Called To Oneness.

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. Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. – 1 Corinthians 3:16-23 ESV

Back in chapter one, verse 8, Paul said, “the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing.” Unbelievers cannot understand the wisdom of God revealed in the death of Christ – namely, that one man’s death could provide eternal life for those believed in Him. Now, Paul states that “the wisdom of this world is folly with God.” Man’s wisdom doesn’t impress God and it will never make anyone right with God. If anything, the wisdom of man becomes a barrier to accepting the truth of God’s redemptive plan as revealed in the death, burial and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ. The wisdom of men is futile and totally incapable of remedying mankind’s sin problem and state of condemnation before a holy and just God. So why, Paul asks, would we make much of men. Why would we create false idols out of men and women, worshiping them for the role they played in our salvation, while overlooking the fact that it was God who sent His Son to die, gave His message of reconciliation to those He called, and sent His Spirit to open the hearts of those who heard that message. No man has the right to boast of his usefulness to God, and no one should elevate the messenger over the One who sent the message.

Paul’s real concern has to do with division in the body of Christ. He started out his letter with the plea, “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” (1 Corinthians 1:10 ESV). He accused them of quarreling and bickering over which man they followed – “each one of you says, ‘I follow Paul,’ or ‘I follow Apollos,’ or ‘I follow Cephas,’ or ‘I follow Christ’” (1 Corinthians 1:12 ESV). Their disunity was causing divisiveness. So Paul reminds them that they are the temple of God. Not just as individuals, but as the local body of Christ. He is speaking to the church, not the individual. How do we know this? Because in the Greek language, the personal pronoun, “you” is plural, not singular. Peter confirms the idea that the local church is the temple of God, indwelt by the Spirit of God.

“…you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” – 1 Peter 2:5 ESV

In his letter to the church in Ephesus, Paul said the same thing:

“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,  built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” – Ephesians 2:19-22 ESV

As God’s temple, the local church is to be valued and protected. If anyone does anything to harm or destroy the integrity of the church, they will answer to God. Paul warns them, “If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple” (1 Corinthians 3:17 ESV). Disunity destroys. It damages from within. We have been called by God to love one another, not debate and display contempt for one another. In his letter to the church in Ephesus, Paul reminded them of their oneness in Christ.

“I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” – Ephesians 4:1-6 ESV

In the prayer He prayed in the garden on the night of His betrayal, Jesus asked the Father, “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21 ESV). It is our unity that displays the reality of the church’s role as God’s temple. God alone can bring together people of every age, from every walk of life, ethnicity, economic strata, and social background, and mold them into one family. All sharing one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. Paul reminds the believers in Corinth, “So don’t boast about following a particular human leader. For everything belongs to you—whether Paul or Apollos or Peter, or the world, or life and death, or the present and the future. Everything belongs to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God” (1 Corinthians 3:21-23 NLT). Each of these men had been given to the church by God. They were to be seen as gifts from God intended for the building up of the body of Christ. As Paul told the Ephesian church:

^“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.” – Ephesians 4:11-12 NLT

And God gave these gifted individuals to the church in order that it might grow and prosper, “until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13 NLT). Disunity is destructive. Divisiveness is counterproductive. Boasting in men robs God of glory and the body of Christ of its power. Making celebrities out of God’s servants ends up deifying them and diminishing the effectiveness of the local church. The church may grow in numbers, but it will lack the power of God’s Spirit. When we make much of men, we experience less of God.

Wise and Innocent.

I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you; so do Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my kinsmen. I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord. Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church, greets you. Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother Quartus, greet you. – Romans 16:17-23 ESV

As long as we live in this world, we will face opposition, from within and from without. Paul had a lot of experience dealing with both. But the one he seemed to warn against the most was the inside job, those who posed as brothers and sisters of Christ, but who ended up causing division and disunity. In his other letters, Paul referred to them as false apostles, describing them as “those who are looking for an opportunity to boast that their work is just like ours. These people are false apostles. They are deceitful workers who disguise themselves as apostles of Christ. But I am not surprised! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no wonder that his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:12-15 NLT). In 2 Corinthians 11:26, he refers to dangers he had faced from “false brothers.” In his letter to the Galatians he described “so-called Christians there—false ones, really—who were secretly brought in. They sneaked in to spy on us and take away the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. They wanted to enslave us and force us to follow their Jewish regulations” (Galatians 2:4 NLT). Paul warned his young protege, Timothy, “Teach these things, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them. Some people may contradict our teaching, but these are the wholesome teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. These teachings promote a godly life. Anyone who teaches something different is arrogant and lacks understanding. Such a person has an unhealthy desire to quibble over the meaning of words. This stirs up arguments ending in jealousy, division, slander, and evil suspicions. These people always cause trouble. Their minds are corrupt, and they have turned their backs on the truth. To them, a show of godliness is just a way to become wealthy” (1 Timothy 6:2-5 NLT).

The fact is, there have been and always will be false teachers and false believers in the church. They can be recognized by the character of their teaching. If it does not line up with the teaching of Christ and the writings of the apostles as found in the New Testament, then they are to be avoided like the plague. The difficulty is that, much of the time, their false teaching seems to have a ring of truth to it. And that is intentional. Warren Wiersbe warns, “Satan is the counterfeiter. . . . He has a false gospel (Galatians 1:6-9), preached by false ministers (2 Corinthians 11:13-12), producing false Christians (2 Corinthians 11:26). . . . Satan plants his counterfeits wherever God plants true believers (Matthew 13:38).”

