Tag: 1 Corinthians

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Tempting God

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 1.28
God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.

Reflection: Tempting God
The Park Forum

If morality was all that Christ desired for the lives of his followers, the cross would be superfluous. Christ’s response, when tempted in the wilderness, wasn’t “that would be immoral,” but, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Theologian J.P. Lange explains; “To tempt God is to involve oneself in four contradictions: (1) faith without obedience, (2) prayer without self-surrender, (3) action without warrant from on high, and (4) success without comfort or assurance.”

To tempt God is to give the appearance of spiritual vitality, as Lange points out, but still live unfaithfully. Jesus’ success in temptation shows how broken we are. The Christian experience isn’t just about doing the right things—if we cultivate righteousness under our own power, we still miss relationship with God.

“If the truth of being justified by Christ alone—not by our works—is lost, then all Christian truths are lost,” Martin Luther cautioned. The great reformer believed one of the keys to faithfulness was renewing the gospel—the good news of Christ’s work—in our hearts daily. Luther continues:

Now both these things continue while we live here. We are accused, exercised with temptations, oppressed with heaviness and sorrow, and bruised by the law with its demands of active righteousness. These attacks fall upon our flesh—the part of our heart that still seeks to earn our salvation.

There is no middle ground between Christian righteousness and works-righteousness. There is no other alternative to Christian righteousness but works-righteousness; if you do not build your confidence on the work of Christ you must build your confidence on your own work. On this truth and only on this truth the church is built and has its being.

This distinction is easy to utter in words, but in use and experience it is very hard. For in times of struggle, the devil will seek to terrify us by using against us our past record, the wrath, and law of God. So learn to speak to one’s heart and to the Law. When the law creeps into your conscience, learn to be a cunning logician—learn to use arguments of the gospel against it.

The Greeting
I put my trust in your mercy; my heart is joyful because of your saving help. — Psalm 13.5

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
1 Samuel 17 (Listen – 8:59)
Romans 15 (Listen – 4:32)

This Weekend’s Readings
1 Samuel 18 (Listen – 4:30) Romans 16 (Listen – 3:30)
1 Samuel 19 (Listen – 3:43) 1 Corinthians 1 (Listen – 4:03)

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Take and Eat :: A Lenten Reflection

The image of Scripture as food is never more vivid than in the season Lent. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God,” said Jesus. The offer had been extended to Christ: quench your material longings by your own ability. Jesus’ reply?In the end, that wouldn’t satisfy my deepest longings.

But how are we satisfied by the word of God? The basic metaphor of Scripture as nourishment demonstrates Christ’s expectation that we would not simply intake his word, but digest it. It is through daily meditation that we carry the word of God with us—breaking down the whole into discrete parts which can be processed into our thinking and habits.

Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote that this action—carrying and integrating the word of God—is what separates real faith from false religion:

Genuine faith is never satisfied with the religious way of doing things – Sabbath worship or an hour or a half-hour of each day. Christianity is nothing else but faith right in the middle of actual life and weekdays. But we have reduced it to quiet hours, thereby indirectly admitting that we are not really being Christians. That we should have quiet times to think about God – this seems so elevated and beautiful, so solemn. It is so hypocritical, because in this way we exempt daily life from the authentic worship of God.

Yet this process activates our heart’s defense mechanisms. Kierkegaard confronts our refined ways of avoiding this tension:

The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to under­stand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accord­ingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget every­thing except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world?

Nourishment is incomplete until food is converted to energy—faith to action. Truly our lives are transformed through the food of God’s word; our potential for flourishing is unlocked through its nourishment. It is our desire to maintain control over our lives, Kierkegaard warns, that keeps us from living by every word from the mouth of God; “Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.”

Today’s Reading
Job 30 (Listen – 3:14)
1 Corinthians 16 (Listen – 2:54)

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Be Ye Perfect :: A Lenten Reflection

“Be ye perfect is not idealistic gas,” warns C.S. Lewis. “Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command.” Lewis, after examining how we cling to earthly pursuits, goes on to show how letting them go radically reorients the life of a Christian:
You must realize from the outset that the goal towards which he is beginning to guide you is absolute perfection; and no power in the whole universe, except yourself, can prevent him from taking you to that goal.

