Thank the Lord for the Fully-Equipped, Messed-Up Church

The Corinthian church was the most dysfunctional church of the New Testament. Corinth was a thriving commercial city on the isthmus that connects all of the main landmasses of Greece. Its citizens had such a reputation for loose living that a verb had to be created — “Corinthianizing” — to capture the idea of a person who was really “good” at being licentious: not like the Cretans who were barbarians of bad behavior, but instead very refined and sophisticated sinners. The opening of the letter (1:1-9) gives proper introduction, so that what God was doing perfectly rises above and even through what they were doing most imperfectly. 

Paul had stayed there for a year and a half planting the church (Acts 18:11). It might be that Sosthenes, who is Paul’s secretary here in writing this letter, is the same Sosthenes who led the synagogue in Corinth and was beaten for converting to Christ (Acts 18:17).1 The first few years of planting a church have always been rough. A good beating from a mob was standard, for example. But the Corinthians would also create their own mess.

• THE LOCAL CHURCH IS DIVINELY CALLED

• THE LOCAL CHURCH IS DIVINELY EQUIPPED

• THE LOCAL CHURCH IS DIVINELY SUSTAINED

Doctrine. Since even the most dysfunctional church is called, equipped, and sustained by God, we should give thanks.

You see what we are thanking God for here? I am not suggesting that we be comfortable or flippant about the problems with the church. What I am suggesting is that we trust God and not ourselves in our response to those problems. 

The Local Church is Divinely Called

The first thing we need to see is that persons are called. Paul was ‘called’ (v. 1) and the Corinthians were ‘called’ (v. 2).  These are both adjectives in the Greek, signifying how much Paul wants them to identify themselves as “the called” (κλητοῖς). The Corinthians were called to be a church together and Paul was called to be an apostle to them. To see that only persons are called in this way is to see that the fundamental parts of the church’s building are renewed people. Not physical buildings, not programs, not even the latest and greatest idea for building and growing churches, but people made new.

Later on he says, “You are … God’s building” (3:9) and Peter adds that, “you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house” (1 Pet. 2:5). In that same breath Peter also uses the word “called” (v. 9). The very meaning of the word ‘church’ (ekklesia), used in verse 2, is derived from the two smaller words “call” (kaleo) and “out” (ek). The word is even used for a secular assembly in Acts 28:17, but the key is that the assembly is created and held together by an authoritative speech-act. That is the only thing that can call persons together, something that appeals to the rational aspect that only persons have. See, for example, Romans 12:1 (λογικὴν) and 1 Peter 2:2 (λογικὸν) for the use of “reasonable” to describe the act of worship and the quality of the word acting upon the mind. English translations that use the word “spiritual” existed within the modern era that sought to distinguish between the spiritual-metaphysical-rational and the material-physical-non-rational. In a postmodern context, that distinction is now lost on us, and so in my opinion the better translation would be “logical” or “rational.”

The second thing we need to see is that to be called implies a calling, a voice, a word. To be called by God means to be called by his word; to possess the word of God really is to have what we need. So calling is inseparable from legitimacy. Being called and shaped into living stones is really the first and most important thing we need to be the church.

Calvin said that, 

Wherever we see the word of God sincerely preached and heard, wherever we see the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ, there we cannot have any doubt that the church of God has some existence.2

The third thing we need to see is that we are called by God into a church: ‘God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord’ (v. 9). There is a “by whom?” The answer to that is God himself. God calls every Christian through his word. But there is also an “into what?” The answer to that is “into the fellowship.” God never calls us lone-ranger Christians. God always calls us into his family by calling us into his visible, local church, here in this life. Now there is also a universal church: ‘called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours’ (v. 2). The universal church is the entire body of believers at all times and in all places. But the local church is equally necessary. 

The Local Church is Divinely Equipped

Paul expresses his thanks here, but for what? Ultimately it is the grace of God (v. 4) working in these Corinthians. What we will see later on, Lord willing, is that what we call “spiritual gifts,” the biblical authors called “grace-gifts” (charismata). In other words, when you see a fellow believer with any ability to bless the church, you can know that God did that. Not only is God to get the glory for that (and not that human being), but on the flip side, our attitude should be thanks to God for what he is doing with that human being: not envy, not cynicism, not suspicion, not disbelief that that belongs in the body. This is a tightrope walk that the Corinthians were not getting right at all. 

