1 Corinthians

The Epistle to the Corinthians.

1. Christ the Wisdom of God

I think it is interesting how in the first three chapters Paul sees the issue of wisdom and folly as being connected to divisions in the church. It makes one think of people who are obsessed with systematics, and dogmatic purity - these are the sort of people who are the most divisive, don't you think? At the same time, we are all building on the same foundation, Jesus Christ, and some will build with precious stones and others with hay. I definitely want to be in the most refined of the precious stones category. But it is on the basis of the power of Christ and the spirit that we ought to be seeking wisdom, even the real wisdom of the Greeks. Really we must be concerned with power more than talk - the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power. Dealing with talk is secondary to discerning the spirit, and living out its power.

1:1: Same Sosthenes as the leader of the Corinthian synagogue? (Acts 18:17) Seems unlikely to be anyone else to me, just pure gut instinct.

Interesting which books Paul has co-authors for.

10: Christians should be like-minded.

11: Chloe's people? Funny phrase.

12: Do not follow after teachers or theologians.

Implies that people were perceiving differences between Peter and Paul's teachings.

17: Very bold verse. Paul did not see the sacrament as essential to his particular vocational ministry.

Nor did he see eloquence as essential -- despite all his long eloquent letters! -- as eloquence empties the cross of Christ of its power. How so?

18-21: Love this passage so much. All of the learning and eloquence and wisdom fail. What seems stupid and the foolish end up conveying the truth.

1:22: Some people want to have the perfect theological / philosophical system, and some people want to experience God more mystically, to revel in the ways he turns their world inside out. A sign or miracle from God is not him breaking the natural order of the world; he is breaking our imperfect understanding of the natural order. I think he designed the natural order perfectly, and part of that design is the possibility of miracles to correct the damaging effects of sin on the created order, to remind us of his power and to humble our knowledge. Some people are fine not knowing anything and don't want to be forced to have a consistent rational system; some people want to know everything and don't want God to shatter their presumptions. But I think those are both ditches. It is good to seek wisdom and to await signs, to expand your sense of the known and the unknown, to order your conscious intentions rightly and to glorify God to the best of your ability. But that only gets you so far. The root is Christ crucified, and if we get too caught up in our own understandings of the rational or our own experiences of the miraculous, the symbolically potent, then it distracts us from the point.

23-25: To this day the cross of Christ is foolishness and a stumbling block to Jews and gentiles. 2000 years and the spiritual dynamics are the same.

26-29: The worldly hierarchies of nobility, power, and wisdom are a transient thing; God raises up the lowly to shame the proud and all their nobility and power and wisdom come to an end.

30-31: Jesus has given us what we need so we don't need to boast in ourselves.

2. God’s Wisdom Revealed

1-5: Christianity is not about complicated systems of doctrine.

This is why I don't care for apologetics, which seems to appeal to wisdom for the sake of the immature.

Instead we must demonstrate the Spirit and its power. Its fruits and its wonder-working.

Many 'serious' Christians just study doctrine and dig themselves deeper into putting faith in the wisdom of men.

6-8: Secret wisdom?

By rulers of the age, does Paul refer to the scribes and Pharisees, the Romans, the angels, the elementary powers... seems especially the religious authorities of the Jews, who crucified Christ, but maybe he includes the Roman rulers in this.

9: Human religious reasoning fails because God has prepared things our heart can't imagine.

10: God does reveal things to us not thorugh reason but for the Spirit that searches his depths.

11-13:

We are seeking to comprehend God's thoughts. He reveals them to us spiritually.

Our words don't come from reasoning but, as Christians, we can utter things prompted by God's spirit, which Christ gives to us. The flow of words and thought come from him

Then why have any teachers to interpret spiritual truths to those who are spiritual? God does not have us live as individuals but within communities of people who can be a vessel for the Spirit to us in what they do and say.

14: Being too realistic makes you blind to the actual truth.

15: How do we know if we qualify as spiritual enough to judge all things and not be judged ourselves?

16: Is Paul just referring to himself and the elders as having the mind of Christ here or all Christians?

