In 1 Corinthians 1:10 – 6:20
Living as a disciple of Jesus entails living with other disciples of Jesus. Community is an important emphasis in many churches today (as well as the culture in general). It has always been part of church life. Back in the day, it was called “fellowship.” However, the call to community today seemingly has a deeper and fuller sound to it than before. We are learning that community is vital for spiritual formation, maturity, and transformation into the likeness of Christ, and for doing the Kingdom’s work. This is good. It is not easy. Christian community is different than the community which society advocates. To develop it and live it out takes real work that is energized by resources that are unique to the Messianic Kingdom in which we now live by faith in Jesus.
In the first 6 chapters of 1 Corinthians, Paul teaches on community because those believers living in Corinth of the Roman Empire really needed some help. He calls it unity (according to the NIV translation). Unity is necessary for community. You can’t even spell community without unity. More importantly, you can’t have community that contributes to spiritual growth and ministry without unity among the disciples.
There are several other passages in the New Testament that teach us about community. So, what we learn from 1 Corinthians is not all there is to it. It is all that I’m writing about now.
The kind of community that Paul taught is so different from our world’s idea that I’m going to call it Super-Community (no relation to the Justice League or the Avengers). It is unity and fellowship that transcends what we can come up with outside God’s Kingdom. Paul describes it in 1 Corinthians 1:10 (we will get to 2 other descriptions later on):
I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.
Uh, yeah, wow. Not just being nice and friendly to each other. Not just getting along together. Not just agreeing to disagree. Saying the same thing. No division – no schisms, no splits. Unified thinking. In the Greek language of this verse, Paul emphasizes that he wants the Corinthians to be “readying yourselves” with this kind of community. I think that means he wants them to be growing spiritually into the kind of disciples and church that God wants them to ultimately and finally become (see 1 Corinthians 1:4-9). Super-Community.
The Corinthian believers did not have a Super-Community. That’s why Paul was writing to them. He describes their Un-Community in 1 Corinthians 1:11-12 (we will get to 2 other descriptions later on):
My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”
There was a four-way split in the church. Paul-ists. Apollos-ists. Cephas-ists. Christ-ists. They were dividing over which teacher they would follow to the exclusion of the others. Now when someone says, “I follow Christ,” it sounds good. But since Paul put it in this list of schisms, they were no doubt people who were looking down their noses and saying, “We don’t need anyone else, we have Jesus. We are so much more holy than the rest of you.” The Corinthian believers were not agreeing on what they said, not united in mind and thought. Un-Community.
So Paul takes the rest of the first six chapters (in our Bibles) to lay down what it takes to construct real community. (Remember there are other passages that teach more about it.) He does not say, “Just do it,” expecting the Christians simply say “no” to Un-Community and “yes” to Super-Community and it happens. He provides real guidance for what it takes. These chapters are not merely teaching on a variety of doctrines and principles. They are the Spirit-filled apostle’s direction for what needed to change in the hearts and minds of the Corinthian believers. I see four “things” he expresses. I’m not sure what to call them – truths, principles, concepts, ingredients, tools? I think they are more than those words mean. They could be seen as the infrastructure of community. “Infra- means ‘below’ so the infrastructure is the ‘underlying structure’ of a country and its economy, the fixed installations that it needs in order to function (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).” It’s the systems and facilities that make up a viable city, county, or nation – a community. I’m going to call these four “things” that Paul teaches to the un-unified Corinthians the facilities that are needed to construct a Super-Community. They are the underlying (but not invisible) structure of Super-Community. I can’t provide a detailed exegesis and interpretation of everything in this long passage. I have to limit myself to summarizing these teachings – you can do deeper study on your own.
The first facility is taught in 1 Corinthians 1:13-31: the singular centrality of Jesus the Messiah (Christ). No other person – like a Paul or an Apollos – resides at the heart of our life in God’s Kingdom. No other value – like human wisdom and intelligence or miraculous signs – conveys the work of God that gives us life in his Kingdom. Jesus (God in the flesh) Christ (deliverer, victor, king) crucified (laying down his life for us) is “the power of God and the wisdom of God” and is “our righteousness, holiness and redemption.” So, “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”
Super-Community comes about by being “perfectly united in mind and thought” on this truth of who Jesus is and what he has done. We can be friends with people who don’t believe this; we can love them, care about them, work with them, go to church with them, enjoy experiences with them. But we can’t experience discipleship community with them. So, constructing community requires us to believe and commit to Jesus Christ crucified.
The second facility of the infrastructure of Super-Community comes from 1 Corinthians 2:1-3:4: the powerful directing of the Holy Spirit. Verse 12 states, “What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.” The Spirit reveals to believers what God has for us. The Spirit teaches. The Spirit guides. The Spirit directs. The Spirit takes the very thoughts of God and expresses them to us. This is so real, so intense, that it can be said that “we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16). This doesn’t mean that we possess or own the mind of Christ or that his mind becomes our mind, but that his mind is open to us, available to us, through the revealing by the Holy Spirit.
