Years ago, I was reading in the New Testament and this this very familiar three verses hit me right between the eyes…maybe you have missed it too?
“Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” – 1 Cor 1:1-3
Who are these people and what kind of church are they part of?
A church that:
- Struggles with division over personalities – chapter 1-4
- Has allowed sexual immorality – chapter 5
- Has had members suing each other – chapter 6
- Has struggled with sexual immorality – chapter 6
- Had issues with marriage and divorce and false teachings on singleness – chapter 7
- Was struggling with eating meat sacrificed to idols and liberty – chapter 8
- Was giving Paul a hard time about his apostleship even though Paul had done so much for them – chapter 9
- Misusing their freedom in Christ – chapter 10
- Was bringing pagan worship practices into the gathering – chapter 11
- Had divisions at the Lord’s Supper – chapter 11
- Was dividing over spiritual gifts and were prideful about their gifts – chapter 12
- Lacked love toward each other – chapter 13
- Had disorderly worship that didn’t build up the body – chapter 14
- Was having doubts over the resurrection of Jesus – chapter 15
This is a MESSED UP church…if you can even call it a church.
Oh…
But there’s the issue.
When I was younger, just one of these things would have made this church not a church because they had to much that needed to be corrected!
I would have expected Paul to have started his letter with something more like, “To the church that used to belong to Jesus but has much to repent of in order to return to being the church of God in Corinth”.
And yet, there it is – before any correction is given or made and while all the crazy is going on…all the disorder…all the distraction and even sin…Paul still addresses them as “the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people…”
I was dumbfounded.
Paul wasn’t following the rules!
We all know churches like that aren’t real churches and we all know that churches today that even did a tenth of all of that would not be true churches. I mean, this church was even having a meal together, in a home! Churches can’t have kitchens and be true churches, much less “eat in the building!”
But it turns out I was wrong. It turns out my idea of what made a church a church was wrong. It turns out that my view of sanctification (what makes someone holy) was wrong.
A church can have issues and still be God’s church…in fact, that is EVERY church!
Then it made sense to me that once this dividing wall comes down, that I can see more Christians as Christians because what had disqualified them in my mind was the kind of church they attended (for an hour a week) and I didn’t know of any that were this bad!
Now, a few final thoughts just to be clear. This doesn’t mean we condone sin. This doesn’t mean they were okay to do those things. They needed to correct some things. They really needed to take Paul seriously at what he told them.
But even after receiving the letter, they still weren’t doing everything perfectly – Paul had to keep writing letters because they couldn’t get it right and yet, the second letter starts the same way even though they didn’t take the first letter and get everything right!
Imperfect churches are still God’s churches.
A perfect church doesn’t save you or keep you saved. A perfect savior does that.
So grace and peace to you…