3. Servants of God

1: Many are infants in Christ. Ready to learn more about him but not still ready to hear many deep spiritual truths.

2-4: Fleshly behavior and quarrels don't necessarily disqualify you from Christianity entirely but they are sign that you are not ready to receive deep spiritual insight.

It's not that mystic insight makes you more holy, but that once your behavior is peaceful and loving then your mystical insight is worthwhile.

Don't be merely human. We are called to be superhuman.

5-9: Teachers are workers in God's kingdom and they each have their own role.

3:10-15 Obviously Paul is talking primarily about teaching and wisdom and different kinds of doctrinal development (some theologies are gold and some are hay, and it will be proven which is right in the fire of the judgment) - but it seems like this could extend to any kind of work in general, depending on the gifts of the individual believer; the teaching of the teachers, service of the servants etc.

It might be all kinds of different church cultures and traditions and ideas, but it must all be built on Christ. And certain things will be tested and destroyed, and other works will be timeless and glorious.

God will reveal the warp and weft of our love-work on the earth when all's done.

The Day of Christ's judgment means Christ judging everything everyone did.

3:16-17: ! Important to note that many people interpret this in an individualistic way, but the you is plural and in context the temple he is talking about is their unity as a church that he has put so much work into. The purpose of teaching should be to build up the holy ones into unity with one another and with Christ, not to tear down. Anyone who destroys the unity of believers will be destroyed by God. (poignant words from a man who persecuted and killed christians)

How do I know what I am doing and saying is building up God's temple rather than tearing it down? Couldn't there be plenty of mistaken ideas in my teaching that lead to division and hatred?

18-23: What is wisdom worth in the face of inheriting all things in the reign of Christ?

This is where many people's belief gives up. They are willing to believe in God and in Christ, but they refuse to act as if all things were truly theirs. This results in the attitude of a prince and a heir. Of someone who can rest. But a grubby striver must always be worrying and toiling and grasping and fighting fighting fighting for themselves because they don't believe things actually belong to them.

They don't fully believe God's promise.

4. Apostles as Servants

1: By mysteries of God, does he mean the mystery of the faith or the sacraments?

2-5: Stewards and teachers may go astray or they may run afoul of society or the law or of church courts. But God will judge. Christ will unveil everyone's intentions.

6: 'that you may learn from us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another'

What are the different things this could mean?

Really I think this part of 1 Corinthians shred most of the case the historical church has for persecuting heretics, because so much of heresy is really just unsatisfactory extrapolation from the text. but maybe that's just me.

7-13: Insane speech. A spectacle to angels. Wow.

What all is Paul getting at here? Why is emphasizing his weakness vs the strength of the Corinthians?

14-18: So bold. Paul teaches himself. He makes himself a father. Urges that he be imitated. Sends his son (in ministry) Timothy to remind them of 'Paul's ways in Christ' - imagine sending all the churches you have visited a message to remind them of your own way in Christ! And going around teaching them how to behave based on how you behave.

4:19-20: 'I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power.' the work of the spirit in the church goes far beyond theological speculation.

21: Not sure why Paul would contrast coming with the rod vs. coming with gentle love? In the kingdom of God consisting in power, is he envisioning to bring some kind of spiritual or miraculous judgment upon the evildoers?

5. Casting Out the Immoral

1-2: Might be easy for Christians to become arrogant - normal morality does not apply to us - because we receive spiritual gifts from a heavenly king. However, we still must be deeply humble and fearful to trespass against sexual purity.

Churches in our day that tolerate sexual immorality do so out of pride, and they suffer a terrible withering.

Those in unrepentant immorality must be expelled from Christian fellowship and we should all mourn it rather than celebrate it.

3-5: We don't want the sexually immoral to suffer eternal destruction of hellfire. We hope that anyone in these aberrant sexual relationships have their spirit saved, but their body must be given up to be judged.

'By delivering to Satan' does Paul refer to the accusatory religious Jews who were seeking civil penalties against Christians for their heresy. Normally Christians should defend their own against the persecuting powers, but some Christians do commit terrible crimes and immoralities and they should receive the physical punishment in the hope that Christ will still save their spirit.

