isn't it? It is sown a natural body. It is raised a supernatural body.
There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, the first man, Adam, was, was made a living soul. The last Adam that is Jesus, was made a quickening spirit.
However, that which was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth earthy.
The second man is the Lord from heaven, as is the earthy. Such are they also that are earthy and as the heavenly, they also that are heavenly.
And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
Now this I say, brethren. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I show you a mystery.
We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, that the last trump for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised in Christ corruptible. And we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality. Then shall be brought to pass the saying which is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where's thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of the sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth what us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
So the third unity that he says is no matter what might divide us in this pleasant. When we're in our physical bodies, he says, we all have physical bodies, and those physical bodies have characteristics.
One is of one race, one is of one age, one's of one culture. One's skin is brown, one's skin is white. One's skin is.
One skin is dark, one skin is light. Somebody's eyes are blue. Somebody's eyes are brown. But he says, when we are raised in incorruption, all that which has divided us is gone. And we are unified supernaturally because it doth not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him.
Praise God Almighty. It's amazing the stupid stuff we fight over when we will all be unified in heaven.
He says, yes, we are unified in holiness. Yes, we are unified in ministry. But. But above all things, we are unified in transcendent glory.
All of this stuff will be gone.
All of this.
Can you hear what I'm telling you?
All this. This church, this building, these bricks, these pews, this carpet, all of this. Your skin, your bones, all of this. All of this stuff that we dress up and tidy up and try to make look good. All of this will be gone.
And there in heaven, there'll be no old people. There'll be no young people. There'll be no. There'll be no national frontiers. There'll be no racial limitations. There will be transcendent unity because we will be like him. We. We will all be like him. Amen.
Unity in holiness, Unity in ministry, and unity in transcendent destiny.
But the fourth is where Paul reaches his masterpiece.
His masterpiece, I give God all the glory. And if Paul was standing here right now, he would. He would say, oh, oh, Brother Utland, I didn't write that under my own wisdom. I didn't write that under my own strength.
But I'm telling you, what a mighty spirit, what a mind, what a heart, what a man that God could access to write what I'm going to read to you now.
Paul says, above all things, you want to understand the character of the body of Christ.
Above all things, above holiness, above our unity in Heaven above all things, the one thing that unifies us in perfection is love.
And he writes in 1 Corinthians 13, one of the most powerful, gripping, wonderful and poetically beautiful passages of Scripture that I believe has ever been written.
Will you indulge me in allowing me to read you the whole chapter? It's not long.
Let me read it to you.
Listen to what Paul is saying. Listen to him.
He says you keep dividing up into teams and tribes and fighting and arguing over stuff. This cell group's mad at that cell group. This church is mad at that church. You're suing him. You're angry at him. You're divided over this. He says there's one thing, one thing that makes your unity perfect.
And here it is.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I'm going to read charity because I'm reading from the King James Bible.
But charity means love. It doesn't mean just. We think of charity in contemporary English as giving money to the poor.
So when I read charity, you hear love.
Or shall I read the word love?
Would that be better?
Yes. All right.
We'll cheat on the King James Version.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I'm become a sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could move mountains and have no love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.
Love suffereth long and is kind, love envieth not. Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Love never faileth.
Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail.
Whether there be tongues, they shall cease.
Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But then that which is perfect is come. Then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child.
And when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.
Now I know in part, but then I shall know even as also I am known.
Now abideth faith, hope, and love. These three.
But the greatest of these is love.
Paul says, at the end of everything, that really which makes us one and defines us as the people of God is love.
What a shocking message to people who thought love meant sex with a temple prostitute, who thought love was the sick joke of the Roman Empire.
Paul says, you don't even know what love is.
He says, let me define it for you. Let me write it for you. Let me explain it to you.
And he says that love heals all wounds, forgives everything, unifies us in perfection, transcends life and death.
What could ever separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus? Nothing.
What therefore, really could divide us in the love of Christ?
Nothing.
Some say we believe this. We believe that Paul says, quit bickering and arguing over stupid stuff, that you won't even remember heaven and live in love.
So C.S. lewis wrote a magnificent little allegory. It's one of my favorite books of his. It's called the Great Divorce.
And it is an allegory.
And the concept is that people are in hell.
This is not theology. It's an allegory. Okay, There are people in hell, and they can take a bus trip. They're offered the opportunity to take a bus trip and go up to heaven. And when they get off the bus in heaven, they'll be met by certain people.
And if they'll do what those people tell them to do, they can stay in heaven. Well, the allegory is of hell stands not for hell itself, but for sin.
So people that are in sin, somehow or another, they get the opportunity to see what heaven would be like. And if they'll meet the requirements of it, they can stay.
There are all kinds of people that get off of this bus, and somebody meets them.
One is a man who gets off of the bus from hell is a man who was murdered.
He was murdered, and he's in hell. And he is met at the bus by the man who murdered him.
And the man who murdered him said, yes, I murdered you. But after I murdered you, I found Christ and I repented. And now I'm in heaven.
But I want you to stay.
If you will forgive me, you can stay.
And the guy says, I'd rather go to hell than forgive you and stay in heaven with you.
And he gets back on the bus and goes to hell.
But the most astonishing one of all is a bishop who is in hell.
He gets off of the bus. And he is met by one of his former students.
And his former student says, you can stay.
You can stay here. Come on, be here with us. And he says, are you here? You were a student. I was the teacher. I was the professor. I was the bishop.
You're here. He says, forget all that. There's no such thing as teacher and student and wise and unwise. Just stay with me.
And so the bishop says, will I be allowed to teach my Bible study?
The student says, what would you teach?
What would you teach? We look on the face of God every day, what would you teach?
And he says, I have to be allowed to grow.
I have to be allowed to extend my witness. I have to be allowed to teach.
And he goes back to hell because he would rather teach than live in the presence of all truth and revelation of knowledge.
There's so much stupid stuff that divides us.
And Paul says, we are called into the unity of holiness.
We are called into the unity of the body of Christ through the ministry that he effectuates in us, each to each according to his will. We are called into the unity of the knowledge that we will all be like him in heaven.
But above all things, he says, when everything else is gone, love will remain.
Therefore, O Lord, baptize me not so much in power as in love.
God bless you, everybody. Good night.
[00:39:48] Speaker A: You've been listening to the leader's notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. You can follow Dr. Rutland on x@dr. Mark Rutland, or visit his website, drmarkrutland.com where you can find information about his materials and his app. Join us next week for another episode of the Leader's Notebook.
