08 Who are the Carnal Christians? (1 Corinthians 3:1-4)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome back to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is Serious Bible Study Applied to Real Life. This is the podcast where we try to explain not only what a passage means, but how we figured it out. Today we're going to be looking at 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verses 1 through 4, and this is already the eighth talk in our series on the book of 1 Corinthians. You can find lecture notes for today's talk with everything mentioned in the talk on our website. You can reach that at the link below the podcast, or just go to Wednesdayintheword.com slash 1 Corinthians 8. Glad to have you along. We're only going to look at a few verses today because these verses have been the center of a theological debate, at least in American Christianity. And it's a debate that keeps coming back over and over again. It pops up under one name, gets debated, loses its popularity, and then a few years later it pops up again with a different name, and we go through the debate again and it keeps coming back. I'm going to refer to it as Victorious Christian Living, or VCL for short, because that's the name it fell under when I first encountered the issue. I'm not sure if that name is still used much today. Some not all, but some of the proponents of spiritual disciplines and spiritual formation are really new proponents of Victorious Christian Living, but the idea comes and goes and when it comes back it usually has a slightly different name. The debate centers over the question can we have victory over sin in our lives now? And if so, how? And the VCL folks or Victorious Christian Living would say yes, we can have victory over any given sin at any given moment, and they will teach you strategies and techniques for ensuring that you can have victory over sin today. Among the key verses that they cite to support this theology is 1 Corinthians chapter 3 verses 1 through 3, which is what we're gonna look at today. And I will tell you up front, I believe that the VCL folks are wrong in their theology, and I believe they are wrong in their understanding of 1 Corinthians 3. So I'm gonna attempt to show you why I think they're wrong from the context, and I'm going to argue that Paul's concept of spirituality in these verses is very different than what VCL proposes. But first let's review where we are in the letter. Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthian church in response to a letter that they had sent him asking him a series of questions, and later in the letter he's going to respond to those specific questions. He also received a verbal report from some messengers about the situation in Corinth, and we're in the middle of a discussion that runs from chapter one through the end of chapter four. Paul began this letter writing about the divisions in their church and how he wanted them to unify around the truth of the gospel. But the divisions in their church are just a symptom of a deeper issue that he's addressing, and that's the fact that the Corinthians have rejected the gospel because they want a gospel that is more appealing to their sophisticated intellectual town, and in the process they have rejected Paul's authority as an apostle because they want a more eloquent, sophisticated teacher like Apollos. So a number of folks in the Corinthian church find Paul inadequate as a teacher because he lacks this quality that they would call wisdom. And Paul has responded to that claim. He says the gospel is offensive because the cross is offensive, it's never going to be popular, it's never going to appeal to the educated, sophisticated elite. The cross and a crucified Messiah appears to be a foolish message to the world, but in fact that message is true wisdom. And Paul has argued he's not going to change his message to make it less offensive because then it wouldn't be the gospel at all. In chapter two, he turned directly to the issue of how he spoke when he was with them and when he taught them, and he reminds them that when he was in Corinth, he taught them the complete and accurate gospel, and that God confirmed his authority as an apostle with miraculous signs, so that they can have confidence in the message he taught. He argued that he did not try to impress them with his worldly wisdom, he came to teach them wisdom from God, and he came to teach those whom the Spirit had prepared to hear the message. The world is going to find his message foolish, but those in whom the Spirit of God has been working will see the gospel for the true wisdom that it is. So in chapter two, he talked about the work of the Spirit imparting spiritual truths to him as an apostle, and he talked about how the Spirit prepared his listeners to hear and understand and recognize the truth of the gospel. So he said his job is to take the things that God has made known to him and explain that to those whom God has given understanding. And we talked last time about the difference between revelation and understanding. Revelation is something that God has to tell us. It's a message that no one would understand until God chooses to reveal it to his messengers. And Paul claims he and the apostles are those messengers. Understanding is the work of the Spirit in those of us who hear that message to soften our hearts, open our ears so that we see and understand and recognize it as wisdom. Now in chapter three, Paul is still on the subject of how his listeners received his message, and he's talking directly to the Corinthians about their own response. So I'm going to read the first four verses. This is the New American Standard Version. And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not yet able to receive