Monday Morning Welcome

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Welcome to the West Monday morning. So we're a cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Good morning, good morning. Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee Podcast for the week of July 26th through August the 2nd. Today's Monday, July 27th. And I'm Mark. I've got my coffee. I've got my Bible. I have sermon notes. I am all about the podcast. Let's do this. You know what to do. Grab your Bible, grab your coffee. Let's grow together. I hope

Sermon Notes

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yesterday's sermon in the heaven-bound preaching theme for the year was helpful to you. I really love this idea of sitting down with Paul and talking about heaven. I think that's a mesmerizing idea just like that a lot. But maybe I should have started in Philippians 1, verse 6. Paul says, there, I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. One of the questions that Christians ask, and we should, is how can I know I'll make it to heaven? And yesterday I talked a lot about confidence and assurance. If you do not hear that sermon, listen to that sermon. That will help you. But what I really like about this verse is Paul's confidence isn't just I'm hanging on. It is confidence in God's faithfulness to finish what he started. That's where our confidence needs to rest. We trust in the God who sent his son to die for us. He is doing this. He wants us to be saved more than we want to be saved. So we are counting on the work of God in our lives, his word, his people, the church, his providence, his spirit, his answering our prayers, on and on we could go. God is at work. That's what we need to trust in. He will finish his work in our lives. I am sure of this, Paul says. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. That's a great note to look back on yesterday's sermon from and to begin the week on, especially as we continue in our daily Bible reading in Corinthians. Grab your Bible. Time to think about daily Bible reading.

