A foolish church

The things that precede

We are going to deal with the congregation of the Lord Jesus. But before that, the following.

When Paul writes his first letter to the church in Corinth, he starts writing from chapter 7 about the subjects they have put before him. Those are the themes that each time begin with “as of now” (1 Cor.7:1;8:1;12:1;16:1;16:12).

Chapters 1 through 6 are topics that Paul wants to focus on, however. One of the reasons for this may be that the answers to the themes cannot be understood unless these topics of chapters 1-6 have been discussed first.

A multitude of views – but where is the cross?

In Corinth there were many different ideas about how your church should be. They even argued about it (1 Cor.1:11). Paul calls them to “to all be of one mind (…), one in thought and one in feeling” (1 Cor.1:10-11). That was not easy, because everyone had their own favorite preacher that they wanted to belong to. Paul makes it clear that he did not want to draw people after him; he was even thankful to God that he had baptized few people. The point, he says, is that in all this hassle of yours, you have forgotten that it is about the meaning of the cross of Christ.

For the Corinthians, the cross of Christ had lost its meaning, had become meaningless (1 Cor.1:17). That is why Paul's preaching was also about “Christ the Crucified” (1 Cor.1:23) and so he had resolved at that time not to preach anything else in Corinth”than Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).

In the church in Corinth, according to Paul, it should only be about the Crucified Christ. If they lost that, division would ensue. If the cross of Christ and all that it entails had no meaning for them anymore, they would start to run things in the Church according to human wisdom. And that was exactly what was happening in Corinth! But you would never get there.

Wisdom of people

God's thinking and acting is contrary to what we humans naturally think is sensible. We know about everything, we have an opinion about everything. Now that may well have a function in the world. In society, at school or in your work you have to let it be known what you think about something. For that you have learned or for that you have a function. You must use the abilities that God has given you. But in God's Church it is the other way around, there does not count the thinking and wisdom of people, but the thinking of the Lord (1 Cor.2:16). How does He think about things?

In the Church of God there is no place for human wisdom; that will only cause problems. God's thinking is so different that it seems foolishness to us humans. Yet God with His foolishness will destroy our human wisdom. Its purpose is that people should not boast (1 Cor.1:29) and say, 'This is what I have done'. If there is to boast, then not in men, but only in the Lord (1 Cor.1:31). Because it is clear that everything can only be found in Christ: He is “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24).

Wisdom of God

Paul elaborates on this in chapters 2 to 4. The idea of ​​'wisdom' runs like a red thread through these chapters and for good reason.

It already starts in chapter 2 when he describes how he preached the gospel in Corinth at that time. That was not with fine human reasoning in a way that would impress people (1 Cor.2:4), but with weakness, fear and trembling (1 Cor.2:3). If they would then believe, it was clear that it was in any case not 'because he spoke so beautifully', but because the 'power of God' had worked (1 Cor.2:5).

What he told them in this way was "wisdom of God," not a wisdom of the world or of the leaders of this world (2:6). It was just about”Christ, the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24).

A secret

When Paul preached the gospel to them, he also told them about Christ, how He is the only one who should be concerned in their personal and communal life. By human standards that is nonsense: Christ alone in the life of the congregation. Yet Paul says this is "wisdom of God" and goes even further. He himself calls it a “secret that was hid, which God predestined before all ages for our glory” (1 Cor.2:7). In other words, I am not just telling you something, but it is a secret from God!

“What eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered into the heart of man, which God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Cor. 2:9)

This is special. On the one hand it is about Christ, the wisdom of God. But on the other hand, it is also about us, about “our glory” (1 Cor.2:8) and about those “who love God” (1 Cor.2:9). Then it cannot be otherwise than that it is about that secret, which Paul also describes in Ephesians 5:32: the great secret of “Christ and the Church” and the special unity between the two.

Here in the letter to the divided church in Corinth, he refers to it. In fact, he's telling them to think again about that big secret. About the close relationship between Christ and the church. So that they can be church again as God intended.

The Spirit of God

Then Paul indicates that the work of the Spirit of God is crucial in this. What God conceived (1 Cor.2:7;2:9), what was in His heart, the Spirit of God revealed to Paul and the apostles ('us' in verse 10). Only God's Spirit could do that, He knows the depths and the things of God (1 Cor.2:10-11).

But you too can know, because we all have the Spirit that is received from God, don't we? Well, that Spirit will also help you to understand these things. Its glorious purpose is that “we would know the things graciously given us by God(1 Cor. 2:12).

When it comes to the things of Christ and the church, you can hardly speak of them in human words. Paul spoke and wrote about it in words the Holy Spirit taught him (1 Cor. 2:14).

When Paul thinks about this, it is as if he himself is impressed by what he is saying. The phrase “to compare spiritual things with spiritual things” (in 1 Cor.2:13b) is actually linguistically incomplete; a sentence that is not well finished. As a result, the meaning is not immediately clear from a linguistic point of view. In the foregoing, it is the Holy Spirit who reveals God's thoughts and it is the same Spirit who also declares them to us. Then Paul concludes that with the observation that you can now compare the spiritual things (in the heart of God) with the spiritual things (in our heart). You will find that they are the same! That is special and you will be deeply impressed! That God wants to share His 'secret of the heart' with regard to Christ and the church to us, so that we think the same about it as He does!

God has provided that the Corinthians—a divided community—could still know God's thoughts about Christ and the church: through the Holy Spirit! He therefore concludes this chapter with “But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16).

The natural man and human wisdom: meaningless

The things of God cannot be naturally understood by man, he cannot even accept them. Only a spiritual man can judge them (1 Cor.2:14-15). A man who thinks naturally thinks he knows better than God and thinks he must teach the Lord (1 Cor.2:16a). But when we are spiritual, Paul says, we have the mind of Christ.

