I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1 Corinthians 1.10-13)

These words are the first meat found in Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth, in which he addresses so many problems.  Already we can figure out a fair amount of what’s going on behind the scenes here, especially if we pay close attention to the details offered later in the letter.  This is the only time Chloe is mentioned, but it’s clear that this lady’s associates—probably members of her household—have relayed information to Paul.  Later, we find Paul introducing a new topic by saying, “Now concerning the matters about which you wrote…” (7.1), and abbreviated references to that unpreserved letter appear in 7.25, 8.1, 12.1, and several other spots.  Someone had to carry it to Paul, and it’s likely that “Chloe’s people” are involved.  At first glance, it seems that Paul is throwing his informants under the bus, but really he’s mentioning the source of his information in order to validate it, and to avoid the impression of whispered conversations in the shadows—on the contrary, this is out in the open already, and should be dealt with in the same manner!

Then, there’s the issue of the names Paul tosses around.  There probably are Christians at Corinth professing allegiance to most or all of these names, but a little later he notes,

So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas… (1 Corinthians 3.21-22)

Then he says, “I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers” (4.6).  He’s deliberately keeping some other names out of the picture.  Whose?  Prominent individuals (not to say, “ringleaders”) right there in the church at Corinth, whose names Paul would rather not mention.  The divisions at Corinth aren’t just about the ideas and doctrines emphasized by Paul, as compared to Apollos; they’re also showing up in cliques and factions within that congregation itself!  If we need further proof of this, chapter 6, with its discussion of actual lawsuits between local Christians, should wipe away any doubt.

This leaves us with two applications—the same ones the church at Corinth should have taken from this letter.  First is the need to treat all of the brothers properly.  Of course, there will be personality conflicts and even sins committed that require a reckoning.  Not everyone will enjoy everyone else’s company, and some people will simply rub each other the wrong way.  But when a family is operating as it should, those members who experience such friction will bend over backward for each other, in order to make sure they get along in spite of their differences.  They will pursue peace, goodwill, and the overall health of the family, and especially love and devotion to the parents or grandparents who made it all possible through years of hard work and sacrifice.  Of course, in the real world there is often at least one member of the family who won’t play along and makes it difficult for the rest, but the majority shouldn’t stoop to the level of the family’s most obstinate member, and it certainly should not begin to draw up battle lines and form alliances against itself.  That’s a recipe for disaster, whether in our earthly families, or in the church.  “If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand” (Mk 3.24).

Second, even though Paul’s focus on the higher-level names—apostles, prominent evangelists, and even Christ himself—is somewhat exaggerated to make the point, could there be a stronger indictment of the state of Christianity today?  So many people wear the label, Christian, yet adopt and preach some other person’s views on what exactly that means.  Maybe it shows up as, “well my pastor says it’s like this…” but at a higher level, the world of Christianity might as well be divided up as follows: each one says, “I follow Simons,” or “I follow Smyth,” or “I follow Calvin,” or “I follow Wesley,” or “I follow the Pope,” or “I follow Luther.”  This list only covers a handful of the thousands of different denominations, sects, and movements professing Christianity, but it certainly illustrates the problem! 

There are also some who, like the faction mentioned by Paul, more wisely throw out all of these other names and simply proclaim, “I follow Christ.”  It’s all too easy to let that proclamation define yet another faction, though.  All the rest would like to treat it that way.  Many even who make the profession, shunning the commandments of men in favor of straightforward obedience to Christ, end up buying into the divisions and becoming no more than another denomination, one among thousands.  What did Paul say to the divided Corinthians?

Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple. (1 Corinthians 3.16-17)

God is not pleased with those who divide his temple and cause it to crumble.  Don’t play along with the divisions; and don’t make your refusal to play along turn into just another division.  Instead, “preach Christ crucified” (1Co 1.23), and “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (v31).

