Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

The center for the study of global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary estimates that there are over 40,000 Christian denominations in the world as ofy 2012.

How do you know your version of Christianity is the right one?

Background

City of Corinth is located on the isthmus that joins the Peloponnesian peninsula to the mainland of Greece about 50 miles west of Athens.

Corinth was strategically situation so that traffic from east to the west and from the north to the south would pass through its region.

Corinth was a wealthy city and a cultural melting pot.

We read about the founding of the church at Corinth on Paul’s missionary Journey in sometime around AD 51.

Acts 18:1-

He remained in Corinth for 18 months: .

Paul says it has been reported to him.

It is actually reported.

I hear that there are divisions among you.

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote.

This all points us to the fact that there was some correspondence going on between Paul and the church at Corinth.

Corinth, we have a problem!

The section of Corinthians we are studying this morning falls within the first major section of the epistle and it deals with the church’s profound division and their fundamental misapprehension of the nature of Christian leadership.

Personality divisions

Incest

Sexual immorality

Litigation among believers

Illicit divorce

Food sacrificed to idols

To offend the weaker brother is not to engage in something the weaker brother thinks is sinful and therefore is offended to see you eating the food or drinking wine.

Improper administration of the Lord’s table

The role of women in the church

The misuse of the Charisma

What are some common causes of division within churches today?

Unity is Grounded in Convictions, not Personalities

11

Why are we tempted to find church unity in people, ideas, and activities instead of the gospel?

How does the gospel help us maintain unity despite being diverse in so many other ways?

The oneness of God is the unifying essence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Believers are unified by the presence of the Holy Spirit who brings us into the truth, into right relationship with God, into the covenant community where we are all one in Christ.

There are no distinctions.

Stop thinking in these categories and start thinking like Christ.

We return to the garden in Christ.

One man before God in two people.

What are some ways we can make sure we are calling attention to Christ instead of ourselves?

It helps if we see ourselves as God actually sees us.

I must decrease, he must increase.

I die daily!

I am crucified with Christ.

Note the Antithesis between Human Wisdom and Gospel Preaching

Here is the logic: if eloquent words of wisdom, not the power of the cross!

If the difference maker is powerful philosophical arguments, undeniable empirical evidence, your cognitive abilities, then the power of Christianity is something other than the gospel of the cross.

Christian love never compromises Christian truth for the sake of Christian unity.

Unity is preceded by God’s wisdom shown at the cross

The word of the cross is μωρία to the perishing ones, but on the other hand, to us who are being saved, the word of the cross is the power of God.

Conversely, to all those who are lost 1:18 and esp. to the gentiles vs. 23, the Christian preaching of a Savior who died a slave’s death on the cross was μ.

μωρία

Three men in two ethnic groups: Jews & Greeks

ποῦ σοφός

The Sophos: men skilled according to the flesh.

The socratic sage who must begin his journey into wisdom by admitting his ignorance and need to begin anew.

The Grammateus: The person of letters, the Jewish Scribe who was the legal expert of the Jews.

The Sudzetetes: this is the Scholar in Greek philosopher who is often involved in expressing strong differences of opinion.

The professional debater.

The wisdom of the world contrasts with divine wisdom

The world does not know God through its own wisdom.

This verse is telling us explicitly that unregenerate human beings do not evaluate the claims of the cross, examine the evidence and arguments of Christianity, and reach a conclusion that leads them to decide to follow Jesus.

Jews demand a sign and Greeks were looking for wisdom.

Paul does not adjust his message or his method for either one.

But to those who are called: The contrast is impossible to miss.

Anthony Thiselton writes concerning God’s power and wisdom in this text:

It does not rest on human calculations about signs of the times, nor upon manipulative devices which entice belief, nor does it rest on self-defeating strategies to master life by techniques of human wisdom.

God’s manifestation of power and wisdom operates on a different basis, namely, the way of love which accepts the constraints imposed by the human condition or plight and the prior divine act of promise, and becomes effective and operative (has power) in God’s own way, for it corresponds with God’s own nature as revealed in Christ and in the cross.

Any version of the gospel which substitutes a message of personal success for the cross is a manipulative counterfeit.

What reasons do non-believers have today for finding the message of the cross so hard to believe?

Creation ~6,000 years ago, from nothing?

The virgin birth?

Walking on water?

Exclusive claims of the gospel?

God of love condemning so many people, even young people to eternal torment?

Big fish swallows man and spits him up three days later and he lives?

Now think about this: we have men professing to be pastors and shepherds, scholars and theologians, men who are highly accomplished, experts in their field, who either agree that claims of Scripture and of the gospel are foolish, irrational, unsophisticated, and contrary to science.

And it is okay if you want to reject them and refuse to believe them.

You can do that and still embrace the Christian faith.

Unity is furthered by Christians who boast only in the Lord

Note that the it is God that has done the calling here and this is what we would term: the effectual call.

God is doing the selecting, not men.

1

Not many nuclear physicists among us.

Not many powerful (politically, economically, or otherwise), and not many from the nobility (kings, princes, and such).

God chose what is foolish to shame human wisdom.

God chose what is weak to shame human strength.

God chose what is low and despised by the world SO THAT no one can boast.

Why do some people hold the gospel in disdain, regarding it as irrational, unjustified, even moronic while others embrace it to the death, forsaking all else?

22-3

What does it look like for Christians to embrace weak and foolish lives in the eyes of the world?

Godly living!

Fantastic beliefs!

Self-denial!

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Why is boasting in yourself so strongly condemned in Scripture?

How does boasting in the Lord bring Christians together in unity?