Posts that reference the book of 1 Corinthians

He is Risen!

But [the angel] said to [the women], “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him. Mark 16:6

This is an incredible moment – literally. Too extraordinary and improbable to be believed. Jesus told them. (Matthew 16:21, 17:23, 20:19). He had raised Lazarus a week or two before. But the women (and the rest of the disciples) go on, operating on their own understanding of how life works, how it has always worked. That’s about to change. Incredibly.

God graciously sends an angel to help the women understand what had happened. Let’s break down his message.

Do not be alarmed. – Our first response to drastic change and worldview shift is … stress and worry. Things are uncertain and no longer secure. But in this case, the change is the best thing ever.

You seek Jesus of Nazareth – The angel knew the mission the women were on. And they could be confident that this message was for them,

Who was crucified – He didn’t “swoon” or faint. He died. No one survived a Roman crucifixion.

He is risen! – Jesus is no longer dead. He has been raised by the power of God.

He is not here – This is a tomb, where dead people are. He is not dead, so He is not here.

See the place where they laid Him – You are not in the wrong tomb. Here’s is the place where you saw the body laid on Friday afternoon. Now the body is gone. Jesus isn’t just “spiritually” raised. He isn’t a ghost. His body has come back to life.

The Resurrection changes everything

We change from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant.
The payment for all our sins has been accepted.
Every word Jesus said is true.
We are reconciled to God
We are adopted into His family.
We have an inheritance and eternal life.
And so much more …

If you don’t believe He is risen …

Then you don’t believe the gospel. Paul preached the Resurrection, and he said if anyone preached anything different from what he had preached, that was another gospel, a false gospel. (2 Corinthians 11:4, Galatians 1:8-9)

Then you aren’t saved. Paul says in Romans 10:9, “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” The Resurrection proves the sin debt is paid. You must believe that Jesus Christ’s death was for your sins and that He was raised, proving you are right with God.

You have no hope.

Paul walks through the logical implications if Christ is not risen from the dead.

And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up–if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.
1 Corinthians 15:14-19

Jesus Christ is risen, as He said. That is the theme of Acts and the Letters. It is the reason for the praise offered to Christ in the Revelation, praise He alone is worthy to receive.

Since that morning, the Resurrection has changed everyone who has believed it. The women. The disciples. Us.
We have hope. We have life, and we have a message to share.

Peter’s Building Blocks: Perseverance

By Paula Wiseman

But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, 2 Peter 1:5-6

Perseverance.
Endurance.
Patience.
Steadfastness.

In hard times.
Lean times.
Times of aggravation and oppression.
Times of suffering and uncertainty.

It is hupomone.
It is looking beyond the present.
It is knowing the sufferings of this world are not worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed in us (Rom. 8:18).

It is resisting temptation.
Standing strong in the face of opposition or threats.
It is not backing down or slinking away.

Perseverance is clinging to God’s sovereignty and His justice.
It is following Christ’s example.

“[W]ho for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:2

Bottom line: Persevere
Keep doing what you’re doing (1 Cor. 4:12).
He will give you the strength (Phil 4:13).
Don’t grow weary (Heb. 12:3).
It is worth it (1 Timothy 4:10).

Peter’s Building Blocks: Knowledge

By Paula Wiseman

But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 2 Peter 1:5

Saving faith forms the solid foundation
The next block is virtue, moral excellence
Then we add knowledge.

The Greek is gnosis.
But it’s not secret, special revelation
It’s not Gnostic.
It’s not only for an initiated, select few.

It is knowledge of divine truth.
It is having a mind filled
With the truth of Scripture.

Paul tells us to study, (2 Timothy 2:15)
To handle the Word of God accurately and confidently.
He also agrees knowledge follows virtue (Romans 15:14).

But Jesus promised we’d have help.
The Holy Spirit teaches us. (John 14:26)
And Paul modeled how we pray for each other to gain knowledge. (Colossians 1:9)
(Do we pray for that?)

Adding knowledge requires study,
Meditation,
Discernment
Application.

In a word, it requires diligence.

If we don’t give it any effort, Peter says,
We’re useless and unfruitful.
Shortsighted, to the point of blindness.
We’ve forgotten we were cleansed from our old sins. (2 Peter 1:8-9)

Paul says we have been given
“The mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16)
We have the blocks.
What will we build with them?

An Appointment with Amos: Abundance

By Paula Wiseman

Appointment with Amos Abundance title graphic

Last week Amos warned of famine and judgment.
Because God is full of grace, that is not the final word.
There is restoration.
There is abundance.

“Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “When the plowman will overtake the reaper And the treader of grapes him who sows seed; When the mountains will drip sweet wine And all the hills will be dissolved.
Amos 9:13

The harvest isn’t finished before it is time to plant again.
The grapes aren’t fully tread before it is time to sow.
The harvest is greater than we can imagine.
It’s like the mountains themselves flow with wine.
The hills are dissolved in the abundance.

This has become the land flowing with milk and honey
The Promised Land.
Better than Canaan.
More like Eden.

Paul quotes Isaiah
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

Amos saw the abundance of those coming days.
Because we are in Christ
We will too.