6-8: How do we know that our congregation is pure enough? Aren't many of us falling into different temptations?

9-13:

We will always be in contact in this life with sexually depraved people, because they populate the whole world. But Christians are called to live a life set apart from that.

the test for whether or not we should have fellowship with another person claiming to be a believer is if 1) they really believe Jesus was crucified and resurrected and 2) they live a life of holiness, free from sexual immorality, greed, idolatry, reviling (?), drunkenness, swindling. Don't eat with people claiming to be Christians who practice these things. But when it comes to more abstract doctrinal disagreements ('I am of Thomas' 'I am of Van Til'), we must place first the fact that all things are ours together under Christ, regardless of what we think Paul or Peter or whoever has said.

When do Christians gain the authority to judge outsiders? Is that only in the future kingdom of God or do we look back at history and see times when Christians have reigned and laid down the law?

Nevertheless it seems like for many long millennia we have not run out of insincerity and impurities that we must judge and cast out to be destroyed.

6. Christian Lawsuits and Sexual Purity

1-8: Paul prophesying that saints will judge the world may be true in a glorious heavenly sense, but it is also true on earth over the past two thousand years. Judging the world, judging angels...

Unfortunately, it does not seem like many in the evangelical church have this as a stated goal for their flock. The end goal of maturity should be competence to judge cases with justice. Not everyone will reach that end, but that is the goal that we should all be striving towards. To prepare to inherit the kingdom in this life and the next. This is a much grander quest than I think what many churches settle for, which is merely offering a therapeutic experience; comfort is of course a necessary ministry of the church but there are deeper encouragements that come from being trained to judge sin and immorality justly, in preparation for judging the world and angels.

This of course begins with painfully just assessments of our own sin, and thanksgiving to God for his mercies.

I wish I had more legal and judicial training. It is something evangelical churches should prioritize as a marker of their culture in distinction to the world, which does not care to train the young in matters of justice and discernment. We must be raising up people wise enough for this task.

Are we defrauding our brothers without realizing it by not giving them the love that is their due?

And definitely do not bring fellow Christians to court while you have any other recourse.

9-11: Funny that Paul repeats his list from last chapter again here. He clarifies: yes, we in the church have committed some of those deeds. But we seek cleansing from it all in the name of Christ.

12-20: This is the Christian ethic of the body. We must not be adulterous or promiscuous or joined to prostitutes, because our body is to be a temple of the Holy Spirit given from God. One spirit with Christ. Members of Christ's body. Our bodies were bought by Christ to be kept utterly pure and safe. For the ultimate end of resurrection and walking with God.

Sexuality is the normal way mankind experiences the joining of flesh together, and so Christian sexuality must be entirely orderly and good, because of the hope we have for our flesh.

7. Marriage

1-2: Now, on the other end of things, since we are called to purity, many Christians have naturally concluded: well we just shouldn't have sex. But that just tempts us to even more immorality! So it is good for everyone to be married.

3-4: Conjugal rights refers to the fact that a married couple now own one another's bodies. It is the duty of Christian husbands and wives to love and have sex with one another. It is a betrayal of conjugal right to refuse to care for the basic needs for sexuality and intimacy that people have.

People can also be very needy and messed up with what they want sexually, or be all tormented and not even know what they want, but at its most simple and pure, sexual touch between a man and woman is a basic human impulse.

Notably, Paul does not say that the woman is merely an object owned by the man. She too is an owner. Wives are not collectibles for men. Rather, when a man marries a woman he is choosing the woman he thinks will be worthy to possess his body. His strength will be devoted to her. This is why men should seek out wise women.

5: Humans almost universally struggle with self-control over their sexual urge. For almost everyone, it's like riding a bull as soon as you go through puberty, whether you mostly register it as a physical urge or emotional urges, it's up and down.

The apostolic Christian ethic here from Paul says that because this impulse is so strong, married people should regularly have sex with each other unless they mutually agree to fast for a time for the sake of praying together. This would be very appropriate for times of mourning, or begging God for some gift. But generally, staying apart leads to all kinds of temptation and bitterness.