Monday 1 Corinthians 11

SPEAKER_01 3:18

What a chapter! This is a very difficult chapter in some ways. It's certainly a very controversial chapter. The first 16 verses deal with the question of a woman and her covering, a covering upon her head of some sort. And of course, brethren have never come to consensus on that. I don't know of anyone, even the best scholars, that has everything all figured out and lined out about this passage, which makes me always a little bit nervous when somebody jumps up and down and says, Oh, I know everything about 1 Corinthians 11. Do you? You're the first. You'd be the first. So we just need to be careful. Approach this discussion in love and in care. Have known many women who wore some sort of veil, some sort of something upon their head, because that's their conscience about 1 Corinthians 11. And I respect that they are being conscientious about that. Don't think they have to do that, as we'll see, we develop here in 1 Corinthians 11 today. But we need to love one another and care for one another and be genuine with one another as we work through what is a difficult text. Now, the rest of the chapters 17 to 34 is about the Lord's Supper. It's a very famous text. So there's lots in front of us. I guess this is big cup of coffee day. Get you a big old cup of coffee. I'm drinking out of my Reaper Cheap mug because it's an Arnia day today, and I'm loving that. I do think what binds this section together is problems in worship. And that runs really all the way through chapter 14. We got some women who are doing some things that are a mess. And then we have questions about the Lord's Supper, and then spiritual gifts in chapters 12, 13, and 14. And the approach that's taken, let's just get into this 11, uh, chapter 11, beginning verse 2. Really, 11, 1 goes with chapter 10. What is the chapter division here? It's just oh rough. It seems like 2 to 16 is dealing with subjection and headship, and some women who are trying to throw off what is seen as a sign of their place that they are in subjection to their husbands. And the approach to the passage, then, that's been taken, is that Paul is mandating some kind of covering during worship. A woman must have this on her head. Some would say it's a veil, some would say her hair will get that done, but he's mandating some kind of covering. Others have said that this is a custom of New Testament times, and that Paul is mandating that Christians not scandalously violate those customs. And I take the custom approach and we'll talk about that as we're working down through this text. So look at verse three. This is about order. The head of every man is Christ, the head of every wife is her husband, the head of Christ is God. Remember, the fact that Jesus is subject to God the Father does not deny the deity of Christ. And so, in the same way, a woman being subject to her husband does not mean she's somehow subhuman or less than human. When we read subjection, somehow that makes you less, and that is just not right. And so then every man who prays or prophesies, verse four, the prophesying here is inspired teaching. It's not just teaching. This is leading in prayer, leading in teaching. And of course, the question then is verse five, every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered, dishonors her head. Where are they doing that? Where are they doing that? The answer that's easy is the assembly. But in chapter 14, Paul will tell women not to do that in the assembly. So that's very complicated. And I'm not sure I have all the answers to that, but I think this is something outside of the assembly. It's hard for me to say, hard me to see. Oh, wow, let's have coffee here. Let's get I'm having a hard time having Paul say in chapter 11, now, women, if you have this thing on your head, then you can do this, and then three chapters later say, don't do that. So this is something outside of the assembly. And it seems to me that Paul is talking about something that pertains to customs. There he says, it is the same as if her head were shaven. If her head were shaven, that there's not anything here that's gonna say it's necessarily sinful and wrong for a woman to shave her head. Where would you get that biblically? If a woman has, for example, an infestation of lice, probably didn't like to think about that, but uh that's a real thing, for example, in third world countries. Can she not shave her head? Um, what about a woman having chemotherapy and losing her hair? Is that sinful? That that's not a hypothetical. That's a real question that we have to come to if we're going to say that a woman has to have hair because she has to have her head covered. We need to think about that. I think this is just something that's going on in the New Testament world, that a woman without a veil was scandalously announcing to the world she was an independent, liberated woman. And there was very much a woman's lib organiz uh organization. There's very much a woman's lib movement happening in the first century. And there's lots of writing outside of the Bible. I think sometimes if we were a little bit more aware of the setting in 1 Corinthians, we would not struggle with this so much. Paul is saying your Christianity doesn't make you one of those liberated, scandalous women. That's not where that is. And of course, everyone is going to ask about verse 10, why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels. And I'll tell you this, don't write that down for QA. I don't know. I just don't know. And I don't know anybody who does know. Maybe angels here is messengers. And so messengers come to that congregation and they see women acting in a scandalous fashion. I don't know. I just don't know. Then verse 13, judge for yourselves. Judge here, you could figure this out. You