Paul's Greeting to the Church at Corinth: Not "Skip" Material

 “Paul, called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, to the church of God, which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their lord and ours. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” – I Corinthians 1:1-3

At first glance, Paul’s greeting to the church at Corinth may seem like something we can safely skip over in order to get to the meat of the letter, as if it were really nothing more than a drawn-out way of saying, “Dear Church at Corinth.” If we take time to focus in on it, however, I think we’ll find that there’s actually some good food for thought here.

Paul begins his letter by identifying himself as “an apostle of Jesus Christ.” The word “apostle” comes from the Greek term apostolos, meaning “sent from.” An apostle is effectively an emissary or a representative, something along the lines of an ambassador: one empowered to speak and/or act on behalf of another. For this reason, to receive an apostle and heed his word is to receive and heed the word of the person who sent him, as if the apostle were in fact that person. By the same token, to reject an apostle and disregard his word is to reject and disregard the one who sent him. When Jesus sent his twelve apostles out to minister, he endowed them with his own authority and said, “He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me” (Matthew 10:10). In this way, we see that Christ was an apostle in his own right, as he was sent to minister in the name and authority of the Father. As Jesus himself said in John 10:25, “The works that I do in my Father’s name, these testify of me.” To come or go “in the name” of someone was a common way of invoking emissarial authority in the past, even up until relatively recent times. For instance, we’re all familiar with the phrase, “Stop in the name of the law!” Anyone who says this is claiming the power to invoke the law in a given situation.

By referring to himself as an apostle at the outset of his letter, Paul is telling the Corinthians that Jesus Christ has sent him out to teach and preach as an empowered emissary. Note that he refers to himself as having been “called” to his office by the will of God. In the book of Galatians, Paul is even more clear on this when he addresses the church: “Paul, an apostle (not sent from men nor through the agency of men, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead)”. Thus, Paul asserts that his apostleship is of divine origin, not human: he is truly an emissary of God.

He then addresses the church at Corinth as “the church of God.” The word translated “church” is the Greek word ekklesia, which was used in the Greco-Roman world to refer to a public assembly that was called out by an authority for some reason. By using this sort of terminology here, Paul is reminding the Corinthians that they have been called out into their assembly by God, and that he is God’s emissary to them, sent for their instruction. “You have been called by the authority of God, and thus for God’s purposes, not your own,” Paul is telling them, “and I am God’s emissary, empowered by God to speak and act on his behalf. For this reason, you should pay attention to what I’m about to say to you.”

Now, anyone can say they’ve been sent by God, but it’s another thing to prove it. This is what Jesus was getting at in Matthew 9, where some people brought him a paralyzed man who was lying on a mat. Jesus said to him, “Take courage son; your sins are forgiven.” When he said this, some of those standing nearby said to themselves that he was committing blasphemy, for only God had the authority to forgive sins. Knowing this, Jesus turned to them and said, “Which is easier to say? ‘Your sins are forgiven?’ or ‘Get up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins—He then said to the paralytic, ‘Get up, pick up your bed and go home.’”

Which is easier to say? “Your sins are forgiven”? or, “Get up, pick up your bed and go home”? It’s far easier to say “Your sins are forgiven,” because there is no evident demonstration that forgiveness of sins has actually taken place. Anyone can say this; it doesn’t mean they act with divine authority. But when you say, “Get up, pick up your bed and go home,” something had better happen, or else everyone will know right away that you’re a fraud. So, when Jesus said this, and the paralyzed man actually did get up and walk home, he had demonstrated the power of God, and his claim to be God’s emissary—endowed with the authority to forgive sins—was to be taken seriously.

The New Testament tells us that, when the apostles began to go out and teach in Jesus’ name, they also did the works that Jesus did: meaning the supernatural signs. Paul had performed such signs amongst the Corinthians, as he notes in II Corinthians 12:12: “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles.” Anyone can claim anything as long as he isn’t required to prove it. Paul had proven his authority, however, and he reminds the Corinthians of it here at the outset of his letter to them, just as he does a few chapters later: “But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I shall find out not the words of those who are arrogant but their power. For the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power” (I Corinthians 4:19-20).

All of this is instructive for us in a few ways.

First, the church—the called-out assembly—is God’s, and has been called out for his purposes. The church does not exist to do its own thing, but rather, to hear the word of God and to do the will of God. I have nothing against denominations, per se, but in the past I’ve seen a lot of pride go into what essentially boils down to “I am of Calvin,” “I am of Luther,” “I am of Rome,” etc., as per I Corinthians 1:11-13: 

 

“For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you. Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, ‘I am of Paul,’ and ‘I of Apollos,’ and ‘I of Cephas,’ and ‘I of Christ.’ Has Christ been divided? Paul wasn’t crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?”