A Holy Priesthood: Teaching

By Paula Wiseman

Peter says believers are a holy priesthood (1 Peter 2:5), drawing parallels with the priesthood established under the Law. Peter packs a lot of information and theological truth in that one metaphor. So, let’s take a few posts to break down what Peter wants us to understand. The first thing is God has cleansed us from our sin. We are specially clothed. We are anointed for service. As we serve, we must remain obedient. And one of the first commands we are given is teaching people God’s word.

Old Testament priests were to instruct the people

Last week, we saw in the beginning of Leviticus 10 that obedience to God and His commands was a serious charge, one that Nadab and Abihu passed off and suffered the consequences. God reaffirmed to Aaron the importance of ensuring the people understood what God expected of them. Their lives literally depended on it.

You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean, and you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the LORD has spoken to them by Moses.”
Leviticus 10:10-11

In Deuteronomy 17:8-11, Moses describes to the second generation of Israelites how the priests are to functions as judges. Because they know and understand God’s laws, they are qualified to settle disputes in the nation.

After Babylonian captivity, Nehemiah arranged for Ezra the priest to read the entire Law to the generation returning to Judah. Nehemiah 8:1-8 describes as Ezra read, a team of priests and Levites helped explain and interpret the Law for the people listening. (It’s also worth noting the great respect for the Word of God. The people stood out of reverence the entire time Ezra read.)

Teaching was key to Jesus’s ministry

Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.
Matthew 9:35

Jesus spent a good deal of His earthly ministry explaining and expounding on the Old Testament Law and the rest of God’s Word. In fact, one of the things people noticed about Him was His authority in teaching. It was unlike any other teacher they had ever heard.

New Testament believers are commissioned to teach

As believers following Christ’s example, we need to make sure we are communicating God’s word effectively. This means all of us, not just those specifically serving as preachers or teachers. Christ commissioned us to do so in Matthew 28:18-20.

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20

Paul reminds us, though, that we have help from the Holy Spirit.

We also speak these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual people.
1 Corinthians 2:13

Paul also underscores how important it is to our daily lives.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
Colossians 3:16

As New Testament priests, one of our sacred duties is teaching the Word to those who don’t yet believe and also to each other. That means it is extremely important that we devote ourselves to studying God’s Word and sitting under good teaching.

Next week, we’ll look at our other key duty as priests: intercession.

The Spirit Helps in Our Witness

By Paula Wiseman

The Holy Spirit plays an active role in the lives of believers from salvation to glorification. Sometimes, it’s not always evident or clear what that role is. We’re in the middle of our closer look at what He does, learning how He helps us and why Jesus said it was to our advantage that He go away and the Holy Spirit comes (John 15:7). This week we’ll look at how the Holy Spirit helps in our witness.

One way to think about helping with our witness is that it’s the other half of helping with salvation. We saw in the first post that the Holy Spirit works in the heart of the hearer. He also works in the one doing the speaking, preaching, teaching, testifying or witnessing. This fits with the Spirit’s purpose of bringing glory to Christ. After all, someone coming to Jesus for salvation brings Him glory.

The Spirit helps our witness in a at least three ways.

The Spirit gives us clarity.

Paul explains, “We also speak these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual people” (1 Corinthians 2:13). When the truths of God–especially the gospel–are delivered in a way that they connect with the hearers, the Spirit is at work. We see examples in the early church like Stephen in Acts 6. He made his case for Christ’s messiahship so strongly, it was irrefutable. They didn’t believe but they couldn’t argue with any of the truth Stephen presented. Another example was Philip in Acts 8 who was able to clearly trace the gospel through the eunuch’s reading in Isaiah.

In the same way, the Spirit can help us with just the right word or example when we need it. (This is not to say we should be lazy or unprepared.) But we shouldn’t be afraid to speak up when an opportunity arises. We’ll come back to this in just a moment.

The Spirit gives us power.

We shouldn’t conflate that Spirit-given clarity with just gifted oratory. We’ve all heard captivating speakers or even storytellers. But when we witness for Christ, there’s more going on. Even the Apostle Paul experienced it. “My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power” (1 Corinthians 2:4).

When we witness, people will never be convinced or persuaded solely because of the compelling argument we make. The words have power because the Holy Spirit’s power infuses them.

The Spirit gives us the opportunity.

“When the Counselor comes, the one I will send to you from the Father — the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father — he will testify about me. You also will testify, because you have been with me from the beginning” (John 15:26-27). The Spirit is at work in and through our encounters with others. He prepares the hearts of the hears and then once the prep work is done He moves us to speak.

Because of this we can have confidence when the Spirit nudges us to tell our story. Now this doesn’t mean that if a conversation doesn’t end with someone professing faith in Christ that the Spirit wasn’t in it, or we spoke out of turn. It means our job was to plant a seed, or even water it. Someone else will be there to see the fruit. We never have to feel pressure to “close the deal” when we tell someone about Jesus. Our responsibility is to be obedient and faithful. The Spirit is responsible for the results.

Let’s resolve to take the opportunities and speak what the Spirit gives us to say in His clarity and power.