Messy Church
27 Feb 2025
Over the last few weeks I’ve been preaching on 1 Corinthians 11-14, having preached on chapters 1-10 and chapter 15 in recent years. These passages reminded me what a mess the Corinthian church was in - and the patience of Paul (and the Lord) in setting them straight.
When you add these chapters to what has come before the picture gets worse. It’s hard to imagine considering a church where there were obvious factions, open sexual immorality, members taking each other to court, and communion services which do more harm than good as one you’d ever want to go to. Surely it would be better to close it down and start again?
But after we’ve seen all that, it’s worth remembering how the letter opened. Paul begins what he says to them with a prayer - and it’s a prayer of thanks. He praises the Lord that this is a church which is sanctified. “To those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints….”. Reading the letter it’s easy to think that they are anything but sanctified and are displaying the opposite of saintly behaviour! Yet, that did not take away from the fact that as those in Christ Jesus they had, objectively been set apart by Christ Jesus for himself.
He also rejoices that this church is gifted by God. As we have seen recently, pride in their abilities and gifts had been a source of a lot of their problems. But Paul does not use that fact to take away from rejoicing in all they have. “You are not lacking in any spiritual gift”.
Finally, he knows that the Lord will keep this church going. We might be tempted to expect that the church in Corinth will implode or explode given all the problems they are experiencing. And yet, Paul has no embarrassment in saying “our Lord Jesus Christ…will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I find that prayer at the start of the letter both challenging and encouraging. It rebukes me about how I might be tempted to think about other churches when I hear of problems, strange practices and even moral failings. There are few churches worse than Corinth. And yet, Jesus is committed to his church wherever it is and in whatever state it is in. This does not mean we necessarily go (or advise others) to attend there - but we can pray.
It is also encouraging. While we may not (thankfully!) display all the failures of a church like Corinth, we do fail and sin and struggle as Christians and as a church. Whatever our struggles, the Lord has not abandoned us. He has still set us apart - our identified as redeemed and sanctified people comes first. We are equipped by him with all we need. And he is the one who will keep us going to the end.