Assignment to Obscurity

.... In our previous posting we discussed how the Corinthians kept hearing the message of Jesus, preached by the apostles, yet they kept leaving Jesus out of their perception. Somehow, in their minds, they were skipping over the part about Jesus, no matter how purely or how often He was emphasized to them. But how could this possibly be?

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.... Apparently they had come to regard Jesus as they might a past President, a founding father, or some other important figure from history – just as we might regard Martin Luther, John Wesley, or Charles Finney today. Those were great men of God, but that was a long time ago.

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.... In a similar way, they'd reached a subtle mentality that said, ‘Jesus? Yes, we've heard those stories. He certainly deserves a place of honor.’ And with that, they'd assigned Him a place in the past. And thus His present significance had started to grow obscure.

.... "I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death."

(Revelation 1:18)

.... The Corinthians had surely heard that Jesus had risen from the dead. But apparently that understanding was beginning to lapse with them, as well. After all, it had been a long time since then. Had He eventually died again? Maybe a subtle thought of that nature began to settle in their mind. Because in practical terms they were looking for a successor now, and they seemed to think that Paul, Apollos and Cephas were contending for that title:

.... "Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one?"

(1 Corinthians 3:5)

.... In any case, when they took their eyes off Jesus as the center of their faith, having preeminence in all things, as Head over all things to the church, and they began to focus on the preachers themselves in that role, they began to divide into factions. The Greek word is ‘schismata’ as in the word ‘schisms’ (1 Corinthians 1:10). Because without a focus on Jesus, they could no longer maintain a unified testimony among themselves.

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.... Let's examine this principle from another direction. Paul told us in Colossians 1:17-18 that in Jesus ‘all things consist’; that is to say, in Him they hold together, He Himself is the source of unity and cohesiveness of all. And the very first application that Paul gave, in the following verse, is to say that Jesus "is the head of the body, the church."

.... It is the testimony of Jesus that holds the church together, and when our eyes drift away from Him we begin to divide. We’ll continue this discussion in our next posting.

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Daily Bible Reading: Luke 22