it, indeed even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly, for since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly? And are you not walking like mere men? For when one says I am of Paul and another I am of Apollos, are you not mere men? Those are the verses we're going to look at. The issue we want to talk about is what distinction is Paul making? He's clearly making a distinction between spiritual people and people of flesh, and what is the difference between them? What does Paul think is the difference between them? Another translation for fleshly in three three is carnal, and this is the passage where the term carnal Christians comes from. You may have heard that phrase. This is the passage where people get the idea that there are spiritual Christians and there are carnal Christians. So to set the stage, I want to start with a very brief history of American Christianity on this question and how this issue became a debate for us. If you've studied church history, you know that John Wesley had a big impact on American Christianity. And Wesley, over the course of his life, came to reject the reformed view of election, and he developed a different picture of how we come to salvation. Wesley thought that God gave everyone the power to freely choose. So yes, we were trapped in original sin, but then God frees us from that, and now we are free to decide on our own, without any more influence from God, whether or not we will follow him. And Wesley applied this same view to sanctification. He thought we've all been given the power to choose freely whether or not we will follow God, and we are free to choose how far we will progress in sanctification. So from Wesley we get this picture that we have a free choice to make. God has done everything he needed to do, and now we must first choose to believe, and second we must choose to be sanctified. And if we choose properly, we can't reach sanctification or a state of perfection. Essentially, Wesley thought that we needed two evangelisms. The first one was to the sinner. This was the first evangelism to come to belief and turn from sin. And the second one was for the saint to choose to be sanctified, and if we choose properly, we will arrive at a perfect, sanctified state in this life. And if we don't surrender ourselves to God, then we'll still be saved, but we won't be sanctified. Now Wesley had a lot of influence, and one of the things he influenced was the Keswick movement, which started in, I think, the early 1800s. Keswick is a little town in England. It's spelled like Keswick, K-E-S-W-I-C-K, but I believe it's pronounced Keswick. I may be wrong, but I think that's how it's pronounced. And they started what they called the Convention for the Promotion of Practical Holiness. And over the course of this weeklong conference, they taught what Christians needed to know so that they could surrender to God and be sanctified. So the first day maybe they preached about sin and the second day the cross, and the third day they teach you how to surrender your life to God to bring about sanctification and so forth. And they believed that we have the power of the Holy Spirit inside us. We just need to learn how to use it. So we need to be taught how to walk by the Spirit. Sometimes you see the language how to know, reckon, and yield, which is language that comes out of Romans. They thought that God has already given us all the power necessary to avoid sin, and we just need to learn how to reach out and appropriate it. Some Keswick thinkers talk about a second blessing of the Holy Spirit, which they think is necessary to gain sanctification and sinless perfection. So here are some quotes from Keswick thinkers. Quote We believe that the Word of God teaches that the normal Christian life is one of uniform, sustained victory over known sin, and that no temptation is permitted to happen to us without a way of escape being provided by God so that we may be able to bear it. And another one, the normal experience of the child of God should be one of victory instead of grinding bondage, and one of perfect peace instead of restless worry. And then the Kesak movement shows that in Christ there is provided for every victory, liberty, and rest, and that this may be obtained not by a lifelong struggle after an impossible ideal, but by the surrender of the individual to God and by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. One person wrote, Before I experienced failure and was astonished at deliverance, now I expect deliverance and am astonished at failure. Now the Keswick movement became very influential in early American Christianity. This idea that the Christian life is all about learning how to avail yourself of the power of the Holy Spirit became very widespread. The key teaching was if you decide to embrace and appropriate the power of the Spirit, you will experience a life of victory and peace now. But if you don't surrender yourself to the power of God through his spirit, then you're a carnal Christian. And they would use this language from 1 Corinthians. And Keswick thinkers would say carnal Christians are those who are saved but do not properly choose to appropriate the power of this God's Spirit. So spiritual Christians are those who choose wisely and rightly and surrender themselves to the power of the Holy Spirit. Carnal Christians, on the other hand, are not doing that. They're still saved, but they're not being sanctified. So the key idea in Keswick theology is the power is in my hands. God has done his part, God has given me all he's going to give me, and the rest is up to me. He's given me all the tools that I need. The only question is will I use them or not? And if I use them, I'm a spiritual Christian, and if I don't use them, I'm a