Bible Discussion

Our Bible Discussion Group meets Thursdays -  after Labor Day to before Memorial Day - in the Conference Room from 11:15 to 12:15. Please check the Church Calendar.

 

Currently we are on St Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians Chapter 12.

 

The Confession of the Spirit (I Cor. 12:1-3)

In the Church of Corinth, the most amazing things were happening through the action of the Holy Spirit, but in an age of ecstasy and enthusiasm there can be hysterical excitement and self-delusion as well as the real thing, and in this chapter and the next two Paul deals with true manifestations of the Spirit.

This passage gives us two phrases which were battle cries.

1)           There is the phrase Accursed be Jesus. There could be 4 ways in which this phrase might arise.

a.    It would be used by the Jews. The synagogue prayers included regularly a cursing of all apostates; and Jesus would come under that. Jesus had been crucified. It would be no uncommon thing to hear the Jews pronouncing their anathemas on this heretic and criminal whom the Christians worshiped.

b.    It is by no means unlikely that the Jews would make proselytes attracted by Christianity either pronounce this curse or suffer excommunication from all Jew worship. It must often have been a condition of remaining within the synagogue that a man should pronounce a curse on Jesus Christ.

c.    Whatever was true when Paul was writing, it is definitely true that later on, in the days of persecution, Christians were compelled either to curse Christ or to die. There certainly came a time when a man was confronted with the choice of cursing Christ or facing death.

d.    There was the possibility that, even in the Church, someone in a mad frenzy might cry out, “Accursed be Jesus.” In that hysterical atmosphere anything might happen and be claimed to be the work of the Spirit. Paul lays down that no man can say a word against Christ and attribute it to the influence of the Spirit.

2)           Besides this, there is the Christian battle cry, Jesus is Lord. In so far as the early Church had a creed at all, it was that simple phrase. When a man could say “Jesus is Lord (Jehovah),” it meant that he gave to Jesus the supreme loyalty of his life and the supreme worship of his heart.

It is to be noted that Paul believed that a man could say “Jesus is Lord,” only when the Spirit enabled him to say it. The Lordship of Jesus was not something a man discovered for himself as something which God, in His grace, revealed to him.

God’s Differing Gifts (I Cor. 12:4-11)

Paul’s idea in this section is to stress the unity of the Church. The Church is the Body of Christ and the characteristic of a healthy body is that every part in it performs its own function for the good of the whole; but unity does not mean uniformity, and therefore there are differing gifts and differing functions.

Paul begins by saying that all special gifts (charismata) come from God and therefore must be used in God’s service. The fault of the Church, in modern times, is that it has interpreted the special gifts too narrowly. It assumes special gifts consists of things like speaking, praying, teaching, writing – intellectual gifts. It would be well if we would realize that the gifts of one who can work with his hands, are just as “special” gifts from God. The brick layer, the carpenter, the electrician, the painter, the engineer, the plumber all have their special gifts, which are from God and can be used for Him.

We need to examine the list of special gifts which Paul gives us here, because from it we learn much about the character and work of the early Church.

He begins with two things which sound very much like each other -  the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge. The Greek word for wisdom is sophia. This is the highest kind of wisdom; it comes not so much from our thoughts (intelligence) as from communion with God. It is this wisdom which knows God. On the other hand, knowledge (Greek word gnosis) is a much more practical thing. It is the knowledge which knows what to do in any given situation. It is the practical application to human life and affairs of sophia. Both of them are necessary – the wisdom which knows by union with God the deep things of God, and the knowledge which, in the daily life of the world and the Church, can put that wisdom into practice.

Next comes faith. Paul means more than what we might call ordinary faith. It is the faith which really produces results. It is not just the intellectual conviction that a thing is true; it is the passionate belief in a thing which makes a man spend all that he is and has on it. It is that which moves a man into action. It is the faith which turns the vision into deeds.

Next Paul speaks of the special gifts of healing. The early Church lived in a world where healing miracles were somewhat common-place. If a Jew was ill he was much more likely to go to the Rabbi than to the doctor, and he would most likely be healed. It was an age of cures.

There is no doubt that gifts of healing did exist in the early Church; Paul would never have cited them unless they were real. In James (5:14) we see the instruction that if a man is ill he must come to the elders and they will anoint him with oil. It is historical fact that until the ninth century, the Sacrament of Unction was for healing, and only then (9th century) did it become the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, and a preparation for death. The Church never lost this gift of healing. For a long while the Church split man into soul and body, and accepted the responsibility for his soul but not for his body. It is good that we have learned to treat man as a whole – soul and body as one.

Next Paul lists wonderful deeds of power.