This is also why betrothals should be short. A man and a woman should not be in a relationship for years and years without being married; because either you do the natural thing and begin having sex, but in a pseudo-monogamous fornication that's outside the public accountability and faithfulness of covenant; OR you aren't having sex with each other and then are frustrated and tempted all the time and are not receiving the intimacy that your flesh needs from one another.

6-9: Having discussed how vital it is for most to be married, Paul does acknowledge that singleness in purity also has many advantages. He notes that this is his personal sense of the matter: Those who are currently single should not worry about marriage and should enjoy the benefits of singleness as much as they can. But, our natural state is to burn with passion, and marriage is a good resolution to this.

10-11: In distinction to this personal comment he has just made, he reminds the Corinthians of Jesus Christ's command: that we should not divorce. Husbands and wives should not separate. If a woman leaves, she should not take another man. (Paul avoids discussing polygamous relationships by focusing on that women should not remarry.)

12-14: Christians should not divorce their unbelieving spouses. Being family of a believer makes you holy in a way because you are set apart from the world by contact with them, in spite of your own unbelief.

Children, even though they are not yet of age for belief or unbelief, are set apart from the world due to their parents calling to holiness. The children may prove unfaithful and leave the church, but otherwise they are being made clean and holy from their infancy, due to Christ's work all around them, regardless of their own sinfulness.

15-16: When an unbelieving spouse separates, you may let them go. You are free and you may have peace. Presumably, you may take a new believing spouse. But we hope that all the unbelieving spouses may be saved by the witness and holiness of their believing spouse.

17-24: God calls you to live in a particular way. Enjoy it humbly. Whatever your status is: circumcised, uncircumcised, married, unmarried, slave, or free. Now, obviously it's better to be free than to be in chains. But still you must be a slave of Christ, who bought you with his blood. And he bought you for your peace and for freedom. So don't be concerned one way or the other.

25-27: When there's intense persecution of the church it might make sense not to get married.

28-35:

Wait for God's judgment. While depending at your point in time and place, you have may God's judgment coming soon upon your nation, regardless you will receive his judgment when you die. So the advice still applies somewhat: don't be anxious.

Single people have the opportunity to serve Christ's body writ large, and can pour themselves whole heartedly into that ministry. Married people have to worry about a thousand things for their households. All good if it's about loving your neighbor, but it certainly is a distraction from higher things.

36-38: This may have culminated in the practice of the subintroductae. It seems eventually in the early church there was a practice of extending the betrothal as its own sort of mini-monastic order of a man and a woman living together in chaste prayer.

Paul clarifies that while he thinks it might be best (presumably, just at this specific time of persecution) to delay marriage, those who desire their betrothed are in no sin to marry.

39-40: Widows are free to do as they please, but Paul senses that new marriages can cause as many problems as they solve. At the very least, they ought to marry Christians.

8. Concerning Food Offered to Idols

1-3: Don't worry about what you know or don't know. Worry about making yourself known to God. If you love him, and love his people, you will be noticed in heaven.

4-6: We do not need to be concerned about the idolatrous practices of others. There is no bad juju that an idol that put into your food or whatever. We worship the Father. We have one Lord, Jesus Christ, who rules over all reality and brings all things into existence.

7-13: That being said, not all Christians know how to take full advantage of their freedom. They are still afraid of dark spirits or defilement. Perhaps they are sensitive vegetarians or from an Adventist tradition. They feel they ought to follow some diet. Our job is to love them and encourage them to follow their conscience even though we might disagree.

Our highest priority is loving Christ's people, rather than making them know how we're correct or how they ought to act like us.

9. Paul’s Rights as an Apostle

1-7: There are all sorts of things that he has the freedom to do, eating a certain way, or getting married, or getting paid more, but he chooses to live with more severity because he thinks it will serve Christ's people more.

8-12: There's no shame in paying pastors who are effective at sowing spiritual fruit among the people. Still, Paul holds off on demanding more money because he doesn't want money matters to get in the way of the gospel.