carnal Christian, and see that's the distinction they would argue that Paul is making in 1 Corinthians 3. Now when I was in college, one of the campus evangelical groups had these booklets. And first they would ask you, are you a believer? And if you said no, they would give you a booklet with basically the four spiritual laws. And if you said yes, I am a believer, then they would hand you this other booklet that explained there are three kinds of people. There are natural people who have not received Christ, so these are unbelievers. There are spiritual people who have received Christ and are directed and empowered by the Holy Spirit. They have learned to appropriate the power of the Spirit in their lives. And then there are carnal people who have received Christ, but they continue to live on their own strength, not on God's Spirit, and they are saved, but they are not being sanctified. And this booklet cited as evidence for this theology these verses in First Corinthians. Because in this passage, Paul talks about the natural man, the spiritual man, and the fleshly, or the carnal man. So that's the background. And you've probably recognized that I do not think that this is what Paul is talking about at all. I don't think that's what he means in these verses of First Corinthians, and that it's not even in his mind as he's writing these words. So I want to come at this debate through a series of questions because Bible study is all about learning to ask questions of the text and find answers to them. So the first question what is the issue in this section in context? So what was on Paul's mind when he wrote these verses? VCL folks, Victorious Christian living or Keswick thinkers, they would answer that Paul sees the issue as power over sin. And how do you find that power? At any given moment when I face a temptation, how do I resist that temptation? How do I find the power and appropriate the power to avoid that temptation and avoid sin? They would say that this is what Paul is speaking to. In these verses, Paul is speaking to the issue, what do I do when I am tempted? How do I use the power of the Holy Spirit to avoid falling into sin and have victory over it instead? Well, let's think about that. What has Paul been talking about up to this point? What has Paul been talking about so far? And then let's consider the question, would he be likely to raise the issue of how to have victory over sin at this point in his argument? So you'll remember Paul has been contrasting the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of the gospel. He has been defending his decision not to spin or alter the gospel to make it more attractive to the world. And he's been defending the fact that the gospel is not man-made, but rather it is true revelation from God. He's claimed that only those in whom the Spirit of God is working will see it as wisdom, and the rest will see the gospel as foolish. Now, in that discussion, to me, it does not seem likely that he would say, Oh, and by the way, here's how we have victory over sin when you face temptation. He's discussing whether or not the gospel is wise. He's defending the way he taught it, and I don't think he'd stop to say, oh, okay, and now when you sin, do this. The issue in the context is not having power over sin. The issue in the context is do you have eyes to see the gospel as wisdom? Up until this point, Paul has referred to the spiritual person as the one who judges the gospel rightly. The spiritual person is the one who sees the gospel, hears it, and embraces it as the valuable wisdom that it is. And that's I think what he meant by the spiritual person in chapter two that he just got done explaining. In chapter two, he just made this distinction. The natural man is the one to whom the things of God seem foolish, the spiritual man is the one who recognizes the value and the wisdom of the things of God. That's the context from chapter two. The issue is how do you respond to the gospel? Do you reject it as foolish or do you embrace it as wisdom? Now remember, some of the Corinthians are rejecting Paul and his gospel as unwise because Paul lacks this rhetorical eloquence and sophisticated debating style of the sophist. And Paul has now turned the tables on them. He said, You reject me as unwise, but the spiritual person recognizes the gospel that I preach as wisdom from God. What does that say about you, Corinthians? You're responding to me the way the world responds to me. If you were spiritual, if you had the eyes to see and understand the gospel, you would recognize the gospel I'm preaching as wisdom. And that's the context. That's the issue on the table. The issue of being spiritual is how you respond to the gospel, not how you respond to temptation. And the issue is whether you humbly embrace the gospel as true and wise or you consider it foolish. So that's the first question. The second question, what does Paul mean by not speaking to them as spiritual people? And this distinction he makes between giving them milk versus solid food. Let me read three, one, and two again. And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to a spiritual man, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able. As we looked at in the last podcast, Paul has just defended the true wisdom of the gospel, and he talked about the two different ways the Spirit works. First, the Spirit reveals the mystery of the gospel to the apostles and God's messengers such that they accurately understand it. So the first work of the Spirit is to reveal or give understanding to God's messengers. God proclaims his message to his messengers. That's revelation. The second work of the Spirit is to give understanding to those who hear the gospel, such that they will ultimately respond to the