Jeremy Nettles

In the 18^th chapter of the book of Acts, we follow Paul’s work at spreading the gospel of Christ in the city of Corinth.  He spent at least a year and a half there, which is longer than he’d stayed at any of the churches he and his helpers had established up to that point.  They were well off, considering the amount of time Paul spent there, teaching them not only the basics of Christ’s message of repentance, rebirth, and salvation, but also much about how these new Christians ought to live under Christ’s reign.  They suffered persecution at the hands of some Jews who still held the mentality Paul himself had exemplified about fifteen years earlier, but they weathered the storm and continued on after Paul left, apparently in a bit of a rush to get back to his home base in Antioch.

These new Christians were in some of the best circumstances of any in that period.  They’d been incredibly blessed to have people such as Paul, Silas, Timothy, Aquila, and Priscilla as their teachers and examples over a long stretch of time.  They were in a metropolis full of wealth and commerce, and with a great influx of people from all over the Mediterranean who needed to hear this message and be transformed.  It seems obvious that they would continue growing and bearing fruit, remaining steadfast in their proclamation of Jesus’ lordship and carrying out works of love and mercy toward all.

Yet, when Paul writes to them from Ephesus a short time later, it’s an understatement to say that the church in Corinth is plagued by many problems.  They do have some things in their favor, as Paul outlines in his greeting.  His custom is to quickly note the author and addressee, wish for “grace and peace,” and then build up his audience by telling them that he thanks God for a few things about them.  Usually it’s their faith.  Often Paul mentions their love, in one way or another, and occasionally other good works or generic fruit is mentioned.  Let’s take a look at what he says to the Christians at Corinth:

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Corinthians 1.4-9)

How nice!  Paul is definitely building them up, and he’s done a great job of creating an uplifting atmosphere from the beginning, but notice: he hasn’t actually praised these Christians for anything.  He extols the grace of God, which was given to them.  He says that through Christ they were enriched.  The testimony was confirmed—not by them, but among them.  With what are they well supplied?  Not every good work, but every gift, meaning the things given to them, not coming from them.  Why would they be guiltless?  Is it because, like the Thessalonian Christians, they “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God” (1Th 1.9)?  No, it’s because Jesus “will sustain [them] to the end” (1Co 1.8).  Are they, like the Ephesian and Colossian Christians, “faithful” (Ep 1.1, Co 1.2)?  Paul doesn’t say they are; and although he also doesn’t directly say they’re unfaithful, he stresses that “God is faithful” (1Co 1.9), conspicuously remaining silent on the question whether the Corinthians are upholding their end of the covenant.

We’ve all been in a situation like this, at some point.  We’ve all heard the old cliche, “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all,” and while this is generally a good lesson to teach our kids, we sometimes see it taken to ridiculous extremes among adults.  Most of us have witnessed with our own eyes and ears the foundations of the expression, “preach someone into heaven,” as we sat through a funeral for an unpleasant and immoral person who suddenly was pronounced a saint during the eulogy.  That’s to be expected—after all, “eulogize” is a Greek term that literally means to speak well of someone, apparently whether they deserve it or not.  That’s not exactly what’s going on in this letter, of course.  Paul will go on to say some very harsh things to these Christians; but he’s trying to at least start out on a good note, building them up in some way while only telling the truth.  He’s trying to find something good to say about them, but their actions and attitudes since he last saw them don’t provide much material.  All he can find are the many gifts given to them. 

It’s sad, first of all, that the Christians at Corinth are bearing so little fruit for the master.  Even more, it’s sad that they behaved so badly in spite of the overwhelming resources available to them, much like Jesus’ parables of the talents and the minas in Matthew 25 and Luke 19.  And this is where we should begin looking at ourselves.  What kinds of gifts has God given you?  Grace in Christ Jesus?  A wealth of knowledge?  Good teachers and examples to follow?  Compared to the people of the 1^st century, nearly everyone has access to the same sort of gifts, or better.  What are you doing with them?  If Paul were to write a letter to you, would he be able to find praiseworthy fruit to mention?  Would he be able to express confidence in your faith and love for God and man?  Or would he only have confidence in God, remaining quietly cynical about your response to God’s faithfulness?  Would his thanksgiving be all about what God has done for you, and none about what you have done in return?