The Corinthians could not understand it, for they were carnal, not spiritual (1 Cor.3:1-3). Paul had laid a good foundation for the church: Jesus Christ (1 Cor.3:10-11), but there were those in Corinth who had not built on it in the right way. Human thinking and human wisdom had entered, with all its consequences (1 Cor. 3:12-15).

The use of human wisdom when it comes to the affairs of the Church is not optional. If God has made His thoughts known about it, then you cannot ignore it with your own ideas. If you do not build on the foundation that is there, namely Jesus Christ, but build next to it on the basis of your own wisdom, then as a builder you will have to deal with God. You will be 'damaged' (v3:15) and it even says that God will 'destroy such a person' (1 Cor.3:16).

Let us not deceive ourselves into thinking that we are wise and prudent in these things (1 Cor. 3:18). To God it is foolishness and it is meaningless, without real meaning (1 Cor. 3:19-20).

A Temple of God

It is striking how much attention the apostle pays to rejecting human wisdom. It is undeniable that God Himself does everything in its power to make it clear that we should not humanly 'mess' with the church, which is here called the temple of God (1 Cor. 3:16-17). The fact that the church is the 'temple of God' should only bring us to one wish, and that is to make it come true in practice in the way that God Himself wants.

The temple of God is the place where sacrifices are made to God. Not physical, but spiritual sacrifices of praise and thanks. We have already seen this with regard to our personal Christian life (see the Core of the Christian life), and we can do that together. In this way we together form that house, where God's Spirit dwells. And because He lives there, He is also so 'burnt' that things go there as He planned them.

It's just like it was at the tabernacle. God showed what that house should look like and that's how it had to be made (for example, Hebrews 8:5). And all the precepts for priestly service must also be followed. Not because God wants to make it difficult for them, but because it is His home, because He wants to dwell there.

We will discuss the matter of making sacrifices together. In any case, it becomes clear here that it is very close. Whether we act in God's thoughts or let our own human wisdom loose on it.

Nothing like what is written

Paul is an apostle with a special commission. He calls himself 'a servant of Christ and steward of the mysteries of God' (1 Cor.4:1). He distributes what God has entrusted to him. God will judge whether he has done well and whether his motives were pure (1 Cor.4:4-5).

Paul – along with Apollos – used the Old Testament to make clear to the believers in Corinth what God's thoughts were about the church. They have proclaimed "the doctrine of the apostles," as it is called in Acts 2:42. Elsewhere we will have to go into this further. But for now, the most important thing that Paul and Apollos showed in their Corinthian preaching is that they only used what was written and did not make it up from human wisdom themselves.

“(…) that you learn from us not to think beyond what is written, lest anyone exalt himself in favor of one over another” (1 Corinthians 4:6).

They had to learn from the example of Paul and Apollos to build the church only according to what was written in the Scriptures. Only God's Word has authority and this is especially true when it comes to building God's house. Then it will be as He wills it.

Moreover, it would happen that they would put their own opinions before those of others, so that in the end one would be more than the other in the congregation. With all the misery of division as a result (1 Cor.1:11).

Become my followers

Paul preached the Gospel. This included teaching the believers how to give the church hands and feet. Paul did this in the same way in all the churches he visited (1 Cor.4:17).

You would say that was a wonderful task given to him by God. And it was. But it was not appreciated by people. He writes terrible things about it in verses 1 Cor.4:9-13. A spectacle, fool. weak. Hungry and thirsty, naked and beaten with fists, no abode, reviled and persecuted, scum of the world. That's not nothing. Also in Corinth there was a lot of resistance against Paul (1 Cor.4:18-21). Opposition that can only be explained when we see Paul proclaiming that we can only judge the things of the church spiritually, putting aside all human thinking, all our own wisdom. This provokes resistance, even from believers.

Yet Paul calls on the Corinthians to be “his followers” ​​(1 Cor.4:16). That means, in the context of these chapters, that he calls them to cling only to God's Word and to take for granted the opposition that comes with it. That you are called 'fool', so be it.

A foolish church?

A church built on God's Word, not organized according to human wisdom, will be made foolish by the world and the natural man. That is a municipality that does not attract many people because they have 'so much fun' there. But it is a church, where God is magnified and praise is sung. It is indeed a church where people know the secret of God's heart: Christ the Crucified as the center of His church!

These are hard lessons that Paul is teaching here, hard on the natural man. But God give us grace that we let ourselves be taught by His Spirit, that the church may be a place that God can call His temple!

Summarized

Before we delve further into the question of what it is like to be a church together, Paul taught us, briefly, the following things:

• Christ the Crucified is the foundation and center of the church
• Human wisdom has no place in the church. It only leads to division
• In God's heart is a special secret concerning Christ and the church. Paul was allowed to proclaim this secret and it is now recorded in God's Word.
• A work of God's Spirit is needed so that we can understand what was in God's heart on this subject of Christ and the Church.
• Only God's Word is decisive in this matter, we must not think of anything above what is written.
• If we want to follow Paul and go this way, it will not bring us applause here on earth, but rather contempt and shame.

Let's keep these things in mind as we search further in God's Word, what His thoughts are about the church in our day.

Further

Behind this page we will discuss what the church was in the beginning and what characterized them (Acts 2:42). They persevered in the teaching of the apostles, in fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers. To those around them it was foolishness, contemptible. That is why we have called this page "a foolish church."

On the pages below you will find thoughts about 'authority in the municipality'. The Lord Jesus Christ is the one who is in charge in His church. But how does that work in practice?