gospel and see it as wisdom. So that's what the Spirit does in the rest of us. An apostle or one of God's messengers proclaims his accurate apostolic understanding of the message. We hear that and the Spirit works on us such that we understand it. We open our eyes and ears to hear it and embrace it. That was part of his defense that the gospel he preaches is true wisdom because it comes from the Spirit of God. But the caution is that it takes the work of the Spirit to recognize and embrace the gospel. Left to ourselves, we would all reject it and mock it and scoff at the gospel and consider it foolish. It takes the work of the Spirit in our lives to soften our hearts so that we understand it. Now in chapter three, I think Paul is further exploring this question of spiritual maturity of the Corinthians. So at the end of chapter two, he implied, If you're hearing my gospel and you don't see the wisdom in it, that says more about you, Corinthians, than it does about me, Paul. The spiritual person, the one in whom the Spirit of God is working, will judge rightly the things of God. The natural person, the one in whom the Spirit of God is not working, is the one who rejects the gospel when he hears it. Which way are you, Corinthians, responding? Your response indicates whether God is working in your life or not. And you Corinthians are looking back on my teaching and judging it as lacking. You're saying, you know, Paul, he's not very. Impressive, he's kind of boring, and what are you basing that judgment on? You're basing it on what you remember of me when I was there and the gospel I preached among you. But if you're going to judge the wisdom of what I was saying, let's stop and remember who I was talking to. When I first met you, you weren't believers. And then some of you became believers, but you were infants. You were brand new baby believers. You ought to be thinking about who you are. You're judging the depth of my wisdom, but remember you were non-believers and then just barely believers when I was teaching you. Just how deep could I go with you? Remember that you were brand new to the gospel. You hardly knew anything yet. The Spirit of God had just begun working in you to give you understanding. So with that in mind, that's the context coming in from chapter two. Let me read this again. And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly, for since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? For when one says I am of Paul and another I am of Apollos, are you not mere men? So as we approach this, I think the wrong question to ask is what's the content of the milk and what's the content of the meat? It's very tempting to connect this phrase about milk and solid food with what he said earlier about I preach nothing among you but Christ crucified, as if the gospel itself is milk or baby food. And scholars then try to figure out, okay, the gospel, the basic plain vanilla gospel, that must be the milk. What's the meat? Maybe the meat is the five points of Calvinism or eschatology or something like that. That is a possible interpretation, but I don't think it fits the flow of his thought here, especially since he has just been defending the gospel itself as true wisdom. I don't think he's got a particular piece of information in mind that is milk and a different piece of information in mind that is meat, but rather he's saying, look, the gospel gives me a completely new picture on life. It gives me a new worldview on my relationship with the world, on my relationship with God, and on my relationship with other believers. Embracing the gospel is a radical new way of viewing life and thinking about what's important. It challenges me, it changes me, it moves me to repentance. And there are things that I have to learn as I live out my faith. Once I personally decide, yes, the gospel is true, then there is this gradual process of growing in my understanding of how the gospel changes my worldview. So as I wrestle with trials, as I wrestle with troubles and changes in life, I come to understand more and more what the gospel means and how my life is different. And as I wrestle with those changes, I grow in my maturity and wisdom and understanding of that worldview. And I begin to think differently, act differently, and choose differently. Now Paul's saying, when I'm talking to new immature believers, there's only so much I can teach you. It's going to take some time growing and some experience to really grasp and see all the implications of what I'm saying. You may hear it, but it takes a while to see how the gospel changes things. Some ideas you're just not going to appreciate until you get some life experience as a believer behind you. You can hear it, you can understand it, but it won't profoundly impact you until you get more experience. Now this ought to be familiar with us. If you're a parent, you know that you can talk about a lot of things with your children, but there are things your children just won't get until they have some life experience. They just won't understand it until they get some adult experiences behind them. So you can teach kids a lot, and there's a lot they can understand intellectually, but they really learn from those places where life takes a strange turn or they don't get what they want, or tragedy, or trial, or failure strikes, and then suddenly they have to apply the gospel in that situation. It's in those life experiences where we wrestle with who is God, why is he letting this happen in my life? What does it mean to follow him here? In those experiences, you gain wisdom and maturity. And we need to reach those places. We need to live through those places to really understand the gospel. And until we do, there are some things we just won't really understand. And I