Jeremy Nettles

It’s finally happening: the CDC issued a new set of guidelines that essentially tell us we really don’t need these masks anymore.  That’s oversimplifying it, but considering the availability of the COVID vaccine to everyone who wants it, its astonishing effectiveness, the huge number of people who vaccinated already—including an overwhelming majority of those over age 65, the group at the highest risk—and also considering we can never eliminate all risk to life and health, that we bear responsibility for our own decisions, and that there have been huge costs in other areas due to the pandemic…considering all of that and more, the sentiment of most people by now is that it’s about time!  For over a year, we’ve been trying to get back to normal, and we’re getting a glimpse of normality as the most visible symbol of pandemic life begins to fade away.

Yet, is “normal”  something we can really expect to see returning?  Many times throughout history, something extraordinary happened, and everyone thought things would go back to the way they were, afterward.  For example, when a large group of Roman senators conspired to assassinate Julius Caesar, they really thought that with this menacing dictator out of the way, things would go back to normal—that their civilized republican government would pick up where it left off and bring back the way things used to be.  They ran through the city shouting, “people of Rome, we are once again free!”  In reality, they had not ushered in peace and security, but fourteen years of unrest and civil war, and the endpoint was not a revival of the good old Roman Republic, but the beginning of the Roman Empire.  Back to normal?  Not so much.

The scribes, Pharisees, and chief priests learned something similar, a few decades later when they, just like the Roman senators pining for the good old days, decided conspiracy and murder were the way to get things back to normal.  Here this Jesus guy exploded onto the scene and started teaching “as one who had authority, and not as their scribes” (Mt 7.29), and had the audacity to back up his authoritative claims with good works of great power, so that many of the people actually believed in him!  Well, they didn’t much care for that, so they tried to undermine him.  On one occasion, it was by attempting to get him to sin, or at least appear to have sinned:

And a man was there with a withered hand. And they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—so that they might accuse him.

(Matthew 12.10)

Sure enough, Jesus tells them that “it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath” (v12), and heals the man.  Having gotten what they wanted from Jesus, but apparently not from the popular opinion, “the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him” (v14).  This is surely a violation of the commandment, “You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil” (Ex 23.1-2).  But they don’t care.  They think they know what is good, and they’re willing to commit as many acts of evil as necessary, in order to bring about their supposedly good objective.

This continues for some time, eventually working its way up the totem pole to the council in Jerusalem:

So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

(John 11.47-48)

Notice that they aren’t concerned with right and wrong, or with violations of the law—they’re concerned with their place, and their nation.  They think Jesus is an existential threat to their nation because, regardless of whether Jesus actually is who he says he is, they see the political ramifications of this religious revolution.  They are, of course, correct about how the Romans would respond; but entirely wrong about what they should do about it.  But even before that, their first concern was that Jesus threatened their place, meaning their position of authority, power, and honor.  They don’t like the way things are going, and they want to go back to normal.  Why?  Because they liked the way things were before.  Jesus promises forgiveness, cleansing, and eternal life, and performs enough miracles to convince them he’s not just a whackadoodle, and should be taken seriously.  But they don’t want those things.  They’re happy to be in charge in the here and now, and to enjoy the fruits of appearing to be righteous, even while their hearts are rotten.  How far does this extend?  The high priest himself—who should be a devout and trustworthy voice for God, the law, righteousness, and purity—says, “it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish” (Jn 11.50).  John points out that he’s quite right, in a sense, but in order to get back to normal, he’s willing to descend into the pit of hell.  Ultimately, no matter what they did, they couldn’t stop God’s plan, and things would never truly get back to normal.  And thank God for that!  Jesus brought something far better than the good old days, which weren’t so good after all. 

We can’t undo all that has happened over the past year, and even as the viral threat fades, life will never really go back to exactly the way it was before.  This shouldn’t surprise us, and we shouldn’t be upset about it, either.  Instead, we should move forward with stronger fellowship, a firmer devotion, and a more resolute commitment than ever before, to live lives of holiness through Christ.

