Thanks Be To God For His Word

Over the last few months, we’ve spent much of our church-wide reading in Luke and Acts. In Acts 1, we discovered that Luke was written to inform us of all that Jesus began to do and teach. As we continued throughout the book of Acts, we read of what Jesus continued to do and teach by the Holy Spirit through the apostles.

The inauguration of the kingdom of God was not as the disciples expected. Humble beginnings, hometown rejection, questionable company, suffering servant, humiliating death. But wonders, too! Sins forgiven, demons cast out, life from death, the first are last, and the last are first. Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled the Law of God, and by his life, death, and resurrection, “gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” Titus 2:14

We see the spread of this “people for his own possession” in the book of Acts as we trace the beginnings of the early church. As we join with Paul and Luke and Peter and the others, journeying from place to place in the ancient world, we see the church grow, and we get a peek into the fledgling local churches of “The Way.” It’s within this cultural, historical, and relational context, and to these local churches, and leaders within those churches, that the New Testament epistles are written. 

The authors provide many reasons for writing to these early churches and leaders, but we can see in 1 Corinthians how Paul is writing to Corinth for a similar reason as he wrote to his disciple, Timothy, “so that [they] may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.” (1 Tim. 3:14-15) 

This people of God’s own possession are to be set apart, holy, in the world but not of the world. So Paul writes to the church in Corinth to remind them of who God is and what he’s done, who they are as a result of that, and how they should live in light of those truths. 

Because these early churches were made up of sinful people, it could get messy sometimes. The same is still true for the church today. Because we’re a bunch of sinners living life together, it is going to get messy sometimes. But thanks be to God for his Word! Just like the Corinthians, we can be reminded of the truth of God, the truth about ourselves, and how we can, imperfectly and in daily repentance, live together as “servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.” (1 Cor. 4:1)