October 18, 2025 - 1 Corinthians 3

Churches are not perfect.  What’s the old adage?  “Churches are not perfect because they are made up of imperfect people.”  And certainly, the church at Corinth was not perfect.  Here’s the thing, though, these people were genuinely the church and, thus, it could be written of them that they were sanctified, called to salvation, recipients of grace, enriched in speech and knowledge, having Christ in them, gifted, persevering by God’s grace, ultimately guiltless (because of the justification that was theirs in Christ), and in fellowship together with Christ.  But Paul could also write that there was division and quarrelling among them.  They were dividing up into cliques, each seeing themselves better than the others.  These things being true, things in tension, Paul wrote that they were living worldly lives, not fully worldly (as in the “carnal Christian” teaching), but in specific regard to these divisions (chapter 3).  They were godly people but they had their shortcomings.  To them, and to us, Paul wrote, “We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God” (2:12).  And so, in another place, Paul wrote, “To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace” (Romans 8:6).  The genuine Christian life is not yet a life of perfection but it is one of setting our minds on the Spirit of Christ and living according to his instructions.

Creator Spirit, by whose aid

The world’s foundations first were laid,

Come, visit every humble mind;

Come, pour your joys on humankind;

From sin and sorrow set us free,

May we your living temples be.

O Source of light, our Counselor,

The Father’s help to us assure.

Come down, as promised, with your fire,

And hearts with heav’nly love inspire.

Your sacred, healing message bring

To sanctify us while we sing.   --Rabanus Maurus (1693)