think that's what Paul's saying here. You were infants, you were new believers, you didn't have the experience yet to grasp what I was teaching you. Now you may be familiar with this in your own life. Have you ever had the experience where you come back to a passage of scripture that you studied years ago, maybe you studied it five years ago and you haven't read it in a while, and now you come back to it and all of a sudden you go, Oh, I really get it now. I understand what the author's saying, and you grasp these implications that you didn't get five years earlier. Well, why is that happening? Because in those five years, God has taught you, you have gained life experience that has given you a deeper perspective and deeper wisdom and maturity. So now when you come back to the text, you understand it more fully, you grasp more of the implications of what the author is saying. And I think that's the kind of thing Paul is talking about here with milk and meat. He's saying, You Corinthians were just too new in the faith to fully appreciate everything I could teach you. You're judging how wise and profound I, Paul, am as a speaker, but you're not mature enough to really grasp all the implications of how the gospel changes your life. And you're not going to fully grasp them until you gain some wisdom and maturity. So I would say, yes, Paul still gave them food, but it's just the beginning of the journey. He's not saying I deliberately decided not to talk to you about anything that was too hard. I think he's saying, look, I told you a lot, but you lacked the wisdom and the maturity to fully grasp it. Okay, let's go to the third question. Does Paul see himself as talking to genuine believers or not? Paul calls them infants in Christ. He refers to them as brethren here in 3 1, and Keswick thinkers would claim that Paul believes he is talking to genuine believers, but some of them are carnal. They don't have that second blessing of learning how to appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives yet. And I would answer that it's very clear as we go through both Corinthian letters that not all of the folks in Corinth are believers. And I think that Paul is aware of this, and that Paul does not assume that he is writing to only believers and members of the elect. I think he assumes that some of them are genuine believers, some of them are mature, some of them are immature, and some of them are not yet believers, and some of them are faking it. He doesn't think that all of them have embraced the gospel. When he says they're infants in Christ, I don't think it's appropriate for us to assume that that means he thinks they are all genuinely part of the elect. When we have evidence to the contrary in the letter, and the next letter he writes to them. So I would understand that language to mean they are baby believers. They are infants in the things of Christ. When it comes to the things of Christ, they just don't know a lot yet, they're just babies, and it remains to be seen whether they are genuine believers or not, and whether or not they will remain committed to the faith. Time will tell. And fourth, the last question and the most important question, when Paul says you are still fleshly or you are still carnal in some translations, is he suggesting that there are two kinds of Christians? That there are spiritual Christians and there are carnal Christians. What's the distinction that Paul is making? What is the picture of spirituality that he has? That's the crucial question of interpreting this passage. Now VCL thinkers or Keswick philosophers, or it's sometimes called higher life philosophy. They would say that Paul is talking to genuine believers here. He describes them as spiritual and carnal, so there must be two kinds of believers. Carnal Christians, they argue, are genuine believers who are not appropriating the power of God and therefore still living in their sins. They are choosing to operate by the power of the flesh. They will be saved on judgment day, but they are going to struggle and face temptation and sin now. On the other hand, they would say, spiritual Christians are those who choose to operate on the power of the Spirit, and the difference between them is whether or not they choose to appropriate the power of the Spirit in their daily lives. So VCL folks, Keswick thinkers, higher life philosophers, they would say God has given us all the resources we need, and if something's not working, the problem's on my end. It's because I haven't made it work yet. Well, I would suggest a different model to try to explain why Paul makes this distinction between spiritual and carnal Christians. Now I am working on the assumption that James and Paul agree. I am using my understanding of the book of James. I'm also applying my understanding of Paul's other writings, particularly Romans, where Paul spells out his picture of spirituality and how Christians reach maturity. So I am not interpreting this in a vacuum, but I would say based on the evidence we have in this letter and in Paul's other letters and the rest of Scripture, that Paul's picture is something like this. Upon conversion, we receive a genuine faith and a genuine change of heart, but we have very little understanding of what that means yet. In some ways our whole world is transformed, but in some ways we're still exactly the same people. New believers have a lot of learning to do. We barely understand the depths of our own sinfulness or the riches of God's grace. We understand that some things about our worldview have changed, but we have really only scratched the surface. And God has a consistent pattern of using the circumstances of our lives to make us confront these issues. So when we're confronted with our own selfishness or sinfulness, when