should be able to figure this out. What is proper, what is proper, what is fitting for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered. You should be able to figure this out because nature, verse 14, teaches you that if a man wears long hair, it is a, is, it is a disgrace for him. There's nothing in nature about long hair, nothing about veils in nature. Think about it. The male lion has the long hair. Female lionesses don't have that big mane with all of that hair. But Paul says Corinthians should have been able to learn this lesson from nature. I don't think he means go watch Animal Planet or read National Geographic. Nature here means a native sense of propriety and decorum, the national customs with which one is brought up. In fact, one Bible dictionary says a mode of feeling and acting which by long habit has become nature. I would parallel this to bowing your head in prayer. There's no passage that says you have to bow your head in prayer, but we do that, we teach that from the time that kids are little. Everybody bows in the assembly when we are praying. Everybody bows when we're in a small group, we're in somebody's home, and we're praying, we bow our heads. What about somebody who, when we say bow, just very noticeably stiffens their back, raises their head, and doesn't bow. That would be out of place. That's out of decorum. That would cause upset. People, what are you doing? Why are you doing that? It would be a problem. And that's what's happening here in Corinth. Women are taking the veil off, which all good women who conform to culture's standards of marriage and of faithfulness to your husband and of respecting your husband's headship, those are much very much values in the Roman world during Paul's time. Women who respect that, they have a covering on their head when they go out in public. And here are Corinthian Christian women, and they're taking that off. And Paul says, that's outrageous. Don't do that. So the bottom line here, everybody likes bottom line. How about this? Do women have to wear a veil to worship today? And the answer to that is no, I do not believe that they have to. In verse 6, it's customs that say being shorn, having a woman being shorn would be shameful. Verse 13 says, is it proper? He's asking them to determine what is proper in their own culture and their time. Verse 14, doesn't nature teach you? Verse 16, we have no such practice or such custom. Do women, then someone says, have to have long hair today? And the answer to that is, no, they do not. Is it sinful for a man to have long hair today? And the answer to that is, no, it is not. That was a custom in the Roman world. Remember, there are men in scripture who have long hair with the approval of God. Nazarites have long hair. Samson has long hair. Absalom has long hair. This is all with God's approval. So this is about not doing things that cause culture to say, you people over there, you're acting out. What are you doing? Those Christians, they're crazy. Think about a group of Christians moving to Saudi Arabia and their women refuse to wear the veil there. Islamic culture is going to freak out, and Christians are going to be gossiped about and talked about and slandered, and everyone is going to say those people are horrible and nobody's going to be interested in the gospel. I think that would be a good application here out of 1 Corinthians 11. That takes us then to the Lord's Supper, verses 17 to 34. Let me see if I can be brief with this. Verse 24, I delivered unto you that the Lord Jesus, that's verse 23, on the night which he was betrayed, took bread. When he gave thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body. Remember, Jesus does not mean that literally. The doctrine of transubstantiation is just simply not true. I know Jesus didn't mean that literally because when he spoke that, his body was still physically present. His blood was in his body. It was not actually his body that he was breaking, it was a loaf of unleavened bread. And in fact, if the cup had transubstantiated into blood, then they couldn't have drunk it, because at that time they were under the law of Moses. They were good Jews. And then verse 27, I've talked about this in QA morning. Whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, somehow that's gotten turned around to where we think, am I doing this? Am I worthy? And the answer to that is none of us are worthy. Not in that sense. Unworthy modifies the verbs to eat and to drink. It describes how one eats or drinks, not who eats or drinks. Taking the Lord's supper in an unworthy manner would be taking it in a thoughtless way, clipping your nails, getting on your phone, and here comes the tray down the aisle, or if you're using individual communion cups as we do at Westside, you just grab it and where's the bread? Oh, oh, and you're not even thinking about it. That's an unworthy manner. And then in verse 30, Paul says there, many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. And many folks have tried to take that literally, but I think that's spiritual death. God does not kill people for the failure to worship properly. And in fact, uh that would certainly, yeah, that'd get your attention in the assembly if everybody taking the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner got struck dead. I don't think that's what Paul means in 1 Corinthians 11 and in verse 30. That's a powerful chapter. It's an important chapter, but in some ways, yeah, it's a it it takes a little bit of thought. You work on that, you think of think uh see what you think about that and how all of that goes. Pour yourself another cup of coffee, pray a little bit. Give some more consideration to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. That's our reading for Monday, 1 Corinthians 11.