Many of us, when Christ has enabled us to overcome one or two sins that were an obvious nuisance, are inclined to feel (though we do not put it into words) that we are now good enough. He has done all we wanted him to do, and we should be obliged if he would now leave us alone. As we say, “I never expected to be a saint, I only wanted to be a decent ordinary chap.” And we imagine when we say this that we are being humble.
The discipleship process, then, is not defined by the Christian, but by the Scriptures, Church, and Paraclete. “The question,” Lewis says, “is not what we intend ourselves to be, but what he intended us to be when he made us.”

Likewise, if the Lenten season is reduced to what we want to gain or lose through fasting we miss the point entirely. Fasting is the process of winnowing the clutches of our flesh so that the glory of God might be fully realized in our appetites, attitudes, and actions. Lewis, imagining the words of Christ, writes:
That is why he warned people to ‘count the cost’ before becoming Christians. “Make no mistake,” he says, “If you let me, I will make you perfect. You have free will and, if you chose, you can push me away. But if you do not push me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs me, I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you are literally perfect—until my father can say without reservation that he is well pleased with you, as he said he was well pleased with me.”

Today’s Reading
Job 27 (Listen – 2:21)
1 Corinthians 13 (Listen – 2:23)

This Weekend’s Readings
Job 28 (Listen – 2:44) 1 Corinthians 14 (Listen – 5:40)
Job 29 (Listen – 2:26) 1 Corinthians 15 (Listen – 8:06)

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Clutching Earthly Pursuits :: A Lenten Reflection

There is no season of self-discipline in the church calendar. No period in which Christians are instructed to bear down and try to live better lives. And yet, tellingly, our hearts bend this way—to grasp for holiness with our own power.

C.S. Lewis remarks, “We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way—centered on money or pleasure or ambition—and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly.” This conflict—clutching earthly pursuits while attempting to spiritually self-regulate and manage sin—is exactly what makes us miserable. “This is what Christ warned us you could not do,” Lewis explains:
Something else—call it ‘morality’ or ‘decent behavior’, or ‘the good of society’—has claims on this self: claims which interfere with its own desires. Other things, which the self did not want to do, turn out to be what we call ‘right’: well, we shall have to do them. But we are hoping all the time that when all the demands have been met, the poor natural self will still have some chance, and some time, to get on with its own life and do what it likes.
As the season of Lent makes us conscious of this sinfulness, so the Church calendar as a whole reorients our attention to Christ’s presence. We are not left on our own. Christ redeems us from the wilderness of pride and brokenness. Lewis concludes:
If I am a field that contains nothing but grass-seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may keep it short, but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be ploughed up and re-sown.

Christ says, “Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.”

Today’s Reading
Job 25-26 (Listen – 1:52)
1 Corinthians 12 (Listen – 4:25)

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Strength in Weakness :: A Lenten Reflection

“Christ’s time of passion begins not with Holy Week but with the first day of his preaching,” wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer. “His renunciation of the empire as a kingdom of this world takes place not at Golgotha but at the very beginning.”

In this season of reflection we reorient our understanding of Christ’s life—his ongoing sacrifice, pouring himself out from the moment of birth. Bonhoeffer continues:

Jesus could have been Lord of this world. As the Messiah the Jews had dreamed of, he could have freed Israel and led it to fame and honor. He is a remarkable man, who is offered dominion over the world even before the beginning of his ministry. And it is even more remarkable that he turns down this offer. He knows that for this dominion he would have to pay a price that is too high for him. It would come at the cost of obedience to God’s will.

“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him” (Luke 4:8). Jesus knows what that means. It means lowliness, abuse, persecution. It means remaining misunderstood. It means hate, death, the cross. And he chooses this way from the beginning. It is the way of obedience and the way of freedom, for it is the way of God. And therefore it is also the way of love for human beings.
It is only through the power of God’s Spirit that we are able to embrace the radically sacrificial lifestyle of Christ. Remarkably, no Christian is better than another at doing this—we all fail. We all must cry out for God’s strength. Bonhoeffer is a giant of faith, but he was not exempt from this cry; something we see in his Lenten Prayer:
I Cannot Do This Alone
O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray
And to concentrate my thoughts on you;
I cannot do this alone.
In me there is darkness,
But with you there is light;
I am lonely, but you do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;
I am restless, but with you there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;
I do not understand your ways,
But you know the way for me….
Restore me to liberty,
And enable me to live now
That I may answer before you and before men.
Lord whatever this day may bring,
Your name be praised.
Amen

Today’s Reading
Job 24 (Listen – 2:56)
1 Corinthians 11 (Listen – 4:20)