13-14: Jesus himself has commanded that we should pay and feed evangelists.

15-18: Still, it's even better for a teacher to be able to present the gospel freely, so that the teacher can hope for even greater rewards in the life to come and not just immediate benefits.

19-23: Paul is willing to live in any way he needs to live, Jewish, legalistic, in order to communicate the gospel. If some are saved, then he will share in all the ways God will bless them.

Paul distinguishes the Jewish law from being under the law of Christ, which is being within the law of God.

24-27: Paul's ministry requires an athletic level of discipline. He must practice self-control over his body to avoid disqualifying himself as a teacher, as teachers cannot be allowed to keep teaching if they follow all their passions.

10. Warnings from Israel’s History

1-5: The Exodus contained the types of what Christian fellowship is like now: baptism, food and drink.

Baptism into Moses means being inducted into his legal order. The whole people were baptized this way, all the families and their children.

Just as we are inducted into Christ's law of love when we are baptized. Yet we too may prove unfaithful and be overthrown.

Funny that Paul continues the rabbinic tradition of believing that the rock that Moses struck in the wilderness was one that moved, and that this is somehow a type of Christ. Very profound and strange.

6-10: Idolaters, sexually immoral, grumblers and testers of Christ will be destroyed.

Story of the serpents:

The destroyer is what?

Cross references - Exodus 17; Numbers 21

10:11: Important to note this interpretation of the Exodus story: the example happened for them, but that it was written down is for our instruction, we 'on whom the end of the ages has come.'

12-13: Be cautious not to fall into temptation, but also be hopeful, because all the things you are tempted by - to have a bad attitude and grumble, to disbelieve, to covet, to worship things other than God, to be sexually immoral, to love images more than the real deal - everyone encounters these desires and moments in their life. And God does provide you the ways to endure such temptations. You can be victorious.

14-22: Just as he discussed baptism and food earlier, now he speaks of the sacrament meal of Christians. We must flee idolatry and instead, by eating and drinking together in communion, participate in the body of Christ's - this is truly how we become joined to God incarnate.

Idols are either nonexistent or just demons. Don't participate in other religions or worshipping other spirits. That will make God jealous.

23-32: Clean eating was a great concern in Paul's day because Greeks would buy and sell meat that had been offered to idols, and Jews were supposed to keep themselves separate. Paul says don't worry about trying to trace back some possible source of religious impurity. Everything belongs to God, so just be thankful about it and don't worry about other people tainting it. Give glory to God.

Just make sure not to scandalize or offend other people who might have more strict consciences than you.

11. Worship and Lord’s Supper

1-2: We need to hold onto the traditions that the apostles gave to us.

The Corinthians were apparently pleasing to Paul in how they remembered to follow his instructions on certain traditions, such as headcoverings, but were not practicing communion properly.

3-12: A profoundly strange passage to us.

The general cosmic point is a beautiful one: we all have an authority over us, and we are all someone's glory. Woman is man's glory; we are Christ's glory on earth, his way of making himself visible. It is proper for a woman to have a symbol of authority on her head when she prays or prophesies.

4-6: Why does it dishonor a man to pray with his head covered? Why should a woman cut her hair short if she won't cover it? Not following his logic.

Evangelical churches either do not have women pray or prophesy, or they have them pray and prophesy with their heads uncovered. Seems they are not following the traditions properly.

Is Paul talking about women praying and prophesying in a church context or privately? Later, he will talk about how women are to be silent in the gathering.

I don't think that this means that all Christian women need to have their heads covered all the time in public. Some like the trad lifestyle, others don't. You are free. I'm a Christian modernist. We are always making a choice about how to interpret receive or reinvent traditions as our conscience leads.

The broader point is that women seeking to pray or prophesy must do so in an honorable and submissive way, not in a domineering way or way that brings glory or attention to them as individuals.

Meanwhile, good men are supposed to be the public image of God. It is not wrong for a child to look up at the pastor and elders and deacons and begin to form his thoughts that this is what God is like. Even though earthly ministers fall into sin and destruction, they are still an image of God.