Tuesday 1 Corinthians 12

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Welcome to Tuesday. It is Tuesday, and Westsiders will have the Zoom call this evening. Look forward to thinking about 1 Corinthians chapter 12 with you on Zoom tonight. This begins, 1 Corinthians 12, verse 1, now concerning spiritual gifts. That now concerning phrase is Paul's standard way of beginning a new section of material. And while there's not a ton of controversy about spiritual gifts, notably tongue speaking among churches of Christ, that does seem to be changing. The charismatic issue seems to be something that just comes around every now and then in waves. But certainly we are vastly out of step with the rest of the religious world. Miraculous gifts are exciting. Charismatic tongue speaking has become almost the sign of having an authentic religious experience. And while we don't know everything that's going on here at Corinth, we are helped with this material tremendously. It does seem that some are saying Jesus is anathema and that tongue speaking is being exalted like it is today as the gift to have. No one seems to see how these gifts should work together. No one is using them, or very few are using them in love, and there is confusion in the assembly. I would remind you, as are working in 1 Corinthians 12, and as you're thinking about the tongue speaking that you've seen on the satellite channel with the Pentecostal preachers, or maybe you've been to a charismatic service and people are speaking in tongues, that kind of babbling or jabbering, and I don't say that to cast any kind of dispersion on anyone, but that just string of syllables that means nothing, that kind of thing, ecstatic utterance, was very well known in the New Testament world, and it was practiced by pagan priests. Practiced by pagan priests in idolatrous worship. It's not a new phenomena, but some people, it seems like in Corinth, are bringing their past pagan practices to church. So Paul needs to address spiritual gifts and he begins to talk about how listen, nobody says Jesus is anathema, Jesus is a curse. Verse three, I don't care if they do say, hey, I'm being carried away by the Spirit. No, you're not. No, you're not. Just because somebody says they have the Spirit of God doesn't make it so. And so Paul has a list. It's not an exhaustive list, but it is a list of spiritual gifts. Notice they come from the same spirit, the same Lord, the same God, four, five, and six. That's a statement of the Trinity. And verse seven is the key verse. Gifts are given for what purpose? They are given for everyone's benefit, not just to make one person look like a rock star. And that tells you right there, we can make application to non-miraculous gifts, can't we? Certainly. If you have the gift of song leading, it's not about you. It's not about how everybody's going to praise you, everybody's going to look at you. If you have the gift of preaching, it's not about you. It's not about everybody looking at you and praising you. Gifts are given to edify and build up the body. And so there is a list of those gifts. For example, verse 8, the utterance of wisdom. Then there is the utterance of knowledge. And to another verse 9, faith. I'm not sure about that. That's very difficult. Some have thought maybe that is faithfulness, good stewardship, healing. We are very familiar with that kind of thing. Working of miracles, that might be like exercising demons, turning water into wine, that kind of thing. Prophecy is speaking for God, getting a word from God. This is inspired teaching here, to another, the ability to distinguish between spirits, discerning here, knowing false, uh false teachers, false prophets from the true. And then, of course, the interpretation of tongues and speaking in tongues. And biblically, that's always speaking in a foreign language. Go read Acts 2. It's always a foreign language. There is none of the ecstatic utterances that we see today going on in the New Testament church. If you want that, you've got to go down to an idol temple. So then in verses 12 to 31, Paul talks about the body of Christ and how we are all one body. That's so important. Just because you have a certain gift, or as you and I might call it, as now we work with non-miraculous gifts, a certain talent, that doesn't make you special. It doesn't make you better than everyone else. And it's not all about you. And especially you can't look over at that other person and say, wow, I wish I could do that. I wish I could do that. There is a tie in verse 13 to baptism and the Holy Spirit. That's a common thing. John 3, verse 5, Acts 2, 38. Probably here in one spirit, we're all baptized. He means under the influence. Notice in verse 3, no one can say in the Spirit. Under the influence of the Spirit, we are baptized. We are baptized because of the Spirit's giving us the word and telling us that we need to be baptized. And where you are, verse 18, is where God puts you. So to say, I don't like where I am, I don't like the gifts I've got, is to rebel against the sovereignty of God. And it's outrageous because the eye can't say to the hand, verse 21, I don't need you, or the head to the feet, I don't need you. We all need each other, even the weaker parts of the body. That may be vital organs like uh how did that come out, Oregon, like the state of the Oregon ducks? I don't know. Maybe I'm thinking of college football already. Maybe I need coffee. The vital organs like the heart and the lungs, those are super important. You can get by without a hand. You'll really struggle if someone removes your heart. It might even be a reference to sexual organs, as he goes on to talk about we cover those. They are vital, they are important, but they aren't showy. They're not going to be out there for everyone to see. You are the body of Christ, verse 27. You're individually members of it. We care for one another, verses 25 and 26. And so then Paul talks about the order in the church and that we all have different places. And so instead of everybody, oh, I wish I was a tongue speaker, verse 31, I will show you still a more excellent way, not a way to get better gifts, but a way that is superior to gifts. And we'll talk about that tomorrow in the reading for Wednesday. But the reading for Tuesday is 1 Corinthians chapter 12. See you on the Zoom tonight, Westsiders.