Super-Community comes about by being spiritual people who discern the will of God by receiving the Spirit’s revelation. It is interesting to me that in this passage Paul does not mention Scripture, the Word of God, the Bible. He never says, “We know what God has for us by reading Scripture.” Hmm. Now, you know that I believe the Bible is necessary for us to understand the Kingdom of God. But we need to realize that the Bible is a tool, an instrument, that the Spirit uses to speak to us. It’s not the only way he speaks to us. The Bible is not the Christian’s final authority for faith and practice. God is. Jesus himself is the Word of God (John 1). Jesus promised that “the Spirit of truth will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). God has given his Spirit to all of us so we can know what he has for us. Now this is kind of risky. It can be easily misused. Anyone can say “God told me…” and it be something they have come up with on their own. But that doesn’t negate the truth that the Spirit reveals the truth. It means that becoming spiritual people who can understand the Spirit requires real surrender, humility, obedience, careful study, maturity, and willingness to hear more than we have already heard. Knowing what God is freely giving us will bring us together in mind and thought. Constructing community requires that we hear and believe the Holy Spirit’s direction.
This brings us to Paul’s second description of Un-Community: 1 Corinthians 3:1-4. He says the Corinthians are not spiritual people who can discern the Spirit’s revelation. He calls them “worldly.” They are babies who aren’t ready to receive the mind of Christ. Their Un-Community is full of jealousy and quarreling due to splitting into cliques based on which teacher they prefer. They were not hearing and believing the powerful direction of the Spirit.
This dovetails into the third facility for constructing community in 1 Corinthians 3:5-4:21: the importance of God’s mission. Paul points out that those teachers the believers preferred were all servants of God. Each one had been assigned a specific task in God’s mission. “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow” (1 Corinthians 3:6). All of them were working on the building of God’s temple – the church. Instead of judging which servant they thought was best and becoming arrogant in their cliques, they needed to recognize that all of those men were sacrificially carrying out God’s assignments.
And here is the second description of Super-Community: “So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God” (1 Corinthians 3:21-23). In community, we are able to receive all God has for us through everyone and everything. God’s mission of redemption and transformation gets worked out through many different people and events. We benefit from all of it.
Super-Community comes about by recognizing God’s work in us, through us, and around us. God is on mission in all creation. He calls and assigns his children to various tasks. He includes all of us as his co-workers. We need to join him and each other in his mission. That is not just “church work” or “full-time ministry” or “career missions” though those are real and vital. Every believer has a valuable part in God’s redemptive work. Constructing community requires that we focus on the importance of God’s mission and his inclusion of all of us in carrying it out.
The fourth facility that is included in the infrastructure of discipleship community is taught in 1 Corinthians 5:1 – 6:20: the pursuit for holy justice. By justice I mean “the maintenance or administration of what is just. Just: acting or being in conformity with what is morally upright or good” (Merriam-Webster). This section deals with an array of immoral, unethical, wicked behaviors on the part of some of the Corinthian believers. Paul sums it up saying, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Whatever we do with our bodies should be holy – honoring our God.
The third description of Un-Community is found in 1 Corinthians 5:1, 6-11 and 6:1-8. One of the church members was in a sexual relationship with “his father’s wife” – that is, his stepmother. Allowing this to continue, and even being proud that they were so tolerant, the believers were subjecting their church to moral contamination, like yeast working through bread dough. Other behaviors had the same influence: greed, idolatry, slander, drunkenness, and swindling (verse 11). These resulted in major disputes and even lawsuits in civil courts. Allowing sinful behavior tears a people apart.
Also, we find the third description of Super-Community: “So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 5:4-5). Real community is so profound that Christian brothers and sisters can eliminate evil from their fellowship. That may take radical action – “hand this man over to Satan.” I think this is akin to God’s action following Adam and Eve’s sin – he banished them from the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:23). Paul explained the practical action they were to take: “Expel the wicked man from among you” (1 Corinthians 5:13). It’s interesting that in Paul’s second letter to Corinth, he talks about a man the church had punished; the punishment was “sufficient for him;” so the church should now “forgive and comfort him” and “reaffirm your love for him” (2 Corinthians 2:6-8). Maybe it was the same man. The ultimate goal of a Super-Community judging and punishing sinful behavior is restoration and transformation.
Super-Community comes about by pursuing holy justice. Behavior matters. Morality matters. Ethics matter. God is working to purify his people and his creation. Wickedness does not fit in his Kingdom (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). We should and can love people who are immoral and unethical, but we cannot develop real community with them. We cannot experience unity in mind and thought with people who claim to be disciples of Jesus but openly disobey his moral standards. Constructing community requires us to pursue holy justice.
God calls us to and puts us in community. Community that is radically different from non-Kingdom community. A part of me does not want that – due to my personality and some experiences I have had in churches. It’s much easier and more comfortable to stay on the surface with others and just get along okay and be superficially friendly. There’s a lot less hassle in tolerating others than in uniting with them. Feels “safer.” But I know “safe” is rarely God’s desire for me, for us. A part of me does want this discipleship community. Pray with me that it will happen. Let’s work together – centering on Jesus the Messiah crucified, receiving the Spirit’s direction, joining each other in God’s mission, pursuing holy justice – and construct Super-Community.