And of course in keeping with Paul's teaching, we should not provoke those of tender consciences regarding how to apply a certain custom.

10: The angels? What? So that the pastors aren't distracted by women with beautiful hair? Or are the angels taking up the prayers to God a bit susceptible to glorious women?

11-12: What's his point here? Man and woman now need one another.

13-16: Is he being ironic by saying judge for yourselves, given everything else he has said, or is sincerely giving churches the right to assess how to practice this?

17-22: In communion (and, we presume, church potlucks), Christians should not be eating separately or all in factions. They should not all have to feed themselves. Instead, they should be sharing food. You can eat by yourself some other time. Church fellowship should be a time of sharing good food with hungry students or believers who are poor and lonely.

23-26: Jesus taught Paul the communion ritual that he taught to the other disciples.

We take bread and wine in remembrance of what Christ did. It is our new covenant in hope of resurrection. And we will do this in memory until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

27-32: Enormous contention over this passage.

What does it mean to eat communion unworthily - was it only the ways he described earlier of people being drunk and selfish? What else is unworthy?

In what way are we to examine ourselves?

What is full discernment of the body? Is it evaluating whether there is purity, power and spiritual life of those around us? Or is it merely caring for them and seeing to their needs?

Presumably it involves knowing and building one another up with the spiritual gifts and the way of love that he is about to describe to them.

We do not judge ourselves well and that leads to sickness and death.

Does God judge the health of those who are acting in an unchristian way during fellowship?

33-34: This implies that the regular church meal of communion is a ritual and not about sating physical hunger, distinct from love feasts.

What else could he mean by wait for one another?

12. Spiritual Gifts and Unity of the Body

1-3: What? Not sure how these thoughts follow.

4-11: All the good things we are given in our souls and minds and mouths as Christians are meant to be distributed to all the other Christians. It's many people but one Spirit working through us to bring out all sorts of good things to one another that don't flow out of just one of us.

Utterance of wisdom and knowledge are distinguished? What did Paul mean?

Some have great faith, some have the power to heal, some work miracles, some prophesy, some discern spirits, some speak in tongues, others interpret tongues.

Charismatics believe that these gifts work in the same way they did in the early church; cessationists believe that many of the more miraculous gifts have ended in our current age. I don't feel strongly either way. God provides wonders and signs and wisdom to those who look for them, but we can't necessarily get a full grasp of them or align them with our agenda.

What certainly is still applicable today is that we are all given all sorts of gifts deep in our being and we must share them with one another.

Faith is a gift just like knowledge because, just as we have gaps in our knowledge, sometimes in miniscule ways we suffer from doubts. This creates voids in our spiritual power. But some are granted a kind of faith that extends deeper on particular issues than others have, so that when trials come or subtle shifts of thinking, we respond in our hearts in just the right way, with faith and power. That's the kind of mind we must ask God to give us.

The Spirit of God distributes these gifts wildly unequally, but in a way that manifests his presence and is for our good.

12-13: Likewise, just as our many spirits are united into one with God's spirit, our many bodies are united into one body with Christ. All the distinctions that mankind makes of nation or liberty are transcended by our unity through baptism and communion.

Two thousand years later, despite our many divisions of teaching and our fragmented imperfect unity, Christians still do drink of one Spirit and are baptized into one great invisible body that transcends the earthly distinctions we make of denomination.

14-20: We are all shaped differently and perform different functions. God is using us as servants in his house to serve one another. But we shouldn't complain that other people get to do different tasks than us. We must be humble. But we also shouldn't be glum and feel like we don't belong just because we do things differently and bear different kinds of good fruit.

We all still belong.

21-26:We can't cast others out just because they are different, or weaker, or more embarrassing people. God intends to give honor to repentant shameful people -- like you!

The church will have in it some people who are shinier and prettier and better at public relations, and some people who are much worse. That's just how it is. They all need to love each other. Unfortunately, I sometimes see the shiny people and the scruffier people keeping each other at a distance. That needs to be quashed. We need to outdo one another in showing honor.

Of course, we all want to have the most honor and suffer the least. But if we love our neighbor, then the honor that goes to them goes to us. The pain that they feel is our pain.