Paul, out of his love for the body of Christ, takes time to warn his readers about those “who cause divisions and create obstacles to the doctrine that you have been taught.”  He is talking about the fundamentals of the faith, particularly when it comes to salvation. Anyone who attempts to add anything to the gospel is to be avoided at all costs. If their teaching is Jesus plus anything, they are wrong. Jesus plus works. Jesus plus circumcision. Jesus plus a second blessing. Jesus plus signs and wonders. Jesus plus anything adds up to nothing. It is NOT the gospel as taught by Jesus and His disciples. Paul says these people “serve their own appetites.” They’re in it for selfish reasons, including anything from power and prestige to personal profit. They use smooth talk and flattery. They use clever-sounding words and convincing arguments. But in the end, what they teach is contrary to sound, healthy doctrine and it is divisive. They tear down rather than build up. They create schisms and attempt to splinter healthy congregations. They are not interested in dialogue or debate, but demand their way be the only way.

So Paul says, “I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.” He echoes the words of Jesus when He was sending out His disciples on their first ministry trip without Him. He said, “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16 ESV). We need to be wary of those who show up teaching “new truths.” After more than 2,000 years of Christian history and scholarship, there is little that is new under the sun. In fact, much of what shows up in our day as new insights into Jesus, the gospel, the nature of the Church, and so much more, is far from new. They are simply rehashed teachings from centuries past. We live in an age where anything new and innovative is attractive. But Paul would have us be careful and stick with the sound doctrine taught by he and his fellow apostles. We should always be suspect of anything that shows up in the church as “new and improved.” A new view on Jesus is probably a false view. A new gospel, if it veers from the gospel as found in the New Testament, is no gospel at all.

At the end of the day, we must trust in the grace of God to protect us and to keep the gospel message pure. Ultimately, Paul reminds us, He will “crush Satan” under our feet. The truth concerning Jesus and the gospel of God will win out. And in the meantime, we must keep our focus on the matchless, priceless grace of God that saved us and sustains us. We must keep trusting in His way, His Word and His perfect plan for the redemption of the world.

Unity in Diversity.

We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.” For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. – Romans 15:1-7 ESV

For fourteen chapters Paul has gone out of his way to establish the fact that there is no place for bragging or pride in the body of Christ. There is no reason for anyone to think he is better than anyone else. All men, regardless of race, color, religious background, or the extent of their sins, stands before God as guilty and condemned. And all who enjoy a right standing before God do so because of what God has done in Christ. No one has earned their way into God’s good graces. No one was less sinful and, therefore, more deserving of God’s favor. As the old hymn states, “the ground is level at the foot of the cross.” We all enjoyed a sense of unity in our shared guilt and sinful standing before God. And those who have been shown grace and mercy by God also share a unity based on their complete dependence upon the gift of His Son’s sacrificial death on the cross. As Paul wrote the Galatian believers, “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28 NLT). We are all one in Christ. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. We have been adopted by the same Father into a single family and enjoy a shared inheritance. And while there is diversity in the body of Christ, there is not to be division or disunity.

In chapter 14, Paul addressed the relationship between stronger and weaker members of the body of Christ. He continues to address this issue in the opening verses of chapter 15. But when Paul refers to strong and weak, he is not talking about degrees of spirituality or holiness. The strong are not better than the weak. They are all one in Christ and there is to be a selfless, loving relationship between the two. In the Greek, the word Paul uses for “strong” is dynotoi and in this context it means, “able to do something” (Thayer’s Greek Lexicon). These individuals, like Paul, know that what they eat does not defile them and so they are able to eat meat without guilt. They know that their relationship with God is based on faith, not a list of dos and don’ts or legalistic regulations. But their “weak” brothers and sisters in Christ are adynatoi or “unable” to do the same thing. As of yet, they lack a freedom in their faith and a knowledge of their relationship with God that would allow them to break away from their self-imposed rules of conscience.

But rather than the strong dismissing the weak and flaunting their freedoms in their faces, Paul urges the stronger believers to “bear with the failings of the weak” (Romans 15:1 ESV). He is not telling them to simply put up with or endure their weaker brothers and sisters in Christ. He is telling them to bastazō or “take up in order to carry or bear, to put upon one’s self (something) to be carried” (Thayer’s Greek Lexicon). This is the same word Paul used when writing to the believers in Galatia: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2 ESV). We are not simply to tolerate those whose lives are still marked by a less developed understanding of faith, we are to walk alongside them and lovingly assist them. There is no place for self-pleasing in the body of Christ. Elsewhere, Paul tells us, “Don't be selfish; don't try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3 NLT). This is the same passage where Paul wrote, “Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose” (Philippians 2:1-2 NLT). We are to be ready, willing and able to give up our rights in order to help a brother or sister grow in their faith. And our model in all of this is Christ. “For even Christ did not please himself,” Paul reminds his readers. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul said that we are to have the same attitude that Christ had, who, “Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being” (Philippians 26-7 NLT). He willingly gave up His divine rights and took on human flesh so that He could provide mankind with a way to be made right with God. He modeled selfless, sacrificial love and gave Himself up for those who did not deserve God’s grace, mercy of forgiveness. And Paul is encouraging us to live our lives with the same attitude or mindset, so “ that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 15:6 ESV). Paul knows that this will not be easy. It will require endurance and encouragement. It will demand that each of us dies to self daily. As we live in unity as the body of Christ, patiently loving one another and bearing with one another, God receives glory. This does not mean there are never to be any  disagreements or points of debate within the church, but it does mean that unity is to trump disunity every time. Loving is to supersede winning. Being one is to be a higher priority than being right.

We are to welcome one another just as Christ has welcomed us. That word means “to receive, i.e. grant one access to one’s heart” (Thayer’s Greek Lexicon). No walls. No lines of division. No barriers that prevent unity or discourage mutual love. Our goal should always be oneness. Our objective should always be the building up of the body of Christ – for our mutual good and God’s ultimate glory.