The body of Christ is just that: Christ’s. It doesn’t belong to anyone else, and we shouldn’t treat it as if it does. The man who stands in a pulpit and says, “This is my church,” has forgotten himself. It’s Christ’s church, and it should be about the business of listening to his word and doing his works. Yes, I recognize that there are differences of opinion on many matters, including how the faith ought to be practiced. We have no central authority to settle these differences; and, to be frank, from what we find in the New Testament, it doesn’t look like the apostles—certainly not Paul, anyway—were concerned about resolving all such matters. Denominations exist for a reason, but we cannot afford to become so caught up in catechisms, confessions, doctrinal statements, associations, schools of interpretation, and cults of personality that we lose our primary focus: It is Christ’s church, called for his purposes, to hear his word, and to do his will. Those are really rather simple matters, but it seems like secondary issues have come to occupy most of the church’s time. This cannot do anything but divide us and even set us against one another, whereas Christ called for unity based on adherence to his commandments (see John 13-17).

Second, not everyone who claims to speak for God actually does so. This would seem rather self-evident, and it’s certainly easy to spot false teachers in other churches and denominations, yes? (to borrow from Paul, “I speak as though mad”); but in our midst, and among our own kind, we tend to miss the imposters. In the most tragic of instances, we deliberately overlook or even apologize for them so as to “not hurt the ministry.”

How many people serving in ministry today are not, as Paul was, “called” by God, but have rather been called by parents, by churches, by denominations, by deacon boards, by schools, by Grandmas who wanted a preacher in the family, and so forth? Before someone cries “Touch not the Lord’s anointed!” may we ask what evidence there is that the person of concern is, in fact, the Lord’s anointed? Paul, who had performed miracles amongst the Corinthians, made it plain that he was going to challenge his rivals to (in the language of Exodus) throw down their rods. In other words, he was going to hold an old-fashioned contest of power, such as Moses and Elijah might have done. Now, miracles do still happen. In the past two years, I’ve seen two instances where someone’s declining health turned on a dime after they received prayer; and the change was so rapid and remarkable that I’m convinced it was not happenstance (and I’m a skeptic by nature). So, yes, the miraculous is one type of test for an individual who comes along claiming to be a real emissary of God, but they are not common, and they can be fabricated. It would also do us good to remember that emissaries of the other kingdom can sometimes do such things as well. If you see what you believe to be a truly divine act, it’s best to ask: Who has just been glorified here? No true man or woman of God is going to direct the praise for a genuine miracle to him or herself.

In lieu of supernatural attestation, the next best test is that of Christlikeness. Does the person in question act like the Christ you read about in the gospels? Is he or she humble? Do they appear to seek attention and glorify themselves? Do they appear to be their own authority? How do they respond to criticism and/or disagreement? Can they correct someone without humiliating them? Do they lead like a shepherd or bludgeon like a tyrant? Do they handle the church, its affairs, and its people like it all belongs to them, or like they’re caring for someone else’s prized possessions?

We ought to exercise caution in our assessments here. At times, even the apostles could behave in an un-Christlike manner (see Acts 15:36-39, Galatians 2). We are all still human, after all. We have our failings; and, as James says in his epistle, “We all offend in many ways.” Ultimately, the story is told in a person’s overall character. A person may have off-moments, but what is it that defines their life? Are they habitually aggressive? Habitually prideful? Habitual attention-seekers? As Christ himself said, “You shall know them by their fruits”:

 

“Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.” – Matthew 7:16-18).

It’s also important to remember that a person can start off well, but ultimately turn against Christ, seeking to do his own thing. Witness how Paul refers to a man named Demas as being among his companions who sent greetings to the churches in Colossians 4:14 and Philemon 1:24, but later refers to him as having forsaken Paul and the work of the gospel, “having loved this present age” (II Timothy 4:10). The author of Hebrews instructs Christians to actively guard one another against the danger of departing from the faith:

 

“Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another, day after day, as long as it is still called ‘Today,’ so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” – Hebrews 3:11-13

Such people sometimes leave the church altogether, but others hang around trying to carve out kingdoms for themselves, and they can do tremendous harm.

 

“I wrote something to the church; but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not receive what we say…he himself does not receive the brethren, either, and he forbids those who desire to do so and puts them out of the church.” – III John 1:9-10

 

“These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted…” – Jude 1:12

Bottom Line: Paul’s greeting to the church at Corinth underscores the nature and responsibility of the church as belong to God and called out for his purposes, as well as the importance of ensuring that those who instruct believers in the name of the Lord have actually been called and sent for that purpose by God rather than by men.

 

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All scriptures cited here are from the NASB.

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