March 22
“These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual,” 1 Corinthians 2:13.
When the apostle Paul wrote his first Letter to the Corinthian congregation, the congregation was suffering from internal strife and division. We might say that it was a congregation of cliques. Members had fallen in love with the men who had served the congregation in the past. Paul wrote about this in his Epistle: “When one says, ‘I am of Paul,’ and another, ‘I am of Apollos,’ are you not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase,” 1 Corinthians 3:4-7.
Paul was moved by the Spirit to point out to the people how the Church is built. The holy Christian Church is not built with words of wisdom coming from the mouths of men. The Church is built by the Holy Spirit, who through the revealed Word of God calls people to repentance and faith. Paul planted the Word of God; Apollos watered with the Word of God. But God gave the increase. The Holy Spirit touched the hearts of the hearers. With the Law, He convicted them of their sins; and as sorrowing sinners, they found their hope and forgiveness in the message of the Gospel, which Paul preached. Earlier in his Epistle, he wrote, “I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified,” 1 Corinthians 2:2. Foremost in his preaching was the message of the cross.
Today, it is no secret that many church people are “church shopping” and “church hopping”! Why? Some might have various personal reasons, but primarily, many are not being spiritually fed. Many clergymen are too timid to call sin, “Sin!” Some are asking, “What do the people want to hear?” Their chief concern is what they must say and do in order to remain popular with the people. They do not plant or water with the Word of God. The Gospel, which is the Good News that we are saved not by our works but by God’s grace through faith in Jesus, who suffered, died, and rose again to redeem us, is also ignored and contradicted by many clergymen.
Christians should insist that their pastors, “Preach the Word,” 2 Timothy 4:2 – that is, God’s Word, not their own word or politics or the so-called news from the most recent headlines! Pastors should heed the words of the prophet, “Show my people their transgressions,” and then, “Preach the Gospel,” Mark 16:15, to sorrowing and troubled sinners.
Pray for your pastors and church leaders so that they will proclaim the Word of God in all its truth and purity, through which the Holy Spirit calls sinners to repentance and faith. Then the Christian Church will grow and flourish, all to the glory of God.
“Oh, may Thy pastors faithful be,
Not lab’ring for themselves, but Thee!
Give grace to feed with wholesome food
The sheep and lambs bought by Thy blood,
To tend the flock, and thus to prove,
How dearly they the Shepherd love.
Oh, may Thy people faithful be,
And in Thy pastors honor Thee;
And with them work and for them pray,
And gladly Thee in them obey.
Receive the prophet of the Lord,
And gain the prophet’s own reward.” Amen.