Sermon Tone Analysis

Corinth, in Southern Greece

We began an introduction to this city and church in last week’s message, from the introduction to the Bible book of 1 Corinthians from the Apostle Paul.

He cared about this church, about this city, and about the people in and outside of the church.

This is a church where Paul had been important in its early years, likely the one who established the church here from the first Jewish Christians that traveled here.

He was used by God to add a throttle to their enthusiasm so they might learn more perfectly the message of the Gospel and what it takes to live as Disciples of Jesus.

In 1 Cor 1:2 “2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, 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:”

Paul reminds them Christ sanctified them to be “Saints Together” with every other believer.

Then he reminded them of Grace and forgiveness, and God’s faithfulness.

An Important First Century City

Corinth was located West of Athens, the Greek center of culture.

At Corinth, on a peninsula connected to the mainland by a very narrow isthmus of less than 5 miles.

So narrow, in fact, that a canal was proposed as far back as the time of the prophet Isaiah.

There is a canal there now that was begun during the reign of Caesar Nero, but not completed until shortly after the Panama Canal was begun by the French.

Because this was the shortest land distance between the Ionian Sea and the Aegean Sea.

You could ship things from Rome to Ephesus and Syria by going as far as the Corinthian gulf and hauling your stuff over the isthmus to reload it on a different ship, or haul it to Athens.

This made Corinth a rich city because of all the trade going through; ancient cultures did not raise budgets with income taxes.

They used tariffs on goods that passed through their gates.

This was a rich city with a rich culture.

Soldiers, sailors, statesmen and salesmen from all around the Mediterranean were here.

And, when the Jews were pushed out of Rome as recorded in Acts 18, many of them settled in Corinth.

An Important First Century Church

After leaving Athens without setting up a church, Paul went on to Corinth, where he met Aquila and Priscilla, Jews from Rome, and hired on with their tent-making trade.

All the while, talking about Jesus, going to the synagogue, persuading the Jews that the Messiah had come and that salvation and forgiveness of sins was available.

This became on the of the most important churches of the first century, on a crossroads for Jewish and other travelers, in a city that had all the trappings of a multicultural elite and a seedy underside.

Paul faced opposition from the synagogue, and was about ready to leave but Jesus spoke to him in a vision that there were many of God’s people here that needed to know about Jesus.

So he stayed here for 18 months or so, when he left for Jerusalem to fulfil a vow before returning to Ephesus.

A Definite Problem with Cliques

The Church in Corinth was a Church with conflicts, because of Cliques.

What is a clique?

A clique is a group of people who feel like they are exclusive; better than others or just different than they.

Of course we have all experienced this, unless we are totally asocial and unconcerned about where we stand with others in a larger group or unconcerned about where others stand with us.

In our wider world, it may be favoritism because of language or looks or skin color or skills.

Why are cliques a problem?

Don’t we all have our own home-boys, or girl-friends, or team members or study groups or Bible-study groups, or knitting circles or car clubs or business ties or golf-buddies or coffee clutches?

So what’s wrong with that?

I mean, I have friends you don’t know, or you don’t know about, or you might be surprised that I have.

Is that a problem by itself?

Of course not.

Its a problem, not because it is a special group of people, but because we use it as a way to separate us from others.

Here’s my personal example from the way-back machine:

I was on the wrestling team in High School.

We had a good team with some great talent.

I don’t claim to have been one of the best wrestlers on the team, but in 1967 while I was still on the JV wrestling team as a sophomore, I accomplished something unexpected.

I was at a wrestling meet at Roosevelt High School in Portland, Oregon, which was the big city compared to my home town of Rainier, OR, which had all of 1240 residents in the city limits.

I was wrestling at the 191-pound weight class, which meant I was between 168 and 191 pounds at the time.

My coach was also my math teacher at school.

The varsity coach was my health and social sciences teacher.

Anyway, when my match came up, Coach Muck, yes, that was his name, told me to get out to the center of the mat and meet my opponent.

There was the whistle, the takedown, the pin, the double whistle, and then I signed the match card and went back to Coach Muck.

He was debriefing some of those who were finished and coaching some who would go out in a minute.

He turned and looked at me, and said, “Collett, I told you to get out there!”

So I told him I already did.

I pinned the guy, and he had kind of a “WHAT?” look on his face, so I showed him the match card.

I pinned my opponent in 14 seconds, beating the Varsity school record of 17 seconds.

That didn’t get me a spot on the Varsity team, but it did impress my older brother who was on that team.

Well, that’s just my build-up to the idea of cliques that can be less than peaceful.

You see, as wrestlers, we were building strength and technique, close quarters speed, and legal moves.

A foul in wrestling would cost you points and probably lose the match.

You see, we didn’t have a lot of love for the other team that was busy in winter sports, which of course was Basketball.

We were strong and spent our whole contests touching and man-handling our opponent.

They were bouncing a ball, running away from the other team, and throwing the ball away.

So we call the Basketball team “Bubble-bouncers.”

We didn’t need any cheerleaders to keep us going.

We didn’t always have much of a crowd at the match.

It was just one-on-one competition with the team’s score made up by adding all the individual match scores to determine the team win or loss.

But really--”Bubble Bouncers”?

I have no idea what they called us.

But we weren’t the same.

We were different, and we wanted to have an identity that was separate from theirs.

That’s a clique.

Not the same “school spirit” idea that the football team and basketball team were used to getting, but certainly we thought we know exactly who we were.

Paul was alerted by a family of the church in Corinth that they had a growing problem with pride and pulling back from others who weren’t in their clique.

Just like with us, this point of pride that pulls us back from pure fellowship with others was a. . . .

A Constant Issue with Believers

Pride and cliquishness is a description of something we also call “Inter-personal conflict” which shows up in the Bible as early as Genesis 4 between Cain and Abel.

We find it between King Saul and David, Mary and Martha, Jesus’ disciples and event Paul and Barnabas.

Where does this all come from?

Well, if it’s a matter of conflict, and a matter of who’s right, its from pride which is from sin.

Here’s what Paul wrote in Galatians 5:19-21

Here the big problem with behaving like normal people we are used to being exposed to: People who show these patterns of behavior are actually NOT ELIGIBLE TO INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

That should be a concern to us, because we are prone to behave just like others who don’t know Christ if we don’t watch it.

James, the actual half-brother of Jesus wrote this:

In other words, the problem happens because we are selfish and prideful, greedy and jealous, covetous and lustful.

And this is not just in the church.

It started with tribalism, or job preferences, or economic status or family size or background.

It’s an issue noted many times in the Old Testament, either in the positive or the negative.

What are the Causes of Conflict

Conflict Comes from Anger

Conflict Comes from Greed

Conflict Comes from Hate

Conflict Comes from Gossip

Conflict Comes from Perverse People

That’s a list of what constantly happens in most any social group.

But is it right for that to happen in the church?

In Corinth, the church members had been visited by many of the well-known Apostles and Teachers of their day.

And they began to have issues that could just as easily have happened to them as it does to us these days if they had TV or radio preachers like we do.

>>>They became . . .

Preacher-Followers

And it became a point of pride for them to tell others whom they followed and why.

Paul wrote this to the church of the city of Corinth, a church that had existed for less than about 10 years.