Now verses 5 through 7 has some awkward sentence structure to it, but the sense of it is that the Corinthians have a treasury of spiritual equipment, and Paul is saying that this is manifest or confirmed in the same way, or with the same level of certainty, as their belief in the gospel itself is. You see that? Almost parenthetically in the middle: ‘even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you’ (v. 6). So “Just as surely as I can know that you are believers, with that same certainty I can tell you that you have everything you need for the battle here on earth.” Now how can Paul say that? The basic reason is given in this very letter, later on:

There are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good (1 Cor. 12:6-7).

In other words: All Christians are gifted by God for edifying the body. We will come back to that later. 

One note about what this passage is not suggesting. To possess “every” spiritual gift does not necessarily imply all of the spiritual gifts that there are. Some think about the exact construction here—‘so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (v. 7)—that it is more imperative than indicative (e.g. “See that you do not lack any spiritual gift”), and that the termination point of the appearance of Christ implies that this totality of spiritual gifts is expected to continue until the second coming of Christ.

But there are several reasons to reject this sense:

1. The mood is indicative and sense is more obviously descriptive of what they currently have; 2. The context regards sufficiency and not some extraordinary spirituality; 3. The Corinthians “awaiting” the appearance of Christ need not be taken any differently than other places in the New Testament where real, particular, first century believers were waiting for an event that has still not taken place here in the twenty-first century. So we are not forced to take this as the “whole church” awaiting throughout time.

The emphasis is on their more general spiritual sufficiency. In other words, these Corinthians had all the gifts that a (any) church could ever need: not that they didn’t have more. Whether every church needs all the gifts possessed in the first century is question-begging. So this text does nothing to settle the Charismatic question. But this is also important because the sufficiency of the church and the spectacle of the church are two very different things. One of the bad ways to be like the Corinthians is to be always chasing the sensational: a comparison to the “stars.” 

The Local Church is Divinely Sustained

Jesus Christ ‘who will sustain you to the end’ (8a). We already know from verse 2 that those in the church are special to God. When he says ‘sanctified’ and then ‘saints’ he is repeating himself on purpose. Those are just two word forms in English that are the same root meaning in Greek.3 The one just means “having been made holy (or special)” and the other means “holy ones (or treated-as-special ones),” and all that by God.

Now the main thing Paul has in mind in sustaining you is with respect to your status in Christ - forgiven and righteous - so he adds: ‘guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (v. 8b). He will sustain you in all those other ways you and I have most before our eyes; but what we need to know, underneath all of that, is that we can never fall out of Christ. 

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, whom has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand (Jn. 10:28-29).

That is the main sustaining we need; but all of the other sustainings are guaranteed by this one. If we can never lose Christ, then we can never lose the blessings he intends for us. All that we have is in Him. All that we commit to His service is in His care. In all these things, God is faithful (v. 9).

“For the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable” (Rom. 11:29). If God’s act of calling you into Christ and into the church, and making sure that there will be a church that possesses this main mark of the word, calling — if this is irrevocable — then He will not leave you without such a calling and gifts.

Practical Use of the Doctrine

Use 1. Correction. Our Big Idea was that since even the most dysfunctional church is called, equipped, and sustained by God, we should give thanks. On paper, nobody would ever disagree with something so straightforward and seemingly harmless and seemingly irrelevant. But right there — in its seeming to be irrelevant — is where we deceive ourselves. If anyone tries to apply this in real life, what the cynical hear is that we just thank God for all the problems in the church. Not at all. If you remember, I suggested not that we be comfortable or flippant about the problems with the church; but rather that we trust God and not ourselves in our response to those problems. All churches have problems: especially unsupported, independent church plants who try to get doctrine right in an age of Twitter and visual circuses. 

But there are other, more serious, reasons that some get the idea that this message does not apply to us. Christians often believe we have exceptions to God’s basic way, but this is nothing other than a claim to be wiser than God. Let us think of some more respectable church dysfunctions that take our focus away from being called, equipped, and sustained by God. This becomes material for us to be discouraged and so we need more than correction.

