1st Corinthians 1:10, 20,21
10 Now dear brothers and sisters, I appeal to you by the authority
of the Lord Jesus Christ to stop arguing among yourselves. Let there be real harmony so there won’t be divisions in the church. I plead with you to be of one mind, united in thought and purpose.20 So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made them all look foolish and has shown their wisdom to be useless nonsense. 21 Since God In his wisdom saw to it that the world would never find him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save all who believe.
General Assembly week continues, and I’ve been watching quite a lot of it. When selecting a passage of scripture for our consideration today, I was drawn to the above three verses from 1st Corinthians chapter 1 but I could have included a whole lot more. If you can put aside the time, read this chapter in its entirety and you will see what I mean.
Although the General Assembly has the responsibility and authority to put in place rules that we, as church people all need to comply with, our reading today reminds us that the true authority over our church lies with the Lord Jesus Christ. On his behalf, Paul tells us not to argue among ourselves, not to divide our church and to ‘be of one mind, united in thought and purpose’.
This is not something that is easy to comply with. Even in domestic life, how many times have we disagreed with friends and family on what road to take, what we’re going to have for dinner, what we’re going to watch on tv – the list is endless and that is only within our own family circle. The tendency to disagree extends into work situations and church situations. It is something that seems to come naturally to most of us.
As one who makes no claims of being a scholar, a brilliant debater or philosopher in any way, shape or form, it appears to me that the Christian church is most alive in countries where it is not easy to be a Christian. When commissioners from these countries were speaking at assembly, they tended to use straightforward and simplistic language to put their points across while some of the Scottish folks who spoke in the last ten minutes at assembly included words like ‘supersessionism’ and ‘collegiality’ (whatever those mean). I’ve came to the conclusion that if I have to look up a dictionary to find out the meaning of a word then that word shouldn’t have been used in the first place. When Jesus was preaching to everyone from the poor and disadvantaged to the rulers of the church in his day, I doubt very much that he would be using words that some might not understand the meaning of so why and for whose benefit are our leaders and preachers today using words like this? I doubt very much if it benefits our Lord and Saviour or does anything to promote mission or interest in our church today.
One of the more positive things I’ve noted from assembly is how the churches in countries where it is not easy to practice the Christian faith seem to be flourishing. Yet in this country and other countries like us where being part of the Christian church is freely available, churches are struggling.
Today’s reading concludes with: ‘Since God In his wisdom saw to it that the world would never find him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save all who believe’. I believe our national church needs to prayerfully return to scripture and find out how it can, led by the Holy Spirit, create a hunger for the gospel once again in this small country of ours.
Prayer - Heavenly Father, forgive the times when we have allowed foolish pride or a careless attitude to cause disunity to fester within our hearts towards our brothers and sisters in Christ. May we be of one heart and mind with other believers, knowing that we are all one in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whose name we pray. Thank You that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us and that in Your grace and wisdom, You have given Your free gift of salvation to all who will humbly receive the glorious truth that is contained within the message of the Cross. Amen
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