Preaching Notes - 1 Corinthians 10-16

The second half of 1 Corinthians has some of the most stretching content I've ever had to preach. We called it Reaching For Glory as a reminder that our reaching for earthly glory (10-14) is to miss the eternal glory (15-16) that Jesus has promised and provided for us.

You don't need to be reading long to find some verses that have long since stirred controversy in church-world. So how to approach it? Here were three principles that I found helpful as we worked through the text verse by verse:

1. Give the principle primacy over position

What does that mean? How it tends to play out is that the position comes to the fore in a couple of unhelpful ways. Either the preacher defines things according to their preferred position and harangues all other positions or they spend the entirety of their content defining all possible positions without actually reaching any point of application. There is undoubtedly a safety in word numbers but hiding behind a word count without helping people to an application does not a sermon make but rather an unfaithful filibuster. Neither of these are helpful because they provide an incorrect emphasis.

In these chapters Paul is not inviting people to adopt a position on head-coverings, tongues etc. as his primary focus (although clearly we do well to work through what he does teach). His focus is on the relationship that one Christian should have with another within the church family as a means of demonstrating the Gospel to a lost culture. Food sacrificed to idol, head coverings and spiritual gifts are being used as examples of unhealthy ways that the Corinthian church is subverting their calling to love one another (nb chapter 13). That is the principle that Paul is seeking to establish. In reality 10-14 is not really about what tends to provoke our curiosity because of some level of controversy. This doesn't mean it is wrong to come to a position (clarity around how these things are to function in the church today remains vital) but don't miss what it is really all about.

2. Let scripture speak louder than yourself

Otherwise known as reading between the lines or reading into the silences or 'what I think this means is...' The temptation to do this is most pronounced when you come to the lists of spiritual gifts in the start of chapter 12. It often works itself out in looking for the wiggle room that sees that saying 'it was just cultural to Corinth' gets us off the hook in some way. Confining yourself to speaking only as far as scripture does (and that is a glorious confinement by the way) might not satisfy every listener who comes your way but it will settle your heart before preaching more difficult texts. It is the old technique of letting scripture interpret scripture. An example would be our definition of tongues 'Earthly words that extend the message of Christ’s eternal worth.' That is what we see in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost. It is the gift of surprising speech with evangelistic benefit (1 Corinthians 14 helps us along the way to that kind of definition).

3. Allow people to delight in unpicking the difficult stuff with you

Probably more than any other series I have preached I talked about and invited questions from people in the church. I even offered to answer people's pre-submitted questions at the end of the service after I had finished preaching chapter 14 (and was slightly relieved when none were submitted... that means I answered them all... right?!). This made it a pretty helpful church family journey and helped me pitch things at a level and from a place where I had a better grasp of folks questions and queries.

As is often the case when you finish a series it is easy to see the flaws or things that I would communicate differently or wish I had managed to be clearer about. If you are interested here is the link to the audio of the series.