The person who loves the most is able to endure the most pain, the subtle and slow pains of self-discipline, or the quick and shocking pain of humiliations, for those he loves.

27-31: God has appointed a whole hierarchy of gifts to build up the church across the earth. Apostles -- those who saw Christ and carried his words directly to the nations. Prophets and teachers and wonder workers. Healers and helpers and admins. And those who pray in spiritual languages.

All of these provide good food for the body of Christ with their thoughts and deeds.

But there is something even better than this hierarchy of special gifts:

13. The Way of Love

1-3: All of the powers that God gives you are only meaningful insofar as they are bound up in love of him and love of your neighbor. Otherwise power is worthless. Some get hooked on the promise of special mystical knowledge -- but is the special mystical knowledge actually helping you love one another better? That is the best test of it.

I wouldn't mind a little bit of hippie mysticism in church life, if it was powered by actual love and not just vanity.

I do want to understand all mysteries and knowledge and speak in tongues of men and angels. But do I really love my God, and love my neighbors?

4-7: This is the spirit of love. It is quite easy to tell when someone exhibits this, or when they are not oriented in love.

8-12: This may refer to cessation but in context it seems like Paul is referring more that specific works of power and wonder have a limited time in which they operate. They are a blessing for the here and now.

But love, and the spirit of love, is eternal. It is the beginning of us becoming perfectly at peace with each other and with God and living forever in that glory.

Right now, we go through life misunderstanding many things and making many mistakes. But we are moving forward towards absolute understanding.

Love is the only way to prepare for what's about to happen.

13: We must radically increase the amount of faith, hope, and love moving around in the system. In our family, in the church gathered around us. We need more. That is what lasts and that is one matters.

14. Orderly Worship and Tongues

1: Pursue love and ask God to give you spiritual gifts.

What does Paul mean by prophecying? I believe he means teaching with a degree of spiritual discernment. It may involve discerning the future, the spiritual realm, or deep insight into people's souls and discerning their spirit. It may involve applying the wisdom of scripture to a particular situation that may be unfolding rapidly. It may involve warning the people of impending judgment on the nation. It may involve strategically challenging a custom of our people that is being manipulated to hide sin.

Much can full under the definition prophecy. But generally, it refers to rendering the wisdom of God clear in the midst of the mysteries of this life.

2-5: Our priority with our gifts should be encouraging and maturing the church. God gives us gifts by which we can make others genuinely wiser and better off.

6-12: Don't get too crazy with the speaking in tongues. We want clarity and reason.

13-19: Speaking in tongues, or glossolalia, is speaking in syllables that you cannot understand. It is a kind of spiritual prayer that allows us to utter things that our mind cannot fully comprehend.

It is good to seek maturity and reasonability, but sometimes in our culture we have prized a particular vision of reasonablness (such as positivism or scientism) over living within mysteries and regard for the incomprehensible truths of life, of being in God. This I think leads to much unbelief, and frigidity, and dead hearts that lack hope. But Christians are free to let their spirit attempt to express this in ways beyond the limits of reason.

The realm of unreason is not forbidden from Christians so long as we do not explore it in a demonic or idolatrous way. We are not being covetous. And we are not seeking any supernatural beyond what the Holy Spirit of God dispenses. Instead, we are giving thanks in a manner beyond our words.

However, we should still seek to interpret the signs of this glossolalia because our goal is not to drift off into a haze of nonsensical spasms of the brain and mystical dreams, but to lay the depths of the heart bare before God... and to be mature and to order it all in a peaceful way!

We want our words to be powerful and true, clarifying the work of God in the world and destroying doubts. You cannot attain that through unearthly language alone.

This is all the same process by which poetry and prophecy and likely all language work, as long as it truly flows out of the spirit God placed in us. With our mind we set to order the glorious chaos God has given to us in the impressions of our eyes moment to moment and all the impressions in our soul.

And we begin to understand the way Christ's mind is setting all things to order.

In any case, this sort of prayer should likely be done best in private. Gathering together publically, we should emphasize public truth and knowledge: the scriptures, and fellowship, and prophetic speech.

