Blog Archives
Jesus Christ As the Author and Finisher of Our Faith
God’s Future Plan for Israel
The Greater Works of John 14:16
How God Uses Weak and Foolish Things
Laboring Together on Paul’s Foundation – 1 Corinthians 3:9-11
Summary:
Paul begins by comparing himself and Apollos (3:1-8) to “laborers” like farmers and builders (v. 9). “Husbandry” is the Bible word for farming (cf. James 5:7), and Paul has already compared the ministry farming earlier in this chapter. He told the Corinthians that he planted the seed of the gospel in them and Apollos watered it (3:6).
He had to assure them he and Apollos were “labourers together” because some of them liked one over the other, so they thought Paul and Apollos were working against one another, vying for their love and money. He gave them more assurance they were working together when he explained how he invited Apollos to go to Corinth (I Cor. 16:12), and he showed he wasn’t competing with Paul when he refused!
After identifying who the farmers were, Paul identified the farm when he told them, “ye are God’s husbandry” (3:9). But the ministry is more than seeing people get saved and become babes in Christ. God wants them to grow up in Christ, and to expand on that thought Paul switches from the metaphor of farmers and farming to builders and building, telling them that they are God’s building.
God uses both analogies for “the church in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38). He called Israel a farm (Ps. 80:8,9) and a building (Amos 9:11). They were the temple God lived in (II Cor. 6:1). Of course, they sometimes got so sinful God had to relocate to heaven! But in the New Testament, the Lord said He planned to build a church that would never get so sinful God would be force to leave it (Mt. 16:16-18). We call it the kingdom church (v. 19). But once Israel rejected her kingdom, God stopped building that church and began building the church which is the Body of Christ (Eph. 1:22,23).
The first thing you need to build a building is an architect, and the Greek word for “masterbuilder” (v. 10) is archi-tekton. “Arch” means chief, as in archangel (Jude 1:9). “Tekton” is translated carpenter (Mt. 13:55). So put them together and you get chief carpenter, or masterbuilder. Paul is the architect of the church, the Body (Eph. 3:2-6). But he didn’t just draw up the plans in his epistles and hand Apollos the blueprint. He was a “hands-on” architect, helping in the ministry, and so “masterbuilder” describes him perfectly!
We know Moses was the architect of the kingdom church because the Lord kept quoting him (Mt. 8:4; Mark 10:3; 12:26). The Pharisees were supposed to be the masterbuilders (Mt. 23:1-3), but the Lord knew they’d kill Him instead of building the church on Him as the church’s foundation like they should have. So He told a parable in which he combined farming and building to say He’d take the church from them (Mt. 21:33-43) and give it to His “little flock” of followers (Luke 12:32), making them the new builders.
Of course, the Lord knew the 12 would have to be wise masterbuilders, so He gave them a supernatural gift of wisdom (Acts 2:4; 6:3). We see that pictured when God gave Solomon a supernatural gift of wisdom to build the temple and the kingdom (II Chro. 2:12). That’s why the 12 asked the Lord to “restore” the kingdom like they had under Solomon (Acts 1:6). When Israel rejected the kingdom, God began to build the Body of Christ, making Paul the wise masterbuilder of it by giving him a supernatural gift of wisdom as an apostle (cf. Rom.12:6; 15:15,16; Eph. 3:7,8).
This helps us understand how Paul could say he laid the foundation of Christ (3:11) even though he wasn’t saved when the Lord came to be the foundation of Israel’s church. He meant He laid Christ as the foundation of a new church!
When building on this foundation, Paul has the “house” of your own personal spiritual life in mind (cf. Luke 6:46-48), and the house of the local church as well, as we’ll see next week!