Jeremy Nettles

We use many different tools to make sense of the world around us.  Some of these tools were built by people like us—the instruments in our vehicles that tell us how fast we’re moving, the news media we use to stay informed about what’s happening across the world, the phones that allow us to easily communicate and make plans with distant friends and relatives, and other things like these.  Then, there are tools we didn’t build, that were given to us by God—our eyes and ears, which help us to create a 3-dimensional map of our surroundings; our nerves, which give us immediate feedback when we touch something, including whether it’s going to immediately damage our bodies; our memories, which allow us to store information we’ve already gathered and recall it later in order to make decisions or analyze complex situations; and there are many more of these, too.

One of these tools, which God has built into our minds, is narrative.  We use it to see the relationship between cause and effect, to predict the outcomes of our present decisions, to sort out our moral obligations, and more.  Much of the Bible is written in a narrative style.  Sometimes the narrative is meant to be taken literally, like the story of Nehemiah overseeing the rebuilding of the wall around Jerusalem.  Other times, the narrative is not the relation of facts, but a metaphor, such as the parable that begins, 
My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. (Isaiah 5.1-2)

In this case and others like it, we don’t ask, “where was the hill?” or “how tall was the tower?” because we understand that it is an analogy.  That doesn’t make the point of the story any less true, of course.  The narrative conveys a point that the audience may have struggled to understand when the simple facts were related.  But when a story was presented—even a figurative one—the lesson became more clear.

As we automatically frame our understanding of the world through narrative, we often oversimplify the reality in order to better relate to the story.  One of these oversimplifications is the casual way we toss characters into one of two buckets: the good guys, and the bad guys.  This is a childish way of looking at things, of course.  Young boys for ages have played games and participated in fantasies that make use of this simple distinction, with names like “cops and robbers,” the now grossly offensive “cowboys and Indians,” or even the amusingly simplified version simply called, “good guys and bad guys.”  But it’s not just kids.  When we watch a movie, read a book, or hear a story being told, the first question we generally ask ourselves without even realizing it is, “who’s the hero, and who’s the villain?”  Everything about the story hinges on the answer to that question.  Sometimes it becomes fashionable to show that the hero has a flaw, and in the genre of tragedy, the biggest flaw is a villain in itself, bringing about the hero’s downfall.  But he’s still clearly the hero, and the audience still roots for him, even while disapproving of his bad behavior and, hopefully, taking home the lesson: don’t exhibit that flaw, if you don’t want to end up like Hamlet, or Oedipus—or for some more modern examples, Harvey Dent, Ned Stark, or Anakin Skywalker.

Since we understand reality through storytelling, it’s worth asking, who’s the hero in your story?  We see the world through our own perspective, and so the most natural answer is that you yourself are the hero.  But now, we have a problem.  If you’re the hero, then you can either be an oversimplified and unrealistic “good guy”—a character we don’t see around us in reality—or if you are willing to acknowledge that you are flawed, you could be a tragic hero—in which case the story ends with your downfall.  If you’re unsure, or think that maybe you’re the white knight in shining armor, let’s remind ourselves that God tells us very plainly, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Ro 3.23).  

There are other options: you could be an antihero, or the villain, or any one of many types of second- or third-order supporting characters, but some of those are off the table due to unacceptable endings, and others would mean it’s not really your story, but someone else’s.  Let’s tug on that final thread.  Is it really all about you, or could there, perhaps, be another figure at the center of the story?  Has there ever been anyone who truly lived up to the shining white knight character trope?  Of course!  Jesus is even portrayed in the Bible as follows: 
Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. (Revelation 19.11)

We’ve been looking at the story from the wrong perspective.  You’re not the hero of your own story, nor are you the villain.  The hero is Jesus, and the villain is Satan.  But you don’t have to be some random, uncredited extra on the film set.  In fact, each of us is a uniquely important character, a member of the hero’s love interest, the human race.  That doesn’t mean the story will necessarily end with a “happily-ever-after” for you, though.  That’s only for Christ’s Bride.  He has already defeated the great red dragon in order to rescue you.  Soon, he’ll slay the beast.  The choice is up to you: do you prefer to stay imprisoned with the dragon until the end, or will you go with the hero?

