1 Corinthians 3:1-9 And
so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but
rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk,
not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still
not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is
jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving
according to human inclinations? For when one says, “I belong to Paul,”
and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human?
What then is Apollos? What
is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to
each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither
the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives
the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common
purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. For
we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.
Matthew 5:21-37 “You
have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’;
and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But
I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable
to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the
council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. So
when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother
or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the
altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and
offer your gift. Come
to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him,
or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and
you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get
out until you have paid the last penny.
“You have heard that it was
said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who
looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his
heart. If
your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better
for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into
hell. And
if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is
better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into
hell. It was also said, ‘Whoever
divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But
I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of
unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman
commits adultery.
“Again, you have heard that
it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but carry
out the vows you have made to the Lord.’ But I say to you, Do not swear at
all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or
by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of
the great King. And
do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let
your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the
evil one.
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As we continued in these
readings from 1 Corinthians and Matthew, we wondered at the roundtable about
what is the best way to get people to hear you when you are saying something
difficult. There was concern that Paul
might have been offending his listeners so much that they have stopped
listening. Calling them babies struck
some as kind of like a playground taunt.
But any sentence that
begins with, “And so,” might suggest that we ought to look back at the previous
paragraph and consider the context. So,
we looked again at chapter 2. Which we
had to read in the context of chapter 1.
We noticed Paul is kind of messing
with the Corinthians. He throws out a
bomb, turning the idea of wisdom on its head, then he reels it back, and offers
some conciliatory words that seem to stroke their egos a bit. Then he goes and tells them they are,
unfortunately, still at the baby food stage.
And so he’s spooning out the pureed stuff for their own good.
Do they believe him? My guess is that some do and some don’t. It’s hard to strike the right note when you’re
telling someone a thing they don’t want to hear.
We wondered about our own
ability to look at ourselves honestly, to hear difficult words like these words
of Paul and the words of Jesus and apply them to ourselves. “There have been times in my life when I
could hear such words as speaking to me,” said one, “and there have been other
times when I would hear words like this and think that the person next to me
really needed to listen carefully.”
And that is our biggest
pitfall, I often think. I am exceptionally
good at seeing the speck in my neighbor’s eye.
I could do this professionally.
The hardest thing is to be
able to look in the mirror and see that I am a spiritual infant. To see the harm I do by my anger toward a
brother or sister. To see how my
jealousies, zealousness, and opinions in some areas fuel division. To see how my carelessness in other areas
hurts those around me.
In light of such concerns,
how does a preacher talk about these texts?
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