20-25: The practice of tongues, as wild combinations of sounds and symbols, and its prophetic interpretation, is a sign to unbelievers?

Not sure I understand Paul's point here in relation to his point that tongues is crazy and disturbing to unbelievers.

Prophecy, though, convicts us of sin. Prophecy here is not so much about soothsaying the future so much as seeing deep into people's secrets and convicting them of sin.

When we teach the plain words of scripture, it pierces us to the heart because we hear our sins and failures described, and how much we must yet love one another.

26-27: Orderly worship can still involve different congregants coming up and speaking and praying. It doesn't just have to be the pastor.

28:

It is good to speak to God silently. With mindful words or with spiritual groanings beyond any language we understand. Many neglect to practice this.

29-33: Most evangelical churches do not follow this specific pattern closely. They especially do not allow one of the speakers to get a revelation and have their words weighed by the others!

32: what does this mean?

33-40: Paul asserts his apostolic authority here by affirming that all the churches keep their women silent. If some of the women were prophesying, were they not to prophesy in the gathering?

Regardless, the point stands that women should be quiet and submissive in public decorum. Public gatherings that allow women the floor swiftly become indecorous.

Paul reveals Jesus himself commanded this, and those who do not acknowledge this teaching out themselves as neither prophets nor spiritual.

39: Many churches forbid speaking in tongues, because they believe it a gift many centuries past expiry. But I disagree with such a restriction.

15. The Resurrection of the Dead

1-11: This is the gospel that we preach. Jesus died for our sins, fulfilling the promises of the Old Testament; on the third day he rose from the dead and appeared to Peter and the Twelve Disciples (though there were of course eleven of them at that point). Then he appeared to hundreds more.

He also appeared to Paul in visions. The last and least of apostles, one who persecuted the church, but by the grace of God was transformed and called to preach to the nations.

4: What scriptures does Paul refer to here - Jesus resurrection fulfilling something from the Old Testament, or any gospel texts that recorded the event?

12-19: Some in the church deny the resurrection of the dead. Their faith is in vain.

Christ is not just about doing good in this life and loving one another. His resurrection is the declaration of God that we too might have life eternal.

20: Christ has a glorified body, and we hope that those who have died will also receive glorified new bodies.

21-22: Adam, the first man, subjugated us all his descendants to the curse of death; but Christ will make all come alive again.

23-24: "Christ's coming" is a very temporally complicated event. Paul locates the resurrection of those who belong to Christ before Christ's ultimate triumph over all cosmic powers. Yet says death is the last of the spiritual strongholds that will be broken.

25-28: God has laid out all creation for Christ to lay ahold of, past and present, light and darkness, land and sea, life and death itself. He reigns over all.

29: We hope for the salvation of all. Some have even gone so far as to be baptized on behalf of those who have already died - no doubt family members or ancestors that they wish to see born again. This practice is neither commended nor condemned by Paul.

30-34: Not sure how these thoughts follow the previous.

35-41: We will receive a new body made for heavenly glory. Our current body is like a seed for it.

42-49: Our current body is weak and dishonorable. It has all kinds of problems.

Heavenly existence and spiritual life is still "fleshly" in a sense. We will still be mankind. But it will be mankind in the image of Christ and in a heavenly form, rather than the form made of dust that breaks apart as we understand ourselves today.

Real humanity. Imperishable glory.

Many opportunities to get into weird gnostic and alien thoughts here. No point in speculating. But we will see it in clarity in the next life.

50-54: We await an immortal body.

We experience the first part of it in this life by participating in the body of Christ through the Spirit, through fellowship with other Christians. But there is so much more yet to come.

55-58: Death, sin, and the law will be overcome by us in Christ.

Our work has eternal fruit.

16. Final Instructions and Greetings

1-4: Financial movements.

8: Was Paul thinking of Pentecost in the Jewish calendar or as part of a Christian calendar celebrating the Holy Spirit at this point?

12: Funny record of a disagreement between Paul and Apollos.

20: Greet one another with a holy kiss!