Jeremy Nettles

Each of the four Gospels has its own flavor, and the distinguishing features have lessons to teach us.  Let’s examine one of Matthew’s tendencies.  From the very start, he stresses the fulfillment of prophecy.  All that led up to Jesus’ birth happened in order
to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). (Matthew 1.22-23)

That prophet was Isaiah, and this is just the first of many times Matthew refers to his book for a 700-year-old prediction fulfilled in Jesus.  But Isaiah is not alone.  A few verses later, when king Herod asks the priests and scribes where the messiah would be born,
They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: ‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’” (Matthew 2.5-6)

This time, the prophet is Micah, who doesn’t get very much attention these days.  But he was pointing toward the Christ, and while Herod, unsurprisingly, was not terribly familiar with his predictions, the religious leaders at the time were easily able to recognize what God had foretold.

Just after this, Joseph and Mary acted in such a way as to fulfill another prophecy.  God warned them to escape those seeking to harm the child, by going to Egypt.  Why?
This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” (Matthew 2.15)

This one came from Hosea.  More than 7 centuries beforehand, God predicted what would happen when his Son became flesh, and gave his servants Joseph and Mary instructions to fulfill that prediction.

Then Matthew mentions another prophecy that pertained to the events surrounding Jesus’ birth, given by yet another prophet.  When Herod acted on the information he’d just received and had all the boys under age 2 killed in Bethlehem, Matthew tells us that this
fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.” (Matthew 2.17-18)

This one is less specific, and somewhat confusing—didn’t this occur in Bethlehem, not Ramah?  And isn’t Bethlehem in the territory of Judah, whose mother was Leah, and not in the territory of Rachel’s descendants—Benjamin, Manasseh, or Ephraim?  Yet Rachel “was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem)” (Ge 35.19), and by the time of Jesus’ birth, it wasn’t just the descendants of Judah living in that territory, but a mishmash of the members of different tribes of Israel who had returned from the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles.  It’s a roundabout way of getting there, but when these innocent young Jewish boys were slaughtered to preserve Herod’s false sense of security on his throne, some of them were the descendants of Rachel, whose remains were buried just down the road from Bethlehem.  Another prophecy, fulfilled.

We’re still in chapter 2, and there’s one more left!  While Jesus is yet a very young child, Joseph brings the family back from Egypt as instructed, and takes them to live 
in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene. (Matthew 2.23)

This is one of the oddest fulfillments of prophecy mentioned in Matthew, because there’s no explicit prophecy to this effect to be found in the Old Testament.  However, above and beyond the general theme that the messiah would be despised, which is certainly fulfilled in his Nazarene origins, Isaiah calls him a “branch” from the roots of Jesse (Is 11.1), and the Hebrew word behind that term is נֵצֶר-nēṣer-“sprout.”  Matthew’s point relies on some typical Hebrew wordplay, since Isaiah’s label for the Messiah sounds just like the town in which he grew up.  When Jesus was called a Nazarene, in a sense he was also being called the Branch!

We could go on for some time like this, finding prophecy after prophecy not just being fulfilled, but being pointed out to the reader.  Why?  Well, it’s not just that Matthew enjoyed the scavenger hunt for prophecies; for him, the main reason to stress all of these is that they served as evidence for those who already accepted the authority of the Old Testament.  These are proofs for the Jews that the Messiah they’d been awaiting and expecting for so long is Jesus.

For us, that’s actually a bit less important.  The New Testament is a much better testimony to Christ than the Old.  So what does all this fulfillment of prophecy do for us?  It shows us the power, wisdom, foreknowledge, and the plan of God.  From the beginning, he intended to redeem his broken creation by sending his Son to open the door for us.  This wasn’t a lucky guess or an afterthought, it was always the plan.  At each step he was marching forward and arranging the events of history not just with a view toward justice in the present time, but also redemption to come in the age of Christ.

You’re a part of that plan, too.  Like everyone else, you have the opportunity and obligation to take refuge in him, to obey his will, to be rescued from your sins and have your name added to the book of life.  God has followed his plan to the letter.  Will you?

Jeremy Nettles