For a full description of the (Y3) reading plan, see the “About” page.
- What attributes of God’s character does this passage reveal?
- How does the passage point to Jesus?
- How should the truth of this passage change me?
- How do the events of today’s reading help you better understand the grand narrative of Scripture?
1 Cor. 4
“What do you have that you didn’t receive? If, in fact, you did receive it, why do you boast as if you hadn’t received it?” (1 Cor. 4:7b-c). That is something to think about! If somebody gives us a gift, we have no real boast in the gift, but only in the one who gave it to us. The mere fact of owning said gift does nothing to change the fact that we had nothing to do with getting it.
Thus Paul tells us that when we start taking sides, favoring one teacher of God’s message over another, we act as if the gift wasn’t a gift. We boast in our understanding of God’s mystery as if it came from ourselves. God’s gift of salvation comes through believing the message, not the messenger. And our understanding of that message does not come from our own great wisdom in following the right person, but from God. To think that we are better than another because of the messenger we favor could be an indication that we never really received the gift in the first place. Either way, we have no boast in it.
1 Cor. 5
If a beggar on the street somehow became part of the royal family, why would that person remain a beggar on the street? Yet that is the very thing I hear Paul telling the Corinthians they were doing. Besides boasting as if this miraculous gift was somehow not a miraculous gift, they also failed to start acting like what they had become. Paul said, “Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new unleavened batch, as indeed you are.” (1 Cor. 5:7a). He didn’t tell them to become an unleavened batch. Rather, he told them to start acting like what they already were. How often we disregard Christ’s work for us by continuing to live in our own power (which isn’t really power at all) and boasting in all the wrong things!
1 Cor. 6
I think we take far too lightly the unity that we, as a body of believers, have in Christ. God’s Spirit is in each and every one of us. Thus, what we do to another believer, we do to Christ, who is a part of them. Because Christ is also a part of us, we also wrong ourselves by doing wrong to another believer. As the old saying goes, it’s like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Yet we let personal disagreements and selfish ambitions come between us far too easily. Or we ignore, or worse yet, enable the damaging behavior of a believer who is living in blatant sin. This isn’t an easy thing, because personality clash is real, even among believers. But we all need to do a much better job of genuinely caring about each other, whether we like each other or not.