Use 2. Exhortation. There may be many more, but here are four usual suspects in becoming discouraged early: (1) relational, (2) financial, (3) developmental, (4) visional.

(1) Relational. By this, I mean that we do not feel like thanking God for what He is doing in this church because people are not getting along with each other as they ought to. Sometimes this takes the form of complaints that people are not getting together as they ought to. I always used to ask the person bringing that complaint: So who have you invited out to coffee or to your home? And what get-togethers have you organized? Who are you discipling? The answers were predictable. We all need to be reminded from time to time: Brother … Sister, you are the church! It is not everybody else’s responsibility, except for you, to be what you sense is lacking. How do I know all relational dysfunctions don’t make Paul’s thanksgiving insincere? Read on in the letter and see a church that is filled with relational issues that would make any relation issues you’re thinking of pale in comparison! And yet they were fully equipped, sufficient. 

(2) Financial. Many do not feel like thanking God for what He is doing in a local church because one’s budget is not enough to do anything real with. This comes to mean that we do not have the same amount of money as that church over there to do some high-tech, explosive feat of outreach. But the church where Jesus started it (in Jerusalem) was so poor that Paul had to go to these Corinthians to take up collections. And even this most wealthy church in Corinth didn’t have a fraction of the material resources that we do today: things that we take for granted. When Paul first arrived in Corinth he saw success everywhere and despaired being able to compete with just a message. But God told him, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people” (Acts 18:9-10). What does that have to do with resources? Well, what is the main resource but the people who own those resources. Guess who owns those people? God does. God brings in whomever he pleases. Bring the message. 

(3) Developmental. Many others do not thank God for what He is doing in this church because the people we do have are not where they need to be. “And where is that?” I always ask. Where is this magical place you speak of called “mature” and “strong” and “spiritual”? Do not misunderstand. I believe there is a thing called sanctification and personal holiness in the Christian life, and I believe it is a community project. This epistle will address that very thing. Yet it is seldom a pure motive of those who would use its deficiency as an excuse to lay down and die. Mature Christians who long for maturity in others don’t nag other mere mortals to be the Holy Spirit for them. I also don’t buy it when the supposedly strong put on the sidelines anyone who “hasn’t arrived” yet. We have seen that before, haven’t we? And we do not want to become that vicious spirit that throws others away the moment they become too inconvenient for us.  

(4) Visional. Still others sacrifice thanksgiving on the altar of delusional omniscience. Many say, “I just need to know where we’re going to be in five years or even one year or six months.” Such a person has an idol. I too would like to know exactly the kind of people God will send our way, what resources may fall into our lap, and so forth. But if it is a biblical vision you want, you already have that in “Preach the Word, Pray the Word, Sing the Word, Spread the Word, Live out the Word.” What we really want, more often than we think, is a crystal ball that compares us very nicely to some American ideal of success. And we call that “vision” and demand it of the pastor. It simply does not belong to the vision of a local church to guarantee specific expectations of its future in this age. James specifically forbids us from doing that.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil (Jam. 4:13-16) 

People today want such crystal ball projections. But that is not true vision. It is boasting in a control that God has not given to us. And when Jesus tells us to not primarily chase after this or that earthly need, he adds: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Mat. 6:33). 

The present American church and the ancient Corinthian church actually have a lot in common. And Paul said to those Corinthians about the stories about the Old Testament church, “Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were” (1 Cor. 10:6-7). So we are given the Corinthians as an example. So let us ask ourselves: Which one occupies our time with each other: thankfulness for what God is doing with the church we are in; or, is our focus on all that we do not have, all that could go wrong or is already going wrong?  

The gospel is in this introduction. The good news is Paul’s reason why he can give thanks: because he can say (and we can say) to any group of Christians: God ‘will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful’ (vv. 8-9) … GOD IS FAITHFUL. This will be a study about changing our minds about where the power is in the church. 

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1. Calvin is absolutely sure that it is the same Sosthenes: Commentaries, XX:50.

2. Calvin. Institutes. IV.1.9.

3. The first, hegiosmenois (ἡγιασμένοις), is the perfect passive participle; and hagios (ἁγίοις) is the substantival adjective - meaning an adjective that can be treated “substantively,” like a noun. So either “holy ones” or “saints” are both fine.