Video of this sermon is available on YouTube: Laboring Together on Paul’s Foundation – 1 Corinthians 3:9-11
James 2
Spiritual Babies – 1 Corinthians 3:1-8
Summary:
The Corinthians were still “babes in Christ” (3:1) five years after Paul started the church. So why had they failed to grow? Well, a baby won’t grow if you don’t feed it nourishing food, and spiritual babies won’t grow if they’re not fed the spiritual nourishment of God’s Word. But Paul fed them the “milk” of the Word (3:2) for a year and a half (Acts 18:1,11), because that’s what babes in Christ need to grow (I Pet. 2:2), then followed up with them by writing them epistles (I Cor. 5:9; II Cor. 1:1).
So their problem wasn’t a lack of nourishment. Their problem was similar to the one in Hebrews 5:11-14. They hadn’t used what they learned from the Bible to help them discern good and evil, so the writer calls them babes too. And we know the Corinthians had the same problem because Paul says they were “carnal” (3:1). We know that word means sinful for Paul says they were carnal because there was “envying” and “stife” among them (3:3), and those are sins.
And they are very babyish sins. Did you ever watch babies play? When one picks up a toy, suddenly that’s the one the other one wants! We call that envy. And what does he do about it? He strives with the other about it. The Corinthians were showing their spiritual immaturity when they were envying—and so do we when we envy!
What were they envying? Words (cf. I Tim. 6:4), the words of Paul and Apollos (3:4). Christians are always striving about the words of preachers! If you’re wondering where the “envying” comes in, compare what happened when some men began prophesying in Israel and Joshua objected. Moses asked why he envied for his sake (Num. 11:27).
Now Moses didn’t envy those other prophets, and Paul didn’t envy Apollos. He called him a fellow minister (3:5). But when Moses said he didn’t envy those other men, that didn’t mean he felt they had the same authority he had. He knew he was God’s man of the hour (Deut. 4:1,2), the one God chose to write the first 5 books of the Bible and give Israel the rules for the dispensation of the law.
And Paul knew he was God’s man of the hour for the dispensation of grace. God gave him what to give us (I Cor. 11:23; 15:3), just as He gave Moses what to give Israel (Deut. 4:5). That means if you wanted to follow God in time past you had to follow Moses as he followed Him, and if you want to follow God today you have to follow Him as Paul followed Him (I Cor. 11:1).
So in calling himself and Apollos both ministers, he didn’t mean they were equal ministers. Paul was “the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles” (Rom. 15:16).
Here I need to point out that God didn’t give those other prophets anything He didn’t give Moses. The difference was that God spoke to them in visions, but He spoke to Moses “face to face” (Num. 12:6-8). And the Lord spoke to Paul face to face, by revelation, by revealing Himself to Paul directly (Gal. 1:11,12), but He spoke to the New Testament prophets in the Body of Christ “by the Spirit” (Eph. 3:2-5).
Paul “planted” the seeds of the gospel in Corinth (3:6) and Apollos watered those seeds by reinforcing what Paul taught. But God has to give “the increase” because only God can give life, just as the only thing you bury in the ground that can give life are seeds.
But only the seeds of God’s Word rightly divided can give life. God told Abraham if he got circumcised he could have eternal life. Moses told the Jews if they obeyed the law they could have life (Lev. 18:5). The Lord told the Jews if they got baptized they could have life (Mark 16:16). Only Paul says you can have life by faith alone without works. If you sow any of those other Bible seeds in the hearts of men today in the dispensation of grace, they won’t yield eternal life!
Finally, don’t forget that the Corinthians spoke in tongues (I Cor. 12-14), and yet Paul called them “carnal” and not “spiritual.” Don’t ever let anyone who thinks he can speak in tongues tell you that it is a sign of spirituality, for God says otherwise! And don’t feel unspiritual just because you can’t imitate the gift of tongues as some do. The gift of tongues is a gift God is no longer giving to His people!
Video of this sermon is available on YouTube: Spiritual Babies – 1 Corinthians 3:1-8
How the Chief of Sinners Became the Pattern Saint
What’s In A Name? – Acts 9:36-43
Summary:
“Tabitha” (9:36) was a Hebrew name, the Greek Gentile translation of which was “Dorcas.” All names have meanings, and Tabitha means “beauty,” while Dorcas means “gazelle.” So both names mean kind of the same thing, for gazelles are beautiful animals.