Wednesday 1 Corinthians 13

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It's a Wednesday. It is Wednesday, and today we're reading 1 Corinthians 13. 1 Corinthians 13 is the reading for today. Maybe you're wondering what could be better than spiritual gifts? Being able to do a miracle? Being able to speak in a tongue that you never, a language that you had never studied, all of a sudden now you can preach in Portuguese? Wow, how great would that be? Paul says the way of love is the way to unity, and it is better than any spiritual gift. And there's a couple of reasons for that. First of all, if I call a bunch of attention to myself with my spiritual gift, then I'm just a noisy gong versus one, a clinging symbol. That's useless. That's not building up the body. So without love, gifts are worthless. And he does say something about the language of angels there. And that, of course, has prompted a ton of speculation. I think it's just hyperbole to say if you had the highest degree of tongue speaking possible, you could talk to angels. If you don't have love, it just doesn't count. It just doesn't count. Drawing attention to yourself. Means nothing. That's not what the body of Christ is all about. And prophecy here, then in verse 2, is the power to speak for God, to give an inspired message. And so Paul's point here is spiritual gifts don't make you spiritual. Think about Balaam in the Old Testament. He is a prophet of God. He has the gift of prophecy. He's a jerk and doesn't want to do what God wants him to do and ultimately undermines Israel. He's not a spiritual person. Instead, we need the characteristics of love, verses four to seven. And watch how these characteristics just fit the Corinthians' needs. This is a divided church. There's divisiveness, there's bad attitudes. And love is personified here as an actor. This is what love does. It's not sentimental, it's an act of will. It's patient and it's kind. It doesn't envy and boast. It's not arrogant and rude. It doesn't insist on its own way. It's not irritable and resentful. It doesn't rejoice at wrongdoing. It rejoices in the truth. And I love that what I love. How about that? I love that Paul says love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. It believes all things when we have no evidence to the contrary. We believe the best. We're not going to question our brothers' motives. It hopes all things. We want things to be for the best. It endures all things. There is a real need for genuine love among the brethren in Corinth. And that love, of course, that need for love goes on even today. And of course, maybe you've heard this read at a wedding. I think I've used it a time or two at a wedding. It's not really a wedding text, is it? It's a church text. It's how we treat our brothers and sisters in Christ. So then Paul discusses the end of spiritual gifts, verses 8 to 13. And this is a passage that we're going to pull out when we are having a conversation with somebody who believes tongue speaking continues. And I would say I don't think this is the place to start that discussion. The place to start the discussion is to understand the purpose of spiritual gifts. Miracles had value as evidence. John 20, 30 and 31, Hebrews 2, verse 4, Mark 16, 20. Miracles were designed to confirm the word. Anybody can say, I'm speaking for God. Let me tell you what God wants you to do. I'll tell you, God has laid this on my heart. I've got this thing that God has told me to do. Anybody can say that. Do a miracle and confirm the word. People claim miracles are being done today, but those miracles mostly are for fundraising, it seems. It doesn't seem like anybody's confirming the word with miracles today. And so love is superior to miracles. Verse 8. Love never ends. And I should say here, I need to be careful. Sometimes people will say miracles have ceased, and that's really not what Paul says here. Paul says miracles at the hands of men have ceased. Let's not get in the business of telling God he can't do a miracle. God can do something miraculous if God chooses to do something miraculous, but no human being has the gift of tongue speaking, the gift of miracles. Those gifts are coming to an end, Paul says. When will that be? When the perfect comes, verse 10, the partial will pass away. Please notice that even though people try to make that into a second coming passage, there's nothing here about the second coming. All of this is about how we know God's revelation. We know in part, we prophesy in part. Prophecies, verse 8, will pass away. Tongues. Inspired tongue speaking was a way of knowing the will of God. Knowledge, supernatural knowledge. God wants the church to know this. That's going away. We only have the partial revelation of God's will when the perfect comes, not the second coming of Jesus. No, faith, hope, and love abide, Paul says, even when the perfect comes. And faith and hope will not abide in heaven. There'll be no faith in heaven. Their hope will be realized in heaven. He's talking about something else. And again, this is not a second coming passage. There's nothing here about the second coming. A fair question to ask, if spiritual gifts continue today, is it possible then that the Quran or the Book of Mormon are in fact inspired books? Isn't that possible? Isn't that on the table? And why don't we have all gifts today? How about raising the dead? That I would love to see a raising of the dead. I have some people I would like to have raised. How about that? We should have all gifts, not just tongue speaking. And it would really effectively mean that the canon of scripture is not closed. We should be getting new books of the Bible. We should be getting new revelation. 1 Corinthians 13 tells us that's not how this works, and that's not what will happen. So 1 Corinthians 13 is our reading for Wednesday. 1 Corinthians chapter 13. It's