we're confronted with loss or grief or tragedy or frustration or pain or trials, we have to face these deep questions. Are the promises of the gospel real? Are the promises of the gospel worth all this suffering? Do I really believe that the world works the way God says it does? And am I going to trust Him no matter what? Am I following God for the goodies here and now, for the idea that He'll make my life smooth and perfect and give me the best job and the best family, slightly more than adequate health and wealth, and everyone will like me? Is that what I'm after? Or am I willing to follow him when my life does not go as planned? Because life isn't usually all pearls and roses. Life takes sudden, tragic, wrong turns. Things don't turn out the way we plan. And as we struggle with those circumstances, we have to face these questions of who am I following? Do I trust God if He asks me to walk this path? Do I trust that the promises of the gospel are for real? And as we face those questions and wrestle with them, we grow in our understanding and we settled those issues of life and faith. And I suspect many of you listening could tell a story of how God used suffering or loss or an unexpected event or a tragedy that caused you to grow in a way you never imagined you'd grow, and that brought you to a level of faith and contentment you didn't previously have. The Bible speaks a lot about how we grow through our trials and temptations and that we should, in one sense, consider it joy when we face them because the end of that process is maturity in our faith. The result of this process of facing into trials and temptations is increased wisdom and maturity. It is through wrestling with those issues of life that we believers come to a deeper understanding of the gospel, we reaffirm its value and relevance and importance in our lives, and our hope in the gospel and our confidence in its promises becomes more secure. The struggle teaches us something of why the gospel is so important, and they give us this anchor to stand on in the midst of the trials of life. And all of that is the work of the Spirit of God in our lives. So my first baby step toward faith is a work of the Spirit of God. Every step I take toward maturity is a work of the Spirit of God. And I think when Paul uses the term natural or in the flesh, he generally means unbelievers, and when he uses the term spiritual, he generally means believers. But faith is a journey, and we are at different places on that journey. In a broad sense, there are those who are more mature in their faith, and there are those who are less mature in their faith. So here in this context, I would argue that the spiritual Christians are those who are more mature, those who are farther down the journey of faith and have reached a greater level of wisdom and maturity, and those who are carnal or fleshly are less mature. They are closer to the beginning, they are closer to being a natural man or closer to the flesh because their journey has just begun. Spirituality grows and shows itself to be real and genuine as we go through trials that test our faith, and they have just begun that process. Now remember, he started this conversation by saying we speak wisdom among the mature, and I don't think he's left that topic of maturity. The two camps are not those who have chosen to plug into the power of the Spirit and those who have failed to choose that. But rather the two camps are those in whom the Spirit of God has been working longer, and you can see evidence of the maturity of their faith, and those who are still at the beginning of the journey, and the maturity of their faith is not yet there. So the mature would more readily recognize the wisdom of what Paul is saying, the less mature would still be struggling with it and questioning it as they still lack the life experience to fully appreciate it. Now I would argue that all of us are where we are on this journey of faith by the grace of God. That we come to faith by the work of the Spirit in our lives, and we grow to maturity by the work of the Spirit in our lives. It is all part of God's gift to us. So this is not a value judgment as if some people are better than others and some are more blessed than others because some have more maturity than others. I'm not saying that at all. We are all on the same journey toward faith, and God in his wisdom puts us on the particular path that he wants us to take. In one sense, we are equally blessed because we have the same Lord, the same faith, the same grace, the same mercy, the same Father, the same hope of our inheritance, and the things that really matter, we are all the same. But we are not all at the same place in our journey of faith. Some of us have walked with the Lord longer, are farther down that path, and therefore have more maturity, and some are still at the beginning, but where we are on the path is up to God. He tailors that path to each of us to get us where he wants us to go. And all of that is the work of the Spirit of God in our lives. Paul's saying, When I was there with you in Corinth, you were new believers. You were just starting this journey of faith, and you know what? It doesn't look like much has changed. You seem to be struggling with the same basic issues. You don't seem to be in a place where you recognize the wisdom of the gospel because look at what you're fighting about. You're looking at two preachers of the gospel, me and Apollos, and you're fighting over style and flair when you really ought to be rejoicing over the content of the gospel. That division, that fact that you're saying I'm of Paul or I'm of Apollos, that reflects a fundamental blindness as to what is really important. And he's going to go on to talk about that in the section