But the meanings of names in the Bible often have spiritual significance. This woman was a type of the nation of Israel. You see, when the people of Israel did good works like they did under King Solomon, He made sure they were beautiful in the eyes of the other nations. But when they did bad works instead, He allowed the Babylonians to destroy their beautiful city and take them captive (Lam. 2:13-15).
But they were beautiful as long as they were doing good works, as we see symbolized by Dorcas, whose name means “beauty,” and who is said to have been “full of good works” (9:36). She lived in Joppa, another name for beauty, making it a symbol of Jerusalem. She was beautiful and lived in a beautiful city—just like the people of Israel when they were doing good works!
But the beauty of Israel died when they got so sinful God allowed Babylon to destroy Jerusalem and take them captive, and it died again when they crucified Christ and stoned Stephen in Acts 7, something we see symbolized when Dorcas died here in Acts 9:37. God wanted to restore a beautiful kingdom to them, like they had when they were doing good works under Solomon (Acts 1:6), but all hopes of that died when they stoned Stephen, as depicted with Dorcas’ death.
The “upper chamber” they laid her in was a type of heaven. That’s where all Israel’s hopes and dreams of the beautiful kingdom God wanted to give her went after they rejected it. And that’s where they are to this day (I Peter 1:3,4), as we see pictured when they laid Dorcas in an upper chamber. Their kingdom is vested there in Christ, as we see it vested in Christ on Palm Sunday (Lu. 19:38 cf. Mark 11:10). We see this again when the Lord told some unbelievers the kingdom was within them (Luke 17:21). He meant the kingdom they asked about (v. 20) was right in their midst vested in Him (cf. the words “within you” to Deut. 28:43,44).
When Dorcas died, her loved ones didn’t bury her, they sent for Peter to raise her from the dead (9:38-40). That’s a pic-ture of how Israel’s hopes of a kingdom were dead, but they weren’t dead and buried! All the nation needs is a resurrection—the kind we see pictured when Peter raised Dorcas!
When it says they brought Peter into that upper chamber (v. 39,40), that’s a picture of how the Lord went to heaven to get the kingdom and return (Lu. 19:12-15). That’s where He went after He died and rose again, but someday He’ll return with the kingdom to raise saved Jews to enter it. “Lydda” (v. 38) was the Greek form of the Hebrew city of “Lod,” which means nativity or generation. That’s a picture of the re-generation of resurrection that the Lord will give the Jews when He returns (Mt. 19:28)—but only Jews who did good works like Dorcas!
Remember, we’re saved by faith without works (Tit. 3:5), but Jews under the law were saved by faith plus works of righteousness (Ps. 15:1,2) like animal sacrifices (Deut. 33:19 cf. Ps. 4:5; 51:19). They also worked righteousness by obeying the sabbath, the feasts, and other parts of the law (Lu. 1:6). Then the Lord added another work they had to do to be saved, sell all they had and give to the poor (Lu. 18:18,22).
That’s called an “alms” (Lu. 12:33 cf. Acts 3:2,3), and Dorcas is said to have done “almsdeeds” (9:36). So she didn’t make coats and garments (v. 39) for herself, but for the poor to be saved, making her a type of Jews in the Tribulation (James 2:14-17). Job was a type of this (Job 31:19-22). He had to go through some tribulation, but was rewarded in the end, just as Jews will have to go through the Tribulation but will be rewarded in the end—if they did the good works of clothing the needy like Job and Dorcas did!
When it says Peter “presented” her to her family, that’s a picture of Jude 1:22-24, where Jews who had “compassion” on the needy and clothed them will be “presented” to the Lord and His host to enter the kingdom.
Video of this sermon is available on YouTube: What’s In A Name? – Acts 9:36-43