Thursday 1 Corinthians 14

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Thursday. It is Thursday, and today we're reading 1 Corinthians chapter 14. My plan here is to just focus in the main on how this is about building up the body of Christ. Spiritual gifts are to be used to edify for upbuilding, building up. The ESV uses those terms all through this chapter. And I think if you see that, so much of this is pretty straightforward and easy to understand. So verse 3, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement. Verse 4, the one who speaks in a tongue builds himself up, the one who prophesies builds up the church. Verse 5, Prophecy is better than tongue speaking, because the one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so the church can be built up. How will I, verse six, benefit or build you up? Look at verse 12, strive to excel in building up the church. The other person, verse 17, is not being built up. Verse 19, we need to instruct others. Verse 26, let all things be done for building up. This is about building up. There's a couple of passages in here along the way that you may have some questions about. Verse 14, if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, my mind is unfruitful. That's probably the idea that the feelings find utterance in prayer, even if I don't understand everything here. If I pray in a tongue, I'm able to express some of the things that I want to say to God, even if I don't fully comprehend what everything where all that came from, how I said all of that, what all went with that. And I do love in verse 20, brothers, don't be children in your thinking. Children love the glittery and the showy. Offer a child a hundred dollar bill, offer a child a shiny quarter, they'll take the quarter. They will take the quarter. Then Paul regulates these gifts in the assembly. Extremely specific material that, if you're thinking this doesn't have any application to us today, you're mistaken because this dictates a certain atmosphere in worship. Tongue speakers are not to dominate. Everything needs to be done for building up. And if there's not an interpreter present, the tongue speaker is to keep silent, verse 28. This is routinely violated in Pentecostal charismatic churches. There's no excuse for that. If they are really doing what the Holy Spirit says, they are doing it wrong. They are doing it wrong. Paul tells us how these gifts are to be exercised. And so then notice keep silent, verse 28, same term, verse 34. Women should keep silent. Keep silent in verse 28 means in regard to speaking in tongues. It does not mean the tongue speaker cannot say amen, give the good confession, sing a song, sing as the church is singing a hymn. Some people have come to verse 34 and have tried to say a woman must be utterly silent in the assembly. She cannot say a word. She can't give the good confession. She must not sing. She can't say anything. And that is a terrible mistake. That is not what Paul is saying about tongue speakers in verse 28. Contextually, it is not what he is saying about women in verse 34. This is, these are women who have spiritual gifts who want to address the assembly. They want to preach. And what is forbidden here is a woman taking charge of the assembly, preaching, speaking publicly in an authoritative position. By the way, this does not forbid a woman from asking a question in Bible class. But verse 34 does not say that a woman cannot say anything in the assembly. I have known people who got really bit out of shape because a woman in the announcements, the fellow making announcements says, Is there anything else that needs to be said? And a woman says, Oh, we what about Sister Jones? She's sick, she's having surgery on Monday. People, oh, woman has to keep silent in the assembly. That is not, we don't forbid the tongue speaker, verse 28, from adding to the announcements. Is she taking charge of the assembly? Is she preaching? Come on. We need to do better than that. And we can do better than that when we keep this in its context. By the way, here's a bonus note for the podcast listeners. In verse 34, Paul says she should be in submission. In English, we have the active voice, I am doing this, I threw the ball. Then we have the passive voice, the ball was thrown to me. But in New Testament Greek, there is the middle voice. We don't have anything like that in English. In the middle voice, you do it to yourself. A poor example would be, I guess I juggle. I'm throwing the ball to myself. But this is in the middle voice. The woman keeps herself in submission. She's doing this to herself. You can't put somebody in submission. You can't make somebody be in submission. She chooses to do this. The speaker acts upon herself. So let me just sum up here. The accounts in the New Testament say nothing about tongue speaking and worship except for right here in Corinthians. That ought to tell us tongue speaking, miraculous gifts, that was not a major component of New Testament church worship. Secondly, Satan can certainly pervert gifts. False prophets are mentioned frequently. The book of Revelation has the beast using lying signs in Revelation 13. And with little question, miracles certainly seem to be clustered to a very short period of time during the first century. All of that contributes to our understanding miraculous gifts should not play the role that many are having them play in the assembly today, the centerpiece, the absolute authentication that you're a real Christian, for example, that is unknown in the New Testament. It is clear from 1 Corinthians 13 that Paul expected those gifts to go away. It's clear from church history they went away. And it is clear from how they're being practiced today that what is done today is not what was being done in the New Testament world. The reading for Thursday, 1 Corinthians 14. Hello,