we're going to look at in the next podcast. What he's saying here is I couldn't go very far with you before because you were new believers, and I still can't go far with you because you're still acting like new believers. You're not yet mature in your perspectives. You're still in no position to judge me. The divisions among you reveal your lack of maturity. You look just as foolish now as you did when you first believed. And the divisions among you show that you are still acting fleshly. You're still acting just like everyone else in the world. I think that's what he means by mere men in 3-3. Are you not walking like mere men, like the natural unredeemed mass of humanity? He's saying, you look just like everybody else. Listen to your bickering and your squabbles. When you say I'm of Paul and I'm of Apollos, you're acting just like the world acts. I look at what the world bickers about and squabbles about, and then I look at you, Corinthians, and you're doing the same things. You're showing the exact same kind of jealousy and strife. What you need to do is grow in wisdom so that you can accurately assess what's truly valuable. So I would argue that Paul is not saying you haven't plugged into the power of the Spirit. Rather, his point is simple. He's saying you Corinthians shouldn't set yourself up as a judge as to what is wise until you have shown some wisdom in your own lives. You shouldn't be judging others until you've grown in wisdom and demonstrated maturity of faith and understanding in your own lives. I can't treat you as spiritually mature people because you don't look like it and you're not acting like it. One more question we should ask then is what does Paul expect them to do in response? And this is where the theology we bring to the text really makes a big difference. How does Paul expect them to respond to this? Well, everything he's just said to them, what does he expect them to do in response? The Keswick thinkers would say that the only way something spiritual happens in my life is when I choose it. That God has set the table for me with all these good gifts, but now it's all up to me, and I have to choose to appropriate those gifts if I'm going to grow. I have to appropriate the power of the Spirit. Reformed thinkers would say, you know what, it's the other way around. What I choose has everything to do with it, but my choosing reveals the Spirit of God at work in me. My choices result from the Spirit changing me and teaching me and granting me wisdom and maturity. My choices do not cause the Spirit of God to do that. You will see the Spirit of God has been at work in me by the things that I choose, not the other way around. So what does Paul want them to do? I would argue. Is the message of the gospel important to you? Do you want what the gospel has to offer? Are you seeking forgiveness and mercy because you know that you're a sinner, that God is holy, and that the only way to be saved is through trusting in the blood of Jesus Christ? Is that what you're after? The promise of the gospel is grace and mercy in eternal life. Is that what you're after? You want? Is that what your life is about? And Paul wants them to face the question Will I embrace the gospel as true wisdom or not? Now the theology we've been debating is whether the Spirit is in front of my choices or behind my choices. Is the Spirit changing me such that I am now the kind of person who can make the right choice? Or do I have to choose the right thing in order to get the Spirit of God to work in my life? Do I have to appropriate his power or figure out ways to strategically grasp it and use it to bring good choices about? And I would argue that the spirit at work in my life is what causes me to choose right. It's not that I choose rightly and that somehow gets me spiritual power, but rather I will make right choices to the extent that God in his grace and mercy has given me his spirit and his spirit has changed me to make me the kind of person who will choose rightly. So I would argue there is no technique, there's no magic formula that gains you the spirit, there's no five-step plan, there's no trick to no reckon and yield and grasp the power of the spirit. The spirit is not like the force in Star Wars, it's not something I can channel or grab when I need it. There's no trick, there's no strategies in that sense. There's no technique out there that you haven't learned. I would argue rather all you have to do is trust. All you have to do is face the questions of the gospel. Do I want God's mercy or not? Do I trust Him to save me or not? Do I trust Him to give me wisdom or not? Do I agree with Him that I am as sinful as He has said? And do I trust that the blood of Jesus has paid the penalty for my sins? If you can answer those questions yes, no matter what life circumstances come your way, then you are on the path to maturity, and you can trust that no matter what, all things, and I do mean all things, will work together for good, as Paul says in Romans. And that good is making you wise and holy and mature and having the character of Christ. Thank you so much for listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. My mission is to explain not only what a passage means, but how I reach those conclusions. If you have time, please leave a positive comment on your favorite podcast platform and share this podcast with a friend. I don't accept any advertising on my website and I don't ask for any donations, but it does encourage me to hear from you about what you've learned. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates of Heartfeltmusic.org, and I encourage you to listen to his other music. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Kristan Morada, and I'll see you next time at Wednesday in the Word.