My Journey through Corinthians

The cosmopolitan city of Corinth is similar to Singapore in many ways. Besides doing well economically, we both live in a religious environment. Like the Corinthian church, we struggle to live as good Christians. These factors caused me to ponder about the issues raised by Paul and the Corinthian church, and the replies Paul gave because they are still applicable to contemporary Christians.

Be Thankful

Thanksgiving to God should have been ingrained into our DNA after we learnt and realised that everything we have, our earthly possessions, talents and even friendships come from God. Yet, I find that it is very easy to take Him for granted. Paul began his letter to the Corinthians with a very God-centred thanksgiving because he wanted to remind the proud and knowledgeable Corinthians that God is their source of these blessings. They are blessed because of their participation in Christ Jesus. Even though they have all the spiritual gifts and think that they have all knowledge, Paul reminded them that they are still living in the “Not Yet” phase. In this phase, nothing is perfect yet. Perfection only comes when Christ returns. Hence their focus should be on God and the coming of Christ. Like the Corinthians, when life becomes comfortable and we seem to have all that we need, we forget about God and Christ’s second coming. Our worldview becomes narrower and we may even relish with the present. This lesson reminded me to be thankful in everything because whatever I have comes from God. Thanks, Jen, for bringing home this point to us right from the start.

God’s Ownership of the Church

Disunity was the first issue Paul addressed in his letter to the Corinthians. They have pledged allegiance to the wrong people and this have led to divided opinions jealousy among the leaders and members. Paul pointed the believers back to God as the owner of the Church and Christ as their foundation, and he shifted the concept of the physical temple to the believers for God’s presence dwells in them. I felt encouraged and comforted by Paul’s warning that God will destroy anyone who destroys the church (1 Cor 3:17). No church is perfect because there are imperfect people like us in it. Often, disunity and division occur when there are issues such as personal agenda and insubordination in the church. Knowing that all I need to do is to focus my eyes of Jesus and recognise God’s ownership is encouraging. Knowing that God will punish anyone who sows seeds of discord is assuring. Indeed, the church belongs to God, not us. We are all co-workers in Christ.

Stumbling Block Principle

            This principle from 1 Cor 8 refers to the “destruction of someone” as a result of our actions and serves as a good checkpoint for believers before we make certain decisions. Although the context of this principle is about whether we can eat food offered to idols, I feel that this principle can be applied in other situations. Bro Casey gave a very good illustration of an alcoholic who became a Christian and finally overcame this addiction. To this alcoholic, seeing Christians drink even a sip of alcohol may stumble him. If we lure them out of faith in God and back into their previous lifestyle, we sin. Some things or habits that are acceptable to us may not be acceptable to others. Hence, Paul exhorted the Corinthians and believers today to limit our freedom for the love of others. We should use this freedom to glorify God. If we know that there are younger believers amongst us, we should watch our behaviour and be careful of our speech, in case we become a stumbling block to them. Like Paul, our concern should always be about the community, not ourselves.

                                           

Structural Diagramming

The last time I did such a detailed structural diagramming was in the Romans module last July. It is a useful tool to learn because the key points of the passage will be made clear when the diagramming is done correctly. This will make writing sermon outlines easier too. Practice makes easy. However, I struggled with it for a while as I have not practised it for such a long time. I thank God for the English grammar background I have and this is probably my only saving grace when it comes to diagramming. I started to enjoy colouring the verbs, coordinating conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions again. Pressing the ‘enter’ key to break up the sentences and parts of speech was fun. Figuring out whether a word is functioning as an adjectival phrase or a verb was also interesting. Of course, I made mistakes still. But I am glad I can learn this as a refresher course. Hopefully, I will make fewer mistakes each time I learn from Sis Davina. Hehe…