Friday 1 Corinthians 15

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it's Friday. It is Friday, and today we're reading 1 Corinthians 15. Made it to the end of the week. Feels pretty good, doesn't it? This is a monster chapter, big, big chapter, 58 verses. Lots of good stuff here. Let's get started. The reading for Friday is 1 Corinthians 15. This is a complete shift here. We've been talking about spiritual gifts so much all week long. Now Paul moves to something different. I would remind you, brothers, of the Gospel 15. He is talking here about the resurrection. And he begins by establishing the fact of the resurrection and that this is indisputable. There are witnesses to it. It is at the core of the gospel message. It cannot be doubted. It must not be doubted. And so what Paul is doing here is setting up that you can't deny the resurrection of the dead if Jesus was resurrected from the dead. Isn't that what he's doing here? Beginning in verse 12, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there's no resurrection of the dead? These two resurrections are being tied together. If someone argues no man can grow a beard, all you need to do to destroy that argument is to show a man with a beard. Somebody in Corinth is saying there's no such thing as the resurrection of the dead. Paul says, Really? If there's no such thing as the resurrection of the dead, then I guess Jesus isn't resurrected from the dead because there's no such thing as the resurrection of the dead. And this argument then trails all the way down through somewhere in 25, 26, 27, somewhere around in there. And it does demonstrate that Paul expects people to think because he is setting up a train of argumentation here. And I preached out of this text at Easter in the spring. You can go and listen to that if you are interested in developing that argumentation further. But the idea is that if Jesus is not raised, if there's no resurrection, then Jesus is not raised. And that me, that means, wow, let's have coffee and try that all over again. If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Jesus isn't resurrected from the dead, which means gospel preaching is based on a delusion, and Christians have believed a lie, and the apostles are just big liars, and the faith of Christians produces nothing, so we are still in sin, and all who have died are now in everlasting punishment, and Christians are just morons, they are fools. There is this little text, verse 29, about baptism for the dead, and I could work with that for a really long time. It is an extraordinarily difficult verse. I'll just give you the bottom line. How about that? I think what Paul is saying, are we baptized to be numbered with the dead who never rise? That's the best I can make of that. It's not an easy text. Then Paul begins to talk about living in light of the resurrection, verses 30 to 34. It's just silly for Paul to live the way he lives and get into all kinds of trouble if there's no resurrection from the dead. That's foolishness. He does quote verse 33 from a comedy that had been written in Paul's time, and the bad company in verse 33 are the people denying the resurrection. Then Paul deals with objections to the resurrection. There are two of those. Verse 35, how can this happen? What kind of body would we have? And Paul says, we don't know what kind of body we can have, but God will take care of that. Just like God takes care of fruit, you plant some seed in the ground and the right fruit comes up, and our bodies will be very different, but the Lord will take care of that, our heavenly body. Verse 50, then what's the objection here? What about those? What about those who haven't died when Jesus returns? And he says that God will take care of that as well. I'm preaching so much on heaven this year with that being the preaching theme. And I get a lot of questions about heaven, and I would say about 99% of those questions is the Lord will take care of it. The Lord will take care of it. And that is certainly Paul's emphasis here in 1 Corinthians 15. The reading for Friday, 1 Corinthians chapter 15. And that would conclude the podcast for the week. I certainly do appreciate you listening to the podcast, encouraging notes and emails that I get about the podcast. I'm glad it's helping you tell somebody about it. And I hope that, I hope that all of us are benefited from time spent thinking about the lessons on Sunday, integrating those into our lives, and time spent in reading the Word of God. I'm Mark Roberts. I want to go to heaven, and I want you to come too. Thanks for listening. I'll see you on Monday with a cup of coffee, of course.

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